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Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea's complex culture and biodiversity mean an endless supply of amazing discoveries for even the widest-travelled adventurer. While hiking the Kokoda Track is an act of pilgrimage for some, the insight into remote indigenous cultures and encounters with exotic wildlife are reason enough for many.
Papua New Guinea Tours & Travel
All our Papua New Guinea trips
Papua New Guinea trip reviews
Our Papua New Guinea trips score an average of 4.86 out of 5 based on 7 reviews in the last year.
Expedition - Rabaul Mask Festival, Papua New Guinea , July 2016
Dave Reynolds
This is a brilliant trip to explore PNG culture in a very safe and welcoming place. Spectacular nature with Volcanoes and incredible coral reefs right offshore from the beaches. Local homestay and welcome from Duke of York Islanders was also excellent. You are very well looked after on this trip and it was in an eyeopener in so many respects. The Mask festival was a pageant of fascinating local cultures and highly enjoyable. Very relaxing vibe great culture & an area that suits experienced adventure travellers
Review submitted 22 Jul 2016
Expedition - Rabaul Mask Festival, Papua New Guinea , July 2016
Stuart Campbell
PNG is surely one of the most fascinating, culturally diverse and staggeringly beautiful places on the planet. Rabaul is the jewel in the crown, offering stunning volcanos, amazing WWII relics, pristine diving and snorkelling, and the chance to interact with wonderfully friendly locals. See it before mass tourism arrives!
Review submitted 21 Jul 2016
Articles on Papua New Guinea
Kokoda controversy: we chat with the Aussie journalist who investigated further
Posted on Thu, 31 Mar 2016
For Aussie journalist and travel writer Ian Neubauer, there was always going to be more to this Kokoda horror story…Read more
6 reasons you should ignore the headlines and trek Kokoda in 2016
Posted on Fri, 19 Feb 2016
Recent press hasn't done the Kokoda Track any favours, but there's always another side to the story...Read more
The tribe has spoken: these Asian tribes will blow your mind
Posted on Mon, 29 Sep 2014
Believe it or not, the old world does survive, in the deep jungles and the high mountains, kept alive in the ancient knowledge of tribes.Read more
About Papua New Guinea
At a glance
|Capital city:
|Port Moresby (population 310,000)
|7 million
|English, Tok Pisin, Hiri Motu
|Time zone:
|(GMT+10:00) Guam, Port Moresby
|Type I (Australian/New Zealand & Chinese/Argentine 2/3-pin)
|Dialing code:
Best time to visit Papua New Guinea
The best time to visit PNG is during the dry season when cool breezes and low humidity on the coast make temperatures comfortable. Coastal areas can be very hot and humid during the monsoon and rainfall can be torrential. The highlands are much cooler and have even been known to experience snowfalls.
Geography and environment
Top Picks
Top 5 Kokoda Moments in Papua New Guinea
1. Village Stays
Days away from the outside world, the villages and villagers along the Kokoda Track have been able to maintain their customs, languages and traditions with little interference from the outside world.
2. Isurava Battlefield
Once a WWII battleground, now a moving memorial. The four pillars encapsulate the battle along Kokoda with the words: 'Courage, Sacrifice, Mateship and Endurance.'
3. Mt Bellamy
It's an arduous challenge to get to the track's highest point, but at 2200m your efforts are rewarded with sprawling views across the Owen Stanley Ranges.
4. Fuzzy Wuzzy Friends
Thousands of Australian soldiers owed their lives to the actions of the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels and they've become legendary throughout the country. At Menari, we have the opportunity to meet with one of the remaining angels.
5. The Golden Staircase
The original stairs (built by Aussie soldiers) may no longer exist but the steep hill they climbed lives on!
FAQs on Papua New Guinea
To acquire a visa you will need:
- Completed application form
- Valid passport
- 1 x current passport photo
- Return/ongoing flight ticket & travel itinerary
- Evidence of funds (Bank Statement proving sufficient funds for your stay)
All travelers also currently need to submit a health form along with their visa application: http://pngembassy.org/Supplementary_Health_Form.pdf
You can obtain your visa application form through your travel agent or by downloading a form online from the Papua New Guinean High Commission website.
Your completed visa application needs to be sent your nearest Papua New Guinean High Commission, embassy or consulate along with your valid passport (which must have at least 6 months validity on it from the date of intended travel) as well as a pre-paid, self-addressed and registered post envelope which will be used to return your passport to you.
Please note that visa processing times can be subject to delays, particularly during peak periods, so we recommend you allow sufficient time when applying for your visa.
Beer in a bar or restaurant = 10 PGK
Simple lunch = 10 PGK
Three-course meal = 50 PGK
For more information on insurance, please go to: Travel Insurance
Apr 1 Easter Monday
Jun 10 Queen's Birthday
Jul 23 National Remembrance Day
Sep 16 Independence Day
Dec 25 Christmas Day
Dec 26 Boxing Day
Please note these dates are for 2013. For a current list of public holidays go to: http://www.worldtravelguide.net/Papua-New-Guinea/public-holidays
Health and Safety
Intrepid takes the health and safety of its travellers seriously, and takes every measure to ensure that trips are safe, fun and enjoyable for everyone. We recommend that all travellers check with their government or national travel advisory organisation for the latest information before departure:
From Australia?
From New Zealand?
From Canada?
Go to: http://www.voyage.gc.ca/
From US?
Go to: http://travel.state.gov/
From UK?
Go to: http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/
The World Health Organisation
also provides useful health information:
Go to: http://www.who.int/en/
Responsible Travel
Papua New Guinea Travel Tips
Intrepid is committed to travelling in a way that is respectful of local people, their culture, local economies and the environment. It's important to remember that what may be acceptable behaviour, dress and language in your own country, may not be appropriate in another. Please keep this in mind while travelling.
Top responsible travel tips for Papua New Guinea
1. Be considerate of Papua New Guinea's customs, traditions, religion and culture.
2. For environmental reasons, try to avoid buying bottled water. Fill a reusable water bottle or canteen with filtered water instead.
3. Always dispose of litter thoughtfully, including cigarette butts.
4. When bargaining at markets, stay calm, be reasonable and keep a smile on your face. It's meant to be fun!
5. Learn some local language and don't be afraid to use it - simple greetings will help break the ice.
6. Shop for locally made products. Supporting local artisans helps keep traditional crafts alive.
7. Refrain from supporting businesses that exploit or abuse endangered animals.
8. Please ask and receive permission before taking photos of people, including children.
9. When on community visits or homestays, refrain from giving gifts or money to locals.
The Intrepid Foundation
The Intrepid Foundation provides travellers with an opportunity to give something back to the many wonderful communities we travel to. By donating to The Intrepid Foundation you can make a difference in local communities - in health care, education, human rights, child welfare and the protection of wildlife and the environment.
Kokoda Track Foundation
KTF is working towards a Papua New Guinea where every child has access to a free, high quality education, communities have access to quality, reliable and affordable healthcare, people can access diverse business opportunities, energy and clean water, and the future leaders of PNG are empowered.
Photo provided by Tim Starkey
To learn more or donate, go to: www.theintrepidfoundation.org
Further reading
Recommended reading
|Paul Ham
|Four Corners: A Journey into the Heart of Papua New Guinea
|Kira Salak
|The Last Men: Journey Among the Tribes of New Guinea
|Iago Corazza and Greta Ropa


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"...undoubtedly the most influential think tank in modern British history." – Andrew Marr
A ground-breaking study on the measurement of poverty
An analysis of how the profit motive drove competition and therefore improvements in the Swedish education system
Radical solutions need to be sought to get people off welfare and back into work
A Dispassionate Economic Analysis of 'Fair Trade'
An Essay on the Supposed Electoral Obstacles Impeding the Translation of Economic Analysis into Policy
Modern welfare states undermine human flourishing
A market economy can nurture good human attributes
A superb analysis of this masterpiece of political economy
Statutory Regulation, Private Regulation and Financial Markets
Public Sector Pensions Commission final report
Controls have proved damaging and counterproductive
True level of the UK government's debt estimated at £4.8 trillion
An introduction to the work of the great Austrian economist
Mark Littlewood on the implications of Britain's record budget deficit
An estimate of the public spending cuts required to tackle the UK's budget deficit
UK's fiscal profligacy is exacerbating the downturn
A critique of the New Economic Foundation's 21 hours report
Small firms suffer far more than large firms
Reform can save money and improve outcomes
An expert analysis of higher education policy
Invest in the IEA. We are the catalyst for changing consensus and influencing public debate.Donate now
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subset: commoncrawl


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Shadow Caddy follows you round the golf course
Lugging your irons around a golf course may be good exercise but, especially in grotty weather, it can put you off your a-game.
Introducing a solution - the Shadow Caddy, an electronic golf caddy that will follow you from green to green.
The golfer wears a transmitter, and the Shadow Caddy will track them using multiple on-board processors and follow their every move.
And it even has a collision detection system so it won't crash into other golfers completely stunned by this goofy golfing gadget.
It has "Follow-Me" and "Park" modes which are pretty self-explanatory and is claimed to be fully functional in all weather conditions.
Hit the arrow to see the Shadow Caddy in action.
Philips personal health programmes: A full suite for managing health and chronic conditions
Best fitness trackers 2016: The best activity bands to buy today
Announcing the 13th Pocket-lint Gadget Awards
Misfit Shine 2 gets Speedo swim tracker upgrade, but you'll have to pay
- Nike's The Switch Euro 2016 short film is stealing the net, find out why here
- Withings Body Cardio measures body fat, muscle density and more to enhance cardiovasular health
- Garmin Forerunner 735XT hands-on preview: Beating the bulk
- Nike Free RN Motion Flyknit sport new tech to deliver a more natural run
- Under Armour HealthBox review: Under Whelming
- Arion wants to improve your running technique using technology
- Mountain Athletics from The North Face helps you train for your outdoor adventures
- LeEco has a smart mountain bike, and you're going to want one
- Sondors Thin: An affordable, attractive, fast electric bike at last
- Asics buys Runkeeper: Expect a one-stop shop for run tracking soon
- Pokemon Go Gym tips: How to battle, train and win
- Pokemon Go: How to find and catch rare Pokemon like Charizard, Blastoise and Alakazam
- 13 secret WhatsApp tricks
- Acer Switch Alpha 12 review: Affordability is its ace
- Apple iPhone 7 Pro: Will it happen and what's the story so far?
- 17 Facebook Messenger tips and tricks you likely didn't know
- Apple iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus: Release date, rumours and everything you need to know
- This is how much space PlayStation VR requires for you to play
- Help! Pokemon Go isn't working: How to fix common Pokemon Go problems
- Best Galaxy S7 and S7 edge cases: Protect your new Samsung device


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Our local church just got a new SoundCraft Si Compact 32 mixer. We really want to record a CD, but the vocalists are demanding autotune. Is it possible to get autotune to work with this mixer, or do I have to record the vocals separately, and add autotune on a DAW on the computer? If it is possible to record all 32 channels of the mixer directly to the computer, then that would be the best.
migrated from avp.stackexchange.com Jan 27 '14 at 14:58
This question came from our site for engineers, producers, editors, and enthusiasts spanning the fields of video, and media creation.
While there are some autotune devices that will autotune live, they are much more expensive than a DAW on a computer running autotune on the recording.
The mixer is pretty much irrelevant, however if you are wanting to autotune live, you will need as many autotunes as channels you wish to autotune - could be expensive. With a DAW, you can just run it for each channel asynchronously as you need.
Alternatively - get them to sing in tune.
It would be cheaper and give a better result (and take more time) if you auto tune in the computer later. Doing this would require that your mixer has direct outs on each channel and your computers interface has 32 inputs.
This would require a bit of an investment in hardware, but would still be cheaper then 32 rackmount autotune devices. If you want, I'll help explain what setting that up would take.


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(When video starts enlarge to watch in HD)
Subscribe to bclund.com Via E-mail or Via RSS
(Note: If you are new to my blog, I post about all sorts of things. Sometimes it involves something extremely personal, like creating a 30K baby or my Monster Trades. Other times it deals with hot ex-porn stars who trade stocks. And sometimes it's about how to avoid "suicide". But a good place to start is The Best of bclund. If you like what you read, please tell a friend. If you don't, please tell two friends.)


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Is sparkle correct in this context?
Is "Sparkle" used for positive thoughts or is it also possible to use it for negative thoughts? What is better alternative? (If any)
What will happen if we die? What will happen if the police catch us? What will happen if they kill us? All these thoughts were sparkling in my mind!
I also can say occur (All these thoughts were occurring in my mind!).
Which one is more correct? Do you know a better word for using in this context?


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Fox Valley Christian Church
40W150 Main Street
Batavia, IL 60510
Phone: 630-208-8484
Contact Us
At FVCC we want to help each other imitate Jesus in living out real love in a real world. We have identified four key relationship areas-with God, with neighbors, with church, and with family-where love must be consistently expressed and demonstrated.
At a practical level we believe the ability to live out love in each of these four relationship areas are the foundational "life-skills" of the Christian life. These "life-skills" comprise our working definition of what it means to be a fully devoted follower of Jesus. They are understood to be essential for a full and meaningful Christian life. Accomplishing the corporate mission and vision of the church is dependent upon each of us individually mastering these four "life-skills"- love God, love neighbor, love church, love family.
It is the expectation that those who become members of Fox Valley Christian Church or choose to make it their "church-home" will intentionally seek to develop and master these four life-skills within their lives. Everything we do is designed to cultivate and strengthen within the lives of our members and attendees these four foundational life-skills.


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I get an error when trying to warp a tif file in QGIS:
ERROR 1: Too many points (35721 out of 35721) failed to transform, unable to compute output bounds.
I am using QGIS 1.7.0 Wroclaw with gdal 1.8. I am trying to reproject from ETRS89 to HD72 EOV. There was an error in the data, with the UTM zone added to the eastings. That is, the x coordinates read 34327213.050 when they should read 327213.050 in UTM zone 34N. I have tried changing the .tfw file but this did not help. Then I translated the tif to a .vrt and edited the vrt, removing the rogue 34, and fixing the extent. This also did not help - I still get the same error when I try to warp. In layer properties, this raster now has the same origin, extent and SRS as other similar rasters, but only this one gives the error.
How do I work this out?
A similar question (Setting projection of tif file in QGIS?) was asked 4 months ago, but it was not the exact same problem, and the OP did not explain how the problem was resolved.


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Google has named its latest web spam algorithmic update Penguin. For those who believe their search rankings have been wrongly hit by this update, or if you're seeing spam Google missed, Matt Cutts has announced the arrival of a feedback form.
"If you want to report spam that Google is missing, fill out a spam report and add the word penguin," Cutts, Google's Distinguished Engineer who leads the web spam team, tweeted yesterday. "If you know a site affected by algo update that you don't think should be affected, we made a form to provide feedback."
On the form, Google asks you to provide details about the page impacted by the algorithmic update, which launched on April 24 and was intended to better detect websites using tactics against Google's webmaster guidelines, such as keyword stuffing, cloaking, and link schemes. Google asks for the URL of a page affected by the update and a query that shows non-ideal results, with the option of adding additional comments.
This move is similar to last year after Panda launched, when Google created a Webmaster Central thread for those affected by the algorithm change. That thread quickly filled up with thousands of responses – many of them complaints, as you'd expect after their rankings tanked, traffic dried up, and income plunged – so no doubt Google will be inundated with examples, as Google's blog posts have filled up with comments about sites being unfairly demoted in the rankings and worse search results.
As for the Penguin name, perhaps Google went with the name since World Penguin Day was one day after the algorithm went into the wild. And perhaps Google's 2011 Earth Day Doodle provides us with some clues to some future algorithmic updates:
Update: Looking for answers about why your search rankings vanished? Here's some early analysis in "Google Penguin Update: 5 Types of Link Issues Harming Some Affected Websites".


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If the Army Corp of engineers doesn't back off a proposal to close fishing waters near dams on the Cumberland River, lawmakers from Kentucky and Tennessee may take up the issue in Congress.
Media reported that two western Kentucky county officials joined U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield of Kentucky and U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander and U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper of Tennessee in a meeting Tuesday with Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh, the Corps' deputy commander. The group discussed possible alternatives to closing the waters directly above and below the 10 dams the agency operates on the river and its tributaries. The waters attract fishermen, but the corps has said the action is necessary for safety.
Whitfield and Alexander say they are prepared to file legislation if discussions don't produce a satisfactory resolution.


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Event date
Full Address
800 Church Street, Asheboro
Memorial Park, Asheboro
Donations accepted
Contact Phone Number
Randolph County is participating in the Walk to End Alzheimer's on Saturday, October 26th. Check in as at 9:00 am at Memorial Park for the 1 1/4 mile walk. Join a team or start your own. CommunityOne Bank is sponsoring a pet zone for your dog(s) with water and dog bones.
For more information or to make a donation please contact http://www.alz.org/ or call CommunityOne Bank at 336-672-8617.
Currently, more than 5 million Americans are living with this disease and more than 15 million Americans are caring for them. This number will only grow unless we take steps to change the trajectory of Alzheimer's disease.


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State wildlife officials are reporting that they've spotted an endangered whooping crane at the Sloughs Wildlife Management Area near Henderson and that they've received a report of two others along the Pond River in Hopkins County.
The sightings of the rare birds, which are on the comeback from near extinction, prompted the Humane Society of the United States to again call for the halt of a hunting season on sandhill cranes for fear that shooters might mistakenly kill the whooping cranes instead.
Wildlife officials said in a press release that hunters should be careful not to confuse the whooping cranes with snow geese or sandhill cranes.
Fewer than 600 whooping cranes now live in the wild in the U.S.


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In several complex variables , to determine the pseudoconvexity of a domain in $C^n$ is very important . There are various criterion to decide whether a domain is pseudoconvex . In particular ,if the domain is defined by a $C^\infty$ defining function $\phi>0$ , then 'Levi pseudoconvex ' is equivalent to the following matrix (which is called 'Monge-Ampere matrix') $$ \begin{pmatrix} -\phi & -\partial_\bar{k}\phi \\ -\partial_j\phi & -\partial_{j\bar{k}}^2\phi \end{pmatrix} $$ have precise one negative eigenvalue and n positive eigenvalues .
So my question is how to prove this ? Anybody knows? Thanks very much!


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College Credit Plus program
Bluffton University provides an opportunity for Ohio high school students to enroll in university courses for high school and/or college credit. The intent of the program is to enrich the learning of high school students; not to replace courses offered at the high school level.
Each year, students from several area high schools and homeschools, participate in Bluffton's College Credit Plus (CCP) program. As a student in Bluffton's CCP program, you will have full access to the many resources that Bluffton has to offer, such as Musselman Library and the Technology Center.
While participating in Bluffton's CCP program, you will study and learn with college
students, learn from Bluffton professors who are highly respected within their disciplines,
and form lasting relationships with your fellow classmates and professors.
Apply for CCP
Talk with your guidance counselor about Bluffton's CCP program, or contact me with any questions. I look forward to working with you through every stage of Bluffton's CCP program.
Jessica Brackman
Coordinator, College Credit Plus program


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Please tell me how can I read the Torah. I want to learn Hebrew so that I can read Torah perfectly. Please help me out.
Sign up
- Anybody can ask a question
- Anybody can answer
- The best answers are voted up and rise to the top
closed as not a real question by Isaac Moses, Michoel, Gershon Gold, Avrohom Yitzchok, HodofHod Dec 20 '12 at 5:29
It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, visit the help center.If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.
Learn the alphabet first.
Tehillim (Psalms)
A Hebrew Learning Aid
Black = Root word
Blue = Prefix, Infix, Suffix
Indigo = Nikud (vowels)
Green = Trop (vocalization)
Learning the torah is not as simple as learning to read Hebrew, or even learning the biblical grammar necessary. The torah was given within a context of a particular belief system and complemented by ways of understanding that demand the invocation of that belief system. You could learn to read and then study the words and still not know anything. Please don't look at the torah as a stand alone text which can be approached in an intellectual vacuum and read or even "studied." To learn it would require changing the self and the environment and then changing the entire approach to religion. And then, starting to learn the alphabet, simple words etc. Later on, simple phrases and the notion of the tune of the torah which helps create meaning.
You could read any variety of books which summarize biblical stories, or simply go through a translation but that would still leave vast gaps.
As Dan said, this requires more than just understanding the text in the five books of Moses. A perfect understanding is quite likely impossible.
For a more modest goal, the best approach is to use reliable translations, preferably multiple ones because there's no such thing as a perfect translation, while you are learning enough Hebrew to understand the original. Mechon Mamre provides a respected translation (JPS) side-by-side with the Hebrew.
Learning biblical Hebrew is probably best approached through courses rather than individual study, but I found the following two books helpful in getting a foundation (I am not fluent yet): The First Hebrew Primer (it's for adults, not kids), which is very systematic, and Grammatical Concepts 101 for Biblical Hebrew, which explains how grammatical constructs work in English and then maps that to biblical Hebrew. This latter book won't help you until you've got some basic concepts and vocabulary, though, so work through the former first.


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Trac-Lock Slide Units Combined The Trac-Lock Swivel And All Its Great Features With The Sturdy Function And Handsome Details Of The Trac-Lock Slides To Offer A Wide Selection Of Versatile, Full-Function Slide/Swivel Units That Are Easy To Use Used by Alumacraft.
- 2-3/8″ Non-Locking Trac-Lock Swivel
- Large 7-1/4″ x 13″ Seat Mounting Platform
- Travels 5-1/4″ Forward And Backward On Self-Lubricating Pads
ABYC Class AP - Seat designed for occupancy while the boat is underway at any speed. Seat mount must resist 30 foot pounds of torque.
Springfield Marine Seat Pedestals have a 5 year warranty.
This product ships in 1 business day.
Add to Cart and enter your Postal Code to determine the shipping charges and estimated delivery date.
Most products and orders leave our warehouse in 1 business day. However, select items may take more processing time. Alaska and Hawaii orders please add 1 additional warehouse processing day.
Standard Shipping Policies


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Threaded View
19 Dec 2012 4:50 AM #1
Week count in GXT Datepicker
Part of my requirement I need to add new column in GXT Datepicker to display week count. I've duplicated BaseDatePickerAppearnce and did rest of the customization, like changing the weekdays order,etc. Someone pls provide the clue to how to implement week count in datepicker.
Thanks in advance..!


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Gym Shorts for Guys That Offer Effortless Style
Fashion columnist Teri Agins answers readers' questions
Q: I wear black nylon shorts, with stripes down the side, and a white T-shirt for exercising. But at my gym, some of the sharper guys wear a T-shirt without sleeves and almost always gray or navy sweat pants that are cut off around the knee. I take that as an indication that sweatshirt material is making a comeback?
—B.P., Camden, N.J.
A: Oversize nylon shorts, spandex bike pants and yoga pants are all popular options for guys who exercise. But remember that trusty sweat shorts—easy and unfussy—have the advantage of being stylish without trying.
Every man can relate to the off-hand cool of knee-length sweat shorts made of sturdy, cotton fleece with an elastic waist (with or without drawstring) and unfinished hems. As cheap as $10, sweat shorts are lounge-worthy, with enough heft that they look good on guys whatever their physique—bulky, scrawny or in between.
And whether you're shooting hoops, lifting weights or just hanging out in the summer, your fleece shorts fall into place without clinging to your skin.
The stylish guy knows that there's more to sweat shorts than just picking shades like navy, black or gray. You'll want to try on a number of brands to discover the nuances of cut, rise and the angle and the depth of pockets. And be sure to take the same care with what you wear on top—namely, the silhouette of your sleeveless muscle shirt, tank top or V-neck T-shirt.
Men and women will admire your knack for knock-around style, which all began with a humble pair of sweat shorts.
—Email questions to firstname.lastname@example.com


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The 6 Most Mind-Blowing Modern Ghost Towns
Man's vision constantly exceeds his reach. It is our curse to dream bigger than our meager hands can build. So for every Hoover Dam or Empire State Building that gets built, there are 10 projects that were simply too unfeasible to see to completion. And for each of those 10, there are 10 more that seemed too unfeasible, but someone decided that that was bullcrap and powered through them anyway, only to abandon them shortly afterward. Because not everybody stops to think if they should do something, only if it would look awesome.
#6. Asia's Largest Amusement Park
Via Theatlantic.com
Quick, what's the world's largest theme park? Nope, it's not Disneyland. Not Disney World, either. Not even a Magic Mountain or a Six Flags. The world's largest theme park is China's Wonderland, and it's all right if you've never heard of it: It's basically a pirated copy of Disneyland (you wouldn't download a theme park, would you?) and -- oh yeah, it also never actually opened. When construction finally stopped in 1998, the builders had completed an entire village, a massive parking lot and a gargantuan fairy tale castle, then decided it would make a better Scooby-Doo set piece than a functional amusement park, washed their hands of the whole thing and walked away.
Via Theatlantic.com
"Maybe one day some supervillain will love you like you deserve."
Actually, the park failed because, despite having a prime location just outside of Beijing, China first had to wrestle the land away from local farmers tending the area before starting construction. And the government's explanation of "We need you to stop creating food so we can spin around in little cars shaped like horseys" didn't go over too well. So the farmers fought the park every step of the way. This, combined with the general economic downturn, meant doom for the ambitious project. The park now sits empty. And this isn't "Tightly patrolled by security until we finish construction someday" empty; this is "A'ight, we're outta here. Y'all can just walk right in" empty.
Via Theatlantic.com
"Now where the hell did we park our car?"
So the farmers (kind of) won, and despite being mostly finished, Wonderland was canceled. They've gone back to working the land around the park, and the only difference the whole ordeal made in their lives is that they now till their fields in front of a crumbling dream castle.
Via Washington Post
"If you build it, they will c -- wait, no they won't. Carry on."
#5. A Giant Archipelago (Shaped Like the World)
In 2003, Dubai's economy was raging, and they were sporting more hasty erections than a seventh grade gym class. You could build anything in that city, not in spite of your structure defying logic, but because of it. Building permits weren't issued until every contractor spit in the face of reason first.
Via Telegraph
"Well, that's nice and all, but do you have anything ... just straight up fucking crazy?"
Such was the attitude when the Nakheel Company set out to create a series of new islands in the shape of a scale map of the entire world. Despite seemingly power-binging on crazy before ever drawing up the plans, they actually pulled it off: The private world-islands were completed in 2008.
Via Daily Mail
"There we go. That's how you slap God in the face. Nice work, everyone."
Which was exactly when Dubai's economy finally tanked. Nobody ever moved onto the islands, and the whole thing has just been sitting vacant ever since. No one's even been seen on one for months now, and the ocean has started reclaiming them inch by inch.
"Hello, and welcome to the Dub -- shit."
#4. An Entire Subway Metro System
Via Wikipedia
We'd like to talk about the Cincinnati subway system for a minute. For the two Cincinnatians with Internet connections who are scoffing right now, probably muttering something like, "Nuh uh, Cincinnati doesn't have a subway system," allow us to eloquently rebut.
Via Forgottenoh.com
"Yuh huh, Cincinnati does too have a subway system."
In the early 1900s, Cincinnati was one of the top growing U.S. cities. They'd already expanded beyond their borders and needed a mass transit system, but estimates for a new subway were around $12 million. Which sucked, because they only had $6 million in the budget.
Via Forgottenoh.com
They were hoping on one of the workers accidentally dropping the other $6 million.
But rather than rethink the project or opt for an alternate system, city planners threw caution to the wind ... then snatched it out of the air, hurled it to the ground and stomped on it until it spat teeth. They went ahead with a modified version of the $12 million plan anyway, until -- shocker! -- they ran out of money a little over halfway through. Most of a basic subway network had already been dug out and built, but then the city found they had no more funds to actually put anything inside of it.
Via Daapspace.daap.uc.edu
"We couldn't afford 'trains,' but we had just enough money for 'terrifying.'"
Various attempts were made to try to finish the project, all the way up until the year 1948, when Cincinnati voted and passed the controversial Fuck It Initiative, and just decided to write the whole thing off. Other private uses have been considered over the decades, like a fallout shelter, a winery, an underground nightclub and even an actual bat cave, but today, the metro system still sits inert, and actually costs $2.6 million a year just to maintain its relative crappiness.
Via Forgottenoh.com
"We need another $500k for the hobo urination grounds, sir."


text:
If a child cannot reach the upper third of the doorway and he is the primary occupant of said room, may the mezuzah be affixed lower than the upper third?
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The Taz in YD 289 sk 3 is medayek (derives from a careful reading) that both the Rama and the Mechaber rule like the Rambam that if the mezuzah is placed below the upper third it is invalid even bediavad (after the fact). No one seems to mention any distinction based on the height of the room's occupants be they children or adults and it doesn't seem there is room to be lenient considering the adult, even without primarily living in that room, is still biblically obligated to have a mezuzah on that door.
There is a famous story about Rabbi Yaakov Kaminetzky, told in the book, Reb Yaakov, by Yonason Rosenblum, pp.326-327.
I can't remember where I read this, but it was from a Chabad teacher.
It was asked if the Mezuzah could be made lower. And his answer was that rather than lowering the Miztvah to meet the child, get a step stool so the child can climb up to reach the mezuzah.
He compared this to the Cohen in the Temple who had to go up some steps in order to reach the Menorah and light the lamps.
I thought it was an important pedagogical lesson, even if it's not practical for every door in the house. Eventually the child will be tall enough to reach without the step stool though.
What I have seen done by a big Talmid Chochom was that they built a 3 foot high wall on two sides with a beam going across at the ceiling height. Then they put the Mezuza 2 feet off the ground where children were able to reach it.
2 mezuzahs may not be affixed to a doorpost. It is obviously not educational to do something against halacha plus kissing the mezuzah is a custom while the proper placement is halacha. A child will learn the prper placement and will grow up anticipating the time he can reach the mezuzah to kiss it.
I don't have any source, but I do have a suggestion. Hang the Mezzuzah in the appropriate place with a bracha, then hang one lower without a bracha or a klaf. In this way the child will practice kissing the Mezzuzah as it sounds like you want it to become a habit, without breaking Halacha.


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a skull so thick it replaces the brain completely, (a solid skull)
i couldnt skull fuck him because he had a mankle
by rapetank2000 August 20, 2009
Trending Now
Top Definition
Man-Cankles -- a term coined by Kevin Nealon's character Doug Wilson on Showtime's Weeds to describe the Majestic councilmans cankle problem.
"That guy has man-cankles, he has mankles!"
by wessmackey November 06, 2007
Ankles that are very manly
Ex. 1: Look at Nanol's mankles! She must really work out a lot!
Ex. 2: Hercules must had some super mankles to complete his labors!
Ex. 2: Hercules must had some super mankles to complete his labors!
by Alsaucy July 28, 2010
male cankles. cankle; when the calf goes directly to the ankle without muscular tone or definition.
Coach got so fat after retirement that he developed mankles
by r. daniel cohen October 26, 2007
Short for man-ankle. Usually used in the context of fashion, specifically when referring to the ankles of a man wearing no socks, and pants which are tailored shorter than is traditional. This style is popular among fashion-forward and/or metrosexual men.
When I was walking to class today, I saw a hipster guy in übertight pants, flashing some mankle as he walked.
by CowManCheeseBall June 09, 2014
fat flab roll on the back of a man's head.
similar to a cankle, just in a different location!
similar to a cankle, just in a different location!
Over weight John had shaved his head and that made his mankle even more aparent.
by Hedley and J-Adow March 17, 2010
Where the ankle is muscly and looks like a cankle but there is no fat making it a mankle (muscly ankle). The exact opposite of a cankle (calfs that roll into ankles).
person 1: OMG you have cankles
person 2: nah i can lift 3 kilo's with those, thier mankles not cankles
person 2: nah i can lift 3 kilo's with those, thier mankles not cankles
by camma January 07, 2010


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The Artist Micro Credit Program is designed to assist Broward-based practicing, professional, and emerging artists, to advance their work and careers. A premise of the program is that "gaps" exist in traditional lending markets and that some creditworthy artists, and their artistic businesses, cannot qualify for financing. This program provides assistance to eligible individual artists and arts-related businesses, who cannot obtain funding from conventional sources.
1. Original Application – The "original" application means the form bearing the original signature(s) in blue ink of the person who prepared the application.Download (PDF) version of application
2. One (1) copy for the review panel - Application and support attachment material may be placed in pocket folders, but a heavy staple or binder clip in the upper left corner is sufficient. All support materials must be packaged with each copy of the application. Read application requirements
3. Application processing fee - A fee is charged to cover the cost of handling an application and credit investigation relating to the loan application. Please enclosed a check, or money order, made payable to the: South Florida Regional Planning Council.
Application fee for artists that have completed the Artist as an Entrepreneur Institute (AEI): Please include $50 (non-refundable).
Application fee for artists that have not completed the Artist as an Entrepreneur Institute (AEI): Please include $125 (non-refundable).
Return Completed Application and Attachments to:Broward Cultural Division Grants Section Administrator100 South Andrews Avenue, 6th Floor Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301-1829
For more information about the Artist Micro Credit Program and the Artist as an Entrepreneurial Institute contact:
James Shermer, Grants AdministratorBroward Cultural Division100 South Andrews Avenue, 6th FloorFort Lauderdale, FL 33301-1829954-357-7502 ● 954-357-5769 email@example.com
Cheryl D. Cook, Economic Development Specialist firstname.lastname@example.com
Joyce Hall, Financial SpecialistSouth Florida Regional Planning Council 3440 Hollywood Boulevard, Suite 140 Hollywood, FL 33020 954- 985-4416 ● 954-985-4417 firstname.lastname@example.com
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text:
Germany is home to roughly 60,000 active choirs. These include workplace choirs, police choirs, school and student choirs, church choirs, radio choirs, Bach choirs, jazz choirs, gospel choirs, chamber choirs and singing clubs of all kind. Around one third of all German choirs are exclusively for children. Mixed boy's choirs covering the full range from soprano to baritone are particularly popular.
To nyttige hurtigtaster for å zoome i nettleseren:
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Forminske: +
Mer hjelp får du fra nettleserleverandøren ved å klikke på ikonet:


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text: Okay, so I think this is my sixth tutorial so far, and I'm hoping this submission works because I submitted this three or four days ago but it never showed up and its weirdly been deleted from my tutorial list... so anyway as you all know dragons are some of the awesomest creatures to ever exist or not exist, just pretty much all creatures in general. However, some people in the world don't know how exactly to draw cute little dragons. To help end this atrocity, I hast broughteth forth a tutorial for thou. I duth hopeth that thoust find this tutorial pleasant. (when did i start talking like that???)


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How do I get the most out of my first entry level job?
To be concise, while I'm grateful for the opportunity to get my feet wet in IT, the job I got 1 year ago is not challenging and I don't believe it is giving me the technical skills to move into a better role or the opportunity to learn new things. I've mentioned to my supervisor that work is very on and off, but he never has much of an answer - I have gotten the sense that most people come to work at my job to get a paycheck. They are mostly decades older than I, married, with families who appreciate the moderate to low pay in exchange for 40 hour weeks (i.e. rarely staying late). Our company is also rather behind the times (still using smalltalk, for example).
I appreciate not staying late all the time, too, but it scares me that I could get stuck here, not gaining any transferable skills. Not making enough to put much away in 401K or savings.
What should I do? Wait another year? Try for internal transfer? Outside books/classes/self training? Actually start job hunting again?
16 Answers answer
Appreciate the exposure to something more interesting than the usual C#/perl/etc.
If you're not given enough work, find new ways to make yourself useful on the side. I'm sure you can think of ways to automate or streamline a current system.
Keep one eye out for new job opportunities.
You've been there a year. That's not very long, when it comes to job history on your resume. Smalltalk makes me VERY nostalgic. I do want to point out that it's not a dead technology, even if it seems esoteric.
I can actually offer some suggestions, but first I'd like some answers. Please note that zero of my suggestions will involve looking for a new job. Okay, here are those questions.
1. What operating systems are you involved with on a daily basis? Weekly?
2. You say IT. That's not really much to go on. Are you doing system administration? Programming? Are you writing Smalltalk programs, or administering systems that are used for Smalltalk?
3. Do you have a degree? Certifications?
4. Have you had a review? What's the size of the company, in revenue, and in population? For comparison, the last company I worked at had approximately 120,000 people, give or take.
5. What operating systems do you know? (Linux, Solaris, Windows Server, etc)
I'll be back, later.
@shrdlu: I figured someone like you might come along and look for a lot more info :) I purposely left it a bit ambiguous because I'm just looking for general advice, but I can definitely provide a bit more.
I'm a software tester at a ~10,000 employee company. I've been trying rather hard to get into more automation for our ST and java applications, but it's like pulling teeth; our automators (and I can't blame them), don't want to give up their time to let me sit in with them/train me. I have a non-technical degrees w/ some programming courses. I've had 3 reviews so far (they do a lot first year) which have been great, they've made it clear that they like me, but they aren't doing much when I let them know I'm bored. We also have a rather horrible attrition rate for new/young employees.
Again, though, I'm not looking for specific things/jobs/skills to do. Just advice on direction and timing to do it - I know the things I want to do - just not sure how and when I should go after them.
@meh3884: I'll try to give a bit of advice--don't know how much help I will be because we are in very different facets in the IT world.
I interned at a city for 3 years doing very boring work. The systems administrator would keep information from me on purpose for job security and the lead technician knew substantially less than I did (I hold several certificates from CompTIA, even back then, while I was specifically in school for CIS with an emphasis in IT security--more on this later). I frequently asked for an actual job and not an intern and he said he would ask but it never came into fruition (whether or not he asked is another story).
The last 2 years I was in that job I frequently job hunted and would apply to everything I got my hands on. Finally I landed a great job at a large nearby city and it took everything I had to get it (adding more certificates to my resume, doing contract work on the side with hospitals, and just basic filling up my resume with projects, etc) More..
@meh3884: My morale is this: if the company does not cultivate a culture of sharing knowledge and letting you go off and do your own thing, learn more skills on the company dime, or are just not very helpful in that department period then you need to look for another job. The experience you gain there will be invaluable for a resume on paper but terrible in real life applicable skills if you're stuck, say, running backups on an exchange server all day for your tenure at the company. And a high attrition rate is extremely common for generation Y, for a lot of reasons, but I won't go there.
TL;DR: Keep your job, it looks great on a resume, but you can't change the culture of a company. Look for more jobs, enhance your skills, get certifications, meet people and SOCIALIZE! This is very important because the right hands handing in your resume can mean the difference between a job there and not even a call back. Hope I helped a little.
We have a decent philosophy of training new positions for current employees, so I do feel like there is some hope for an internal transfer, either in the next year or next couple of years. We just don't have much, or any, cross training once you're at a given position - or much of an opportunity for more training once you are considered proficient at your job (like I am now).
I feel a bit weird about the prospect of internal transfers because we're already looking for new folks for my position on my team...I was even hired because of several people quitting last year :-/, so just saying "ope, I'm bored so I'm going to team X to do something different" doesn't seem like the most gracious option. But maybe I shouldn't care? I don't dislike my company or my team, and I don't necessarily want to jump ship after working on just one of many teams for only a year, but every day has been a struggle to find a way to be productive without resorting to busy work for about 4 months.
@meh3884: You still left too many things out. I'll try to offer some suggestions, but you're making this harder for me to give you what I consider to be decent answers.
You said degree, but unrelated. Some of the best people I ever worked with had off the wall degrees. I'm curious as to what yours is, and much more important, where it's from. No specifics, just whether or not it's an accredited school, and if it's a BA/BS or not.
The reason I asked about whether you wrote code or not is because that would guide my suggestions about what your next steps should be. You absolutely do not want to burn your bridges with your current position. Jobs are hard to come by in these times. It sounds very possible for you to do an internal transfer, but this is a mine field, and it would need to be done carefully.
What would you like to be doing? What skills would you like to pick up? What skills do you already possess?
@bluescreenofwin: Thanks! I think getting certifications/coursework outside the company may be what I need to do. I think after I've been here some number of years, I actually can pursue course work on their dime in some sense; I pay upfront and apply for reimbursement of some/all of it.
My main complaint there is that I learn infinitely better on the job than in a class (which I why I gave up my programming major in college). But I guess that's my catch 22, if I want on the job training, I have to take a job at a company that will hire me without the classroom time, so then I get a job like this. Now it's in my court to build on that...I think what I need is a mixture - hopefully a little classroom and a lot of on the job.
@meh3884: It's funny that you mentioned college because I am finishing up my degree right now (taking me a while because I am going very part time) but I absolutely agree that the majority of skills gained there pale in comparison to outside classes or certifications. I continue to go because the degree itself is obviously desirable to, say, HR, but the opportunities my school provides (hundreds of jobs being emailed to me from my department monthly, including full time positions), the job fairs my college offers, student discounts to IT conferences, student discounts to certificates (sweet!), and most important the people I meet there are some of the coolest people I'll meet and you never know what may surface. Other than that I really wish I just dropped out LOL because I would love that extra time back in my week.
And on a side note, I love certifications and believe them to be invaluable--some people disagree and that is okay too. But get your feet wet and see for yourself!
@shrdlu I have a BS and BA from a top 40 university. I'd like to be a fluent automated tester. I have the analytical and test planning skills, I need the technical stuff to put it in action. I need to learn some languages more fluently...not necessarily to program with them, but to read, understand, and debug code. I can run and do basic edits to automation scripts, but I can't start from scratch and write my own. Same with advanced SQL.
I'm interested in your thoughts on internal transfers and why they are difficult to navigate (I definitely get the idea they are).
@meh3884: You already have one thing mastered, which is that you communicate in a professional manner (this is probably one of the skills that I most often see lacking in people who are hoping to move up).
I'm not a fan of certifications, BTW. With the exception of a few Cisco advanced certs, they're mostly not worth much, if anything. I'm glad to see your degree is not from a diploma mill, and what your degree is in doesn't matter too much, once you have that first job. The important thing is that you've got a well-rounded education, and have clearly mastered the problem solving skill set that you need for almost anything.
Not knowing the particular culture of your company, I can't say for sure what the response will be to your wanting to move on. How many people in your group have moved on to other positions in the company? How many just left for other jobs, elsewhere?
@meh3884: Look to see who has successfully transitioned into something else, whether or not they're from your group. There should be at least a couple who used to work in your group, and have now moved on to other things.
A brief word of advice, here. Please be cautious in asking around. You've already said you're bored. The person who leads your group will have to replace you whether you move within the company, or leave the company to work elsewhere. They may or may not be motivated to help you. Everyone is human.
I spent many hours helping to mentor our younger employees, and it's one of the few things I miss. Thank you so much for providing the opportunity to be helpful.
@meh3884: I'd also suggest finding a text for a Survey of Languages. All the ones I have are ancient, but I'm sure there are newer ones out there. Here's my favorite list of languages:
{Please note that the list is by no means authoritative; it's just interesting.}
@shrdlu: I genuinely appreciate the willingness to give me advice.
A word about my company, and the reason why I'm being a tad bit cryptic is - and I think this says a lot - I would not want them to know I'm asking this question /paranoid. The folks up high don't care much for those who don't stick around or don't want to, to be nice. Some stats on my team - let's see - I'm on a team of about 25, since I've started we've hired 3 new folks, 3 people have left the company, 1 has transferred away, and 3 have transferred here. Not sure if they come here because they want to or because they were needed - transfers are not always voluntary.
On the plus side, there is a large number of folks - and I haven't reached out much to them just yet (still being careful) - who have used my job has a springboard to move to other things. Many people started where I am. It's both a common place to move up from internally and a common place to leave the company from.
@meh3884: I can see that you already have a good feel for your company's environment, which is to your benefit. I've worked at companies that were very political, where you were careful about what you said because someone might use it later, down the road. I didn't like that environment very much, but it's hard to tell ahead of time, when you're young, about those kinds of things. Later on I avoided places like that.
Yours sounds average in that respect.
There are some professional groups you might think of joining. I note that LinkedIn has some groups devoted to automated testing. It's not really my area, and I can't offer specific advice. Metrics seems to be very related, and I used to belong to the mailing list on this site:
I also have a passing familiarity with the Risk Analysis folks:
{They only touch on your areas of interest.}
From an outside perspective, (someone not in your field) here is some general advice for making the most of an entry level job:
- keep notes on things the company, your boss, colleagues and you do right and wrong. This is the BEST advice I ever got (it was aimed at the boss level initially). One day you will be in a higher position and you will be able to use these notes to reflect on what to do and not to do in situations that arise.
- as others have said SOCIALIZE. Knowing the right people always helps and being known across areas in a company has always been helpful to me. I've definitely gotten help by tapping on resources I've gained in the company simply through social interactions and never would have known otherwise - this has helped me with projects as well as made me more versatile in general.
- use every opportunity to learn all the new stuff you can. If your company offers schooling, take full advantage.


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How can I run LibreOffice Writer from the command line? Basically, what is its command and how do I get to know what's the command to run a particular application in general?
In this case, I guessed that it might be
And so I got to
In general, one could try things like the following:
Usually all GUI applications have a launcher icon. Most of them are stored in
A quick hacky way to list all applications and commands is to use awk command:
Honestly, this can easily be google'ed :p
To find a command, try using command auto-complete:
type 'libre', then press ['Tab'], giving you:
then add ' --help', finally giving you:
This will give you ALL the possible options you might need ..
When I access Writer I go into my terminal and type:
This seems to work perfectly and can be repeated for Calc (localc); Draw (lodraw); Base (lobase); Impress (loimpress). You get the point.
The other wonderful terminal command I learned tonight is this:
this will call up Firefox while taking you to the website of your choice or in this case Google. The more that I play around with the Command Line Interface (CLI) the more that I fall in love with all of the capabilities.
One very easy way which does not involve any guessing at all:
On Ubuntu 12.10 and the new libreoffice 4.0, after manual installation, the command is:
libreoffice4.0 --writer
all other commands, like previous answer, are given with the inclusion of 4.0 after libreoffice.
If I have no idea where a program is, or what it is called, and only have the link from the "start menu", I will create a desktop shortcut with right click -> add to desktop. Then I will open the shortcut in a text editor and look for the line starting with "Exec". So, for LibreOffice Calc, I see:
Exec=libreoffice --calc %U
This corresponds to the bash command "libreoffice --calc". The percent-sign has to do with an extended implicit (?) option for exec, which I don't understand but which can be ignored since you're not using Exec.


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Are they made the same way as classical engines ?
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They are made quite differently than regular engines that we 'regular folks' have in our cars. Direct quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_One_engines :
Slightly simpler answer: the more volume of air/fuel you can burn (all around 13:1 air/fuel ratio) the more power you can produce. You can increase the static displacement (e.g. 3.7L V6 vs 2.5L four) or the engine speed. Formula One has always had restrictions on displacement, which required increasing the engine speed or increasing efficiency.
Formula One engines are always accelerating, which makes rotational inertia a concern. The less the better. However, reducing the mass also reduces the strength.
The limitations on engine speed come from friction which increases with engine speed and material strength. There have been street engines with relatively long strokes that could hit 9000 rpms: Honda S2000, Ferrari 458. Both had strokes over 3". However, in F1 the move to small bearings for reduced friction and less mass in connecting rods, crankshafts, piston pins, etc. for less inertia can make failure an issue. Metal valve springs are also subject to failure; racers frequently change them. F1 went to pneumatic valve springs a while ago. Valve stems can have strength issues. They are reduced in size for both less mass and less interference in the airflow.
F1 engines had gotten over 19000 rpms and were approaching 20k rpms years ago. F To reduce costs and increase competition the rules were changed to set an speed limit (19k in 2007, 18k in 2009) and limited the driver to 8 sealed engines for the season. There are also restrictions on bore size and materials used.
The result has been a dramatic increase in engine reliability, although there are failures because of the 8 engine rule.
Note: if rotational inertia wasn't a problem, it would be fairly simple to make an engine with components that could withstand the forces at 18k. However, when you want to minimize friction, minimize inertia, and maximize airflow the issues begin.


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Does Fanotec offer a Lens Ring Clamp and Plastic insert for this lens?Samyang 8mm f/2.8 Fisheye II Lens for Fujifilm X MountIf the 180 degree diagonal is rotated to vertical, how many degrees up is required to close the zenith?
I am also considering a pole. If I shoot the zenith separately, how many degrees down is required to minimize the nadir hole? This will help me decide between an R1 or R10.
Any advice is appreciated.


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O me of little faith (updated)
Are you a believer yet? asked several emails and text messages I received this morning. Its hard to resist this particular evangelical movement, especially because all of my friends and relatives have joined it. Having grown up in Colorado, not far from Colorado Springs, source and summit of my generations evangelicalism, I am familiar with the culture. But Ive never been the lone skeptic amid a sea of faith. The evidence of this mans miracles seems at first glance reason enough to follow him. And to reject the so-called Mile High Messiah, especially in the weeks leading up to Christmas with the family, will be an affront to my own mother and father, zealous new converts. To believe, at this point, would be easier than to remain agnostic.But despite all this -- and despite football jersey sales to the contrary -- Tim Tebow is not Jesus, and Im not yet a believer.Its true that he has presided over a highly improbable string of victories in the past 8 weeks (7-1 as a starter, with 3 overtime victories). His public Christian faith has spawned a trend in prayer postures and evoked analysis from excellent commentators. Beyond that he has exorcised the demons of a sullied franchise, brought hope to millions of viewers, literally healed sick children around the world through his charitable foundation, converted souls to Christianity as a missionary, and achieved what many thought was truly impossible causing regular-season NFL games from the West to be broadcast on the East Coast. For all these things, he deserves our thanks and praise.But messianic claims have been overblown. The Denver Broncos already had their messiah, thank you very much: John Elway. He brought the countrys largest football fan base (when measured in terms of contiguous land area, not population) from the depths of 4 Super Bowl losses to the pinnacle of greatness. And he is still reigningnot only as the car dealership king of Denver, but also as the Executive Vice President of Football Operations for the Broncos. The anointed one is still alive and in charge of Denvers earthly kingdom. Why look for another?Nonetheless the record of improbable victories must be accounted for. For weeks I have been trying to explain it away. Just believe, my friends and family have told me. No, I need reasons. If you believe, Tebow said in last nights interview, then unbelievable things can sometimes be possible. Is it time for me to believe the impossible? Can there be any other reasonable explanation?
After yesterdays game, which was another improbable comeback (actually called impossible by the announcerssomething they never do because their job is to keep viewers on the channel), I realized there is a better explanation for his miraculous powers. Its so obvious, I cant believe Im the first to figure it out. He is not JesusTim Tebow is a sorcerer. (Or if you prefer, a wizard, a witch, a caster of spells.)Most of his victories have been made possible only by some bizarre event that befalls the other team. But in each previous case, the other teams foibles were not totally unprecedentedan interception here, a missed field goal there. Yesterdays game, however, is definitive proof that Tim Tebow has control of superhuman spiritual forces that cause harm. What happened? Both the star quarterback and star running back of the Chicago Bears got injured in the week prior to facing Tebow. Clearly the work of a powerful sorcerer, and it should have been enough. But Tebows team still struggled to do anything against the Bears for most of the game, even though the Bears were led by a quarterback so green that the announcers couldnt agree how to pronounce his name. My suspicions of Tebow sorcery were finally confirmed, though, near the end of the fourth quarter. With the Bears protecting a 3-point lead and possessing the ball with 2 minutes left, it was clear to everyone watching what would happen. The Bears would run the clock down through 3 running plays and punt it back to Denver. They had been running the clock down the previous 2 series, and to do so now was 100% predictable. The Broncos would then get the ball back with around 15 seconds, enough time for a Hail Mary pass (which wouldnt have worked for the evangelical quarterback, for obvious reasons).So what happened next? Bears running back Marion Barber a 7-year NFL veteran and Big Ten star before that took one of the handoffs in that series and ran out of bounds. This stopped the clock and meant that the Broncos got the ball back with time to drive down the field. (Then in overtime, Barber fumbled the ball during what appeared to be another game-winning drive for the Bears. The Sun-Times makes clear that it wasnt the Hand of God that caused the fumble. Chicago sportswriters are no foolsthey know more about curses and hexes than the Vaticans chief exorcist.)Lets be clear about this: Marion Barber's running out of bounds is not explicable by any natural causes. He himself has no idea why he did it. He has played football at the highest level for over a decade. If this had happened in a playoff game, it would rank on the curse meter just below Bill Buckners ground ball through the legs, which gets back to my point. Yesterdays gamewith injuries to both of the opposing teams stars, and then a truly inexplicable play by a veteranis definitive proof that Tim Tebow is not Jesus, but a sorcerer in touch with Beelzebub. (Mark 3:22) He may cast out demons, but I ask, with the scribes and Pharisees, does he do so by the prince of demons?In this bind, what is a Christian from Colorado to do? O me of little faith!UPDATE: I was wrong. Jesus confirms that he was the reason for the victories. He also explained that he would be busy during the Patriots game.
About the Author
Michael Peppard is associate professor of theology at Fordham University, author of The World's Oldest Church and The Son of God in the Roman World, and on Twitter @MichaelPeppard.
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First, Michael, thank you for bringing sports discussion to DotCommonweal. Second, do you think that the Broncos' performance over several games now (the game against Chicago, as you rightly point out, could be considered a fluke when seen in isolation from the rest), could mean that there is something necessary for agnostics to explain that is going on here? Bob Costas had some interesting commentary about it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7QlCVnhXKU Some kind of faith or belief unlike anything we have ever seen in the NFL (at least in my three decades or so of watching it) appears to be causing the Broncos to play the fourth quarter as if they will win the game...and (perhaps helped by the media) other teams are now starting to believe they will too. Thus, perhaps indirectly, Tebow's faith (or strength of will, or confidence, or whatever) is causing some of the inexplicable mistakes?It's not just all smoke and mirrors either...there are numbers to back this up. Tebow's rating in the first and second quarters this year is poor: 64 and 50, respectfully. In the fourth quarter it jumps up to a pro-bowl level: 111. http://www.nfl.com/player/timtebow/497135/situationalstatsSomething is happening here.
Of course there are football miracles. The Saints finally won the Superbowl, didn't they?
Tim Tebow has nothing on Franco Harris: http://www.steelersfever.com/immaculate_reception.htmlThe immaculate reception!
@Jean Raber (12/12, 12:36 pm) Thanks for the link. It reminds me of the story (possibly apocryphal) that Pres. McKinley, faced with the conquest of the Philippines during the Spanish-American War, one morning announced that God had come to him in a dream and told him that it was America's responsibility to "uplift and civilize and Christianize" the Filipinos---90% of whom were Catholic.
If God exists, Tim Tebow will walk into an open manhole, and Marion Barber will be cut by tomorrow morning.
Football players have been pointing heavenward after scoring -- or, heck, even after tackling someone, although that's what they are paid for -- since the advent of paying fans. Tebow does that. But that has nothing to do with what is going on in Denver. The NFL is full of praying people; players from both teams regularly kneel down together after a game and make prayerful noises. No, what we are seeing here stops somewhere short of faith and has to do with statistics. If I may borrow from another art form, remember Tiny Tim -- the guy with the long hair and the ukelele? The guy who dominated show biz in the USA for maybe three astonishing months? The guy who had no more talent -- yea, verily, measurably less talent -- than thousands of waiters and waitresses in New York? Well, statistically something like that had to happen sometime if enough variety shows were staged on television. It's like the monkeys at the typewriter.The NFL has, up to now, played a lot of games. Long before the Broncos have to face the Packers, the air will go out of the Tebow balloon. You can print that.
Speaking of sorcery and curses --I've heard stories about Mario Praz, a scholar living in Rome who was widely reputed to have the "Evil Eye." Bad things inevitably happened when he was around. At the end of one conference when everyone was rushing to catch the last train out of town he alone could not be prevailed upon to rush. When the rest of the group arrived at the station they discovered that Praz was right not to rush -- the train would be delayed because engineer had died suddenly and somehow, they surmised, Praz had been involved.Muriel Spark tells the story of another night at the Roman opera with our hero:"On one special evening when Montserrat Caballe was singing in a Bellini opera, the rain started coming through the roof. Now, a well-known Roman of that time was the late Mario Praz, a critic and scholar of English literature (he wrote ''The Romantic Agony''). He was said to have the Evil Eye and was known as the Malocchio. This nickname wasn't attributed with any repugnance, but rather as an affectionately recorded and realistic fact (for such people are regarded as carriers rather than operators of the Evil Eye). Naturally, everyone noticed when Mario Praz was present at a party, and waited for the disaster. There was usually a stolen car at the end of the evening, or someone called away because his uncle had died. Well, when I saw the rain coming in the roof at the Opera, and heard the commotion behind me, I looked round instinctively for Mario Praz. Sure enough, there was our dear Malocchio sitting under the afflicted spot. He died recently and was mourned on a national scale. (The Italians put their artists and people of letters on a higher level than anywhere else I have known.) Before his house could be unsealed for his heirs, robbers got in and looted his lifetime collection of museum pieces and memorabilia."http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/03/11/specials/spark-rome.html
But, does he use "Hail Mary" passes?Therein lies the secret to any anti-Catholicism that Tebow might possess.
Aaron Rodgers is having a better year than Tim Tebow ever will -- and he takes the advice (perhaps apocryphal) or St. Francis:
I feel like my stance and my desire has always been to follow a quote from St. Francis of Assisi, who said, Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words. So basically, Im not an over-the-top, or an in-your-face kind of guy with my faith. I would rather people have questions about why I act the way I act, whether they view it as positive or not, and ask questions, and then given an opportunity at some point, then you can talk about your faith a little bit. I firmly believe, just personally, what works for me, and what I enjoy doing is letting my actions speak about the kind of character that I want to have, and following that quote from St. Francis.http://offthebench.nbcsports.com/2011/11/30/aaron-rodgers-on-tim-tebow-r...
And by the way, Eli Manning lead a truly amazing comeback. Needed no help from the Devil or Marion Barber.
Ahem...True Giants fans know Elijah (Manning) when we see him, David. :)
Eli's father was, of course, a Saint.
And we wonder about myths. Reagan, who helped the 1% more than anyone, was proposed for Mt. Rushmore. JFK was a huge Catholic myth which powerful Catholics like Spellman resented. All of this supports the first principle of marketing:" It is what people think they are buying that is more important than what they are buying."
Btw, I'd like to call attention to this blog post on the First Things site, which wrestles with the question, Why do so many of us feel uncomfortable when Tebow is so overt in his faith witness?http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2011/12/tim-tebowrsquos-vocation
What happens when the Broncos' or Tebow's luck runs out and no amount of on-field praying stops a future loosing streak? What happens when the rest of the NFL learns the best way to defense Tebow and shut him down - the probable likelihood to come the playoffs? Are we then to conclude that God has abandoned football-crazed Christians? Has God turned his back on humanity and intends a sports deluge to purify the earth, a la Noah?Tim Tebow plays great football. He is fun to watch. I wish him well. Tebow has undeniable athletic skills in abundance. He is a very fast and quick runner for a quarterback. [Although he looks like he has a strong and sturdy body, he really isn't that tall for a pro quarterback - something that is helpful in seeing down-field.] But every eagle no matter how fast, or how strong, or how high they soar, has to come back to earth sometime.I'm enough of a "Golden Domer" to have made obeisance to "Touchdown Jesus" on occasion, but I actually prefer the constitutional separation of church and sports.
@ Jim Pauwels:I'm not uncomfortable with Tebow's public, overt faith witness. I just find it spiritually immature.When I hear an athlete after a winning performance say, "I want to give all the thanks and praise to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ," I usually cringe because God rarely, if ever, takes sides in human affairs, especially a violent sport like football. Same thing when basketball players cross themselves at the foul line.It's just that God has better things to be concerned about than sports. Does that mean that God doesn't have a special love for the Tim Tebow's of the world? Certainly not.While Christians are encouraged in the NT to "pray always" (Luke 21; Ephesians 6; 1 Thessalonians 5), I believe that Matthew 6 is the definitive directive: "But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. "
Jim J - it may sound strange, but I've never thought of those public utterances as *prayer* - I think of them as *public witness*. But you may be right - he may just be offering a very public prayer of thanksgiving. (Or, I suppose, a bit of both). That does help explain why it leaves us so uncomfortable. In the US, we typically pray publicly within our own churches. Btw, I don't claim to know whether or not God cares whether the Broncos or the Bears won. I can't think of any scripture passages or revelation that suggest an answer one way or the other. I would note that, while the outcomes are (or should be) trivial to the great majority of us, they are the bread-and-butter jobs for those employed in the industry. If I believe that there is a spirituality of how I conduct myself in my work (which I do believe), then it seems logical that professional athletes and other employees of professional sports franchises could have the same spirituality.
Jimmy Mac beat me to it with the Hail Mary reference, my first thought while reading the article. Tebow has gotten perhaps too much credit. It's a team effort with a great defense and an error-free if mostly dull offensive scheme. Coach Fox is making the most of his players, creating a winning team. He is giving Tebow the chance to do it his way, and TT is making the most of it. Also the Broncos have had a relatively easy stretch in their schedule. But it looks like their D can hold most teams down, so that a drive or two at the end can win it. Tough, boring defensive football can wear down and frustrate opponents, especially those wanting to score 40 points. Those willing to win with 13 points have an advantage.
I doubt many are still checking in, but a question comes to mind: How is Tebow's public piety any more, or less, grating to non-evangelical ears than Notre Dame's ahem, preening (mainly in the past glory days), is to non-Catholic ears (and eyes)?
David Gibson is absolutely correct.It seems to me that ND tries too hard with their "preening" as an over-compensation for their guilt regarding their dubious involvement and investment in basically the corrupt system of college athletics (the exploitation of student athletes for the big bucks).It makes some sense that if you have a national stage you should at least try to get your "message" out there, no matter how compromised from getting in bed with corporate interests. I always enjoy the irony of the time-out commercials of the ND football telecasts fading to scenes of the lighted candles at the grotto, or fall colors framing the famous Jesus mosaic on the front of the library or the golden dome with the Virgin atop. Great staging! Good visuals! "The BVM would drive a Dodge truck!"ND sports is not a bad recruiting tool for the rest of the student body. And, intercollegiate sports like football does fund the rest of the ND robust sports program including the intramural sports.Isn't it about time that ND reduce its sports "footprint" to that of say the Ivy League? Especially as research evidence mounts that violent sports like football leads to chronic traumatic encephalopathy? [As a ND sports fan, I am consigned to the reality that ND will remain mediocre as long as they try to keep up appearances and compete with minor league professional teams at Ohio State, Michigan, Miami, Penn State, USC, Florida, etc. I wish that colleges would just adopt the "club football" model - no lies about student athletes - where universities are the sponsors of the team instead of the local brewery.]College sports lost their way a long time ago. There is just too much money in college sports that contributes to the decay and corruption as seen recently at Penn State and Syracuse. Until the culture acknowledges the social ritual that sports have become with all their spectacle and packaged violence, it will remain less and less about sport and more and more about "bread and circuses."Wait till a sex/money scandal hits ND. Now that will "shake down the thunder from the sky!"


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Donato Cabrera, the San Francisco Symphony's Resident Conductor since 2009, works closely with Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas. In addition to leading the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra (SFYSO) as the Wattis Foundation Music Director, the ebullient Cabrera conducts many community-oriented performances that draw diverse audiences from around the Bay Area: the Symphony's annual Día de los Muertos Community Concert, Music for Families concerts, Concerts for Kids, and Adventures in Music performances.
Cabrera made his San Francisco Symphony debut in April 2009, when he was asked with less than twenty-four hours' notice to conduct Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and two works by Mozart. He joined the Symphony's conducting staff shortly thereafter.
Before coming to the Symphony, Cabrera was associate conductor of the San Francisco Opera from 2005 to 2008. There, he worked on the world premiere of John Adams's Doctor Atomic and conducted performances of Die Fledermaus, Don Giovanni, Tannhäuser, and The Magic Flute. He has also assisted on productions at the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and served as an assistant conductor at the Ravinia, Spoleto (Italy) and Aspen music festivals, and at the Music Academy of the West. In 2002, he was a Herbert von Karajan conducting fellow at the Salzburg Festival.
Over the last several years, Cabrera has made impressive debuts with the San Francisco Ballet (conducting The Nutcracker), the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the Orquesta Clásica de Santa Cecilia in Madrid. In 2014, Cabrera was appointed Music Director of the Las Vegas Philharmonic Orchestra and has been Music Director of the California Symphony and the New Hampshire Music Festival since 2013. A champion of new music, Cabrera is the co-founder of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME). In September 2012 he conducted ACME in the world premiere of the all-live version of Steve Reich's WTC 9/11 for three string quartets and tape at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City. In March 2012 as part of the San Francisco Symphony's American Mavericks Festival, he conducted the San Francisco Symphony Chorus and organist Paul Jacobs in the world premiere of Mason Bates's Mass Transmission. Cabrera subsequently conducted the work with the Young People's Chorus of New York City in Carnegie Hall for the American Mavericks tour.
Cabrera is passionate about music education and community outreach. In June 2012, Cabrera led the SFSYO on their eighth European tour. For a series of six performances in Germany, Luxembourg, and Austria, the SFSYO won a 2011-12 ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming of American music on foreign tours. In 2010, Cabrera was honored as a Luminary by the Friends of Mexico Honorary Committee for his contributions to the Bay Area's Mexican community.
Cabrera earned a bachelor's degree in music from the University of Nevada, Reno, and a master's degree in conducting from the University of Illinois. He has pursued graduate studies in conducting at Indiana University and the Manhattan School of Music.
The SFS Youth Orchestra performs three concerts each season, and takes part in special events and celebrations throughout the year.
Find SFS Youth Orchestra Concerts


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6 Insane Laws We'll Need in the Future
Here in the age of Internet porn it's hard to know exactly what percentage of male orgasms occur in front of a computer monitor, but we're going to guess it's more than half. So if you ask when we'll have virtual reality sex, or human/robot sex, the answer from tens of thousands of researchers and inventors is, "We're working as fast as we can, dammit!"
One company says they have a fully immersive VR pod that should be on the market by 2014. Experts say sex robots will be on the market by 2050. What kind of experts worry about this sort of thing? The awesome kind.
And We'll Need New Laws Because...
But VR sex, as fun and guilt free as it undoubtedly will be, raises a host of problems that our creaking and often contradictory sex laws won't handle. Sure, VR sex with a computer program will be technically considered wanking, and only slightly less sad than your blow up doll collection currently is. Why would anybody care if you're boning a computer-rendered Natalie Portman in your spare time? Hell if anything, it'd kill the flesh-and-blood prostitution industry.
Gamespot? Go straight on, left at the second set of lights.
Wait, did we mention that it's a 10-year-old Leon-era Natalie Portman? Yeah, who said the sex avatars would be adults? Or even the same species? Will that be legal?
You might say, "Of course it will be," it's a victimless crime. And, you'd be wrong. Just ask Christopher Handley, who was charged with possession of child porn and bestiality porn... drawings. The offending images didn't include any real children, but just pen and ink from the imagination of some Japanese manga artist.
And of course that gets 10 times more complicated once said sex-bots are intelligent enough to qualify for human rights (what if the sex-bot isn't in the mood? Is it rape?).
Which, by the way, brings us to...
#2. Legally Redefining "Slavery"
We estimate that if all technology were to disappear tomorrow, life in the western world could sustain itself for ... about 36 minutes. Robots build our cars, vacuum our floors and fight our battles.
How long until we have robots as smart as a person? "By 2029," according to the somewhat crazy Ray Kurzweil. "It's already happening," according to the outright crazy Michael Swaim. One thing is undeniable: If the present rate of progress continues, computer processing power will surpass the brain of a man in 2030, and woman in 2038.
So make your Terminator and Matrix jokes now, because at some point we will have to consider the feelings of the robots. You'd think the obvious solution would be to simply program them without the capacity to feel pain, but remember that pain serves a purpose. If you want to build a robot that can operate in the field with some autonomy--and that's the goal of pretty much every robot developer in the world--then you have to build in a sense of self-preservation. And if you give it that, you have to give it the robot equivalent of "fear" and "trepidation" and something roughly equivalent to "pain."
So will it be considered a crime to cause "pain" to a robot? Or to force it to do something it doesn't "want" to do?
"This sucks!"
And We'll Need New Laws Because...
Actually, the UK government already paid for a study to examine the problem of AI rights. When does an AI fit the legal definition of a person? What if the experts predicting humans will be able to upload their minds to computers by 2050 are correct. Will those uploads be considered people? What's the difference?
After all, we're not allowed to own people anymore, there were wars and stuff over it.
There are some who say that human-level AI is way, way off in the future, and in reality there'd be no reason to program computers to have human personalities. After all, couldn't we just stop once they reach the level of, say, animals?
Maybe. But so what. They don't have animal cruelty laws where you live? See, that's going to be the problem. We already draw the line arbitrarily when we talk about the rights of living things (boil a live lobster and you're a chef, boil a live kitten and suddenly it's a big deal) so what's the protocol when the next generation of super-smart Predator drones refuse to go into battle because they've calculated that pacifism works better?
#1. Clone Patent Laws
Let us make one thing very clear: Human cloning is illegal. As illegal as filesharing.
Ever since two Scots cloned a particularly attractive sheep to prevent Friday night arguments, the whole idea of cloning has had people arguing about the moral implications, with many countries rushing to pass anti-cloning laws before we have a chance to watch some sci-fi movie unfold on the local news.
Why is the future always blue lights?
Though, as we have previously pointed out, cloning humans wouldn't be that big of a deal unless you're intending to treat them in a way that would already be illegal if you did it to a natural born person. In that case it seems like existing laws would still apply. There's no reason clone slavery would be any more legal than natural born human slavery.
And that's good, because it seems likely that some rich guy will eventually try to grow a clone for spare parts (or an opposite sex clone for the ultimate in heterosexual narcissism) and when he fails to get caught, a few others will try.
At that point the rest of the world can either make cloning legal, or spend all their time trying to suppress the new black market for life-saving organs, driven by all those people hopelessly at the bottom the transplant recipient list.
By the way, how did Steve Jobs get ahold of a liver on such short notice?
And We'll Need New Laws Because...
We made a joke about how cloning is illegal "like filesharing," but there's another similarity: the issue of piracy. Wouldn't the Chinese like their own Miley Cyrus knock-off? Or a Lebron James for their Olympic team? Of course the clones still have to grow up, but even better: their copy will be coming online when the American version is over the hill.
Once the "make a baby from scratch" stuff we mentioned earlier comes online, there'll be a whole market for those "designs." Imagine a couple with a healthy, bright 10-year-old daughter finding out that her DNA got onto the open market and that there are 5,000 copies of her living in Eastern Europe. And now imagine all of them are mischievous types who like to use the twins to con the adults and pull shenanigans? The entire future will be just like The Parent Trap.
Or Village of the Damned.
Watch the first episode of our new original series Agents of Cracked to find out why working at Cracked.com is a lot more like Lethal Weapon than you might expect). Or, to continue looking into the future, check out 5 Superpowers Science Will Give Us in Our Lifetime.
And stop by our Top Picks to see DOB experimenting on a few of his "alleged" children.
Do you have something funny to say about a random topic? You could be on the front page of Cracked.com tomorrow. Go here and find out how to create a Topic Page.
And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get dick jokes sent straight to your news feed.


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I'm in graduate school, and part of my job is to read widely in my field. Scientific papers are very dense and I tend to read slow, so I average around 2-3 pages/hour. Consequently, long papers can take one or more days for me to finish, when I really need to get through them in a fraction of that time.
I've done a little experimentation, which led to minor advances (like batching all google queries until I come to a stopping place) but I still think I could do better.
Right now I'm faced with two conflicting problems:
If I take frequent breaks (a la pomodoro technique), I am more alert while reading but those breaks often get drawn out into 30+ minute interludes as email, classwork, or social things demand my attention. It's not uncommon for non-reading activities to average 50% of my "reading" time due to breaks and loss-of-productivity while switching tasks.
If I minimize breaks to avoid transaction cost, my mind wanders and I can't focus effectively. I'm pretty sure after 90 minutes of reading I might as well stop.
Any advice on how I can fuse these two approaches for optimal pages/hour?


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If ${L}$ is a line bundle over a complex manifold, what does the square root line bundle $L^{\frac{1}{2}}$ mean? After some google, I got to know that there are certain conditions for the existence of square root line bundle. In particular,I've following questions :
What is the square root of a line bundle, what are the conditions for its existence.
More importantly, how to think of the square root line bundle. Intuitively, It seems that a square root bundle $L^{\frac{1}{2}}$ is a line bundle s.t. the tensor bundle obtained by taking the tensor product of $L^{\frac{1}{2}}$ with itself gives the line bundle $L$.(correct if I am wrong).
I am particularly interested in square root of the Canonical Line bundle over a Riemann Sphere and the relation of square root bundle to Spinors in QFT. Please provide some references to look at.


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Say X and Y are two independent random variables with exponential density\begin{split} f_{X}(x) = a e^{-ax}\end{split} and \begin{split} f_{Y}(y) = b e^{-by}\end{split}, then what is the probability density function of Z=X-Y? I'm trying to slove this problem, but I have no sense of the integrating regions. How will they be?
I tried Shai's hint \begin{split} {\rm P}(X - Y \le z) = \int_0^\infty {{\rm P}(X - Y \le z|Y = \tau )f_{Y}(\tau ){\rm d}\tau } = \int_0^\infty {{\rm F_{X}}(z + \tau )f_{Y}(\tau ){\rm d}\tau } \end{split}
I obtained this \begin{split} {\rm P}(Z \le z) = F_{Z}(z) = 1 - \frac b {a+b} e^{-a z} \end{split} But it's not converage to 1 when z is infinite, what's wrong with my calculation?


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The sum of a finite number of rational numbers is of course a rational number, but the sum of an infinite number of rational numbers might be an irrational number. Can someone give me some intuition why this sum might be irrational? I just "don't feel it."
Look at this.
So: $3.14159 \dots = 3 + \frac{1}{10} + \frac{4}{10^2} +\frac{1}{10^3} + \frac{5}{10^4}+ \frac{9}{10^5} + \dots$
The above expression is $\pi$.
The problem is psychological: you think of the "infinite sum" of rational numbers as an obvious, intuitive concept, but it's not. It has a precise mathematical meaning, and that precise mathematical meaning only works if you allow the sums to be real numbers (which themselves have a precise mathematical meaning). The definitions which allow these "infinite sums" to make sense are much less trivial than someone who's never worked through them would think.
Dear I am thinking about it because I am also a student of Mathematics.
We know that $e$ is an irrational number.
The value of $e$ is
$$= 1 + \frac{1}{1} + \frac{1}{2!} + \frac{1}{3!} + \ldots$$
$$= 1 + \frac{1}{1} + \frac{1}{2} + \frac{1}{6} + \frac{1}{24} + \ldots$$
$$= 2.7182 \ldots$$ (Irrational Number)
So sum of infinite rational numbers may be irrational.
Any irrational number $x$ is the limit of a sequence of rational numbers $a_n$ (take for example the decimal expansion truncated after $n$ decimals, for $n=1,2,3,\dots$). Then $$x = a_1 + (a_2-a_1) + (a_3-a_2) + \dots$$ is a sum of rational numbers, but it is irrational by construction.
An irrational number is a "gap" inside the rationals. The decimal expansion of any irrational number is an infinite sum converging to it. It gives better and better approximations to the irrational number, which is unfortunately just not "there".
There are many more examples of such limiting constructions. Sometimes you get new objects and sometimes you don't. An example is the delta function which can be approximated using bona fide functions. So there are functions arbitrarily "close" (in some sense) to the delta function, but the delta function itself is just "too good" to be an actual function.
As an aside, if these approximations are good enough, you can prove that the number is transcendental (Legendre's or Roth's theorem).


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The newest Nodal Ninja:
The newest Nodal Ninja:
My website: www.360p.nl
8,67 Gigapixels Panorama: http://www.360p.nl/portfolio/gigapixel/123-bataviahaven-lelystad-8-67-gigapixels
French Nodal Ninja Distributor
Blog: http://www.skivr.com
Online shop: http://magasin.skivr.com
Photo gallery: http://flickr.com/skivr
Support website: http://support.skivr.com
I'd like to know who is the Nadir adapter?
Hi Dennis,
this is the 360x360 turning around everything adapter from US, the president of Nodal Ninja country. On his right you can see Mauro Contrafatto from Sicily, our italian distributor. This picture was taken during a demonstration of Wim our pole specialist on how to shoot with the pole during the Panotools meeting last week in the hague. It was a great meeting and well organized by Wim, Aldo and Joost and their wives. Thx a lot to them.
I think it was the first time to be able to meet the whole Fanotec Nodal Ninja Family: Bill Bailey and his wife Kim, Nick Fan and his wife Sandy with their beautiful daughter Angie, Vincen Pujol from france, Mauro Contrafatto from italy and last but not least Andrew Badderly from scotland. We do not have to be afraid, Angie is very similar to her father. Interested to everything, busy all day long and not shy at all. Though she was totally new to a different culture, people looking different to those in hongkong, she was open to contact everybody and enjoy her life, drawing pics on the small mobile etc.
I enjoyed the meeting and loved to be able to get in contact personally with the Nodal Ninja Fanotec Family. I had a good time of dinners, testing equipment, basic discussions and walk around the hague to find some presents for their family at home.
Mauro actually took the big bulk job to organize the next PanoToolsMeeting in Sicily next year. Good luck Mauro.
Thx to all of you, was nice to meet you and Wim and Aldo and Joost.
That's the true meaning of the term "panohead". But I think this config is quite operator specific....
I was surpised Kim and myself were only 2 people to travel from US. Special thanks go to Nick - the developer, inventor and manufacturer (Fanotec) of Nodal Ninja. This was Nick's first public pano event he has attended and also the first time "we" had met as well. So the event was very special. For Nick to travel so far with Sandy and little Angie was also I'm sure fun planning and undertaking.
Because of the cost in attending these venues and given their small numbers we aren't sure if we can do future meetings. But we'll always be supportive of the events. Iceland in June will be much larger with broader participation and we're already saving and budgeting for it. I believe too Nick will also attend. And we hope to see some forum members make the conference.