text:
Import AI 251: Korean GPT-3; facial recognition industrialization; faking fingerprints with GANs
Want to know what the industrialization of facial recognition looks like? Read this.
…Paper from Alibaba shows what happens at the frontier of surveillance…
Researchers with Alibaba, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen Technology University, and the National University of Singapore are trying to figure out how to train large-scale facial recognition systems more efficiently. They've just published a paper about some of the nuts-and-bolts needed to train neural nets at scales of greater than 10 million to 100 million distinct facial identities.
Why this matters: This is part of the broader phenomenon of the 'industrialization of AI' (#182), where as AI is going from research into the world, people are starting to invest vast amounts of brain and compute power into perfecting the tooling used to develop these systems. Papers like this give us a sense of some of the specifics required for industrialization (here: tweaking the structure of a network to make it more scalable and efficient), as well as a baseline for the broader trend – Alibaba wants to deploy 100 million-scale facial recognition and is working on the technology to do it.
Read more: An Efficient Training Approach for Very Large Scale Face Recognition (arXiv).
Related: Here's a research paper about WebFace260M, a facial recognition dataset and challenge with 4 million distinct identities, totalling 260 million photographs. WebFace260M is developed by researchers primarily at Tsinghua University, along with appointments at XForwardAI and Imperial College London.
Read more: WebFace260M: A Benchmark Unveiling the Power of Million-Scale Deep Face Recognition (arXiv).
Help the OECD classify AI systems:
…Improve our ability to define AI systems, and therefore improve our ability to create effective AI policy…
The OECD, a multi-national policy organization, is carrying out a project aiming to classify and define AI systems. I co-chair this initiative and after a year and a half of work, we've released a couple of things readers may find interesting; a survey people can fill out to try and classify AI systems using our framework, and a draft of the full report on classifying and defining systems (which we'd love feedback on).
Why this is worth spending time on: This is a low-effort high-impact way to engage in AI policy and comments can be anonymous – so if you work at a large tech company and want to give candid feedback, you can! Don't let your policy/lobbyists/PR folk have all the fun here – go direct, and thereby increase the information available to policymakers.
This stuff seems kind of dull but really matters – if we can make AI systems more legible to policymakers, we make it easier to construct effective regulatory regimes for them. (And for those that wholly reject the notion of government doing any kind of regulation, I'd note that it seems useful to create some 'public knowledge' re AI systems which isn't totally defined by the private sector, so it seems worthwhile to engage regardless).
Take the OECD survey here (OECD).
Read the draft report here (Google Docs).
Read more in this tweet thread from me here (Twitter).
Facebook builds Dynaboard: a way to judge NLP models via multiple metrics:
…Dynaboard is the latest extension of Dynabench, and might help us better understand AI progress…
Facebook and Stanford researchers have built Dynaboard, software to let people upload AI models, then test them on a whole bunch of different things at once. What makes Dynaboard special is the platform it is built on – Dynabench, a novel approach to NLP benchmarking which lets researchers upload models, then has humans evaluate the models, automatically generating data in areas where models have poor performance, leading to a virtuous cycle of continuous, model improvement. (We covered Dynabench earlier in Import AI #248).
What is Dynaboard: Dynaboard is software "for conducting comprehensive, standardized evaluations of NLP models", according to Facebook. Dynaboard also lets researchers adjust the weight of different metrics – want to evaluate your NLP model with an emphasis on its fairness characteristics? Great, Dynaboard can do that. Want to more focus on accuracy? Sure, it can do that as well. Want to check your model is actually efficient? Yup, can do! Dynaboard is basically a way to visualize the tradeoffs inherent to AI model development – as Facebook says, "Even a 10x more accurate NLP model may be useless to an embedded systems engineer if it's untenably large and slow, for example. Likewise, a very fast, accurate model shouldn't be considered high-performing if it doesn't work well for everyone."
Why this matters: We write a lot about benchmarking here at Import AI because benchmarking is the key to understanding where we are with AI development and where we're going. Tools like Dynaboard will make it easier for people to understand the state of the art and also the deficiencies of contemporary models. Once we understand that, we can build better things.
Read more: Dynaboard: Moving beyond accuracy to holistic model evaluation in NLP (Facebook AI Research).
Read the paper: Dynaboard: An Evaluation-As-A-Service Platform for Holistic Next-Generation Benchmarking (PDF).
Tweet thread from Douwe Kiela with more here (Twitter).
Check out an example use case of Dynaboard here (NLI leaderboard, Dynabench).
What I've been up to recently – co-founding Anthropic, a new AI safety and research company:
In December 2020, I left OpenAI. Since then, I've been thinking a lot about AI policy, measuring and assessing Ai systems, and how to contribute to the development of AI in an increasingly multi-polar world. As part of that, I've co-founded Anthropic with a bunch of my most treasured colleagues and collaborators. Right now, we're focused on our research agenda and hope to have more to share later this year. I'm interested in working with technical people who want to a) measure and assess our AI systems, and b) work to contribute to AI policy and increase the amount of information governments have to help them think about AI policy – take a look at the site and consider applying!
Find out more about Anthropic at our website (Anthropic).
And… if you think you have some particularly crazy high-impact idea re AI policy and want to chat about it, please email me – interested in collaborators.
South Korea builds its own GPT-3:
…The multi-polar generative model era arrives…
Naver Labs has build HyperCLOVA, a 204B parameter GPT-3-style generative model, trained on lots of Korean-specific data. This is notable both because of the scale of the model (though we'll await more technical details to see if truly comparable to GPT-3), and also because of the pattern it fits into of generative model diffusion – that is, multiple actors are now developing GPT-3-style models, ranging from Eleuther (trying to do an open source GPT-3, #241), to China (which has built PanGu, a ~200bn parameter model, #247), to Russia and France (which are training smaller-scale GPT-3 models via Sberbank and 'PAGnol' via LightOn, respectively).
Why this matters: Generative models ultimately reflect and magnify the data they're trained on – so different nations care a lot about how their own culture is represented in these models. Therefore, the Naver announcement is part of a general trend of different nations asserting their own AI capacity/capability via training frontier models like GPT-3. Most intriguingly, the Google Translated press release from Naver says "Secured AI sovereignty as the world's largest Korean language model with a scale of 204B", which further gestures at the inherently political nature of these models.
Read more: Naver unveils Korea's first ultra-large AI'HyperCLOVA'… "We will lead the era of AI for all" (Naver, press release).
Fake fingerprints – almost as good as real ones, thanks to GANs:
…Synthetic imagery is getting really useful – check out these 50,000 synthetic fingerprints…
Here's some research from Clarkson University and company Precise Biometrics which shows how to use StyleGAN to generate synthetic fingerprints. The authors train on 72,000 512X512pixel photos of fingerprints from 250 unique individuals, then try to generate new, synthetic fingerprints. In tests, another AI model they develop classifies these fingerprints as real 95.2% of the time, suggesting that you can use a GAN to programmatically generate a synthetic copy of reality, with only a slight accuracy hit.
Why this matters: This is promising for the idea that we can use AI systems to generate data which we'll use to train other AI systems. Like any system, this is vulnerable to a 'garbage in, garbage out' phenomenon. But techniques like this hold the promise of reducing the cost of data for training certain types of AI systems.
Read more: High Fidelity Fingerprint Generation: Quality, Uniqueness, and Privacy (arXiv).
Get the code (and 50,000 synthetically generated fingerprints) here: Clarkson Fingerprint Generator (GitHub).
DeepMind: Turns out robots can learn soccer from a blank(ish) slate:
…FootballZero! AlphaSoccer!…
DeepMind has shown how to use imitation learning, population-based training, and self-play to teach some simulated robots how to play 2v2 football (soccer, to the American readers). The research is interesting because it smooshes together a bunch of separate lines of research that have been going on at DeepMind and elsewhere (population based training and self-play from AlphaStar! Imitation learning from a ton of projects! Reinforcement learning, which is something a ton of people at DM specialize in! And so on). The project is also a demonstration of the sheer power of emergence – through a three-stage training procedure, DeepMind teaches agents to pilot some simulated humanoid robots sufficiently well that they can learn to play football – and, yes, learn to coordinate with each other as part of the process.
How they did it: "In a sequence of training stages, players first learn to control a fully articulated body to perform realistic, human-like movements such as running and turning; they then acquire mid-level football skills such as dribbling and shooting; finally, they develop awareness of others and learn to play as a team, successfully bridging the gap between low-level motor control at a time scale of milliseconds, and coordinated goal-directed behaviour as a team at the timescale of tens of seconds," DeepMind writes.
Hardware: "Learning is performed on a central 16-core TPU-v2 machine where one core is used for each player in the population. Model inference occurs on 128 inference servers, each providing inference-as-a-service initiated by an inbound request identified by a unique model name. Concurrent requests for the same inference model result in automated batched inference, where an additional request incurs negligible marginal cost. Policy environment interactions are executed on a large pool of 4,096 CPU actor workers," DeepMind says.
Why this matters: While this project is a sim-only one (DeepMind itself notes that the technique is unlikely to transfer), it serves as a convincing example of how simple ML approaches can, given sufficient data and compute, yield surprisingly rich and complex behaviors. I wonder if at some point we'll use systems like this to develop control policies for robots which eventually transfer to the real world?
Read more: From Motor Control to Team Play in Simulated Humanoid Football (arXiv).
Check out a video of DeepMind's automatons playing the beautiful game here (YouTube).###################################################
Electric Sheep Dream of Real Sheep: "Imagination" in AI Models
Norman Searle, The Pugwash Agency for Sentience Studies
Humans demonstrate the ability to imagine a broad variety of scenarios, many of which cannot be replicated in reality. Recent advances in generative models combined with advances in robotics have created opportunities to examine the relationship between machine intelligences, machine imaginations, and human imaginations. Here, we examine the representations found within an agent trained in an embodied form on a robotic platform, then transferred into simulated mazes where it sees a copy of itself.
Selected Highlights:
After 10^8 environment steps, we note the development of representations in the agent that activate when when it travels in front of a mirror. After 10^50 steps, we note these representations are used by the agent to help it plan paths through complex environments.
After 10^60 steps, we conduct 'Real2Sim' transfer to port the agent into a range of simulated environments that contain numerous confounding factors not encountered in prior real or simulated training. Agents which have been exposed to mirrors and subsequently demonstrate 'egocentric planning', tend to perform better in these simulated environments than those which were trained in a traditional manner.
Most intriguingly, we can meaningfully improve performance in a range of simulated mazes by creating a copy of our agent using the same robot morphology it trained on in the world, then exposing our agent to a copy of itself in the maze. Despite having never been trained in a multi-agent environment, we find that the agent will naturally learn to imitate its copy – despite no special communication being enforced between them.
In future work, we aim to more closely investigate the 'loss' circuits that light up when we remove the copy of an agent from a maze within the perceptual horizon of the agent. In these situations, our agent will typically continue to solve the maze, but it will repeatedly alternative between activations of the neurons associated with a sense-impression of an agent, and neurons associated with a combinatorial phenomena we believe correlates to 'loss' – agents may be able to sense the absence of themselves.
Things that inspired this story: The ongoing Import AI series I'm writing involving synthetic AI papers (see recent prior issues of Import AI); robotics; notions of different forms of 'representation' leading to emergent behavior in neural networks; ego and counterego; ego.
2 Comments to "Import AI 251: Korean GPT-3; facial recognition industrialization; faking fingerprints with GANs"
Import AI 258:Game engines are data generators; Spanish language models; the logical end of civilization | Import AI says:
[…] named Naver created a Korean-representing GPT-3 style model called 'HyperCLOVA' (Import AI 251), and a Dutch RoBERTA (Import AI 182), among others.What they did: They gathered 570GB of […]
Import AI 262: Israeli GPT3; Korean GLUE; the industrialization of computer vision | Import AI says:
[…] (Note: South Korea is also notable for having a public Korean-language replication of GPT-3, named HyperCLOVA (Import AI 251), made by people from Naver Labs, who also contributed to this paper).What's in KLUE: KLUE […]


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Is Happy Hour Hurting Your Marriage?
By Cassie Shortsleeve
If one of you does this a lot more than the other, it triples your rate of divorce!
Is a bottle of vino keeping your marital bliss at bay? New research published in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research found that the more you drink, the more likely you are to get divorced.
Researchers studied almost 20,000 married couples, asking them about alcohol use and mental distress—how stressed, anxious, lonely, or restless they felt—and followed up with the couples 15 years later.
Interestingly, while couples in which the husband and wife both drank were at an increased risk for divorce, they weren't the worst off. Divorce rates skyrocketed when one partner drank heavily. In fact, they tripled if the wife was a heavy drinker (drinking more than 10 times in 2 weeks), and were 1.5 times higher if the man was a heavy drinker, compared to if both people were light drinkers.
But is the booze solely to blame? Yes, heavy drinking disrupts your daily life—from your day-to-day tasks to how you communicate with your partner. But the fact that divorce rates were worst when one partner drank a lot suggests that differing behavior is to blame, too. You see, not seeing eye-to-eye on something (like drinking or how much you're spending each week) is associated with incompatibility—the second most common reason for divorce, according to recent Penn State research. And the researchers say that "concordant drinkers"—people who drink similar amounts—are more likely to have similar views on booze, meaning they may spend more time together and fight less than those who drink different amounts.
Know this: If you feel like there's an elephant in the room, the worst thing you can do is silently stew, says Iris Krasnow, a professor at American University and the bestselling author of The Secret Lives of Wives. "Anger only forms a bigger wedge between a couple. And when you're not talking, you're not touching, and that's a disaster," she adds. Your move: Put each other on your to-do lists—it's something people forget all the time, Krasnow says. When it comes to difficult conversations, restrain from saying "you should do this," she says. Instead, say something like, "I want us to find a way to work through this." She'll be more likely to see you as an ally instead of an enemy.
If you liked this story, you'll love these:
How TV Ruins Your Marriage
5 Surefire Ways to Stay Together
Why Married Men Are Happier
Cassie Shortsleeve Freelance Writer Cassie Shortsleeve is a skilled freelance writer and editor with almost a decade of experience reporting on all things health, fitness, and travel.
More From Alcohol
The 8 Best Cocktail Kits You Can Buy Right Now
8 Things That Happen When You Stop Drinking
What Happens to Your Body During Dry January
10 Low-Calorie Beers That Are High In Deliciousnes
Can Drinking a Hot Toddy Really Cure Your Cold?
12 Hangover Cures, Rated by the Experts
Budweiser Isn't One of Americans' Top 3 Favorite Beers Anymore
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


It has been confirmed many times that Ripple doesn't control the market. Why are you stuck on Jed and Ripple "selling"? What's your agenda?
My agenda is to have an honest discussion about the whole XRP market price. I believe that Ripple is being half truthful about their intention of selling XRP. If they are, then they should realize that they should let XRP price rise steadily not artificially suppressing it to keep it artificially stable. Letting it rise steadily is also a form of stability and will entice more people to buy XRP, which lead to real stability and liquidity.
You're entitle to your opinion, even if it has been proven to be false. You can either search info to prove your conspiracy theory (half truth) or believe all the sources that tells you otherwise. But spreading FUD is not an option.
An honest discussion requires an informed opinion. You have shown a general lack of knowledge of current events, operational procedure and more- all of which is a matter of public record.
Jed is legally constrained from selling, as are ALL major holders who have purchased direct from Ripple. The court hearings, and acknowledgement of the lockup can be looked up.
Ripple has publicly stated they are not influencing the market, and are making efforts to further install that trust with a escrow lock up AND decentralizing (limiting direct influence) on the network. Past history has born this out as does future business road maps, also a matter of public record.
There are several players with sufficient holdings to influence the market, those that where early adopters or whales, but honestly suppressing the price would be of limited use because they would be decreasing their own wealth (stealing from themselves one hand to make the other hand richer).
I think everyone expected a correction after such a huge surge but from where I was sitting it looked like a manipulated walk down. The way it was pumped and then dumped lower all the way down was too obvious. I don't know who was responsible for that but it certainly gave the fudders some ammo.
I think we would love to have a slow, steady rise in the price of XRP with increasing liquidity. We are primarily VC financed and our stockholders want to get maximum value from the pile of XRP the company holds. We don't need to sell XRP to pay employees or keep the lights on. We use our pile of XRP as a strategic weapon, not as a bank account because that's what is in our interest. We *do* sell XRP when it helps us, but we don't *have* to.
People always want someone to blame. It all boils down to this. If you buy XRP - you are trusting Ripple Labs. If you don't trust Ripple Labs, sell your XRP. No one is forcing anyone's hands here. You can either look at the writing on the wall and say "Holy cow, all of these positive moves to help build something great are really making XRP more and more attractive" or you can say "Things aren't going my way so this must be a scam". You cannot hold both truths at once.
If you disagree with the general positive outlook we all share with what RL has been doing, you are free to comment. We don't want this to be an echo chamber. There are several members of this forum that have given me new perspective through what I initially read as a negative post.
Buy and sell, buy and hold, sell and profit - do whatever you want - it all benefits the liquidity and transaction volumes for XRP.
A word of caution, however: Big money create traps to shake out weak hands when they decide to participate.
And I think even the biggest Ripple supporter would have to agree that there is a significant chance that Ripple could fail. The banking software side is vulnerable to a competitor with superior technology, should one emerge. The blockchain side is similarly vulnerable or could have a serious, exploitable bug. Heck, it's even possible (though I don't think likely) that an unfixable technical flaw could emerge. Ripple could fail to drive transaction volume onto XRP. Regulatory changes could make our strategy impractical. A lot of things could go wrong.
We have an amazing team of people, good financial backing, and I think our track record speaks for itself. But that is certainly no guarantee of future success.
But you didn't intervene with the crazy april/may rally ?
The only thing we could have done is sell into the rally. If we had done that at the wrong time or in the wrong amount, it could have lead to a massive crash with the price landing lower than it started. I don't think anyone's smart enough to do that in a market this volatile and dynamic.
Assuming the price holds at a higher level than it was before, which seems likely to me, this is a big help. The higher the value and liquidity of XRP, the larger the corridors we can target.
The ones who need to hear it probably won't heed it. Margin and stop cleaners. It will happen. Guaranteed.
I'm a strong advocate of Ripple, and specifically XRP in terms of investment.
Have made a huge return on xrp, like many of you. But I have to question how it performs in the market.
Everyone has come to realize the potential as an investment, and interest in this sense has been gaining virtually non stop but if we pay close attention to it's movement in the market something is off.
Today for example just about every other cryptocurrency made significant gains, with an average 20-40% for a large number and for the most part they were smooth transitions upward.
Almost the entire first page of marketcap was green and then some with the 3-4 billion $ of additional capital added to the market.
But you'd never know it for xrp. Itd make a slight gain, followed by loss...then up 1 -2 cents, and immediately down by 2-3..
Sure it had another massive rally last week, and corrected in the 30 cent range which was expected.. But it really appears as though someone or a group of people could be directly influencing the market preventing it from climbing like every other.
Just when it appears to be moving upward, there's always sell off there to stop it.
I don't see this with any other crypto so have to ask the question here.
The market gained what 3-4 billion $ today, I'm supposed to believe xrp saw none of it?
Considering we all know xrp was in the 40+cent range days ago, I find it difficult to believe it's just casual investors pulling profit right now that's causing this because most would be waiting for the next rally realizing they will gain at least another 15-20% if you go by the last peak.
Hey Howard, i don't pretend to have answers but i found around May 8th-9th, 2017....almost ALL CRYPTOS went for a dive...not just xrp. If i go to Polo, and review all 65 altcoins, most of them went for a dive - like a 'big buy' wall stopped by just as large a 'sell wall' around May 8th-9th, 2017. I have no answer for it.
Can you see a pattern here? Especially with all the FUD in every English exchanges.
So, who's smart, who's being manipulated, who's gonna regret buying/selling...we'll see pretty soon.
Well if these are stats from last Tuesday...i wonder why we have a 25-30 cent price while South Korea pays 41-45 cents on coinone? I assume with market-making/market-movers that the price would be universally the same across the globe would it not?


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{{Ficha de antigua entidad territorial
|nombre completo = Reino de PoloniaZarato de Polonia
|nombre original = {{lista desplegable|título=Nombres nativos|lista_estilo=1|Kongresówka|Królestwo Polskie|Царство Польское|Tsárstvo Pólskoye}}
|entidad         = Unión personal con el Imperio ruso
|bandera         = Military ensign of Vistula Flotilla of Congress Poland.svg
|bandera_borde   = si
|artículo bandera= Bandera de Polonia
|escudo          = Герб Царства Польского 1882.svg
|artículo escudo = Escudo de Polonia
|mapa            = Congress Poland 1815.svg
|pie_mapa        = Localización de la Polonia del Congreso.
|mapa1           = KingdomofPoland1815.jpg
|pie_mapa1       = Reino de Polonia, 1815-1830.
|capital         = Varsovia
|religión        = Iglesia Católica, Iglesia Ortodoxa, judaísmo
|idioma          = Polaco, ruso (desde 1867)
|otros_idiomas   = Alemán, yidis
|moneda          = Złoty (1815-1841), rublo
|forma_de_gobierno  = Monarquía
|dirigentes_títulos = Rey de Polonia
|dirigentes_fechas  = • 1815-1825• 1825-1831
|dirigentes_nombres = Alejandro INicolás I
|año_inicio      = 1815
|año_fin         = 1916
|fecha_inicio    = 9 de junio
|fecha_fin       = 5 de noviembre
|evento_inicio   = Congreso de Viena
|evento_fin      = Creación de la Regencia de Polonia
|evento1         = Levantamiento de Noviembre
|evento2         = Levantamiento de Enero
|evento3         = Primera Guerra Mundial
|evento4         = Gran retirada rusa
|año_evento1     = 1830
|fecha_evento1   = 29 de noviembre
|año_evento2     = 1867
|fecha_evento2   = 23 de enero
|año_evento3     = 1914
|fecha_evento3   =
|año_evento4     = 1915
|fecha_evento4   =
|p1              = Gran Ducado de Varsovia
|bandera_p1      = Flag of Poland.svg
|s1              = Regencia de Polonia
|bandera_s1      = Flag of Poland.svg
|s2              = Gobierno General de Varsovia
|bandera_s2      = Flag of Germany (1867–1918).svg

|s3=Gobierno General de Lublin|bandera_s3=Flags of Austria-Hungary.png}}

El Zarato de Polonia, Reino de Polonia (; , Tsárstvo Pólskoye)  o Polonia del Congreso (), también conocida como la Polonia rusa, fue un Estado creado en el Congreso de Viena en 1815 tras la caída de Napoleón Bonaparte (y sucesor en gran parte del Gran Ducado de Varsovia), unido al Imperio ruso. Tras el levantamiento polaco de 1830 fue integrado en el Imperio ruso hasta 1915 cuando en la Primera Guerra Mundial quedó en manos de Alemania.

 Historia
 Origen
Tras la derrota definitiva del Primer Imperio francés en 1815, quedó extinto el Gran Ducado de Varsovia fundado por Napoleón I como recompensa a la colaboración polaca con la Francia napoleónica, y el territorio del Gran Ducado (que abarcaba gran parte del antiguo Reino de Polonia-Lituania) quedó ocupado por tropas del Imperio ruso, de Austria y de Prusia, aproximadamente según los límites fijados en las Particiones de Polonia.

La existencia del Gran Ducado de Varsovia llamó la atención de las grandes potencias europeas en el Congreso de Viena, en tanto mostraba la necesidad de recompensar a Rusia por su auxilio en la guerra de la Sexta Coalición y sancionar a los polacos por apoyar a la Francia napoleónica.

Pese a ello, las tensiones entre Gran Bretaña y Austria por un lado, y Rusia y Prusia por otro, motivaron que a sugerencia del embajador francés Talleyrand se creara un estado satélite polaco, cuyo monarca sería el zar ruso pero con cierta autonomía cultural y aduanera, además de poseer una asamblea nobiliaria propia y un  pequeño ejército propio, Estado que se llamaría Polonia del Congreso, plan que fue implementado con ayuda del diplomático polaco Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, al servicio del zar Alejandro I durante el Congreso de Viena. Este nuevo Estado comprendería las regiones polacas de Kalisz, y otras zonas que abarcan los actuales voivodatos de Lublin, Świętokrzyskie, Łódź, Mazovia y Podlaquia, con 3,3 millones de habitantes y unos 128 500 km².

 Evolución
La Polonia del Congreso fue bautizada oficialmente como "Reino de Polonia" pero pronto la autonomía interna polaca -la cual incluso aprobó la Constitución polaca en 1815- colisionó fuertemente con la tradición de autocracia centralista del Imperio ruso, cuyas autoridades se resistían a respetar la autonomía polaca. En tanto que la propia Rusia carecía tanto de límites al poder omnímodo del zar como de Constitución, dotándose de su primera Constitución solo en 1906.

Así, los gobernadores rusos enviados en representación del zar Alejandro I pronto mostraron su descontento por las libertades concedidas al Reino Polaco (que juzgaban "excesivas") y rechazaron seguir las pautas fijadas en la constitución de dicho Reino, lo cual generó el primer descontento entre las élites polacas.

 Pérdida de autonomía
La fallida revuelta polaca de 1830-1831 en pro de la independencia total causó que el zar Nicolás I (sucesor de Alejandro I desde 1825) redujera notablemente la autonomía polaca, suprimiendo la asamblea nobiliaria, la aduana polaca, y el ejército autónomo polaco, y expulsando de la administración pública a los funcionarios nativos, para reemplazarlos con funcionarios nacidos en Rusia, situación que fue agravada con diversas normas que hacían a Polonia cada vez más dependiente de Rusia. En 1832, Nicolás I abolió la Constitución polaca, teniendo en cuenta que la propia Rusia era una autocracia y carecía de Constitución. Nicolás I mantuvo el título de "Rey de Polonia", insistiendo en integrar plenamente los territorios polacos al resto del Imperio Ruso, dificultando las actividades del clero católico polaco e imponiendo una severa censura de prensa.

La derrota rusa en la Guerra de Crimea en 1856 y la abolición de la servidumbre en 1861 por obra del zar Alejandro II dieron ánimos a un afán de liberalización en la Polonia del Congreso, empezando una serie de reivindicaciones nacionalistas en favor de los polacos. Estas fueron rechazadas de modo tajante por la corte rusa y causaron una nueva revuelta en 1863.

La posterior sublevación polaca de 1863 también fue suprimida violentamente por Rusia, y en la práctica eliminó todo vestigio de autonomía de la Polonia del Congreso: la administración civil quedó en manos de funcionarios rusos de modo casi exclusivo, la enseñanza universitaria o escolar en idioma polaco quedó prohibida en todas sus formas, fue impedida la difusión de estudios tachados de "controvertidos" por las autoridades rusas como la historia de Polonia o el análisis de la literatura polaca, y las provincias polacas fueron incorporadas al Imperio Ruso bajo el nombre de "Tierras del Vístula" (en ruso Privíslinski Krai) para evitar usar el nombre "Polonia".

En paralelo, gran parte de la élite cultural polaca, sospechosa de "nacionalismo y separatismo" debió exiliarse o fue deportada a Siberia por las autoridades zaristas, que impusieron ahora gobernadores militares en la antigua Polonia del Congreso, mientras el mismo zar excluía a las "Tierras del Vístula" del alcance de sus políticas liberales e imponía allí los principios de "Ortodoxia, Autocracia, y Nacionalismo" - desarrollados por el conde Serguéi Uvárov - como base del régimen, entendiendo que la "Polonia del Congreso" debía integrarse al resto del Imperio Ruso bajo estos tres elementos: preeminencia del cristianismo ortodoxo, obediencia a la autocracia del zar, y sujeción al nacionalismo ruso eliminando el nacionalismo polaco.

De igual modo, hacia 1875 el nuevo zar Alejandro III prohibió el uso del idioma polaco en instituciones gubernativas de toda especie, así como en documentos oficiales y carteles públicos debiendo ser sustituido por el idioma ruso y se impuso una severa censura contra toda clase de publicación en lengua polaca, promoviendo la rusificación de las "Tierras del Vístula" y manteniendo un amplio aparato de represión policial zarista contra sospechosos de "nacionalismo polaco".

Últimos años
Pese a estas graves dificultades, la "Polonia rusa" mantuvo un nivel de crecimiento económico mayor al del resto de provincias imperiales rusas, y el sentimiento nacional polaco se mantuvo vivo, fracasando la rusificación patrocinada activamente por las autoridades zaristas, al punto que hacia fines del siglo XIX la Polonia rusa mantenía una población de casi 9 millones de individuos con focos industriales de importancia en Varsovia, Łódź y Lublin, así como una serie de ferrocarriles que la conectaban fácilmente al resto del Imperio Ruso.

En cuanto a la evolución política, la nueva élite polaca rechazaba recurrir de nuevo a una revuelta armada contra Rusia y pretendía alcanzar primero mayor autonomía mediante el desarrollo económico y la industrialización, así como mejorar el nivel de vida de la clase obrera y el campesinado como fundamento para recuperar a largo plazo la independencia perdida. De hecho, tras los fracasos de 1831 y de 1863 los nuevos intelectuales polacos condenaron ambas revueltas como "fantasiosas" y "poco realistas", alegando que en una Polonia atrasada y empobrecida hubiera triunfado la sublevación solo para retornar al dominio ruso en breve plazo, y rechazando también que una Polonia restablecida fuese simple calco del viejo Reino Polaco-Lituano, del cual cuestionaban el papel poco nacionalista de la aristocracia.

El reinado de Nicolás II desde 1893 permitió una leve liberalización que permitió el surgimiento de partidos políticos entre los polacos, así como una discusión político-social más amplia y manifestaciones a favor o en contra de los movimientos políticos ocurridos en el Imperio (como la Revolución rusa de 1905 y la creación de la primera Duma), aunque el gobierno zarista mantuvo un firme centralismo e impidió a la Polonia rusa toda autonomía política efectiva.

La Primera Guerra Mundial alteró drásticamente a la Polonia rusa, y en un primer momento tanto el Imperio Ruso como las Potencias Centrales ofrecieron independencia a la población polaca si se unía a su bando, y de hecho en ambos lados de la contienda hubo contingentes militares polacos. Las derrotas rusas de 1915 a manos de los alemanes motivaron la Gran retirada rusa (1915) donde las autoridades zaristas y sus tropas abandonaron la mayor parte de la Polonia del Congreso ejecutando un apresurado plan de tierra quemada sobre la infraestructura polaca, hasta que en septiembre de 1915 casi toda la Polonia rusa estaba bajo control militar del Imperio alemán y de Austria-Hungría. El 5 de noviembre de 1916 los emperadores de ambas potencias centrales crearon mediante una ley la "Regencia de Polonia", poniendo fin de modo efectivo a la "Polonia del Congreso".

En la "Polonia del Congreso" nacieron Marie Curie, Józef Piłsudski, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Rosa Luxemburgo, Maximiliano Kolbe y David Ben-Gurión.

 Véase también
 Cuestión polaca
 Gran Emigración
 Gran Ducado de Varsovia
 Particiones de Polonia
 Levantamiento de los exiliados políticos polacos en Siberia
 Sejm del Zarato de Polonia

 Referencias

 Bibliografía
 Davies, Norman. God's Playground. A History of Poland.'' Vol. 2: 1795 to the Present (Oxford University Press, 1982)
 Poland: 1864-1914. Anna M. Cienciala
 Nicolson, Sir Harold (2001). The Congress of Vienna: A Study in Allied Unity: 1812–1822 Grove Press; ISBN 0-8021-3744-X

Antiguos protectorados de Rusia
Estados y territorios fundados en 1815
Estados y territorios desaparecidos en 1867
Polonia en el siglo XIX

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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text:
package model

import (
	"k8s.io/autoscaler/cluster-autoscaler/cloudprovider/huaweicloud/huaweicloud-sdk-go-v3/core/utils"

	"strings"
)

// Response Object
type ListScalingPolicyExecuteLogsResponse struct {
	// 总记录数。

	TotalNumber *int32 `json:"total_number,omitempty"`
	// 查询的起始行号。

	StartNumber *int32 `json:"start_number,omitempty"`
	// 查询记录数。

	Limit *int32 `json:"limit,omitempty"`
	// 伸缩策略执行日志列表。

	ScalingPolicyExecuteLog *[]ScalingPolicyExecuteLogList `json:"scaling_policy_execute_log,omitempty"`
	HttpStatusCode          int                            `json:"-"`
}

func (o ListScalingPolicyExecuteLogsResponse) String() string {
	data, err := utils.Marshal(o)
	if err != nil {
		return "ListScalingPolicyExecuteLogsResponse struct{}"
	}

	return strings.Join([]string{"ListScalingPolicyExecuteLogsResponse", string(data)}, " ")
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Nowadays, the increasing internet usage by children has led to several debates. One of the most urging topic is the promotion of unhealthy food and drinks and the role it plays on children nutrition. Cartoon characters, celebrities, games, and entertaining videos: basically, the main channels which an average child spends time online on, and they are all direct and indirect promoters of the junk-food and drinks industries, with their captivating advertisement.
The Erasmus+ project ANEMELO aims at fighting against these invasive marketing techniques, raising the overall literacy among kids and teachers. Moreover, the project develops an Augmented Reality game, turning a theoretical approach to the issue into a practical and more engaging one.
Dlearn proudly takes part in this project as a partner, having been always involved in these issues related to education and awareness raising. For more information about some contributions of Dlearn for ANEMELO, click on the links at the end of the article!
Children are a vulnerable target group, and they need to be shielded against unhealthy influences by developing an understanding on how advertisements work and how they influence their choices.
To know more about the project, download the infographic and the newsletter!
Check also the second newsletter of the project.


The fun of having large stuffed toys is something some kids and adults never outgrow. Giant stuffed plush toys provide benefits that other toys fail to surpass. These are playthings made from cotton, plush and similar materials. They are filled with beans, straw, plastic pellets, synthetic or recycled materials.
Childhood is never the same without toys. They are part of every child's progress. The very day a child begins to see, most likely hanging toys are attached to his crib and easily catch his or her attention. With bright colors and pleasant sounds, these help in developing the visual and auditory senses. In a few months time, when he or she can hold a rattle or soft toys, the motor skills begin to develop.
Toys not only help in the physical development of children. They function as tools by which kids enhance their mental, social and emotional growth, as well. Playtime is not only fun and entertaining but also educational since they learn more about themselves, other kids and the world around them.
There are toys that allow them to interact with other children, letting them learn to communicate with them. Others enable them to have a sharper memory, and this boosts their learning abilities. There are toys that let them optimize their creativity. All these help them realize their full potential.
Playthings, likewise, influence a child's behavior, and this is one of the good things brought about by stuffed toys. These soft, cuddly things are, usually, found in the company of little kids. They provide a sense of security and comfort to them. It has been found that giving a stuffed toy like a teddy bear during a disaster and any kind of calamity, for that matter, calms a child.
These popular toys come in different shapes. They may come in the form of dolls, animals, plants, inanimate objects, action figures and cartoon characters, to name a few. They are available in attractive colors and super-soft feel and these are the features that draw kids towards them.
The most common and well-loved large plush stuffed toys come in the form of animals, and these are available in a wide selection. Sites like Tabby Plush offer high-quality bears in the height of 7.5 ft. That is not only super soft but also poseable, allowing you to position them in any way. They give the extra huggable feature that only stuffed toys of this size could give.
Toys are important in assisting the growth and development of youngsters. Thus, parents should be extra careful when choosing the playthings to give to his or her babies and children. Kids, as well as babies, would need having personalized plush toys that they can take pleasure in. Picking the top ones would not be hard given the choices you've in the market.
So don't hesitate to buy customized large plush toys, they are useful and beneficial.


Sales Confidence | It's that time again. Who are the best SaaS sales leaders in the UK?
19 Sep It's that time again. Who are the best SaaS sales leaders in the UK?
Who are the 50 best SaaS sales leaders in the UK? Do you know one of them? Maybe you're one of them? Sales Confidence are on a quest to find the best.
Nominations are open for the 2nd annual Sales Confidence Top 50 UK SaaS Sales Leaders List. Let me explain what it is, why we're doing it, and how you can get involved.
The #SCTop50 list does exactly what it says on the tin. It's a list of the best 50 SaaS sales leaders in the UK. Although, while the list has our name on it, it's going to be compiled by you, the Sales Confidence community.
We're celebrating the experience and expertise of the incredible sales leaders here in the UK and calling out those who are the driving force behind their company's success.
Anyone can nominate anyone they like to be on the list. Nominate a sales leader who inspires you, or if you are the one that's crushing it, nominate yourself. After all, we're all about Sales Confidence! Nominations close on Tuesday 30th October.
Nominations should be for leaders at companies with at least at £1m ARR (annual recurring revenue). Their companies must have originated in the UK or be part of a UK subsidiary company.
Once all the nominations are in, we'll crunch the numbers and whittle them down to the best 50. We'll unveil the Top 50 to the community at the Sales Confidence live event on Wednesday 21st November.
I started Sales Confidence to be the voice of the SaaS sales community in the UK. We're proud of the role we salespeople play in building innovative, disruptive businesses. We're proud of the role our businesses play in growing the UK economy.
What better way to do it than by celebrating the top practitioners in our industry?
Sales is the lifeblood of any company. The SaaS sector is booming and set to double in size by 2020. New startups are founded every day. It's clear that we've got some incredible sales talent in our industry. We want to promote these extra-special people, the people at the top as well as up and coming talent.
They compile lists like this in other industries, such as the law and media. Why not SaaS sales? We've got a lot to shout about. Let's shout it from the rooftops.
Last year's inaugural list was a massive success. We received so many votes we could barely handle it. In the end, the winner was Peter Crosby of Triptease, now at Ometria. Will Peter retain his crown? Only you can decide.
We want you to tell us who you believe to be the best SaaS sales leaders in the UK.
Do you have a manager who does everything right? Do they inspire you? Lead you into battle? Protect you from heat from above? Lead by example?
I also want to encourage as many nominations as possible for the growing number of female SaaS sales leaders. Sure, our industry is male-dominated. However, it's up to all of us to ensure that women get the recognition they deserve and can be promoted as role models for men and women in SaaS sales.
Put your thinking cap on. Who gets your vote?
If you've decided who you think should be on the #SCTop50 list, it's time to let us know.
You can find the official nomination form here, and we'll be accepting nominations until Tuesday October 30th.
We'd love it if you could share your nominations on your social media channels. Use the hashtags #SCTop50 or #SalesConfidenceTop50 to tell your network about the Sales Confidence list.
Being in SaaS sales is something to be proud of. Make sure you celebrate it with Sales Confidence.


text:
en pt sv
Rica Talk Hotel
Installed in 2006 the two vertical gardens at the hotel covers a similar area on the first (restaurant) and second (conference) floor. The plant surface has several openings to restrooms and office area.
The plant material is varied, with ferns like Polypodium, Pteris, Nephrolepis and Polystichum, several aroids, a few bromeliads, and many species of Begonia. All in all there is about a hundred species and cultivars on these two walls.
Architects: Marge Arkitekter & Ripellino Arkitekter
The first floor vertical garden in the restaurant.
Nephrolepis, Philodendron, Pilea, Polypodium, Ludisia, Anthurium, Asparagus and Begonia are some of the plants in this part of the garden.
info@verticalgardendesign.com
© 2023 Vertical Garden Design


text:
FinnRey Is True, Sacrificial Love
Yesterday I covered why Reylo needs to be seen for what it is, abusive.
Abrams and Johnson gave us a brilliant example of what-not-to-do to win and keep the girl.
At the same time, we were also given a beautiful example of what true love looks like.
I cannot remember falling in love with the idea of two characters together faster than I fell in love with Finn and Rey. I was sold within the first 3 minutes of their interaction, the chemistry is that real.
Finn is a glorious character to me. He gave a face to the face-less stormtrooper and showed us in a new way how heroes can come from anywhere. Finn often stumbles or stutters his way through his actions, but his heart is so noble and fierce that it always wins out. Finn is simple and powerful as a character.
Rey's heart of compassion was shown the moment she rescued BB-8 and let him come home with her (we all know he slept at the end of her bed that night). True, she was grouchy about it at first, but let's give her some grace, it had been a long day. She proved how true her heart was when she was offered 60 portions for BB-8…and she turned Unkar Plott down. This sets her apart from every other creature scratching for survival on that junkyard planet and points to the fact that she's nobler, higher, and destined for more. Her principles out-weight her fear for her future needs.
Rey and Finn, unlike Kylo and Rey, are not actually as similar…on the surface. However, in their hearts, Rey and Finn are cut from the same exact heroic cloth.
Rey and Kylo are both strong in the Force, they are the light and dark sides of the same coin, but that does not mean they fit together.
Finn is an ex-stormtrooper, a fact that he hates. However, his military training and insider knowledge of the First Order prove invaluable during the progression of this story and his involvement with Rey. He knows military history, First Order Equipment, and battle strategy. He uses this knowledge for key missions in both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.
The thing that Finn hates most about his past is actually the thing that he uses time and time again to save his future.
Rey hated her life on Jakku, but it taught her valuable skills. She's smart, quick-thinking, an athletic warrior and a genius mechanic.
Like Finn, the most painful parts of Rey's past have become the keys and tools to unlocking her future.
Practically speaking, their strengths and weaknesses complement each other. They are a shockingly good team, a fact they discover within just a few minutes of meeting each other.
And then there is the cuteness of this "you're awesome" "no you're awesome" session where BB-8 is feeling like a third wheel.
This is only the second time Finn has connected with a human being in his life. For Rey, this is the first time. They look at each other with amazement because they didn't know nice humans like this existed.
Finn and Rey are not the same in their giftings like Kylo and Rey are. What Finn and Rey have is the same heart, which is vastly more important than the same skills.
True love happens when two people who have the same heart and intentions towards life find each other. They are not the same person, they have different skills and stories, but they are pointed in the same direction and care about the same things.
We attract what we are. Rey and Finn are attracted to each other and brought together because they are pointed in the same direction and have the same heart.
Kylo's first introduction to Rey was him knocking her out and kidnapping her. #howromantic
Finn's first introduction to Rey happened when he moved to help her once Unkar Plott's thugs began attacking her. Read the difference between Kylo and Finn here. One came to kidnap and use, the other came to help with no thought of personal gain.
Finn is on the run, wanted, and in an easy-to-spot location. He lost his only friend, has no experience or resources, just spent hours in the desert wearing all black (that'd take me down), and just drank water full of Happobore snot.
Finn has nothing. He's on a godforsaken planet where everyone is rude or doesn't speak his language. A person who is only concerned with their own survival would keep a low profile, stay out of trouble, and certainly not get involved in a fight without a weapon.
Finn does NONE of the above, strategically, he does the dumbest thing. He sees some thugs hassling a girl, and he runs over to help, "Hey!"
He doesn't know the story here, who the ruling class is, nothing! All he knows is someone is being attacked and he's not okay with that. Finn to the rescue!
Stupid? Maybe. Noble? Totally. Our first scene with Finn showed his horror for cruelty and his unwillingness to be a part of it. But this moment goes even farther to define his character. He is not just going to remove himself in protest, he's going to get involved when someone needs help. What is it they say about evil?
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
Finn is not going to do nothing, even if that's what he thinks he wants, his actions keep contradicting his surface-level fears and beliefs.
He runs to help…but, wow! This girl can kick-rear! He pauses in his heroic charge. This facial expression is just the cutest. His face says #impressed and he glances around to see if anyone else just saw what he did.
This may seem like simple fangirling on my part, but it's so much bigger than that. This detail ties into one of my absolute favorite aspects of Finn and Rey's relationship.
Finn absolutely loves Rey for who she is. He is immediately attracted to her heart, desires her good opinion, and believes 100% in her capability, sometimes more than she does.
Kylo Ren wanted Rey and what she had to use for his own gain, whenever she refused him he became angry and fearful because her strength threatened his control.
Finn delights in Rey because he loves everything about her. He enjoys her, admires her, and celebrates her strength.
True love does not fear someone else's strength, rather, true love values a person and celebrates all that they are.
Finn is so excited that Rey exists, the moment he meets her he has someone he loves to fight for. Over a short time that love grows bigger than his fear of what he fled.
Finn displays his appreciation for what Rey can do throughout The Force Awakens. When they are about to be boarded (they believe Han and Chewie are actually The First Order) he asks her to unfix the gas leak to conquer the Storm Troopers "..their helmets filter out smoke not toxins." Again, pairing his knowledge + her skills = effective team.
Onboard Han's freighter ship Finn and Rey are hiding while Han "talks his way out" of trouble with the gangsters. Hearing that the situation is getting out of hand, Rey comes up with a mechanical solution.
Look at his cheesy grin. He thinks she's just the dadgum smartest thing and doesn't even question that her trick worked.
Wrong fuses.
Later on during the escape from Starkiller Base Finn leads Rey to the precise spot where she can remove the whatcha-ma-call-it (she's the mechanic, not I) to get Han and Chewie into the core for some explosive activity.
In The Last Jedi Finn and the other 7.5 Resistance members remaining head out in the equivalent of rusted soda cans to take on the best The First Order has. They'd be toast, but who should show up at just the right moment? Rey!
While Kylo is screaming "Blow that piece of junk OUT OF THE SKY!" Finn is having the exact opposite reaction.
Wooo! YEAH!
The man is screaming in pure glee. His face is at first shock, next glee, and then proud certainty. He knows exactly who is on that ship and he knows his girl is gonna kick some First Order butt!
When Rey uses the Force to move rocks (oh the poetic humor of that) she's never done this before and holy cow I cannot believe that worked!
Poe is amazed. Finn is also amazed, but it's different. Poe is gaping and Finn just accepts the obvious of course she can do it and goes running to her.
Which leads me to my next thought.
Finn and Rey are constantly reaching new heights in their abilities and character growth because their desire for the other person to be okay is bigger than their fear or comfort zone.
Finn and Rey really care about each other.
Finn's immediate desire to impress Rey and have her think well of him is really cute. Finn is kind of like an adorkable puppy, so at first glance, this looks like puppy love.
Everything following that scene, even events that take place within just a few hours of their first meeting confirms that Finn's crush is more than just a crush.
He hears the approach of the tie-fighters and grabs her hand, she's not gonna die today if he can help it.
An explosion sends both Finn and Rey to the ground. Rey recovers first and reaches over to her fallen companion.
Finn starts and instantly turns to her with a look of true concern.
Rey stares at him like she hadn't heard him correctly. Wait, what?
Finn is the first person in Rey's entire life to ask if she was okay. No one has ever cared before.
Can you even imagine?
I already covered the cuteness of the following scenes above (I know this is not chronological but there is a method to my madness).
When the Rathtars escape Finn shows yet again that he truly cares about Rey. Like Rey, Finn has been emotionally starved his whole life, however, his reaction to that lack is to instantly wear his heart on his sleeve. Rey is far more reserved about her responses in the beginning, but it doesn't take her that much longer to start showing her affection in return.
Nooo, noo, noo!
Finn! Finn!
REY!!!
REY, RUN!!!
Poor, terrified Finn is about to be eaten quite violently, but he's screaming at Rey to keep running.
Rey is a stayer, not a leaver, so she uses the same trick that got them into this mess to get them out of it again, saving Finn.
On Takodana Finn's fears overwhelm him and he walks away from the mission to get BB-8 back to the Resistance. Maz is disappointed. Han looks sympathetic and sad. Rey…Rey is devastated.
You can't just go, I won't let you. (She's been left before, not again, she cares too much.)
I'm not who you think I am.
Finn, what are you talking about?
I'm not Resistance! I'm not a hero.
He's looking at her with so much shame.
…I made a choice, I wasn't going to kill for them. So I ran, right into you. And you looked at me like no one ever had. I was ashamed of what I was. But I am done with The First Order, I'm never going back.
Rey, come with me!
Don't go!
She didn't even blink at him being a former Stormtrooper. She just pleaded don't go. She's found someone real, please, please don't go.
He's still too scared, you can see how much he wants to be with her, but he leaves anyway. This is his low point as a character. Still, he asks her very sincerely to take care of herself.
The fact that Rey would even be tender enough to let herself grow attached to someone so quickly, and then ask them to stay is incredible. It speaks of her tender heart and of the true connection she and Finn have.
True love makes you braver.
It's brave of Rey to open up her heart. Right now, it looks like that decision is about to get her hurt again. Finn thinks he can just walk away…but…
Where's Rey?
Finn needs a t-shirt with this phrase. Rey disappears into the forest after her terrifying visions and the rest of Takodana stares at the skies in horror as Starkiller Base destroys the New Republic. Finn runs up to inform Han of what is happening and then stops where's Rey?
The explanation from Maz Kanata (this girl gets things done) and the arrival of The First Order get things in motion.
Go! Help your friend!
She's figured out Finn's motivation, so she plunks that lightsaber in his hand and sends him off. And he goes.
I'm done with The First Order, I'm never going back.
He literally said that like an hour ago and now he's charging into the ranks of a warzone, wielding an unfamiliar weapon with courage he does not believe he possesses. He's doing it because he knows that Rey needs him, and that need is stronger than his fear.
The horror in Finn's eyes when he sees Rey limp and being carried off by his worst nightmare is legit. I was already sold on Finn, but the acting here of pure devastation and anguish sold me on John Boyega as an actor. WOW!
Finn goes running and screaming (again, bad battle strategy) towards a horde of Stormtroopers and Kylo Ren. He's not thinking, it's pure emotion right now.
The rest of the movie is Finn acting in direct contradiction to what he says he wants, and that is to get as far away from The First Order as possible.
This guy, this scared, inexperienced guy comes up with a plan to get himself behind enemy lines and sneaks himself, Chewbacca, and Han into the base. Once there, he confronts and conquers his former slave driver, Phasma, to accomplish the mission. Next, he comes up with a plan to save Rey. It's a terrible plan, but an incredibly brave one that actually includes him running in to draw fire. He may not even live another hour but as long as Rey is okay, he's okay.
When Finn first fled The First Order his only goal was freedom and escape. Now that Rey is in his life, his only goal is making sure that she's okay, this goal is to the detriment of his original goal.
Actions speak louder than words. After Han's death Rey and Finn attempt to make their escape back to the Falcon. Kylo shows up (can the man portal jump, how'd he get there so fast?). Rey yells, Kylo knocks her against a tree, Finn is devastated again.
Rey is down for the count. Finn takes up that lightsaber again and engages in combat with a vastly superior foe, one whom he has been terrified of from the beginning.
It is Finn's screaming that awakens Rey, she opens her eyes in time to see Kylo slash his back open and leave him still and cold in the snow. Kylo reaches for the lightsaber with the full expectation of it coming to him, but it goes to Rey instead.
You can see the utter shock in Rey's face, it is the same shock she has when she is actually able to move the rocks on Crait to save the Resistance. She's shocked, she's scared, but she is doing it because she has to.
In The Last Jedi Finn awakens with one thought.
Rey!
His motivation for most of the second movie is to ensure Rey has something to return to. He knows she will come back, and he's going to make sure it's safe for her to do so. Rey is on a personal mission, but even bigger is her knowledge that the people she loves (like Finn) are counting on her to come through for them. She goes to the scariest place to face the scariest people to accomplish this mission.
True love fights for the other person.
True love is focused on giving, not getting. When two people in a relationship are both focused on giving, more needs are actually met.
True love never stunts growth, it creates growth organically.
This is so true for FinnRey. They both face their greatest demons and reach new heights because of their interaction with each other.
And now for the biggest, most beautiful thing of all.
She's lived a life of misery waiting for one thing…someone to come back for her.
He's never had anyone to care for in his life…until he met her.
The last thing Rey heard from Finn was that he was leaving. Like the survivor that she is, she escapes from Kylo's clutches and starts creeping around the base, looking for an exit strategy. She's on her own, like always, and doing well. But she's scared. She's been scared her whole life and this is the worst time yet.
She turns a corner…
And there they are. There he is. Han asks,
Finn is relieved but still concerned.
What happened, did he hurt you? (clearly he was imagining the worst and who can blame him)
We came back for you.
*Chewbacca noises. Guys, I think Chewie is a FinnRey shipper.
Rey stares at Finn in utter shock.
What'd he say?
He said it was your idea.
The Hug Part 1
This look, this hug, wow. Finn has no idea just how much his actions mean to Rey. He came back for her, she matters to someone.
He cannot fill every hole in her heart, but he just healed some major ones.
And he holds her like she is so precious to him. The amount of peace and hope these two find with each other is vital for the next movie, The Last Jedi.
Kylo Ren tries to reinforce Rey's feelings of worthlessness so she will turn to him for a sense of value, and he can use her power.
Finn risks everything to go and save Rey because he already loves and values her apart from anything he can gain from her. This action tells her for the first time in her life that she is loved.
*From a deleted scene in The Last Jedi, BB-8 shows Finn a recording of Rey's parting words to him. Pretty sure BB-8 is also a FinnRey shipper.
The most disappointing part of The Last Jedi to me was that Finn and Rey spent most of the movie apart. John and Daisy felt the absence, the fans felt the absence, the characters felt the absence. But they never forgot each other, they just did their best to work towards the same goals in their separate locations. They loved each other from afar.
There was value added by Rey's interaction with Kylo and Finn's interaction with Rose. These new characters not only added the lucrative "love triangle" edge that is super annoying, but they brought something fresh to Finn and Rey that they could not get from each other.
Finn couldn't fully commit to his future until he stopped running from his past. Rose pushed him to that point.
Likewise, Rey could not have the proper perspective on her future until she had faced her past and chosen not to let it define her. Kylo pushed her to that point.
Even so, Finn was never in love with Rose, and Rey was never in love with Kylo. I mentioned in the Reylo article that Rey felt compassionate empathy for Kylo, not romantic love, which is part of why she was able to walk away when he refused to do the right thing. Finn had respect and appreciation for Rose, but c'mon, have y'all never seen a one-sided kiss before?
See? Chewie ships this! I am DYING to know what he said here, somewhere in some drawer there is a sheet with Chewie's lines in English. It's a National Treasure and someone needs to steal it.
Finn and Rey both care about people and their stories (remember, cut from the same cloth?)
Rey cared about Kylo as a person and took the time to hear his story. Finn cared about Rose as a person and took the time to hear her story.
The chance Finn and Rey took with these new people actually moved them past their greatest hurdles and fears to the next level.
This is Rey's face as she sees Finn running towards her.
The amount of non-verbal communication happening here is breathtaking. Finn's face has so many emotions. Relief, exhaustion, and deep, deep love. He lets out a sigh like he's been holding his breath this whole time. He's finally home.
Rey's face says one thing, peace. Her face has not been this way for the entire movie. Resolved? Yes. Brave? Focused, determined, angry, afraid, sad, it has been all of those things, but this is the first time she's been at peace. She's home.
You are at home with someone who truly loves you.
Finn and Rey are a beautiful picture of how two people with broken places can bring healing to each other. They help each other grow. They give courage to the other one even when they are not together. They appreciate each other for who they are. They are willing to sacrifice for the other person. Finn and Rey show each other true love.
Ladies, don't be afraid to hold out for a Finn, you will NOT regret it.
Gentlemen, a girl like Rey is the kind of girl you can spend forever with. Keep that in mind.
And the last one is just me indulging my fangirl feels.
She was dressed for the desert. This is a snow planet. He gave her his jacket. I'm done!
See you at the movies!
Author graciemobilePosted on April 12, 2019 June 5, 2019 Categories #disney, Character, Movies, SciFi, Star WarsTags #theforceawakens, bb8, bensolo, chewbacca, crait, daisyridley, finn, finnrey, georgelucas, hansolo, jakku, jedi, jjabrams, johnboyega, kyloren, lightsaber, lukeskywalker, relationship, rey, reylo, rianjohnson, sith, starkillerbase, StarWars, stormtrooper, takodana, thedarkside, thefirstorder, theforce, thelastjedi, thelightside, themillenniumfalcon, theresistance, truth2 Comments on FinnRey Is True, Sacrificial Love
How to Train Your Dragon: What Hiccup and Toothless Mean to Me
…I looked at him, and I saw myself.
I know this is what Hiccup felt when he saw Toothless, but it's an apt description for how I felt as well. I looked at Hiccup, and I saw myself.
15-16 years old, same age as Hiccup, I was at the beginning of a pretty horrible 5-6 years. I was sitting on my bed checking out this movie, How To Train Your Dragon, that everyone seemed so excited about. If I liked it, I'd show my family.
And I saw him. I saw a boy, an adorable boy. A boy who felt out of place in his world that only valued things he was not able to achieve. He didn't know who to be, how to be. He was lost.
But I also saw what lay beneath the surface, hidden below the aching loneliness and insecurity. A deep gentleness, his art speaks of that. A thinker, a planner, an inventer. And a friend.
The key to why How to Train Your Dragon is so special is not because there are dragons. Not because of the animation (which is breathtaking). Not because of the voice cast. Not even because of the amazing music. Music that I have listened to over and over again, sometimes during the hardest or emptiest moments of my life because it gave me hope and courage.
No, the key to How To Train Your Dragon is relationship.
That is the sole foundation, the common thread, the stone upon which the story is built.
How to Train Your Dragon is the story of a remarkable friendship that not only shapes two remarkable individuals but also changes the course of the world's history.
I felt like I was drinking from the fountain of youth during the scene where Hiccup and Toothless first bond. The colors, the movement, the soul! The connection of two characters who find not only belonging with one another but healing as well. It was so beautiful it made my heart thirst.
I was in tears when Toothless and Hiccup flew for the first time. Yes, of course, the music is triumphant, but they are free. So free. Out there in that wild wind and ever-changing and alive sky. That moment captured things in my heart that had been burning for as long as I could remember.
At that time in my life, like Hiccup, I wanted to run away. I felt trapped by my circumstances, by the strife in my family, by my own body as crushing anxiety caused terrifying symptoms to exhibit themselves. School became this heavy burden that I felt inadequate to bear. I wanted to leave, to find purpose and adventure somewhere else!
That was 6 years ago. In the time in between, somewhat like Hiccup, I have lost a parent through a divorce and the climax of decades of pain. I've had my world turned on its ear countless times. I've had to grow from child to woman under some very difficult circumstances.
And yet…I've learned to soar.
I always wanted to be free. As a child and teenager, I used to have these dreams where I found a stretch of rolling green hills. I knew that those hills ran on and on and on, into the wide open space of the West, into mountains and big skies. In the dreams, I would take off running into that world, nothing but me and miles of freedom. I could leave my problems behind me.
Running away. It would have been easy for Hiccup to jump onto Toothless' back and take off into the sunset, never to return. He could have become a dragon-person like his mother, living apart from the human world. It was too hard to bring change, too hard to go against the grain. Too hard.
Hiccup does consider running away, but he is halted by the future love of his life, Astrid (a love story that deserves more attention on another day). Astrid has a way of calling the man out of Hiccup when no one else can. Not just the Man, the Chief.
For that is who Hiccup is meant to be, he is meant to be a chief. A king, a leader, a pillar of strength for his people. This is who he is destined to be. Who people need him to be.
Valka (Hiccup's mother) had a very similar heart to her son, but she lacked his courage and determination. She lacked his hope. Valka never chose to return to her family and village, thus robbing them of the life and change she could have brought.
I had/have people who needed me to. I too have a destiny. And that destiny does not come in the solitude of those rolling green hills of my dreams. Hiccup finds freedom right where he is at, and because he stays and steps into the responsibility of who he was made to be…
…he changes the world forever.
I did too. I stayed. It felt like death sometimes, but I stayed. No, I hadn't actually been planning on hopping on a plane to run away, but I was toying with the idea of running away in my heart. Checking out. Leaving it all behind to set off on a "grand adventure".
Oh, what I would have missed. I might have missed changing the world forever.
I'm free now. I have found the freedom I was looking for in the Heart of My King, My Abba Father. This thirst for the wild, alive skies? The rolling green hills? The adventures? He put those things inside of me, and now I know I do not have to run away to find them, I just have to run to Him.
I also found myself, in Him, in His freedom, in my relationship with Jesus and the relationships I built, I found me.
I'm a lot like Hiccup. I'm a peacemaker, a strategist, a warrior, an artist, a thinker, a friend…and a leader who thrives on connection.
Hiccup is the kind of leader that I aspire to be. He does not lead out of a desire for control, he leads to make a difference. People are drawn to Hiccup because he lifts them up, he brings fresh ideas and purpose to the table, and he draws the best out of everyone around him. Hiccup is a redeemer, he gives second chances and forgiveness willingly.
We get to observe this type of leadership more so in Dragons: Race to the Edge the series on Netflix that takes place between HTTYD 1 and HTTYD 2. If you have not watched this series, I highly recommend it. It's in this series that we watch Hiccup go from being a boy to becoming a man. A king!
You have the heart of a chief, and the soul of a dragon.
His mother is right. Hiccup is a noble leader with a fierce and gentle heart. It's a long and often painful road that leads him to become who he was meant to be. I can relate to that. If I had known what my life held for me I don't know if I would have gotten in line. 😉
But I'm here now. I'm me. And I wouldn't have gotten this far if it hadn't been for the relationships and connections that upheld me to this point…just like Hiccup and Toothless.
Hiccup and Toothless were two broken people who needed each other to fly. The strength of their friendship as they walked through those hard years together is what enables both of them to walk their own respective paths when the time comes.
God is everything to me. He's the air I breathe, the dreams I have, the plans I make, the colors I love, the gifts I carry, the bright future I walk into. My mom and siblings have stuck by me through thick and thin, and we have held each other up in the dark of night and the light of day. I have a wonderful group of friends who I have laughed and cried with over the years. My circle is ever expanding, my ability to influence for truth and love is ever-growing.
I love my life. I love my story, even the ugly parts. Because the person I was destined to be is beautiful and I am going to change this world.
Hiccup and Toothless began their story together as youths, but they part ways as kings.
I feel as if I have grown up with Hiccup. I have been inspired and encouraged by this oh-so-human character and his oh-so-human best friend and the story of them facing life together. Like Hiccup and Toothless, I began this story as a youth, I am parting from this story as a queen.
However, unlike Hiccup and Toothless, my story is just beginning.
My relationship and connection with this story, with these characters has changed me. I am so sad to be saying goodbye, but I am so grateful for the journey. How To Train Your Dragon was and still is a powerful influence for good in my life.
One last battle. One last journey. A friendship to last a lifetime. See you at the movies.
Author graciemobilePosted on February 20, 2019 Categories #dreamworks, Character, FantasyTags #dreamworks, americaferrara, animation, astrid, berk, cateblanchett, connection, dragons, dragonsracetotheedge, family, gerard ford, hiccuphaddock, howtotrainyourdragon, jaybaruchel, johnpowell, netflix, norse, norsemythology, relationship, ridersofberk, soundtrack, stoickthevast, Story, toothless, vikings1 Comment on How to Train Your Dragon: What Hiccup and Toothless Mean to Me
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text:
L'Écornifleur est un roman de Jules Renard publié en 1892 qui raconte l'histoire d'Henri, un parasite, qui parvient à se rendre indispensable à une famille de bourgeois crédules (les Vernet) en vacances au bord de la Manche.

Les Bibliophiles de France ont publié en 1955 une édition illustrée de gravures originales de Jacques Boullaire.

Adaptations à la télévision
 1964 : L'Écornifleur, téléfilm d'Edmond Tyborowski
 2010 : L'Écornifleur, téléfilm de Philippe Bérenger

Voir aussi

Roman français paru en 1892
Roman français adapté à la télévision


text:
Q: Spring coupled platforms & conservation of momentum - can it be solved with freshman physics? This question came up as an exercise in a first year undergraduate course I was a TA for. It turned out to be a lot more difficult (impossible?) than anticipated...

Two platforms of mass $M_1$ and $M_2$ ($M_1\neq M_2$) are connected by
  a spring of constant $k$, and are initially at rest with the spring
  unstretched, sitting on a frictionless surface. A man of mass $m$
  stands on one platform and begins to run, always with a constant speed
  $v$ measured relative to the platform he is running on. What is the
  maximum speed reached by the other platform, relative to the ground?

My intuition is telling me that I need to know something about how the man gets from rest to his constant speed (instantaneously? very slowly? with some smooth acceleration?) to solve this, but I haven't been able to prove to myself that this is required. If this is a requirement, I think the most reasonable assumption would be that he reaches his full speed instantaneously.
What I'm most interested in is whether this problem can be tackled with a typical freshman's toolbox - simple arguments around conservation of energy/momentum, no/very limited differential equations, basic calculus. I can see an easy way to get an upper bound on the maximum speed from energy/momentum considerations, but I don't see a way to check if this speed is ever reached.

A: You can ignore the spring to get the stead state solution using conservation of linear momentum.
With the spring, you will need the natural frequency of the system and its mode shapes to find the maximum velocity. If the man starts with an impulse to $M_1$ to get him from $0$ to $v$ in a small amount of time then the problem is someone hitting the two mass system with a hammer and it can be solved (albeit not on freshman level).
I was able to solve it by fitting the following general solution to the two differential equations
$$ x_1(t) = X_1 \sin(\omega t+\varphi)-X_1 \omega t \cos\varphi-X_1 \sin\varphi-\frac{m v}{M_1} t
\\ x_2(t) = X_2 \sin(\omega t+\varphi)-X_2 \omega t \cos\varphi-X_2 \sin\varphi $$
and solving for $X_1$, $X_2$, $\varphi$, $\omega$. It helps to start with $X_1=-\frac{M_2}{M_1+m} X_2$.
The above fits the initial conditions at rest, but with $v_1 =-\frac{m v}{M_1}$.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


In parts 1 & 2, I discussed 8 ways to plot. This last plotting idea is about deepening and extending the effectiveness of a plot.
There are two books which stand out, not for their overall structure of a novel, but for deepening the impact of a novel: Donald Maass' Writing the Breakout Novel (and the accompanying workbook, Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook) and Writing the Blockbuster Novel by Albert Zuckerman.
Overall shape. Part of their strength is taking an overall look at the shape of the novel and making sure that all the parts match up. Does the beginning set up the end?
Go past cliches. But they also force you to think deeper and reach for the answers that are less glib, but more true. These are actually less about plot and more about craftsmanship and commitment to excellence. And, by the way, success.
30-page outline. Specifically, Zuckerman's insistence on a written outline of about 30 pages is interesting because it allows you to see major plot holes. His discussion of a sample outline allows you insights into some of his basic assumptions about story: for example, the antagonist and protagonist must meet in direct conflict in the climax. These assumptions seem to be largely unwritten anywhere in the literature of plotting and can only be inferred from Maass and Zuckerman. To the extent they lay bare the assumptions of great literature, they are vastly helpful.
Comments? That's my take on the ways of plotting as taught by some of the best writing teachers. What have I left out? Which plotting methods work best for you?
Noble, June & William. Steal this Plot.
Scofield, Sandra. The Scene Book: A Primer for the Fiction Writer.
Vogler, Christopher. The Writer's Journey.
Vorhaus, John. The Comic Toolbox.
Zuckerman, Albert. Writing the Blockbuster Novel.


LT vz. 38 - Panzerkampfwagen Pz.Kpfw. 38(t), Prototypy, lehké tanky, exportní tanky.
Illustrations More than 210 historical photographs.
LT vz. 38 - Panzerkampfwagen Pz.Kpfw. 38(t), Prototypy, lehké tanky, exportní tanky. A4 format, soft cover, 96 page, English and Czech language ISBN 978-80-87578-06-3 96 page publication in English and Czech language contains more than 210 historical photographs mapping the development, production and combat deployment of tanks produced by in Czechoslovakia in 1930 - 1945. The second part is aimed for evolution and manufacturing of legendary czechoslovakian tank Lt. vz. 38 and his variant and manufacturing for german Wehrmacht. You will find 210 period images at 96 pages from manufacturing and fight deployment of Lt. vz. 38. Next is construction of potential succesor of this tank, which originated at ?KD (BMM) manufactory and Škoda. This publication also contains another interesting and mainly not yet publicated images from fight deployment in Wehrmacht and Slovakian army. Further preparing publication which has got link-up with Lt. vz. 38, will be service and fight deployment of this tank in 7th and 8th tank division in Wehrmacht. This will be also make as a photoalbum with many images of fight deployment and workshop repairs which are never been publicated yet. There is lot of things to looking forward about next publication, because it will be absolutely unique a compact photopublication.


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Opinion>
China>
Manufacturing Illusions
Suddenly, manufacturing is back - at least on the election trail. But don't be fooled. The real issue isn't how to get manufacturing back. It's how to get good jobs and good wages back. They aren't at all the same thing.
Republicans have become born-again champions of American manufacturing. This may have something to do with crucial primaries occurring next week in Michigan and the following week in Ohio, both of them former arsenals of American manufacturing.
Feb 18, 2012RobertReich.org
Mitt Romney says he'll "work to bring manufacturing back" to America by being tough on China, which he describes as "stealing jobs" by keeping value of its currency artificially low and thereby making its exports cheaper.
Rick Santorum promises to "fight for American manufacturing" by eliminating corporate income taxes on manufacturers and allowing corporations to bring their foreign profits back to American tax free as long as they use the money to build new factories.
President Obama has also been pushing a manufacturing agenda. Last month the President unveiled a six-point plan to eliminate tax incentives for companies to move offshore and create new lures for them to bring jobs home. "Our goal," he says, is to "create opportunities for hard-working Americans to start making stuff again."
Meanwhile, American consumers' pent-up demand for appliances, cars, and trucks have created a small boomlet in American manufacturing - setting off a wave of hope, mixed with nostalgic patriotism, that American manufacturing could be coming back. Clint Eastwood's Super Bowl "Halftime in America" hit the mood exactly.
But American manufacturing won't be coming back. Although 404,000 manufacturing jobs have been added since January 2010, that still leaves us with 5.5 million fewer factory jobs today than in July 2000 - and 12 million fewer than in 1990. The long-term trend is fewer and fewer factory jobs.
Even if we didn't have to compete with lower-wage workers overseas, we'd still have fewer factory jobs because the old assembly line has been replaced by numerically-controlled machine tools and robotics. Manufacturing is going high-tech.
Bringing back American manufacturing isn't the real challenge, anyway. It's creating good jobs for the majority of Americans who lack four-year college degrees.
Manufacturing used to supply lots of these kind of jobs, but that was only because factory workers were represented by unions powerful enough to get high wages.
That's no longer the case. Even the once-mighty United Auto Workers has been forced to accept pay packages for new hires at the Big Three that provide half what new hires got a decade ago. At $14 an hour, new auto workers earn about the same as most of America's service-sector workers.
GM just announced record profits but its new workers won't be getting much of a share.
In the 1950s, more than a third of American workers were represented by a union. Now, fewer than 7 percent of private-sector workers have a union behind them. If there's a single reason why the median wage has dropped dramatically for non-college workers over the past three and a half decades, it's the decline of unions.
How do the candidates stand on unions? Mitt Romney has done nothing but bash them. He vows to pass so-called "right to work" legislation barring job requirements of union membership and payment of union dues. "I've taken on union bosses before, " he says," and I'm happy to take them on again." When Romney's not blaming China for American manufacturers' competitive problems he blames high union wages. Romney accuses the President of "stacking" the National Labor Relations Board with "union stooges."
Rick Santorum says he's supportive of private-sector unions. While in the Senate he voted against a national right to work law (Romney is now attacking him on this) but Santorum isn't interested in strengthening unions, and he doesn't like them in the public sector.
President Obama praises "unionized plants" - such as Master Lock, the Milwaukee maker of padlocks he visited last week, which brought back one hundred jobs from China. But the President has not promised that if reelected he'd push for the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for workers to organize a union. He had supported it in the 2008 election but never moved the legislation once elected.
The President has also been noticeably silent on the labor struggles that have been roiling the Midwest - from Wisconsin's assault on the bargaining rights of public employees, through Indiana's recently-enacted right to work law - the first in the rust belt.
The fact is, American corporations - both manufacturing and services - are doing wonderfully well. Their third quarter profits (the latest data available) totaled $2 trillion. That's 19 percent higher than the pre-recession peak five years ago.
But American workers aren't sharing in this bounty. Although jobs are slowly returning, wages continue to drop, adjusted for inflation. Of every dollar of income earned in the United States in the third quarter, just 44 cents went to workers' wages and salaries -- the smallest share since the government began keeping track in 1947.
The fundamental problem isn't the decline of American manufacturing, and reviving manufacturing won't solve it. The problem is the declining power of American workers to share in the gains of the American economy.
Robert Reich, is the Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He served as secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time magazine named him one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. His book include: "Aftershock" (2011), "The Work of Nations" (1992), "Beyond Outrage" (2012) and, "Saving Capitalism" (2016). He is also a founding editor of The American Prospect magazine, former chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary, "Inequality For All." Reich's newest book is "The Common Good" (2019). He's co-creator of the Netflix original documentary "Saving Capitalism," which is streaming now.
ChinaRobert Reich


The 2002 Honda CR-V is one of dozens of car models subject to a recall for faulty air bags. The air bag manufacturer, Takata, supplies bags for more than 30 percent of all cars and is one of only three large air bag suppliers.
Most auto recalls usually involve one carmaker at a time, but a massive recall this week affects not just one, but 10, ranging from BMWs to Toyotas.
At the center of it is Takata, a little-known but extremely important auto parts maker. The company makes more than one-third of the air bags in all cars.
Nearly 8 million vehicles have been recalled to have defective air bags fixed, and Congress is now opening an investigation into the problems.
Another big issue that sets this recall apart, says Karl Brauer, an analyst with Kelley Blue Book, "is that there's essentially nothing you can do to kind of mitigate the potential damage or danger from these air bags if they fail" — there's no big habit you can change or quick fix you can make.
The other thing that makes this different, Brauer says, is the basic fact of what happens when the air bags fail. They're supposed to cushion you during an accident, but instead the defective ones send metal shrapnel flying.
"So if you're in an unavoidable or an unpredictable accident, in the blink of an eye an air bag fires, and in that firing, it throws shrapnel at you at a high rate of speed, there's really nothing you can do about it," he says.
"One minute you're driving, the next minute, there's an accident — bang, boom! — an air bag pops and there's shrapnel thrown."
Takata, a Japanese auto supplier that serves the global auto industry, is responsible for more than 30 percent of car air bags. It's one of only three big air bag suppliers.
"If one of those three suddenly needs to recall and replace a whole bunch — like, tens of millions of air bags that they've already produced — plus keep up with ongoing new vehicle air bags that they're already kind of at capacity producing, there ... isn't a solution," Brauer says. "There's no pressure relief valve that they can turn to easily to make the old air bag replacements, while continuing to make the new air bags for new cars."
Four deaths have been linked to the defect. The problem seems to be triggered by humid conditions. The Department of Transportation has taken the unusual step of urging owners of millions of vehicles who live in areas with high humidity — such as Florida, other Gulf states and Hawaii — to act immediately.
The warning cautions drivers not to use their vehicles until they are serviced by a dealer.
Ellen Bloom, senior director of federal policy with Consumers Union, says she's worried that drivers have grown too apathetic about recalls.
For instance, in the big General Motors recall that affects tens of millions of cars, only about half have been brought in to be fixed.
"The idea that air bag can explode and send pieces of metal into your flesh is troubling to say the least," Bloom says. "Again, while no one should panic, we think it's a serious safety issue and that people should address it."
Bloom says the government and carmakers need to do a much better job of informing the public about and resolving recall issues — and urges consumers to check on recalls at safercar.gov.
David Whiston, an equity analyst with Morningstar, says car companies' stock prices or sales are unlikely to be affected, as most of the vehicles covered under the recall are older models.
The background to this recall, Whiston says, is a movement to standardize parts across the globe. That's helpful for carmakers, "but, when something goes wrong, it will now go wrong across a much wider number of vehicles than people are used to hearing about in the news for a recall," he says.
The main pressure in today's auto industry is to realize economies of scale, he says.
"It's a viciously competitive industry; there really aren't a lot of weak players anymore. So, because of that, I think ... it's worth the automakers taking the risk of having more recall volume in exchange for getting more economies of scale," he says.
Whiston expects high-volume car recalls to continue — but you really need to pay attention to this one.
We've said it before and indeed 2014 is turning out to be the year of the recall in the car industry. At the center of most the recent round is little-known but extremely important auto parts maker Takata. Nearly 8 million vehicles have been recalled because of defective airbags so that they can be fixed. And now Congress is opening an investigation. NPR's Sonari Glinton has this look at the Takata Corporation and what this latest recall means for the auto business.
SONARI GLINTON, BYLINE: This is a very different recall. For one, usually recalls affect one carmaker at a time. But this one is affecting not just one or two, but 10. Karl Brauer is an analyst with Kelley Blue Book.
KARL BRAUER: The other big differentiator here is that there's essentially nothing you can do to kind of mitigate the potential damage or danger from these airbags if they fail.
GLINTON: There's no big habit you can change or quick-fix you can make. Brauer says besides the numbers, the other thing that makes this different, well, the basic facts of what happens when the airbags fail. The airbags, which are supposed to cushion you during an accident, send metal shrapnel flying.
BRAUER: So if you're in an unavoidable or unpredictable accident and in the blink of an eye an airbag fires, and in that firing it throws shrapnel at you at a high rate of speed, there's really nothing you can do about it. One minute you're driving, the next minute there's an accident - bang, boom, an airbag pops, and there's shrapnel thrown.
GLINTON: Takata is a Japanese auto supplier that serves the global auto industry. It's responsible for more than 30 percent of the airbags in all cars. It's one of only three big airbag suppliers.
BRAUER: If one of those three suddenly needs to recall and replace a whole bunch, like tens of millions of airbags that they've already produced, plus keep up with ongoing new vehicle airbags that they are already kind of at capacity producing, there kind of isn't a solution. There's no pressure relief valve they can turn to easily to make the old airbag replacements while continuing to make the new airbags for new cars.
GLINTON: Four deaths have been linked to the defect. And the Department of Transportation took the unusual step this week of urging owners of millions of vehicles in areas with high humidity to act immediately. The problem seems to be triggered by humid conditions. The warning cautions drivers not to use their vehicles until they are serviced by a dealer.
Ellen Bloom is with Consumers Union. She says she's worried that drivers have grown way too apathetic about recalls. For instance, the big General Motors recall that affects tens of millions of cars, only about half the cars have been brought in to be fixed.
ELLEN BLOOM: The idea that airbag can explode and send pieces of metal into your flesh is troubling to say the least. So again, while no one should panic, we think it's a serious safety issue and that people should address it.
GLINTON: Bloom says the government and carmakers need to do a much better job of informing the public about and resolving recall issues. She says you can check on recalls at safercars.gov.
David Whiston is an equity analyst with Morningstar. He says car companies are unlikely to be affected in terms of stock or sales price. Most of the vehicles covered under the recall are older models. Whiston says the background of this recall is a movement to standardize parts across the globe.
DAVID WHISTON: The more they can standardize the better off they're going to be. But when something goes wrong, it will now go wrong across a much wider number of vehicles than what people are used to hearing about in the news for a recall.
GLINTON: Whiston says the main pressure these days in the auto industry is to realize economies of scale.
WHISTON: And it's a viciously competitive industry. There really aren't a lot of weak players anymore. So because of that, I think the risks of higher recall volume - it's worth - I think it's worth the auto makers taking risk of having more recall volume in exchange for getting more economies of scale.
GLINTON: Whiston expects high volume recalls to continue. But this one you really need to pay attention to. Sonari Glinton, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.