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Then, as now, conservative opinion and elite bipartisan opinion was mostly contemptuous of the protesters. Well-fed, well-educated, well-salaried pundits looked on the shaggy protesters and remarked: how unsophisticated were the protesters' opinions, how disorganized their complaints! Fortunately, the nation was run by a select few who understood the harsh realities of a world where some suffering was necessary (for other people) so that the existing order could be maintained. And the march to war rolled on.
In all likelihood, the protests today will be as futile as those were. It's taken a couple hundred years, but the system of governance by elected representatives has evolved an immune system with nearly impervious defenses against street protests. Nevertheless in a society supported by the many and operated for the few, it is perhaps useful, for aesthetic reasons if nothing else, to have some people calling attention to that fact. If you, as a critic, imagine yourself on the side of the angels in damning the protesters, then you should perhaps reconsider.


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Via ProPublica, an interesting commentary on how climate change is propelling enormous human migrations as it transforms global agriculture and remakes the world order — and no country stands to gain more than Russia:
It was only November, but the chill already cut to the bone in the small village of Dimitrovo, which sits just 35 miles north of the Chinese border in a remote part of eastern Russia's Jewish Autonomous Region. Behind a row of sagging cabins and decades-old farm equipment, flat fields ran into the brambly branches of a leafless forest before fading into the oblivion of a dreary squall. Several villagers walked the single-lane dirt road, their shoulders rounded against the cold, their ghostly footprints marking the dry white snow.
A few miles down the road, a rusting old John Deere combine growled on through the flurries, its blade churning through dead-brown stalks of soybeans. The tractor lurched to a halt, and a good-humored man named Dima climbed down from the cockpit. Dima, an entrepreneur who farms nearly 6,500 acres of these fields, was born in the Liaoning Province of northeastern China — his birth name is Xin Jie — one of a wave of Chinese to migrate north in pursuit of opportunity in recent years. After Dima's mostly Chinese laborers returned home this year amid the COVID-19 pandemic, he has been forced to do much of the work himself. Bundled against the wind in a camouflage parka, he bent to pick a handful of slender pods from the ground, opening one to reveal a glimpse at Russia's future.
A great transformation is underway in the eastern half of Russia. For centuries the vast majority of the land has been impossible to farm; only the southernmost stretches along the Chinese and Mongolian borders, including around Dimitrovo, have been temperate enough to offer workable soil. But as the climate has begun to warm, the land — and the prospect for cultivating it — has begun to improve. Twenty years ago, Dima says, the spring thaw came in May, but now the ground is bare by April; rainstorms now come stronger and wetter. Across Eastern Russia, wild forests, swamps and grasslands are slowly being transformed into orderly grids of soybeans, corn and wheat. It's a process that is likely to accelerate: Russia hopes to seize on the warming temperatures and longer growing seasons brought by climate change to refashion itself as one of the planet's largest producers of food.
Around the world, climate change is becoming an epochal crisis, a nightmare of drought, desertification, flooding and unbearable heat, threatening to make vast regions less habitable and drive the greatest migration of refugees in history. But for a few nations, climate change will present an unparalleled opportunity, as the planet's coldest regions become more temperate. There is plenty of reason to think that those places will also receive an extraordinary influx of people displaced from the hottest parts of the world as the climate warms. Human migration, historically, has been driven by the pursuit of prosperity even more so than it has by environmental strife. With climate change, prosperity and habitability — haven and economic opportunity — will soon become one and the same.
And no country may be better positioned to capitalize on climate change than Russia. Russia has the largest land mass by far of any northern nation. It is positioned farther north than all of its South Asian neighbors, which collectively are home to the largest global population fending off displacement from rising seas, drought and an overheating climate. Like Canada, Russia is rich in resources and land, with room to grow. Its crop production is expected to be boosted by warming temperatures over the coming decades even as farm yields in the United States, Europe and India are all forecast to decrease. And whether by accident or cunning strategy or, most likely, some combination of the two, the steps its leaders have steadily taken — planting flags in the Arctic and propping up domestic grain production among them — have increasingly positioned Russia to regain its superpower mantle in a warmer world.
FOR THOUSANDS of years, warming temperatures and optimal climate have tracked closely with human productivity and development. After the last ice age, human colonization of Greenland surged with a period of warming only to sharply contract again during a period of abrupt cooling. More recently, researchers have correlated a quickening economic pulse in Iceland with years that had above-average temperatures, just as suffocating heat waves in the global South have tempered growth. There is an optimum climate for human productivity — average annual temperatures between 52 and 59 degrees Fahrenheit, according to a recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences — and much of the planet's far north is headed straight toward it.
Marshall Burke, the deputy director of the Center for Food Security and the Environment at Stanford University, has spent the better part of a decade studying how climate change will alter global economies, mostly focusing on the economic damage that could be wreaked by storms and heat waves and withering crops. A 2015 paper he co-wrote in the journal Nature made the geographic implications clear: Draw a line around the planet at the latitude of the northern borders of the United States and China, and just about every place south, across five continents, stands to lose out. Productivity, Burke found, peaks at about 55 degrees average temperature and then drops as the climate warms. He projects that by 2100, the national per capita income in the United States might be a third less than it would be in a nonwarming world; India's would be nearly 92% less; and China's future growth would be cut short by nearly half. The mirror image, meanwhile, tells a different story: Incredible growth could await those places soon to enter their prime. Canada, Scandinavia, Iceland and Russia each could see as much as fivefold bursts in their per capita gross domestic products by the end of the century so long as they have enough people to power their economies at that level.
For two years The New York Times and ProPublica have been reporting on the great global climate migration that is already underway. By 2070, more than three billion people may find themselves living outside the optimum climate for human life, causing tens of millions of migrants to press northward into the United States and Europe. (Most migrants do move north, where there is the greatest land mass and economic opportunity.) The U.S. itself, the reporting showed, is likely to undergo its own vast demographic transformation as heat, drought and rising sea levels displace millions of Americans. In this final installment of our three-part series, the focus is on who benefits — looking at where the planet's masses will most likely end their journey in the pursuit of a stable climate. The optimal niche for human life will eventually move beyond the U.S. and Europe, toward the pole, and people will move with it.
This could present an extraordinary opportunity for the world's northernmost nations — but only if they figure out how to stem their own population decline while accommodating at least some of a monumental population push at their borders. Take, for example, Canada: It is flush with land as well as timber, oil, gas and hydropower, and it has access to 20% of the world's fresh water. It has a stable, incorrupt democracy. And as the climate warms, Canada will move into the ecological sweet spot for civilization, benefiting from new Arctic transportation routes as well as an expanded capacity for farming. But there are only 38 million people in Canada, and Canadians are dying at a faster rate than they are being born. Burke's research suggests climate change will, by 2100, make Canadians 2½ times richer in terms of per capita G.D.P. than they would be if the planet were not warming. Canada may be able to seize that opportunity only if it welcomes a lot more people.
This is why a group of Canadian business executives and academics have called on their government to turn the country's immigration system into a magnet for the planet's most talented people, hoping to nearly triple Canada's population by 2100. The government has signaled some receptivity, increasing its immigration targets this year by 14%, in part reflecting a public sentiment that recognizes the importance of immigration to Canada's economy. Whether today's Canadians are truly ready to see migrants outnumber them 2-to-1, though, remains to be seen.
The story is similar in the northern nations of Europe, where low birthrates and aging populations are out of step with the projected needs of agriculture and other industries. The countries of Western and Central Europe are among the world's largest growers of food, but native population declines force a heavy reliance at harvest time on migrant workers from places like Belarus and Romania. Norway and Sweden, too, could soon see a longer growing season and an increased harvest for their vegetable, fruit and berry crops as temperatures warm, but even now they can't harvest them without bringing in 15,000 to 30,000 migrant workers apiece, says Arne Bardalen of the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, an expert on agriculture, food security and climate change.
Wrapped up in all of this — the farming, the migration, the warming — is a larger game of global influence. The issue of national security, for any of these countries as well as the United States, is inextricably interlinked not only with immigration and border policies but also with food security. The race for prosperity in a climate-changed world is about achieving domestic self-reliance and also expanding geopolitical influence. But, as John Kerry, who is President-elect Joe Biden's incoming climate czar and a former U.S. secretary of state, put it to me recently, both are dependent on how the accessibility or usability of territory — whether Arctic passages or thawing land — changes over time. The scarcer food and other resources become on a global level, the more the ability to produce food domestically becomes a tool of power. And the more nations can keep themselves afloat in this changing world, the more they stand to benefit just by watching others sink. "It could be very tense," Kerry said, "a really, really messy process." All of that makes the flow of people — whether you call them climate refugees or human capital — an inseverable part of the geopolitical power struggle driven by climate.
Russia has been explicit about its intention to come out ahead as the climate changes; in its national action plan on climate released in January, it called on the country to "use the advantages" of warming and listed Arctic shipping and extended growing seasons among things that would shower "additional benefits" on the nation. Russia may be no better positioned, politically speaking, to welcome large numbers of migrants than the U.S. or Canada; in fact, xenophobia is probably even more prevalent there. But how it tackles migration and its own demographic challenges will have tremendous consequences for the U.S. and the rest of the world. Russia has always wanted to populate its vast eastern lands, and the steady thawing there puts that long-sought goal within reach. Achieving it could significantly increase Russia's prosperity and power in the process, through the opening of tens of millions of acres of land and a flourishing new agricultural economy.
WHEN NADEZHDA Tchebakova, a leading Russian climate ecologist, moved to Siberia to research shifts in the region's climate, she followed in the footsteps of Gulag prisoners who had been banished to a land considered so inhospitable that the mere prospect of crossing it would prevent escape. In time she found a rapidly warming countryside of forests and inviting and temperate hills. In a study she published last summer in the journal Environmental Research Letters, with the co-writers Elena Parfenova and Amber Soja, an American from NASA, Tchebakova estimated that by 2080, Russia's permafrost in the Asian part of the country will be reduced by more than half, at least in the active layer within six feet of the surface. One-third of its land mass would begin to switch from "absolute extreme" in its inhospitality to "fairly favorable" for civilization — and quite hospitable — she wrote, adopting the ecological terminology that the Russian government itself had invented to dictate how much hardship pay settlers banished to the region should receive. One of the coldest and most ecologically hostile places on the planet, she found, is fast becoming pleasantly livable.
Land's ability to support life boils down to basic biology. Organisms need enough light and heat to produce compounds that living creatures can consume in order to build a web of food. Permafrost stalls much of that process, but as it thaws, the cycle can begin. It's difficult to pinpoint just how much a single degree of warming opens up new lands in the north, but Tchebakova's research suggests that if humans continue to emit carbon dioxide at high rates, roughly half of Siberia — more than two million square miles — could become available for farming by 2080, and its capacity to support potential climate migrants could jump ninefold in some places as a result. Not all thawed land will work; poor soils in many places won't be arable or will require loads of fertilizer to make things grow. And the change won't come overnight; soils in the process of thawing are an inherently unstable recipe for mayhem as roads and bridges crack and buildings collapse with the seasonal heaves and sinks of the earth. For a while, thawing regions may be nearly impassable. Eventually, though, the thaw will be complete and a new equilibrium reached that makes the land buildable and plantable again.
The wait may not be especially long. This season, crops of winter wheat and canola seed outside Tchebakova's own city of Krasnoyarsk in southern Siberia produced twice the yields as the year before. "It's exactly what we predicted," she said, "except we predicted it by midcentury." As Vladimir Putin himself once glibly put it, a couple of degrees of warming might not be so bad: "We could spend less on fur coats, and the grain harvest would go up."
Agricultural dominance is just a small part of what Russia's climate optimists say the country has to look forward to. The steady melting of the Arctic sea ice will open a new shipping lane that would cut transit times from Southeast Asia to Europe by up to 40% and also shorten travel time to the United States, positioning Russia to profit by controlling this route between China and the West. With a few exceptions, St. Petersburg among them, Russia's largest cities and most important military bases are also far less vulnerable to inundation from sea-level rise than those of, say, the United States, which has its largest cities on the water and will inevitably divert trillions of dollars in coming decades to fortify or relocate strategic assets. Even the savings in energy that will come from warming temperatures amounts to a mild economic stimulus.
But agriculture offers the key to one of the greatest resources of the new climate era — food — and in recent years Russia has already shown a new understanding of how to leverage its increasingly strong hand in agricultural exports. In 2010, when wildfires and drought conspired to ruin Russia's grain harvests, Putin banned the exporting of wheat in order to protect his own people, then watched as global wheat prices tripled. The world reeled in response. From Pakistan to Indonesia, poverty increased. High prices rocked delicate political balances in Syria, Morocco and Egypt, where about 40% of daily caloric intake is from bread. The shortages poured fuel on Arab Spring uprisings, which eventually pushed millions of migrants toward Europe, with destabilizing effect — a bonus for Russian interests. And much of this turmoil began with wheat. As Michael Werz, a senior fellow for climate migration and security at the Center for American Progress, says, "There's a reason people demonstrated with baguettes in Cairo."
When Europe and the United States imposed sanctions on Russia after the downing of a Malaysian passenger jet over Ukraine in 2014, Russia countered by imposing sanctions on European imports. It seemed self-punishing at first, but the move was meant to give Russia's own domestic food producers an opening and prod them to fill the supply gap. When Putin addressed his Federal Assembly the following December, he boldly proclaimed Russia would soon be "the largest world supplier" of healthful foods, referring to his goal of keeping Russian foods mostly GMO-free. By 2018, Putin's sanctions had paid enormous dividends: Since 2015, Russia's wheat exports jumped 100%, to about 44 million tons, surpassing those of the United States and Europe. Russia is now the largest wheat exporter in the world, responsible for nearly a quarter of the global market. Russia's agricultural exports have jumped sixteenfold since 2000 and by 2018 were worth nearly $30 billion, all by relying largely on Russia's legacy growing regions in its south and west. In Africa, Putin told attendees of the Russia-Africa Economic Forum held in Sochi last fall, "We are now exporting more agricultural products than weapons."
In the decades to come, as Russia's grain and soy production rise as a result of climate change, its own food security will give it another wedge to drive into global geopolitics, should it wish to use it. Russia's agricultural dominance, says Rod Schoonover, the former director of environment and natural resources at the National Intelligence Council and a former senior State Department analyst under the Obama and Trump administrations, is "an emergent national security issue" that is "underappreciated as a geopolitical threat."
TO AMERICAN intelligence experts, two things have become clear: Certain parts of the world might one day use the effects of climate change as rungs on a ladder toward greater influence and prosperity. And the United States, despite its not-unfavorable position geographically, is more likely to lose than win — not least because so many of its leaders have failed to imagine the magnitude of the transformations to come.
For John Podesta, the profound geopolitical challenges posed by climate change first became clear in July 2008, not long before he took charge of President-elect Barack Obama's transition team. That month, he took part in a war game hosted by the Center for New American Security, a Washington-based research group. The room was full of people who were, like him, awaiting their chance to reenter influential positions in the American government. Around the table in a private conference room at the Newseum in Washington, were former U.S. military officials, a former EPA administrator, advisers to Chinese intelligence officials, analysts from McKinsey and the Brookings Institution and at least one European diplomat. "Let me be very clear," Podesta told the gathering, in his assigned role as the United Nations secretary general. "Our time is running out."
The exercise was set in 2015, with the climate crisis becoming violently apparent. A Category 5 hurricane had struck Miami shortly after a cyclone killed 200,000 people in Bangladesh. The scenario was designed by a senior fellow at the Center for New American Security named Sharon Burke, who would later become an assistant U.S. secretary of defense; her game plan suggested that a wave of climate migrants would be driven from their homes, part of the climate-caused displacement of as many as a billion people by 2050. One significant question put to the group then was how the United States, Europe, China and India would respond to that enormous migration and whether they could agree on what obligations under international law nations should have to care for migrants.
It wasn't easy. None of the countries involved wanted to open the door to being obliged to take climate migrants in, Burke told me. The participants clashed over whether climate migrants could be called "refugees" at all, given the U.N.'s insistence on reserving that term for those persecuted or forced to flee. They wound up deciding the word should be applied only to victims of climate-driven disasters, not those suffering from slow-onset change like drought. In the end, the players were reluctant to face the migration challenges in depth — a worrisome sign that, in the real world, wealthy nations like the United States would be likely to cling to the status quo even as large-scale humanitarian crises begin to unfold. "One of the insights we got was that migration was just an absolute no-go zone," Burke said. "I wasn't expecting that."
The game marked a turning point of sorts in how some U.S. officials viewed the security threats posed by climate change. In 2010, in what was a rare and early official assessment of climate risk, the U.S. Department of Defense's Quadrennial Defense Review warned that climate change "could have significant geopolitical impacts," contributing to poverty, starvation, drought and the spread of disease, all of which would "spur or exacerbate mass migration." By 2014, the Defense Department had applied the term "threat multiplier" to climate change, describing how it would make many of the security establishment's greatest nightmares even worse. By the time Podesta went to China in late 2014 to negotiate an emissions agreement — a diplomatic feat that laid the groundwork for the Paris climate accord — he had come to believe that it was climate-driven food scarcity that posed the dominant threat to global security and to American interests. He saw that scarcity, and the migration it would cause, as leading to a fundamental, perhaps dangerous shift in the geopolitical balance of the world. "We were just at the beginning of the imagining of how big the problem was," Podesta told me.
America's strategic challenges from climate change don't just revolve around food. Sea-level rise, for one, could displace 14 million Americans by 2050, even with modest warming, while in Russia fewer than two million people are at risk. American military installations around the world are also particularly vulnerable. According to a 2018 Defense Department analysis, about 1,700 of them might need to be moved out of the way of flooding rivers and coastlines and of hurricanes. And the enduring reluctance in right-wing political circles to talk about sea-level rise and warming has hamstrung U.S. strategy and made it difficult for the country's leaders to see around the curve. If you take any factor out of your calculus, you create blind spots. One telling example: Russia has 34 icebreakers, and China, which is nowhere near the Arctic, has four; the United States has just two, one of which is nearly a half-century old. When it comes to climate, the defense establishment "has been more of a reactive than a proactive entity," said John Conger, a former deputy under secretary of defense and now the director of the Center for Climate and Security. "So emergencies and crises get more attention than opportunities and possibilities."
But in the long term, agriculture presents perhaps the most significant illustration of how a warming world might erode America's position. Right now the U.S. agricultural industry serves as a significant, if low-key, instrument of leverage in America's own foreign affairs. The U.S. provides roughly a third of soy traded globally, nearly 40% of corn and 13% of wheat. By recent count, American staple crops are shipped to 174 countries, and democratic influence and power comes with them, all by design. And yet climate data analyzed for this project suggest that the U.S. farming industry is in danger. Crop yields from Texas north to Nebraska could fall by up to 90% by as soon as 2040 as the ideal growing region slips toward the Dakotas and the Canadian border. And unlike in Russia or Canada, that border hinders the U.S.'s ability to shift north along with the optimal conditions.
Marshall Burke projects that over the next 80 years, per capita GDP in the United States will drop by 36% compared to what it would be in a nonwarming world, even as per capita GDP in Russia will quadruple. A recent study led by researchers at Columbia University found that a disruption in U.S. agriculture would quickly propagate throughout the world. After just four years of a Dust Bowl-like event — a time when some crop yields dropped by 60% — global wheat reserves would be cut by nearly a third, and U.S. reserves would be almost entirely gone. And as the livability and capacity of American land wanes, U.S. influence in the world may fade along with it.
The lyrics to Russia's modern anthem suggest that at least some of its leaders have anticipated this moment: "Wide spaces for dreams and for living are opened for us by the coming years." As if to fulfill that vision — and perhaps with the expectation of needing more land to execute his climate ambitions — Vladimir Putin declared in 2013 that the remaking of Russia's East "is our national priority for the entire 21st century," and that "the goals that have to be attained are unprecedented in their scope." In laying out that ambition, he surely had history in mind. There was the outpost Russia built at the Sea of Okhotsk in the 1700s; efforts to drive out Chinese settlers of the Qing dynasty in the 1800s; the founding of the Jewish Autonomous Region, which ultimately brought as many as 40,000 Yiddish-speaking Jews to the area around Birobidzhan, in 1934; and even the longstanding banishment of workers and prisoners alike to Siberia and the Far East under Stalin and afterward.
All these efforts at settlement, though, have been focused on resettlement — on moving Russia's own citizens eastward to exploit this new land of opportunity. The current plan invites any Russians willing to relocate themselves in Siberia and the Far East, including in the Birobidzhan area of the Jewish Autonomous Region, to buy properties at 2% interest. Russians willing to move there can also apply for free plots of farmland. College and trade training can also be free.
And yet none of these efforts to encourage internal migration have had much of an impact. The government says that it has distributed nearly 150,000 acres to roughly 86,000 people, but only 14% of them did not already live in the region. Since 1991 the population of the states that have traditionally made up the Far Eastern Federal District has decreased by 25%; the decline has slowed, but it remains a drip in the wrong direction. The situation is considered so dire that the government has a bureau to address it, the Department of Human Capital. (The department rebuffed repeated requests for an interview.)
Andrey Shvalov's story helps to illustrate why. In 2016, Shvalov applied for land through the resettlement program, abandoning his life as a photographer to pioneer rural land in the Far East. He filled out an application online and was quickly granted five acres of woodland outside Blagoveshchensk, a small city on the Chinese border about 260 miles northwest of Dimitrovo. It was only after arriving there, with his wife and two young children, that he discovered all the challenges the program could not solve.
"My first problem was where to get water," he says. Shvalov watched YouTube videos to learn how to drill a well, erect a house and cut and dry his own firewood. First, he built a chicken house, and the family camped inside of it. Now, four years in, his wife keeps an apartment in town while Shvalov and the children sleep in a temporary hut as he builds the house. "In the city," he says, "we all thought about motivation and goals. Here, the main thing is what you will drink and eat." The biggest problem? There is no infrastructure to connect to and, despite official claims that the government is supporting the settlers, not enough government money to build it. Near Shvalov's place, the Amur district has been losing about 1,600 people each year; Russia's national demographics department refers to it as a "donor" region. The Jewish Autonomous Region surrounding Dimitrovo is in similar decline. There is simply no one to do the work.
It's no surprise, then, that the region has become increasingly dependent on what Anatoly Vishnevsky, director of the Institute of Demography at the National Research University in Moscow, has called "replacement migration" for labor. In fact Russia's own demographic statistics show the net population decline in its eastern regions in spite of small but steadily increasing foreign migration — not just the Chinese, North Koreans and Japanese who have made homes in the region but also migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asian states and even some from India, Turkey and Afghanistan.
In late October I spoke on a video call with Sergei Karaganov, founder of Russia's Council on Foreign and Defense Policy and an influential adviser to Russian presidents, including Putin. Karaganov, who is normally pictured in suit and tie but who also describes himself as a hunter, sat in the pine-walled dining room of his dacha an hour and a half outside Moscow, where he was isolating to avoid COVID-19. Behind him an enormous bear skin was stretched out on the wall next to the bust of a six-point elk. Russia needs so much labor in the east, he told me, that it has even contemplated flying workers in from India: "We think about the lower hundreds of thousands."
There is an underlying sense, though, that sooner or later there will be more human capital available than Russia knows what to do with. Asian Russia sits atop a continent with the largest global population, including not just the Chinese but also nearly two billion South Asians — from the flooding Mekong Delta and Bangladesh to the sweltering plains of India — many of whom will inevitably be pushing northward in search of space and resources as the climate gets hotter and sea levels continue to rise. Russia is "not willing to bring in too many Chinese," Karaganov said. "But when it comes, it will come from there and Central Asia, the Caucasus. This is a problem, but it could be the greatest opportunity."
IN THE NEAR term, while Russia may prefer its migrants to come from Central Asia and other countries farther south, it's the Chinese who seem most likely to come. They've already settled throughout Siberia and the Far East, sometimes through intermarriage with Russian citizens — which makes them eligible for land-disbursement benefits — or by leasing lands from Russians who received it under government giveaways. At one point, Russian news articles described more than 1.5 million Chinese living in southern Russian territories, though precise numbers don't exist; some experts say the number is probably much lower. This year, many returned to China amid fears of the closure of the border because of the coronavirus. But most people, including Karaganov, expect they'll be back, tantalizing Russians with prospects for growth while at the same time triggering the age-old racist tendencies that have clouded Russia's efforts to assimilate outsiders of non-Russian descent.
When Dima first came from the city of Shenyang, at 26, adventurous migrants were chasing opportunities across the Russian frontier. He had taken a train to Khabarovsk, the largest city in the Russian East, and then continued west on rumors of free arable land. Quickly enough he found work on a collective near Dimitrovo and hustled produce to buyers along the railroad to make a living until, five years later, the collective folded and most of the Russians moved away.
Dima saw it as an opportunity. The China he'd left was urban, crowded and poor, and this part of Russia was like the wild east, flush with subsidies, space and opportunity. His wife, a Russian citizen, qualified for a cheap loan: enough for farm equipment and 50 acres to grow soybeans and barley for feed. By 2020 Dima had tilled profits into more land until he was running two large combines over nearly 6,500 acres of soybeans and employing 15 mostly Chinese workers to do it. And throughout it all, he had begun to fit in. "My neighbors see me as Dima," he says, speaking Russian in a thick Chinese accent, "although I can't hide the fact I don't speak well."
Dima says he is confident that, once the pandemic ends, more of his countrymen will be drawn to the region, probably with bigger investors and bigger companies. "You can't retreat," he says, noting that they've wagered too much money here. "They will come." These days, much of the Chinese money is in Vladivostok, a breezy and moneyed port city scattered over rolling hills on the shoreline of the Sea of Japan, about nine hours by jet from Moscow. It's through here that Chinese companies have begun channeling billions of dollars toward Russian land leases and farm operations, and from here that the farms are shipping thousands of tons of soybeans and corn and wheat south to Chinese cities. By video call from his office's modern glass-walled conference room at the Russian Far East Investment and Export Agency in Vladivostok, Absamat Dzhanboriev, the agency's agricultural investment director, describes a steep rise in agricultural production that can come only from large-scale corporate farming. In 2018 more than 900,000 tons of soybeans were exported from the East. Soon, he says, the region will harvest two million tons of soybeans from 3.7 million acres of farmed land — an area roughly the size of Connecticut. And the more the land warms, the farther north the industry will be able to push, eventually doubling farmed land again, producing nearly six million tons or more each year.
Chinese money supports 14% of new farm development in the region, more than any other foreign source. Last year, for example, Chinese investors, including a state-owned company, used a Russian subsidiary to start developing 123,000 acres for soy and other crops in an area near Vladivostok and to build a soy-processing plant that would handle 240,000 tons a year. The deal makes the Chinese venture one of the largest private landholders in the Russian east; according to local news reports, it is likely to employ a number of Chinese workers, rely on Chinese technology and sell its products in China. In exchange, Russia says it will earn income tax (after a decade-long abatement) and that a Russian development bank also has a 20% stake in the project. (By law, Dzhanboriev said, such joint ventures are supposed to hire Russians to do at least 80% pof the work.)
For now, at least, these deals seem to be pushing the Chinese and Russian governments closer together. The groundwork was laid in May 2015, when Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to form a $2 billion agricultural fund for trade partnerships in Russia's east. Investments like these support loans and farming and the construction of badly needed roads and electrical lines in Russian villages like Dimitrovo, while also opening the literal back door — Russia's remote southeastern border — to China's colossal market, a market that Putin has coveted. Since then the money has continued to flow, with nearly $14 billion reportedly invested by 2017 across Russia's resource sectors and another $10 billion pledged by Xi for cross-border infrastructure efforts. This year, the first major bridge linking the two countries across the Amur River was completed.
Given that China appears to siphon much of the profits and products from these ventures, it has not always been clear to Russians in the east that the deals are worth it. But analysts point out that the goals of the two countries — at least for the moment — are complementary. Russia gets long-term growth and the establishment of a durable industry in a region that it has failed to develop in the past and does not have the resources or the technology to do so now on its own. It also gets, according to an analysis by Angela Stent for the Brookings Institution, China's "unequivocable support" for its programs and policies, something that has become invaluable following the sanctions imposed by the West after the Crimean invasion.
ULTIMATELY, IT IS the clumsy maneuvering of the United States that might prove most responsible for making Putin's eastern development agenda a success. American tariffs, imposed as part of the Trump administration's trade war with China, led to China's own retaliatory tariffs on U.S. soybeans, creating the largest catalyst for Chinese buyers to look north for new markets. According to the U.S. Congressional Research Service, China's total food and agricultural imports from Russia increased 61% in 2017 and 2018, yet another example of the U.S. failure to see the chessboard when it comes to the intricate geopolitical implications of climate change.
"The U.S. has made a few historic mistakes, and I don't think they are able to repair them," Karaganov told me. The first was what he characterized as the rejection of Russia's bid some two decades earlier to strengthen ties with the West. "The second was helping to bring Russia and China together." With China's wealth paired to Russia's resources, and the political trajectories and climate-related interests of the two countries more or less aligned, there is nothing short of a new world order at stake — an order, Brookings Institution analysts say, based not only on economic alignment but also on the two countries' common commitment to supplanting Western hegemony.
Whether this great Eastern alliance can endure, though, remains an open question, in part because of the underlying and unresolved issue of human migration and the colonization of the Asian north. As strong as the China-Russian partnership appears to be — China has become Russia's largest trading partner for oil, arms and more — it is an asymmetrical one. Russians continue to distrust Chinese intentions, particularly in the East. The boon in investment is accelerating Russia's development goals but with trade-offs that stoke rising resentment and fear.
Two centuries ago much of the Russian Far East was a part of China. As recently as 1969, there were border clashes there. After the fall of the Soviet Union, fears of a Chinese invasion were rekindled. And while those fears have since softened, suspicions toward the Chinese linger, a mark of Russia's famously xenophobic outlook on many non-Russian-speaking immigrants but also a vestige of its history with its southern neighbor. The fear of Chinese overrun in the East is a perennial one; it comes and goes throughout the years — and is sometimes overstated — but it never quite goes away.
And as climate change increasingly drives mass migration, the eventual pressure from the population to the south is quite real. Northeastern China, a report from the U.S. National Intelligence Council warns, will face water shortages and droughts that could drive its population into Russia "in large numbers," potentially unsettling the entire region. Chinese migrants might be pulled into the Russian Far East by economic opportunities today, the council stated, but by as soon as 2030 the dynamic could flip to one in which they will instead be pushed out of China for lack of basic resources.
And it won't just be from China. Water shortages and more frequent droughts across Central Asia and Mongolia and south as far as India could push large numbers of people north. A 2015 study by Russian demographers published in the Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences looked at how unabated climate change would force the "resettlement of millions" of Vietnamese, many of whom might also come to Russia, as sea levels inundate the Mekong Delta by the end of this century.
If there is any lesson to be learned from the instability that has already been caused by climate-driven migration around the world, whether drought-stricken Guatemalans at the U.S. border or Syrians pressing into Europe, it's that a strategy of accommodating migrants would almost certainly be more to Russia's benefit than one that attempts to keep them out. Accommodation, an abundance of migration research shows, stands a better chance of preserving Russia's own sovereignty while improving the stability of its surrounding regions; exclusion is likely to lead to endless conflict and chaos on its borders, which risks spilling across in destabilizing ways.
The fact is that the people of Asia have long ventured north — into Siberia, the Far East and beyond — as the climate has undergone cyclical change through the course of history. Around 3,000 years ago a drought in central China drove Mongol herders a thousand miles north into the steppes of Khakassia, in Siberia, where they remained raising horses and sheep for centuries. The likelihood of that process repeating as the climate warms is now inevitable, said Amber Soja, a scientist who has examined the migration of ancient civilizations in north Asia as a research fellow at the NASA Langley Research Center in Virginia. One way or another, she says, "people are going to move. Because people need to eat."


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85 cans (2:1 ice to contents ratio)
Inside: 30.50″ x 12.00″ x 13.50″ Height / Outside: 38.00″ x 17.75″ x 18.75″
34.50 lbs
With its Anti-Slip Goat's Feet™, you can throw this cooler in the back of the truck and be confident it will not slide around. Our patented anodized aluminum handles and integrated bottle openers will make sure you are the spotlight of every party. Our Top Loader latches ensure whatever you have packed around your cooler, you will be able to easily to your ice cold beverage. No matter which size of Cordova Cooler you choose, rest assured that our IGBC Certified Bear-Resistant lock system will keep any bear in the wild from drinking your ice cold beer and eating your ham sandwich. Every Cordova Cooler comes with a lid lock system to help stay open while you are getting your food and beverage out. Your cooler will come Standard Cyclone Delrin drain plug that will be sure not to break or leak like others out there.
What makes a Cordova Cooler different? The foam used in all Cordova hard coolers is the industry standard state of the art foam with a high R value and no impact on the environment. From design to the finished product, we are proud to be able to say our Hard sided coolers are made in the USA. We are creating jobs for America and feel that our quality is superior to other coolers on the market today. Sure, you can find a cheap imported rotational molding coolers, but when you are buying a Cordova Cooler, you are supporting American Manufacturing and American Families.


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- Home
- Anime
- Kyou Kara Maou!
- Arigatou~ - Thank You~
Original / Romaji Lyrics | English Translation |
kaze ni fukarenagara aruite ikikau hitogomi no naka de yasashii kimi ni koko de deaeta ..."hanaretakunai yo" sabishii yoru mo kimi ga ita ne yakusoku suru yo "TSUYOKU NARU KARA" tsunaida kokoro wa hitotsu dakara bokutachi wa toberu n da "arigatou" wo kanade kanade tooku hanareta to shite mo "sayonara" to te wo futte mata koko de aimashou | Walking while blown by the wind, among the crowd that's coming and going I met you here ..."I don't want to be parted" Even in the lonely nights, you were here, I'll promise "because I will become strong" Our joined hearts are one, so we can fly Playing "thank you" again and again, even though we're far apart Waving hands "goodbye", let's meet here again |
kitto tsuyoi boku ni nareru kara waratte kimi ni aeru yo hitori hitori de mawaru sekai wa shinjiru koto sae kowaku naru kedo ano hi kureta kimi no kotoba ga tobidatsu boku no hane ni naru kara "arigatou" wo kanade kanade tsunagu te wa nai kedo "arigatou" hibike hibike kono uta kimi e todoke | I would surely become a stronger me, and be able to meet you with a smile One by one, even believing that the world revolves is scary The words you said to me that day will become my wings as I fly Playing "thank you" again and again, even though I'm not holding anyone's hand Echoing "thank you" again and again, so that this song will reach you |
"sayonara" to te wo futte mata koko de aimashou "sayonara" to te wo futte mata koko de aimashou ...mata kimi ni aitai... | Waving hands "goodbye", let's meet here again Waving hands "goodbye", let's meet here again ...I want to meet you again... |
Translated and transliterated by Lady Elwen
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Saint Francis House
Frank House, from left to right: undated, 1904, 1983 and 2006 (click thumbnails for larger images)
Architect: Raphael Knapp, OSB; renovation: Hammel, Green and Abrahamson, Inc., Minneapolis; renovation (1992): Rafferty, Rafferty, Tollefson
Contractor: Local labor; renovation: Donlar Corporation, Saint Paul
- Built: 1904
- Addition: 1914 addition
- Renovated 1983-1984 and 1992
Sheltered by a fieldstone wall and spacious lawn, Saint Francis House (Frank House) was built in 1904. This three story brick building with basement, occupies about 8,200 square feet, and is located west of Wimmer Hall. Originally, the building was constructed to house the French Presentation Sisters who worked in the kitchen service from 1904 to 1913. In 1913, twenty-four Sisters of the Third Order of Saint Francis from Dillingen, Bavaria, arrived to manage and work in the food service for Saint John's. A brick addition of two stories providing space for a private chapel on to the west side of the residence was added in 1914, and in 1943 a summer garden kitchen, designed by Philip Heitkemper, OSB, was built west of the convent. The German sisters worked for 45 years until they returned to their motherhouse in Hankinson, North Dakota, on March 27, 1958. In 1958 a group of Mexican-born Benedictine Sisters were invited to direct the food service for the students and the monastic community.
After the Mexican sisters departed in June 1964, the building was reclaimed as student housing as Saint Francis House. The renovations included single, double and triple rooms for about 50 upperclassmen students. Sinks were installed in each room with laundry facilities in the basement. In 1983 a complete renovation took place when rooms were converted entirely into 20 singles and ten efficiency apartments for graduate students in the School of Theology.
When the Saint Cloud Diocese gave the original Seminary Building to St. John's in 1993, there was a need for a separate housing to take care of priesthood students. Saint Francis House was made into Saint John's Seminary. The summer kitchen was totally enclosed, weather-proofed and became Saint Francis Chapel. The original seminary building was renamed Emmaus Hall to house lay and religious graduate students. Saint Francis House is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
- Murphy OSB, Doris. "New Graduate Housing Completed." School of Theology Newsletter, Winter, 1984, p. 5.
- Quinlan, Sue. "Frank House Renovation Studied." The Record, 10 December 1982, p.1.
- Super, Tom. "Frankforters Enjoy Convent Life." The Record, 22 October 1964, p. 2.
- "Workmen Ready St. Francis House." The Record, 28 August 1964, p. 2.
- "Frank House (warming)," Community, 09 February 1984, p. 1.


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A crafter's love. Comes as a set of 3 in gold flowers, diagonals and lines pattern. Great for party favors, arts & craft projects, decorating, scrapbooking, card making & so much more!
- SIZE: 15mm W x 10m L (each Washi Tape)
- MATERIAL: Natural fibers, metallic foil
- INCLUDES: 3 Washi Tapes


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Sign In | Register | About Santa Clara | Contact Us
Santa Clara real estate listings offer a wide selection of homes in many of the city's best neighborhoods. There are nearly 41,000 households in Santa Clara with more than 100 homes for sale directly in the city at the time of this writing. The median price for homes in Santa Clara is approximately $525,980.
The real estate market in Santa Clara has generally remained stable even through challenging economic periods affecting the nation and California. Mortgage rates have held below the national average with home prices holding steady. The majority of people living in Santa Clara own their home. Excellent neighborhood schools and high-quality community facilities make Santa Clara especially attractive to families. College students account for a temporary surge in population, but aren't counted among the city's permanent residents for the purposes of the Census. Santa Clara is one of the most highly desired places to live after gradation for students in the Bay Area. Since Santa Clara is at the heart of the Silicon Valley, unemployment has held far below the national average. Career opportunities in the area make purchasing real estate in Santa Clara more likely for those who chose to live here.


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Splendid Sampler and Fairy Tale WiPs
I've been making the Splendid Sampler blocks alongside Ulla and Simone (see sidebar). This is what 1-61 looks like.
There will be 100 blocks eventually.
Some of these blocks are incredibly detailed considering 2 designs are released each week (Thursday's and Sundays). Some weeks these are all I've managed.
The One Day Box is a trunk where I put hand knitted baby/children sized items, and books which my one day grandchildren can enjoy. Although the rate at which society is developing, I wonder if childhood will resemble the childhood I gave my children. Will they still use books or will they learn to read on baby I pads? Anyway this merino wool jumper in aged 3-4 years is for the one day box. I'm seeing if I can add a beanie style hat from the left over yarn at the moment, so I guess this is a WiP set.
The 2 crochet bags I shared last time have now been lined in a cute hexagon print. I added a phone sized pocket too.
Now it feels like I can tick them properly off my list. When I created the Wanna Make List back in January, I hadn't thought that we would be finally moving house so I am WAY behind on it.
These Fairy Tale blocks were made partly at the old house and the last ones finished in Norfolk. This is the first time they have been laid out together.
I'm currently adding frames to each block, then I need to cut 272 2.5″ squares to finish the centre part of this quilt.
I forgot to share this lap rug in crochet. It is a design called Suncatcher Block. I liked it as it resembled stained glass windows. I then added rainbow borders to the 4 blocks, then a lot of black. I like how it turned out. I still need to sew those yarn tails in though. Yuk! There is always one part of a craft I like less than others. In crochet it is definitely the final neatening up after you think you've finished.
So that is all for now, a fair bit of WiP but the bags have finally left the craft room after a lot of dithering about whether or not to line them. A little victory for the Tick List.
Posted in Crochet, Knitting, Quilts by House Elf with 6 comments.
Summer 2016 craft catch up
At long long last I can add photos! So here is a catch up of most of the Summer makings. A black chunky cardigan for myself.
A merino wool set for the one day box.
Pumpkinville by Bunny Hill Designs is finally finished! Huge fanfare as it was long overdue.
This pair of knitted beach bunnies went to a friend in honour of a typo with her name.
I made myself a tea wallet with fabrics I bought in remembrance of a departed friend.
Front with a special crow button.
There was enough left over to make a single tea bag key ring.
I made a tea party themed one for my daughter.
A crochet square for daughter's friend's baby.
The friend's mother made her one of these but she didn't know how to make one, so I had a go.
I made a double wedding ring block Art Deco themed cushion cover for Husband's birthday.
A tray was painted in pink for the new house. I made a white onion holder with some matching cotton face cloths. It was the start of a "new house heap".
I painted the big tray white as it was beginning to look tatty.
The centre rounds of Sophie's Universe made a cup mat.
Single crochet dish cloth.
I had a golly as a child so made one for the one day box.
I made myself a vintage style embroidery companion. Sorry for the bad pic. There is a lot of embroidery in the design.
These are the embroideries when it was a wip.
In the end I made 2 in pink, blue and white.
Crochet bags with left over chunky yarn.
A cowl for a friiend.
A house themed holder for cotton reels, with a needle pad in the roof.
A little 4 ply set for the one day box.
A new journal cover.
Yvonnne W' Designs "A Day in the Country" with her beautifully hand painted buttons.
A little boys set in 4 ply wool for the one day box.
Now if all of this uploads ok, hopefully next time I can share what I have been making in the new cottage. There is a sun catcher crochet throw, lots of Splendid Sampler blocks, some gardening and some cooking from produce. There are some photos from this new area, as well as trips to share to the Tower of London, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Museum, the Norfolk Broads, and Lucy M Boston's house. Thank you all so much for bearing with me while we got to the bottom of the technical problems.
Posted in Crafts, Crochet, Knitting, Quilts by House Elf with 6 comments.


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Previous Lesson
Complete and Continue
Brilliant Branding
MODULE 0: Welcome to Brilliant Branding!
How to use this membership site (6:50)
9 brilliant tools to run your online business
MODULE 1: Introduction to Branding
What is considered good content? (5:33)
5 surprising reasons why your brand may be suffering [+ how to fix it]
How to be the face of your business when you hate publicity
MODULE 2: Develop Your Unique Brand
How to create an audience avatar to attract targeted traffic
How to make an awesome brand board for free
Develop your brand with fonts and colors (6:28)
How to create gold text for free (5:14)
MODULE 3: Write Power Copy
Define and write each of your pages' text with copywriting and copy stalking techniques (9:19)
The importance of adding a tagline to your homepage (3:46)
The anatomy of a killer about me page (8:18)
MODULE 4: Create a Logo
How to create a logo for free - even if you don't know anything about design (9:53)
How to create your own logo online with the Wix Logo Maker (7:43)
How to design a logo for free with DesignEvo (6:42)
MODULE 5: Design Unique Graphics
Discover the best place to find free stock images and how to edit them to fit in with your brand (7:51)
How to find high quality free stock images (2:30)
Discover the best place to find free icons and how to edit them to fit in with your brand (3:58)
How to create a branded transparent overlay on an image (Pinterest pin) (4:08)
How to create Pinterest graphics for free in Canva (5:33)
How to make Pinterest pins that go viral (7:32)
How to crop images in a circle shape using Canva and Pixlr - free Photoshop alternatives (4:55)
How to design gorgeous lead magnets and PDFs in Canva (8:51)
How to create a fillable PDF form for free (3:07)
How to insert a hyperlink in a PDF for free (3:45)
How to insert your image into a mockup template for free (3:33)
5 done-for-you social media templates
Top 30 font pairings in Canva cheat sheet
Discover the best place to find free stock images and how to edit them to fit in with your brand
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Start the adventure?
Welcome to the i3 Detroit open source choose your own adventure? Everyone is welcome to write for the final story which should go on forever and can take any twist or turn you like. Have fun. If you don't have a login to the wiki, shoot a note to firstname.lastname@example.com
Chapter 1: The Meeting
You walk into a giant warehouse filled with fascinating projects and incredible machines. There is a faint smell of sawdust in the air. You see a conference table in the center of the room with 30 individuals seated around it. Each are working on a small project, typing on their computer or chatting with one and other. A tall man in a white suit invites you to join the group.
"Welcome to i3 Detroit. You look lost." says the man. "You must have heard of the secret event we are planning. Would you like to help?"
Do you?
Have a seat and listen to more about the project


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There was no winner of the Rhode GAA Lotto for the week ending 10th of November for a Jackpot of €15,000. The numbers drawn were 3 6 19 30 The club like to thank all those who supported the draw and thanks to Killeen's for the use of their premises and for their help and cooperation. The following matched three numbers and received €100 each
Christian Jones
Bernadette Cole
The Rhode GAA Lotto is the main source of income the club has and now you can play online though our website. The good news is when you play the lotto online you are entitled to free draws, for example pay for seven draws receive the eighth one free, pay for fourteen draws receive two free and so on. In other words, the more you play the more free draws you are entitled to!!


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PIXCIR Microelectronics, a company focused on capacitive and touch technologies; and Hanvon Technology, a leader in electromagnetic induction pen technology, have cooperated to promote a multi-touch capacitive pen that enables delicate pen writing applications to a variety of mobile devices.
Transcending the two-dimensional applications of traditional touch control
Dr. Lionel Portmann, CTO of PIXCIR, indicated that current touch screens available in the market have a surface-coated mesh of electrodes and can only provide two-dimensional (2D) finger reaction detection. Although there are independent 3D control solutions in the market that can respond to the X/Y/Z axis movements with a control distance of up to 10cm – such as Z-axis scaling, tilt/joystick input and non-contact page flipping and proximity detection – these technologies still cannot be integrated into a touch screen.
In addition, the touch screen electrode can also be used for short-distance sensing applications such as access cards, access controls, and electronic payment sensor devices. The capacitive pen is controlled by the electrodes in the touch screen surface. It must also work in conjunction with the small pen tip, pressure sensor, and palm input functions.
The PIX C32 Tango IC touch control chip developed by PIXCIR only requires a third-party proximity sensor and capacitive pen to provide 3D (X/Y/Z axis 8cm) control applications with a capacitive pen. The entire tablet or mobile handset only requires the conductive pole of its touch screen surface and no other additional components. The operating principle is that the tablet will issue a command to locate the position of the electric pen, and then accept the pressure from the digital capacitive pen, as well as the data transmitted from the pen tip. Portmann then played a video clip that demonstrated the fairly smooth handwriting created by the capacitive pen developed by PIXCIR and Hanvon. At present, patents for PIX C32 have been approved in Europe, China, the United States, and Taiwan; and patents are still under review in Korea and Japan.
PIXCIR and Hanvon create a writing miracle
Next, PIXCIR CEO Hung Jiin-Wei and Beijing Hanvon Technology's vice president of R&D Xiang Guowei took the stage together. Hung used a 6-inch notebook that combined the technologies of PIXCIR and Hanvon for a writing demonstration, while Xiang indicated that Havon and PIXCIR have been in cooperation since December of 2012.
PIXCIR provides the touch technology and Havon provides the pen technology; and together, they have developed a new generation of capacitive pen technology. Hanvon's wireless capacitive pen features more software features than other offered by competitors, no additional radio frequency (RF) is needed, and the antenna transceiver modules and induction coil can achieve the effect of an active capacitive pen. It supports Android and Windows systems and can provide a minimum 1mm square capacitance pen tip.
Xiang mentioned that up to five million Hanvon brand pen products have been sold. The technology is also licensed to Samsung, KDDI, Moto, and Onyx's eBooks; where approximately one million units have been sold. Regarding the 21.5-inch pen displays in collaboration with EZN, the 10.1-inch pen tablets in collaboration with Viewsonic, and the 8-inch tablets in collaboration with E Ren E Ben; approximately 200 thousand units of their products have been sold. Approximately 100,000 Drawsom 8.2 inch gaming tablets created in collaboration with Ubisoft have also been shipped.
Xiang also mentioned that the entire market wants to go paperless, and there is a clear trend for handwriting input devices. The pen input device is a must have for signature approval for the education, medical, industrial, and financial banking fields. The Samsung Galaxy Note pen phone that uses Hanvon's pen technology and the Microsoft Surface Pro tablet equipped with the electromagnetic induction pen (EM Pen) have also attracted quite a bit of attention. The Galaxy Note estimated that its 2014 shipments will exceed 100 million. There is also a huge market for smartphones, educational pen tablets, and POS signature devices. It is forecasted that the 2013 global pen market will reach US$1.5 billion.
Xiang indicated that the emergence of certain human-machine interfaces/input devices will lead to the rise of certain work platforms, or even drive a change in the manufacturing chain. For example, in the past, keyboards created the popularity of DOS, the keyboard + mouse combination created a Windows boom, and the multi-point touch screen had driven the iOS and Android operating systems. Hanvon believes that the next application trend is the multi-touch screen + pen. Its success is dependent on factors such as promotion by powerful giants such as Samsung to design easy to use and non-awkward products, as well as develop rich pen related software, to create comfortable pen writing applications and achieve a 100% handwriting recognition rate.
Xiang indicated that the electromagnetic induction pen developed by Hanvon is designed to emit positioning electromagnetic waves through the electromagnetic radio frequency (ERT) modules at the bottom layer of the screen panel. The pen does not need an induction coil and battery, can easily satisfy weight requirements, and can provide the subtle feeling of digital pressure as well as a fine handwriting width of 0.1mm. In addition to the chip and electromagnetic pen, panel manufacturers only require between US$3-5 in increased costs. Hanvon's EM pen can achieve a 5080 LPI resolution, a sensing height range of 0-30mm, 2048 digital pressure sensor bands, 60-degree inclination sensing, 1-4 buttons/knob simulation, 360-degree rotation sensing, and pen eraser rubbing simulation functions.
Capacitive pen provides pen writing applications with no additional hardware costs
Xiang mentioned that pens have evolved from the first generation wired pens, to the second generation active analog pens, to the third generation L-type passive analog pens, to the fourth generation C-type analog pens, and then to the fifth-generation passive digital induction pens. Compared to third generation L-type pens and fourth generation C-type pens, the sensing pressure level of Havon's EM pens can reach 2048 while others can only reach the a 512-1024 level, and it has the 5g minimal force sensor, as well as the 0.2 mm positioning accuracy error rate.
In terms of the features for the active capacitive pen and the passive EM pen, the only drawback of the active capacitive pen is that it needs battery and charging mechanisms, has a minimum pen diameter of 6.5 mm, a minimum hover distance of 20mm, and weaker anti-interference capabilities. However, the advantage of the capacitive pen is that it can be used with existing projected capacitive touch screen devices.
Lionel Portmann, PIXCIR CTO
PIXCIR creator and CEO Jiin-Wei Hung (right) and Guo-Wei Xiang, Hanvon Technology's Vice President of R&D (left)


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Hi everyone CAROLE here with you today with our February Mood Board.
This is a fabulous challenge, I hope you love it too and have a go.
So, the inspirations I chose from the board are;
The lock and key, gold, black, gold lace, the gems on the key and the crackle paint effect.
First of all choose some gold and black background paper
Take some texture paste and a crackle stencil and stencil around the page, allow to dry
Matt photo in soft yellow card
Matt again in gold card
Using the gold card cut a layer 6 x 6.5 inches and adhere to the top right hand corner
Adhere some music paper 4.5 x 6 inches, ink edges
Add a matt that is crackle painted white and gold
Add matted photo
Add soft yellow card in the bottom left hand corner 6 x 6.5 inches
Add music paper 4.5 x 6 inches, ink edges
Now you have the main body of the layout, start to decorate
Cut a gold paper doily in half and adhere as per the layout
Attach a black swirly border down one side
Adhere gold flowers using hot glue
Die cut three swirly leaves and attach
Die cut or punch out two large butterflies, adhere
Add gold gems for the bodies
Add lock and key
Add some swirly stems
Die cut a frame and add the title
Add some journaling stickers.
And there you have it, a lovely golden layout.
Pretty paper in gold and black
Soft yellow and gold cardstock
Brown, gold chalk ink
Gold paper doily
White texture paste
Gold acrylic paint
Gold Prima Flowers
Curly flower stems
Two large black butterflies
Gold gems
Lock made from paper clay
Die cut frame
Key and Hashtag ME - CREATIVE EMBELLISHMENTS
Swirly leaves
Stickers - 7 DOTS STUDIO THOUGHTS KEEPER COLLECTION
Our Sponsor this month is:
"Viva Las VegaStamps! is a US based manufacturer of deeply etched pink rubber stamps. Super high quality makes for beautifully stamped images. Our near 20,000 image inventory ranges from steampunk to vintage, realistic to sayings, people to animals and more. Our stamps are great for scrapbooking, mixed media, art journaling, cards, jewelry, food, wax and more!"
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Visit us on FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/vlvstamps
View our BLOG http://vivalas.blogspot.ie/
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Our shop can be found https://www.atvlvstamps.com
Visit us on FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/vlvstamps
View our BLOG http://vivalas.blogspot.ie/
We're on INSTAGRAM https://instagram.com/vivalasvegastamps/
PINTEREST https://www.pinterest.com/vlvstamps/
Our shop can be found https://www.atvlvstamps.com
Viva Las Vegas Stamps give one winner a $30 Gift Certificate to use in their store!
Please be sure to follow our CHALLENGE RULES.
We appreciate each and every challenge entry and share the designs that catch our eye on our Facebook page and Pinterest Boards.
Thank you and I am looking forward to meet with your great projects on our challenge!
I hope you followed along. Thank you so much for joining me today, do come back again soon to see more design team work.


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Privacy Policy
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Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page, and where appropriate, expressed to you via e-mail. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.


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ExtUtils::MakeMaker::bytes - Version agnostic bytes.pm
use just like bytes.pm
bytes.pm was introduced with 5.6. This means any code which has 'use bytes' in it won't even compile on 5.5.X. Since bytes is a lexical pragma and must be used at compile time we can't simply wrap it in a BEGIN { eval 'use bytes' } block.
ExtUtils::MakeMaker::bytes is just a very thin wrapper around bytes which works just like it when bytes.pm exists and everywhere else it does nothing.


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Simple Cremation in Cedar Rapids, Rapids
Celebrate Life Iowa is an experienced Iowa funeral home specializing in affordable cremation and funeral services in Cedar Rapids. As a trusted Cedar Rapids funeral and cremation provider we promise to provide the best customer care and service with the guaranteed lowest cost. Our company offers a wide range of cremation products and the most affordable cremation in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
We approach every family with the highest level of care and dignity. With years of experience, family owned, locally Iowan owned, you can count on Celebrate Life Iowa to deliver top quality cremation services at a price that you can afford. Financing your cremation services is an option as well.
If you are looking for a simple cremation provider in Cedar Rapids to honor a life lived, Celebrate Life Iowa is here to assist you.
We gladly bring the service right to your own home and make pre-planning or planning cremation services as comfortable as possible. Call us today, and plan for tomorrow.
Cremation Services in Cedar Rapids
What is the cost associated with cremation in Cedar Rapids, Iowa?
The cost is determined by a few basic factors such as: Urn selection, number of death certificates, and distance from West Des Moines.
The base cost of the cremation in Cedar Rapids is $895. We proudly serve all 99 counties of Iowa. Initial transportation is within 20-mile radius of the Polk county funeral home location. Additional charges of $100 for 20-40 miles; $200 for 41-59 miles; $300 for 60-124 miles; $400 for 124-174 miles, and $500 for 175 miles plus from West Des Moines The medical examiner charges $75 for a cremation permit. All counties in Iowa charge $15 per death certificate which is in addition to Celebrate Life Iowa's base cremation cost. Other additions can be the cost of an obituary in newspapers and an upgraded urn of your choice.
Is my loved one cremated alone?
At Celebrate Life Iowa, and at every crematory in Iowa, bodies are cremated individually. Every person is properly identified once entering Celebrate Life Iowa's crematory. All personal belongings are logged, and each individual is assigned a cremation tag that remains with them through the cremation process.
What can I do with my loved one's ashes?
Some cremation families in Cedar Rapids chose to bury in various local cemeteries. Other families choose to keep the cremated remains with them until a later date. A positive point about cremation is you have the time to think about what is the best decision for your family.


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Well good morning - sorry for the late post but I had mahusive thunderstorms yesterday that did away with the power !!!
Welcome to WEEK 2 or our latest Challenge here at IKEsWORLD CHALLENGES and for this fortnight, our theme is #38 HISTORIC. This can be an event, character, something about your country or cultural history, or even something from your own life if you wish.
You may use any medium or images you like to enter the Challenge. Obviously we LUV it if you use an IKEsART image. :-D
Now - there is a little FREEBIE for you to play along with down on the Post for WEEK 1. I have gone literal and given you "KNIGHT 1", but you can do anything which you consider to be HISTORIC. Just click to enlarge him and Save to your computer.
Now - for inspiration, here are the creations of TEAM B......
Some fabulous creations I am sure you will agree ?
RightHo - you have until Monday 1st JUNE 2015 to play along with us. Please leave your creation with My Linky below on WEEK 1(in the interests of fair play, please NO BACKLINKING).
You may enter up to 3 times and remember - if you use an IKEsART image, we will enter you in the Draw twice. :-D
We are also having a DT CALL this week, so if you would like to come join us then pop over to the DT CALL link HERE.
We LUV smooshy comments if you'd like to leave us some :-D :-D xxxx


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ALCTS President's Program: Breaking Down the Silos: Planning for Discovery in Library 2.0 – an ALCTS Midwinter Symposium
Marshall Breeding – title of his presentation: Next Generation Library Interfaces: Overview of concepts and a brief tour of commercial and open source products
My random notes from Marshall's presentation:
Started with OCLC Perceptions stat – where do you start an info search? 89% search engines… library catalogs, 2%
usage of library websites is going down, everything else is going up … hmm…
aside – that makes a good case for sticking library content on blogs… users will find you that way
Crowded landscape of info providers on the web – google, amazon, us, etc…
Nobody has to go to a bibliographic instruction class to use Amazon… Nice.
Amazon is so easy to use – Marshall accidentally bought a book during a presentation, it's so easy
Demand for compelling library interfaces:
urgent need for libraries to offer interfaces their users will like to use
move into the current millenium
search in line with how the current web works
inadequacy of ILS OPACs:
OPAC modules … failing to meet customer needs – it's not really built for customers
Change is Underway! Lots of movement to break out of the current mold of library catalogs
Marshall hopes the back end will be redesigned, too, to be more modern
Next-Generation Interfaces:
redefinition of the library catalog – the word "catalog" is not a good one
more elegant presentation (think amazon)
more comprehensive info discovery environments
no longer enough to provide a catalog limited to print resources
digital resources cannot be an afterthought
systems designed for e-content only are also problematic
forcing users to use different interfaces depending on types of content becoming less tenable
federated search currently operates as a plug-in component of next-gen interfaces
web 2.0 flavorings:
strategic infrastructure + web 2.0
a more social and collaborative approach
web tools and tech that foster collaboration
integrated blogs, wiki, user reviews, etc
avoid 2.0 info silos – don't have separate blogs, wikis, etc – make sure it's integrated
2.0 supporting tech:
web services, xml apis, ajax, relevancy-based search engines, social networking tools and concepts
scope of the next gen library interface:
attempt to collapse silos or draw appropriately from each silo
unified user experience
single point of entry into everything
print + electronic
local + remote
locally created content
Functions and features:
Interface features/user experience:
simple point of entry – optional advanced search
relevancy ranked results
facets for narrowing and navigation
query enhancement – spell check, etc
suggested related results / recommendation service
enriched visual and textual content
single sign-on
Relevancy Ranking:
Endeca, Lucene do a good job
web users expect this! – the good stuff should be listed first
users tend not to delve deep into a result list
good relevancy requires a sophisticated approach
new paradigm for search and navigation:
users drill down through the result set and faceted browsing
faceted search – gives users clues about eh the number of hits, etc – it's more like an online store's faceted/guided navigation
more visual, has navigational bread crumbs
talking about boolean – walmart doesn't teach their customers to do fancy boolean search to get to their products… we shouldn't do this either!
Amazon doesn't say "no results found." Did you Mean and other features instead
validated spell check
have More Like This recommendation service
goal – make the query and the response to it better than the query provided
appropriate organizational structures:
LCSH vs FAST (faceted application of subject terminology)
full marc vs dublin core or MODS, or unstructured data
discipline-specific thesauri or ontologies
enriched content – book jacket, summaries, etc
personalization/single sign on
deep search:
entering post-metadata search era
web searches full text. Google print, google publisher, open content alliance, etc
high quality metadata will improve search precision
commercial search providers already offer search inside the book
library search doesn't do this!!!
Beyond discovery to fulfillment / delivery: this is the harder part – harder than discovery
Enterprise integration:
ability to deliver content and services through non-library apps
courseware, portals, social networking environments, etc
Great Benefit, Great Cost
We're WAY TOO SLOW. Time on the web moves quickly! We need to catch up.
ideas to buy/use:
Endeca – one of the first
Widely used in the commercial world
high-dollar approach
LibraryThing for Libraries:
Wow – they are now distributed exclusively by RR Bowker
Primo: tailored for academic libraries
Encore from Innovative Interfaces (Nashville Public Library uses it)
Worldcat Local
TLCs LS2 (Shanandoah Public Library)
good visual design
SirsiDynix Enterprise
not aware of anyone actually using it yet
it's a hosted product
does relevancy wel
uses chilifresh for book reviews
Marshall's example is very ugly! Sirsi really needs a visual designer!
Wordpress – looks great
Marshall's not sure how it will scale
same stuff – faceted search, relevance, etc
production cat for the National Library of Australia – that's pretty big.
open source, looks great
focuses on social networking
tag, review, comments, etc
oakville public library in ontario – in production.
Looks great!
serials solutions produst
eXtensibe Catalog
Polaris, Koha, Evergreen – doing well with providing next-gen features too
question/comment: we have a next-gen catalog, our faculty don't get it – don't understand faceted search, don't know what a tag cloud is, etc – how do you get around that?
Answer: well, Amazon doesn't seem to need to explain their faceted search, tag, etc stuff… ouch!


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Want to know what we do and also want to support us?
We aim to provide a comprehensive range of mental health care and support options for Cambodians. We do this through a range of structured Programs – many of them community-based – as well as our Treatment Center in Phnom Penh. Our Training Center offers a wide range of training options for professionals as well as all those who want to build or expand their knowledge and skill in the field of mental health, to the benefit of all Cambodian citizens. We also conduct Research in the field of mental health and offer Consultancy. Throughout all our work, we tirelessly promote mental health care and psychosocial well-being, and advocate for improved mental health care services in Cambodia.


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I was recruited by etc. (whose nom I finally learned, so I can give her proper credit!). I'd heard vaguely of the NPL for some years due to articles in GAMES and whatnot, but it was a conversation backstage during rehearsals for a Gilbert & Sullivan production that we were doing together that she pointed me in the right direction.
Also Siri and Spellbound. I can also take some credit for Wesley and Arcs, through the Mystery Hunt.
My nom doesn't have much of a story behind it, except that I thought "saxifrage" was a nifty word that people really ought to hear more of. (It's a small flowering herb.) In one version I have of the Victorian-era language of flowers, it represents "affection," which is rather nice. And it derives from a Latin root meaning "rock-breaking," which is rather evocative. (Of what, I'm not sure…) Mostly, though, I just liked it.


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A detail of the patinated-bronze-and-enamel surface of a table designed in the 1960s by father-and-son artisans Philip and Kelvin LaVerne. The table, described as a console and measuring 26 inches high by 4 feet 8 inches long, is available from Fat Chance in Los Angeles. Presumably one could also use it as a tea-height cocktail table. Image from 1stdibs.com. |
Chinoiserie is one of those evergreen styles that trends in and out, riding the fickle tsunami of public taste. In the eighteenth century seemingly all of Europe lusted for objects Asiatic — or at least the era's sensationally jumbled and inventive interpretation of Far East motifs. A century later there was japonisme, a related style whose Asian elements were combined, often promiscuously, and scattered across drawing rooms and boudoirs, especially in France and England. Side tables sprouted shelves shaped like delicate fans, for instance, and chandeliers writhed with serpents or dragons.
In the 1920s, when opium was a fashionable recreational drug and adventuresome social figures such as Nancy Lancaster, Carlos de Beistegui, and Wallis Spencer (the future Duchess of Windsor) were checking out the hot spots in Shanghai and Peking, chinoiserie exploded onto the aesthetic scene once more. Likely culprits in the style's renewed popularity were Giacomo Puccini's opera Turandot, which caused pandemonium when it made its debut in 1926 in Milan, and the glamorous movies of Chinese-American film star Anna May Wong. The result was chop-suey interiors splashed with red lacquer and sparkling with gold leaf, such as one can see at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles, completed in 1927 to the designs of architect Raymond Kennedy. (Perhaps a puff of opium made especially outlandish versions of the style more bearable, at least on the residential front.) A modern-day evocation of these Jazz Age ethnic extravaganzas is the decor of one of my favorite restaurant settings: the vast dining room of Ruby Foo's Times Square in New York City, courtesy of architect David Rockwell.
Philip LaVerne, left, and his son, Kelvin, right, manhandling a round bronze tabletop in their Wooster Street studio in 1968. Image by Richard Walker for The New York Times. |
I willingly admit a weakness for all the abovementioned examples of Sinophilia but nothing causes me to swoon quite as much as the sophisticated chinoiserie produced in the 1950s and 1960s by the father-and-son design team of Philip and Kelvin LaVerne. (Okay, perhaps the Royal Pavilion at Brighton comes in first.) Close relatives of the furniture and screenprint-wallpaper geniuses designers Estelle and Erwine Laverne — the couple's see-through acrylic Lily chair is a 1950s classic— the LaVernes toiled in an unassuming studio at 74 Wooster Street in New York City. There behind the building's bland brick façade, they made, by hand, remarkable limited-edition bronze and pewter furnishings distinguished with exotic decorations that married modernism and antiquity with notable grace.
A table by the LaVernes. Measuring 4 feet 8 inches long by 26 inches high by 20 inches deep, it is available at Fat Chance in Los Angeles, California. Image from 1stdibs.com. |
The best known of the father and son's romantic works — which were given the patina of age through prolonged immersion in a supersecret stew of chemicals and an oily soil sourced somewhere in Asia — are replete with bas-relief images of pagodas, temples, mandarins, and geishas. Others pieces explore Egyptian and Etruscan themes, according to a profile of the designing duo published in The New York Times in February 1968, and one table I have come across has a bas-relief top inspired by the gardens of the Château de Versailles. But it is the team's Chan and Lo Tai series of chinoiserie furnishings that makes me inexplicably happy. I would gladly give up our nineteenth-century Chinese altar table and rickety wedding bed in exchange for something certifiably LaVerne.
A LaVerne wall plaque, available from Belkind Bigi, Tarrytown, New York. Image from 1stdibs.com. |
Whether lean cocktail table, blocky cabinet, shapely wall plaque or mirror or tables wrought large, small, round or irregular, the LaVernes' chinoiserie products are ornamented with willow-treed garden views and lively urban scenes that seem to be taken straight off the panels of a Coromandel screen. (The gentlemen, who signed their works "Philip + Kelvin LaVerne," reportedly made extensive creative use of the New York Public Library and other illustrative sources.) The mysterious greenish-gold iridescence and artful weathering of the mixed-metal surfaces, often brilliantly picked out with colorful enamels, added greatly to the final effect. Such manipulations give the designs the impression of antiquity, as if they recently had been unearthed from a Ming Dynasty burial mound. However, the LaVerne works only look as if they should rest behind museum glass. As the Times article noted, their expertly etched surfaces require nothing more than "a monthly rubdown with automobile paste wax."
A side table by Philip and Kelvin LaVerne. Available from gallerist Liz O'Brien. Image from 1stdibs.com. |
These two LaVerne cabinets are in stock at Weiss Antiques Gallery in Birmingham, Michigan. The doors open to reveal lacquered interiors of vivid celestial blue. Image from Weiss Antiques. |
A Chan bar by Philip and Kelvin LaVerne. Made of bronze, pewter, and colored enamels and featuring folding extensions, the bar has double doors illustrating courtly Chinese scenes while the top is decorated with the colorful figures of peasants gathered around an ox. It is available from Cristina Grajales Gallery. Image from Cristina Grajales Gallery. |


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A deposit is a guarantee partial payment charged when you make a reservation online with us.
The remaining cost of the amount of your booking is payable before or upon your arrival to the hostel.
Make sure that you become acquainted with the form of payment and the credit card brands accepted, if any, by the hostel. Please consult the description of the hostel on our website.