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The Danger Zone – Part VI
Previous part. Start from the beginning.
The shape slammed into the lead Humvee, knocking it sideways and sending it rolling through the drifts of sand. Kurt didn't even pause, sending a steady stream of lead towards the monstrosity of a creature that had attacked. My eyes, however, were following the wreck of the Humvee, now a shattered and dented mass lying in the dip between two sand drifts. The impact had reduced it to a nearly unrecognizable ball of metal.
Kurt's assault rifle had run out of ammunition, and he was spewing a steady stream of loud curses as he struggled to reload in the bouncing vehicle. The gunner on top of our Humvee had managed to drag the heavy mounted machine gun onto the new target, however, and the monster in front of us let out a thin, almost inaudible wail as the new stream of high-velocity rounds tore through it. I caught an impression of flailing tentacles, a jagged, gnashing beak, and far too many eyes of all different sizes, all smashed together into a roiling mass. An instant later, however, the heavy bullets shredded it into pulp.
Still letting out that thin scream, the monster landed in the sand, its death spasms rolling it off the side of the convoy. With the path ahead of us clear, the driver didn't hesitate to slam the gas pedal all the way to the floor, and we leapt forward.
The soldier riding shotgun in the passenger seat looked down at the computer screen mounted in the central panel of the Humvee. "Beacon's just ahead," he announced. "One thousand feet. Eight hundred. Six hundred. Four hundred. Two hundred."
The driver slammed on the brakes, and I clutched at my seat belt as the vehicle skidded sideways for several feet before coming to a stop. My wide eyes saw that, of the dozen delivery trucks that had originally entered the portal with us, only eight were still with us. The rear Humvee was still with us as well, but I could see smoke emerging from under its hood and with the front wheels twisted at an awkward angle. Several of the large delivery trucks were spotted with what looked like burn marks, and one of them had a large tear in the metal siding.
Kurt reached behind the seat, into the trunk area of our Humvee, and pulled out a briefcase. Hauling it over the seat and into his lap, he popped the side door and leapt out of the vehicle. Bradley, on my other side, followed suit. Not sure what to do, but not wanting to be left alone in the vehicle, I hurried to follow them.
The gray sand that made up the surface of subspace was very light, and small clouds of it swirled around my feet as I landed outside the Humvee. A few of the grains reached my mouth and nose, making me cough. They were gritty in my throat, but tasteless.
I turned towards the other mercenaries. Kurt was kneeling down on the sand, the briefcase lying open in front of him. Inside was some sort of computer machinery, with which he was fiddling. Bradley was standing next to him, his alert and worried eyes on the dark clouds around us and his hands tight on his assault rifle.
I moved towards Kurt, trying to peer over his shoulder in the dim half-light. The computer screen inside the briefcase appeared to be running some sort of program. "What is that?" I asked.
"We need to send a signal to the other side, so that we can get a portal out of here," he replied. "They can't just leave the portal constantly open; you've seen the kind of things that are out here. So we open a miniature portal, just big enough to send a radio signal through, to let them know that we're at their endpoint."
The computer beeped. "How long is it going to take?" I asked, looking around nervously, my eyes on the sky. The low, oppressive clouds gave the entire world a claustrophobic feel, as if a great weight was hovering just above us. There could be an entire army of those monsters, hiding in or above the clouds, and we would never know – until they swooped below to attack.
Kurt straightened up, brushing the ubiquitous sand from his fatigues. "Signal's sent," he said. "Should just be a few minutes now."
Getting towards the end – promise!
Posted in Danger Zone
The Danger Zone – Part V
The roaring of our vehicle's powerful engine jumped an octave, and I felt the visceral thrill of acceleration throw me back into the hard seat. Spinning around to stare out the back, I could see the larger cargo trucks shaking back and forth as they lumbered to keep up. The featureless, identical hills of gray sand, however, seemed to stretch on forever, offering no clue as to our increased speed.
At first, it seemed as though Kurt's plan was working; I could see the darker smudge among the hazy clouds, the origin of the attacking misty tentacles, receding into the background behind us. But the smile of relief had barely appeared on my face before it was whisked away as I glanced forward again and saw more splotches darkening the clouds ahead.
I finally found my voice. "But I thought that subspace was empty!" I said in disbelief. "I thought that nothing could live here! Nothing could survive!"
Kurt had pulled his gun back inside the vehicle to avoid losing it as we had picked up speed, but he kept his window open, casting suspicious glances towards the clouds. "Oh, there are things here, all right," he growled. "Don't know if you'd call it living, though. Seems that they just want to attack, far as we've seen."
"You encounter these things regularly?" I stared up at the sky, my eyes wide, struggling to keep a handle on the situation.
The only response I received from Kurt was a short nod, but the soldier riding shotgun in the front, who had remained quiet for the entire ride so far, finally opened his mouth. "And they're getting worse," he added darkly.
Shifting in my seat to lean forward, between the two front seats, I turned to him. "Worse?"
The soldier didn't turn back towards me, didn't even tear his glance away from the window, but he opened his mouth to reply. "Been doing these runs since the beginning," he grunted. "First few runs were completely clear. Fifth run was when we first saw them – they attacked just as we reached the end, so some of us could escape. Still destroyed half our convoy; we weren't prepared or armed at all."
The man adjusted the position of the rifle on his lap slightly. I watched his knuckles turn white as he gripped the weapon. "Now, they attack every run, and more of them each time," he went on. "We tried lights, klaxons, different times, different routes – nothing made any difference. The whole place looks exactly the same, and there's no way of navigating save our guidance systems. So now all we can do is try to outrun the bastards and hope for the best. And I don't know how much longer our luck will hold."
Despite this fatalistic viewpoint, we seemed to be doing all right – for the moment. The engines of our convoy were roaring as we hurtled over the sand, splashing through the crests of dunes, but the dark shapes in the clouds seemed to be keeping their distance. "Three minutes to beacon," the soldier in the driver's seat commented, his voice terse.
The commander merely grunted again, turning his gaze back to the skies, but Bradley risked a quick smile at me. "Not so bad of a run," he said. "We ought to make it the rest of the run without any-"
Bradley's words were cut off, and the rest of my senses momentarily overwhelmed, as a gigantic shape suddenly swept down across the road in front of us…
Flash Fiction – the ultimate weapon of a god!
Short break from The Danger Zone. This excerpt is in response to the following writing prompt:
God grants a warrior one wish. The warrior wishes for the ultimate weapon. He is given a can opener.
I opened my eyes, feeling the weight of the gift in my hands. I savored the moment of triumph, refusing to let my gaze drop from the swirling god in front of me. This was it. The ultimate weapon. I would be forever the best. Filled with anticipation, bursting with joy, overwhelmed by pride and conviction, I looked down.
"It's… It's smaller than I thought."
Hmm. I flipped the item over, spun it around, trying to make sense of the curious object. It seemed quite simple; two pieces of steel, each about eight inches in length, connected at one end by a riveted joint. A couple of gears meshed together near that end. The handles were coated with rather flimsy black plastic.
I raised the weapon above my head and, with a dramatic flourish, pointed it at the far wall of the cavern. Nothing. No death beams, no pain blades, no poison-tipped killing darts. I tried spinning the gears a bit. The tool made a whirring sound, but produced no further reaction.
After a few minutes, I turned back to the swirling, ever-shifting cloud of smoke in front of me. "God, I don't understand," I asked, my tone plaintive. "What is this? Is it a great weapon from the future?"
"Yes, it comez from zee future," the voice boomed out of the cloud, echoing around the cavern and making the ground shake beneath my feet. "It iz a can opener!"
"A what?"
"Canz! You know? For ze food holding?" The smoke somehow managed to swirl in a rather confused manner. A small metal cylinder dropped out of the fog, rolling to a stop at my feet. I picked it up. Printed on the side of the cylinder was a blue fish, wearing black glasses, a red hat, and a rather silly grin.[1]
"This thing opens cans?" I repeated, hefting my ultimate weapon, which I was beginning to suspect was nothing of the sort. "I wanted something to smite my enemies! To destroy armies! To bring my foes crashing to their knees in their haste to grovel before me!"
"No, no," the cloud replied. "Zis was your wish. For all canz to be open before you. And zis openz everyting!"
I made sure that my groan was loud enough for the cloud to hear me, and turned on my heel, stomping heavily as I left the cavern. Charlie, my worthless excuse of a guide, was waiting for me just outside the mouth of the cave.
"How did it go, boss?" he asked, radiating anxiety from every pore. "Get the weapon?"
I held up the can opener for him to see. "No! The stupid god gave me some sort of cooking tool! Like I'm a woman! I told you that we shouldn't have gone to the god of- of whatever he was the god of!"
Charlie glanced down at the wrinkled and folded map he always clutched. "Bomb shelters," he read off.
"Yeah, well, I don't know what one of those is, but it sounds powerful. But apparently the ultimate weapon there is this thing!" Filled with disgust and impotent rage, I pulled back my arm. On the other side of the clearing outside the cave stood a tall oak, its branches gnarled with age. My throw sent the can opener flying directly into its branches.
I was thrown to the ground. Muscles crying out, I sat up, waving a hand in front of me to try and clear some of the dust that now filled the air.
Charlie and I both rose unsteadily to our feet, staring across the clearing at the remains of the oak tree. The trunk, at least three times my arm span in circumference, had been shattered into splinters. The two halves of the tree had peeled away, as if the axe of the gods themselves had descended and split it like a piece of kindling. A thin plume of white smoke rose from the stump still protruding from the ground.
"We should go find that weapon," Charlie finally spoke, his tone unusually flat.
I could do nothing but nod. We staggered across the clearing, bits of charred wood crunching beneath our boots. The can opener was buried in the trunk, and I had to brace myself against the tortured wood with both feet in order to pull it free.
"Opens everything, huh?" I said aloud, turning the odd tool in my hands as Charlie looked on. "Maybe this wish wasn't wasted, after all."
The Danger Zone will continue on Wednesday!
The Danger Zone, Part IV
I stared out the windows at subspace. I felt as though we were in the Sahara at night; we were surrounded by dunes of sand, while the sky overhead was a dull black. The dunes seemed dimly lit, hazily visible, but I could see no outcrops or breaks in the rolling sand. "On guard against what?" I asked. "Why are we so armed and armored?"
Kurt grunted sourly and didn't reply, staring out the window, but the soldier on the other side of me gently nudged me. "Listen, traveling out here is dangerous," he said, his tone much more congenital than Kurt. "There's things out there. And they don't like us being here."
I turned to face the other man. Despite the combat fatigues, sidearm strapped to his leg, and heavy rifle laid across his lap, he looked surprisingly young, his face clean shaven in contrast to Kurt's rough stubble. "Things? Have you seen them?" I asked.
"Bradley," the young soldier offered, holding out his hand. "And yeah, they've tried to hit us a few times. Personally, I think they're attracted to the engine noise. Hey, looks like the convoy's all through – you might want to hold on to something."
I looked up. Indeed, all of the vehicles had now passed through the the portal, and were moving across the gray sand, their tires sinking in slightly. "Got the exit beacon," the pilot commented in front of us.
"Then let's get going!" Kurt ordered. The driver nodded, and his foot slammed down on the accelerator.
Despite Bradley's warning, I was thrown back in my seat as the convoy vehicles leapt forward, rapidly accelerating until the dunes outside were blurred and sprays of sand were being thrown up by tires.
"Fifteen minutes to the beacon," the driver announced, his voice nearly a yell to be heard above the roar of the engine. Kurt grunted in acknowledgement, although his sour expression didn't change as he stared out the window.
I turned back to Bradley. "What sort of creatures are out there?" I asked. I had never heard of anything being alive in subspace; all accounts made it out to be barren and deserted. Yet the preparations and weapons carried by these soldies painted a very different picture.
Bradley opened his mouth, but couldn't seem to find the words for a minute. "They're just alien," he said finally, shuddering a little. "Monsters. Not like anything on Earth. They come in groups, so we don't-"
The radio mounted in our Humvee buzzed into life, cutting Bradley off. "Contact!" it squawked. "Left side, coming in fast!"
Kurt roared wordlessly, raising his rifle to point out the open window. I stared over his shoulder, trying to see what was coming. At first, I could see nothing out of the ordinary beside the rolling gray sand dunes. As Kurt raised his weapon, however, I could see a darker, indistinct shape approaching, above the dunes. It looked like a bank of very thick fog, rolling in towards the convoy.
As I stared, darker shapes solidified inside the fog, reaching forward. My eyes went wide. The shapes were resolving themselves into massive tentacles! They appeared partly amorphous, wobbling slightly as though made from jelly. Kurt's rifle barked, the staccato of automatic gunfire shattering the silence. The tentacles burst apart into shredded chunks. But already, more of them were emerging from the fog.
Kurt's rifle wasn't alone. The other men in the convoy turned their own weapons on the fog. The higher-pitched pops of rifles were joined by the heavier thudding of the mounted machine guns on the Humvee turrets, each round tearing through multiple tentacles. Yet still they poured out of the fog.
"Faster!" Kurt roared at the driver as he shifted to a new target. "We can't win! We need to get to the beacon!"
Continued in Part V. Yes, there are a lot of chapters.
The Danger Zone, Part III
Continued from Part II. Start at the beginning.
The discovery of subspace began, as so many great breakthroughs do, with a tragedy. At the end of the twenty-first century, with space exploration experiencing a massive resurgence in popularity, research teams around the world, both public and private, were racing to develop the next generation of zero-atmosphere engines for interplanetary flight. Most of the public institutions were pursuing more reasonable upgrades to current rockets, such as reusable, refillable booster stages, lighter and more compact fuel, and more efficient shuttle designs. The private research groups, however, were free to chase down stranger long shots – which may partly explain why, on one sunny morning, a research complex in Massachusetts exploded in a blast that radiated out for twenty miles and turned the ground to molten glass.
This tragedy attracted widespread media attention, of course, but Actinide, the company that had been funding the research facility, managed to remain stubbornly close-mouthed and avoid detailing too much information in the investigative probes from government review boards. Less than five years later, they announced that they had discovered a new method of travel, crossing thousands of miles in mere minutes by traversing across an alternate dimension.
Actinide didn't file any patents, and over the next few years the company managed to keep the details of its discovery fairly secret through a combination of corporate counter-espionage, bribes, and the occasional rumored industrial sabotage of a rival that was getting too close to developing their own version of subspace travel. Scientists made fruitless complaints about the poor research environment, other shipping companies went bankrupt, and Actinide quickly gained a near-monopoly in the interplanetary shipping market. Yet somehow, they still seemed plagued by delays and issues with their subspace systems.
This is where I came in. Sure, I was a pure-hearted academic on the inside, but I knew the advantage of good marketing, and sold myself to Actinide as an expert who might be able to help streamline their process. I had suspected for a long time that they had issues, and their request for me to accompany a cargo shipment proved my suspicions correct.
My credentials weren't falsified, of course; aside from the researchers working behind gag orders for Actinide itself, I probably knew more about subspace than anyone else. The principles were remarkably similar to something out of a science fiction tale; gates at fixed locations used very high pulses of energy to form a temporary tunnel through the fabric of reality, creating an entrance and exit. The convoy would travel through subspace between these two portal points; rough data suggested that a meter in subspace corresponded to approximately 4 kilometers in our dimension.
It had taken several seconds as the crackling of stray bolts of energy grounding themselves around the portal intensified, but I could now see that the giant ring was filled with a shimmering haze. I could hear a faint crackling noise radiating out from the portal, like the noise around a bug zapper on a warm June night. A loud buzzer sounded, and with a jerk, the vehicles dropped into gear and began rolling forward. I stared over the shoulders of the bulky men in the front seat, watching with wide eyes as the Humvee in front of us vanished into that haze, growing obscured as though entering thick fog. We were close behind, nearly bumper to bumper, and I tried not to hold my breath as we passed through the portal.
I had been expecting some sort of sensation, some sort of tingling or prickling, but I felt nothing. Kurt, sitting next to me, poked me with an elbow. "On guard," he growled. "We're in it now. No relaxing until we're through."
Continued in Part IV.
The Danger Zone, Part II
Continued from Part I.
My brow furrowed. "Wait. Fool's errand? Is this dangerous?" I uneasily remembered the massive stack of legal documents given to me by the Actinide lawyers, all of which required my initials.
This comment produced a couple of short, humorless laughs from the men working around me. The commander's lips didn't even twitch, however. "Ever handle a gun before?" he asked.
I briefly thought about mentioning that I had tried out for javelin in undergrad, but decided that it wouldn't be of any use. "Never," I replied honestly. As soon as the word was out of my mouth, a pistol was thrust into my hands.
"Easy," the commander told me. "Point it at the enemy and pull the trigger. If it runs out, well, you're probably dead by that point anyway."
"Enemy?" I repeated, feeling totally lost. But before I could get a reply, a loud whistle sounded from somewhere in the recesses of the massive hangar, and the men around me seemed to double their movements.
The commander's hand landed firmly on my shoulder. "The portal's about to open," he announced. "Time to move."
With the commander forcibly leading me from behind, I approached the convoy. Only as I drew closer did I get a true sense for how large – and heavily armored – these vehicles were. Half a dozen massive delivery trucks made up the heart of the convoy, but a pair of heavily armed Humvees were at the front, closest to the portal, and a third brought up the rear. All three escort vehicles sported rotary turrets on top, soldiers running final checks on the oversized guns mounted in them. I also noticed that the tires on all of the vehicles were oversized, at least three feet in diameter, and seemed to be covered in some sort of gritty sand. I wanted to stop, to ask questions about these details, but the commander pushed me onward. It soon became clear that my destination was the second Humvee, just behind the front-runner.
"This seems a little heavily armed for just a transport, don't you think?" I managed to shout above the noise as the commander pushed me up and into the back seat. "And by the way, I don't think I caught your name!"
The man glared at me as he climbed up into the seat behind me, pulling the door shut, but I forced myself to keep eye contact. "Kurt," he told me shortly. "And trust me, this isn't enough weaponry." I wanted to ask more, but a loud hissing cut me off. I glanced forward, past the burly and rough-shaven man filling every inch of the driver's seat, and watched, around the front vehicle ahead of us, as the portal opened.
Continued in Part III.
The Danger Zone, Part I
Steam hissed through pipes around the massive platform, struggling to cool the air as the last vehicles of the convoy pulled into position. The gloom of the gigantic chamber gave the impression of everlasting night, despite the struggling halogen bulbs far overhead. Men in camouflage uniforms were rushing around. They walked with a sense of self-importance that went beyond the sidearms strapped to their waists, and in many cases the larger and heavier-looking weapons slung over shoulders or across the back.
Standing in the midst of this activity, I did my best to stay out of the way. Men with chiseled faces and stern frowns were double-checking a hundred different things on the heavy vehicles; tire pressure, ammunition loading belts, piston pressure gauges, ammunition reservoirs, and other systems that I couldn't even name. I couldn't recall another time when I had felt so out of place.
A week ago, I recalled, I hadn't been this nervous. Indeed, I had been ecstatic – I was, as far as I could find, the very first researcher to be given permission to ride along on a subspace transport convoy. Or, as the mercenaries I interviewed called it, the "danger zone."
As an academic researcher, fieldwork was always highly coveted, and subspace was the Holy Grail – an entirely new dimension, only recently discovered and still barely understood. Private interests, namely the Actinide Shipping Corporation, had been quick to purchase patents on the access machinery, and they now held absolute control over what passed through subspace, using the rapid transportation to rapidly grow into one of the most powerful companies in existence.
Of course, the one commodity that Actinide couldn't control was information, and rumors quickly spread about subspace. Mysterious lifeforms, unusual materials, and strange messages were all claimed to exist inside subspace. Some anonymous sources even insisted on the internet that entire ecosystems existed inside this dimension, disturbing and unusual beyond our wildest imaginations. Nothing was verified, of course, and the Actinide Shipping Corporation regularly issued blanket denials to all such rumors. If anything, however, this only increased their prevalence.
It didn't help that Actinide chose to offer relatively few subspace transport options, usually citing the cost of activating portals as the main reason. They also hired some of the toughest mercenaries in known space, battle-hardened men and women who seemed more likely to be found in a war zone than working for an import/export company. These men were fearless, emotionless, and, as I had found in my attempts to gather more information about subspace, unwilling to break the terms of their non-disclosure agreements. But now, I would finally have the chance to see what I had been questing after!
My mental monologue was interrupted by my name, ringing out in a gravelly voice over the sounds of mechanical adjustments. I turned, and found myself face to face with a tall and imposing man. I guessed that he had to be in at least his sixties from the gray in his hair and the deep-set lines on his face, but his head was still buzzed and he carried himself like a trained killer. Several stripes decorated each shoulder, and he was clearly in charge. He glared down at me as he approached, regarding me much the way that one would regard a particularly unpleasant insect that was about to encounter the heel of a boot.
"You're the nerd," he said. It was a statement, not a question.
"Yes, I'm a graduate researcher at MIT, working on possible practical applications for subspace travel in regards to-" I began, but the man clearly wasn't interested. A short wave of his hand cut me off.
"You're a goddamn bureaucratic nuisance, is what you are," he interrupted. "And you sure as shit don't know much about subspace, or you'd never have volunteered to go on this fool's errand."
Continued in Part II!
The Superhero Date, Part II
I took the hand, and was surprised when the gorgeous woman lifted me up onto my feet without showing any apparent effort. I'm not overweight, and can live with my mirror appearance if I suck in my stomach a little bit, but I'm no featherweight either. The girl brushed off my shoulders, smoothing down my wrinkled jacket. I noticed that, even when I was standing straight, she was at least three inches taller than me. "I'm okay, I think," I managed to stammer out.
As I gazed up at the woman, I struggled to find words. The woman spoke up before I could speak, however. "Here, let me make it up to you," she said. "Let me get you a cup of coffee; you can sit and get your breath back!" And before I could say a word, I was being hauled across the lobby towards the overpriced coffee shop in the building.
Fortunately, I managed to find my voice and placed an order – large coffee, cream, no sugar. The woman ordered an extra-large chai tea. "It helps me keep my mind clear, calms my nerves," she explained. "Now, my name's Ellen. Ellen Etters. Who are you?"
"Aiden," I replied, taking a sip of my coffee. It was too hot, of course, and I forced myself to swallow it, burning my mouth, instead of spitting it out. "Aiden Amherst."
Ellen leaned forward, smiling at me. "An alliterative name!" she pointed out. "You know, it's not every day that I get to meet someone . . . with an alliterative name . . . in everyday life!"
I smiled back, although I wasn't sure what she was talking about. "And you work here?" I asked.
She nodded. "Daily Globe newspaper, on the fifteenth floor. I write a gossip column, and attend most of the city's high-class functions. There's actually one coming up tonight!" She leaned in towards me, her eyes blinking enchantingly. "Maybe you could come with me, so that I could get to know you a bit better-"
Before I could respond, we were all temporarily deafened by a loud explosion from just outside the building! I jumped up out of my seat, watching as a giant cloud of dust rolled up against the floor-to-ceiling glass windows. I turned back to my chair, but to my surprise, Ellen was already gone.
She must have gone running off to find someplace safer, I thought ruefully to myself. As another loud crash made the building shudder, however, I decided that perhaps I would be safer outside. I hurried for the door, pushing through the crowds and forcing my way out onto the cement "garden" area. But once outside, I could do nothing but stare up at the sky in awe.
What looked like a gigantic metal monster was stomping around downtown! Even as I watched, the monster swung its arm into a neighboring building, shattering concrete and sending splinters of glass raining down on the shouting crowds below. Everywhere I looked, people were running away in all directions, many with their hands in the air, as pieces of building rained down on the street.
"Away, foul creature!"
The Superhero Date, Part I
It had started off as a relatively good day, I reflected ruefully, as I stared out through the windshield of my car at the unmoving bumper in front of me, the red of their brake lights shining back at me. I had woken up on time for once, had resisted the seductive urge to press the snooze button, and had crawled out of my snug little one-person cocoon of blankets and gotten dressed for work. I was going to make it in on time – or at least, I had thought I would. I hadn't managed to foresee this traffic jam, however.
I caught a glimpse of something in my rear mirror. It looked as though something was speeding towards me, moving so fast that a plume of smoke was being thrown up behind it! And it was headed right towards me!
With a loud whoosh, the object shot over my car, only inches above my hood. A second later, the wave of dust and dirt washed over my car. The rattle as the tiny bits of grit and rock bounced off my vehicle, surely managing to further scuff my paint-job, was briefly covered up by the dull and echoing thud of the sonic
boom. I grabbed onto my wheel with both hands as my car rocked back and forth from the pressure wave.
"Asshole!" I shouted ineffectually, waving one fist at the asshole in the cape and tights as he speeded towards downtown, blissfully above the sea of angry drivers who hadn't been quite as genetically lucky.
Oh yeah, I should probably mention. I live in a world with superheroes. And god, I hate it.
I was still grumbling as I walked into the gigantic office building, where the desk I called my own was located, twelve floors up. Other workers flitted all around me – none with their feet leaving the ground, however. No superheroes here, of course. Those that exposed their true identities would almost invariably land rich book deals, TV guest appearances, and other perks of being a celebrity. For those with lesser powers, they did their best to keep them secret, not telling anyone. For some people, the genetic lottery had paid out. For the rest of us, we could do nothing but sit back and watch with envy.
With my mind preoccupied, I wasn't watching where I was going, and suddenly, I felt myself run into something squishy but unmoving. Before I could catch myself, I fell backwards, landing on the stone floor with a hard thud.
"Ow!" I said aloud. "Gosh, you really should be looking where you're-" But my words cut off as my gaze rose up from where I had landed.
Long, tapered legs, accentuated by a tight pencil skirt and nylons. A tight, fitted blouse, showing off a perfect hourglass figure. A fully covered but still prominent bust, which is what I guessed that I had collided with. Waves of long, platinum blonde hair, framing a face that could make angels weep. And behind a pair of thick-rimmed black plastic glasses, brilliant blue eyes looked down at me with surprise.
"Oh my god, I'm so sorry!" the angel above me cried out in melodious tones. A beautiful, delicate hand extended down towards me. "I totally wasn't looking where I was going. Are you all right?"
How Different Animals Take Their Coffee
This wonderful idea was inspired by another; I cannot claim credit. And for that reason, this list may be incomplete.
Everyone has a special creature they relate to, their "spirit animal." To find their spirit animal, some people go on mystical quests into the desert, searching for an inner vision to give them guidance. Some people just get wicked drunk or take lots of drugs.
However, perhaps there are easier ways to diagnose someone's spirit animal. Could the answer reside in, of all places, in how he or she takes their coffee?
Hummingbird: decaf, 27 sugars.
Squirrel: hazelnut, light roast. Sprinkle of nutmeg.
Black bear: venti, extra milk, honey, shot of syrup.
Sloth: straight vodka, splash of absinthe.
Panda: chai tea. Hipster.
Badger: Irish coffee, hint of nutmeg.
Grizzly bear: Salmon flavored. You don't have salmon? Better get some.
Dog: I'll just have whatever's left over, thanks! How are you doing today? You must love this job! It seems so fun, getting to help make people happy all day by getting them coffee…
Cat: That one. What he has. Gimme. I want his.
Deer: Can you put salt in this?
Mosquito: Just a small, but I'm going to pay for it out of the tip jar…
Fish: Just water for me, thanks.
By the way, if anyone figures out their spirit animal from this, please, let me know! Finally, my writing will be validated…


It's been a while since our last blog but it's been fab to relax and put our feet up over the last couple of weeks. We've used this time to come up with new ideas and new products to bring you in 2019 and you won't be disappointed! The option to personalise your pants will be available in time for Valentine's Day which many of you have requested! These Mood Pants will be made to order and dispatched within 5 days. Personalised gifts are a great way to add some extra meaning to a present and having that option available really fits in with our mission of creating a fun and enjoyable experience.
It's been wonderful to hear all the lovely feedback and stories about your Mood Pants! Someone bought their daughters a pair of Mood Pants each and their family named Christmas 2018 as "Knickers Christmas". How can that be beaten this year?
Being more involved with the numbers side of the business, I always find it intriguing how Zoe goes about 'a day in the life of Mood Pants.' There's never a dull moment, she spends hours and hours every day working on creating ideas we come up with. I've never seen a more imaginative mind than Zoe has!
When we think back to when we first came up with the concept of Mood Pants we always have a good laugh. We thought it would only take a month or two to get up and running! Starting up has taken a lot more time and work than expected, but it is such a fantastic experience. Watching our business grow in popularity, seeing people enjoying their Mood Pants and putting our ideas to reality is the most satisfying achievement for us, because it's a reflection of all the hard work that goes on in the background paying off.
We are really looking forward to working on a project with a talented group of students at Bedfordshire University. Together, we're developing a cool video to promote a new range of Mood Pants which are coming soon!
Belated Happy New Year and don't forget your Valentine's Day gifts!


text:
Has climate alarm peak been crossed?
There is a very good comment by Donald Kasper at the Wattsupwiththat climate blog (15th Feb 2017). He writes that all social issues have a peak of popularity, but that the times of the rise might not be equal to the time of decline. Climate and global warming alarm is now among us since at least 30 years, and it seems that the continuous rise in attention and funding that this problems receives are quite different in many regions of the world. In the USA, the climate problem clearly is not the most burning one for the general population but in Europe the climate-angst train does not yet seem to slow down.
I remember at least 3 big environmental scares that were very popular in the past, and initially seemed to become eternal: the pilfering and exhaustion of the Earth's resources and over-population (Club of Rome, the "Population Bomb" book by the Ehrlich couple published in 1968) seemed in hindsight to have and attention-grabbing duration of possibly 10 – 15 years. Look here for a good New York Times article and video on "The Unrealized Horrors of Population Explosion". As neither prophecy, nor those of material exhaustion of the Club of Rome and those of rapid famines predicted by the two Ehrlichs became true, time was ripe for another scare.
During the second half of the 80's, the danger of ambient radon, the ubiquitous natural radioactive gas, was pushed to new heights. Many profited from this new angst, mostly research labs and companies that were quick to sell radon mitigation appliances to disturbed house owners (usually a simple fan with some sealing of the caves bottom). A gas that in some rare instances could be a problem was pushed by the media and politicians (as always wanting to show that they care about their voters) to a permanent and extreme danger, allegedly causing a high percentage of the lung cancers (a conclusion that was extrapolated from extreme high radon situations to very low ones, according to the probably wrong No Linear Threshold (LNL) theory still fashionable among many anti-nuclear activists today). New legal maximum concentrations were defined (as for instance 300 Bq/m3 in Luxembourg); in the USA a radon certificate had to be added when a house was sold; and than the problem vanished from the media and the overall attention.
Why did the radon angst disappear? Because the new danger of global warming caused by another "pernicious gas", CO2, was ramped up. The avoidance (mitigation) of high radon levels was not a too difficult task; but avoiding CO2, a natural constituent of the atmosphere and an inevitable by-product of fossil energy use, is quite a different beast. No wonder that climate change (which replaced global warming when it became clear that there has not been much warming for the last 20 years) became rapidly the poster child of everyone: as for radon, the new danger assured heavy funding in university research, the possibility to produce electricity by non-carbon emitting procedures pushed many parts of the industry into renewable wind and solar devices, and on top the very influential environmental movements had a topic that predictably would have a much longer life-span than the previous scares. As an additional pusher we can see the disappearance of the Cold War worries,the slow-down of traditional religious feelings which were, at least in many parts of the Western World, replaced by the new "quasi-religion" of environmentalism.
All these scares have some solid foundations: a future world population of 11 billion would be unmanageable if technology and science would stand still, so the 1968 angst (as the much earlier prophecies of Malthus) seem quite reasonable in an unchanging world. But this has not happened: the green revolution (which owns so much to Norman Borlaug) increased agricultural yields tremendously without destroying the soils and "nature"; in spite of many ongoing (civil) wars, political unrest, deep corruption etc. poverty has decreased and access to education made quite a jump. When the "Population Bomb" was written (1968) the world population was about 3.6 billion, and today, close to 50 years later, is has doubled to 7.2 billion.
The big environmental scares all ignore the tremendous potential for innovation of humanity. Despite the horrors of wars, environmental damage and political unrest in many parts of the world, the overall picture of the past 50 years commands an optimistic point of view, and not one of fear and depression. Will climate angst follow the past pattern? What makes climate change different is that, depending on your view, it is essential a cause of human evolution and progress, which both were and are heavily tied to energy availability and usage. All the previous scares have found at least a partial solution by human progress (remember that as a general rule the most industrialized countries are also the most eco-conscious ones!), but this one demands a big change in thinking. When we want to avoid pumping more and more CO2 into the atmosphere (my personal opinion still remains that the dangerous consequences will be small), and we have installed solar panels and wind turbines everywhere without seriously solving the intermittency problem of these renewable energies, why do we not see the elephant in the room: nuclear energy has all the needed potential for an abundant and cheap carbon-free energy, and many ways different from those used in the past exist to use nuclear (or fusion) energy in a low-dangerous manner, without a legacy of extremely long radioactive waste.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


System of a Down are metal's undisputed kings of weird, wrangling up millions of fans through some of the most unlikely music to ever become wildly popular. All four members of the Armenian-American quartet are essential in keeping SOAD's sound so unique, but the band's collection of riffs is seriously mesmerizing.
If System of a Down is riff heaven, Toxicity brought fans to Valhalla. The album which cemented SOAD as a worldwide phenomenon saves an incredible amount of power for the back half. After pummeling fans with modern classics like "Prison Song" and "Chop Suey!", Toxicity features one of the strongest closing tracks in rock and metal history, "Aerials," and that comes after fans had their minds blown with "Science," "Psycho" and the album's title track.
Check out our picks for the 10 Greatest System of a Down Riffs in the Loud List above!


text:
Club Anaphlan
The Vice Presidential debate left me completely uninspired so let's discuss philosophers and masturbation instead.
You can't get a more clear example of the fact that no matter how brilliant, creative, deep or original are the thoughts of great philosophers, they are still entirely of their own time, than Immanual Kant's attitude towards masturbation. Pigliucci mentioned in passing, during the Sunday Philosophy-in-Manhattan meet up that Kant was anti-masturbation.
And sure enough, according to Wikipedia's History of Masturbation (yes it's a thing):
Immanuel Kant regarded masturbation as a violation of the moral law. In the Metaphysics of Morals (1797) he made the a posteriori argument that 'such an unnatural use of one's sexual attributes' strikes 'everyone upon his thinking of it' as 'a violation of one's duty to himself', and suggested that it was regarded as immoral even to give it its proper name (unlike the case of the similarly undutiful act of suicide). He went on, however, to acknowledge that 'it is not so easy to produce a rational demonstration of the inadmissibility of that unnatural use', but ultimately concluded that its immorality lay in the fact that 'a man gives up his personality … when he uses himself merely as a means for the gratification of an animal drive'.
Kant, as it says in the Wiki for him, "... is considered the central figure of modern philosophy."
It's pretty amazing that such an important figure in philosophy would have such an absurd view of masturbation. But that view as all the rage in Europe at the time, thanks no doubt to Christianity. And Kant was big into Christianity.
The ancient Greeks, who invented philosophy, were much more relaxed about masturbation:
The ancient Greeks regarded masturbation as a normal and healthy substitute for other forms of sexual pleasure.[5] They considered it a safety valve against destructive sexual frustration.[5] The Greeks also dealt with female masturbation in both their art and writings. One common term used for it was anaphlan, which roughly translates as "up-fire"
I had never heard of this anaphlan before but others certainly have as can be seen in this Google search. Although Club Anaphlan of Tampa Florida no longer exists, judging by the fact that it no longer has a web site. Although it seems that it was a swingers club, which is odd since anaphlan means masturbation and that doesn't seem worth going to a club for.
In any case most of us are already members of Club Anaphlan. Presumably Kant was not, although let's face it, he probably really was and was just ashamed of it.
Bronte-mania - portraits
Caught at the Met
Apparently I have been a practicing semi-Stoic my ...
Ginger ale tastes like love
Charlotte Bronte at the Morgan
More philosophizing
I was a baby lesbian
The truly odious Dinesh D'Souza
Trump gets booed BIGLY
History of Japan - apropos of nothing but fabulous...
LaBute sighting
Trump continues to run his campaign by the Nazi pl...
Donald Trump has gone full Nazi
Well at least I like that Scandinavia lifestyle
I love Rachel Maddow
Sun Salutation Cheat Sheet
It's always a trade-off
What Krugman said about the second presidential de...
Trump. Is. Done.
More on Massimo Pigliucci
Swinging cats
I heart Justin Trudeau


Hashtags are an ingrained part of many social media interactions. People love using hashtags to join conversations, support causes they believe in or simply showcase their creative side. Marketers want a piece of the social proof and virality that trending hashtags can bring and this is why you see hashtags everywhere: on products, in your favourite TV shows, in promotions and in advertising.
What is not clear, even to some marketers who put hashtags in their ads, is how to track, analyse and make sense of a hashtag campaign. It is not enough just to add a hashtag onto your promotion in hopes of "going viral", you also need to be able to analyse the impact the campaign has had. Tracking and analysing the use of a hashtag helps you see if the campaign is working, what has been achieved and what lessons can be learned to improve future activities. This article will demonstrate how you as a marketer can track, analyse and make sense of hashtags.
The beauty of hashtags is that all the data is public. This means that it's not only your own hashtags you can track. You can learn from your competitors by tracking hashtags used in their campaigns. You can also track broader trending or topical hashtags. Hashtag tracking is a great way to gather intelligence and learn about your audience, your industry and your competitors.
Monitor, listen and join the conversation. Monitoring usage of a hashtags allows you to connect and engage with people in your target group.
Get feedback and crowdsource ideas. Analysing sentiment, context and what's being said about your brand can lead to product improvements and new developments. Your audience will share their uncensored opinion, you just need to be willing to listen and implement some of the feedback you get.
Identify trends and broaden your reach. Analysing hashtags allows you to see what other hashtags your audience uses and engages with. This way you can get to know more about your audience and what other topics they are interested in. You can identify trends and broaden your reach by entering other niches that people in your audience talk about.
Identify influencers. Hashtag analysis helps you identify the influencers in the industry that have the biggest audience and reach. You do this by looking at all the people who used the hashtag and ranking them by those who have the biggest following or according to the engagement on the tweet. You can then reach out and build relationships with the influencers who can help you gain a bigger reach in the future.
Demographical and geographical information about your audience. Who are the people that have used the hashtag? Where are they based? This information could confirm or change the opinion you have on who your audience actually is.
Hashtag use trending over time. How was the pickup of the hashtag? Any specific days or times where it was used the most? What was the cause of any big spike or big decrease in use? Use this data to help schedule and optimise your next campaign.
Number of people using the hashtag. How many people participated in the hashtag campaign? A very useful number to showcase internally in the company.
The reach of the hashtag. What was the reach and the spread of the hashtag? This could be a crucial metric for brand awareness and could demonstrate to the management the value the campaign has brought to the company.
Calculate the return on investment (ROI). You may be able to determine the ROI by calculating how many new followers or clicks to the website can be attributed to the hashtag campaign.
Competitor comparison. How does your campaign compare to that of your competitors? You could compare your hashtag campaign to that of a competitor in order to discover what your company lacks or what you are're doing better.
Your hashtag tracking will be visible in the "Overview". Click on "View" on the hashtag you want to take a look at to access the different analytics charts. Below are five of my favourites.
The hashtags features several useful charts that help you analyse and understand the results from the hashtag campaign.
In "Hashtag Overview" you get all the figures in one neat chart that has the top-line overview of how the hashtag campaign has performed. Number of tweets and retweets including the hashtag, number of people using the hashtag and the total reach of the hashtag. These numbers show the brand engagement and awareness that the campaign has created.
In "Recent Messages Timeline" you see how frequently the hashtag was used during the time period. Look for spikes or decreases to help you identify what has caused the different trends.
In "Gender Analysis" you see a simple pie chart which breaks down hashtag usage by gender. See who your audience actually is and how it compares to your expectations.
In "Top Tweets" you see a simple pie chart which breaks down hashtag usage by gender. See who your audience actually is and how it compares to your expectations.
In "Other Hashtags Ranking" see a word cloud of relevant hashtags that people use combined with the hashtag you're tracking. Is there a niche area that you've neglected and into which you can make an entrance? All this can help you figure out which and how many hashtags to use in your posts.
Locowise allows you to see all the data in beautiful and easy to understand charts. You also have the option to export the charts into PDF, PowerPoint and Excel formats. This means you can easily share and discuss the results with your social media team as well as gain recognition from the management. Just click on the "Report" in top right menu to download the file.


text:
Game loses out thanks to PS2 shortage
By Nick Goodway for MailOnline
Updated: 04:17 EDT, 11 January 2005
A WORLDWIDE shortage of the slimline version of PlayStation 2 consoles in the run-up to Christmas devastated sales at Game, the country's biggest retailer of computer games.
Like-for-like sales collapsed by 20.4% in the eight weeks to last Saturday.
Chief executive Martin Long blamed the shortfall almost entirely on the shortages of PS2 consoles which began almost from launch in November and were highlighted when a shipload of them got stuck in the Suez Canal at the start of December.
By the end of the month, even the rival Microsoft Xbox was in short supply as gamers bought that console instead.
Long refused to reveal how many PS2s the 539-strong chain sold compared with how many he thought could have been sold with more stock
But he said: 'Over the Christmas selling period we had no PS2s in any of our stores on half the trading days. That also had an inevitable knock-on effect on software sales, despite strong new products like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Halo 2 setting sales records.'
Including Europe, Game's total like-for-like sales fell 12.1% in the 49 weeks to 8 January. Analysts today cut profit forecasts by nearly £2m to around £32.5m before goodwill and exceptional charges.


On Friday last week, we were delighted to welcome renowned violist Atar Arad to Purcell. He gave a masterclass, working with our viola players and chamber groups, and then performed a fantastic recital of his own Caprices.
Arad has performed in around the world as a featured soloist with orchestras and as a member of the Cleveland Quartet from 1980 to 1987.
He teaches at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington, Previously he was Professor of Viola at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.


Your 1-Stop-Shop for Graduate Student Resources!
During the year, we will create our own TAMU-CC resource videos based on GROW workshops and popular requests. Until then, here are useful links to get you started!
Remember to always keep learning! Here are a few sites with FREE online courses to help you learn about anything and everything: MIT Open Courseware, Khan Academy, EdX, Coursera, OpenCulture, Open2Study, and many more!
A free and handy tool for PhD students in the STEM disciplines to explore scientific career paths, set up strategic goals (e.g. career advancement/skills development/project completion goals), and keep track of your progress with optional reminders.
A website providing free tools for doctoral and postdoctoral students in the disciplines of humanities and social sciences (e.g. communications, marketing, education) to succeed in their careers. This user-friendly website allows users to complete self-assessments, explore job options, and establish individual professional development plans.
All campus phone numbers start with (361) 825 - XXXX. Listed below are the last 4 digits.
Emergency # is 4444 and their non-emergency # is 4242.


A short drive to the east of Yangon is the town of Thanlyin, once called Syriam, and the remains of a once impressive catholic church. Already abandoned when the early photographers of the late 19th century began to arrive, its red brick walls represent the earlier stage of European arrivals to Myanmar – long before the British laid out the modern design of downtown Yangon. Today the church is often incorrectly referred to as being Portuguese, due to Syriam's history as a Portuguese settlement.


text:
Serena Williams' husband and Reddit co-founder reveals the most important thing he's learned from his wife — and it holds a valuable lesson for any power couple
Prachi Bhardwaj
Serena Williams Alexis Ohanian
Lucas Jackson/Reuters
Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian talked about his career and what he's learned from wife Serena Williams in a new interview with the The New York Times.
Ohanian married 23-time grand slam champion and four-time Olympic gold medalist Serena Williams last year, and the two have a daughter together.
The tech co-founder's words of adoration for Williams' work ethic show how important choosing the right spouse can be for your professional career.
Anyone who knows Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian knows he loves his wife. Actually, he's obsessed with his wife.
In February, Ohanian installed billboards to welcome wife Serena Williams back to tennis after she took a break to give birth to daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. They read "the greatest momma of all time," but in his interview with The New York Times' David Gelles, Ohanian said that it's her career he's learned most from.
Instagram Embed:
http://instagram.com/p/BftH0rMhndg/embed/
"I've had this front-row seat over the last three years to greatness," he said. "It is a work ethic on another level."
Those words are warranted, considering Williams is arguably the greatest tennis player of all time. She has four Olympic gold medals and has won 23 Grand Slam singles championships, breaking Steffi Graf's record for the most wins since 1968 with her last win — which she played while she was pregnant.
Her work ethic is what Ohanian says has allowed her to dominate in an industry where "there's a winner or a loser, and you can't delude yourself." He contrasts this to business, where there are many ways to measure success.
"I thought I was the hardest-working person on the planet. I thought we were the hardest-working industry. That's what we tell ourselves. It's all malarkey."
His adoration for Williams' work ethic is a testament to their relationship and to the mutual respect that allows two people from such different backgrounds and careers to be successful in their own rights. It's also a valuable lesson in how choosing the right spouse can benefit a person professionally.
"I watched my first match when I met her, and quickly got an appreciation for the sport. It's not just the physical requirements but the mental requirements. I could not imagine doing my job with millions of people watching," he admitted.
At one point, Ohanian even offered up a sports analogy to explain the backlash against big tech in recent years, explaining that the industry "has had this notion of being the underdog." He says it's important to realize that this isn't the case anymore, as tech becomes a larger part of people's lives.
Read the full interview over at The New York Times.
NOW WATCH: Here's the best smartphone camera you can buy
The last day to submit your tax return is Tuesday — here's what to expect if you're waiting until the last minute to file
Why you should take advantage of this widely ignored part of Amazon to save money
7 popular iPhone apps with hidden dark modes, and how to turn them on


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Mississippi State's Morgan William drains the game-winner to beat UConn and advance to the Woman's National Championship game.
The team that spent the season finding a way to surprise the world was out of answers. Morgan William's running jumper as overtime ended made history — Mississippi State handed UConn its first loss since Nov. 17, 2014, ending the 111-game winning streak.
The four-time defending national champion Huskies weren't supposed to be No. 1 in the country for much of the season. After graduating three elite players, UConn returned a young roster. Players would serve new roles while the team attempted to survive with little depth and a short bench.
"I know how to appreciate when other people win," Auriemma said.
"We believe in our locker room that it would be done," Mississippi State coach Vic Schaefer said.


text:
Q: How to remove the last
* using Jquery?

Question 1	<input type="text" name="question1" size="60" />

Answer:	<input type="text" name="answer1" size="8" />

<input class="btn" id="addquestion"  type="button"  value="Add Question" />
<input class="btn" id="removequestion"  type="button"  value="Remove Question" />

$('#q li:last').remove(); doesn't work. What's wrong?

A: Try:
var lis = $('#q ul').children(); // get all the children
$(lis.get(lis.length-1)).remove(); // remove the last one

A: If you want to remove the last li element inside #d, you can simply use the :last selector:
$('#q li:last').remove();

If you want to remove every last li child of it's immediate parent (ul elements if you have more than one), you can use the :last-child selector:
$('#q li:last-child').remove();

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Cynthia is a stand-out of RuPaul's Drag Race Season 8 and she's coming to show you her cu cu!? This season's Miss Congeniality, Cythia is coming to Indy! Other performers include: Ida Kay, Lola Palooza, Auntie Christ, Mary Fagdalane and Boy Gorge!
Doors open at 8:00pm and show starts at 9:30. Meet and Greet is after the show!
Advance ticket sales are over for this event - Tickets will b available at the door - $20 for VIP and $10 for general admission. CASH ONLY at the door.
Tickets are more expensive at the door!
Absurd Third-Thursday Stand-Up Showcase presented by Let's Comedy!


or to Clemmonsdogpark LSAT Prep.
What Is a Non-Disclosed LSAT?
What is a non-disclosed LSAT? What are the differences between a non-disclosed and disclosed LSAT? Click here to find out!
How Does the LSAT Score Scale Work?
Have you ever wondered how the LSAT score scale works? What is the rubric they use to come up with this all-important score? Click here to find out!
When Are LSAT Scores Released?
If you don't review your practice LSAT tests, you'll truly miss out. Take a look at these top tips for reviewing an LSAT practice test!
Knowing how to predict your LSAT score is much easier than for other standardized tests. In fact, you'll probably roll your eyes when I tell you.
If you're looking for the secret method on how to score a 160 on the LSAT, you've at the right place. All it takes is … you have to read on to find out!
So you want to earn admission into an excellent law school. You have a good undergraduate GPA, strong recommendation letters, and internship experience galore. You know that LSAT scores are an integral part of the law school application. But do you understand exactly how your LSAT score fits into the admissions equation?
LSAT vs. SAT: What's the Difference?
If you're thinking of taking the LSAT, find out the differences between the LSAT and SAT in terms of both content and scoring.
LSAT Perfect Score: How Many Questions Can I Miss?
How many questions can you miss on the LSAT and still get a perfect score? Anywhere between 1 to 3 questions depending on the test.
© 2019 Clemmonsdogpark LSAT Blog. All Rights Reserved.


a ruptured vessel, brain cells quickly die without oxygen resulting in brain damage.
These disruptions in the brain's blood supply are called strokes.
Drugs may break up a clot, while a broken vessel requires emergency surgery.
depending on its location in the brain and how much damage it produced.
the stroke's location in the brain.
or seeing, trouble speaking or understanding, or a severe headache.
a series of small strokes called infarcts, or silent strokes, that can pass undetected.
in profound and irreversible dementia.
From its Latin origin Dementia means without mind.
trauma to the brain in a previously unimpaired person.
and their mental decline is far greater than that produced by normal aging.
and it is almost always irreversible.
Dementia following a stroke is called vascular dementia.
What is lost as vascular dementia advances?
such as depression, take hold, and urinary incontinence follows.
can no longer function independently.
The brain damage underlying vascular dementia is permanent and irreversible.
high cholesterol, diabetes, smoking, and obesity.
maintaining a proper body weight can reduce the chances of a stroke.
physically from a major stroke.
with Jean-Louis Trintignant Emmanuelle Riva and Isabelle Huppert.
man trying his best to care for the woman he loves.
>> We learn in the opening scene that Anne Laurent has died.
she shared with her husband Georges.
They like to read, listen to music, and go to concerts.
Trouble is coming into their life.
Georges notices that Anne has stopped talking.
She sits motionless at the table, a blank expression frozen on her face.
knowing that something is terribly wrong, he dabs her face with a wet towel.
Slowly, Anne returns, completely unaware of what just happened.
blouse from the towel, does Anne accept that something has happened.
call their physician insisting that all is well, but all is not well.
Attempting to refill her tea cup, she misses the cup, pouring tea on the table.
Body movement on her right side is now unstable.
fully paralyzed on her right side, and increasingly dependent on Georges.
vascular dementia begins destroying her mind.
forcing him to hire a nurse to help out three days a week.
aware of the difficult times Georges is having, Anne grows increasingly depressed.
As the disease progresses, her condition deteriorates.
needing her most basic needs met by others, Anne has one brief moment of lucidity.
in a gesture of understanding and then the moment is gone.
It's all right I'm here.
of all cases in the United States and Europe and even more in Japan.
is the much dreaded Alzheimer's disease.
I will describe it in the next lecture.


St. Elmo in Colorado is known as 'Colorado's most original ghost town.' The town is 10,000 high in the Sawatch Mountain Range and was founded in 1880. People were drawn to St. Elmo because of the abundance of gold and silver mining.
There were around 2,000 people in St. Elmo, but that quickly changed. As the mining industry vanished, so did the people of St. Elmo. The railroad stopped running in 1922 and the town was abandoned, according to Road Trippers.
An elite family, who moved there in 1881, attempted to keep the town alive. According to Legends of America, the Stark family worked as section boss for a mine as well as owned the general store and the Home Comfort Hotel. After the mining industry's disappeared, the family also began renting cabins.
Although she passed in 1960, one of the two Stark children is said to protect her property to this day. Annabelle's ghost has been seen numerous times in St. Elmo.
Not long after Annabelle's death, children were playing in a room in the hotel and felt they were not alone. The temperature dropped 20 degrees and all of the room's doors slammed shut. The children never played in that room, or any room in the hotel again. Perhaps Annabelle didn't approve of their playtime.
Another time, a skier saw a woman in a white dress in the second story window of the hotel, according to Legends of America. There was no one there at the time. When the skier saw what the ghost woman was staring at, he saw people snowmobiling.
Snowmobiling in St. Elmo is illegal and after the skier informed them, Annabelle's ghost nodded, turned away and then vanished. It's as if her ghost was thanking him for helping her watch over St. Elmo.


text:
Jared Bernstein: We can't manage uncertainty and risk without a functioning government
Summary: Surely, this is one of the primary lessons of the age of covid-19. We need a federal government that creates less, not more, uncertainty. We're a strong, resilient people, and we're realistic enough to know that the future is always uncertain. We're thus perfectly willing to do our part to get through the bad times.
Opinion by Jared Bernstein
To say "we live in times of great uncertainty" is trivially true and non-trivially annoying. Life is always uncertain; saying it's more so now, though true, doesn't help. Unless, that is, at least some of the causes of the uncertainty we're going through can be uniquely identified. If so, then perhaps we can do something to minimize the consequences of all this uncertainty.
Start with the underlying problem. While forward-looking thinkers argued that a global pandemic was inevitable, it took most of us by surprise. Now, in the age of covid-19, the extent of uncertainty feels particularly overwhelming. Will schools open, and if they do, should we risk sending our children? When will there be a vaccine? Was that a random sneeze or the virus?
And, of course, our current uncertainties go far beyond the pandemic. Is the economy going to get better or worse? If worse, as all the signs suggest, will Congress stop squabbling long enough to provide essential relief? If it doesn't, what's going to happen to people who can't pay rent? Will President Donald Trump win again, and if he doesn't, will he be able to steal the election? Why are there unidentified federal agents throwing protesters in unmarked vans?!
John Maynard Keynes was among the first prominent economists to put uncertainty at the heart of his economic model, and even a casual glance at today's economy reveals that this is exactly where it belongs. Keynes differentiates uncertainty from risk by noting that with risk, we can often form some degree of probabilistic knowledge about outcomes. Insurers, for example, can use history to make actuarial tables quantifying the risks inherent in aging, driving, building on a flood plain and so on.
But then there are the things for which we can't form reasoned expectations. As Keynes himself wrote in 1937:
"By 'uncertain' knowledge . . . I do not mean merely to distinguish what is known for certain from what is only probable. The game of roulette is not subject, in this sense, to uncertainty . . . The sense in which I am using the term is that in which the prospect of a European war is uncertain, or the price of copper and the rate of interest twenty years hence . . . About these matters there is no scientific basis on which to form any calculable probability whatever. We simply do not know."
We can expand this definition to link allegedly measurable risk and unmeasurable uncertainty in a way that's consistent with Keynes. What might be even worse than uncertainty in terms of unsettling our psychology and behavior about the future is thinking we can accurately measure risk when we really can't.
Disastrous examples abound. Investors thought they understood the risks of complex derivatives, but, in fact, they systemically underestimated them, leading to the bursting of the housing bubble and the last recession. Economists think they can accurately estimate the lowest unemployment rate consistent with stable inflation, but they pitch it too high, meaning millions of people, disproportionately persons of color, are underemployed for years. Environmental degradation leads to 100-year floods every year.
Mark Twain had it half-right when he said, "What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so."
Turns out, what we don't know also gets us into all sorts of trouble. Which is why we need a functional federal government.
The private market can provide insurance against risk, at least for those who can afford such protections. But it cannot effectively insure against uncertainty, and it can systemically underestimate risk, at great cost to innocent bystanders (e.g., the millions who lost their jobs when Wall Street tanked the economy in 2008).
Today, some degree of the uncertainty generated by the virus — both public health and economic — could be significantly offset by government interventions. In virtually every other advanced economy, political and financial leaders worked in tandem with health authorities to establish protocols to diminish the spread, allowing for safer reopenings. While this part of the crisis gets underway, the federal government can wield fiscal policy to build an economic bridge to help people get to the other side.
In fact, Congress initially provided strong and fast fiscal relief. But now, even as the virus has sharply accelerated, Congress is dithering and delaying even as crucial lifeline benefits expire.
That is, our political system is creating new uncertainties on top of the old ones. The first failure — Trump's failure to oversee effective virus control — is exacerbated by the second failure, the collapse of economic relief for the resulting problems. The keyword, in case you missed it, is "failure."
Reducing the negative impacts when unforeseen events occur is an essential function of government, as unchecked uncertainty not only leads to present suffering, but it undercuts the future. In the moment, furloughed employees must worry about transitioning to permanent unemployment. Working parents are fraught with uncertainty about child care. Businesses are going bust as their revenues dry up, with no clear end in sight. State and local governments face their worst budget shortfalls in decades.
Entities faced with such uncertainty will not invest in the future. They will hunker down, save instead of spend (a problem that Keynes argued was a rationale for government spending in recessions), forgo investments in everything from new factories to fixing the porch. It is through precisely this channel that uncertainty feeds on itself while expanding the downturn.
Surely, this is one of the primary lessons of the age of covid-19. We need a federal government that creates less, not more, uncertainty. We're a strong, resilient people, and we're realistic enough to know that the future is always uncertain. We're thus perfectly willing to do our part to get through the bad times.
But we need a true partner in government, one that has got our back, that makes every effort to make those bad times better, not worse. That seems so obvious, but it has been eluding us for a long time. We deserve better — and it will soon be up to us to make it so.
Jared Bernstein, chief economist to former vice president Joe Biden, is a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Minnesota Opinion: Minnesota's bulging surplus means now's the time to invest in workforce, college access
The Minnesota State system request for $350 million in additional funding would freeze tuition and train more desperately needed workers.
By Forum Editorial Board


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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Apparently, there was still one last bargain left at the former Mervyn's department store at Cortana Mall.
Moonbeam Capital Inc. paid $150,000 for the two-story anchor building, according to The Woodmont Companies, which was marketing the property and also manages the interior of the mall for Moonbeam.
The purchase price was a steep discount from owner Klaff Realty's list price of $980,000.
Moonbeam, which bought the interior portion of Cortana for $6 million earlier this year, closed on the Mervyn's deal last week but did not make the purchase price immediately available.
Moonbeam said getting the building under its control was important to redeveloping the mall as a retail destination at Florida Boulevard and Airline Highway. Moonbeam and Woodmont have said they'd like to get a movie theater into the Mervyn's building.
Jonathan Walker, a broker with Maestri-Murrell Commercial Real Estate who was not involved in the transaction, said the price of less than $2 per square foot is among the lowest he's seen for retail. He noted, however, that if Klaff picked up a portfolio of Mervyn's properties as the chain liquidated in 2008, then it may not have paid much for it to begin with.
Walker said that upkeep and maintenance on an empty building can be difficult, and if there was no note on the property, getting $150,000 may be worth more than paying the taxes and insurance on it.


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The Psychology Of Why So Many People Are Anti-GMO
Scientists say that GMOs are just fine. But the public thinks otherwise. Are our fears rational?
[Photos: smereka via Shutterstock]
By Adele Peters 3 minute Read
Think of a science denier, and you might picture someone arguing that climate change isn't real or vaccines cause autism. But the biggest chasm between scientists and the public is actually over GMOs: 88% of U.S. scientists say genetically modified foods are safe to eat, and only 37% of Americans agree.
Why are we–and much of the rest of the world–resistant to GMOs? A team of biotech scientists and philosophers argue in a recent article inTrends in Plant Science that the answer lies in human psychology. Since few people take the time to dive into the details of every scientific study on the subject, we're easily swayed by arguments that tap into what we already intuitively expect. Most of our thinking, the authors say, is based on intuition.
As the paper says:
The intuitive mind is not well equipped to address intricate questions, such as 'what is biotechnology?', 'how does it work?', or, most importantly, 'is it dangerous?' The ability to understand such issues and, hence, to have a subsequent objective and rational judgment requires an important effort and, even then, the mind is still liable to relapse into biased thinking. Lay people are often unable or are simply not interested in investing large amounts of time and energy to acquire a profound grasp of complex technologies.
One of the reasons we might reject the idea of GMOs is an intuitive sense of disgust–we tend to see genetic modification as contamination of food, and then instinctively believe that the food might be unsafe. People also tend to have a belief in "essentialism"–that something is essentially one thing or another, and if you stick a fish gene in a tomato, you're fundamentally changing what a tomato is. Another line of intuitive thought sees genetically modified organisms as "playing God" or "unnatural," despite the fact that plant breeding has happened throughout the history of farming.
That's not to say that the technology–like any technology–can't be badly used (especially by a few large corporations that control most of the seed supply). Herbicide-resistant crops, for example, are already leading to superweeds in some places. But the researchers argue that's because of misuse, not an inherent flaw in the technology as a whole.
"Herbicide resistance in weeds is the result of bad agricultural practices and natural selection," says lead author Stefaan Blancke, who co-authored the opinion piece with the biotechnologist Marc Van Montagu, founder of Ghent University's Institute of Plant Biotechnology Outreach. (Montagu is a longtime advocate and researcher in the field of GMOs–he received the World Food Prize in 2013, along with scientists from Syngenta Biotechnology and Monsanto.)
"If one grows herbicide-resistant crops year after year then the selection pressure on weeds becomes very strong and so one can expect herbicide resistance to pop up." In places where the crops have been planted "correctly," like Canada, Blancke says that there haven't been problems with resistance. And herbicide-resistant crops are only one type of the technology; others boost nutrition or improve other farming practices.
Rationally, GMO crops aren't inherently different from other breeding techniques that people already trust–so even though we can't know with 100% certainty that the plants won't have negative effects, there's also no reason to think that they will. "There is nothing specific about the technology of genetic modification that would make it more risky," Blancke says. "On the contrary, in comparison with these other breeding techniques, scientists have a much better idea of what is happening at the genetic level."
The precautionary principle, the argument that society shouldn't use new technology if there's a chance of a negative outcome, holds us back from progress, Blancke says. "The evidence shows that current applications bring serious health and environmental benefits, and financial benefits to farmers in developing countries," he says. "To block this technology on the basis of the precautionary principle would be a huge mistake."
There's a little evidence that attitudes are changing: When Chipotle recently announced that it was taking GMO ingredients off menus, the press attacked. Still, public opinion probably has a long way to go.
"The fastest route to acceptance is that consumers recognize that the technology yields direct personal benefits and are thereby motivated to overcome their intuitive resistance," says Blancke. "The slowest, but perhaps most durable route, is via education. If people learn about GMOs, genetics, agriculture and so on they might become immune to negative and wrong representations of the technology."
Adele Peters is a staff writer at Fast Company who focuses on solutions to some of the world's largest problems, from climate change to homelessness. Previously, she worked with GOOD, BioLite, and the Sustainable Products and Solutions program at UC Berkeley, and contributed to the second edition of the bestselling book "Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century."
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Shad Mayfield Chasing All-Around Title
Tie-down roper Shad Mayfield has been amazing in the arena in 2020.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic forced a halt to ProRodeo, Mayfield was nearly unstoppable.
When Cave Creek (Ariz.) Rodeo Days restarted rodeo the weekend of May 22-24, Mayfield picked up where he had left off, winning there in 8.5 seconds.
Mayfield leads the 2020 PRCA | RAM World Standings with $138,365.
"This year has been crazy," Mayfield said. "This winter I won dang-near every rodeo I went to except Jackson, Miss."
Last season, as a rookie, Mayfield made his NFR debut, finishing 12th in the world standings with $127,075.
The Clovis, N.M., cowboy has also started team roping.
"I want to go for the all-around world title," said Mayfield, 19. "Since I won so much in the (tie-down roping) through the winter, I think if I can get $3,000 won (in team roping) that would put me in a pretty good lead in the all-around standings. With a lot of the big rodeos being shut down, I would have a huge chance to win the all-around if I can get that $3,000 won in team roping."
Competitors must earn at least $3,000 in at least two events to be eligible for the all-around title.
Mayfield competed in team roping as a heeler at Cave Creek but didn't win any money.
Mayfield then team roped as a header with heeler Garrett Busby. They competed for the first time in Mesquite, Texas, June 20, but didn't get a check.
Mayfield and Busby are scheduled to rope together again at the Parker County Sheriff's Posse Frontier Days and PRCA Rodeo in Weatherford, Texas, and the Dinosaur Roundup Rodeo in Vernal, Utah. Both rodeos are scheduled for July 8-11.
"Shad and I got to be good friends," said Busby, 27. "We both came to the realization we team rope pretty good and nobody else wants to rope with us, so we might as well rope with each other. I met Shad at the rodeos, and he is always himself. I enjoy being around people like that. I let him know if he ever needed anything he could come to my house (in Brock, Texas) and stay. He stayed over the winter. I don't think we had more than two or three conversations the first couple of months. He was going to a bunch of rodeos and winning a lot, and I let him do his deal."
Winning two world titles in 2020 is something Mayfield took a moment to think about.
"That would be huge to win both," Mayfield said. "I never dreamed of ever winning the all-around. If that happened that would be great. That would be a dream come true because everyone looks up to Trevor Brazile (winner of a PRCA-record 14 all-around world championships). Everyone wants to win the all-around.
"Eventually, I'm going to start (steer roping) also. I'm going to be doing it all."
To read more about this story, check out the next issue of ProRodeo Sports News at ProRodeo.com on June 26, 2020.
Courtesy of PRCA
Shad Mayfield
Casper has WNFR Gold on his Mind
PRCA Standings Shuttle: Garrett Hale Leads with $12K
Shad Mayfield Weighs in with Fans
Money Mayfield: Teen Tie-Down Terror Strikes Again at Royal City Roundup
PRCA Standings Shuffle: 24 Move Up in Top 15
Shad Mayfield Wins $600K at The American
Shad Mayfield Wins $600,000.00 in Dallas


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Home Colleges Texas
Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi
Corpus Christi, TX 78412-5503
Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi is somewhat selective in its admission process. In Fall 2016, it received 12,909 applications and 8,346 students were granted admission. Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi is at the #63 spot (in a scale of 1 to 100) in terms of admission difficulty out of 1,781 4 year colleges in the U.S.
Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi charges different tuition rate depending on students residency. In 2016-2017 academic year, students from out of state paid $14,358 and in-state students paid $4,719.
In 2016-2017 academic year, 71% of Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi's full-time freshman students were awarded some type of financial aid. 45% of the students received need based financial assistance from the federal government with an average amount of $4,617 (which is 4.2% above the national average.)
The total number of federal student loan recipients at Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi in 2016-2017, was 1,278, which is 57% of the total eligible students. The average loan amount given out to these students was $5,667 (which is 6.9% above the national average.)
In Fall 2016, Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi has enrolled a total of 12,202 students (8,964 students full-time and 3,238 on a part-time basis). Out of the total 12,202 students, 901 of those students were transfer students. The gender ratio of the new enrollee was 40% men and 60% women and 9,960 students were enrolled for undergraduate programs and 2,242 for graduates studies.
Listed below are the 10 largest majors offered at Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi.
Business, Management, Marketing, And Related Support Services 17% 1,101 0
Health Professions And Related Programs 15% 985 101
Multi/interdisciplinary Studies 5% 332
Education 5% 318 0
Psychology 4% 248
Parks, Recreation, Leisure, And Fitness Studies 3% 226 0
The following section details graduation and dropout rates of Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi full-time students who started class in 2010	and graduated or dropped out prior to August 31, 2016.
The typical median income of Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi graduates 6 years after enrollment is $29,700. Last year, out of the total 1,460 graduates who entered the institution 6 years ago, 1,256 were reported to have been employed. On the same note, out of 1,543 graduates, who enrolled 10 years ago, 1,281 were employed.
6300 Ocean Dr., Corpus Christi, TX 78412-5503
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
The University of West Florida
University of Missouri-St Louis
North Carolina A & T State University
Nearby 4 year colleges within 100 mile radius of Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi.
Texas A & M University-Kingsville
University of Houston-Victoria


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Q: Duvida cast de ponteiro Galera quando se tem uma linha tipo esta:
u_char variavel_teste
struct teste *p ;
p = (struct  teste *)variavel_teste;

Qual a utilidade disto , e o que significa , podem me dar um exemplo de programa?

A: char c = '5';

Um char tem o tamanho de 1 byte e seu endereço é 0x12345678.
char *d = &c;

Você obtém o endereço de c e guarda em d e d passa a valer 0x12345678.
int *e = (int*)d;

Você esta fazendo com que seu compilador entenda que 0x12345678 aponta para um int (inteiro), entretanto, um int não é do tamanho de 1 byte (sizeof(char) != sizeof(int)), é 4 bytes ou 8 de acordo com a arquitetura.
Assim quando se exibe o valor do ponteiro de tipo inteiro é considerado o primeiro byte que estava em c e os outros bytes consecutivos que estão na pilha (stack) é considerado lixo para o seu inteiro.
Considerando esta situação não é vantagem fazer cast de ponteiro com tipos diferentes.
Fonte.

A: u_char variavel_teste
struct teste *p ;
p = (struct teste *)variavel_teste;

A ultima linha tem erro e o compilador tem de se queixar (com erro ou warning).
O que essa expressao faz é pegar no valor de tipo u_char contido na variavel variavel_teste, converter esse valor para o valor correspondente do tipo struct teste * e atribuir o resultado da conversao a variavel p. Mas nao ha correspondencia entre estes dois tipos de valores e portanto esta conversao é invalida e o compilador tem de se queixar.
Nota que o cast (a conversao explicita) nao é estritamente necessaria pois o compilador é forcado a fazer a conversao automaticamente em atribuicoes de tipos compativeis.
Sugestao: liga o maximo de warnings do teu compilador e tenta fazer sempre compilacoes limpas.


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Cheshire based accident repair centre wins national industry award
Success for Swansway's Crewe-based bodyshop at the glittering Motor Trader Awards 2021!
Family-owned and run, Swansway Group's Accident Repair Centre, has secured the coveted Bodyshop of the year 2021 at the Motor Trader industry awards, held at London's famous Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane on Tuesday 30 November.
The award was presented at a glamorous awards dinner by celebrity host Jon Culshaw followed by a welcome opportunity to network with motor retail industry colleagues and peers after a long absence.
David Smyth, Swansway Group Director commented, "I'm absolutely delighted with this achievement. Everyone in the industry is aware of how challenging the conditions have been over the last 18 months. This award is a testament to all the resilience, commitment, flexibility and hard work delivered by the Swansway Accident Repair team members across all disciplines – and for that I thank them."
Swansway Group was also delighted to be "Highly Commended" in the Dealership Group of the Year category at this year's Car Dealers Used Car Awards on 29 November 2021.
Windermere chef heads North to equip Carlisle pupils with culinary skills
Sedbergh pub offers festive welcome to homeless veterans


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Fast Food Theft Results in a Federal Case
Two people are finding themselves in legal trouble after they allegedly used a black rifle to steal nearly $220 in cash from a pair of popular fast food restaurants in Miami Gardens and North Miami-Dade. The robberies occurred as the two were in the drive-thru.
Both people are being charged with a Hobbs Act Robbery in Miami federal court and using a weapon in support of a violent crime. One of the two had already been charged with possessing a weapon as a criminal. In 2015, he was found guilty of burglary with assault, grand theft, and possession of burglary devices.
The pedestrian theft pair for a fairly small sum was upgraded to federal court by prosecutors who deemed the alleged crime as theft under the Hobbs Act. This is a theft that affects interstate trade. By principle, theft from a chain store, or any company that delivers or receives products or services across state lines, may be a Hobbs Act robbery.


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Comments Off on New Zealand Institute of Surveyors Welcomes New President
institute of surveyors, jeffrey alan needham, lands and survey departemnt, presidency
New Zealand Institute of Surveyors Welcomes New President
Jeff first joined NZIS in 1994 and is someone who is passionate about the profession; he sees opportunities for surveyors as advocates for the land, for the people and for the future of NZ.
Jeff brings a wealth of experience to the Presidency. He was first appointed to the Council in 2007 where he took on responsibility for the Membership Services Committee and has served on Boards of Enquiry. He was voted as the President-Elect in 2012 during his tenure as Vice President. In 1996 Jeff was awarded the Percy Dyett Prize for Best Engineering Plans in Registration Examinations.
Jeff's early professional experience comes from employment with the Lands and Survey Department, late becoming the Dept. of Survey and Land Information (DoSLI), Murray North Ltd and Natural Gas Ltd in the Waikato. It was during this time that he gained his NZ Certificate in Land Surveying an later a Bachelor in Surveying, 1993.
After university Jeff held various positions throughout the North Island during which he gained the experience necessary to become a Registered Surveyor in 1997.
In 1999 Jeff moved south to Wellington taking up a role of NZIS Stakeholder Representative on the LINZ Landonline project. He was subsequently appointed Customer Strategy Manager in 2002. During this time of significant change and challenge for the profession, Jeff had the opportunity to travel the country, talking to surveyors about what was needed in Landonline and ensured that the profession was represented in the implementation of this world first automated land survey and titles registration system.
In 2002 Jeff presented a paper titled The Benefits of Stakeholder Involvement, based on his experience within the Landonline project to the FIG XXII International Congress in Washington USA.
Since returning to professional consulting in 2005, Jeff has held positions as Principal with Tse Group in Wellington, subsequently becoming Spiire NZ Ltd and more recently, following a stint assisting in the expansion of a national radio backbone for TeamTalk Ltd, Jeff has taken on the role of Land Development Manager at Harrison Grierson in Wellington.
Jeff lives in Wellington with his wife Carleen and two daughters.
He sees the next two years as an opportunity to broaden the NZIS to encompass all professionals working with land information and measurement science and promote the highest ideals of the profession for the benefit of the members and New Zealand society.
About NZIS
New Zealand Institute of Surveyors (NZIS) is the professional body for Surveyors and GIS/Spatial Professionals in New Zealand. It is a national organisation with a National Office based in Wellington.
Surveyors and GIS/Spatial professionals are involved in all aspects of land subdivision, data capture and development.
The Institute promotes ethical and professional conduct amongst members, aims to raise public awareness of the knowledge, skills and importance of the profession, whilst representing the interests of members and the community.


Nobuaki Doi was born in 1981 in Tokyo. The festival director of New Chitose Airport International Animation Festival. He writes numerous articles on animation (mainly short or independent films). He is active as a member of selection committee or jury in national and international contest or film festivals and also as a curator of Japanese independent animation. As a head of a company called New Deer, he is responsible for a distribution of international animation. "A Travel Guide to World Animation" (Aki-Shobo publishing), Doi's first book, will be published in Autumn in 2015.
Born in Fukuoka prefecture, Japan in 1972. Graduated from Kyushu Institute of Design, and finished Image Forum's workshop. He has published animation and media art works since 2000, such as "U-SA-GUI", "Scripting Ghost", "Room with a view – a story concerning borders or skin", "ombre jack", "DIGITAL-CINECALLIGRAPHY" and so on. A lecturer at Hokkaido University of Education at present.
Filmmaker, Born in Kushiro, based in Sapporo Hokkaido, Japan. active as a scholar in the field of visual media and as an artist whose focus mainly on the theme of dissecting and reconstructing the composition of moving image. His major works are "Thinking Dot", "A Found Beach -omnibus-", "Mind Mounter" and so on. Views visual media tools of personal expression and is involved in local activities such as screening and workshops. Association lecturer at Hokkaido Information University in Japan 2008-Present.