text:
First female Fields medalist
Off-topic: If you want to learn how – as a conference speaker – you should refer to a very nice blog post in a way that is both accurate and entertaining for the audience, see Suvrat Raju's Strings 2014 talk, 25:40-25:50. Thanks, Suvrat. ;-) Some of the people are laughing because by mentioning "a very nice blog post", Suvrat had offered them too little information – approximately by \(k\ln(6,000)\) because as of today, there are 6,000 very nice TRF blog posts. ;-)
Using the normal distribution, La Griffe du Lion has predicted a female winner of the Fields medal, the most well-known prize in mathematics, to surface once in 103 years. If you have won a Fields medal yourself, you may calculate that four winners are announced every 4 years which means that it's \(4/4=\) one winner per year in average.
After 70 years of the award, we have the first female Fields medalist. Maryam Mirzakhani is Persian, was born in Tehran in 1977, was trained at Harvard and received her PhD in 2004, and is currently a Stanford professor.
Looking at the list of papers, I wouldn't be able to recognize them from some above-average papers in mathematics – but I don't belong to that culture. But she has surely published an impressive amount of papers.
No one cares about men but
The other three winners this year were Artur Avila of France, Manjul Bhargava of Princeton University in New Jersey, and Martin Hairer of the University of Warwick in Britain.
Maryam has been my fellow Harvard Junior Fellow for some time – I think that we even overlapped for a whole year, 2003-2004 – but my memory is limited. I remember her first name, however. Let me admit that I only realized that an hour after I posted the original version of this blog post.
Congratulations to the winners and especially Maryam!
Stephen Dedalus Aug 13, 2014, 7:23:00 AM
I'm here to point that Artur Ávila is brazilian and studied in Brazil most of the time. Nowadays he works both at IMPA (his alma mater) and CNRS.
Courageous Coward Aug 13, 2014, 8:14:00 AM
Maryam Mirzakhani is married to Jan Vondrak who is Czech and an alumni of Charles University (BS in Physics, 1995).
Luboš Motl Aug 13, 2014, 8:39:00 AM
Great, I didn't know. ;-)
Ann Aug 13, 2014, 2:01:00 PM
Congratulations on 6000 great posts, Lubos! Looking forward to the next 6K.
cynholt Aug 13, 2014, 3:04:00 PM
Since Maryam was at first more interested in reading and writing fiction than doing mathematics, I thought she might enjoy Kurt Vonnegut's short clip "On the Shapes of Stories":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP3c1h8v2ZQ
I doubt it's possible for Vonnegut to string 5 words together without getting a chuckle.
Justin Aug 13, 2014, 3:38:00 PM
Maryam Mirzakhani was born in Iran... IRAN!!!!!
How the hell was she able to get on to the Iranian IMO team when women were/are treated as second class citizens compared to men under Islamic law in Iran?
http://www.imo-official.org/participant_r.aspx?id=926
It's really laughable that of all the places on the planet where the first female Field's Medalist comes from it's... ladies and gentlemen...
India? likely
Pakistan? dude, that's an Islamic state
US? almost certainly
Iran? you're on crack, get the hell out of here
Nope, it's.. IRAN! IRAN! IRAN! IRAN! IRAN! IRAN! IRAN! IRAN! IRAN!
(leaves Lubos's blog. screaming and waving hands hysterically... IRAN!...iran!..ir...)
NumCracker Aug 13, 2014, 3:55:00 PM
Lubos, something that needs also to be mentioned: actually Avila is the first brazilian (professor at IMPA, RJ) to be awarded with a Fields medal: http://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20140812-a-brazilian-wunderkind-who-calms-chaos/ ... maybe you could invite him for a post.
Luboš Motl Aug 13, 2014, 3:56:00 PM
Thank you very much, Ann, also for being around for this long time!
Today, I also exceeded 100,000 reputation on Stack Exchange so they want me to pick some "swag".
http://stackexchange.com/catalog
What would you choose? ;-)
SteveBrooklineMA Aug 13, 2014, 4:37:00 PM
This review of Hairer's work is really something:
http://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20140808-in-mathematical-noise-one-who-heard-music/
I wonder these Quanta pieces are a bit over the top. I can't really judge. Congratulations to all the winners!
AJ Aug 13, 2014, 4:37:00 PM
It appears the chances of a woman winning the medal are about the same as that of a Canadian. 2014 was the first for both categories, although it appears Manjul Bhargava was mearly born in Canada. Maybe I can take solace in the fact that the medal was named/founded by a Canadian. That and that there are no Czech winners :)
Somewhat interesting story on how the Fields Medal rose to prominence:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/opinion/sunday/how-math-got-its-nobel-.html
The black jacket and gray hoodie are kind of cool, and fall is coming along soon. But, it's surely your preference. Congrats on the big points!
Blogger Contest - You Can Join Aug 13, 2014, 4:44:00 PM
Blogs with racing you make your blog a candidate to win the promotional prizes. With the support of our sponsors from blogs are organizing events within the first round of our competition. Add your blog and get involved. You refer to your blog. You can find detail information on our website. Thank you for your interested-in.
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Quanta Magazine has a very cute picture of Maryam as a child dressed up as a nurse.
http://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20140812-a-tenacious-explorer-of-abstract-surfaces/
Little girls today don't dress up as a nurse like they used to. They will however dress up as a doctor. I suppose they do this because they have a strong desire to grow up to become a rich and powerful figure in an industry that's awash in cash. But there are a growing number of hospital CEOs that got their start as a nurse. And a growing number of these CEOs are provided with an income that far exceeds that of the highest paid physician at the hospital.
Perhaps if little girls understood this shift in pay from hospital physicians to hospital executives, they would go back to dressing up as a nurse. But they need to be informed that these nurses-turned CEOs aren't real nurses. Very few of them ever took care of a patient at the bedside. And the ones that did were so lousy at it that they had to leave the bedside before they were stripped of their license to practice nursing. They merely obtained a nursing degree in order to increase their odds of landing an overpaid, underworked job in the corporate suite. Health care would be much more affordable and the quality of care would be much better if more healthcare dollars would leave the corporate suite and return to the bedside, where they belong and can do the most good for our healthcare system.
NotYouAgain Aug 13, 2014, 8:57:00 PM
Lubos's brain must have been exploded. How can this fit into his world view?
mmanu_F Aug 13, 2014, 11:13:00 PM
+1 for the national organization for development of exceptional talents in iran. the uprising of most talented children must be a priority for any educational system. they are precious. it reminds me a very nice blog post ;) on ayn rand, where i found something that could totally apply here : i don't hate the low achieving students; i just don't believe they're the best and most important things in life and that their convenience is (or should be) the driving powering the people creativity.
Mitchell Porter Aug 14, 2014, 2:00:00 AM
http://arxiv.org/abs/1108.0174 page 31 forward has Mirzakhani's methods
proving a conjecture of Witten (already proved differently by
Kontsevich).
lukelea Aug 14, 2014, 2:43:00 AM
Would this make her the Ed Witten of the female world?
Apologies, I've seen this excitement elsewhere but I don't understand this excitement at all. Every person is from *some* country and Brazil is large enough to produce some winners but too weak to produce too many winners, so it's to be expected that winners come from similar countries. Maryam is the first Iranian winner, too, is that an equally big deal? A winner is either from a math superpower or not - comparable amounts. In the latter cases, it's rather likely that he or less likely she will be the first from his or her country.
Gordon Aug 14, 2014, 5:55:00 PM
Cynthia: Hospital administrators are like aphids---they clone themselves. Unless you eliminate all of them, the population explodes.
Aphids feed on the sap of phloem vessels of plants. Admin. feed off of the hospital budget, and the results on the hospital organism is the same... :) In 197x, the tertiary hospital where I live had one administrator, one secretary. One could see him to discuss patient care any time. There has been much construction since, but also many bed closures, so the number of active beds is equivalent, and now there are hundreds of administrators. They metastasized and took over the entire nursing school bldg (nursing ed moved to the University). And the people wonder why it takes so long now to get tests, or have surgical procedures....
It's terrible, Gordon. Who is really in charge of the hospitals? And if it's some physicians, why can't they fight this metastasis?
lukelea Aug 16, 2014, 4:32:00 PM
Thanks for linking to Strings 2014, a chance for laymen to listen to the way real physicists talk to each other. I thought Andy Strominger's overview of the state of string theory was particularly good. Steinhardt's review of BICEP 2 and of inflation in general seemed persuasive to me; were there flaws in his argument?
Dear Luke, concerning Steinhardt, do you mean this talk?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RpwuHOHiB4
Sorry, after 6 minutes or so, I got so upset that I won't be able to complete watching this junk. Witten said that Steinhardt was the bad cop. Oh, really? Is Steinhardt is a cop, who is the felon?
From the first minute, it's a demagogy about his being the only advocate of the scientific method - he only applies these talking points to others' claims and discoveries, not to his own musings. They could equally well invited a Shmoit to the conference, too.
Inflation is an extremely robust, universally applicable theory that explains pretty much all the features of cosmology that are left unexplained by the Big Bang with virtually no assumptions, and BICEP2 is the cleverest experiment done so far to learn something that goes beyond the simple "inflation Yes or No" question. Any amount of general preaching about what is science, if it is directed against inflation and/or against BICEP2, only shows that he a dishonest demagogic asshole, and if you find this šit "persuasive", it only shows that it makes absolutely no sense to promote physics because a layman will always find the exact opposite of physics to be at least equally persuasive on the following day.
lukelea Aug 16, 2014, 10:16:00 PM
First of all, you know I am a layman (John Q. Public) who comes here to learn. I trust your opinion or I wouldn't bother to ask. ("The trouble with the global village are all the village idiots." -- who said that?)
Anyway, to his credit Steinhardt did say that if the BICEP 2 results hold up then his own theory (of a big crunch before the big bang) could be ruled out.
Would this leave some form of inflation the only theory standing? What about string gas cosmology? Didn't its author state (on this blog) that it made a prediction about the direction of the polarization counter to that made by theories of inflation? Or is that only true about some theories of inflation?
Anyway, if inflation comes in many different forms then it reminds me a little of Darwin's theory of natural selection at the time that he first put it forward: in some sense his was more of a scenario than a theory because he wasn't sure what the exact mechanism of variation was. He didn't know about genes and even thought Lamarck's ideas about the heritability of acquired characteristics might have some merit. Even so Darwin was basically correct -- and not just about natural selection, but sexual selection too, which, it turns out, may be every bit as important, at least for human beings!
Or do you think this is a bad analogy?
As another possible alternative to inflation, what about String Gas Cosmology? I believe the author of that hypothesis claimed (on your blog) that the polarization observed by BICEP 2 was of a kind (blue or red, I forget which) that was predicted by his theory but not by inflationary theories.
Dear Luke, people have various views on particular theories. I don't think that string gas cosmology is a viable replacement for inflation in the very mysteries that inflation has actually demystified. As far as I can say, these general features of inflation are much more important for the appraisal of the theory and its alternatives than some - mostly speculative - focus on some technical features of an emerging experiment such as deviations from the scale invariance etc.
So I keep string gas cosmology in mind but its probability isn't comparable to that of inflation, by far.
If you want to argue that Darwin's theory isn't a theory, just a "scenario", then of course one may say the same thing about inflation. I don't understand what's the point of your trying to remove the status of these theories as "theories". They are clearly theories. They are scientific theories about extremely important, "systemic" questions underlying the world - so important that one could call them "metaquestions".
But words like "metaquestions" are just words. Of course that such metaquestions are questions, too, and it just became possible for science to accumulate a large amount of evidence that helps to determine the truth value of such questions.
I think that the comparison between Darwin's theory and inflationary theory is a good one - but your claims are equally wrong about both of them. Darwin's theory is undoubtedly a theory, an existentially important one in biology, and your claims that Darwin was wrong about some things (like that he didn't know sex and the role it played in selections) are just idiotic creationist fairy-tales.
"important one in biology, and your claims that Darwin was wrong about some things (like that he didn't know sex and the role it played in selections) are just idiotic creationist fairy-tales.
You should read more carefully what I actually said, namely, that Darwin did identify the important role of sex and sexual selection in evolution. Anyway evolution is most certainly a theory today because of all the genetic evidence which has come to light in the last hundred plus years that supports it in extraordinary detail. I was merely suggesting a possible analogy between the theory of inflation today to the theory of evolution as it existed in Darwin's day. I did not say that analogy was a good one. Instead, I asked your opinion about it.
Dear Luke, as far as I can say, Darwin's theory of evolution as we know it today is the very same theory that was discovered by Darwin.
Technical issues in genetics and DNA - molecular genetics - help to produce a more complete picture but I don't think it's right to count these things to Darwin's theory. Darwin's theory is on par with thermodynamics while molecular genetics is on par with statistical physics. Thermodynamics exists even without statistical physics. Statistical physics is just a more constructive, on-the-first-principles based description of these phenomena but its status doesn't mean that there is anything wrong about thermodynamics or Darwin's theory.
Again, I think that the analogy is a good one but I think you are completely wrong if you think that Darwin's theory of the origin of species was incomplete in some major way during Darwin's life.
Physicians lost control of the hospitals long ago. They have a non-voting rep on some administrative committees, but the govt apparatchiks have the power. Illustrative of this is that the physician reps are not paid to attend the meetings, while the admin hacks are...but enough whining.
Gordon Aug 18, 2014, 5:05:00 AM
--never did like the Turok-Steinhardt models. How does Lisa feel about the Ekyrotic brane collisions?
Dear Gordon, I forgot what she's exactly saying. If it is important, I can ask her.
Unlike inflation, I think she has never done research on cyclic/ekpyrotic stuff.
Nah, not important, just a stray transient thought. :)
The addition of molecular genetics to Darwin's theory is simply Neo Darwinism- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Darwinism
Nothing wrong with Darwin's theory---just an "evolution" of it to incorporate new information---the thermodynamics/stats mechanics analogy is a good one.
N Aug 20, 2014, 4:55:00 AM
Hi, Paul and Lubos.
Question. The tan\beta < 1 limits are extracted from the signal strengths quoted by the LHC collaborations, but it seems to me that the meaning of 'signal strength' has been misinterpreted. It's the ratio of observation to SM of \sigma(production)xBR(decay). The authors have taken it to be \sigma(H->ff)xBR(decay). Doesn't this void the method by which they bound tan\beta?
Anwar Fazil Aug 26, 2014, 6:20:00 AM
Most Popular Latest Hot Current Affairs on this Network, News updates, hot updates, hot news
HotCurrentAffairs.com


text:
Q: How to manipulate an externally-generated pdf figure in LateX? I'd just drawn figure below in Adobe Illustrator, and need to add some details to it like x and y labels for the corresponding axis, or some other labels or information for the rest of the figure.

I'm wondering whether there is any way to add such things to this pdf file by LateX (especially TikZ) or not.
Any brilliant idea?!
PS. Yeah... You may say: Why don't you design the figure in TikZ from the scratch and add your desired information, then, easily?! The answer is that my set of figures are so complicated and already designed in Adobe Illustrator, additionally I'm not a very proficient TikZ user to redraw them in TikZ. Therefore, a probable generic approach will be really helpful!

A: If you just want to use simple elements like the text you mention in your question, them a picture environment can do this job:
\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{graphicx}

\begin{document}
bla

\begin{picture}(1,0.55038404)%
  \put(0,0){\includegraphics[width=.4\textwidth]{17D2J}}%
  \put(150,50){x axis}%
\end{picture}%

\end{document}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Members and collaboration partners of Estonian Private Equity & Venture Capital Association, Estonian Business Angels Network, Finance Estonia and Estonian Service Industry Association gathered at KUMU to welcome New Year together. Guest were welcomed by the Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas and entertained by young actors from theater Must Kast & talented artist NOEP, who recently signed a contract with Sony Music. Guests could also visit the famous exhibition of Japanese artist Rioyi Ikeda called Supersymmetry.
Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas chatting with Margus Uudam, member of the ESTVCA board.
Estonian Minister of Finance Sven Sester and CEO of Estonian Service Industry Association Evelyn Sepp.
CEO of FinanceEstonia Anü Müürsepp, Chairman of the Board of Service Industry Association Kaido Kaljulaid, Partner at Law Firm SORAINEN Allar Jõks, Founder and CEO of Helmes Jaan Pillesaar.
Organisers of the event: CEO of Finance Estonia Anu Müürsepp, CEO of Estonian Service Industry Association Evelyn Sepp, CEO of Estonian Business Angels Network Heidi Kakko and CEO of Estonian Private Equity & Venture Capital Association Kristiina Vassilkova.


text:
package com.athaydes.automaton.samples.apps;

import javafx.application.Application;
import javafx.event.ActionEvent;
import javafx.event.EventHandler;
import javafx.scene.Scene;
import javafx.scene.control.*;
import javafx.scene.layout.GridPane;
import javafx.scene.paint.Color;
import javafx.stage.Stage;

import static com.athaydes.automaton.samples.apps.LoginResult.*;

/**
 * @author Renato
 */
public class JavaFxLoginPage extends Application {

    @Override
    public void start( Stage stage ) throws Exception {
        GridPane mainBox = new GridPane();
        mainBox.setId( "login-panel" );
        mainBox.setHgap( 10 );
        mainBox.setVgap( 5 );

        Label userTypeLabel = new Label( "User type:" );

        ComboBox<String> userTypeCombo = new ComboBox<String>();
        userTypeCombo.setId( "combo" );
        userTypeCombo.getItems().setAll( "Admin", "Users", "Managers" );
        userTypeCombo.getSelectionModel().select( 0 );

        Label infoLabel = new Label( "Enter your credentials:" );

        Label userNameLabel = new Label( "UserName:" );
        final TextField userNameField = new TextField();
        userNameField.setId( "user-name" );

        Label passwordLabel = new Label( "Password:" );
        final PasswordField passwordField = new PasswordField();
        passwordField.setId( "user-password" );

        final Label messageLabel = new Label();
        messageLabel.setId( "message-area" );

        Button loginButton = new Button( "Login" );
        loginButton.setStyle( "-fx-text-fill: blue;" );
        loginButton.setId( "login-button" );
        loginButton.setOnAction( new EventHandler<ActionEvent>() {
            @Override
            public void handle( ActionEvent actionEvent ) {
                LoginResult result = login( userNameField.getText(),
                        passwordField.getText() );
                messageLabel.setText( result.getMessage() );
                messageLabel.setTextFill(
                        result == LOGIN_OK ? Color.GREEN : Color.RED );
            }
        } );

        GridPane.setConstraints( userTypeLabel, 1, 1 );
        GridPane.setConstraints( userTypeCombo, 2, 1 );
        GridPane.setConstraints( infoLabel, 1, 2 );
        GridPane.setConstraints( userNameLabel, 1, 3 );
        GridPane.setConstraints( userNameField, 2, 3 );
        GridPane.setConstraints( passwordLabel, 1, 4 );
        GridPane.setConstraints( passwordField, 2, 4 );
        GridPane.setConstraints( loginButton, 1, 5, 2, 1 );
        GridPane.setConstraints( messageLabel, 1, 6, 2, 1 );

        mainBox.getChildren().setAll(
                userTypeLabel, userTypeCombo,
                infoLabel,
                userNameLabel, userNameField,
                passwordLabel, passwordField,
                loginButton,
                messageLabel );

        Scene scene = new Scene( mainBox, 400, 180 );
        stage.setScene( scene );
        stage.show();
    }

    private static LoginResult login( String username, String password ) {
        if ( username.trim().isEmpty() )
            return NO_USER_NAME;
        if ( password.trim().isEmpty() )
            return NO_PASSWORD;

        boolean credentialsOk = ( "automaton".equals( username ) &&
                "password".equals( password ) );

        if ( credentialsOk )
            return LOGIN_OK;
        else
            return BAD_CREDENTIALS;
    }

}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
SickthingsUK
DVDs and Videos
Alice features in this John Carpenter horror movie as a 'Zombie Tramp'. For a change he actually appears quite a few times during the film and even get's to run one guy through with a broken bicycle alá the microphone stand from 'The Nightmare Returns' show. Apparently Kane Roberts was in there somewhere too but is unrecognisable under make-up and eventually left on the cutting room floor! The film also briefly features the song 'Prince Of Darkness' over the end credits.
Some early VHS and DVD covers featured Alice as the main image. In 2013 Shout Factory released a 'collectors Edition' Blu-ray disc of 'Prince Of Darkness' which included various extras including a new interview with Alice entitled 'Alice at the Apocalypse'.
John Carpenter, Fangoria, Dec 1987:
"Alice plays a crazed, psychotic street person," he reveals. "We ended up together at Wrestlemania III in Detroit this year. He was part of the match between Jake 'The Snake' Roberts and The Honkytonk Man. I was there as a loyal wrestling fan, which I've been for many years. One of my business partners, [co-executive producer] Shep Gordon, is Alice's manager, so I was able to get backstage passes. I hung out with Alice and the wrestlers. It was truly one of the greatest experiences of my life. There was a big party afterwards, and we chatted and became friends. I had thought of Alice as being an outrageous heavy metal rock star, but he's really a normal, wonderful person. He's such a great guy that I decided to cast him."
From Metal Hammer: "I don't want to get into all this disguise business," is his explanation for the modest cap masquerade, "I tried to go shopping incognito once and was promptly recognised by three girls - not because they recognised Alice Cooper, the singer, but because in my disguise, I looked like the tramp that I played in 'Prince Of Darkness'. They'd seen the film..."
Totally true! Very funny. He even had on a ski cap like the one that he wore in the movie. We couldn't believe these girls spotted him and that was their answer when we asked how they knew it was him.
(Renfield, August 1996)
SickthingsUK is not associated with Alice Cooper, Alive Enterprises, Universal Records or any official entity.
This is an unofficial fan site.
I am NOT Alice Cooper, Toby Mamis OR Shep Gordon. Honest!
The SickthingsUK News Page and Site are copyright © 1997-2021; all rights reserved. Any duplication or reproduction of items on this page without permission is prohibited unless you provide a link please. Credits and acknowledgements are noted where known. No copyright infringement is intended.
I accept all news stories related to Alice Cooper; click here to contact me.
SickthingsUK is a participant in the Amazon Europe S.à r.l. Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


It was fun making this film with our lovely little actors. I use "fun" in the, we-shouldn't-have-kept-them-up-past-the-emotional-stability-that-comes-with-bedtime-and-make-them-repeat-lines-they're-not-familiar-with-while-forgetting-that-they-are-only-children-and-not-trained-actors-because-we're-creating-art-for-crying-out-loud kind of way.
This is going to be a great ride!!
You said it. Let's never do that again.


Today, Space Brother manga to bundle with another anime, the book that popularized "hikikomori" is translated into English, and Elder Scrolls Online beta sign-up.
Hello Fanatics, and welcome back to the News Jumble! I am your host, Jubilee, and after a bit of a stray off the beaten path last week with my Co-op Pokemon review with DJ Christmas, we are returning to the norm. This week, however, we have news ranging from the usual Pokemon, to saving trees! I know you so excited… Cause I'm so excited. Let's start partying, partying, YEAH!


text:
Why the "testability" criticisms of inflation are silly
Because the inflation revolution is analogous to having eaten a forbidden apple
In February, three critics of inflation Ijjas, Steinhardt, Loeb (ILS) published a diatribe in Scientific American titled "Cosmic Inflation Theory Faces Challenges". They tried to defend the seemingly indefensible – the claim that there exist reasons to abandon the inflationary cosmology. They combined various unflatteringly sounding, mostly irrational sentences about the experimental status of inflation as well as its theoretical underpinnings.
As Sean Carroll and Peter W*it have mentioned, a day or two ago, dozens of authors signed under the response (also) in Scientific American named "A Cosmic Controversy". Note that ILS's title already tried to summarize their opinion while the title of the pro-inflation article doesn't make it clear that it's pro-inflation. This pattern can be seen repeatedly: Wrong statements often appear as titles but correct ones almost never do. Why is it so? I think that the journalists believe that more readers are attracted when the title is a wrong proposition.
The new pro-inflation text was penned by folks like Guth, Linde, Kaiser, Nomura (GLKN) but also by famous folks like Hawking, Witten, Maldacena, Susskind, occasional TRF guest bloggers Randall, Silverstein, but also by Sean Carroll, among others.
Most cosmologists would agree that the inflationary cosmology is a vital fundamental building block in most of the thinking about cosmology in the modern era. In its rather general form, the theory of inflation says that the Universe has undergone a period of intense, approximately exponential expansion driven by a scalar field that was away from the minimum where it's sitting now. The previous sentence is a huge insight but it's not a complete theory so most of the detailed questions may remain – and indeed do remain – unanswered even if you deduce all derivable consequences from the paradigm that I have already described.
When you deduce some basic universal consequences of the paradigm and/or the simplest models, you will make predictions that seem extremely encouraging, to say the least, and in some cases, they precisely agree with some highly nontrivial observations.
The basic predictions are that the Universe is very large, almost smooth, has a nearly uniform temperature of the cosmic microwave background, but also has some non-uniformities whose structure may be largely predicted, and complex curves predicted by the theory are exactly observed. The success is rather stunning and even though cosmology used to be much less hard, more philosophy-like scientific discipline, unlike particle physics, many of these predictions, work with possibilities, and experimental confirmations are totally analogous to those in particle physics.
If I were asked to formulate a concise argument in favor of inflation that I find most relevant, I wouldn't discuss any details about what are the simple models of inflation, whether we work with simple models or all models, or other fuzzy questions. Instead, I would tell you:
What happened when cosmologists began to study inflation and talk about inflation every day? Well, Alan Guth and pals have basically made the following simple observation: Scalar fields that appear in theories from the same class as the Standard Model may also have local maxima or places away from the minima where the scalars may be located for reasonably long periods of time.
When a scalar field spends some time near the local maximum, the potential energy \(V(\Phi)\) affects the cosmology just like a constant energy density of the vacuum – the cosmological constant (however, numerically a huge one) – and that makes the Universe expand just like a de Sitter space.
And when you study what happens to the Universe with a scalar field in such a state, you will find out that it was expanding and it was doing so in a way that seems strikingly similar to what is needed to get the large, almost smooth Universe around us, with some galactic structures born into it, and so on.
That's it. The point is that Guth, Linde, and others have realized that all physicists and cosmologists before them were overlooking a type of behavior that is very likely to take place in theories of particle physics that are very analogous to the Standard Model – theories with scalar fields. They were overlooking some interesting and almost unavoidable behavior of the scalar fields near the local maxima – and this behavior may be immediately seen to be very helpful to explain some features of the Universe around us.
Many important overall features seem to be explained well almost immediately and that's a reason why you should never overlook inflation – this expansionist behavior of the scalar field away from the minima – again! Instead, you should always take it into account. You can't be told in advance what will be all the conclusions you will be led to – but that's correct. You should go wherever the evidence will lead you! It's not the purpose of science to create prophesies about all detailed twists that will happen in the future. The real point is that since the late 1970s, it looks like an obvious fallacy to keep on ignoring inflation.
The most colorful, precise enough analogy for my claim is that Guth and Linde etc. became the Adam and Eve who just found and ate the apple in the Garden of Eden. This apple also gave them some new skill – it was a recipe for coitus or something like that, sorry, I don't have a full-blown education in Judeo-Christianity ;-) – and they haven't forgotten the lesson even since.
So the researchers who are using inflation are not fanatics who would resist a clearly even better theory in the hypothetical case that such a theory is proposed. However, some speculations about future discoveries shouldn't distract you from the current state of cosmology and the current state is that inflation seems to be the best explanation for the basic features of the Universe we know and even from the perspective of quantum field theory, one should agree that something like inflation is very likely to influence the Universe at some point.
What ILS – the critics of inflation – are doing is to ask us to forget about the apple in the Garden of Eden once again. They tell us to uneat the apple, unlearn the skill of coitus, and start overlooking the expansionist behavior of the scalar fields once again. We should forget that scalar fields have points away from the minima in the configuration space and we should forget the lessons what these fields are doing to the Universe when they are located over there. Apologies but the lesson of the eaten apple is irreversible. You can't make the researchers forget about such important things once again. It would be utterly irrational and unscientific to do so. Unlike religions, science simply isn't compatible with the commandment "you shall forget about all your previous gods that the ILS prophets have declared blasphemous". In science, "not to overlook" is superior in comparison with "to overlook". Period.
You can only forget about detailed proposals that have actually been ruled out. So many very specific models of inflation have been shown to produce predictions that disagree with the experimental data. It's enough to abandon the detailed models but it is not enough to abandon the inflationary framework. It's common sense. The garden analogy exists. In some countries, some forms of sex – like one with children – may be banned but that's different from banning sex altogether. People more or less creatively probe various types of sex, while taking various desires, pressures, and laws into account, but they don't generally forget the lesson from the apple in the garden of Eden.
Whether the framework is easily falsifiable has nothing whatever to do with the question whether it's correct. Only imbeciles are confusing these two things. And researchers should primarily search for theories that are correct, not those that are easy to work with. Some tasks awaiting a scientist may be hard or messy or they may take a long time but that doesn't prove that the direction of that journey is incorrect.
To be specific, let me pick a sentence from the ILS rant that talks about the alleged untestability of inflation:
In other words, scale invariance is possible but so is a large deviation from scale invariance and everything in between, depending on the details of the inflationary energy density one assumes. Thus, the arrangement Planck saw cannot be taken as confirmation of inflation.
The problem aren't these statements by themselves. The problem is that ILS think that the sentences imply something bad about inflation. Well, they don't. They're completely analogous e.g. to the following statements about Darwin's theory:
Darwin's natural selection implies that the survival of large animals is possible but so is the survival of small animals and animals in between. Therefore, the sizes of observed animal species cannot be taken as a confirmation of Darwin's theory.
Well, right, Darwin's theory implies that it may be very clever to be a big animal in some situations or a small one or a medium one. The theory doesn't make a unique clearcut recommendation for the animals how big they should be. But that doesn't mean that there is something wrong with the theory. Even more importantly, it doesn't mean that there is nothing correct about the theory. The fact that one particular would-be piece of data isn't positive evidence in favor of the theory doesn't mean that there is no positive evidence. Other things are the positive evidence – both in the case of Darwin's and inflationary theories. There is no obligation for a theory to give some unambiguous recommendations of this kind for every quantity that may be discussed within the theory. Some theories combined with some selection of the data and constraints simply allow numerous answers to a question. There's nothing wrong about it. A scientific theory predicts things but especially if you only pick some rough summary of the scientific theory, it just doesn't predict everything.
What I say about these matters sounds like pure common sense to me. I can't believe that someone is incapable of understanding this simple point. Nevertheless, all the people who whine about "testability" seem to misunderstand it. And that's why I think that all of them are just plain idiots.
Once the cosmologists have eaten the apple of inflation, they may study various questions such as:
Can they determine the precise selection of the required inflaton field (or fields) and their potential that fits the detailed data or that is derivable from a deeper (string) theory?
Can they derive the inflaton as an effective field describing some more detailed microscopic physics (such as the distance between two branes)?
Can they deduce some predictions for so far undiscovered phenomena (such as the primordial gravitational waves)?
Does the theory predict a large multiverse which connects inequivalent environments and do the observations constrain such scenarios? The more anthropic a paper about the multiverse is, the more irrational it seems to be, but the very existence of a multiverse may be predicted and it's just foolish to try to ban it just because it looks too large and therefore untestable to you.
Is it possible to say about the vacuum selection in string theory or particle physics in general by extending the cosmological considerations?
Can one design theories where the successes of inflation are explained truly differently?
And others. They're detailed questions and there's obviously some disagreement about every new theory that tries to say something rather specific about these questions – and much finer, more technical questions that cosmologists actually study.
But the problem with ILS is that they don't want to rationally discuss particular questions. They want to ban inflation as a blasphemy and use this ban to place some of their pet theories – cyclic or ekpyrotic Universe or whatever they like now – to the place of the inflation. However, they don't actually have any scientifically valid arguments for that which is why the people who keep on thinking as scientists won't do it.
I have spent many and many hours by reading papers and listening to talks about the cyclic cosmology etc. I think that the percentage of indisputably wrong statements – e.g. about the second law of thermodynamics – is high among the people proposing some things. Some versions of these theories could work but I would view them just as generalizations of inflation (e.g. with some extra-dimensional interpretation of the inflaton, e.g. as the distance between branes in the direction of a new dimension of space).
Concerning the cyclic character itself, I haven't seen any argument or calculation that would persuade me that the cyclic cosmology is likely. But even if it were true, the last cycle from the "Bang" is clearly the most important one for explanations of what we can see – the previous history has been scrambled, melted, and washed away. So the obsession of ILS with convincing the reader that even the "Bang" in the term "Big Bang" is semi-blasphemous seems utterly irrational. Even if there were a pre-history, the recent history will still be more important and will often be talked about separately. It's foolish to expect otherwise.
I have also spent many and many hours with some smart and nice folks who were convincing me e.g. that their string/brane gas cosmology is a totally viable – and maybe superior – competitor to inflation. Well, I am still not 100% sure about these matters but I simply couldn't quite find the "corresponding features" in the string gas cosmology that would demonstrably reproduce similar successes as those that make me believe in inflation.
Most cosmologists find themselves in a rather similar condition. They are somewhat open-minded about explanations that are very different. But those don't quite make as much sense to them as inflation which is why these alternative paradigms aren't substituted as the fundamental building blocks in these people's thinking about matters. ILS haven't actually brought us any rational reason to do so. Screaming that some paradigm is blasphemous because it's not easily falsifiable just won't make it. People don't have any rigorous proof that the human society may live without sex (the counterpart of the "falsification") but that doesn't mean that the people will stop practicing it.
And again, we have many very different reasons to take inflation seriously. Even if Cumrun or Robert or Ali would persuade me that string/brane gas cosmologies may do all the good things for cosmology to replace inflation, I would still think that a viable field theory – or string vacuum – will probably have some scalars with some local maxima or other inflation-like pieces of the configuration space. So even if the job of inflation could be done by someone else, there would still be reasons to think that some inflation is there, anyway.
Just to be sure, I wouldn't be quite happy about all comments in the pro-inflation GLKN text. For example, we learn
According to the high-energy physics database INSPIRE, there are now more than 14,000 papers in the scientific literature, written by over 9,000 distinct scientists, that use the word "inflation" or "inflationary" in their titles or abstracts.
OK, that's nice that the paper has 33 authors and they mention that some 9,000 others are likely to be on their side but that still doesn't prove that they're right. Instead, critics like ILS are surely willing to say – and they are already weakly saying – that all these 9,000 people are indeed deluded and similar claims are in principle possible. And yes, the public could be willing to buy the opinion that some 9,000 people are a cabal of hacks who have hired each other – similar statements hold for some other groups of 9,000 people. If ILS had an actual valid argument, they could strengthen the case that the 9,000 people are just wrong.
(Don't make me wrong: I think it is good that GLKN plus 30 others have published the pro-inflation article. I just think that such pro-inflation and pro-string etc. semipopular articles should have been written some 10 years ago or so, too.)
But ILS haven't really provided us with any valid argument against inflation. So the article hasn't changed an epsilon about the status quo and masses of cosmologists simply won't be leaving inflation after they have read the ILS rant.
Inflation seems to be a previously overlooked type of behavior of rather generic field theories – those with scalar fields – and what the papers mentioning inflation have in common is that their authors no longer want to make the mistake of overlooking the inflationary regime. Guth, Linde, and perhaps a few others have eaten the apple in the garden of Eden and they can't uneat it again. At most, they may defecate it but some clear falsification – and/or some better food than apples – would be needed for that.
P.S.: Inflation critics ILS have written another "rebuttal" of the defense of inflation. They repeat many things and write e.g. that inflation is highly sensitive to initial conditions because of some new research. I think that it's just not true. Also, we read points like
What has changed about the inflationary theory? Originally scientists thought that the outcome of inflation (a smooth, flat universe with a certain spectrum of density fluctuations and gravitational waves) was generic. Now we know it is not.
If it's not generic (and this adjective seems rather hard to be precisely defined), then it's not generic. Things may be hard. But a smooth Universe with a realistic spectrum of density fluctuations is still much more likely with some random inflation model than in it without inflation – without inflation, it seems almost impossible – so considerations linked to these observed features still dramatically increase the probability ratio of inflation vs non-inflation.
They repeat the comments that there are many kinds of inflation and many vacua and some specific models have been ruled out. But none of these facts actually reduces the probability that the inflationary cosmology is needed to understand the Universe and their opinion to the contrary proves that they are irrational or worse.


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British Isles Cruises 2021 & 2022 - Luxury Scenic Cruises - Cunard
Our departure ports
Fly-cruises
Daytime activities
Scenic cruises around the British Isles.
Escape the everyday with a scenic cruise of Britain's coast on board Queen Elizabeth or Queen Victoria. Departing from Southampton, you'll enjoy uninterrupted sailing around England, Ireland and Scotland from the comfort of your ship, with endless time to unwind as you voyage.
Find your scenic cruise
7 nights Belfast and Liverpool, 24 June 2021.
Savour port calls in Guernsey, England, Ireland and Scotland on this seven-night exploration of the British Isles, with time in Liverpool, Saint Peter Port, Belfast and Glasgow (from Greenock).
12 nights British Isles, 24 May 2022.
Revel in the beauty of Britain's magnificent coast on this circumnavigation of Great Britain. Calling at a host of inspiring destinations, you'll also visit the Emerald Isle and Guernsey.
View voyage
4 nights Scotland, 10 August 2022.
Enjoy scenic cruising around the stunning coastline of Great Britain, as you spend 4 nights enjoying all that Queen Victoria has to offer and the sights of the Isle and Sound of Mull.
Scenic cruises with Cunard.
Each scenic cruise itinerary offers the chance to immerse in the beauty of Britain's majestic landscape as you sail - without stopping - for the duration of your time at sea.
Indulge in music, theatre and fine dining each day and night of your voyage, and savour sights including Scotland's Sound of Mull and England's enchanting Isles of Scilly.
A unique view.
Scenic cruising in Scotland reveals incredible feats of man and nature, which you'll get to enjoy from the spacious decks of Queen Elizabeth or Queen Victoria. Savour a sail-by of the iconic Forth Bridge in Queensferry and the otherworldly landscapes of the Isle of Skye.
From the ethereal white sands of the Isles of Scilly to the rugged beauty of Yorkshire's Flamborough Head, a scenic cruise in England will reveal an illuminating and unseen side to Britain.
Three things worth knowing
Worth knowing.
Prehistoric coastlines.
With over 140 islands and 12,500km of coastline, the British Isles offer stunning scenes for ocean voyagers. Formed over millions of years of glaciations and land collisions, the marks of history are visible all over the landscape, from fossil-rich cliffs to naturally-sculpted bays.
Lively shores.
You don't have to leave the ship to spot some of the best British wildlife. Otters and seals can be seen along the coast, and dolphins play in the waves. Search the clifftops for gannets and puffins and, in the autumn, see starlings swarm in their thousands: a magical sight to behold.
From the sea.
Take advantage of a unique viewpoint on board Queen Elizabeth, with perfect views of quaint coastal villages, high Scottish castles and rugged Irish landscapes. Look up to the towering cliffs of England's south coast, and gaze down into the crystal waters around the Isles of Scilly.
Please note: As Cunard resumes service, the following sailings are only available to book by residents of the UK at this time.
Your British Isles questions answered
Scenic British Isles cruise highlights.
Lyme Bay, England, UK.
A highlight of England's Jurassic Coast, Lyme Bay is known for its fossil discoveries and houses one of the densest sunset coral populations in the region.
Sound of Mull, Scotland, UK.
This dreamy Scottish location will remind you of romantic tales. Enjoy cuckoo song in springtime, stone castles on the shore, and look above and below for golden eagles and basking sharks as you sail.
Isles of Scilly, England, UK.
This archipelago is a stunning sight from sea. Pink and grey granite pillars stand in the waves, purple and yellow heath covers the clifftops and rare birds make their homes along the coastlines.
Isle of Mull, Scotland, UK.
Featuring the colourful town of Tobermory, also known as CBBC's Balamory, Mull is home to rugged coastlines and over 260 bird species. Keep your eyes on the waves for minke whales and porpoises.
Enhance your holiday on board Queen Elizabeth.
Enjoy a little bit extra on board Queen Elizabeth with a complimentary stateroom upgrade on select voyages. Savour the luxury of a Princess Grill suite for the fare of a Britannia Club Balcony or upgrade to a Balcony stateroom for the fare of an Inside stateroom. Simply select the stateroom or suite you wish to sail in when booking online and receive excellent savings.
View voyages
Scenic cruising on Queen Elizabeth.
A true icon of the seas, Queen Elizabeth will enchant you with her timeless style. Her expansive decks offer a tranquil space to relax and admire the scenery as you voyage. Savour a cocktail in her Glass Domed Garden Lounge or recline on a sun lounger at her Pavilion Pool & Bar.
A bed that's just right.
With some of the most spacious accommodations at sea, you're sure to find comfort whether you stay in a Cunard Penthouse, a Grand Suite or an ocean-facing stateroom. Along with complimentary toiletries, robes and slippers, you'll receive a turn-down service every day of your voyage.
Where relaxation unfolds.
There's no better place to unwind at sea than the Royal Spa and Fitness Centre. A sanctuary of serenity, Queen Elizabeth's on board spa is a haven at sea; a place to rejuvenate and escape from it all, with an indulgent array of treatments to tempt you.
Eat and be merry.
Dining on Queen Elizabeth is an all-day affair. In addition to a wide variety of dining options for your three main meals, we serve Afternoon Tea in the Queens Room daily at 3pm, offering the chance to indulge in delicate pastries and our chef's famously soft scones.
Explore Queen Elizabeth
Scenic cruising on Queen Victoria.
A cruise on board Queen Victoria brings you a unique atmosphere and warmth, encouraging a sense of escapism and setting her apart as a much-loved favourite among our guests. Enjoy her expanded sun deck, additional dining options and unique venues such as the Chart Room and Winter Garden.
The perfect plate.
Fine dining is a Cunard signature, and guests on Queen Victoria have their pick of delicious dishes while at sea, from allocated stateroom restaurants to ambient alternatives. Our complimentary round-the-clock room service is the icing on the cake, ensuring that hunger never strikes.
Quiet pursuits and new adventures.
When you're not admiring the views from Queen Victoria's expansive decks, there are myriad ways to spend your time. From yoga to fencing, spa treatments to curling up in the library with a good book, there is something to suit every desire, for every guest.
Nights that sparkle.
Your nights can be just as eventful as your days on Queen Victoria. Visit the Royal Court Theatre for drama and dance, or enjoy live music and drinks in the Chart Room. Cunard's famous Gala Balls can elevate an evening even further - there is at least one of these on every voyage.
Explore Queen Victoria
Discover more of our on board activities
Frequently asked questions about The British Isles.
What is a "scenic cruise"?
On a scenic cruise, guests can view special landmarks, coastal features, and local wildlife from the decks of the ship, without having to disembark at ports along the journey. Cunard's scenic cruises tend to be roundtrip from Southampton, minimising extra travel requirements for guests. These cruises can be anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks, and visit stunning spots such as the Isles of Scilly, Scotland's Sound of Mull and the prehistoric Lyme Bay.
What are the best sights on a scenic British Isles cruise?
From the chalky Jurassic coast of southern England to the ethereal waters of Mull, the seas around the British Isles have a lot to offer you. Gaze down at porpoises and seals around the Isles of Scilly, look up at historic grey-stone castles along the cliffs of the Scottish Isles, and see the rugged beauty of the coast of Ireland, all from a unique vantage point on board.
When is the best time to cruise the British Isles?
The Gulf Stream means that this part of the world stays relatively mild all year round, with a fair bit of rain thrown in. In the spring months, rain is more frequent, but the coastlines will be in full bloom and are a sight to behold. Summertime is busier thanks to local holiday seasons, with warmer and longer days, from June to August. Autumn brings a chill and beautiful colours (think golden-orange forests), and the winter months between December and February are the coldest, but bring some special marine life to the local waters.
What should I pack for a scenic British Isles cruise?
Layers and waterproofs are essential, especially for cruises during the colder months or scenic voyages, where most of your sightseeing will be done from the decks. Wrap up warm in winter, and protect yourself from the summer sun with sunscreen and hat. Sunglasses (and binoculars) are a wise addition all year round, as you scan the skies for birds and the clifftops for medieval castles. Lastly, a Cunard cruise wouldn't be complete without a Gala night or two, so bring your best dress or suit and be ready to dance the night away.
Book the perfect scenic cruise
Cunard World Club benefits


Are you single? Well that's great because you are living a free and adventurous life at the moment. But have you thought of the financial responsibility that awaits you the very minute you tie the knot? Take advantage of this period where you have to spend and save for only one, as opposed to two once you get married.
Check out 5 of the most important financial goals for singles in India.
One of the most common things that singles often overlook is the need to invest in property. You may be enjoying the perks of being single in your 1 BHK rented pad, but that will end the very minute you settle down. Stretch out for seeking multiple revenue streams each month if you have to take a home loan and pay EMIs, but now is the correct time to invest in property, prices of which are only going to become unaffordable later on. If your budget is low, try scouting for a home/apartment in new or upcoming areas/suburbs in your city.
This finance goal for singles in India also applies to people who have started working immediately after their Bachelors degree. You may have secured a plum managerial role because of your efficiency at work, but are you sure you will not require a Masters degree, a technical diploma or other certificate degrees later on in life? A degree can often be the piece of paper that will push you up a couple of notches on the corporate ladder. You should be financially planning for higher education not only will you be spending for fees, but also for the time you take leave from work.
Ask anyone who has been successful in investing in stocks and equity "Is there anything you regret?" and they will be quick to answer "I wish I had started earlier" You don't need to be a wizard with numbers nor do you need to be up to date with the business world to invest in stocks. Yes, these things will help but if you aren't, have a chat with your bank manager and avail the basic services of an investment manager. Private banks generally offer these services for free.
Opening a DEMAT account is easy and all you need to do is sign some paperwork and the bank rep will usually take care of the rest. Once you have your DEMAT ready to go, all you have to do is call your bank's broking team and tell them what shares you want to buy. The money will automatically be deducted from your account and you will receive a digital certificate from your bank and correspondence from the company reps. No paperwork, no hassle. Sounds easy, doesn't it?
Similar to something we discussed earlier, ask any retired professional "When should I start saving for retirement?" and they will answer "Now".
Many make the mistake of not realizing the importance of saving for retirement until it is too late. If the thought of investing for retirement sounds too boring for you, simply open another savings account in which you can deposit a small amount of money every month and forget about it. It may seem small amount right now, but over time, it will accumulate up to something considerable.
Another simple yet effective option to invest for long term is a recurring deposit. Tell your bank to start a recurring deposit account where you can nominate a certain amount to be deducted from your account every month. The term of a recurring deposit can be renewed every year and before you know it, your savings will be a considerable chunk which you can later invest into a full fledged retirement scheme.
If you think that setting a financial goal for your travelling needs in the future is too miniscule to worry about, let's take a realistic check on what to expect if you want to travel to a foreign country today. Here are general rates that leading travel agencies currently offer.
We still haven't added the shopping, eating out and drinking to these costs. You get the point, don't you? If you want to travel abroad, you will need to start some serious financial planning, today!
Top 5 social learning trends in India in 2012!
Top 5 most interesting MBA specializations around the world!
Very useful insight. While I was aware that the pointers mentioned by you do fall in the aspirations, but never imagined that it fell under the top 5 goals. Would you mind if I could ask the source working behind this compilation ? Was it based upon a survey or based upon your interaction if your clients.
I tend to realise that purchasing a house is an important financial goal, however, it is also important (considering that it is the top goal in your list), that the public is aware that a house in which they live in is one of the biggest financial waste. People may tend to disagree, but I have a fully documented article written on it at http://insight.banyanfa.com/?p=250.
What would be your viewpoint ?


North Korea's Ryugyong Hotel may be getting a new lease on life -- and finally open.
The building, also known as the "Hotel of Doom," has been vacant since construction began almost 30-years ago.
Last week walls surrounding the empty 105-story structure were taken down, which has led to speculation that construction might begin again, according to FOX News. Two large ramps were unveiled, as well as a new sign, reading "Rocket Power Nation."
North Korea's Ryugyong Hotel -- the "Hotel of Doom"
PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA - SEPTEMBER 08: Tramway passing in front of ryugyong hotel, pyongyang, North Korea on September 8, 2012 in Pyongyang, North Korea.
The wall dismantling took place the same week that the rogue nation launched their second intercontinental ballistic missile.
Business Insider reports that work on the pyramid-shaped building began in 1987 but stopped in the early 1990's because of the bad economy. Construction started up again in 2008, but then stopped again in 2013.
Only time will tell if the "Hotel of Doom" will finally open.


text:
Wheeling ist eine Stadt am Ohio River im US-Bundesstaat West Virginia.

Der Großteil der Stadt befindet sich in Ohio County, ein kleinerer Teil liegt in Marshall County. Bei der Volkszählung im Jahr 2000 wurde für das Stadtgebiet eine Einwohnerzahl von 31.419 ermittelt, wobei 31.059 Bürger in Ohio County und 360 in Marshall County lebten. Im Jahr 2020 betrug Einwohnerzahl  27.052.  Wheeling liegt zudem am Interstate Highway 70.

Geschichte
Der Stadtname Wheeling entstammt der Adena-Kultur.
Nach der gescheiterten Märzrevolution in Deutschland kam es zu einer verstärkten deutschen Einwanderung. Da die Deutschen gegen die Sklaverei eingestellt waren, organisierten sie während des Sezessionskrieges die  "First West Virginia Artillery" um gegen die Konföderation zu Felde zu ziehen. In Wheeling fand 1861 die sogenannte Wheeling Convention statt, in der die Gründung des Staates West Virginia und die Loslösung vom sklavenhaltenden Virginia beschlossen wurde. Im Zuge dessen wurde Wheeling auch zur Hauptstadt des Staates West Virginia von 1861 bis 1870 und von 1875 bis 1885. Die Hauptstadt wechselte zweimal mit Charleston, hauptsächlich aus politischen Gründen.

In Wheeling befindet sich der Sitz des römisch-katholischen Bistums Wheeling-Charleston.

1954 gründeten Jesuiten in Wheeling das Wheeling College, das 1996 zur Wheeling Jesuit University wurde. Seit 2019 heißt die Hochschule Wheeling University.

Demografische Daten
Nach der Volkszählung im Jahr 2000 lebten in Wheeling 31.419 Menschen. Davon wohnten 1.622 Personen in Sammelunterkünften, die anderen Einwohner lebten in 13.719 Haushalten und 7.806 Familien. Die Bevölkerungsdichte betrug 872 Einwohner pro Quadratkilometer. Ethnisch betrachtet setzte sich die Bevölkerung zusammen aus 92,72 Prozent weißer Bevölkerung, 4,99 Prozent Afroamerikanern, 0,10 Prozent amerikanischen Ureinwohnern, 0,03 Prozent Bewohnern aus dem pazifischen Inselraum und 1,17 Prozent aus anderen ethnischen Gruppen; 1,09 Prozent gaben die Abstammung von mehreren Ethnien an. 0,58 Prozent der Bevölkerung waren spanischer oder lateinamerikanischer Abstammung.

Von den 13.719 Haushalten hatten 23,4 Prozent Kinder unter 18 Jahre, die im Haushalt lebten. 41,8 Prozent waren verheiratete, zusammenlebende Paare, 12,2 Prozent waren allein erziehende Mütter. 43,1 Prozent waren keine Familien, 38,3 Prozent waren Singlehaushalte und in 18,6 Prozent der Haushalte lebten Menschen im Alter von 65 Jahren oder darüber. Die durchschnittliche Haushaltsgröße betrug 2,17 und die durchschnittliche Familiengröße betrug 2,89 Personen.

20,6 Prozent der Bevölkerung waren unter 18 Jahre alt, 9,1 Prozent zwischen 18 und 24, 24,3 Prozent zwischen 25 und 44, 24,5 Prozent zwischen 45 und 64 und 21,6 Prozent waren 65 Jahre oder älter. Das Durchschnittsalter betrug 42 Jahre. Auf 100 weibliche Personen kamen 84,1 männliche Personen. Auf 100 Frauen im Alter von 18 Jahren oder darüber kamen 79,6 Männer.

Das jährliche Durchschnittseinkommen eines Haushalts betrug 27.388 USD und das durchschnittliche Einkommen einer Familie betrug 38.708 USD. Männer hatten ein durchschnittliches Einkommen von 30.750 USD, Frauen 22.099 USD. Das Prokopfeinkommen betrug 17.923 USD. 13,1 Prozent der Familien und 18,0 Prozent der Bevölkerung lebten unterhalb der Armutsgrenze.

Söhne und Töchter der Stadt
 Jesse Lee Reno (1823–1862), General, der in der Schlacht am South Mountain fiel, Namenspatron von Reno, Nevada
 Walter L. Fisher (1862–1935), Politiker und Innenminister der USA
 Carl G. Bachmann (1890–1980), Politiker
 Walter Reuther (1907–1970), deutschstämmiger Gewerkschaftsführer und UAW-Präsident
 Chu Berry (1910–1941), Jazz-Tenorsaxophonist des Swing
 Bernard William Schmitt (1928–2011), römisch-katholischer Bischof von Wheeling-Charleston
 Elizabeth Feinler (* 1931), Informationswissenschaftlerin, Direktorin des Network Information Systems Center
 Chuck Howley (* 1936), American-Football-Spieler
 Tony Salvatori (* 1935), Jazz- und Orchestermusiker
 Bill Mazeroski (* 1936), Baseballspieler
 Billy Cox (* 1941), Bassist
 Peachy Kellmeyer (* 1944), Tennisspielerin
 Stephen Burleigh (* 1949), Schauspieler und Produzent
 Robert Ney (* 1954), Politiker
 Tim O'Brien (* 1954), Bluegrass-Musiker
 Rob Garrison (1960–2019), Schauspieler
 John Corbett (* 1961), Schauspieler
 Reggie Watkins (* 1971), Jazzmusiker

Einzelnachweise

Weblinks

 Offizielle Seite von Wheeling (englisch)

County Seat in West Virginia
Ohio County (West Virginia)
Marshall County (West Virginia)
Hochschul- oder Universitätsstadt in den Vereinigten Staaten
Ort am Ohio River
Gemeindegründung 1806

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Albums. Once you've written and arranged your songs, you need to record them. If you don't already have a band to cover all the musical parts, you need to form one – and once you do, those musicians will all get a cut of the sales from your album if it's a success. Next, you need to book a studio for a recording session – or else spend a lot of money on equipment to set up a home studio that can produce a professional-quality recording. And once you have all the tracks laid down, you need to spend some time picking and choosing the cuts you want to go onto the album, possibly editing them digitally or even going back into the studio to re-record them.


There won't be a single one of us left unaffected by what George Osborne says in Parliament tomorrow afternoon.
At about 12.30pm the Chancellor will take to his feet and unveil his grand plan for the next five years – much of which will be yet more austerity.
Forget what you were told during the election. This will put the meat on the bones.
If you pay taxes, claim welfare, have a job, don't have a job, have kids, use the NHS, catch trains, are a student, are rich, poor or somewhere in between – and especially if you live in the north – the autumn statement will leave its mark.
So here are just a few reasons why.
In the wake of Paris , most of us will have wondered – however fleetingly – how our area would cope with a similar atrocity.
For those in charge of such matters, many fears now centre on the resourcing of our police forces, with senior officers warning looming cuts to neighbourhood policing will suffocate the kind of grassroots intelligence that helps them stay one step ahead of terrorists.
But George Osborne appears to be standing firm on plans to cut ANOTHER fifth from the national policing pot when he rolls out his latest wave of austerity tomorrow afternoon.
With police chiefs across the country warning such a cut will render them unable to counter the terror threat, fears are running high over the effect of more than £100m in extra cuts to Greater Manchester Police – England's third largest force and a key player in counter-terror work.
George Osborne is widely expected to do at least a partial u-turn tomorrow on plans to slash tax credits for working people – a benefit claimed by hundreds of thousands of people across Greater Manchester.
But that cut, which formed a large chunk of his planned £12bn in welfare savings this parliament, will then need to be found elsewhere.
If he takes it from the rest of the welfare budget, which is likely, those receiving state support for housing, sickness or disability could all find themselves with less money.
In Greater Manchester alone around 250,000 people claim some form of housing benefit – while figures over the summer suggested existing cuts to disability benefit were leading to suicides.
After weeks of ominous headlines over the parlous state of our health service's finances, George Osborne now appears poised to act.
Last year's winter pressures saw Stepping Hill and Wythenshawe hospital under particular strain from spiralling waiting lists and bed blocking.
Tomorrow Mr Osborne is set to announce £3.8bn of the £8bn previously pledged by the Tories for the NHS will be frontloaded this year as a particularly cold winter looms.
But it may well be bad news for student nurses, whose bursaries he looks set to raid.
It may also be bad news for your council tax bill. Town halls could be given permission to hike council tax by an extra 2pc in order to pay for a nationwide social care funding black hole, the M.E.N. understands – arguably Mr Osborne passing the buck on to local government after claiming taxes would not go up over this parliament.
Engineering works around Manchester Oxford Road will affect Northern Rail and TransPennine services into Manchester Piccadilly.Manchester Piccadilly.
Local transport bosses are hopeful of a cash injection for the northern transport system – and not a moment too soon.
Ahead of imminent announcements over who will operate northern rail franchises from 2016, many are looking tomorrow's budget for some big-ticket investment.
That could include more details on the electrification of the Transpennine line, dramatically 'un-paused' by the Tories at their conference in September following uproar.
But the big reveal is likely to be around the much-vaunted northern Oyster Card, with the Treasury said to be planning a cash injection to get that off the ground.
Local government is traditionally the softest target in Whitehall when the Treasury starts waving the axe.
Unloved and underfunded, town halls are now scraping the barrel when it comes to savings – and the impact is often seen in unpleasant and unexpected ways.
Manchester's current homeless problem has been hugely exacerbated by cuts to council funding traditionally used to provide hostel beds.
Or take the city's crisis-hit mental health trust, again. Part of its financial crisis – which has led to it axing a huge range of frontline services for some of the most vulnerable in the city – has been caused by the council slashing more than £2m from its contracts this year alone.
Like the police, however, councils are expected to be hit by at least a 25pc cut in funding tomorrow, with the real detail not expected until the new year. Town hall insiders say it has made setting a budget for last year more uncertain than ever before – meaning that if your council ends up planning to slash local services from April, you may not find out about it until very late in the day.
In some ways tomorrow's budget is as much about George Osborne himself as it is the rest of us.
Long considered David Cameron's choice of successor, dire borrowing figures released last week – coupled with a likely u-turn on tax credit cuts, a flagship policy from the summer – have the power to severely wound him.
Usually seen as a shrewd political tactician, he may have painted himself into a corner.
An autumn statement that inflicts more misery on the working poor could see further rebellion from his own benches and severely damage his chances as future leader. But equally his colleagues will expect him to hold his nerve on austerity.
The most inscrutable part of his statement – where he reads out a stream of economic facts and projections – in reality has the power to make or break his chances.
All in all, tomorrow could have a decisive impact on the country's political landscape for many years to come.


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Added on October 29, 2015 Rebecca Bernard Atlanta , Mark Ray , Plane Car
Chevrolet Tracker Gets Second Life as Plane Car
Mark Ray of Atlanta, Georgia, loves to build unique car hybrids. When I say hybrids, I'm not talking about a car that's powered by both electricity and gas. I'm talking about something as awesome as a Boat Car, Mr. Ray's first project, or the latest addition to the Ray garage, a Plane Car.
Unfortunately, the Plane Car does not fly. Ray designed it as a mashup of a Cirrus SR22 aircraft and a Chevrolet Tracker, and he was drawn to the project after his daughter mentioned that he was getting bored tweaking the Boat Car. Two body shops in the Atlanta area helped take the Plane Car from two separate vehicles to one awesome ride. It is completely street legal, thanks to seatbelts, rearview mirrors, and brakelights. The Plane Car has even passed emissions testing.
Take a look at the Plane Car in the video below:
Obviously, the propeller was trimmed to allow the plane to drive on the road. Several inches also had to be taken off of the plane's tail, as its original width would mean the Plane Car would not be able to share the road with other cars.
One of the best things about Plane Car is that it doesn't sit protected in the garage all the time. Mark Ray drives the car regularly, even dropping his son off to school in it. That has to be the coolest ride to school ever.
News Source: The Daily Mail
Rebecca Bernard
A Dayton native, Rebecca got her start blogging at the curiously named Harlac's Tongue while studying abroad in the UK. She loves tooling around town with her Ford Focus named Jerome to the song they're playing on the radio. On any given weekend, you can find her with her camera at area festivals, concerts, and car shows, shopping at flea markets, or taking an adventure on the open road. See more articles by Rebecca.


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TOLEDO, Ohio, February 27, 2014 – SSOE Group (www.ssoe.com), a global engineering, procurement, and construction management (EPCM) firm, is proud to announce the selection of nine employees and one consultant as recipients of their 2013 Founder's Award. Initiated in 2008, the Founder's Award recognizes exemplary execution of SSOE's core principles—innovation through quality improvements and value-added solutions, great client service, and diversification. Two project teams were the focus of this year's awards for their substantial contribution to our clients' success and documented savings of time, trouble, and money. Combined, these two projects, the State of Tennessee's Memphis Regional Megasite and a program of projects for U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co. have a documented millions in potential savings for the clients.
Over a three year period, SSOE assisted the State of Tennessee with both the conceptual planning and construction documents for utility service to the MRM, a 3,800 acre tract of land acquired by the State of Tennessee targeted at attracting a large manufacturing tenant. This includes the entire water and wastewater infrastructure for the project—a total of nine separate construction packages. The project presented a number of challenges including a site nearly 15 miles from the closest water and wastewater treatment facilities.
The team was recognized for successfully tackling a massive coordination effort as well as an innovative approach resulting in more than $9 million of documented savings. In one case, the team recommended additional geotechnical exploration in order to demonstrate to the Tennessee Department of Environmental Conservation that the existing soil could be used as a liner rather than using bentonite clay or a plastic liner, this alone resulted in a savings of $2 million. In another case, SSOE provided an alternate plan when surveys revealed unmarked obstacles for nearly half of the planned route for the sanitary main. SSOE was able to demonstrate that even though the alternate plan required the acquisition of approximately 50 easements, the state would save more than $5 million in construction costs. After encountering this significant obstacle, SSOE's approach allowed the project to stay on time and within budget.
Individuals on this project received a 2013 Founder's Award for their exemplary performance: Kelly Bowser, Designer; Emily Rickard, Senior Designer; and Jimmy Wiseman, Civil Engineer.
U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co. (USSTC) hired SSOE to act as internal staff on a program of projects focused on increasing capacity. SSOE's project team implemented many key process and plant layout improvements that not only contributed millions in projected savings for the client but also tremendously enhanced their overall product quality.
Five individuals on this project received a 2013 Founder's Award. Jeff Caldwell, Program Manager; Dominic Ruczko, CMIT, PCM Operations – Project / Construction Management; Mike Spencer, PE, Senior Process Engineer; Brian Tobey, PMP, Project Director; and Mark Symington, Senior Project Manager.
Awards were presented at SSOE's December Shareholder's Meeting where each honoree received a SSOE Founder's Award trophy and a monetary award for their extraordinary contributions to our clients' success.


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Buckshot (2017)
Buckshot is a dark comedy that follows Charlie Stillman, a struggling country singer from New Jersey, who journeys to Nashville to follow in his father's footsteps of becoming a country star. But when his father's checkered past derails his chances, his only job offer is to drive Buckshot Thomas, an aging, hard-living, honky tonk legend, cross-country to his final concert. Along the way, the two men forge a rare friendship, which could change both their lives forever.
Director: Joshua J. Smith
Actors: Allan Wasserman, Frank Collison, Kurtis Anton, Tim DeZarn
Buckshot full movie online free
Watch Buckshot free online
Watch Buckshot full movie
Watch Buckshot movie free online
Buckshot Photos
720p HD
Teenage Badass
Set in 2006, the band Stylo and the Murder Dogs score a shot to play on the local news. But as all of their dreams start to become reality, the…
Precocious Oliver struggles with being popular in school but when a dark-haired beauty takes interest in him, he's determined to become the best boyfriend in the world. Meanwhile, his parents'…
Country: UK,USA
Underneath the Same Moon
A happily married man awakens from a coma losing the last five years of his life. His last recollection is buying a wedding ring…for his ex girlfriend. Will his heart…
Charlie Murphy: I Will Not Apologize
Charlie Murphy in his debut stand-up performance as he delivers as only he can – uncut and raw.
Run On is stand up comedy at its best. Delivered by three of the top Christian performers as they hysterically share a stage and tell of their own prodigal journeys….
Psychedelic Britannia
Psychedelic Britannia movie putlockers stream online with English Subtitles.
After being caught in a scandalous situation days before the election, the president does not seem to have much of a chance of being re-elected. One of his advisers contacts…
Chronicles how cultures collide when a white family and a Latino family are bonded together by their children who fall in love followed quickly by an unplanned pregnancy.
2 Dudes and a Dream
Fate brings 2 Dudes to Los Angeles who become friends while following their dreams. Along the way they encounter tons of wacky characters and Hollywood at its weirdest!
Prince Harming
A woman falls in love with an Olympic skier she idolized as a teenager, who takes her down some very slippery slopes.
Monster-in-Law
After years of looking for Mr. Right, Charlotte 'Charlie' Cantilini finally finds the man of her dreams, Kevin Fields, only to discover that his mother, Viola, is the woman of…
Country: Germany,USA
Her Sister from Paris
Ms. Talmadge actually played two parts, Helen and her twin sister Lola. In the film, Lola teaches Helen how to win back her husband using different "vampy" techniques


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PwC Ensures Oscar® Ballot Integrity In 'Partnership' With Everyone Counts, Inc.
Francine McKenna Contributor
I cover the accounting industry and accounting issues for investors.
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC, the global audit firm, is heavily invested in the success of the Academy Awards. PwC is well-known as the "accountants" to the Academy since 1935. But the service PwC is most famous for - safeguarding Academy members' ballots for the awards and keeping results of that tally top secret - is one the firm provides, apparently, for next to nothing.
George O. May became Price Waterhouse firm leader 1910 and won the contract in 1935 for guarding the Academy Awards votes after some raised concerns about the honesty of the process. PwC partner Rick Rosas, who's co-led the ballot counting activity since 2001 is quoted in a 2010 PwC press release:
Our relationship with the Academy is a tremendous source of pride for PwC and epitomizes our long-standing association with Hollywood and the entertainment and media industry."
But PwC's mission for the Academy will now change. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced almost a year ago, January 25, 2012, that it had selected Everyone Counts, Inc. for its first foray into electronic voting for the awards. Unfortunately, for PwC and the Academy, the design and implementation of the new system have been fraught with issues, delays and complaints from the start. The results from the first phase of the voting under the new system, the award category nominations, have been questioned, according to the Washington Post.
The Washington Post reported that "several surprises and snubs in this year's Oscar® race, perhaps more than usual, led some to wonder Thursday if the online voting system may have affected the nominations. Because of the highly secretive and somewhat complicated process in selecting Oscar nominees, it's unclear what impact, if any, the addition of online voting had on this year's field."
What's also not clear is the level of involvement by PwC in designing and developing the new voting system everyone is still complaining about. According to the latest tax return – the Academy is a 501 (c) (3) charitable organization in the eyes of the IRS – PwC charges a modest amount for "accounting services", only $168,873 in 2010. "Accounting services" should represent the amount charged by the PwC for the audit of the organization's financial statements and preparation of its tax return. Other organizations like the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which produces the Golden Globes, and Screen Actors Guild/AFTRA, which is the industry union, are charged comparably more for tax return preparation alone by non-Big Four firms based on assets, revenues and complexity.
Pete Hammond, who writes about the awards season for Deadline Hollywood, told me that he's surprised how the Academy "jumped into" the conversion to an electronic voting process given its prestigious and complex membership compared to the way the Screen Actors Guild proceeded. SAG has been using an electronic voting process for a long time and adopted its new approach "very carefully."
The "accounting services" figure is also too low, in my opinion, to include an amount, if any, the Academy may have paid in the past for the highly intensive, manual process PwC performed to count and safeguard Oscar® ballots. It remains to be seen whether PwC will charge the Academy for the additional technical and project management support the firm probably provided this year to help design and implement the new electronic voting process and insure it was safe from hackers and inaccurate counts.
(The Chicago Election Board, which oversees one of the largest voting jurisdictions in my hometown, selected Everyone Counts to implement a new state-of-the-art ballot delivery system for military and overseas voters, including secure online ballot access. Given our town's notoriety for "vote early and vote often," let's hope the latter was not a standard feature of the software installed for the Oscars.)
Practically every news account about the award of the new voting system contract to Everyone Counts, Inc. said PwC would be working closely with the software vendor as the Academy's longtime "accountants" in a "partnership" to make sure the system was ready for this year's voting season. Even yesterday, the Washington Post's report on the nomination ballot results used the word "partnership" to describe the relationship between the Academy's certified public accountants and its voting software vendor.
The motion picture academy and its longtime accountants, PricewaterhouseCoopers, partnered with the electronic voting firm Everyone Counts Inc. to develop the new system."
The word "partnership", when used to refer to a public accounting firm that also provides consulting services to some clients, implies a business alliance that is typically represented by a contract and a financial interest in the outcome of the initiative. That type of financial relationship between an auditor and its audit client - or between an auditor and a vendor to its audit client - is prohibited by auditor independence standards except in limited circumstances.
So, I asked all the parties involved - PwC, Everyone Counts, Inc. and the Academy - if there is a contractual relationship between Everyone Counts and PwC to deliver the new system.
Lori Steele, CEO of Everyone Counts, Inc., said there is no contractual relationship between her firm and PwC for the Academy project. In fact Everyone Counts has no business relationship with PwC. (A business alliance between the two would not be a problem for a non-audit client project and could, in fact, be a great business opportunity for PwC's consulting arm.)
Spokeswoman Caroline Nolan said that PwC has no business relationship with Everyone Counts, Inc..
The Academy's spokeswoman, Teni Melidonian, sent the organization's standard statement about PwC's activities regarding Oscar balloting, which are pretty soon going to be moot.
The Academy has been working with PwC for nearly eight decades. PwC oversees the Academy Awards voting process, maintains sole custody of all votes, ensures the integrity of the balloting process and remains responsible for the strict confidentiality of the results.
When reminded about PwC's audit and tax return responsibilities, she admitted, "Yes, you're correct. They also provide accounting services."
What's left unanswered by all still is the scope of services PwC provided to the Academy to support the voting system design and implementation and if they plan to charge for those services. According to AICPA rules for auditor independence, PwC can support software development and implementation for its audit client if that system is not the financial accounting software that produces the books and records the firm will audit.
But why would PwC want to?
The AICPA's Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) No. 1, has long emphasized that auditors "should not only be independent in fact; they should also avoid situations that may lead outsiders to doubt their independence."
PwC has been working for the Academy forever, it seems. The Academy's long-time Controller was promoted recently to CFO. Andy Hunt worked on the Academy audit for PwC as a senior manager. How likely is it that PwC will do anything to keep this relationship rather than speak up and out if there's something happening that could hurt the organization's reputation or financial fortunes?
Brad Oltmanns is the current Chairman of the PwC Global Board, which has responsibility for the governance of PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited, the PwC Network, and oversight of the PwC Member Firm Network Leadership Team. But Oltmanns has the even bigger job of co-leading the Academy's balloting process for PwC since 2004 with colleague Rick Rosas. To ensure the utmost secrecy and confidentiality, Oltmanns and Rosas, according to a PwC press release in 2010, lead a "tight-lipped" group of accountants who work on the project from a "top-secret" location. Oltmanns and Rosas, presumably, don't work cheap.
"We're proud of our track record and heritage of hand counting every ballot to deliver the utmost level of accuracy and reliability to the Academy," says Oltmanns.
That manual process is going to change gradually. Accuracy and reliability may be a little harder for PwC to deliver on its own this year. For sure, that assurance will cost PwC quite a bit more to deliver in the immediate future if the firm wants to reap the public relations bonanza in years to come.
"Facts from 76 Years of Oscars® Balloting" from the 2010 PwC press release that describe the investment of time and money PwC made in the pre-electronic voting process.
450,000+: The approximate number of ballots counted by PricewaterhouseCoopers in 76 years on the job.
2,550+: The number of winners' envelopes stuffed since the envelope system was introduced in 1941.
1,700: The approximate number of "person-hours" it takes the PricewaterhouseCoopers team every year to count and verify the ballots by hand. (Even at a modest blended billing rate of $250 per hour this task alone equals $425,000 that is 3X the amount shown for "accounting services " in the tax return.)
34: The number of broadcasts PricewaterhouseCoopers' partners have appeared on since 1953 – the year the Oscars were first televised. The partners used to come on stage to hand-deliver the envelopes – hence, "and the envelope please" – but this is now done just offstage. During the 2008 telecast, Rick Rosas and Brad Oltmanns were featured in a short, humorous video clip about the balloting process.
24: The number of awards categories to be tabulated for the 82nd Academy Awards at a secret location known only to the members of the small PricewaterhouseCoopers ballot team.
7: The number of days it takes to count the ballots for nominations.
3: The number of days it takes to count the final ballots.
Gallery: 2013 Academy Award Nominations
Francine McKenna
Two-time finalist for Gerald Loeb Award - this year for Forbes magazine work and in 2010 for online commentary and blogging. I am a C.P.A. and freelance journalist with ...


5kg apples for the week from ancient trees, 2 types of unknown id . one of them makes a good apple sauce.
kg field blewits . yummy.
1/2 kg elderberries to go with some of the apple.
today a shrooming venture to a 400 yr old broadleaved wood provided no edible shrooms ( lots of interesting ones though ) and rather nice alfresco snack of service tree fruit, tiny and you need to spit the seeds out but really nice in a not like anything else sort of way.
there were a lot of crab apples as windfall under a very old ,very very big one(800mm trunk 20m tall) tree but i cant be bothered with crabs at the mo as i have several tons of apples to get picked over the next couple of weeks so i will end up with plenty malus based stuff.
it isn�t all for me most will end up at the foodbanks either as apples or as juice and hopefully i will have help gathering and transporting.
however next year they will be on bi weekly obs in september.
It is rather good isn't it. We have started to get some fungi in the woods now. I think we had some sort of inkcap, but it is disintegrating now, so a bit hard to tell. There are some little pink ones that I did ID once, but can't remember now, and a fair number of stump puffballs.
I gathered about 50 snails yesterday & the same again this morning along with a kilo of fallen walnuts...OH is very happy, given she's French.
walnut and boar liver pate would be on my menu from some of that, snails are ace but since i have reduced the slimey hoard they only present in ones and twos so they go flying rather than in the cleaning crock.
Just waiting for some reasonably price pork to arrive so we can continue with the pat�...apparently it's a complicated recipe but we may try simplifying it a tad.
Well done on the Elderberries. I didn't get any this year, the birds seems to have eaten them all. Little buggers.
90kg of apples processed for us since w e before last.
5 hrs and 3 people have got about 300 kg for the foodbanks this week more on saturday.
round here there seem to be more elderberries than the birds can manage, i have picked a few but dont like them as wine so i tend to take my share as flowers for cordial and cakes.
I had a nibbled lunch of a few lingering blackberries, a few elderberries, then came home with pockets stuffed with "feral" apples. Nice and sharp, but too big/sweet to be true crab apples.
the sloe harvest round here has been very poor this year as well.
Quite a lot of chestnuts around but not quite ready yet.
Sloes/bullaces have some of last year's fruit still on them but pretty much nothing from this year.
Seems like a good year for chestnuts. We visited a place in north Hampshire last weekend and people were out after them. Haven't checked for sloes yet, but I have a couple of places that I use. I even found a few along a line that doesn't usually produce a couple of weeks ago too.


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Tobias Urbanczyk is a 24-year old drummer who grew up in a musical family in Kaiserslautern, Germany.
In 2012, he moved to Los Angeles to expand his horizons and to attend Musicians Institute (MI) in Hollywood, where he graduated in September 2013 as the Outstanding Player. Immediately after his graduation, Tobias started playing for the Folk/Rock band MINER, which led to him recording drums for their second full-length album with well-known producer Phil Ek in Seattle, WA. Tobias also enjoys touring and working with many different artists in the Pop, Rock and Country genre.
Most recently he started working with Disney Star – Sabrina Carpenter and got asked to play shows with the Persian brothers Kamran & Hooman.
"Drumdial doesn't only make tuning more consistent, it's also a lot of fun to use!"
www.tobiasurbanczyk.com


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