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British Invasion: The Beatles and The Rolling Stones
"Rooster", "There Where She Loved", "A Day in the Life"
The Washington Ballet
Eisenhower Theater
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Washington, DC
March 6, 2014
By Ashley McKean
copyright © by Ashley McKean
At first blush, ballet and classic rock seem to have little in common. Yet the Washington Ballet synergized the two, in not just one but two pieces on Thursday's program: Christopher Bruce's "Rooster" and Trey McIntyre's "A Day in the Life". The program was an example of the integration of ballet with popular culture and contemporary styles that has occurred more frequently during the past couple of decades. Any such fusion can only be effective if the elements are compatible. Both "rock ballets" performed on Thursday combined masterful choreography and well-chosen melodies that blended together as seamlessly as the colors in a kaleidoscope. But it was the dancers' commitment, individuality and spectacular dancing in all three pieces on the program that made the evening truly remarkable.
All of the dancers performed admirably, as a cohesive whole, in "A Day in the Life", but several gave standout individual performances. Maki Onuki, a dancer who seemingly can do anything, was both quirky and endearing in her solo, "Julia". Jonathan Jordan moved with ease and technical assuredness, displaying polished jumps, and especially shone in the touching duet, "Blackbird", with Brooklyn Mack. These two dancers moved in perfect unison, mirroring each other, echoing each other, and at times supporting each other in lifts.
But it was Mack who gave a performance to behold as the central male figure. His solos throughout, and particularly in "Mother Nature's Son" and "Golden Slumbers", were powerful and honest, showing great emotional depth. Mack's beautiful classical and contemporary lines suggest that he is a rare dancer who can move easily between both styles. His was a stunning performance—technically brilliant, completely committed, and holding nothing back.
Christopher Bruce's "Rooster", choreo-graphed to songs by The Rolling Stones, opened the program and was all swing and swagger, a fast-paced celebration of music and movement. Although not a comedic piece per se, Jared Nelson's convincing portrayal of the "Little Red Rooster" made use of his comedic skills. The piece underscored the strength of the company's current crop of male dancers, including Nelson, Chong Sun (who made quite an impression with his jumps) and Andile Ndlovu, to name a few. If it were a battle of the sexes, the men would have won, had it not been for the poignant solo by Morgann Rose to "Ruby Tuesday", an unusual lyrical moment—and one of the most memorable moments—in this ballet. As a woman coming into her own, Rose demonstrated a seasoned dramatic ability and an adept way of maneuvering complicated partnering with four different men.
The program was rounded out with the delightful and intriguing "There Where She Loved" by Christopher Wheeldon. This suite of love stories was choreographed to songs by the German composer Kurt Weill, interspersed with pieces from Chopin's Polish Songs, and accompanied by a solo pianist and two sopranos who sang on opposite sides of the stage. The colors of the costumes and the backdrops established the mood for each piece. Luis Torres danced a pas de quatre to Weill's sultry "Surabaya-Johnny" with three women in lavender—Ayano Kimura, who danced an intricate petit allegro sequence in silence before the music began, the elegant and refined Sona Kharatian, and Morgann Rose, once again showing an intelligent dramatic quality in this dance suggesting unrequited love. Dressed in light green in front of a pink backdrop, Maki Onuki and Brooklyn Mack danced a flirtatious but difficult pas de deux—"Spring", to music by Chopin—that was as fresh as the spring itself and as smooth as spun silk. But the highlight for me was Onuki's "There Where She Loved", a solo displaying her impeccable technique, brilliant balances and extensions, and easy, playful quality. A soulful and luscious pas de deux by Luis Torres and Aurora Dickie closed the ballet and was wonderfully danced; my only wish was that she would let herself go a bit more.
copyright © by Ashley McKean


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How To Use Promotional Products To Market Your Business And Delight Your Customers
Looking for a low-cost, attention-getting way to promote your business? Do it with promotional products. Sometimes called "advertising specialties," these delightful items include mugs, key rings, caps, t-shirts, playing cards, license-plate frames, flashlights, and more — all with your company LOGO printed on them.
People just love them, especially if you offer them for free. Often your established customers will even BUY them, sometimes at a price that creates a profit for you.
The variety and kinds of products you can have your name printed on is incredible. As a promotional product specialist, I can — right now — deliver more than 700,000 popular promotional items, all with your name on them, ranging from aprons to watches.
The beauty of promotional products is they are a super low-cost billboard that stays with your prospect or customer for years at a time. Every time the prospect uses the promotional placemat, fan, or pen, they'll think of YOU. And everyone else who sees that item will think of you, too.
In recent years, big companies who could easily afford all the newspaper and TV advertising they want, have instead invested millions in promotional products.
Why? They work! Promotional products work especially well to market to those very powerful, but hard to reach individuals like corporate bosses or teenagers. A teenager might turn her nose up at your TV ad and never see your newspaper ad. But if a friend she admires wears or uses your promotional product, you're immediately cool.
The same principle works for corporate chieftains who are impossible to reach on the phone and never answer their email. Fed Ex him or her a luxury item for their home or office, and you will get their attention.
Promotional items are also excellent for reinforcing your media or online advertising. How do you get a prospect to remember your ad for weeks, months, or even years? Give them a promotional product that makes them think of you and your ad.
For added effect, choose promotional items that relate to your business. A gym might giveaway a t-shirt. A tanning salon might hand out sunglasses. Let your creativity and sense of fun be your guide.
Keep in mind that promotional products aren't just for marketing business names. They work equally well when they focus on a specific product, product line, service, or idea. Some of the most successful promotional products have worked to promote political, religious, health, and community causes.
Click through a site or catalog that features a big selection of promotional products. Think about your customers as you browse. When you find yourself thinking "Oh – they would LOVE this"… you've found your best promotional item.

subset: commoncrawl


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In the land of fiction, it's the criminal's modus operandi - his method of entry, his taste for certain jewellery and so forth - that can be used by detectives to identify his handiwork. The reality according to a new analysis of solved burglaries in the Northamptonshire region of England is that these aspects of criminal behaviour are on their own unreliable as identifying markers, most likely because they are dictated by circumstances rather than the criminal's taste and style. However, the geographical spread and timing of a burglar's crimes are distinctive, and could help with police investigations.
Lucy Markson and colleagues analysed 160 burglaries committed in Northamptonshire between 2006 and 2008 by 80 male serial offenders. Each burglar had committed two of the crimes. Markson jumbled up the burglaries and looked to see if two crimes committed by the same offender - so-called 'linked crimes' - were more similar, on average, on a range of factors, than two crimes committed by two different offenders.
Each burglary was analysed according to its timing, geographical location, and over 79 aspects of modus operandi behaviour categorised together under three domains: 'entry behavior', 'target selection', and 'property stolen'. Comparing crimes across each of these domains one at a time failed to distinguish between linked and unlinked crimes. Only when all three domains of modus operandi behaviour were considered together were burglaries by the same man distinguished from those by two different men (but still only with an accuracy of 58 per cent).
The key finding is that even more effective as a distinguishing factor than all three domains of modus operandi behaviour combined was geographical location. That is, two burglaries within Northamptonshire committed by the same man tended to be closer together geographically than two burglaries committed by two different men. Timing was another useful factor - two crimes by the same burglar tended to happen closer together in time (measured in days) than unlinked burglaries. Combining timing and spatial distance correctly identified 86 per cent of burglary pairs as either linked or unlinked.
Another pattern the researchers looked for was whether modus operandi behaviours are more similar between two crimes occurring closer together in time, but no such pattern was observed.
Timing and spatial distance have been identified as useful markers of linked crimes before but only ever in metropolitan areas, so this is the first demonstration in a more rural, sparsely populated context. 'The current study has shown that offenders do exhibit a degree of consistency and distinctiveness across certain crime behaviours but that not all offence behaviour can be used to accurately distinguish between burglaries committed by the same and different offenders,' the researchers concluded.
Markson, L., Woodhams, J., & Bond, J. (2010). Linking serial residential burglary: comparing the utility of modus operandi behaviours, geographical proximity, and temporal proximity. Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling DOI: 10.1002/jip.120
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.


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Find out what fits you best and choose your own journey here at FOEX
We are engineers, developers, marketers, sales and business people, with a very specific focus in mind: to build products that enable the entire developer community to create one-of-a-kind app experiences for their customers.
For us, there is no greater motivation like providing people with the opportunity to advance in their careers on the basis of their accomplishments. Working at FOEX gives you the opportunity to work with the best folks in the business. We are strong believers in giving our employees the opportunity to learn from practical experience, develop new skills and grow professionally by taking on interesting challenges on a daily basis.
We are a group of passionate-driven FOEX enthusiasts, with a good sense of humor who treat everyone as our equal in the workplace. All we ask in return is that you have a smile on your face, believe in our vision and commit 100% to helping us transform FOEX into the #1 Oracle development framework for complex, data-centric web applications.
If you feel like you have what it takes to join our awesome team, check out our current job openings or send us your CV and tell us why you should be a part of FOEX.


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E12300 - SEMI E123 - Specification for Handler Equipment Specific Equipment Model (HSEM)
This Standard was technically approved by the Information & Control Global Technical Committee. This edition was approved for publication by the global Audits and Reviews Subcommittee on August 31, 2016. Available at www.semiviews.org and www.semi.org in February 2017; originally published March 2003; previously published October 2009.
NOTICE: This Standard replaces SEMI E30.2, which has been removed from publication as of the March 2003 (0303) publication cycle.
This Document establishes a Specific Equipment Model (SEM) for Handling equipment (HSEM). The SEM consists of equipment characteristics and behaviors that are applicable to this class of equipment. The intent of this Document is to facilitate the integration of Handling equipment into an automated (semiconductor) factory. This Document accomplishes this by defining an operational model for Handling equipment as viewed by a factory automation controller. This definition provides a standard host interface and equipment operational behavior.
The scope of this Document is limited to the definition of Handling equipment behavior as perceived by a host. It defines the view of the equipment through the equipment communications interface. It does not define the internal operation of the equipment. It includes a specific processing state model as the basis for the behavior of all equipment of this class.
This Document expands the handler equipment requirements and capabilities in the areas of the processing state model, collection event, alarm documentation, remote commands, variables item, and process program management.
Subordinate Standard:
SEMI E123.1-0703 (Reapproved 1109) - Specification for SECS-II Protocol for Handler Specific Equipment Model (HSEM)
Referenced SEMI Standards
SEMI E5 — SEMI Equipment Communications Standard 2 Message Content (SECS-II)
SEMI E30 — Generic Model for Communications and Control of Manufacturing Equipment (GEM)
SEMI E37 — High-Speed SECS Message Services (HSMS) Generic Services
SEMI E37.1 — High-Speed SECS Message Services Single Selected-Session Mode (HSMS-SS)
|Interested in purchasing additional SEMI Standards? Consider SEMIViews, an online portal with access to over 1000 Standards.
Refund Policy: Due to the nature of our products, SEMI has a no refund/no exchange policy. Please make sure that you have reviewed your order prior to finalizing your purchase. All sales are final.


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Love these 100% cotton knitted storage bins. Tame the toys!
Knitted Storage Bins
4 Comments leave a comment below
From what I can see the sides are woven – bottoms may be knit but you can't see from the image.
I knit and weave.
Thanks for sharing. These are great. Other similar ones I have seen are really expensive. These in yellow would be perfect for my boys playroom.
Wow! Those are so cute for my baby's bedroom! Very beautiful storage bins. I think bottom part isn't knitted because it would be a little bit bulky, I guess. But those are the cutest storage bins I've ever seen!:)
Very amazing hand-made storage bins. Very cute. I wish I could to that to. Thanks for posting.


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"Queen of Heaven" is a Polyvore set made more than a year ago.
To see what others have posted who are participating in Loving Lupita: Twelve Days of Mary Love, go to Rebecca Brooks Recuerda mi Corazon blog. At her site today she has a beautiful photo of Mary prayer flags.


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Based on , the definition of Mass Media is these means of communication that attain and influence massive numbers of individuals, especially newspapers, in style magazines, radio, and tv. With the Fall 2016 semester, a new faculty encompassing the applications of Communications, Humanities, Effective Arts and Social Sciences begins an thrilling new chapter of educational collaboration. This course builds on the abilities already acquired within the earlier AMCA communication course. This module introduces college students to the practices of the television industry with a particular emphasis on the connection between tv schedules and the forms of programmes that fill them.
Technical and professional degree careers related to performing, visible and media arts. Researchers, designers, artists and college students all working below the identical roof. The Diploma of Arts and Communication program is obtainable full-time and part-time on-campus. Accredited by the National Association of Colleges of Music, the Mary Morgan Moore Division of Music gives four undergraduate levels and two graduate degrees.
The college's primary mission is to prepare the next generation of artists, communicators, and students not only to take part in their numerous disciplines, however to offer leadership in their fields. At Central Oregon Community College, you have got choices of over 50 totally different high quality arts courses to meet your needs and a variety of Speech Communication and Journalism courses.
By means of our packages, many of which are nationally ranked, students are given every opportunity to grow to be proficient and powerful storytellers. Liberal arts packages at University of Maryland University Faculty concentrate on providing you with a nicely-rounded education that may be easily custom-made with quite a lot of minors and specializations.
Your tax deductible reward, no matter dimension, helps the Faculty of Liberal Arts provide a top quality schooling to students from the Mid-South and beyond. The Arts and Communication Division consists of programs that target the cultural actions and artistic expressions of human beings, emphasize the connection of language to logic, and put together students for careers in media communications.


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Parenting May Be Your Hardest Job But It's Also the Most Important and Rewarding Job You'll Ever Have.
At some point most people start thinking about having children. They imagine a sweet pink chubby baby in their arms and all the love they can imagine going both ways. As it should be!
But as you emerge from the hospital, whether it's your first baby or your third, no one teaches you how to be a parent. Perhaps they should add that to the college requirements! Couples sometimes start to disengage from one another after the baby is born and never completely find their way back to one another. The baby changes couple dynamic and adds stress to your relationship. Parenting is more effective as a team. Could this be a part of the problem parenting your child?
Children come into this world with their very own unique temperament but their environment shapes them greatly. Even adults as children have had to push down certain personality traits in order to fit in with their own families. Don't you want your child to feel free to be whoever they truly are? Don't you want to support and encourage that? How do I do that you ask?
There are different types of parents. Some feel they need to be the firm boss and children must listen to what they say without question, for their own good of course. Is that you?
Some parents' believe that children grow up fine by themselves. They don't impose a lot of structure, pressure or involvement. Is that you?
The parenting style that I find to be most effective is when a parent engages their child in decision-making and problem solving, while maintaining their status as parent. This parent wants to know what you think and feel. He/she doesn't judge you or scold you but shows empathy instead. This kind of parent uses problems and incidents as a teaching tool, which can lead to important conversations with your child.
Children carry stresses just like adults do but they may act out on it differently. They may seem irritable, angry, tired, down, or mouthy. They still need a parent who can stay in their adult and makes their child feel respected and safe even though. Your child will want to come to you to share their hardships and triumphs and you will have an opportunity to guide your child in healthy ways. You also will have a loving respectful relationship that will last a lifetime. This is your gift for being such an awesome parent. It is a gift for your child too. When they have a safe harbor at home they will feel more secure going out into the world when it is time.
No matter what your parenting style is you love your children and want the best for them. That's why I work with parents to improve their parenting skills when they tell me that relations with their child are strained and their child is having issues at home, school, work, or with other people.
Because they don't teach us how to parent many of us are flying by the seat of our pants. Still using the parenting style your parents used on you? How's that working? These are different times and parenting has to evolve to accommodate the needs of children today.
If you're confused about your parenting style and want to be more effective, come see me. Tell me what's going on and we can practice different styles of communicating with your child to have the desired results you want. I'll follow along with your family and you may choose to invite them to join you in session at some point; age appropriate of course. When I'm in the room I can support and guide everyone as they engage in healthier interactions.
What are you waiting for? Childhood goes by too fast and your child needs you to take action right now. They want a good relationship with you and they need your support. Don't wait until your child is a tween, teen, or young adult. Start learning how to parent when your child is young. This may help you avoid issues later on. If your child is a teen or young adult you can still improve relations if you are willing to look at your parenting style and make changes if needed.Parenting changes with the developmental stages of your child. You will have to modify your techniques as they grow.
I know you love your child so why not give them the best chance in life by starting out with an awesome parent or set of parents. I know we adults deal with many stresses and responsibilities each and every day. It's not easy to balance everything. But, you had them- so they deserve to come first!
Read on for more information on parenting . . .


text: Make Home Made Maple Syrup Make Home Made Maple Syrup from Watkins Maple Extract! Did you know you can make your own maple flavored syrup with Watkins Maple Extract? Follow this recipe for a Maple Syrup that's sure to please! Simple Syrup Recipe 1 cup boiling water 2 cups white sugar 1/2 teaspoon Watkins Imitation Maple Extract Bring water to a boil in saucepan and add Continued »


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Theo Epstein to throw ot the first pitch for South Bend Cubs
Posted: Apr 8, 2015 5:28 AM EST | Updated: Apr 9, 2015 12:51 PM EST
The South Bend Cubs home opener on Thursday is the start to not only a new season, but a brand new affiliation too.
"Opening day is going to be a great event for us. It's our first day as a Chicago Cubs affiliate," said Joe Hart, President of the South Bend Cubs.
The Chicago Cubs' Theo Epstein will be throwing out the first pitch to kick off the season.
"To have Theo here, he's a baseball guy, and I know the fans are excited too. This is the guy who is President of Baseball Operations for the Chicago Cubs, to have him here is pretty special," said Hart.
Epstein is the youngest GM in Major League Baseball history. He was hired by the Boston Red Sox in 2002 at the age of 28. Since then he has led the team to many championships before he resigned and joined the Chicago Cubs.
As President of Baseball Operations for the Chicago Cubs, Epstein has had plenty of practice throwing strikes, but Hart has his own advice for the first pitch.
He recalled one of the funniest first pitches he had ever seen.
"Probably one of the funniest things I've ever seen. I saw someone throw the first pitch and they tripped and literally rolled down the mound."


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DXY Driving US Dollar Pairs
Joe Perry December 27, 2019 4:15 PM
As a result of the DXY move, related pairs are also having a big day.
Yesterday we wrote about how the DXY had a nasty move on December 25th/26th during quiet trading, which was exacerbated by the holiday with many markets closed. Price spiked lower by over 100 pips and bounced back to unchanged within 2 hours! Looks like there may be some real money behind that move as the US Dollar Index continues to move lower today. The move on the 25th had the looks of a Central Bank all over it (ie..no idea how to trade, just get it done). Whoever is selling US Dollars today seems to have learned from that move. Instead of dumping the US Dollar position all at once in a thin market, someone may have realized its smarter to piece meal the trade. (This is total speculation on my part).
Price so far today has retraced 61.8% of the spike lower to 96.97. If the US Dollar breaks below, price can easily run down to the spike low at 96.59. And as we have discussed before, if someone needs to get something done heading into year end, price and technical won't matter.
Source: Tradingview, FOREX.com
On a daily timeframe, the US Dollar broke lower on December 13th out of the upward sloping channel where price has been since mid-2018. Price then bounced and retested the bottom trendline of the channel and the 200-day moving average near 97.70. With the spike lower to the lows of December 13th, it opened the door for another move lower to the 96.59 level as possible a decisive move lower away from the channel!
Source: Tradingview, FOREX.com
As a result of the US Dollar move, related pairs such as EUR/USD and GBP/USD are also having a big day.
EUR/USD is up 75 pips near 1.1170 and looking to retest the highs from December 13th and the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level from the June 25th highs to the October 1st lows near 1.1207.
Source: Tradingview, FOREX.com
GBP/USD is up over 100 pips near 1.3090 and looking to test the 38.2% Fibonacci retracement level from the spike higher on December 12th after the election to the low on December 23rd at 1.3137. Resistance above isn't until 1.3210, which is the 50% retracement level.
Source: Tradingview, FOREX.com
Watch for these trends continue into year end early next week!
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The last 5 years I've been working on all kinds of new developments regarding networking for Telecom operators. For example the rise of the 'white boxes' (relatively cheap networking and server hardware that could be used with your own software) like the ones championed by the Open Compute Project (OCP), open source network control software as created by the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) and a new network data plane programming language (created by Barefoot Networks Inc. and transferred to the P4.org, now under the umbrella of the ONF) called P4. Going through this period I only missed one thing: a performant P4 based virtual switch!
Why is there a need for an open source P4 based vSwitch?
The P4 language and the current high performance hardware based switch chips supporting P4 build by Barefoot, Cisco and others allow many people to experiment and implement their own protocols again and not be dependent on big switch vendor organisations (and corresponding high cost) for implementing small scale private implementations of networking and service protocols. As Nick McKeown, Professor at Stanford University, co-founder of Nicira (Openflow!) and Barefoot Networks (P4!) and the father of Software Defined Networking (SDN), stated during his ONF Connect 2019 keynote: "Network owners took control of their software back and now take control of packet processing too!"
While on the software side there is BMv2 (Behavioural Model version 2) created by the P4.org for testing and verifying P4 language constructs and the P4C compiler implementation, at this moment there is no real high performance implementation of a P4 capable virtual switch (vSwitch). A relatively high performant fixed function vSwitch is Open vSwitch, the open source virtual switch developed on the up-rise of the first Software Defined Networking 'language' called Openflow. Openflow was great to start with coming from a 'black box' environment but more and more flexibility is required in data plane packet handling and control. The reason for its popularity is because Open vSwitch has done an incredible job of implementing all fixed function requirements controllable through a nice CLI that people where looking for in a vSwitch. Up until now! ;-)
If you look into how switch chips (and also software based switches) work inside you will find the common setup as depicted in the picture below
Network packets come in through ports, are pre-processed and the packet is put into some buffer. The first x number of bytes of a packet then goes through an Ingress pipeline where all the header parsing and rewriting is done depending on rules and tables set up by the Control layer. After the first pipeline, depending on metadata set, replication and output port selection is done and the packet is put into the Egress pipeline for output parsing and rewriting. In the last stage the packet is build up again by combining the new header data and the rest of the packet stored in the buffer and send out of the port.
Those Ingress and Egress pipelines are the place where the important packet handling stuff happens and is programmable in a P4 architecture. And that's fixed in Open vSwitch and can not be changed as we would like to. Another important thing the P4.org group addressed is the control API. They created an open, pipeline independent API protocol called P4Runtime based on gRPC combined with a flexible P4 compiler artefact called p4info. P4Runtime creates a flexible open Program Independent API compared to the secret proprietary fixed functions API's (or SDK) of lots of other switches.
What are my requirements for a next generation (Linux) virtual network switch?
- (P4) programmable data plane
- Modular and Open Source (lib style module)
- Generic open SDK/API interface between data plane implementation library and functional layer such that multiple implementations could be build on the same vSwitch library
- Fast switching between physical and virtual ports
- Not kernel bypass like DPDK!! (as such based on Express Data Path, XDP, and eBPF VMs)
- Don't steal the entire NIC!
- Long term architecture capable of offloading packet handling program to NIC hardware without large data plane program rewrites
In my opinion XDP and AF_XDP are important 'technologies' for a future vSwitch implementation. So first a description of what those are!
What is XDP and how can it be used for a vSwitch implementation
XDP is a relatively new, programmable layer in the kernel network stack at driver level. It allows for run-time programmable packet processing inside the kernel, not by kernel-bypass. The XDP programs are compiled to platform-independent eBPF bytecode and those object files can be loaded on multiple kernels and architectures without recompiling!
The important XDP implementation goals are first of all to close the performance gap to kernel-bypass solutions (but is is not a goal to be faster than kernel-bypass) by operating directly on packet buffers (like DPDK) and by decreasing the number of instructions executed per packet.
This is done by allowing operations on packets before they are being converted to Kernel Network Buffer descriptors (SKBs) and by implementing a direct user space socket-delivery implementation called AF_XDP. This allows XDP to work in concert with existing network stack without kernel modifications:
⦁ It provides an in-kernel alternative, that is more flexible
⦁ It doesn't steal the entire NIC!
XDP has two main components: data plane and control plane. The data plane is as described implemented in the kernel as XDP core and is called from Network Device drivers. It has a programmable core (based on an eBPF VM) extended with fixed helper functions and maps, that returns different 'exit' result codes that can direct packet locations:
- send to the normal 'core local' kernel stack (XDP_PASS)
- send to the Transmit side of the current NetDev (XDP_TX)
- redirect to 'remote core' kernel stack (XDP_REDIRECT with CPU_MAP)
- redirect to AF_XDP (XDP_REDIRECT with XSK_MAP)
- redirect to another NetDev (XDP_REDIRECT with NETDEV_MAP)
- or just drop the packet (XDP_DROP)
The control plane is located in the user space and can control the data plane through loading the eBPF based program and then simply attaching the eBPF file-descriptor handle to the Network Device (NetDev) and controlling that via changing eBPF maps (sort of tables).
eBPF bytecode (and map-creation) all go-through BPF-syscalls and can be created by LLVM and loaded in the kernel by two different methods: via bcc-tools or libbpf.
At this moment only Ingress XDP and AF_XDP are implemented in Linux Kernel 4.8 and higher but work is underway for Egress XDP, in and output queue information sharing and multiple eBPF programs on one Network Device. Those are all developments steps needed to implement a kernel level vSwitch. More information can be found on the XDP project website.
There are three implementation types (hooks) of XDP Core: Generic Mode XDP, Native Mode XDP and XDP Offload to NIC
The first mode is Generic Mode XDP. This mode is a XDP hook called from netif_receive_skb() so that means that it processes packets after packet DMA transfer to SKB and skb allocation completed. It also makes for larger number of instructions executed before running the XDP program but it is Network Device Driver independent.
Native Mode XDP is a driver hook available just after the DMA transfer of packets from the NIC to the NIC driver. It processes packets before SKB allocation - so no waiting for memory allocation! In this way the smallest number of instructions are executed before running the XDP program in eBPF. Not all drivers have implemented Native Mode XDP but at the time of writing this blog already most used NIC and other drivers (like vEth and virtio) have implemented Native XDP
The 3rd mode is XDP Offload to NIC mode. This mode is still under development and is at this moment only (partially) implemented in a select number of NICs but it will give the highest performance because the XDP program is executed in de NIC itself on separate computing chips than the host OS.
It is totally clear that only the latter two modes should be used in my proposed vSwitch design.
Possible design of a P4 vSwitch
Combining the possibilities of XDP and AF_XDP and the programmable switch pipeline from earlier we could perfectly well implement the pipeline in eBPF and with XDP helpers and maps.
That is not a totally new idea as it is already implemented in user space by Tomasz Osiński and colleagues of Orange labs Poland in a patched version of Open vSwitch.
What is different from that implementation is the possibility to implement the pipeline per NetDev queue/stream in user space, kernel NetDev driver or even in the NIC hardware. This three layer processing could be implemented step-by-step in time without the implementation dependant code knowing what is happening within the p4vSwitch library!
Another important layer in the architecture is the P4 vSwitch compiler and the eBPF/uBPF generated code plus used/available helper functions (externs) to the P4 program (as depicted with the dotted line from compiler to the yellow vSwitch rectangle). That could be totally independently developed on the possibilities the generic p4vSwitch data plane gives.
It also opens up the P4vSwitch ecosystem in a very flexible way as user program, data plane and control implementations are totally decoupled and as such could be developed further totally separated from each other.
For example a Stratum based P4vSwitch implementation could be build next to an Open vSwitch implementation. But most importantly also specific high performance network functions implementations that offloads data plane handling to a P4 program running in underlying NIC hardware, could be build on top of the P4Switch library and multi language SDK. All without needing to know the implementation details!
Longer term needed developments on XDP
Although it looks like hallelujah, there are still some missing components to implement a full blown combined user space/kernel/NIC offload based XDP P4vSwitch. Next to the current working items, still missing are extended queueing information, Clone and Multicast possibilities and several recirculation options. Those are already identified on the XDP developers site but are put lower on the implementation wish list.
Another important thing is offloading to NIC hardware. Standardisation and implementation on that front is in its early stages and its not clear how it will look like but the intention is that the environment in the NIC will look like XDP running in the driver.
Proof of concept: go-p4vswitch
As I'm more of a 'hands-on' trial and fail fast guy, one of the first things I started writing was a proof-of-concept (POC) implementation to get experience with my ideas using XDP, AF_XDP and a user space data plane.
For that I've implemented a vSwitch data plane implementation written in Go, that is using a home written AF_XDP implementation and the open source uBPF + P4C compiler C code developed by the wonderful people of Orange Labs Poland.
For this (non optimized) proof of concept, speed was not the first on the requirements list but the throughput results show a reasonable fast implementation, like in the neighbourhood of full 2x 10 gbit line rate 1000-1500 byte large packets between my two Supermicro SYS-E300-8D, 4 core Xeon D-1518 test systems. Tests with 64 byte packets on 2x 10Gbit show a maximum throughput before dropping packets in the neighbourhood of 4-4.5Mpps.
And to be honest looking backwards: that was fairly easy to implement. As I need some more time to clean up the code and do some more thorough tests, the implementation details and test results will be published in a next article in this blog series!
In this article I explained why I think there is room for a P4vSwitch 'library' implementation. Some more in-depth information about XDP and AF_XDP is given. It then showed my preferred P4vSwitch architecture and gave a peek into my next blog about my POC implementation of P4vSwitch. If you have remarks or want more info, please contact me through Twitter, LinkedIn or email (blog at tolsma.net)
More information:
[1] Fast Packet Processing with eBPF and XDP: Concepts, Code, Challenges, and Applications
[2] XDP - eXpress Data Path: XDP now with REDIRECT; Jesper Dangaard Brouer, Principal Engineer, Red Hat Inc.; LLC - Lund Linux Conf Sweden, Lund, May 2018
[3] XDP (eXpress Data Path) as a building block for other FOSS projects; Magnus Karlsson (Intel), Jesper Brouer (Redhat); FOSDEM 2019, Brussels
[4] Making Networking Queues a First Class Citizen in the Kernel; Magnus Karlsson & Björn Töpel (Intel), Jesper Dangaard Brouer & Toke Jakub Kicinski (Netronome), Maxim Mikityanskiy (Mellanox), Andy Gospodarek (Broadcom); Linux Plumbers Conference Lisbon, Sep 2019


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He grew up looking up to a pilot father. He drew pictures of fighter planes and read books about heroic battles and dreamt of becoming a pilot himself – and so he did. After a while, he discovered beauty in catching moments with a camera lense, so he became a photographer. In the meantime, someone noticed his unique charm and offered him a job as a model. Today, the famous Swedish photographer and international model Christian Göran (33) shares everyday joys with his girlfriend and twin daughters traveling around Europe in an old, cramped camper - proving that dreams and reality can fit in the same box.
He grew up looking up to a pilot father. He drew pictures of fighter planes and read books about heroic battles and dreamt of becoming a pilot himself – and so he did. After a while, he discovered beauty in catching moments with a camera lense, so he became a photographer. In the meantime, someone noticed his unique charm and offered him a job as a model. Today, the famous Swedish photographer and international model Christian Göran (33) shares everyday joys with his girlfriend and twin daughters traveling around Europe in an old, cramped camper - proving that dreams and reality can fit in the same box.
Christian, most people got to know something about you after the Trivago commercial was released. Yet, we don't know much about your earlier life. Tell us, as the child of a Swedish father and a Chilean mother, was your childhood filled with traveling and discovering both Sweden and Latin America?
Since my father was a pilot I have traveled quite a bit going back as long as I remember. In the early years of my life we moved around within Sweden, depending on where my father got work as a newly licensed pilot without much experience. Unfortunately, we didn't get to travel to South America too many times. It wasn't until I was around 27 that I got a chance to go there again and really get to know my Chilean family. This was such a great experience for me. So much love. Now when I have kids myself I definitely want to go there one day and show them that part of their background.
As a kid, growing up in two different cultural backgrounds, what were the main values your parents taught you? Exactly how were you brought up?
I think my parents had a very relaxed attitude towards raising me. I never remember having many limits on what I could do. Therefore, I think I never felt I had to break any rules. The rebellious teenaged years never came for me. I was a complete computer nerd by the age of 14, building my own computers and writing setup scripts to tweak my gaming. I grew up in the countryside, so there was a lot of bicycling around during the summers to meet up with friends. Sweden is not so densely populated, so all my friends lived 10 km from each other. There was a lot of biking. If I look back at how they raised me I think the three qualities they valued the most were kindness, curiosity, and independent thinking.
You often say you felt like a kind of outsider. How come?
The reason for this was that I had a different cultural background. Where I grew up, very few people had parents who were not Swedish. None actually. This means my sense of humour, moral framework, and general social behaviour were partly different from the people I had around me in school and in my social life as I was growing up. I, in someways, was and therefore always felt a bit like an outsider. Being the odd bird.
Before doing photography, you were a pilot. When and why did you choose this profession in the first place?
As I mentioned before, my father was a pilot and I always looked up to him a lot. For as long as I can remember I dreamt of becoming a pilot myself. Always drawing pictures of fighter planes from the second world war. Building plastic models or Lego models, reading books about heroic pilots and battles. In the beginning of my teenaged years I remember sitting in a pilot's jacket I inherited from my dad playing flight simulator computer games. I was obsessed!
A pilot's job requires precision, accuracy, and huge responsibilities. The job of a photographer gives you complete freedom. How can you explain the interesting duality of your personality?
I am a person who seeks balance in different ways. I never liked digging myself into one thing and leaving other areas unexplored. By the age of 14 I flew gliders. On my 21st birthday I got my pilot's license and began training for the MD80 jet turbine aircraft I was going to work on. With a big appetite for experience and renewal, I quickly felt that I had gotten where I wanted to get with flying after a few years of working as a commercial pilot.
At about age 25 I got into an art school I applied to, and there I found a more creative side of myself and also started doing photography. A side that was completely unexplored until then. I wanted a new challenge in life.
A lot of young people are afraid to follow their dreams because sometimes it simply costs them, literally. They can not do what they like, because it is not profitable, so they choose to do what it is more acceptable, struggling with the conflict between their dreams and reality. How did you overcome this issue, did you use your income from flying to fill in the gap until you started earning money from photography?
Yes, this is the sad fact of how our society is shaped today. Imagine if all of us could follow our interests and passions, dedicating our lives and creativity to projects we love! What an amazing world it would be. But unfortunately for most of us life is a battle between dreams and reality. I had the luck of quickly realising that my modelling was providing me more money and way more paid hours than my work as a pilot was. So I took the decision to work more as a model and use the spare time for refining my art as a photographer.
Without the modelling I think it would have been a longer process in which I would have continued working as a pilot while making a gradual transition to photography. Fortunately I had the luxury of making a clean break. Nothing comes easily, however. Patience and discipline take you where you want to be eventually.
In your photos we can see remarkable sequences from around the world. How often do you travel, and what are the criteria for the next destination?
I have always traveled frequently. In recent years the destinations have frequently entailed wave surfing and trekking. But lately I have started thinking that I want to explore Europe a bit more instead of flying to the other side of the planet. Mountain regions are where I want to spend some more time. I actually just bought an old camper from 1991, fixed it up a bit, and now I will go around Europe for a few months with my girlfriend and twin daughters. Spending time together while trekking, climbing, and surfing is the point.
You use both digital and analog cameras. Who taught you all the tricks?
I spent a lot of time online, learning digital photography first. How the camera works, getting a feeling for light and composition and also learning all the necessary computer programs properly. After a few years I got a job as an assistant. This boosted me from a hobby photographer into a professional photographer. Analog is also self taught. One of the amazing things about the internet is that if there is an interest in something, there are always youtube tutorials and voila! You can learn a lot today by yourself.
One of your mottos is "No lies just love". How would you define love?
Wow, a deep, heavy question. Define love… Something that makes you want to stay through ups and downs. Through good times but most importantly the hard times. Love is not necessarily something you see in a movie, or read about in a poem. It is not the stormy passionate surface of the ocean but the ocean depths that stay the same through whatever happens on the surface.
You quit a well paid job in order to do what fulfills you. If you couldn't earn a penny from photography, would you still take the same step?
To be honest, I am not earning a lot of money with my photography. It is a tough profession, and it takes many years to establish yourself. It is still a struggle. Sometimes when I go through financially hard times I can question myself and my choices. But I know that I will always be happy in the end to have made the decision to find out. To broaden my horizons.
"It's better to regret something you did, than something you did not do," is a quote I follow.
Again, patience and discipline take you where you want to be. With all the success stories you read about today in the media, it is easy to miss the fact that all successful people lived through a long list of failures before they ended up where they are now.
Now that you don't have rosters and schedules and you do what you like, being your own boss, what does your average day look like?
When I have photoshoots I go where I will be taking the pictures. Otherwise I get up, eat my breakfast, and then I find a good, relaxing place to sit and take care of my e-mails, plan, and do photo editing on my lap top. After this I always try to take an hour to take care of myself and exercise. After that it is family and friends-time.
I also run an eco-resort in Indonesia that takes up quite a lot of time, so this is something I have to work with regularly, and I run a social media blog on Instagram which is connected to a Facebook account with followers. I actually get quite a lot of work as a photographer through these channels nowadays. Something I did not expect when I started it.
What is it that you would love to capture in your photos, but you still haven't had a chance to do?
I still dream of meeting blue whales while diving. Getting eye contact with these magnificent beings and experiencing a sense of connection while taking photos of the encounter. Out in nature is where I want to be.
Photo: Christian Göran
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January 11, 2015
- Jacobin article "Greening Malthus" challenges that idea that family planning serves as a solution to the world's environmental problems. "Instead of resolving environmental problems, promoting family planning to save the planet often has deleterious effects on reproductive health and rights."
- You may have mixed feelings about Joan Didion's writing and her near-cult status among millennials, but have you seen this new ad for Céline? Emily M. Keeler's thoughts on this "cool girl" branding trend is worth a read. Gawker also tackles the ad with "Dear God, What Have They Done to Joan Didion, Now?"
- The Star reports on a story that GUTS also covered this week — the city of Toronto's failure to provide a 24-hour drop-in for women and trans people, a project which has been delayed for nearly two years. "The urgency of the need is not recognized."
- A horrifying story broke this week about a Mountie who took an Indigenous woman home from jail to "pursue a personal relationship." The RCMP's response to the incident has been disgustingly inadequate.
- Dissent magazine released its winter issue this week, focusing on the theme of urban activism. Among the selection of excellent articles is "Brooklyn Tenants Revolt," a personal story by Sarah Jaffe "about tenants in one Brooklyn neighborhood who demanded a rent freeze from landlords who failed to heat their freezing apartments."
- Graphic artist Joe Sacco considers the limits of satire in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks
- "Dear Marooned Alien Princess," an advice column by Zahira Kelly for The New Inquiry "rearranges" and "inverts" hierarchies, so that
the radical academic who makes a career out of treating working class or racialized lives as raw material for theoretical texts suddenly looks less like a genius and more like a well-fed vampire. And a black woman despairing of the men she dates might reflect that from this new perspective they look less like unattainable Romeos and more like the threadbare best of a bunch of bad options.
- Some uplifting news: two grade 8 students from Toronto created a petition to update Ontario's sex education classes to include teachings about "consent culture." Their campaign has apparently caught Premier Kathleen Wynne's attention.
- One year after Bedford, where are we now? asks Rabble.
- A review of Miranda July's new novel, The First Bad Man.
- In November, RankandFile.ca put out a call for testimonials of sexism in the workplace. The resulting collection of stories, covering everything from sexual harassment to pay inequity, was published this week.
- A news roundup collecting articles about this week's bomb attack on the Colorado Springs office of the NAACP.
By Tuesday night, the hashtag #NAACPBombing was the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter and people were shocked and frustrated that they were just learning of such a disturbing incident and had to learn about it from Twitter so long after it happened.
Winter became a depressing yet romanticized escape for me in a way I was never told was actually quite unhealthy. For years, I found myself stifling tears and sobs in public transit, in university lectures, and then finally at my workplace. 'I have winter depression,' I found myself muttering under my breath. 'It will pass soon enough.'
- Some fluff: The history of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler's friendship (prep for the Golden Globes) and an overview of Taylor Swift's savvy "girlfriend collection."


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New York's Taylor Wise is swiftly building a career off of the feel-good vibes that so many have come to expect from him after securing three Hype Machine #1's in a row. The last we heard from Taylor was his remix of The 1975's "Chocolate," but he's just unveiled his newest jam that's his own take on the Earth, Wind, & Fire classic, "September." Known for his irresistible remixes, the burgeoning producer/instrumentalist works his magic once again, bringing live elements and electronic production together to form a guitar, trumpet, and piano-laden house party-starter that oozes with vibes and nostalgia. Listen below and grab the free download here.
"Earth, Wind, & Fire was one of the first concerts I ever went to – waaay back before I hit the double digits. I became an instant fan. I love their instrumentation, vocal range, and overall funky vibes – it's hard to find music like that these days. I recorded guitar and trumpet to try and keep that live feel and given the date, I couldn't imagine a better time to release this tune." – Taylor Wise


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Co ords we love..
These beautiful unisex Co ord Sets come in a soft, light weight cotton fabric and a comfortable, modern oversized fit. With its button down style Cardigan and loose fitting elasticated Pants in two neutral color ways they will be added to our this years Favs. Style it buttoned up or with a tee underneath, wear it solo or complete the Co ord look, there really are many options.


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The way business should always be.
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The loss of your loved one should not be followed by a complicated, overpriced, and lengthy process. This is a time to grieve and remember your loved one. Garrett Eller prides himself on being the Probate Attorney in Edmond that provides the best possible service at the best possible prices. Our goal is to make this time of your life as easy as possible.
Garrett Eller, founder, was raised by small town small business owners and understands the passion and dedication other owners have for their business. Eller Legal Planning is dedicated to providing top of the line business planning for a fair, small business cost. Call today for a free meeting about your passions.
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As a trustee, you have a fiduciary responsibility to the trust and to the beneficiaries of the trust. You are responsible for the distribution, investments, and management of all assets within the trust. Your authority of trustee may give you discretion on whether to approve or disapprove distributions. Being a Trustee is very important and can sometimes be complicated. Having an attorney to administer the trust will put the Trustee in the best possible position to ensure your duty as a trustee is carried out properly and efficiently.
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During his law school education, Garrett served as the Class Secretary and the Student Bar Association Secretary. Additionally, Garrett was awarded the CALI Excellence for the Future Award for his class Wills, Trusts, & Estates and the class Estate Planning.
While attending law school, Garrett worked as a Judicial intern for Vice-Chief Justice Noma D. Gurich of the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
Garrett is currently serving as the Government Relations Chairman for the Oklahoma and Sothern Kansas Moose Association.
University of Central Oklahoma - B.A. 2015
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Alexander Graham Bell
March 18, 2017 Profiles
Here we listed out important facts about Bell telephone company founder Alexander Graham Bell, with his Biography, Profile, Facts, Timeline, Awards, Achievement, etc.,
Born: 3 March 1847, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Died: 2 August 1922, Beinn Bhreagh, Nova Scotia
Spouse: Mabel Gardiner Hubbard (m. 1877–1922)
Inventions: Telephone, Photophone, Hydrofoil, HD-4, Audiometer, Metal detector, Tetrahedral kite
Awards: Hughes Medal, Albert Medal, IEEE Edison Medal, Elliott Cresson Medal, John Fritz Medal
Known for: Invention of the telephone
Parent(s): Alexander Melville Bell, Eliza Grace Symonds Bell
- Alexander Graham Bell (March 3, 1947 – August 2, 1922) was a scientist, inventor, and founder of the Bell telephone company.
- Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He came of a family associated with the teaching of elocution his grandfather in London, his uncle in Dublin, and his father, Mr. Alexander Melville Bell, in Edinburgh, were all professed elocutionists.
- The latter has published a variety of works on the subject, several of which are well known, especially his treatise on Visible Speech, which appeared in Edinburg in 1868.
- In this he explains his ingenious method of instructing deaf mutes, by means of their eyesight, how to articulate words and also how to read what other persons are saying by the motions of their lips.
- In 1870 he moved with his family to Canada where they settled at Brantford, Ontrario. Before he left Scotland, Alexander Graham Bell had turned his attention to telephony, and in Canada he continued an interest in communication machines.
- He designed a piano which could transmit its music to a distance by means of electricity.
- Alexander Graham Bell published more than one treatise on the subject at Washington, and it is mainly through his efforts that thousands of deaf mutes in America are now able to speak almost, if not quite, as well as persons who are able to hear.
- At Boston he continued his researches in the same field, and endeavoured to produce a telephone which would not only send musical notes, but articulate speech.
- After obtaining the patent for the telephone, Bell continued his experiments in communication, which culminated in the invention of the photophone- transmission of sound on a beam of light a precursor of today's optical fibre systems.
- He also worked in medical research and invented techniques for teaching speech to the deaf. The range of Bell's inventive genius is represented only in part by the 18 patents granted in his name alone and the 12 he shared with his collaborators.
- In 2004, Alexander Graham Bell was nominated as one of the top 10 "Greatest Canadians" by viewers of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
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- V.G. Siddhartha – The Coffee King of India
- Vikram Sarabhai
- Thomas Edison
- The Wright Brothers
- Subramanyam Chadra Sekhar
- Stephen William Hawking
- Sir C.V. Raman
- Robert Boyle
- Nikola Tesla
- Nicolas Copernicus
- Michael Faraday
- Marie Curie
- Joseph Henry
- Johannes Kepler
- James Clerk Maxwell
- Jagadish Chandra Bose
- Isaac Newton
- Heinrich Rudolf Hertz
- Guglielmo Marconi
- Georg Simon Ohm
- Galilio Galilei
- Frank Whittle
- Edward Jenner
- Edmond Halley
- Dimitri Mendeleev
- Daniel Bernouli
- Christiaan Huygens
- Charles Darwin
- Charles Babbage
- Benjamin Franklin
- Aristotle
- Aryabhata
- Archimedes
- Alfred Nobel
- Alexander Graham Bell
- Alessandro Volta
- Albert Einstein
- C. Subramaniam
- Pandit Ravi Shankar
- Netaji Subash Chandra Bose
- Gopinath Bardoloi (Lokapriya)
- Gulzarilal Nanda
- Aruna Asaf Ali
- J.R.D. Tata
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Happy Thanksgiving from No Ordinary Nerd!
Dan and Danielle talk about weird Thanksgiving traditions and what they are thankful for.
It's short. It's sweet. It's Nerdy.
The Nerds review 4 awesome Anime:
Tenchi Muyo, Your Name, Attack on Titan, and Netflix's The Dragon Prince.
Did we like it?
We also talk about Stan Lee, a new Clueless and My Hero Academia movie, and other shenanigans.
We discuss The Chilling Adventure of Sabrina with special guest Francis, AKA The Other Guy!
Did we like it?
We also talk disgusting potato chips, the Spice Girls Reunion, and Stan Lee.
It's that time of year again..and one of our favorites, Halloween! We talk our favorite scary movies, holiday shows, and try to figure out what 'nougat' is.
We also discuss the new Fantastic Beasts trailer and the new Halloween movie!
It's scary, spooky, and nerdy.
This episode the Nerds review Netflix's animated series Disenchantment! Created by Matt Groening(Simpsons, Futurama), does this show stand toe-to-toe with his other classics? Find out which Nerds liked it and why....and which ones did not. We also discuss Captain Marvel, Spider-Man for PS4, Nintendo Switch Online...and brand new puppies.
It's awesome and a bit PG-13, filled with laughs, Danielle yelling at her pets, and side-stepping...confused? Listen and you will see why.
You voted and you wanted Marvel!
The Nerds discuss the best and worst of Marvel so far. Which Nerd did not care for Starlord? And which Nerd wished Captain America did not survive Avengers: Infinity War. It was funny, heated, and fluffy kittens were mentioned.
The Nerds preview one of the most anticipated games of the year, Fallout 76. We discuss all the latest news about the game and what it promises to serve up in November. Spoiler Alert: Alcohol was consumed before and during this show...you have been warned.
A special unreleased episode from last year, just in time for it's movie release on DVD! We discuss the book "Every Day" written by David Levithan. Danielle reads(I know, we are surprised also.)
The Nerds discuss Season 2 of 13 Reasons Why with special guest Lilli(Poofysushi)! Was it better than Season 1? Should there be a Season 3? And why Danielle and Lilli hate caffeine. Spoiler Alert: You don't want to miss this.
Back for an all-new magical episode join the nerds as they talk about the Magicians on SYFY!
Join the nerds as they battle it out for the best house in Hogwarts.
All New Episodes coming in February!


text: Marvin Test Solutions is a vertically integrated aerospace test and measurement company that has delivered innovative solutions for factory, flightline, intermediate-level, and depot-level applications since 1988. A member of The Marvin Group, with a 50-year history in the Defense and Commercial Aerospace industries, Marvin Test Solutions has test systems deployed in the defense, commercial aircraft, transportation, space, and semiconductor manufacturing markets. As an aerospace test and measurement company with a solution-centric focus, our portfolio of PXI hardware, test software, and complete automated test systems offers the performance, flexibility, innovation, value, and long-term support demanded by our customers. Our ATE test solutions offer a broad range of capabilities for component, board-level, and system-level products, including test solutions for digital and mixed-signal test.


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The PAANS Scholarships for Students with Disabilities are available to students with disabilities who are permanent residents of Nova Scotia.
Amount: $1000-$2000 (see below)
Number Available: 15 (see below)
Deadline:end of business day Friday, April 30th, 2021
Six scholarships in the amount of $1,500.00, five in the amount of $2,000.00, four in the amount of $1000.00 are anticipated to be available for the academic year beginning September 2020.
Purpose: to assist Nova Scotians with disabilities in their pursuit of their post-secondary education and training.
Supported by:
- Scotiabank
- Casino Nova Scotia – Halifax
- Casino Nova Scotia – Sydney
- RBC Financial Group
- Smith Family
- Bruce Mills Honorarium
Administered by: Partnership for Access Awareness Nova Scotia (PAANS) (A committee of the Nova Scotia League for Equal Opportunities)
To be considered, scholarship applicants must:
- Be a person with a permanent disability. 'Permanent Disability' means a limitation that restricts the ability of a person to perform the activities necessary to participate in educational activities or in the labour force within the range considered normal. This limitation is expected to remain with the person for life;
- Be a permanent resident of Nova Scotia;
- Be entering or continuing studies, at the undergraduate level, in a Canadian post-secondary institution that is recognized by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada; and
- Not be involved in the selection process or be a close family member of any scholarship selection committee member
The applications of candidates meeting the above considerations will be forwarded to the selection committee. Applications are evaluated on a number of factors including:
- Community involvement
- Extra-curricular activities
- Approach to overcoming barriers
- Academic performance
- Educational goals and direction
How to Apply
The application form can be found here.
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Contact Information
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Tel: 902.455.6942
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text:
Design & Architecture NewsArchitecture, Interior Design, News & Info
–The Downtown Women's Center is seeking new volunteers and they have just posted details of their upcoming meeting:
DATE: Wednesday October 28, 2009
LOCATION: Bausman & Company, Inc. Los Angeles Showroom
921 North La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles CA 90069
TIME: 6:30 pm – 8:30pm
Please bring finalized wish list and vendor/manufacture information (if you have not already turned it in)
New volunteers are welcome & food will be provided. Please RSVP to firstname.lastname@example.com
–In other news, AIA Los Angeles has announced their 2009 "Building Team of the Year." This year they are recognizing the team behind the LAPD Headquarters. Their emailing states: "In bestowing this award, we are recognizing the LAPD Headquarters team for excellence in design and implementation of a very significant civic center for Southern California." This team includes:
AECOM Design, Roth + Sheppard Architects, Studio 0.10, John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects, City of Los Angeles Bureau of Engineering, Council District #9, City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Police Department, Nabih Youssef Associates Structural Engineers, TMAD Taylor & Gaines, Meléndrez Landscape Architecture, Planning & Urban Design, Tutor-Saliba Corporation, S.J. Amoroso Construction Co., Inc., Vanir Construction Management, Horton Lees Brogden Lighting Design, Inc., Merry Norris Contemporary Art, Bureau of Contract Administration, and Department of Cultural Affairs – City of Los Angeles.
*All the awards will be presented Wednesday, October 21st at American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre. You can reserve tickets HERE.*


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I'm staring straight ahead and the car's windshield is brailed with cold November rain. It's the kind of rain that might ruin a Sunday outing, but makes for good football watching on the couch, a place I would so much rather be. Pretzels and a jar of grainy mustard. A tumbler of Diet Coke and the papers. My three-legged cat, Chomsky, warming my socked feet.
Just barely to my right, Morgan hulks like a slab of breathing quarry granite, spreading peanut butter on a chunk of Italian bread with a white plastic knife ridiculously miniscule in his massive paws. Morgan has been tearing off pieces of the loaf since I picked him up an hour and a half ago, and he's been washing chunks of the smeared bread down with a quart carton of double chocolate milk ever since. The bread has a good crust on it and it sounds like someone shredding a paper bag each time Morgan rips off a piece. I look down at my chest. Somehow there's flaky debris from Morgan's snack all over my black sweater. D'hell? I brush off the crumbs.
"Could've had breakfast before we left," I chide.
Morgan tilts the carton up and swallows of big swig of chocolate milk. "I did. This is my second breakfast."
"Your second breakfast?"
"What are you? A hobbit now?"
Morgan mows right over my The Lord of the Rings reference, oblivious. "I hit the gym at six after my roadwork. Then I had some bananas, water, and a couple of yogurts. It wasn't enough. I get hungry after intense workouts. You came by to pick me up at, what? Eight? I just got back from the bakery. I didn't have time to make sandwiches."
Like an arcade crane, I pluck up a paper cup of black coffee from the drink caddy between us and slurp.
"But all those carbs and fat," I say, after swallowing some coffee, "you'll be hungry again in an hour."
Morgan eyebrows pump. "Peanut butter has protein, Charlie."
I set the cup back in the caddy. "Sure. If you're desperate."
"Get bent."
"If you're starving in Africa..."
"See me getting porky over here, smart guy?"
I decide not to push Morgan. We've been teamed up for three months now and to my surprise Morgan has kind of grown on me. Smarter than he let's on. Like a quiet bear who can pull random facts out of thin air and do the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle in a pinch, just don't interrupt him when he gets stuck on thirty-two down. Some time ago he played minor league hockey in Pennsylvania and New York and racked up the league record for most penalty minutes ever. Knee injury kind of eighty-sixed his career.
I adjust my position in the driver's seat. "You know, I read somewhere that the FDA allows a certain percentage of vermin hair to be found in peanut butter."
Morgan starts to snarl as he chews, holds up the open jar. "Well, this stuff is organic." He waves the jar beneath my nose. With my weak hangover, the greasy aroma of pulverized peanuts makes my stomach wobble.
Morgan finishes his snack and screws the lid tightly back on the glass jar. Ten minutes go by like fucking purgatory on extended replay. Morgan sniffs hard to break the silence. Twice.
"What time does this guy usually leave his girlfriend's house?"
Wedged next to the drink caddy between us is my spiral-bound notebook. Red cover with the price tag still on it. There's a ballpoint pen cocooned within the notebook's wire spiral. I pull the notebook out and flip through some inked pages. Wedge it back.
"He's supposed to meet up with his wife and daughter to hit mass over at St. Peter's at 11:30. She cuts him some slack because she thinks he's sleeping over at his older brother's house after a late night of playing cards with the boys. Twice a month, he's here with this girlfriend. He says he's at the brother's place outside Toms River, but he's here getting the pipes done. The older brother is a twice-divorced, world-class pussy hound just like him so he covers for baby brother. Can't say I blame the guy though. This guy's wife has issues. Very angry lady."
"So why's she let him out of the house?" Morgan gestures to the house in front of us. "She angry because the girlfriend?"
"No. I think everything dissatisfies her."
"She Irish?"
"Full blood. People back in County Cork."
"This is why I only tap eastern European chicks."
I grunt and check my Timex. I really should have stayed home last night, but didn't. Now I'm feeling fuzzy and short changed of sleep. A stupid party for a neighbor's engagement, where I drank too much and changed horses midstream. Sugary margaritas to beer. Didn't imbibe so much that I made a mess of myself or a real scene, but enough to sour up the pipes. Thankfully it was a short two block walk home. My eyes ache. I take another sip of coffee, hoping for clarity.
Morgan asks. "So this guy. This—"
"This Thompson guy. This is just a tell right? Not a show and tell?"
"Correct. Just a tell. A reminder. A gentle push in the right direction."
Morgan brushes off his shirt and jacket and crushes the milk carton. He stuffs the crushed milk carton, napkins, and plastic knife into a waxed paper bag between his size thirteen engineer boots. He then shucks the sleeves of his leather coat. I watch as Morgan removes a compact Beretta from his coat's right pocket slit. Morgan checks it, sets the safety, and slips it into the glove compartment. Morgan pops the glove compartment shut with a thumb the size of a large mouse.
"I like tells," he says.
"A lot less dangerous than shows, that's for sure."
"Can we listen to the radio?"
I shake my head.
"Why not?"
"Come on."
"You work with someone else, you can listen to the radio. When I do surveillance I like to stay focused."
"Surveillance. Listen to you. You're not a private investigator anymore, man. Besides, they got pregame on the AM sports station."
"Jets, Eagles..."
"I said no."
"What're you, five? Let's just do what we're supposed to do. Do the tell, get the fire in his belly going, then split. Then we'll go to O'Brien's, OK? They have the Sunday buffet and every game known to man on the tube. I can have a few pints and you can break the kitchen's will to live."
Morgan squints out the passenger side window. "It's not like we need to be concentrating."
"No, it's bad enough we're exposed on the street."
"It's Sunday. People don't care around here, Charlie. They're all reading the paper. Getting ready for church. Sleeping it off. Stinky morning sex and bagels."
"Just sit tight, he'll be out any second."
I glance over at Morgan. "She's pretty hot, you know."
"Who? Thompson's girlfriend? Oh yeah? What's she do?"
"Works for Prudential up in Newark. Twenty-five or so. Looks like Marisa Tomei, if Marisa Tomei lost the slutty pout and indulged in some cheesecake once in a while."
"A little gallop?"
"But nice."
"I like a little gallop."
"And she slinks around with a geek like Thompson?"
I bunch my shoulders and let them fall.
The front storm door of the townhouse creaks open and Jimmy Thompson leans inside giving his girlfriend in the short, cherry silk Kimono a good-bye kiss. He turns and bops down the steps fishing in his pocket with his right hand. Probably looking for his cellular phone and wedding ring. Morgan opens the passenger side door. I call after him as the door knocks shut.
"Go easy, Morgan."
Two and half minutes later, I'm driving fast enough to boogie but slow enough not to flag a cruiser or undue citizen attention. The round shamrock green and vitamin piss-gold sign for the Garden State Parkway is just ahead on the right, thank God. Morgan is looking out the rear window.
"Man, didn't you check if he owned a gun, Charlie?"
"What do you think? Of course I did! No records at all! Nothing anywhere! Where does Joe Pocket Protector buy a gun off the radar?"
"Could've stolen it."
"Man, now what?"
I pull myself together. "Plan B. We got to have a Plan B. He's vulnerable. Snapped elbow that kind of telegraphs that message. But the neighbors, fuck. They might've called the cops. That screaming of his—Jesus—you'd think he just discovered pain for the very first time in his life. No doubt his wife is going to go grade 'A' ballistic when she sees him. That fucking fuck better fucking lie to her. You. You best forget about shaving for a while."
"What? Why?"
"Jesus, Morgan, do you need to draw you a courtesy map? Every cell phone is a camera now. If we're lucky no one saw jack, but yours is a face that's easy to remember. If they did, let's pray their eye sight blows and there cell phone wasn't handy. Man, I can't believe this. A tell means no contact, dude."
"He pulled a gun on me."
"No contact is no contact."
"Who are you preaching gospel? Mister former hot shot private eye..."
"You know Mr. Donofrio is going to be way pissed if this blows up on us."
"Yeah, well, leave him out of it for now. Let's see what happens."
"Think that's wise?"
"Look, man, I need to think if I'm going to fix this."
"We should let him know."
"Donofrio? Are you out of your mind? No, we should not. Definitely not. You know what? I'm going to drop you off. Hang out and stay indoors until I call you, OK? Give me a few hours see what's happening."
"What're you going to do?"
"First, I'm going to ditch the stolen plates I screwed onto this car this morning and then I'm going to check up on what kind of wake you two's scene back there put out. Which hospital he went to...what cops, if any, responded. I need to make some calls. Maybe there's not too much damage. Maybe he'll keep his mouth shut and not panic."
Morgan points ahead. "Charlie..."
I cut around a braked Subaru Outback and nearly clip the bumper. I crush the horn and swing the car onto the Parkway access ramp. As we slip through the toll I toss a few quarters into the urinal-like toll basket and slice the car into the southward flow back to Atlantic City.
From what I can gather, Thompson keeps his mouth shut. Two days later, I park outside his home and follow him to his job upstate. I don't bother changing the plates this time around.
Thompson works for a pharmaceutical company up in Union County, Grevel Health Technologies. My tail on Thompson takes me up the thicker sections of the Parkway to the New Jersey Turnpike and then it's a long, slow commuter hump past the sunken dinosaur spines of the refineries. I listen to the radio. I hear yet again more analysis of the New York Giants meltdown loss to Carolina on Sunday that cost me four Bens and pocket change. To take my mind off things, I think about the Grevel Health commercials I've seen from time to time on television, the first wave crest of baby-boomers, shoulder-tied sweaters and cuffed chinos, laughing and flying kites on flawless pink beaches. Couples in bathtubs in the middle of fucking fields, all trying to stall the wages of sin.
The four ice-bland buildings in the Grevel Health compound are minutes west on 280 from the New Jersey Turnpike exit. The building where Thompson works has not one but two windowless Korean carry-out cafes on the first basement level. When I call Thompson's administrative assistant near noon, I adopt an Indian accent and make out I'm new and calling from IT about a computer request. I learn Thompson is taking lunch downstairs at one of the cafes.
There are about forty tables in the shared dining area. Second hand banquet chairs with grimy square-topped tables and mildew stained prints of the American flag, Statue of Liberty, and eggshell blue skies behind the World Trade Center. I find Thompson eating a cottage cheese and fruit diet plate alone at a four top. He's looking through a stack of folders. A black nylon soft briefcase rests closely next to his leg like a seeing-eye dog.
I buy an iced tea with lemon in a waxed cup and sit down. Thompson looks up at me like a snorkeler breaching the surface of a lagoon. In an instant, he computes his crappy day just got a little bit more complicated.
I point toward the neon blue cast on Thompson's right arm.
"Nice color," I say, "I had a cast once. Plain white plaster, though. Bike accident when I was eight. Landed on a concrete pipe. Long time ago."
"Who're you—"
I flip the visitor pass clipped to my jacket. I forged it at home on my laser printer. "Me? I have an appointment later with personnel. Really, sport, who do you think?"
Thompson's eyes bounce around the room, hatching options. No one in the carryout is paying a shred of attention to us. A stammer. "You've come here? To my workplace?"
"Well, things seemed to have deteriorated a bit."
"You shouldn't have come here. No. Someone could..."
"What? See me? The security cameras in this building have blind spots as wide than the Grand Canyon. And this visitor's pass here? I made this myself. Duplicated it from a blown-up photo in your company's annual report. Guys in public relations might want to Photoshop a thing like that next time."
"People will notice."
"Notice what? That I'm irritable?"
"You. Me. You and me together. This is not good."
"You may be over-exaggerating our consequence."
"You don't understand. It's not like I work alone in isolation."
I itch my chin and tilt my head. "Well, how 'bout you make me understand, Jimmy? Hmm? Make me understand."
Thompson looks around. "There's secur—umm, there's issues. There's protocols, checks and balances. Look, I don't think you appreciate what I have to do to make something like this happen without leaving a paper trail. People will know."
"It was your idea to share this information to settle your debts, not ours."
"Yeah, but—"
"But what?"
"You don't have to bully me."
"I don't bully."
"I'm totally on this."
"Are you?"
"I'm a man of my word. I just need a little more time. Please."
"See, you say that, have been saying that for a while, and yet, on Sunday, you go all cowboy on us."
"That was a mistake. I was scared."
"That guy was huge. I knew I was late on what I promised. Really. I know how serious you people are."
I sit back. For the briefest of moments, I let my eyes float blank. I think back to a time not so long ago when I wasn't one of the "serious" people Thompson mentions. Back when I wasn't in debt myself to a man directly related to the devil, back when I had all my fingers, a girlfriend who loved me, and respectable security business. I see myself then and it's a lot like looking down a deep, dark well at an abandoned child. I shake off the image and clear my throat.
"I said I was sorry."
"No, you said it was a mistake and you were scared."
"I'm sorry then."
I notice Thompson's left shoulder easing down.
"Jimmy...don't even think about doing something stupid."
He stops reaching for his bag.
"Courage in a briefcase? But isn't it kind of a firing offense, bringing an unregistered handgun to work?"
"Oh, God."
"What are you going to do? Shoot me, Jimmy? Here?"
"It's not unregistered. I borrowed it."
"From who?"
"My brother."
Great. I clench my teeth. "He know about your commitment to Mr. Donofrio?"
"Don't lie to me."
"How about the gun? He know you actually have that gun?"
"So you took it. Good. Smart."
Thompson shoots forward and whispers fiercely. "Look, I swear on my daughter soul, OK? I swear, I'll get it to you. Just give me a couple of more weeks."
I lean in, hands folded, searching Thompson's eyes. It was just the leverage I needed.
"Do you really want to bring your daughter into this?"
Morgan calls me at home the following evening. It's late. I'm in bed watching the Discovery Channel, actually debating whether jerking off would be worth the extra effort or not.
Morgan is obviously out on the town. I can hear the tinny cries of girls squealing, glassware clinking, and music pumping. A party in the background. Maybe a club.
"Hey! We got it!" Morgan says. "Chinese buyers verified. All legit."
"Get this? That stuff? On paper they're calling it a whatdoyoucallit? A fountain of youth. Yeah. And those slicks from Hong Kong are paying cash. Cash."
"That's nice. Mr. Donofrio happy?"
"Man went giddy. Says we're all going to Puerto Rico for the week to celebrate. Said to offer you a seat on the plane he's chartering if you want."
I wince. "Tell him thanks, but no thanks. I don't feel so good."
My white lie grows darker. "I don't feel so good, Morgan. I think I'm coming down with something. Got a doctor's appointment tomorrow."
"Screw doctors. You need a holiday, brother."
Morgan Leary calling me brother now. God, how low have I sunk?
Then again, maybe he's right. Maybe I do need a holiday. I think about dark glasses of aged rum. I think about warmth and Caribbean breezes...crispy pork, plantains and mango. I think about swimming in a warm ocean...dusky, friendly women in bright bikinis and thongs rubbing me down. Then, for the briefest of moments, I think about putting my gun in my mouth.
"Puerto Rico should be nice," I add.
"Buck up, Chuck."
"Hey, man, thanks for the offer but I'll pass. Besides, the less I'm in the boss's sights, the better."
"Don't be that way. You know he's started to take a shine to you. Now, after this, even more so."
My moral compass spins like a roulette wheel. The island fantasy appears again, as does eating my automatic. But who would take care of Chomsky? I bear down. Fake a cough.
"Really, man. Feel fluey. Plus my cat's been acting weird."
"That cat."
"Three legged freak. Why don't you just drown the thing, put it out of his misery?"
"Chomsky has soul."
"Whatever. So, what was it?"
"What was what?"
"In the end. You and the chemistry major up north. I was thinking, at best, by next week's end, but bang! You go see him and, presto, he delivers stat. You must've worked some magic."
"Beats me."
"Show or tell?"
"Strictly a tell. You know me, I'm no tough guy. But it was a good tell."
Morgan laughs hollow and deep and I let the phone slip away from my ear. On the TV, a great white shark shakes a seal to ribbons and bone.
"We got to get you some more experience with the shows."
A month later, I've blocked the whole Thompson extortion business out of my mind until curiosity chews a hole in the wall. Key strokes at the computer. Me and Chomsky. Alone in the dark.
Thompson hung himself in his garage with an orange extension cord. No word on who found him, wife or daughter, the latter being more horrifying to me in so many ways.
It's near dawn so I log off the computer and go for a run along the ocean. As I head down the boardwalk, I hear mechanical church bells pealing and realize, wow, it's Sunday morning again. Time flies. When I get back, I pick up the newspapers at my door, let Chomsky in and hook him up with some kibble.
I crash on the couch for a long time with the papers and wait for the game on the television. After a while, Chomsky hops over and starts doing his grooming thing. I troll the gray pages looking for something, anything to believe.
BIO: This is kind of a time machine for a character Kieran Shea has been working on for about a year now, half-assed New Jersey investigator - Charlie Byrne. The story is set some years in the future after Charlie's fall from grace. Charlie's popped up several places around the web. He's also been in ELLERY QUEEN MYSTERY MAGAZINE. The character Morgan has also made an appearance a short time ago over at David Cranmer's BEAT TO A PULP in a story called "Backing the Stakes". Kieran Shea blogs about crime fiction, writing, and other assorted drivel at Black Irish Blarney.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
A Twist Of Noir 156 - Kieran Shea
Posted by Christopher Grant at 3:05 PM
Labels: Kieran Shea
5 comments:
- David Cranmer said...
Kieran's writing is as superb as always. Lew Archer started in the short story pulps of the day and there's nothing stopping Charlie Byrne from being as successful as Macdonald's legendary creation.
- September 5, 2009 at 5:47 PM
- Gary Dobbs/Jack Martin said...
Now that was good.
- September 5, 2009 at 8:48 PM
A great piece of writing Kieran. Charlie Byrne has that edgy, lonely, mournful air about him that all good PI characters seem to have. I loved the dialogue as well. Very well done!
- September 7, 2009 at 8:23 AM
- Kieran Shea said...
Thanks everyone. I hope there's a future for Charlie. And Morgan. Morgan cracks me up.
- September 7, 2009 at 12:23 PM
- Paul D Brazill said...
Yep, great stuff. Charlie's a gem. Hope he doesn't get killed off!
- September 8, 2009 at 7:36 AM
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This section contains 425 words
(approx. 2 pages at 400 words per page)
The Campaigns of Alexander Summary & Study Guide Description
The Campaigns of Alexander Summary & Study Guide includes comprehensive information and analysis to help you understand the book. This study guide contains the following sections:
This detailed literature summary also contains Topics for Discussion and a Free Quiz on The Campaigns of Alexander by Arrian.
The author of the Campaigns of Alexander writes during the second century AD, about four hundred years after the fact. Arrian's full name is Lucius Flavius Arrianus, aka Xenophon, and he comes from a wealthy Greek family. He is a recognized historical authority on the life and times of Alexander the Great (July 20, 356-June 10, 323 BC). Aubrey de Selincourt translates the book and J.R. Hamilton adds footnotes to clarify and point out certain disputable facts, largely having to do with the names of places, geography and the numbers of troops involved in the battles.
Alexander begins his campaigns after the assassination of his father and he gains the throne of Macedonia. At twenty years of age, Alexander enlists as many Greeks as he can for his first set of adventures, quelling all opposition to him before making his way to Asia.
While in Asia, Alexander conquers city after city, fortress after fortress. He defeats the main Persian army in a battle famous for his tactical brilliance. In Egypt he is crowned a Pharaoh, which leads to Alexander's delusions of grandeur. He considers himself a god, which is against the ancient religion of the Greeks. Despite this flaw, Alexander founds Alexandria in Egypt, which is still a thriving and vibrant city.
Extending his empire as far as he can, Alexander takes on India. There he meets significant resistance, but he prevails on every challenge. Three mountain strongholds considered unconquerable fall to the Macedonians. However, Alexander's troops grow weary of the constant movement and fighting. They ask to go home, and Alexander capitulates when the signs from the gods turn out negative.
Alexander sails a massive flotilla down the Indus River to the Indian Ocean. He then marches across a terrible desert that results in many deaths along the way. Finally back in his empire, Alexander explores and tries to govern his empire. He takes to drinking heavily, and due to a fever, dies in Babylon. Speculation exists that he may have been poisoned.
The lands that Alexander conquers extend from the northern part of Greece to modern Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, parts of Africa and India. No other military leader had ever accomplished as much, and for this reason alone Alexander is remembered. However, he did try to spread Greek culture throughout the world as well and is also remembered for this. The historian Arrian concentrates on the military aspect, and he is the first author in history to do this. Arrian's work is considered highly accurate from the military perspective.
Read more from the Study Guide
This section contains 425 words
(approx. 2 pages at 400 words per page)


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