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Timings : 20 October 2019
Thimithi, Singapore Overview
How far would you be willing to go in the name of religion? Do you ever wonder if your soul is pure enough to be able to walk on fire without being scathed or are you scared of perishing immediately? Every year, thousands of faithful devotees walk barefoot across a long stretch of burning charcoal as an offering to the goddess Draupati Amman or Draupadi. Believed to be an incarnation of Goddess Mariamman, Draupati Amman was the only wife of the five Pandavas in the Mahabharata epic. Once a year, the chant of 'Om Shakti' reverberates in the air, the environment is electrifying, and the smoke of the hot burning charcoal encompasses the surroundings. The loud blare of the drums and the rising flames create a divine atmosphere while throngs of people watch or participate in this festival. This fire-walking ceremony, held once a year, is popularly known as Thimithi.
With its roots in Tamil Nadu, this Hindu festival has its branches spread all the way to Singapore where it is celebrated with great pomp and pomposity. Thimithi is basically a small part of a larger ceremony which stretches over two months. During this period, various scenes of the great epic Mahabharata is re-enacted by hired drama troupes who are accompanied by the devotees. Thimithi falls on the month of Aipasi of the Tamil calendar which is usually a week before the Festival of Lights, Deepavali.
The birth of Thimithi
Draupadi was a charming princess who was married to five Pandava brothers. From the revered queen, she turned into a scapegoat when she was dragged to the court of the Kauravas and harassed after her husbands lost her in a gambling game of dice. Following the tragic incident, Draupadi took an oath not to comb her hair until she cleansed her tresses with the blood of one of the Kauravas. The Pandavas, in a fit of rage, waged one of the most destructive wars against the Kauravas and killed them all in the Kurukshetra War.
Draupadi was accused of being the sole cause of the horrific bloodshed even though there were several other factors which had led to the war. However, the catastrophic war was not the end of misfortune in the Mahabharata. Draupadi was made to walk on burning cinder to prove her chastity and fidelity, and purify herself of all that had defiled her. She passed the fire unscathed and proved her virtue. Since then, the devotees of Draupadi have been worshipping the deity by going through what she had to face and dedicating the day of Thimithi to her.
When is Thimithi celebrated in Singapore?
Falling in October or November, Thimithi is celebrated every year in a festive manner. In 2019, this religious festival is to be celebrated on the 20th of October.
How is Thimithi celebrated in Singapore?
The ceremonies of Thimithi last for around two and a half months and are conducted in the magnificent Sri Mariamman Temple of Singapore. On the first Monday of the month Aadi of the Tamil calendar, which corresponds to July or August in the Gregorian calendar, the ceremony commences. To mark the beginning, a huge flag with a picture of Lord Hanuman is hoisted within the premises of the temple. For the next two days, scenes from the Mahabharata are enacted in the evenings. Following this tradition, a symbolic marriage ceremony between Draupadi and Arjuna is conducted in a beautiful, elaborate manner.
Before the new moon of the next month Purattasi, corresponding to September and October, the Aravana Puja is conducted to honour Arjuna's son, Aravana for sacrificing himself to the Gods to ascertain the triumph of the Pandavas in the war. The devotees plant a trident beside the shrine of Aravana to commemorate the war that lasted for eighteen days. A grand chariot procession is conducted around Bukit Tamah and Telok Blangah on the weekend prior to a month of the main festival. Keesaka Samharam is an important rite which takes place about a month before Thimithi. This ritual portrays the death of Keesaka, who was slain by Bheema due to his attempts of seducing Draupadi.
As the day of the fire-walking ceremony closes in, the worshippers carry milk pots to the temple and perform Kumbiduthandam, which signifies prostrating after every three steps. Angapirathatchanam, which means rolling around the complex of the temple, is also a common ritual among the male devotees. On the day of the main festival, the grand fire-walking ceremony takes place after the initial prayers and rituals. Later in the evening, a silver chariot procession solely dedicated to Draupadi is taken out through the city to allow the devotees to offer their prayers and seek blessings.
Even though the festival reaches its crescendo with the fire-walking, Thimithi is terminated two days later, during which the final chapter of the Mahabharata is recited and the triumph of the Pandavas is portrayed by hosting a crowning ceremony of the eldest Pandava, Yudhishthira. As the festival ends, the flag is also lowered.
Highlight of the Thimithi festival
The apex of Thimithi is undoubtedly the elaborate rituals of the fire-walking ceremony. In the morning, a fire pit, approximately three metres long, is dug within the premises of the sanctuary. In close proximity to the pit, the devotees dig a smaller pit into which milk is poured for the walkers to dip their feet in. The chief priest lights the fire with pieces of sandalwood and the coal inside the pit starts burning. After the initial ceremonies and prayers, the priest ties a yellow string to all the people participating in the fire-walking ceremony. The fire-walkers have to complete a mandatory walk from the Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple to the Sri Mariamman Temple which lies at a distance of not less than five kilometres from the former.
The flames of the fire pit can rise up to four metres high, and it becomes difficult to even stand near it. Drums, conches, bells and cymbals fill the air with loud music. The tradition begins with the chief priest walking along the length of the pit with a pot filled with water, referred to as the karakattam, balanced on his head. He is followed by the male believers, each awaiting their turn to cleanse their souls. After the ceremony comes to an end, the fire is extinguished using water and milk.
Where in Singapore is Thimithi celebrated?
Sri Mariamman Temple is beautifully embellished during Thimithi and is thronged by hundreds of worshippers on the day of the festival.
Located on the South Bridge Road in Chinatown, this holy place of worship can be reached by taking the bus 61, 166, or 197 and getting down at the bus stop right at the opposite side of the temple. If you prefer the MRT, you can embark on the one to Chinatown Station, take the Exit A which is only two minutes away from the temple.
Thimithi is an unconventional festival celebrating the virtue and chastity of the Goddess Draupati Amman and every other woman in this world. It is a celebration of the victory of womanhood over the ones who attempt to defile her. The wonderful ceremony and the dedication of the devotees should surely be witnessed at least once in a lifetime. It is truly an unforgettable experience.
Photos of Thimithi
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There's nothing more comforting than a casserole dish, am I right? Casserole dishes are perfect to bring to someone who could use something to brighten their day. It is perfect for someone who is recovering from surgery or for someone who just had a baby.
How do you make a pizza pasta casserole in the oven?
While some of this pasta casserole is made on the stove top, like browning the meat and boiling the noodles, the rest is created in the oven. Once the dish is assembled, it is baked in the oven to bring all of the flavors together and melt the cheese. This brings the dish together.
Can you make a baked pasta casserole ahead of time?
Yes. You can make baked pasta casserole ahead of time and then reheat it later. If you want to make Pizza pasta casserole for a freezer meal, I recommend that you do not bake it. I would assemble it to the point right before baking, and then wrap it with plastic wrap and then a layer of aluminum foil. You can freeze this recipe for up to three months.
using fresh basil, basil goes with anything tomato related!
adding in chorizo or ground sausage to the dish will add a slightly different flavor to this dish.
adding in hot peppers will give this dish some heat. Since you are in control of how many peppers you add, you can decide how much heat to add.
hide in spinach by cooking it down in pasta sauce on the stove while the noodles are boiling.
If you enjoy my recipe for Supreme Pizza Pasta Casserole, you should try out two of my other favorite easy to make and lightened-up casserole recipes, my Stuffed Pepper Casserole, and Tex-Mex Casserole with Beef and Pasta.
Can you put uncooked pasta in the oven?
I have put uncooked pasta in the oven. It increases the cook time and you will need additional sauce. It can also change the texture of the noodles. I do not recommend using uncooked pasta in this recipe.
Bring a large pot of salted water to boil over high heat. Cook the pasta to al dente according to the package directions. Drain and set aside. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, cook the ground beef until no longer pink, 7 to 8 minutes.
Use a wooden spoon to break the beef up as it cooks. Transfer the beef to a plate and drain any excess fat from the skillet. Add the olive oil to the skillet over medium-high heat. Add the garlic, onion, bell peppers, and mushrooms and cook until the vegetables are softened, 4 to 6 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350° F. Spray a 13×9-inch baking dish or a 14-inch round baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Return the cooked ground beef back to the skillet and mix with the vegetables. Reduce the heat to low. Pour the pasta sauce into skillet. Add the Italian seasoning and mix well. Stir the cooked pasta into the skillet, making sure to evenly coat the pasta.
Transfer the mixture to the prepared baking dish. Top with the mozzarella and pepperoni. Bake uncovered until the cheese has melted, 20 to 25 minutes.
You are going to love how easy it is to put this Supreme Pizza Pasta Casserole dish together for dinner tonight! Bring all your favorite flavors of pizza and a pasta together in one time saving casserole dish!
Bring a large pot of salted water to boil over high heat. Cook the pasta to al dente according to the package directions. Drain and set aside.
In a large skillet over medium-high heat, cook the ground beef until no longer pink, 7 to 8 minutes. Use a wooden spoon to break the beef up as it cooks. Transfer the beef to a plate and drain any excess fat from the skillet.
Add the olive oil to the skillet over medium-high heat. Add the garlic, onion, bell peppers, and mushrooms and cook until the vegetables are softened, 4 to 6 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350° F. Spray a 13x9-inch baking dish or a 14-inch round baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.
Return the cooked ground beef back to the skillet and mix with the vegetables. Reduce the heat to low. Pour the pasta sauce into skillet. Add the Italian seasoning and mix well. Stir the cooked pasta into the skillet, making sure to evenly coat the pasta.


ISLAMABAD: The main opposition parties are contemplating boycott of a planned government briefing on implementation of the National Action Plan (NAP) against terrorism due to the prevailing tense political atmosphere in the country, sources told Sources on Wednesday.
While the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) has already said the party would not participate in the March 28 meeting of parliamentary leaders, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and the Pakistan Peoples Party are also considering the option of boycotting the event, sources said.
The PPP has already suggested to the government to convene an in-camera joint sitting of parliament for the briefing on NAP or military courts.
A source in the PPP said after Wednesday's "brutal police action" against the party in Islamabad, it had become difficult for the leadership to sit with government functionaries at any forum.
Syed Khurshid Shah, the PPP stalwart, confirmed that his party was in consultation with the PML-N to work out a strategy for coming meeting on the NAP. Hinting that the two parties might stay away from the briefing, Mr Shah said the opposition wanted the government to use parliament to discuss national issues.
Shahbaz Sharif, Opposition Leader in the National Assembly, wrote a letter to Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, vice chairman of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, urging him to brief the whole parliament instead of convening a meeting of "selected leaders".
"The collective opposition believes in inclusive decision-making and promoting a sense of collective ownership of all decisions taken in the national interest. It is, therefore, suggested that your proposed briefing be given to the National Assembly so that the country can benefit from the collective wisdom of all parliamentarians instead of selected parliamentary leaders," Shahbaz Sharif wrote in the letter to Mr Qureshi while responding to the latter's invitation letter to him.
Speaking at a news conference after presiding over a meeting of the party's Central Working Committee on Wednesday, JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman announced that his party had previously rejected the NAP and it had decided not to attend the March 28 briefing.
In a invitation letter sent to opposition parties, Mr Qureshi had stated that the meeting of parliamentary leaders was being convened "to underscore our continued commitment to speedy implementation of the NAP, which is clearly in the long-term interest of the people of Pakistan".
Although in the invitation letter there is no mention of the issue of giving extension to military courts, which were set up under NAP to hold trial of civilians charged with terrorism and which are completing their two-year term on March 30, a number of opposition members believe that the main purpose of this activity is to seek their consent for giving second extension to these courts.
Talking to Sources, a senior PML-N office-bearer confirmed that the party was seriously considering the option of staying away from the government briefing.
The opposition parties say they want the government to convene a joint sitting of parliament for briefing on such an important issue. Military courts were established in Jan 2015 and granted permission to try civilians charged with terrorism after the terrorist attack on Army Public School in Peshawar the previous month. The courts remained non-functional in 2017 from January to March after expiry of the two-year constitutional cover.


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text:
The question of belief, part II
[The First part of this essay, on William James' "The Will to Believe," appeared here.]
Last time I examined in detail James' famous "Will to Believe" essay, and found it disappointing to say the least. In fact, it is so badly argued that it is hard to imagine why it is so widely cited (maybe most people who cited it haven't actually read it?), or why it has not contributed to at least questioning James' credibility as a first rate philosopher (he did write plenty of other nonsense, you know).
At any rate, it's now time to turn to an examination of the other classic about belief, this one on the side of skepticism: William K. Clifford's "The Ethics of Belief," published in 1877. I will not spoil anything if I tell you right now that I found it much, much more convincing than James' effort. But let's take a look at the details.
Clifford's essay is divided into three parts: The duty of inquiry, The weight of authority, and The limits of inference. The "duty of inquiry" begins with a couple of hypothetical examples, one concerning a ship owner who has reasons to suspect that his ship needs substantial repairs but who manages to (genuinely, ex hypothesis) convince himself that she can take another voyage at sea. Turns out she couldn't: the ship, cargo and crew are lost, and the owner pockets the insurance with a clear conscience. For a modern equivalent, think of the Wall Streeters who caused the 2008 collapse of the world economy — sans the assumption that they did not know better.
The second example will remind the modern reader of Faux News: it concerns some "agitators" who publish unfounded pamphlets for political-religious purposes, with the aim of discrediting people belonging to another faction. Turns out, there was no factual basis to the agitators' accusations (think Sarah Palin and the "death panels," to pick on one of too many pertinent recent cases).
Clifford makes an important distinction between the truth / falsity of a given notion and whether one has sufficient grounds to believe said notion: "the question is not whether their belief was true or false, but whether they entertained it on wrong grounds. ... Every one of them, if he chose to examine himself in foro conscientiae, would know that he had acquired and nourished a belief, when he had no right to believe on such evidence as was before him; and therein he would know that he had done a wrong thing."
I love the image of a "foro conscientae," and have amused myself thinking that maybe even Sean Hannity has such a locus in his conscience, where he does — however dimly — realize that he is no different from Clifford's agitators. But I quickly concluded that Hannity probably does not have any such foro. Still, the point remains, Clifford frames the issue of belief as a moral one. As he famously put it, in the very same first section of the essay, "it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence."
But why, exactly? On what grounds does Clifford claim that believing something without (or, worse, in spite of) sufficient evidence is not just an epistemic error, but amounts to a moral one? Because "No real belief, however trifling and fragmentary it may seem, is ever truly insignificant; it prepares us to receive more of its like, confirms those which resembled it before, and weakens others; and so gradually it lays a stealthy train in our inmost thoughts, which may someday explode into overt action, and leave its stamp upon our character for ever." That is, bad beliefs, and a general attitude of not looking seriously into the evidence, form a mental habit that leads to un-virtue. You begin by accepting small bullshit, you end up believing in big bullshit. You don't question astrology and horoscopes, you end up believing an unscrupulous politician who tells you that we need to invade another country because it harbors invisible weapons of mass destruction...
Clifford also puts forth a positive case for the morality of examining one's beliefs: "Our words, our phrases, our forms and processes and modes of thought, are common property, fashioned and perfected from age to age; an heirloom which every succeeding generation inherits as a precious deposit and a sacred trust to be handed on to the next one, not unchanged but enlarged and purified, with some clear marks of its proper handiwork. ... An awful privilege, and an awful responsibility, that we should help to create the world in which posterity will live." That is, we shouldn't just be concerned about leaving the world a better place to our posterity in terms of, say, less financial debt and more environmental cleanliness, but also enriched by new truths and cleansed of some previously held baloney.
All right, a reasonable objection might go, but I'm a busy person, I don't have time to investigate every belief I contemplate throughout my life. Clifford's suggestion may be moral, but it surely sounds impractical. Which brings us to the second part of the essay, on "the weight of authority."
Clifford begins by pointing out that there is little actual danger of people falling into a systemic skeptic paralysis as a result of his suggestion that beliefs should be examined against the evidence. To begin with, often we are epistemically on solid ground when we believe something probabilistically, as certainty is far too high a standard in most cases. More importantly, Clifford maintains that we may be entitled to believe things on the ground of someone else's testimony, as long as we have good second-order reasons to think that said testimony is accurate and credible.
A common problem — says Clifford — is that too many people mistake a person's good character for an indicator of the truth of what that person says. His example is a contrast between none other than the prophet Mohammed and the Buddha! Even assuming both people being of good character, "The Prophet tells us that there is one God, and that we shall live for ever in joy or misery, according as we believe in the Prophet or not. The Buddha says that there is no God, and that we shall be annihilated by and by if we are good enough. Both cannot be infallibly inspired; one or other must have been the victim of a delusion, and thought he knew that which he really did not know. Who shall dare to say which? And how can we justify ourselves in believing that the other was not also deluded?" Wow. Remember, this was 1877, way before Richard Dawkins and the New Atheists!
Does this mean that all human testimony is therefore suspect? Not at all: "If a chemist tells me, who am no chemist, that a certain substance can be made by putting together other substances in certain proportions and subjecting them to a known process, I am quite justified in believing this upon his authority, unless I know anything against his character or his judgment." That is, one can believe (to a degree, conditionally, probabilistically) the opinions of credentialed experts in a particular domain, especially if such opinions represent a consensus among those who have expertise in that domain.
The issue of expertise is a complex one, which I tackled a bit in chapter 12 of Nonsense on Stilts. Sometimes there is no consensus among experts (string theory), or the consensus opinion may turn out to be wrong after all (there is no aether), or the domain of expertise itself is actually empty (astrology, theology). Still, the issue is that — other things being equal — your best bet in any given case is to tentatively accept expert opinion unless you are an expert yourself, just like you would bring your car to be fixed by a certified mechanic, unless you yourself know a lot about cars.
What about "the limits of inference," which constitutes the last part of Clifford's essay? The starting point here is that we all make inferences, because even the most basic human knowledge cannot be based only on direct experience. Here is a simple example: "A little reflection will show us that every belief, even the simplest and most fundamental, goes beyond experience when regarded as a guide to our actions. A burnt child dreads the fire, because it believes that the fire will burn it today just as it did yesterday; but this belief goes beyond experience, and assumes that the unknown fire of to-day is like the known fire of yesterday. Even the belief that the child was burnt yesterday goes beyond present experience, which contains only the memory of a burning, and not the burning itself; it assumes, therefore, that this memory is trustworthy, although we know that a memory may often be mistaken."
These are profound observations, pointing out two general features of human inference that ought always be kept in mind: first, it depends on the trustworthiness of our own epistemic tools, in this case memory (but also perception, and of course reason itself). These tools are limited and faulty, which means that no human being can claim perfect knowledge of very much out there. Second, our inferential ability rests on a fundamental assumption about the continuity of the world and the natural laws that regulate it. This is the well known problem of induction raised by David Hume, of course.
Clifford, like Hume, takes a pragmatic approach to the problem: "Are we then bound to believe that nature is absolutely and universally uniform? Certainly not; we have no right to believe anything of this kind. The rule only tells us that in forming beliefs which go beyond our experience, we may make the assumption that nature is practically uniform so far as we are concerned. Within the range of human action and verification, we may form, by help of this assumption, actual beliefs; beyond it, only those hypotheses which serve for the more accurate asking of questions." It is a position that is at the same time extremely powerful and epistemically humble. Yes, using faulty tools and making certain assumptions are unavoidable limitations on human cognition. But has anyone got a better idea? Certainly not the prophets, ideologues and charlatans that infect the air of modern discourse, just as they did in 1877.
Labels: belief, epistemology, William Clifford, William James
Tom August 01, 2012 10:15 AM
Quote: "These [epistemic] tools are limited and faulty, which means that no human being can claim perfect knowledge of very much out there."
Oh yeah? Then how do you explain Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne -- who claim perfect knowledge about nearly everything?
Heath Watts August 01, 2012 12:22 PM
When did Dawkins or Coyne ever claim to have "perfect knowledge" about anything? You are either being disingenuous, twisting their words, or both. As a scientist (geochemist), I would never claim to have perfect knowledge about my field. As a theist, you are observing the world through the lens of theism. Therefore, you seek "perfect knowledge" and you assume that everyone else does, as well. I seek knowledge, so that I can know more about the universe, but there is no such thing as "perfect knowledge". Those who claim that they have "perfect knowledge" about any topic are liars, fools, or both.
Roy August 01, 2012 4:33 PM
From Dawkins' River Out Of Eden, A Darwinian View Of Life, (p.155):
"In a universe of blind forces and physical replication, some people are going to get hurt, others are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference."
Dawkins seems to have precise knowledge, although even though perfect is precise, precise might not for some be perfect.
Moti Mizrahi August 01, 2012 12:13 PM
As admirable as this proposal is (i.e., that, for any p, one should believe p only if one has sufficient evidence for p), it has serious problems that need to be taken into consideration:
1. When to stop? To believe p, I need sufficient evidence q. To believe q, I need sufficient evidence r, and so on, ad infinitum.
2. What counts as sufficient? How much evidence is enough? Not an easy question to answer. I certainly do not want to defend James, but one could interpret him as arguing that, when the stakes are high, even insufficient evidence is good enough.
Massimo Pigliucci August 01, 2012 1:40 PM
Moti,
those are good considerations, but they are addressed by Clifford. That is why he talks about the conditions under which we can trust other people's authority, or when he says that sometimes we need to talk about probabilities of belief.
None of that, however, is any comfort to James, who actually refers to faith, i.e. belief in the absence or even against the available evidence.
Tom August 01, 2012 3:09 PM
Eamon August 01, 2012 10:05 PM
First, evidentialism is not committed to classical epistemic foundationalism -- one can advance evidentialism and espouse a flavor of coherentism, neo-foundationalism, some admixture of some versions of the two, or even something like Peircean pragmaticism / epistemic iteration.
Second, to address your (2) in reverse order, whatever "sufficient" means it seems it must at least mean "good enough". So, I take your final bit to be incoherent.
Now many / most / almost all formal epistemologists want to define "sufficient evidence" in probabilistic terms. Thus, S is justified in holding p if and only if S's evidence e for p at some time t is sufficient :: e makes p at t > .50.
Of course the evidentialist might want to unpack this in detail, but it suffices to present an at first pass plausible account for "sufficient".
Evidentialism
I guess I should add that S is justified in holding p if and only if S's evidence makes p more likely to be true than false at t and S holds p on the basis of the evidence at t.
Moti Mizrahi August 02, 2012 8:49 AM
I'm not sure that your definition really avoids the regress problem.
You write: "S is justified in believing that p iff S's evidence e for p makes p > .50."
Is S justified in believing e? If so, then S is justified in believing that e iff S's evidence e2 for e makes e > .50. Is S justified in believing e2? If so, then S is justified in believing that e2 iff S's evidence e3 for e2 makes e2 > .50. And so on, ad infinitum.
Also, would you say that S is justified in believing that p when S's evidence e for p is such that p = .51?
Eamon August 02, 2012 9:50 AM
Nothing I wrote avoids the regress problem because nothing I said was aimed at avoiding the regress problem.
Re: the regress problem.
First, it's a problem for traditional epistemology, which is in my view (and many other formal epistemologists') an idle intellectual activity unrelated to real issues concerning knowledge, inference, and rational decision making.
Second, even if I were to want to enter into traditional epistemological problems, I would not concern myself with the regress problem because I am not a foundationalist. I find Hasok Chang's idea of epistemic iteration (which is essentially Peircean pragmaticism) much more congenial.
To answer your question in a brief way, yes. S is justified in believing p if and only if S's evidence for p makes p > .50 (and S believes p on the basis of the evidence).
Massimo:
Would you agree that there is a case to be made for belief in the face of the absence of *apparent*evidence?
I'm thinking here of the "split brain" experiments, where the right brain is shown an item hidden to the left brain. When questioned, the person is unable to name the item (the right brain cannot articulate). Yet the person can select the item shown with the hand controlled by the right brain.
In short, you can "know" something without being able to articulate it, or give evidence for why you know it. I suspect that intuition may be made up of this type of knowing.
good point. To begin with, however, please note that split brains are dysfunctional brains, by definition. Normally, the whole brain would have perfectly good reasons to know what one hemisphere claims to know.
Moreover, no, I don't think that's intuition, at least not in the sense in which cognitive scientists think about it. Intuition has more to do with the subconscious massive, parallel processing of information. And it certainly has nothing to do with faith...
Tom August 02, 2012 9:05 AM
While "split brains" are indeed unusual and dysfunctional, I was only offering the experiment as a particular example of a more general principle: it is at least *possible* to have worthwhile knowledge without being able to articulate it or give evidence
for it. I went on to suggest that intuition *may* be something operating in a similar manner for the average
Here's a story from my youth:
One time my older brother walked into the room and I was
suddenly struck with the strong impression that he had
been to the barber shop. This made no sense, as my
brother and I had both been to the barber shop only
a couple of days earlier -- so why should he go again?
But he *did* go again: to buy a bottle of the hair oil
that the barber typically put on us after cutting our
hair. My older brother was staring to notice girls,
and went back to get a bottle of hair oil in order to
try and impress the ladies. This hair oil had a
distinctive scent -- I had smelled the scent, made the
association with the barber shop and came to my
conclusion that he had been there. All very logical
and Sherlock-Holmesian. Except that I wasn't conscious
of the chain of logic -- I merely had a strong intuition.
*Something* (unknown to me) simply screamed "barber shop" to me. If you had asked me why I believed what I did I would have not been able to explain or give a reason any more than a split brain subject could explain why he selected "car keys".
From this experience and the "split brain" experiments
I believe that it may be possible to have worthwhile
and accurate knowledge for which one cannot give evidence. Do you see *no* connection to faith?
True, such intuition may lead us astray. But a wise man
once said that, "[epistemological] tools are [also] limited and faulty, which means that no human being can claim perfect knowledge of very much out there."
Massimo Pigliucci August 02, 2012 10:11 AM
we have all sorts of "knowledge" that we cannot articulate, for instance the calculations necessary for a baseball player to hit a fast approaching ball. (The reason I put knowledge in scare quotes is because in philosophy typically knowledge means justified true belief, and the baseball player can't justify his belief, so we should probably use a different word, which may be the root of our disagreement here.)
Still, no, I don't see any connection between intuition and faith, unless you are using the word faith in a much broader sense than James, which I would not advise, since the term has a standard meaning, sticking to which helps avoid confusion.
Well definitions are tricky (the ghost of Wittgenstein smiles).
I am using the following:
FAITH: belief in the absence or even against the available evidence.
INTUITION: knowing without the use of *demonstrable* rational processes.
KNOWLEDGE: something perceived directly with the senses or the mind.
Under these definitions, couldn't faith be considered as a type of "knowing" (with or without scare quotes) that cannot be articulated but is none the less valid? That is, it is possibly a rational process, but not one that is *demonstrably* rational, and thus should not be dismissed as trash any more than the split brain subject's correct selection of "car keys" should be dismissed as trash simply because he cannot explain it? Faith may be a message sent to us by our right brains that knows something that it is unable to communicate in words.
Massimo, you suggested that the left hemisphere (L.H.) has access to whatever the right hemisphere (R.H.) claims to know. But, is that really true? Has cognitive science conclusively shown that 100% of what the R.H. knows is transmitted via the corpus callosum?
As a thought experiment, suppose that John (R.H.) is mute, but communicates via sign language to Mary (L.H.) who can speak to us. Mary tells us, "John is hungry and would like a chicken sandwich". But, does Mary know 100% of what John is thinking? Suppose John wants mayonnaise on his sandwich, but has no sign (that Mary understands) for "mayonnaise"? Suppose John wants "free range" chicken but John is too lazy to do the tedious symbols needed for "free range"?
Since the L.H. is verbal and the R.H. is non-verbal, it's a good bet that a lot gets lost in the corpus callosum translation. The R.H. may know things that get communicated in other ways: by sending the L.H. a strong impression (faith?).
To ask the R.H. to explain itself in L.H. terms is similar to Winston (an English speaking man) asking Kim (a Chinese speaking woman) the question "how much is 2+2"? If Kim fails to answer (in English!), then Winston concludes that "Kim is an idiot -- she doesn't even know how much 2+2 is"! But Kim may be a Ph.D. in Mathematics and she may know a great deal that she cannot communicate to Winston. Winston is simply applying standards that are arrogant, parochial, and pig-headed (Ah! Why do my thoughts go back to my first post about Dawkins and Coyne?).
Dawkins and Coyne -- never you Massimo! You are always reasonable and open-minded.
Massimo Pigliucci August 02, 2012 12:41 PM
not sure whether your last comment about Dawkins and Coyne is meant as sarcasm or as a compliment, but I choose to interpret it as the latter!
I never said I know for certain that there is 100% communication between the two hemispheres, all I said is that one needs to be careful about extrapolating from a clearly damaged brain to a normally functional one.
I agree with your definitions of faith, disagree slightly with your definition of intuition (as I said, in cognitive science it is usually thought of as the result of massive subconscious parallel processing by the brain, which means that its results can be subjected to rational scrutiny, after the fact), and I definitely disagree with your definition of knowledge (again, for most philosophers the term applies to justified [likely] true belief, meaning that one has to be able to explain why one believes X, or believing in X does not count as knowledge).
Paul Keating August 03, 2012 12:51 AM
Hi Tom, we dont know where our thoughts come from, neurologicaly. they just pop into our awareness from unknown processing in generally sensible sequences. One pop might sequentially lead to another, or at times we might have something pop into awareness that is not strictly sequential (eureka, as opposed to mathematical steps).
You might experience a pop of a vague suspicion as a thought, which has a basis in subtle sensations, and it might be stronger than an idea arising for no reason at all (let's assume it is, as it has some real basis). Anything can pop. The program would be to evaluate the thought, even if its a vague suspicion difficult to pin point reasons for, and find its basis so that we can be satisfied with it (or otherwise) and move on from it. We can move vaguely through life with greater or lesser strength of bases for our vague ideas, or we can attack them and understand how one as an individual tends to call up their passing ideas.
Knowledge is actually just a level of satisfaction in reasoning about 'beliefs' that have any bases (nonsensical or otherwise), and when thoughts pop, our responsibility is to be satisfied with them if we can, or go with them if we trust ourselves from past self-analyses. So, I wouldn't worry about the greater or lesser bases for thoughts. And I don't worry about thoughts just popping from those basis so that we can be aware and work with them. The idea is to be satisfied with them, and that's at different levels for people who are more vague or less vague (an indicator). I try to be less vague but near the edges of knowledge, for example.
Paul, thanks for your comments.
And Massimo, I meant my last line about you sincerely -- I wasn't trying to be sarcastic, but I now realize it could be read that way! Sorry! :-0
J. J. Ramsey August 01, 2012 6:44 PM
"You begin by accepting small bullshit, you end up believing in big bullshit. You don't question astrology and horoscopes, you end up believing an unscrupulous politician who tells you that we need to invade another country because it harbors invisible weapons of mass destruction..."
Somehow that seems like a slippery-slope argument, and I've noticed that it doesn't necessarily work out in practice. Sometimes it does, and you see things like crank magnetism. Other times, well, you get people like Ken Miller and Pamela Gay, who have less than rational beliefs regarding religion, but are sharp people otherwise.
Massimo Pigliucci August 02, 2012 7:58 AM
J.J.,
well, that's an empirical question, though there is evidence that suggests that certain types of beliefs cluster together. Yes, then there are people like Ken Miller, but remember that we are talking about a human social phenomenon, so we are bound to find all sorts of variations. At any rate, I have told Ken that he should apply the same intellectual rigor he uses to dissect Michael Behe to his own beliefs in Catholicism. He smiled.
Justo Xjustice August 01, 2012 10:13 PM
hey massimo
search for "rationally speaking" on youtube
some interesting results
You mean like the "Atheist Mad Man" entry by Nostradamus?

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A new book is offering an alternative history of Australia with the Bible as its central character.
Historian and author Meredith Lake's book, The Bible in Australia: A Cultural History, is released in April. She says when she began the process of looking at how the Bible had been important in Australia's history, she was very quickly hooked.
"Once I started to think about the Bible and what Australians have thought about it, how they've acted on it, how they've fought over it, argued with it and about it, I uncovered a really rich seam of stories that have great explanatory power. It really helped me make sense of the society I'm living in," Lake told Eternity.
Even the Bra Boys, a gang based on surf culture notorious for its role in the Cronulla race riots in 2005, have a Bible verse, "My brother's keeper" (from Genesis 4:9) tattooed on their chests.
Lake tells me the story of Father Dave Passi, one of the original plaintiffs in the historic Mabo court case that recognised native title as part of Australian common law.
"That was their whole argument, really: this is our land, it belongs to our families, we can tell you which clans have which pieces of land, and that was not extinguished by the British. And that argument, which resonated with Father Passi's understanding of the Old Testament, was what overturned Terra Nullius [the assumption that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples had no concept of land ownership before the arrival of British colonisers in 1788.] I just think … really? Is Mabo an example of Indigenous people applying verses of Scripture to their context? To some extent, yes it is. But you'll never learn that in high school.
Lake argues that an understanding of the Bible "is crucial to understanding the way those arguments were made". Yet, she says, biblical literacy is at an all-time low.
Lake says her book isn't a history of churches; nor is it a history of Christian social movements.
In an age when Christians are a declining proportion of society, Lake says the Bible still offers a reservoir of thought, reflection and wisdom that's worth staying in touch with – both within the pages of the book itself, and in the lives and actions of people influenced by its words.
The Bible in Australia: A Cultural History is published by NewSouth Books and will be available in all good bookstores from April.


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Breaking News: Bandido, Flamita and Jack Evans to Appear for AAA in Ecatepec
Posted by Eric Mutter | Jun 22, 2018 | Featured, Featured on Home, News, Partners, Staff | 0 |
Get ready sports fans because AAA is about to come back crazier than ever. After going dark following a wild Triplemania XXVI press conference, the lucha libre promotion announced a full card earlier this week for a July 13th show in Queretaro. But it's the leaking of a potential card for a late July show in Ecatepec that has our interest thanks to three big returns/debuts. First we have the return of Jack Evans, who teams with long time friend/tag team partner Teddy Hart and a Luchador Sorpresa to take on La Mascara, Maximo and long time rival Sammy Guevara. Just as exciting are the appearances of Bandido and Flamita, who team with Aramis in the second match to take on Poder del Norte (Carta Brava Jr., Mocho Cota Jr. and Tito Santana) in what could be a Match of the Year candidate.
As of this moment AAA has yet to confirm whether this is the card (which you can see here for the full lineup) and it's very possible some (or all) of these matches could be changed. If the cards stands, this would be the first ever appearance in AAA for Bandido, who has become one of the most celebrated luchadores in the world thanks to impressive stints in PWG and Dragon Gate over the last few years. Meanwhile it would be the first appearance for both Flamita and Evans in AAA since 2016, when both left over controversial incidents. Flamita, wrestling as Octagon Jr. at the time, departed after getting caught up in the infamous battle between Octagon and AAA over Octagon's gimmick, leading to a wild event at a book signing where Octagon unmasked Flamita with armed bodyguards by his side. Evans meanwhile left after he gave an interview where some interpreted him to be insulting AAA's La Parka, though the situation looks to have been overblown in retrospect. Both men have kept busy, with both men having successful runs in The Crash, Evans continuing to work in Lucha Underground as part of Worldwide Underground (though he appears to be done after season four) and Flamita haing strong runs in PWG and Dragon Gate, where he's often teamed with Bandido.
Regardless of whether this is the card for the show or not, AAA will run out of Ecatepec on July 29th and, like all AAA tapings, will be available to watch on Twitch. Lucha Central will continue to provide updates to this show as we draw closer to the event.
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The Old Bell is an English pub located on Rembrandtplein, it has got a huge terrace and a restaurant. The Old Bell is one of the first of its kind in Amsterdam, being on there for decades.
As far as we know it is the only pub with a web cam, so you can easily see if your friends arrived yet. Watch out; do not tell you are still at office while standing in the reach of this web cam!


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Q: xtick label formatting in pandas when using time index I am plotting a time series in pandas and the index is of type time (meaning it does not contain the date information). What I want to do is format the xtick labels to only show the hour and not minutes and seconds.
import datetime
import random
import pandas as pd
from matplotlib import pylab as plt
%matplotlib inline

#generate a list of random datetime.times
random_time = lambda: (datetime.datetime.strptime("00:00:00", '%H:%M:%S') + datetime.timedelta(minutes=random.randrange(1440))).time()
times = [random_time() for x in range(20)]

#create data frame
df = pd.DataFrame({'times': times, 'counts': [random.randrange(10) for x in range(len(times))]})
df.set_index('times', inplace=True)

df.plot()
#I want tick labels at sensible places, only two here as illustration
custom_tick_locs = [datetime.time(hour=8), datetime.time(hour=16)]
plt.xticks(custom_tick_locs)

Which produces the following plot:

My question is: how can I format the xtick labels to only show the hour? (Or any other format in general?)
I know that using datetime (including both and time) would make things a lot easier. However, since I'm overlaying data from several days I am using only the time. Obviously there might be a way to do that overlaying (so that 1pm is at the same x-position for all days) so if I'm missing an easy solution for that please let me know.

A: Use strftime to compute the labels amd pass them to plt.xticks along with the tick locs:
custom_tick_locs = [datetime.time(hour=8), datetime.time(hour=16)]
custom_tick_labels = map(lambda x: x.strftime('%H'), custom_tick_locs)
plt.xticks(custom_tick_locs, custom_tick_labels)

A: You can do all this automatically with the Matplotlib date API:
from matplotlib.dates import HourLocator, DateFormatter

ax = df.plot() # don't throw away the Axes object
ax.xaxis.set_major_locator(HourLocator(interval=2)) # tick every two hours
ax.xaxis.set_major_formatter(DateFormatter('%H'))

The DateFormatter accepts any strftime string. The advantage of using the formatters and locators is that you don't have to manually deal with the Axes limits. There's lots of different locators and formatters in matplotlib.dates for date and time and in matplotlib.ticker for numbers in general.

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Meaning and origin of the Shakespearean baby name Cominius. Meaning of Cominius. What does Cominius mean? Cominius origin. Information about Cominius.
Meaning of Cominius: 'The Tragedy of Coriolanus.' Titus Lartius, a general against the Volscians.
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text:
Jeitun (Djeitun) es un yacimiento arqueológico del Neolítico en el sur de Turkmenistán, a unos 30 kilómetros al norte de Asjabad, en la cordillera Kopet Dag. El asentamiento estuvo ocupado desde aproximadamente el 7200 hasta el 4500 a. C., posiblemente con breves interrupciones. Jeitun ha dado nombre a todo el Neolítico en las estribaciones del Kopet Dag.

Excavaciones
Jeitun fue descubierta por Alexander Marushchenko y ha sido excavada desde la década de 1950 por Boris Kuftin y Mikhail Masson.

El sitio abarca una superficie de unos 5000 metros cuadrados. Consta de casas independientes de planta uniforme. Las casas eran rectangulares y tenían una gran chimenea en un lado y un nicho frente a ella, así como zonas de patio adyacentes. Los suelos estaban revestidos de enlucido de cal. Los edificios estaban hechos de bloques cilíndricos de arcilla secados al sol de unos 70 cm de largo y 20 cm de grosor. La arcilla se mezclaba con paja finamente picada. Había unas 30 casas que podrían haber alojado a unas 150-200 personas.

Las figurillas de arcilla halladas en Mejergar (Pakistán), un importante precursor de la civilización del valle del Indo, se parecen a las descubiertas en Teppe Zagheh y en Jeitun.

Agricultura
Loa gente de la cultura Jeitun cultivaban cebada y dos tipos de trigo, que se cosechaban con cuchillos de madera o hueso u hoces con hojas de piedra. Se hallaron molinos de mano de piedra y otras herramientas de piedra. El yacimiento parece mostrar las pruebas más antiguas de agricultura en Asia Central.

Los aldeanos ya habían domesticado ovejas y cabras, pero también cazaban para complementar su dieta. Los resultados de la investigación de David R. Harris muestran que, en esta región, no había ninguna de las formas silvestres de trigo farro o cebada que podrían haberse utilizado para la domesticación, por lo que estas se trajeron de otros lugares ya domesticadas. Lo mismo ocurre con las ovejas. En cambio, la cabra salvaje (Capra aegagrus) estaba muy extendida en Asia Central y, por tanto, pudo domesticarse en la zona.

Varios tipos de los primeros artefactos de Jeitun, como figurillas de arcilla, cerámica decorada y pequeñas hachas de piedra, muestran similitudes con los de los primeros yacimientos agrícolas neolíticos de los montes Zagros, como Jarmo (Irak). Esto puede indicar los desplazamientos de los pueblos neolíticos desde el Levante hasta Asia Central, pasando por los montes Zagros.

Es posible que la posterior influencia jeitun se expandiera hacia el sur, a través de los montes Kopet Dag hasta la provincia de Kermanshah y Lorestán, hasta yacimientos como Tepe Guran, Tepe Sarab y Ganj Dareh.

Cultura Jeitun
La cultura Jeitun puede haber comenzado antes del 7000 a. C., a juzgar por la antigüedad de Sang-i Chakmak, el asentamiento más antiguo en el que se han encontrado artefactos de este tipo. En la misma zona de la llanura de Gorgan, otros yacimientos relacionados son Yarim Tappeh (Irán) y Tureng Tepe.

Hay una veintena de yacimientos arqueológicos atribuidos a la cultura Jeitun, y se encuentran a ambos lados de los montes Kopet Dag. Son especialmente comunes en las estribaciones suroccidentales turkestanas de las montañas. Los yacimientos se extienden hacia el oeste hasta Shahrud (Irán) y también hacia el este, hasta el río Hari Rud, que fluye hacia el norte desde Afganistán.

Otros dos yacimientos Jeitun antiguos, Chopan y Togolok, se encuentran en las cercanías.

Monjukli Depe es otro yacimiento donde se han descubierto artefactos de la cultura Jeitun. Es muy importante para establecer la cronología regional.

El periodo Jeitun de Turkmenistán fue seguido por la cultura Anau.

Referencias

Bibliografía

Enlaces externos

Tells
Yacimientos neolíticos
Yacimientos arqueológicos de Turkmenistán

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


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text:
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.", Pablo Picasso
Home news The ROOM#42 launches a crash test for personal data
The ROOM#42 launches a crash test for personal data
To help businesses and organizations to react properly, the ROOM#42 launches a new incident scenario that includes a leak of personal data.
What happens in case of data leak in your business? Have you planned a crisis procedure? Do you know how to detect the problem? How to evaluate its magnitude? How to communicate with your customers? With the Press, with the shareholders? Knowing that you will have to react very fast…
The GDPR has been in force in the European Union for less than a year. And some are still wondering about the proper way to comply.
ROOM#42 is the first simulator putting participants in complete immersion in a cyber incident situation. The goal is for them to test their reactions and procedures. The aim is of course to correct technical, organizational or human flaws through a "life-size" test. At the end of this adrenaline session, a precise and complete debriefing is lavished by the experts of C3*.
The advantage of ROOM#42 over a traditional compliance test is that it takes into account the human factor in all its complexity. Turning the weak link into a strong link is the mission of ROOM#42.
More information on ROOM#42: https://room42.lu/
C3 is the Cybersecurity Competence Center of Security Made In Lëtzebuerg GIE (SECURITYMADEIN.LU), the cybersecurity agency of the Ministry of Economy.
Yolande Roller – yolande.roller@securitymadein.lu
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GSM : 661 603 602
La ROOM#42 lance un crash test pour les données personnelles
Pascal Steichen : regard sur les challenges de la cybersécurité


Did you know that almost all NFL teams are profitable before a single ticket is sold? And did you know that for most of these teams it's public dollars that have made this level of profitability possible? A few weeks ago on Sea Change Radio we discussed some of the environmental advances being championed in the sports industry.
This week's guest on Sea Change Radio, Allen Hershkowitz, is a pioneer in the greening of the sports industry and a senior scientist at the NRDC. Dr. Hershkowitz is working to help decrease the carbon footprint of our nation's sports teams while engaging sports industry leaders to speak up about environmental problems like climate change.
BALTIMORE, Nov. 12, 2013 /3BL Media/ – The Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation, Baltimore Ravens and UnitedHealthcare today celebrated the grand opening of the Park Heights Youth Development Park with a special ribbon-cutting. The construction and development of the park was made possible thanks to funding by UnitedHealthcare through its participation in the CBS EcoMedia WellnessAd program.
TORONTO, Sept. 24, 2013 /3BL Media /PRNewswire/ -- Better The World Inc., a leader in providing technology and services related to corporate giving programs, today formally announced that effective immediately, the company will carry on business as FlipGive.
The rebrand coincides with a major new release of the company's FlipGive platform.
LOS ANGELES, Calif., June 25, 2013 /3BL Media/ - Keilani Ricketts, who uniquely dominated collegiate softball with her pitching and hitting, is the 2013 Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year and recipient of The Honda Cup. Ricketts was presented the prestigious award tonight in a live telecast on ESPNU from USC's Galen Center Founders Club in downtown Los Angeles.
BROOKLYN, November 16, 2012 /3BL Media/ – Ready for college basketball?
Milyoni, Inc. today announced Super Bowl Throwdown Fan page, a commerce-enabled Facebook page for spirited fans of the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts leading up to Super Bowl Sunday. The site demonstrates the powerful capability of Milyoni's new Conversational Commerce app that enables shopping while hanging out in Facebook, representing breakthrough capability for social networking.


text:
Bedwyck
Commander of Icemark
Night's Watch
Bedwyck, nicknamed Giant due to his short height[1], is an experienced ranger of the Night's Watch. He is well-respected by younger members.[2]
Bedwyck is a "hair and a half" over five feet tall, and has streaks of grey in his hair, showing his age.[1] He cannot read, but can write his own name on a good day.[2]
Bedwyck is a crofter's get. He was sent to the Wall for poaching, and has been a Night's Watch ranger for over a dozen years.[2]
Bedwyck is part of the Great Ranging beyond the Wall, led by Lord Commander Jeor Mormont. He is a scout under the command of Thoren Smallwood. Due to his small stature, agility and excellent climbing ability, Bedwyck is used as a look-out by Lord Commander Mormont at Whitetree.[1]
Bedwyck survives the assault by the Others at the fight at the Fist and makes his way to Craster's Keep with the other survivors.[2] Bedwyck stays loyal to the Watch during the mutiny at Craster's Keep and was one of the few survivors of the ranging to make it all the way back to Castle Black.[3]
Bedwyck is part of the force that Bowen Marsh takes when he heads off to fight the Weeper at the Bridge of Skulls.[4]
The new Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, Jon Snow, puts Bedwyck in command of the abandoned way-castle Icemark and gives him a garrison of thirty men. His mission is to restore the way-castle to allow patrols to move about and put eyes on the wall for climbers.[2]
↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 A Clash of Kings, Chapter 13, Jon II.
↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 7, Jon II.
↑ A Storm of Swords, Chapter 48, Jon VI.
↑ A Storm of Swords, Chapter 75, Samwell IV.
Retrieved from "https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?title=Bedwyck&oldid=232781"
Members of the Night's Watch
Characters from Westeros
Rangers of the Night's Watch
Commanders of the Night's Watch
Smallfolk


I am using the formula as specified by casting a date time to a string, then taking a substring of that and using as a parameter to cast to a date. I am doing this in the formula builder to populate a field of datatype date, marked as a calculated value.
Since this wasn't working, I created a new filed, of the text field data type, and tried entering a formula that is simply toString($date_entered) where $date_entered is the datetime field I am trying to work with. This also fails, and neither the new date field nor the new text field are populated. What am I doing wrong? And can someone point me toward the documentation for all data types and functions?
Does that output serve your need effectively?
To confirm the documentation was still accurate, I followed the document linked above in an 8.1.0 Enterprise hosted instance.
I then added these two fields to the module layout then Created a new record.
In the Edit, before saving the new record, the fields show as blank. This is consistent with the formula because the Date Entered is not populated until after the initial save. Since this edit screen precedes that initial save, there is no data to copy.
The Date type field has changed automatically because the user profile setting impacts the translation of al Date and DateTime type fields.
The textfield type still shows the old format because this was the content of the string the last time the formula ran.
Note the above shot is in Edit, where we might expect the formula to dynamically update. It does not update, though, because the source field, $date_created, is not being changed (it never changes). Therefore, the output of the formula is not going to update until I click Save.
Thank you Patrick. I started over from the beginning, as your results exactly mirrored what I expected. I am also working from an Enterprise 8.1.0 system, although it is a UAT environment.
What I had seen before was after adding the fields to the module layout and entering the formulas for the new fields (exactly as you have above), those fields would never be populated and new records could no longer be saved if I left them as calculated fields (I'm assuming some sort of error was being thrown in the background). I removed the fields and started over from the beginning.
I'm not sure what changed, but it works exactly as expected now. I can validate that the steps you took above returned the expected results in the UAT system. Thanks for your help!


Sapodilla (Manilkara zapota) is a tropical member of the Sapotaceae family. The origin of sapodilla is Mexico (Yucatan Peninsula) and Central America during the pre-Columbian era. Over time, sapodilla was introduced to other parts of the world. Today, the fruit is cultivated under a wide range of tropical and subtropical climatic conditions. The Philippines, India, and Mexico are the main world producers, respectively (IBPGR 1986).
Sapodilla may have been introduced into Florida from the Bahamas in the 1800s (Ledesma 2013). Commercial sapodilla production in the United States occurs in south Florida. There are numerous cultivars, with the bearing season in Florida extending from February to September (Campbell et al. 1997; Campbell and Ledesma 2002; Crane et al. 2016). A mature tree yield ranges from 150 to 400 pounds of fruit, depending on cultivar, planting density, and cultural practices. Major commercial cultivars include 'Alano', 'Hasyá', 'Morena', 'Prolific', and 'Tikal'. South Florida commercial sapodilla production area is estimated at 150 acres (Crane, personal communication). Assuming a planting density of 100 trees per acre, a conservative yield of 6,500 pounds per acre (Coronel 1991), and an average F.O.B. Homestead price (i.e., the price at the packinghouse) of $2.73 per pound, the crop is worth about $2.6 million at the farm gate level.
This publication provides an estimate of the costs and returns associated with an established sapodilla orchard in south Florida. The information presented here is based on a wide range of production practices collected through field interviews with growers and industry specialists and, as such, is intended only as a guide to estimate the financial aspects of operating an established sapodilla grove.
Please note that sapodilla has been assessed by the UF/IFAS Invasive Plants Working Group as potentially invasive in south and central Florida.
Do not plant sapodilla trees in home landscapes or in commercial groves abutting natural areas.
Reduce on-farm habitat (e.g., unmanaged areas of the grove) suitable for wildlife attracted to and capable of consuming sapodilla fruit and moving seed to natural areas.
Surround commercial plantings of sapodilla trees with fencing to reduce or prevent wildlife intrusion.
Bury, crush, or compost sapodilla fruit not consumed to prevent wildlife from eating it and transporting the seeds.
Move harvested fruit either in covered vehicles or under tarps.
For more information, visit the UF/IFAS Assessment of Non-Native Plants in Florida's Natural Areas (https://assessment.ifas.ufl.edu/) and the UF/IFAS Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants (https://plants.ifas.ufl.edu/).
Using the following assumptions, Table 1 shows the average annual costs and returns associated with operating a one-acre sapodilla grove. The budget and production cost items are for a one-acre orchard on a per-year basis. Given that tropical fruit growers in south Florida own the land, a rental cost of $500/acre/year is used for the opportunity cost of the land. Due to the diversity of cultural practices and managerial styles found, average costs and returns are reported for the present analysis.
Under south Florida conditions, sapodilla plantings are spaced 25 to 30 feet between-rows and 15 to 20 feet in-rows, resulting in a planting density ranging from 72 to 145 trees per acre. The present analysis considers a density of 100 trees/acre (Figure 1).
Yield — On the basis of the information provided by growers, yield ranges from 5,000 to 8,000 pounds per acre per year; hence the average marketable yield is about 6,500 pounds per acre per year.
Sapodilla Prices — The average F.O.B. (Homestead) price for sapodilla is estimated at $1.80 per pound. This value is calculated from the prices growers received from packinghouses in 2016.
The major components of the production costs (or variable costs) include hired labor (74%), fertilizers (9%), insecticides (4%), and fungicides (3%), respectively. Production costs total $3,217 (about $0.49 per pound).
Irrigation — Mature sapodilla trees are somewhat drought tolerant but produce best if irrigated periodically from flowering through harvest (Crane et al. 2016). Average irrigation expenses comprised of fuel or electricity costs are estimated at $70/acre/year.
Fertilization — Fertilizer treatments for mature trees include applications of 6-6-6 fertilizer (nitrogen, phosphate, and potash), soil-drench applications of chelated iron, and minor element foliar sprays. Average fertilization costs (material only) are estimated at $288/acre/year.
Pest Management — Sapodilla has relatively few insect pests of economic importance (Crane and Mossler 2013). Pests of importance include several moth species, such as Banisia argutula, which causes extensive damage to blooms and fruit (Martinez et al. 2017). There are no major sapodilla diseases of importance in south Florida; diseases that cause minor damage include leaf rust (Uredo sapotae), septoria leaf spot (Septoria sp.), and dry rot (Fusarium solani). Weed management practices include herbicide applications, hand weeding, and mulching (Crane et al. 2016). Average agrochemical costs (materials only) are estimated as follows for insecticides ($127/acre/year), fungicides ($100/acre/year), and herbicides ($92/acre/year), respectively.
Labor — Besides wages, labor includes agricultural input application costs (e.g., fertilizers and agrochemicals) and cultural operations costs (e.g., irrigation, pruning, and mowing). Labor costs are estimated at $2,387/acre/year.
Interest on capital — This is the cost of borrowing money or the opportunity cost for using equity. A rate of 5% was considered in the present analysis.
These are the costs incurred even if no fruit is produced. They include cash overhead costs (e.g., insurance and taxes), non-cash overhead costs (e.g., land rent), and other overhead costs (e.g., machinery use, electricity, telephone, computer, and other office expenses) which are estimated at $1,125. Although growers own the land, the going rate of $500 per acre for land rental is used to reflect the opportunity cost of the land. Including the land rental charge, total fixed costs are estimated at $1,625/acre/year ($0.25/pound).
Sapodilla harvesting is a time-consuming process because it requires detailed inspection to pick the fruit at the right maturity level (Figure 2). Fruit picked at optimum maturity usually ripen in 4 to 10 days. Trees may have harvestable fruit year-round, with the main season varying with the cultivar (Crane et al. 2016). The cost for harvesting and marketing sapodilla is estimated at $451/acre/year ($0.07/pound).
Figure 3 illustrates the magnitude of the costs by category, and their respective share of the total. Production costs (e.g., pruning, fertilization, and pest control) account for 59% of the total cost, followed by fixed costs (30%), harvest and marketing cost (8%), and interest on capital (3%), respectively.
The information provided in Table 1 shows that the total cost to produce and market one acre of sapodilla is estimated at $5,293/acre/year ($0.81/pound). Based on an average marketable yield of 6,500 pounds/acre and the average F.O.B Homestead price (delivered to the packinghouse) of $1.80/pound, the total receipt or gross revenue is $11,700/acre/year.
Subtracting total variable cost (total production cost plus harvesting and marketing cost) from total revenue, we obtain a gross margin of $8,032/acre/year ($1.24/pound) which exceeds by far the gross return of other tropical fruits grown in the area, such as avocado ($0.15/pound). The gross margin provides a useful indicator of short-term profitability. A positive gross margin implies that all variable costs have been covered by the income generated and that additional funds remain to cover some or all of the fixed costs.
A negative gross profit implies that a business is not viable in the short term, and changes are needed to continue operating. Many growers are only concerned with the gross margin. However, while the gross margin provides an indication of return to the grower, it does not include fixed costs and, hence, is not a true reflection of the long-term viability of the business.
Net return is obtained by subtracting the fixed cost from the gross margin and is used to measure the long-term profitability of the farming operation. Table 1 shows a net return of $6,407/acre/year ($0.99/pound), still a very attractive economic return compared to other tropical fruit crops in the area.
Fredy H. Ballen, Aditya Singh, Edward A. Evans, and Jonathan H. Crane, UF/IFAS TREC.
Table 2 presents an analysis based on gross margin (gross profit) per acre, and the short-term economic viability of a sapodilla grove operation. Under the best-case scenario, where both price and yield are assumed to increase by 10%, gross margin per acre would increase from $8,032/acre to $10,489/acre. Under the worst-case scenario, where both price and yield decrease by 10%, gross margin per acre would decrease from $8,032/acre to $5,809/acre. The information presented in Table 2 can be interpreted in a similar manner to that presented in the subsequent Table 3, noting that this is with respect to gross profit, which ignores the fixed cost estimates.
Table 3 presents a similar analysis based on net returns to a grower on a per-acre basis. Under the best-case scenario where both price and yield are assumed to increase by 10%, net return per acre would increase from $6,407/acre to $8,864/acre. Under the worst-case scenario, where both price and yield decrease by 10%, net return per acre would decrease from $6,407/acre to $4,184/acre. Other combinations of changes of prices and yields and their impact on net return per acre are also shown in Table 3. However, it should be noted that at the industry level, a noticeable increase in production usually results in a decrease in the price received by the growers.
The average net return obtained from an established sapodilla grove in south Florida is about $6,407/acre, or $0.99/pound. The size of the net return makes this minor tropical fruit crop an interesting option compared to other tropical fruit crops grown in the area. However, it is important to remember that the information presented in this document refers to an established grove. We do not consider the profitability of establishing a new sapodilla grove, which includes land acquisition and development, planting costs, amortized capital costs, etc. Because sapodilla is a niche market, any sizable increases in production may result in market saturation and reduced prices.
Campbell, R.J., and N. Ledesma. 2002. "The sapodilla and green sapote's potential in tropical America." Proceedings of the InterAmerican Society of Tropical Horticulture 46: 55-56.
Campbell, R.J., G. Zill, and H. Mahdeem. 1997. "New sapodilla cultivars with commercial potential." Proceedings of the InterAmerican Society of Tropical Horticulture 41: 215-218.
Coronel, R.E. 1991. Manilkara zapota (l.) P. van Royen. In Plant Resources of South-East Asia, No. 2: Edible Fruits and Nuts, edited by E.W.M. Verheij and R.E. Coronel, pp. 220-223. Wageningen, Netherlands: Pudo–DLO.
Crane, J.H., and A.M. Mossler. 2013. Florida Crop / Pest Management Profile: Mamey Sapote and Sapodilla. ECIR1414. Gainesville: University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/PI/PI05400.pdf.
IBPGR 1986. Sapodilla. Genetic Resources of Tropical and Sub-tropical Fruits and Nuts. Rome: IBPRG (International Board for Plant Genetics Research). http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNAAW619.pdf.
Ledesma, N. 2013. Sapodilla (Chiku) as a Delicate Dessert. Coral Gables, FL: Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden. http://www.fairchildgarden.org/news-pressroom-media-center/articles/artmid/515/articleid/973.
Martinez, J.I., J.E. Hayden, J.B. Heppner, J.E. Pena, L. Xiao, and D. Carrillo. 2017. "Banisia argutula (Lepidoptera: Thyrididae) is the dominant Sapodilla borer in southern Florida." Florida Entomologist 100(1): 57-62. http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1653/024.100.0110.
UF/IFAS. 2017. Assessment of Non-Native Plants in Florida's Natural Areas. Gainesville: University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. http://assessment.ifas.ufl.edu/.
This is EDIS document FE1015, a publication of the Food and Resource Economics Department, UF/IFAS Extension. Published December 2017. Visit the EDIS website at http://edis.ifas.fu.edu.


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Two chippies vie for £25,000 makeover
Two fish and chip shops are in the running to win a £25,000 makeover of their premises courtesy of online food delivery platform Deliveroo.
Surbiton Fish and Chips in Kingston-upon-Thames, south west London, and Mario's Plaice in Glasgow have made the shortlist after being chosen by a panel of judges from over 500 restaurants that entered. They are joined by four further restaurants including a Mexican and an Indian.
Surbiton Fish and Chips has been open since 1984, making it the oldest, established fish and chips shop in Kingston-upon-Thames. If it wins, owner Xiaoniu Yuan - known locally as 'Hank' - wants to give half the money to schools in the local community and use the other half to change the tables in the restaurant.
Mario's Plaice is run by a family of third generation friers and offers classics in addition to battered Mars bars and battered pizza. If it wins, it will be installing a new frying range.
Deliveroo is now calling on Brits to vote for the restaurant they believe should win the restaurant makeover competition at www.deliveroorestaurantmakeovers.co.uk by the end of today (Thursday 8th August).
Deliveroo's Restaurant Makeover project was launched to support independent restaurants and the Great British highstreet.
Justin Landsberger, commercial director at Deliveroo, said: "We're really excited to launch this competition and give independent restaurants around the UK the chance to win an exciting £25,000 makeover project. The shortlist includes six incredible restaurants with amazing stories and we're looking forward to seeing who our customers vote to win."
Since Deliveroo launched in 2013 it has created 25,000 jobs in the UK restaurant industry, with 32% of these jobs being in the independent sector.


So, it's December 29th and you don't have a date for New Year's Eve. Or maybe you want to start the 2019 celebrations early. Or maybe you just want to meet fun people on a guided Crawl that delivers maximum enjoyment. Whatever the reason, all you need is a mask and a smile to join our last Bar Crawl of 2018. Dress code is casual, but we never mind if you want to dress things up a little. It's going to be legendary! We've got our infamous Crawler Party Bus on stand-by to shuttle you from bar to bar. Bars to be announced soon. Our curated events are more than just drinking. We vet each bar for optimal levels of fun and keep the party going on our entertainment infused buses. We also organize bar games from beer pong to flip cup to corn hole, for a chance to win additional drink vouchers and tickets to local events, shows and attractions. So bring your crew or make new friends, discover new places, win cool stuff and have a good old time!
– Free Welcome Shots – 1 free welcome shot at every bar!
– Free Transport – Party Bus!


Dimensions 0.50 by 7.50 by 10 in.
World politics; 1945-1989; Juvenile literature.
Amazon.com description: Product Description: The Cold War was a conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union that partly manifested itself as a race to conquer space. The Soviet Union launched the first satellite into orbit in 1957, while twelve years later the United States put the first humans on the moon. Some of the many technological feats required for space travel trickled down into everyday life, such as satellite television, bar codes, and joysticks. This resource highlights innovations that arose from the Cold War, demonstrating how this long conflict helped shape todays world in some positive ways.


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International Tennis Icon, Health & Fitness Advocate, Former World #1 Doubles Player and #8 Singles Player; Former Co-Host on NBC's "The Biggest" Loser (2011), Named to the Forbes "Power 100" in 2000
Anna Sergeyevna Kournikova was born in Moscow, Russia,and received her first tennis racket at the age of 5. She began playing two times a week via a children's program and entered a professional tennis academy two years later, dividing her time between her studies and tennis instruction. In 1986, Kournikova joined the Spartak Tennis Club, where she met Larissa Preobrazhenskaya, one of Russia's top instructors, who saw raw talent and began coaching the budding athlete.
At 10 years old, Kournikova signed a management deal and hopped on a plane to Florida to begin training at the renowned Bollettieri Tennis Academy in Bradenton. She made her professional tennis debut at age 14 in the Fed Cup for Russia, where she was the youngest player to compete and win. Kournikova made her Grand Slam debut at just 15 years old when she competed at the 1996 U.S. Open. She faced top-ranked Steffi Graf (who went on to win the tournament) during the fourth round of competition. Though she did not win, her performance at the U.S. Open was enough to raise Kournikova's professional ranking from No. 144 to No. 69. That same year, she joined her fellow Russian athletes to represent their country at the Olympic Games in Atlanta, GA.
At 16, Kournikova became the second woman in her sport to reach the semifinals round during her debut appearance at Wimbledon, considered the sport's most prestigious tournament. Facing Swiss-born Martina Hingis in the semifinals, she eventually lost the game, but tennis experts were wowed by Kournikova's footwork, speed and aggressive baseline play whenever she took to the court. These same groups also criticized her for making too many unforced errors during matches and for wearing rather provocative uniforms.
Ironically, Kournikova won her first Grand Slam title in the women's doubles with Hingis as her partner. The pair finished first during the 1999 Australian Open. Kournikova and Hingis were again crowned the Australian Open women's doubles champions in 2002. Kournikova retired from professional tennis in 2004 due to chronic lower back trouble, yet she frequently competed in exhibition matches for charity.
Apart from her athleticism, even non-sports fans could not help but notice Kournikova's modelesque features. She landed on People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People" list in 1998 and became one of the most-searched athletes on the Internet. Kournikova continued to mine her sexy assets by appearing in various men's magazines like Maxim and FHM, as well as in the highly publicized Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue" in 2004. The tennis bombshell made her feature acting debut with a cameo in the Farrelly brothers-directed comedy "Me, Myself & Irene" (2000) starring Jim Carrey and Renee Zellweger.
Kournikova made a guest appearance on NBC's hit reality series "The Biggest Loser" during a tennis workout challenge. So successful was her appearance, she was invited back to the show the following season, replacing Jillian Michaels as the celebrity trainer alongside Bob Harper. However, after only one season on the hit show, Kournikova announced in November 2011 that she was not returning for the show's 13th season.
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Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera ("Phantom") isn't just a musical — it's the musical. Famous for its dramatic score, elaborate costuming and stage design, iconic title character, and for being the longest running show in Broadway history, Phantom is the musical all other musicals measure itself against. Seeing a performance is considered a must for any musical theater fan.
In 19th century Paris, the cast and crew at the Opera de Paris are rehearsing their latest opera. Unfortunately, a stage mishap occurs — the latest in a series of mysterious accidents occurring over the last three years. Some believe these are no mere accidents but rather the malicious work of the Phantom (Patrick McCormick) lurking about the opera house and extorting money from the owner(s).
This is last straw for resident diva Carlotta (Marlee Tierney), who walks out of the production. With opening night around the corner, a dancer named Christine (Allison Bossart) takes over the leading lady's part. Christine's singing wins over the audience, captures the heart of Raoul (Sean McCrimmon), and catches the Phantom's attention.
Compared to, say, Les Miserables, Phantom's story is actually pretty simple. The romance — a variation on a beauty and the beast tale — is the story. It is not forced to share the run time with twenty other different subplots or set against major historical events. Yet all the dramatics infused into the show make it so much more than just another story about a love triangle.
Every aspect of Phantom is DRAMATIC. As a result there are many memorable set pieces and songs such as "Angel of Music" and "The Music of the Night." Still it can be a little overwhelming when even the ballads are so high energy. Enjoyable as all the spectacle is, it doesn't completely hide some storytelling weaknesses. The secondary characters don't receive a lot of characterization, and the moment the climax hinges on was over and done with a little too quickly.
The cast, crew, and orchestra are all extremely talented. Bossart as Christine and McCormick as The Phantom are flat out amazing. Jordan Halloran and Mathew Rangel in the comic relief roles of the opera house owners are a breath of fresh air. They're funny, and made me realize the comedic bits in Phantom are under appreciated. There were times when it was hard to hear the vocals during the ensemble musical numbers either because the orchestra overwhelmed the vocals or the many voices singing at the same time drowned each other out.
The costumes are a joy to look at — lots of variety, lots of bright colors. It was easy to believe were among the 19th century's equivalent of Hollywood's elite. My favorite costumes of the night are the skeleton costumes Halloran and Rangel wore during the "Masquerade" sequence — funny but stylish.
The set design is splendid. In addition to the physical structures, great use was made of digital backdrops, fog, and pyrotechnics.
All around, this is a very impressive production of The Phantom of the Opera.


Click on the game screen above. Avoid the birds and your own red trail. Fill in at least 80% of the entire screen to proceed to the next level. You have three lives.If you like this game, you will probably also like Bounce.Attention! If you find this too hard, try an easier version of Fillit where you have tocover on 70% of the block with 5 lives. If it's too easy, try the hard version of Fillit with 5 liveswhere you have to cover 90% of the block.


AVINENT's OCEAN range of implants is well known for its advantages in clinical practice thanks to its innovative geometry, stability and surface, which promotes osseointegration.
Eager to continue making dentists' work easier, AVINENT devised a new type of connection for this implant system: a conical connection (CC), which takes its place alongside the existing internal (IC) and external (EC) connections. This conical connection was designed to provide greater versatility in all kinds of cases, dealing carefully with the prosthetic part and the shaping of the soft tissue in the same way.
This connection's prosthetic system has a set of features that make it easier for prosthodontists to obtain optimal emergence profiles in anterior and posterior region cases. There are several reasons for this. First, OCEAN CC has healing abutments with three different diameters (4, 5 and 6 mm). Second, and this is crucial, the conical connection's prosthetic attachment system offers two different types of design based on the final restoration.
AVINENT has designed two groups of attachments for OCEAN CC that make it easier for dentists to handle prostheses when they are engrossed in planning, placing or maintaining the restorations they perform.
There are cases when a set of prosthetic supplements must be used, either because it is the dentist's ultimate goal or because the prosthesis is already defined by the characteristics of the restoration. On these occasions, dental professionals do not always require multiple attachments strictly to place structures. Thus, we see that restorations with transepithelial abutments or overdentures use a single abutment design for optimal functionality. Therefore, we find that we sometimes need single abutments to successfully treat and put the finishing touch on operations with multiple prostheses, even though it may not seem like it.
Although many dentists feel fully comfortable with single abutments when handling multiple structures, others prefer not to use them unless strictly necessary. Thus, for example, Dr. Murillo says that he always works with single attachments "due to their stability and fit, as well as in multiple restorations." Dr. Carrera agrees, explaining that "we tend to use angled transepithelial abutments in multiple attachments and the passivity of the prosthesis is always good." Dr. Miravé, however, prefers to use multiple attachments instead of single ones because, according to his opinion and experience, single ones "limit my movement in positioning the implants too much." Therefore we see that, to a certain extent, the choice of the type of abutment to use is linked to dental professionals' preferences and comfort in their daily work.
The variety in the range of OCEAN CC attachments that AVINENT has made available to the dental sector is one more example of the company's desire to make dentists' work easier. "OCEAN CC is the future," says Dr. Pablo Murillo. "We think it is amazing. It works like a charm," adds Dr. Enrique Carrera. Opinions like these, based on users' daily experience, encourage AVINENT to keep on investigating and lead the way towards more advanced, intuitive and effective dentistry in the 21st century.


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package org.apache.lucene.search;

/** Expert: Default scoring implementation. */
public class DefaultSimilarity extends Similarity {
  /** Implemented as 1/sqrt(numTerms). */
  public float lengthNorm(String fieldName, int numTerms) {
    return (float)(1.0 / Math.sqrt(numTerms));
  }

  /** Implemented as 1/sqrt(sumOfSquaredWeights). */
  public float queryNorm(float sumOfSquaredWeights) {
    return (float)(1.0 / Math.sqrt(sumOfSquaredWeights));
  }

  /** Implemented as sqrt(freq). */
  public float tf(float freq) {
    return (float)Math.sqrt(freq);
  }

  /** Implemented as 1 / (distance + 1). */
  public float sloppyFreq(int distance) {
    return 1.0f / (distance + 1);
  }

  /** Implemented as log(numDocs/(docFreq+1)) + 1. */
  public float idf(int docFreq, int numDocs) {
    return (float)(Math.log(numDocs/(double)(docFreq+1)) + 1.0);
  }

  /** Implemented as overlap / maxOverlap. */
  public float coord(int overlap, int maxOverlap) {
    return overlap / (float)maxOverlap;
  }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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RHONY: Bershan Shaw defends castmate Ramona Singer, says OG 'is not a racist'
Mon Jul 05, 2021 at 1:32pm ET
By Alicea James
Bershan Shaw defends Ramona Singer against racist claims. Pic credit: Bravo
Real Housewives of New York cast member Bershan Shaw is defending Ramona Singer against racist allegations. And as far as the RHONY newbie is concerned, her friend is anything but.
Ramona has come under scrutiny many times over the years for some of her actions and comments that many deem ignorant and in some cases, people have even labeled them as racist. Early on in the season, she got tons of backlash for referring to her catering staff as "the help" a title that fellow newbie Eboni K. Williams took an issue with.
However, as racial topics continue to play out heavily on the show this season, RHONY fans have raised their eyebrows even more at the OG. Now it looks like Ramona has at least one person in her corner and it's her friend Bershan, who made her first appearance on the show last week.
Bershan Shaw says Ramona Singer is not a racist
Bershan had a recent chat with Us Weekly and she defended the long-running Real Housewives of New York star against claims of her being a racist.
"I gotta tell you, Ramona is not a racist," remarked Bershan during her interview. "I'd say this again. Everyone's like, 'She's a racist.' She's not. … We just grew up in different ways, in different areas."
The 47-year-old also tried to add some context to Ramona's behavior by dishing about the OG's upbringing. "Ramona didn't grow up in a diverse area, right?" explained Bershan. "So, Ramona lives in her bubble, right? Her friends. But when we met in the summer, we hit it off. … She's a straight shooter."
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Bershan Shaw says Ramona Singer lives in a bubble
The new friend of the show continued to dish about Ramona Singer during her chat with the media outlet.
Last week, Eboni K.Williams had a dinner party in Harlem for her castmates where she tried to teach them about Black history. However, Ramona had no interest in the topic and even left the party early after claiming that she wasn't feeling very well.
Despite Harlem being very close to the Upper East Side where some of the other women reside, they admitted to never venturing in that part of town. However, Bershan doesn't think that should be a strike against Ramona just because she stays in her Upper East Side world.
"I'm not like, you know, kissing her butt … but she's like a lot of New Yorkers, they stay in their neighborhoods," noted Bershan. "They're here, they're there. I just think she has a world — it's Upper East Side. She goes to the Hamptons. That's her world and that's her own bubble."
The Real Housewives of New York airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on Bravo.
Alicea James
Alicea has an obsession for reality TV and pop culture, and has...read more
Tags Bershan Shaw, Eboni K. Williams, Ramona Singer, The Real Housewives of New York