text:
Ivanvil (IVE-an-vull)
The Ivanvil are one of the four races of men inhabiting the human kingdom of Parna. Taken as a whole they are the least threatening to the well-being and sovereignty of the Dwarfish nation, but when dealing with individuals there is no race of humanity more deceptive or sinister than the Ivanvil.
Ivanvil occupancy of the lands of Parna predates the founding of the Bronzebeard dynasty. It is believed that the first characterizations of humanity by dwarfs found on walls of the Chronicle cave were descriptions of ancient the Ivanvil tribes. Thus the Ivanvil clans have lived in the Swamps, forests and plains of the Lands of Parna for as long humanity is known to exist. The Ivanvil's long history of proximity to the dwarfish homeland did have some positive effects on their culture, as will be discussed, but it wasn't until the founding of the Kingdom of Parna that our Chroniclers treated them as little more than an antagonistic race generated by lesser gods.
Here in I will briefly discuss, the material culture of the Ivanvil, their religion, their social customs and their history.
Dress and Appearance
In human kingdoms it is not always easy to distinguish one clan or tribe from another because hair color does not always correspond to their tribe. The typical Ivanvil is fair-haired, with blonde hair so light as to be almost white. They are tall for a race of men, with even the women standing over 5 and three quarters dwarven feet. They can range from lithe form to a more robust and broader body shape, though I never saw a stout Ivanvil. There faces are generally fair, with thin lips, light eyes, and often with a large hawkish nose. The men shave their beards, and both men and women wear their hair long. Like most humans their hair does grey or fall out as they age. The blonde, blue-eyed Ivanvil may make up at least half their number, but I did see brown, black and red haired specimens. Thus judging the tribal origins of human by skin and hair color alone can lead to some embarrassing missteps. It is better to judge tribal orientations by dress and mannerisms.
The Ivanvil dress is distinctive and maintained by strong social mores. Their clothing is made almost entirely of wool or leather, and is dyed either black or bleached white. Wearing browns or greens is considered a faux pas, perhaps because of association with other human tribes, and reds are considered mourning colors. (Workmanship of Ivanvil fabrics rivals that of even dwarfish looms and in Mountain Halls such as Diamondspike or Tincrown they fetch a good price.) The typical Ivanvil male wears black leather boots, black wool breaches, a black leather belt with a steel dirk and perhaps a steel long sword. The shirt may be white or black, but often they wear a hardened black leather breastplate and either black leather bracers or gauntlets. When traveling the men typically wear a steel cap or small half helm. Depending on the season men wear either a cloak, a full cape or half cape. The capes may be black or white depending on the season or the task. The Ivanvil men I observed did not wear any jewelry and their weapons, leathers and fabrics are drab and unadorned. Occasionally designs will be painted on their faces or hands with red yellow or blue pigments. The red designs are for mourning, revenge, and/or war, blue for men on seasonal holidays and yellow for personal holidays such as marriages or birthdays.
The Ivanvil woman, unless in mourning or seeking vengeance wear black skirts or frocks made of heavy wool. The dress always compliments with a black belt and a steel dirk, and often black leather boots. The typical Ivanvil dress is low cut to expose much of the breasts, but more importantly to reveal the lace undergarments. Ivanvil lace is a fabric of truly exceptional craftsmen ship. It is traditionally made with black or white wool fabrics, but more recently flax fabrics produced by the Mitirangu have been used by Ivanvil lace cutters. The lace is very much a status symbol among the women, and often dresses are cut so that lace exposes itself at the sleeve or below the hem of the skirt. The women sometimes were jewelry either a necklace, a light crown, bracelets but inexplicably never rings. All grown women also have a tattoo somewhere on their right arm as a mark of sexual maturity. The tattoo is clan specific and matches the tattoo of the highest-ranking female in their clan.
Society and Culture
It is important to correctly identify an Ivanvil because they are a quickly offended and violent people. When interacting with the Ivanvil it is important to familiarize yourself with the allavets. Allavet is an ancient Ivanvil word that literally means '
everybody knows'. Today the term in used to refer to practices that set the norms for Ivanvil behavior. The Allavets are very much related and the Ivanvil themselves do not list or enumerate them, but I was able to observe four distinct allavets which dictate Ivanvil behavior. They are very similar to the
Virtues followed by Dwarven Noble Clans, and the concept was most likely stolen from our culture long ago.
The first
Allavet is pride in the family or sota barn in the old Ivanvil language. This is the exact equivalent of the Noble Clan virtue off vanity. It means that every family member must appear clean, well clothed and strong. The result of this is that when encountering and Ivanvil, no matter their material wealth, you will likely be confronted with a well-groomed individual in clean and polished clothing. It is common for both Ivanvil men and women to carry leather polish, sewing kits, perfumes and even cosmetics. Additionally, the Ivanvil consider it an offense to one's family to express physical pain, or complain of discomfort. (This stoicism does not apply to emotional or social stress however and both Ivanvil men and women have no qualms about emoting anger or sadness.) The Ivanvil desire to represent strength may also contribute to the fact that every Ivanvil adult is always armed. Sota barn also goes a step beyond appearance and refers also to loyalty to one's family and respect for the decisions of the family. More often than not these are decisions made by the family matriarch.
The second allavet is the blood debt or blodskulder. Again this is similar to the old and outlawed Nobility practice of honor debts. However, in Ivanvil society the blood debt is shared by the whole family not just the individual, in short Ivanvil blood debts require that members of family revenge any wrong doing against another member of their family. An Ivanvil matriarch explained to me that blood debts are not always negative, and that every family member would return an act of kindness towards one member of an Ivanvil family. Additionally, she assured me that blood debts were only paid against individuals and that a family would never hold a whole family responsible for a the crime of an individual. While this may be what she truly believed, I observed that blodskulder truly amounts to clan warfare. To illustrate this I will share an anecdote from my time spent with the Ivanvil.
During the fruit harvest festival many families come together to harvest pit fruits and berries from well-known orchards and berry thickets. I was staying with a family named Slone and working as blacksmith for the family matriarch. On the third day of the festival another family, Ackhart, arrived at the Orchards. It was immediately recognizable that the two families shared animosity. The Slone matriarch explained to me that a daughter of the Ackhart family had enchanted the husband of a Slone woman. The Ackhart daughter married the woman's husband, and sent the wedding night blanket to the Slone woman as further insult. The wronged Slone woman had a sister named Tilda who avenged her family by seducing the son of the Ackhart woman and bearring him a son, but refusing to marry him and thus denying him the rights of a father. The Ackhart boy's sister, as revenge, kidnapped Tilda's daughter before her accession to womanhood and marked her with the symbol of the family Ackhart. The feud went on for generations, eventually descending into blood shed, and as I counted the generations of family that were involved I realized that the blood debt was over 170 years old. During the festival I saw that the two families definitely intended to do each other harm, and they spoke openly about the animosity, but I witnessed no confrontation.
What prevented open conflict between the two families was the third allavet called imorker. Imorker literally means '
in the dark' in the old Ivanvil language and it is a more nuanced concept than we dwarves are use to grappling with. It refers to the need to carry out actions as quietly and subtlety as possible so not to disturb the status quo. When slaughtering the spring lambs, Ivanvil sheepherders invoke imorker, and in that context it refers to not disturbing the rest of flock and to keeping your clothes clean while you do it. Imorker was also invoked at the fruit festival I attended, but in that case it kept the feuding families from disrupting the festival by openly attacking one another. As the festival went on I came to suspect that almost all families shared some negative blodskulder with other families. Imorker allows Ivanvil society to cooperate when they must, but the morning after the festival's closure the matriarch's grandson was found dead in a cave two miles from the festival village.
Imorker and blodskulder lead directly to the fourth major allavet I identified, that is the honest lie or what they call alrigochlognare (all-RIG-oh-cha-log-n-air). Again a concept completely undwarven in nature, but it refers in part to the constant assumption that you are being deceived. For example if I asked an Ivanvil man how many berries he picked today, he would likely say 3 buckets when indeed he had picked 6 buckets. What is more important to this concept is that both the person asking the questions and answering the question are aware of the lie. What the berry picker is actually saying is that
I am willing to tell you about three buckets, and it is possible that the asker may feel entitled to steal that many berries from the person. Quite amusingly I also observed that unnecessary honesty could be offensive to the Ivanvil. For example, when of my sponsor's daughter-in-laws bragged about purchasing four horses for her husband's birthday, the matriarch was extremely offended to actually see the horses delivered. The matriarch had assumed her daughter-in-law was lying about such an extravagant gift. The daughter-in-law should have known of the matriarch's assumption, and thus matriarch was offended when the daughter-in-law embarrassed her by being honest.
It was explained to me however, that alrigochlognare does not apply to every situation and that some moments call for alrigalrig; or truth within truth. There were no clear guidelines for when honesty was required of a member society. As far I could tell complete honesty was the exception and not the rule. There are many more allavets then what I listed here, and thus the term should not be thought synonymous with the above concepts. But the four I chose to mention, I found to be most important to the Ivanvil cultural identity.
Random encounters with Ivanvil can be dangerous for several reasons. First many, though not most, Ivanvil living in Parna have little respect for the laws of the current Ator king and view highway robbery as a fair and reasonable tax on anyone passing their lands. Be doubly wary because, murder itself, is not considered a crime among the Ivanvil, and many Ivanvil speak nonchalantly about the murdering days of their youth. In short, of all the human races you will encounter in the lands of Parna, an Ivanvil is most likely to be a murdering robber. Also, an Ivanvil is most likely to be sorcerer or learned mage. The Ivanvil themselves are aware of these tendencies, and their social interactions reflect it.
When Ivanvil, men or women, meet for the first time or by accident they will address each other only nonverbally at first. They will then cross the distance between each other and embrace, only after embracing will they begin to converse. They will continue to lock arms or keep hands on each for a good deal of their conversation. This touching while talking occurs in all formal communications. At first I thought it was sign of affection or in the case of the women an expression of sexuality. Only after numerous observations did I observe that this was more of a wrestling stance. The Ivanvil touch each other so that if one were to go for a weapon or attempt to cast a spell the other could attempt to quickly disrupt it. This embrace is the same if it were a man and woman talking, two men or a woman and a woman. This social convention limits most formal conversations to one on one exchanges. I did observe conversations without the touching, but they were very either informal exchanges among family or semi-hostile exchanges among rivals. Of course many Ivanvil are very worldly and experienced in Dwarven customs. A traveled Ivanvil such as a merchant or mercenary will often forgo this behavior, which can make their behavior hard to interpret. If an Ivanvil is speaking to you from across glade or a room is he being respectful of our customs or threatening? After spending a year with the Ivanvil, I learned to prefer the conversational embrace, because after a year I did not trust many.
When speaking to an Ivanvil it is important to start the conversation with a note about your family and declaration of your purpose. Of course they expect that declaration to be a lie, and this could be hard for many dwarves who follow the path of Droven closely. If you cannot bring yourself to lie, I suggest speaking an irrelevant truth or giving an incomplete explanation of your purpose. Directness in conversation can be offensive. Once the initial exchange is over it is customary to introduce the rest of your party. The leader or senior member of Ivanvil party is usually the eldest adult female in the group. If there are no females in the group, then one should wait for a leader to present himself.
Ivanvil society was and is governed by the family matriarchs. From time to time, our records or lore tell us that an Ivanvil family would gain the loyalty of several other families, and the families would subjugate large sections of what is now Parna. These small nations were not ruled by a single leader or a body of law, but rather by a group of powerful individuals and families who had shared interests. The alliances that our Chroniclers were aware of never lasted more than a generation. A millennia ago, when these oligarchies were the undisputed rulers of Parna, is referred to as the Golden age by the modern Ivanvil. The exemplary hero of this period is Queen Johannick. She is credited with constructing the Old Fortress at what is now known as Parna's Throne and making the alliance with a Dragon Queen which has kept the Strong Reach free of Dragons. There is likely some fact to these stories. The Chronicle of the Bronzebeard dynasty identified a human Sorceress named Johanna being invited to and present at the arming ceremony for Prince Hudd Bronzebeard. She was listed as being from the Western River lands (the land was not yet known as Parna). Additionally. most scholars believe that there must be a Dragon living incognito somewhere in the Strong. However, there are no records of formal human governments prior to the founding of Parna by its namesake, and the word Queen was not used among humans until the time of Parna.
Today though what political power the Ivanavil wield is divided between the appointed Lords and the family matriarch. The Ator King has promoted several dozen Ivanvil to the ranks of the peerage. These lords however are still subject to the rules of Ivanvil society and anywhere there is an Ivanvil lord there is a powerful matriarch and family behind that Lord.
Trade, Industry and Resources
In the years since the conquest of Parna by the Ator, the use of the Parnan Gold Plank has essentially ceased. With the Ator Lords either hording the gold or melting it down to produce personal items, all current trade is conducted using either a barter system or our dwarven silver pieces. The Ivanvil are no exception to these changes and I found dwarven silver to be the preferred currency among them. The primary Ivanvil industries are sheep and goat herding, trapping, hunting, weaving, tanning and herbalism with a every adult individual experienced in at least on of these trade. The secondary industries among their people are blacksmithing, smelting, sewing, stone cutting, masonry, agriculture, mining and spell craft. With the exception of weaving, sewing and spellcraft all their industries are inferior by dwarven standards. Ivanvil steel, which makes up most of the steel used in Parna, is tempered with nickel and various impure blacks. It holds an edge but is far more brittle than our dwarfish steel. I believe one reason for the inferiority of the Ivanvil workmanship is that few industries are practiced year round. Ivanvil forges, mines and villages are often abandoned or partially vacated for most of the year while the herds are moved to greener pastures or the game is followed. Ivanvil spell craft is an enigmatic presence among the tribes. Magic is often taught mother to daughter, though there are some male mages, and the source of this magic knowledge is unknown. It has been said that magic can learned by
wagering your shadow in the deep, and that the ones that survive return to their families with
knowledge ready for the (spell) books. Where this happens or if it happens I did not discover, but spell craft is ubiquitous enough that no family is without at least two or three mages. These mages are all learned mages who employ the ancient art of the Wiz'guards.
Most of the Ivanvil wealth is in their herds. Their mines, the location of which is a secrete among each family, produce almost nothing by dwarfish standards. Their agriculture is inefficient and produces little surplus. Orchards (pit fruits are their most abundant crop) are maintained not through planting but by chopping down all the undesirable trees around the fruit trees. Grain crops are planted in the spring by scattering seeds across a field and then having the herd cross the field. They are often abandoned until harvest time, and the yield is pitiful but reasonable considering the effort. Most dwarfish trade goods are well received by the Ivanvil. Despite their famous steel industry the Ivanvil will take unworked Dwarven steel to use in their own forges, and as most Ivanvil smelters also have a herd, so ore may be traded for wool or animals. It is a point of pride that the family forge the dirks and swords they use, but steel spearheads, traps, axes and armor have been traded.
The Ivanvil speak a language which is very similar to dwarven in grammar, and is obviously the parent tongue of Ator. Every adult Ivanvil male that I met also spoke Mitirangu passably, and a few even spoke a few words of Dwarven. The closeness of the Ivanvil and Ator languages in both grammar and phonetics allows most Ivanvil and Ator speakers to communicate effectively. The Ivanvil have no written language in their own tounge and the spellcasters and priestess employ the Ancient Word (Natal). The Priests of Droven are commonly employed by Ivanvil of means to scribe tombstones, border stones, ledgers, contracts and letters. However, I would judged that less than 1 in 20 Ivanvil could actually read Dwarven or the Ancient Word of Natal.
Unlike the Mitirangu or Ator the Ivanvil national and cultural identities were and are not linked to the ethos of single religion. The Goddesses Telm'erase (Murder) and Greeth (Jealousy) are commonly evoked by the Ivanvil, and I noticed that several of the families I met contained dedicated Priestess. At the large family gathering I noticed that small but significant number of the Ivanvil were living as followers of the Goddess Ya'naw (nature, life). But the followers of Ya'naw do not trade, and do not keep the customs of the Ivanvil as I have described them. On numerous occasions I found that Ivanvil men will take their herds or children to Mitirangu towns to get blessed at a House of Bell'ra. On even more occasions I observed Ivanvil men visiting Houses of Bell'ra to drink and socialize. On the whole, the Ivanvil use religion much as they do magic. They invoke the Gods when they need something, but I found that few Ivanvil let the wisdom of the Gods drive their actions.
Overview of Ivanvil history prior to The Conquest of Parna
The Ivanvil are a nation conquered three times. One-thousand years ago we know that Ivanvil villages and fortresses covered all the land drained by the river Parna. They were not a united nation, families were constantly warring with each other and with the neighboring Orc and Goblin tribes. Human raiders would even enter our lands, and sometimes with notable success. The Ivanvil were a formible warrior people. They built stone keeps, forged steel weapons and could weave powerful enchantments to augment any attack or defense. Yet, they could never unite, over come individual differences or put aside the demands of pride vanity and family loyalty that still define them today. I believe it is a failing of the Ivanvil spirit that has led them to be conquered.
Their first conquerors were passive. To the West of Parna are the Mitirangu nations, and over a five centuries ago our chroniclers started noting that Mitirangu villages were appearing in what is now Parna. The Mitirangu had no steel, knew little of stone cutting and had no knowledge of magic. Yet for over 500 years their villages grew in wealth and strength, while the Ivanvil warred among themselves. Legends speak of great battles in which Ivanvil warriors swam the moots and climbed the earthen walls of Mitirangu fortresses to slaughter all the people inside, but if such battle did occur they were too rare to stymie the Mitirangu tide. The Ivanvil were always more at war with themselves then they were with any external enemy. They could not present a unified front against any force. Over time the Ivanvil numbers have decreased, some through violence, but more through intermarriage and migration to a Mitirangu life style.
Three hundred years ago a degree of unity came to the Ivanvil with second conquest. The warrior Parna united all the human tribes all the River that would come to bear his name. This was the first human kingdom and Parna was its first king. All the tribes and families within the Kingdom swore loyalty to Parna's throne and whoever may sit upon it. The Ivanvil steel fueled the military campaigns that Parna and his successors undertook to enlarge and enrich the human Kingdom and the Kingdom was defended from walls made of Ivanvil cut stone. The Ivanvil began to buy land and trade with the Mitirangu.
They remained a people, keeping their own ways and human sages have argued that were nation within a nation and not part of Parna. This is foolishness. They used the coin of the King, the gold plank, they bent their bows and drew their swords for the causes of the King, they spoke the language of the King, and members of Ivanvil families were admitted to the peerage. As any dwarf sage will tell you this made them part of the nation. Having spoke with many of Ivanvil for numerous families, I can also tell you that think of themselves of Citizens of Parna. Indeed, their own mythos has Parna born an Ivanvil, and they claim that his mother was a descendant of Queen Johannik though our Chroniclers report he was of pure Mitirangu birth.
The Conquest and the Ivanvil place in Parna: Some scholars of humanity assert that the fact several Ivanvil families sided with the invading Ator army proves that Ivanvil were a subjugated people who rebelled. This again brushes over the shifting winds and underhanded nature of human politics. I assert that it was because the Ivanvil tribes believed they were part of the Kingdom that they joined the invading Ator army.
The King on Parna's Throne 37 years ago, before The Conquest, was of Mitirangu birth. His name, which has been stricken from all human records, was Shumba. He had designated as his successor an Ivanvil warrior/mage named Svengard. Svengard had been Shumba's most trusted advisor and a close friend. Svengard had been born to a small Ivanvil family in south eastern Ator, but grew to be a respected man among all the tribes across. Shumba had been 57 years old when he had designated Svengard and it was believed Svengard would soon assume the Throne. No one expected Shumba to live for 40 more years, and when Svengard died before he could take the throne Shumba appointed his own grandson successor.
Svengrad had married into the powerful and ambitious Jocit family. The family lived along border south eastern border of Parna. The Jocits commanded at least three dozen warriors and half a dozen relatively powerful mages. They public denounced Shumba in the streets of Parna's Throne; claiming that he had died years ago and that the kingdom was now ruled by an evil undead abomination, and that Svengard (who had acted as regent for a decade) had named his own son successor. They further accused the Church of Bell'Ra of supporting this plot and of betraying the laws of the Gods. The House of Jocit gained support from some locale families by they were unable to gain any real political traction for their cause. Shumba was a popular King and all of Parna had been growing in wealth during his 60 year reign. Most citizens of Parna, both Mitirangu and Ivanvil, seemed content to let the Jocit families grievances go unanswered.
Ulleena Jocit, matriarch of the family, then took up arranging an alliance between her family and one or more of the Barons in the nation of Ator to the southeast or Parna. Her documents were all scribed, sealed and delivered by the Priests of Droven and thus the nature of her correspondence is matter of undisputed fact. Ulleena Jocit promised the Baron Moltov that if he could raise an army, she would aide him in conquering Parna and see to it that he was made King. Specifically, she promised to obtain permission of passage for his army from the Dragon of the Green. The Dragon woods lies in the Ven pass between the Greyspine and Ven mountain ranges. Normally the pass is impassable because it is the domain of unpredictable and violent beast. Ullena made a deal of some sort with the Dragon to allow an Ator army to pass through the forest. Additionally Ulena would give her Daughter Margar to him in marriage and provide him with military and material support once he and his army entered Parna.
The conquest of Parna by Moltov and his army came to pass as did the marriage of Margar to Moltov. Ulleena was not a woman of letters however, and she did not understand the Ator view towards woman. She believed that Moltov would be joined to her family by marriage. I can only assume that Moltov's style of absolute rule and his lack of respect for the Ivanvil Family loyalties has come as a shock to Ulleena and her kin. This is supported by the rumors that her son, Weir, has traveled north to the Wind forest and is seeking to forge an alliance with the Orcish tribes to strike against Parna.


text:
HOBOWK069 // Hobonichi Weeks Planner Sticker Kit // Happy Birthday
A sticker kit that fits the Hobonichi Weeks Planner. Sticker kit includes 51 stickers- enough for the entire week!
Sticker Kit Features the following:
-7 date headers
-9 skinny boxes
-5 artwork boxes
-7 full border boxes
2 "washi" strips
-6 skinny divider strips
-9 checklists
-6 check boxes
Stickers are printed on non-removable sticker paper.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
OverflowAugust 23, 2003
I'm slowly plodding along to XHTML 1.0 Strict sitewide, in a happy little idealistic attempt to later move to 1.1 and join the growing list of X-Philes. Evan Goer and Jacques Distler are fantastic resources on this stuff by the way (update: and I can't believe I missed Anne Van Kesteren), but this is all background for you.
In my process I've dropped XHTML formatting from my comments and added auto-links for URIs since I can't be bothered messing around with comment validation and the like. But this is still background.
The problem is, or was, this: auto-links to long URIs would break my layout. In Firebird they would run into the right-hand column, in IE they would do the same and they would push the right-hand sidebar down below my content area.
So the other day I'd had enough of feeling helpless about this problem, and luckily CSS offers a few ways out. After some experimenting with the CSS-2 property
overflow: auto; on each comment block (
.comments-body) I finally ended up using
overflow: hidden; Any URIs longer than so get chopped at the right of the comment block, the magic number being around 60 characters. Why
hidden instead of
auto? After all, the latter would add scrollbars, ensuring truncation doesn't occur.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that truncation was exactly what I wanted. URIs are the only bits of text within
.comments-body that could possibly be affected, so why not truncate? It's cleaner looking, enough of the link shows up for the user to get the idea, and they'll still get the full URI in the status bar. Otherwise I'd have to live with ugly vertical and horizontal scroll bars in any comment block that needed them, and that just looked odd.
Which just goes to show that there's always more than one way to tackle a problem.
Reader Comments
i'm glad i'm not the only who doesn't like those ugly scrollbars.
I've been thinking of going to strict compliance as well on a website I've been working on (no shameless plug), but I have a question about your post. I've seen references to URIs on the w3c validation pages - in their tips of the day - and I don't know what a URI is. I've yet to find a definition online that really explains the difference between a URI and a URL. Can anyone help?
I have to live with the scrollbars until I figure out how to display long lines of code without overflowing. Even so, I've found that it doesn't always work nicely in all browsers. In IE and, reportedly, Safari, long one-liners are reduced to super mini-size scrollable area that barely works.
If someone knows of a good way to do this, let me know!
Tom - URL, URI, it's more or less the same thing. I've only recently switched to calling them URIs, prompted by this:
What about using Fahrner Image Replacement (or one of its variants) on the  tag? You could create an appropriate "external link" symbol that would replace auto-linked URIs. Visitors would still get the address in the status bar, but would not be misled by a truncated address on screen.
Exactly what benefits does upgrading from XHTML 1.0 to XHTML 1.1 provide?
After reading Mark Pilgrim's thoughts on the matter, I've decided to hold off myself. It seems to me that XHTML 1.1 is a whole lot of trouble for no real gain. Perhaps I'll change my mind and upgrade to XHTML 1.1 for its own sake, as an exercise in standards-compliance, once MSIE can support the proper MIME type. However, as things stand, I refuse to intentionally break the standard by sending XHTML 1.1 served as text/html to legacy browsers when XHTML 1.1 offers zero real-world benefits over the perfectly functionable XHTML 1.0.
I agree, it is a whole lot of trouble. But actually, XHTML 1.1 is the one version of XHTML that does provide interesting functionality over its predecessors. XHTML1.1 is modular, and that means you can use it to embed other XML fragments (MathML, SVG, …) directly inside your page. (Assuming that your pages are well-formed and that you're serving up a MIME-type that will trigger XML parsers.)
I think that's pretty nifty, and it's definitely something you can't legally do with plain old XHTML 1.0 or HTML 4.01. On the other hand, not too many "regular folks" need to be embedding MathML in their weblogs, so… your question still stands.
Hi Dave. My solution wasn't scripting, but I am using Brad Choate's MT Regex plugin to search for URLs and replace them with [link] where the word "link" is, well, a link. I'm also putting the URL into the title tag so users can mouseover the text to see where it will take them. Besides the overflow problem, I think the [link] text looks cleaner. See:
You didn't mention this, but the overflow solution is also great for long strings of text (such as source code).
Oh, and I totally dig plain-text in comments. Some commenters just aren't as particular about their markup as the rest of us. ;-)
"Exactly what benefits does upgrading from XHTML 1.0 to XHTML 1.1 provide?"
For that matter, exactly what benefits does upgrading from HTML 4.01 to XHTML 1.0 provide? Mark Pilgrim's rant made me re-think XHTML altogether. XHTML 1.0 & 1.1 are really just excuses to get designers used to the XML syntax for the coming age of XHTML 2.0 (if it ever actually materializes…big IF).
XHTML 1.0 (& 1.1) is really just a "bridge" technology with very little practical, real-world benefits and a few, serious drawbacks like the whole MIME-type headache (remember, if you are serving your XHTML as text/html you are really just serving up malformed HTML as far as the browser is concerned).
True "XHTML" will not become viable until around the end of the decade (remember: it doesn't matter that Mozilla can handle it now–MathML and the rest is near-useless if it only works in 1% of the browsers–not trying to be cruel just trying to be pragmatic), so I really don't buy the argument made by many that its a good idea to get used to the syntax now, as if the syntax differences between SGML and XML are so great that it's gonna take several years to get used to them and not merely one afternoon in 2009.
Before jumping on the XHTML bandwagon every designer really should read:
Mark Pilgrim's rant is also a good read you just have to see past the hyperbole.
"Standards are bulls*it. XHTML is a crock. The W3C is irrelevant."
-Mark Pilgrim
"only works in 1% of the browsers"
How many browser are out there? I think you meant the public's browser of choice ;).
And why is it so evil to use XHTML? It is getting you used to the syntax which will be used later (and now). It can be transformed, it is flexible and it will be (is) te replacement for HTML.
The differences between XHTML1.0 and XHTML1.1 are listed here: http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/changes.html#a_changes
And there is one change not listed, which you can find here: http://www.annevankesteren.nl/weblog/item/50 (not meant as spam, it's the only reference around)
Ken - RegEx is precisely what I'll be looking into. Not only will it help the link thing, but it's the last piece of the puzzle in making sure these comments don't break validation. However, I don't have the foggiest when it comes to using regular expressions, so I've still got some learning to do.
MikeyC - see Jacques Distler's weblog linked in the original post for a very real-world reason to use XHTML 1.1. As well, when inline SVG comes into play I'll be very glad to have made the switch. Really, there's no benefit for me to make the switch right now. But I'm still moving in that direction anyway.
MikeyC - somehow I managed to miss your link to Ian's rant the first go-around. I've read it four times now. I agree, everyone working with XHTML needs to be aware of it.
I don't, however, agree with the conclusions. Like Anne, I don't think there's any harm at all in getting used to the syntax now, for the eventual and inevitable shift to XHTML later.
Besides: if we weren't supposed to be using XHTML now, why would the W3C have aimed for backwards-compatibility with shorthand and the option of serving Transitional as text/html?
A little more "comprehensible" info about URIs/URLs: http://www-uk.hpl.hp.com/people/ange/archives/archives-95/http-wg-archive/1579.html
Anne: "And why is it so evil to use XHTML?"
For the record I never claimed that it was evil, but simply that it's premature to be using it.
Dave: "when inline SVG comes into play I�ll be very glad to have made the switch."
No disagreement here, Dave. Just saying it's premature to be using XHTML 1.1 (mime-type problem) and that XHTML 1.0 offers no advantage.
Assuming IE7 comes out in early 2005 (and it's not a big disappointment) and supports application/xhtml+xml and inline SVG/MathML etc… and has a rapid adoption rate (despite the fact that standalone downloads will no longer be offered) then we are still looking at a target date no sooner than around 2007-08 before true XHTML/SVG/MathML become viable.
Dave: "see Jacques Distler�s weblog linked in the original post for a very real-world reason to use XHTML 1.1"
Jacques use of MathML is very cool and I've admired his weblog for some time, however, weblogs can get away with stuff that other sites really can't (for reasons that could be debated forever). I honestly don't think pointing to a weblog's use of technology X can really be used as an example of a "real-world reason to use XHTML 1.1".
What I am really frustrated with is the hold-up of including SVG support in release versions of Mozilla. Every day that goes by is one more day that flash becomes even more entrenched and ubiquitous. For crying out loud, I've even read about including SVG within Flash at this point?!?
What if you had the server retrieve the title of the link? Just use wget or something on the link, check to see if you got something with <title>something</title>, and strip it out. Then you can build a real-looking link, but it's more likely that it'd be wrap-able text. (But you'd be better off keeping overflow:hidden regardless.)
Why is inline SVG so exciting?
I've started using SVG on my blog, but included via the <object> tag. Why? Not just because that's what Adobe's plugin supports (in other words, what people can actually see in their browsers), but because:
1) I author SVG in a drawing program (Adobe Illustrator). That produces a self-contained SVG file. Am I supposed to open it up in a text editor and cut and paste the SVG code into my XHTML? That would be daft.
2) Included files can be cached. Just like external CSS stylesheets cut down on page bloat, so do external SVG files.
3) Fallback. If your browser doesn't do SVG, you get a GIF image instead.
I don't understand the "We've gotta wait till Mozilla supports inline SVG."
"weblogs can get away with stuff that other sites really can�t"
Of course. But you've gotta *start* somewhere. Weblogs are the perfect place for trying out new technology. They're the off-off-Broadway of the Web.
That's why Dave's swimming towards XHTML 1.1 on his weblog, not on one of his commercial sites.
In my case, MathML is a technology people in my line of work really need (though most of them don't know it yet). If we wait around for it to "go mainstream", we will wait forever.
My motto is "If you use it, they will come (and switch browsers if they have to)."
Jacques: "Why is inline SVG so exciting?"
SVG support, of any kind, natively in Mozilla would be exciting to me.
Jacques: "I�ve started using SVG on my blog, but included via the tag…Fallback. If your browser doesn�t do SVG, you get a GIF image instead."
Out of curiousity how well does that work in real-world browsers? Does IE cascade/fallback properly to the gif image if the adobe plugin isn't present?
Native support is great. But a plugin (espcially one that works as well as Adobe's seems to in my limited testing) ain't chopped liver.
Does it fallback correctly in IE? Check it out and see:
Jacques: "Does it fallback correctly in IE? Check it out and see"
Shockingly, the result was as expected ;)
Browser support aside, you made a good point about including SVG through the object tag as opposed to inline. Including SVG inline is simply going to bloat XHTML files unnecessarily for those users' who don't have SVG support. At the same time, it goes to show that plain ol' HTML 4.01 is not an obstacle to SVG support as the object tag is part of the spec. MathML, Ruby, etc… are another matter I suppose.
MikeyC: "MathML, Ruby, etc� are another matter I suppose."
Why did I write that, I don't know? Couldn't MathML *also* be included through the object tag?
"Couldn't MathML *also* be included through the object tag?"
Only if you want a separate file for every single damned equation on your page. And then Mozilla wouldn't be able to read it. (MathML is supported in Mozilla only when the document is served with an XML doctype – such as application/xhtml+xml).
My authoring software takes inline LaTeX input (the lingua franca for this sort of thing in the scientific community) and converts it to inline MathML. See
There is, by contrast, no authoring software which naturally creates inline SVG. And I'm not sure what such a piece of software might look like.
Can�t you make a script to shorten the displayed URI/URL like some bulletin board software do?
When the text is over X characters long, it gets shorthened in this fashion: http://beginning/../ending.html , but the status bar still shows the full link, of course.
You would be the first designer on that list :). Every site is ugly there (including mine, although I'm about to change that).
Maybe you could refer to any hyperlink as [link] ? And the actual address is in the statusbar of course.
groan. Why does everyone always suggest scripting? Sometimes to be good at one thing, you have to purposely choose to not be good at other things.
I feel your pain, Dave. Whenever someone mentions "server-side," it's off to bed for me ;)
Actually, I don't have a problem with the current "overflow: hidden." Sure, it might look nicer if it was replaced by a pretty little icon or some text, but I'm not too nitpicky about those things.
Quote – groan. Why does everyone always suggest scripting? Sometimes to be good at one thing, you have to purposely choose to not be good at other things.
I agree with you generally, however, you sometimes have to delve into those other areas to achieve your effect … case in point, I'm a server side guy; but guess what, without some design, layout and markup all the snazzy scripting I can do is pretty worthless … that's why I read this site, Zeldman and others … graphics in particular are painful for me, but layout isn't far behind, yet I do it anyway and strive to get better at it.
Just my $0.02 … besides a few RegEx problems are fun (if you have a sick, twisted, scripting mind) …
… and hi Minz!
To go back up to the top of the comments:
Using [Link] for all links is an awful idea for accessibility for the same reasons that "click here" shouldn't be used for link text.
@GaryF, you could still differentiate them by putting the link location in the title. That way you'll still pass level 2.
@Jacques: Are you 100% sure it is impossible to import mathml into html4.0 with the object element? Maybe it's time for a little test…
Gary, I've actually been wrestling over the accesibility problem that "same link phrases" pose. The Bobby validator has been failing me on my "n Comments" links on my homepage. It's entirely obvious that any comments link on my homepage goes to the comments section of that particular post (just as it is with the "reply" links on Dave's homepage)–especially because the title attributes clearly indicate where the links go.
There does seem to be some contention over whether or not the title attribute deals effectively with this accessibility problem. When I wrote about this recently, I found an interesting debate on the topic here:
The "Cynthia Says" validator at contentquality.com just lets me of with a warning about these link phrases, but doesn't fail me for WAI Priority 2. Because of this, I think I qualify for Priority 2 accessibility (even the W3C uses same link phrases that point to different places on their homepage), but I can't link back to a validator that will claim this like I can with XHTML validation.
As far as the true accessibility issue goes (because that's really the point, right?), there's really no way for me to know how this affects a blind person using a screen user without being able to test it.
[..]You would be the first designer on that list :). Every site is ugly there.[..]
Thanks for the hint ;))
Hi Michael,
Michael here, too!
Re this:
"So the argument that some sites like hixie.ch make hinge on the fact that the developer of the content will not concern himself with following the spec because the content won�t break when it reaches the user agent and therefore the developer will spit out spaghetti code."
I don't agree. Hixie is saying that XHTML sent as text/html will be parsed as "tag soup" by an HTML parser. That would hold *even if it were valid*. So he concludes there is no real advantage in sending it to such agents.
What it comes down to, for me, is that the browser is going to see it as invalid/malformed HTML if sent as text/html and not Valid XHTML 1.1 (even though it might be valid). XHTML sent as text/html punishes browsers that correctly interpret HTML because XHTML relies on the fact that most User Agents inerpret closing slashes incorrectly.
From http://www.hixie.ch/advocacy/xhtml:

 Hello
 World

…is, if interpreted as HTML, exactly equivalent to:

 Hello
> World

…and should really be rendered as:
> World
XHTML 1/1.1 backwards compatibility is a big fat lie that simply relies on that fact that most User Agents interpret HTML wrong.
I like regular expressions… does that mean I have a sick, twisted, scripting mind? I s'pose that's a reasonable reflection.
And I'm sure there's more than just me that likes to think themselves as having a foot in each camp (coding and design, that is). Having said that, I probably don't qualify to be in either!
Strange how these comments have evolved into something entirely unrelated to the original context!
Zen garden flower bed somewhere in the ether; "employed" as a .Net programmer
The arguments against XHTML thus far have been pretty petty. Essentially it comes down to mime-type discrpencies which keep the user agent from properly validating the content. So the argument that some sites like hixie.ch make hinge on the fact that the developer of the content will not concern himself with following the spec because the content won't break when it reaches the user agent and therefore the developer will spit out spaghetti code. So since SOME developers refuse to use the tools available to validate their content then ALL developers should NOT USE XHTML. It's poor logic.
I also take issue with the use of the word "advocacy" when referencing hixie.ch, which is exaclty the opposite of advocacy since all the points he writes on seem to be negatives NO to XHTML, NO to XSLT, NO to XSL:FO, how is that advocacy?
There's nothing dangerous or wrong with coding to the XHTML 1.0/1.1 standard. As with all previous W3 standards you have early adoptors and hold outs. The hold outs are probably the same holdouts that said that HTML 3.2 was fine, why do we need HTML4. Or the same hold outs that continued to develop on Netscape 4 despite it's lack of standards support.
I personally think that there are a lot of web developers fighting against the "hype" of XHTML that they think is happening and using hixie.ch/advocacy as an excuse to jump on a different kind of bandwagon, but that's just my opinion, I don't have an article to back it up.
Use what you like. Use it because you're comfortable with it, because it makes sense to you, because you like the way it works. DON'T use it because someone else tells the other technology is bad, DON'T assume that those people writing the articles MUST be smarter than you, DON'T assume that because it's been quoted a million times that it's fact.
"XHTML sent as text/html punishes browsers that correctly interpret HTML because XHTML relies on the fact that most User Agents inerpret closing slashes incorrectly."
In principle correct, but in fact, silly.
We can divide browsers into three classes:
1) Browsers which can't handle the correct XHTML MIME type but which interpret trailing slashes in HTML "incorrectly".
These browsers can be sent XHTML as text/html and will not screw up on Hixie's example.
2) Browsers which understand the correct XHTML MIME type.
These browsers can be sent XHTML with the correct MIME type, and will parse it as XML. They won't screw up either.
3) Browsers which cannot handle the correct XHTML MIME type, but which interpret trailing slashes "correctly" in HTML.
It is only this latter class of browsers which will screw up Hixie's example.
Unfortunately, there are no *existing* examples of browsers of type 3). And it is *very unlikely* that there will be any written in the future. Almost all future browsers will be of type 2). There will continue to be "legacy" browsers of type 1). But type 3)? You're joking.
I refuse to get worked into a lather arguing about the empty set.
"In principle correct, but in fact, silly."
Some people might say the same thing about using the W3C box-model when the IE-box model works just fine in +95% of the browsers in use today. Just because 100% of the *known* browsers in use inerpret HTML incorrectly is no excuse to feed all browsers knowingly malformed HTML. Perhaps the reason there are no browsers out there that correctly interpret the closing slash is because XHTML pages *would* break in them and so the developers have decided to forego compliance for convenience. What if faced with the overwhelming installed base of IE5 users no browser had ever dared to use the W3C-box model for fear that it would cause incompatibility? I just find it funny that the W3C, who pretty much defines these standards/recommendations, would put forth a solution which knowingly relies on a 'browser-bug' that goes against an earlier standard/recommendation. In effect, browser-makers that adhere closest to the recommendation are penalized. Lovely.
I'm sorry, maybe you missed "class 2)". I'm perfectly willing to entertain the possibility that some future browsers will interpret trailing slashes in HTML "correctly" AND handle the correct XHTML MIME type.
There are *no* browsers in class 3) today, and I cannot imagine a reason why anyone would ever write one.
This has nothing to do with fear of breaking anything.
When you send out "XHTML" as text/html, it is parsed by the browser's HTML parser. It *is* HTML, whatever DOCTYPE you happen to slap on it.
Only when you send out XHTML as application/xhtml+xml (or similar MIME type) does it get parsed using the browser's XML parser. Only then is it "really" XHTML.
I don't see why you're complaining that the W3C has provided a *migration path* to "real" XHTML by sanctioning sending out "XHTML" with a MIME type of text/html (relying on the "broken" behaviour of all existing browsers).
It would be a much harder slog to convert to XHTML were they to forbid that.
It seems to me that they've found a very nice compromise – a migration path that does not break in any browsers, but allows one to, at some point down the road, simply flip a switch and start doing "real" XHTML.
if using PHP just use wordwrap (with some regexping maybe) and u are there.
I refuse to get worked into a lather arguing about the empty set."
Quite - there is something unrealistic about his argument. And in any case, to paraphrase, the W3 says what he doesn't want "may" be done. And in fact its own authoring tool Amaya only writes XHTML.
OTOH, it seems to me it is probably true to say there is no real advantage in not using HTML 4.01 …
for most of us. :-)


text:
1. San Antonio
2012-13 finish: 58-24.
Coming: Marco Belinelli, Jeff Pendergraph.
Going: Gary Neal, DeJuan Blair.
Before anyone asks the Spurs to appear en masse on the next episode of "Derek," Ricky Gervais' thoughtful look at retirement home living, let's assess a few benefits of being old and reliable: San Antonio has finished first-first-second in the West over the last three seasons. Plus, the Spurs aren't really all that old; Kawhi Leonard, the team's new No. 3 option, is barely out of his Nickelodeon Jr. stage.


text:
is for sale!
This domain is available for purchase at BuyBrands, a premium domain name marketplace.
Fast transfer
Inquire now and DreamTree.org can be yours within 24 hours.
Buy with confidence
We are the domain owner and operator.
Safe payments by Escrow.com
Your purchase is backed by the most trusted, licensed online escrow service in the world.


text:
Fariche Alleyne - Conservation & Environment, African Bushveld Conservation in South Africa
My volunteer trip with Projects Abroad was an amazing experience and one I will never forget. Each day was different at the Kua Tuli Camp and all of the guides were experienced and knowledgeable. They provided insight on many different topics including the many different species of birds and animals in the area.
When I first arrived at the camp there were about 15-20 volunteers who had already been there for a few weeks - I found this helpful and asked many questions about how things worked around the camp. All of the volunteers including the guides were very nice and laid back. I found my first day at the camp to be much less intimidating than I had imagined. We ate dinner and then sat around the camp fire talking.
My Conservation Placement
My first activity the next morning was to find elephant dung so we could record what we found in the dung in order to ensure they were eating the correct food. I was very nervous about this being my first task because you basically have to search through elephant poo (with gloves on of course!), and I thought I would for sure get sick.
However it was much less gross than I thought - sure there was a smell to it but it was really interesting to find out what the elephants were eating and you got used to the smell after a few minutes. Not to mention we had a blast just trying to find the dung, we walked for about one hour before we found any dung. But on that walk we learnt many new things, such as how to track elephants and saw some really pretty birds that we were able to snap some photos of. I thoroughly enjoyed my first task.
Each day the activities varied, we went on walks to track animals such as impala's and antelopes. We went to a watering hole to record the animals that arrived, we repaired Baobab trees, we cleaned up debris on the roads and we went on a sleep out to Mama Tui to record the animals that used the watering hole nearby at night.
Mama Tui was my absolute favourite activity. We stayed overnight in a tree house of sorts, ate dinner and took turns watching the watering hole at night. We ate a nice dinner that was prepared for us back at the camp and watched the sun go down. It was so beautiful and peaceful and not to mention we saw hyenas!
Weekend Trip
On the weekend we made a trip to a little Botswanian town called Piekwhe which was great. We went to a market square with many different shops; this gave us an opportunity to buy some authentic souvenirs and food items to carry back to the camp. I was also able to use the internet in one of the café's to let family and friends know I was good and enjoying my time.
We stayed overnight in a small hotel with a pool. It was a nice break from the camp life. The volunteers had an opportunity to bond with each other by the pool and hang out. I really enjoyed my time in Piekwhe and getting to know the locals.
Final Thoughts
All in all, my experience in Botswana, Kua Tuli is one I will cherish for a long time. It was truly the best trip I've taken so far. The amount of animals I was able to see in their natural habitat was amazing, such as elephants (a lot!), zebras, hyenas, jackals, ostrich, rhinos, giraffes, impala, kudus, vultures and so much more. Not to mention the conservation work, such as repairing the Baobab trees that can grow up to be 500 years old and more sometimes, cleaning up the roads and the bush from debris and hunting traps and recording important data for researchers.
It felt really good to be contributing in a helpful way and at the same time learning and having fun. I looked at the pictures from time to time and I am still amazed that I was there in the flesh. I would recommend this project to anyone who wants real, hands on conservation experience and would like to learn in the process.
The camp was very accommodating, the staff including the local guides, cook and cleaners were friendly, easy going and really cool people to get to know. I am so happy I took a chance, got over whatever nerves I had at the time and went for it. And if you're thinking about it - I say go for it, you won't regret it.
Fariche Alleyne
Dit verhaal is een persoonlijke ervaring van een vrijwilliger op dit project en dus een momentopname. Houd er rekening mee dat jouw ervaring hiervan af kan wijken. Onze projecten veranderen constant, omdat we inspelen op de lokale behoefte en we voortborduren op de behaalde resultaten. Ook verschillende weersomstandigheden kunnen de ervaring beïnvloeden. Lees meer over wat je kunt verwachten van dit project of neem contact met ons op voor meer informatie.


text:
Nos. 12 at Augusta and 17 at TPC Sawgrass can make even scratch golfers tremble, but for sheer terror, nothing touches the 15th hole at Lake Ashton Golf and Country Club in Lake Wales, Fla.
Just ask Albert Miller.
Miller was playing a four-ball tournament at Lake Ashton when he hooked a shot into a pond that borders the 15th green. What happened next, recounted in The Ledger of Lakeland, Fla., could make lesser men swear off golf for good.
The water in the hazard is clear – the course uses it for irrigation – so the 75-year-old went to the edge with a retriever tool and plucked two balls that other golfers had lost.
That's when an alligator plucked him.
A 190-pound, 9-foot-long beast rose out of the water, clamped down on his left knee and pulled him into the pond.
"He lifted me up three feet and slammed me down," Miller told the Ledger.
Miller's 66-year-old friend Ted Price and the two others in the foursome ran over to help. Price grabbed Miller under the shoulders as the gator thrashed about, chewing up his leg in waist-deep water.
The alligator started dragging him to deeper water when a "miracle" happened: "He let me go. I was three feet from my life."
Miller received more than 35 stitches to close a 10-inch lance wound, and two other 5-inch wounds. The verdict is still out on whether he'll suffer permanent damage to the leg.
"He just filleted me," he said. "You could see into the bone."
While he's in a lot of pain now, he remains hopeful that he'll be able to get back on the links.
As for the gator, trappers got him. Apparently someone had been feeding the reptile illegally, making it less fearful of humans.
A photo of the alligator can be found here at Ledger.com.


text:
Don't see your question? Visit our help section.
Get access to great in-store deals and local pick-up
Sign up for our email deals newsletter!
Since its beginning, Dragon Ball Z has captivated fans with the amazing fi ghts between Goku, his friends and their enemies, and once again they are all back for a new rumble. Dragon Ball Z® Battle of Z delivers original and unique fi ghting gameplay in the beloved world from series' creator Akira Toriyama. Focusing on team battles, players will be able to battle online with or against their friends in frantic 4-player co-op or up to 8-player vs.
Check out all the latest Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 games and accessories available for Xbox One & PlayStation 4 now.
Pro Price


text:
Enjoy an intriguing insight into the world of bats. The Bat Hospital Visitor Centre has Advanced Ecotourism accreditation and offers a unique 'up close and personal' wildlife experience just outside Atherton. You will meet some small insectivorous microbats, seen in the wild at nearby Undara and Paronella Park; and the larger fruit and nectar eating megabats like flying foxes. The Visitor Centre experience includes a short video about the work of the hospital, and world-class interpretive signage.
Personalised tours operate daily 3pm to 6pm throughout the year, but bookings are essential. The flying foxes live in a six metre high cage and only come down to eye-level at feeding time in the afternoon.
Situated on five acres of landscaped gardens, and nestled in a wet sclerophyll/rainforest valley, a visit to the Bat Hospital can also offer a great birding experience. Visit Hastie's Swamp, a fabulous migratory bird wetland just down the road. The Bat Hospital attracts visitors, volunteers and students from around the world, is actively engaged in research and conservation, and has featured in many television documentaries. The Director has won numerous awards for community conservation and education.
|Cost AUD
|Valid From
|$10 - $10
|AUD10 for children 5 to 15 years. Bookings are essential.
|Indicative Prices
|$20 - $20
|AUD20 for adults and youth over 15 years. Bookings are essential.
|Opening Hours
|All year
|3pm - 6pm
|25 Dezember 2018
Note: Information on listed products and services are provided by the operator and were correct at the time of publishing. Rates are indicative based on the minimum and maximum available prices of products and services. Please visit the operator's website for further information. All prices quoted are in Australian dollars (AUD).


text:
The University of Turku (UTU) is an international research university located in Southwest Finland in the Student city of Turku. We are an active academic community of nearly 24,000 students and employees with over 100 nationalities.
Our aim and ambition are to provide students with innovative problem-solving skills and a high-standard, multidisciplinary education based on the latest research. The University of Turku is the most international university in Finland (THE Ranking 2016) offering study and research opportunities in seven faculties and seven special units and interdisciplinary centres – expertise ranking from humanities to natural sciences. Our teaching staff is determined to develop the students' skills for working life, as well as new study environments and methods. The graduates of UTU are creative experts and future visionaries who reach beyond the traditional discipline borders. Thanks to our outstanding services, compact campus and active student life, international students feel at home and safe from the very beginning of their stay.
10 Best reasons to choose UTU
- UTU is the most international university in Finland
- Master Degree and Doctoral Programmes based on our strengths in research
- Future career prospects
- Generous scholarships available for talented students
- Professors and lecturers that challenge you to learn
- Personal support and services throughout your studies
- Excellent facilities and learning environments
- Wide selection of optional and minor studies
- Active student life and versatile activities
- Compact campus where all is near
Read more: utu.fi/masters
University Rankings: UTU among the Best 1 %
Expertise found in Turku has also been noticed worldwide. Success in international university rankings and the multiple recognitions and awards are great examples. Of the over 20,000 universities in the world, the University of Turku is among the top one percent. In nine subjects, including e.g. Medicine, Biological Sciences, Dentistry and Nursing, the University of Turku ranks among the 200 best in the world (QS World University Rankings by Subject 2016). 4,226 universities in 42 subject areas were evaluated, and the ranking was based on academic reputation, employer reputation and research impact.
Welcome to the Student City of Turku
The University Campus in Turku is located near the city centre. With a bike or on foot you can easily move from one place – and time – to another. In 1640 the first university students in Finland began their studies right here in Turku. Today, on the same campus, future innovations and technologies are developed and Turku is a genuine student city with over 40,000 university students. Reasonable living costs with many housing options, full-scale public and private services, vivid cultural life and a variety of outdoor recreation possibilities by the surrounding Archipelago Sea guarantee that Turku offers the best location and the best quality of life for your Master's studies. Welcome to Turku, Finland!


text:
Barbara Brennan is a former NASA scientist whose ground-breaking exploration of the human energy field is discussed in her books "Hands of Light" and "Light Emerging."
DiCarlo: In your work you have explored the human energy field and I am wondering if you could tell me exactly what the energy field is?
Brennan:From a scientific perspective, nobody has really proven what it is so I can only talk from the perspective of a healer who works with it. I have a scientific background, but in fact there aren't any adequate experiments to tell you what the field really is. So I am going to have to speak solely from my experience as a healer who is able to perceive the field. From this perspective, the human energy field is the matrix structure upon which the cells of the physical body grow. It is the template of the physical body.
It is also the vehicle for psychosomatic reactions, or the "mind-body" connection. The human energy field can be perceived by anyone with practice. It's of vital importance since it is a foundation for the physical body. It is directly connected with health and illness. Based upon my experience as a healer conducting private sessions with clients spanning a fifteen year period, and asa teacher for as many, I can tell you that anything that happens in the physical body will happen in the pattern of the energy fields first.
So the energy field precedes the physical body. It sets the foundation for the physical body, and anything that goes wrong in the energy field will eventually make its way into the physical body.
DiCarlo: Is the field fairly stable or does it tend to shift?
Brennan: Actually, your field changes with each thought. Once you open your high sense perception as I call it, and can see the field (the major two senses I use are seeing and feeling but any of the inner coorespondences to the outer five senses can be used) you will be amazed at how it changes from moment-to-moment. It moves very, very fast.
The field has several different components and can be broken up into at least seven different layers. These seven layers are commonly reported in the esoteric literature and by people from different cultures around the world who have the ability to directly perceive it.
From my perspective, every other level of the energy field is structured- organized lines of scintillating light with a specific pattern. The structured layers can be perceived as a frequency band, with each layer having its own frequency. Little sparks of light can be observed moving along these lines.
In between the structured layers of the field is a bioplasma-like energy that simply flows along the lines of the structured field pattern. It's the energy that flows along the lines of the structured field pattern that changes very fast with thoughts and emotions, not the structured pattern itself. For example, if you stop yourself from feeling something, it will stop the flow of energy in the field. And if you experience the feeling, the energy will be released. There is a direct correlation. There are even correlations between the energy field and the part of the brain you are thinking with. As you change your thought patterns, the patterning of the field changes.
DiCarlo: So if you switched from being very analytical and left brained, to being very intuitive and right brained, there would a change?
Brennan: Yes, there would be definite flow patterns that change. For example, we mostly are trained from very early in our childhood to be rational. And traditionally, we go to school and we learn to think logically and we memorize information. And that shows in a particular field pattern or a generalized flow. And intuitive thinking is very different than that. Different parts of the brain are used and the flow and pattern of the field is different.
What's really interesting is that it corresponds more or less to what a PET scan shows.
DiCarlo: Let's try to make this rather abstract concept of an energy field permeating the physical body a bit more concrete. What are some of the common experiences people have that directly relate to activities which take place in the field?
Brennan: Knowing something before it happens, because it's happening in the energy field first. Feeling that someone is looking or staring at you when your back is turned to them. You turn around, look and yes, someone is looking at you. You may not even know that's why you turned to look. There are streams of energy that come out of the eye and you can feel it on your body. Another example: the phone rings and before you answer it you already know who the person is and that they have good news. Also, feeling good when you wear specific cloths, even specific colors because they are related to the colors that your energy field needs that day. Interactions with animals- people can communicate with their pets and know what the animals are feeling. These are all energy field interactions.
DiCarlo: Now let's say I have an affinity to someone I have never met before, or on the other hand there is someone I immediately dislike, is that phenomena related to activities taking place at the level of the human energy field?
Brennan: That's directly related to the interactions of the field. Everybody's field pulsates within a range of frequencies. If the range is about the same for two people, then they will usually have a lot of affinity with each other. If it's not, it will make them nervous. If you have a higher general frequency tone to your field than someone else, you might feel drugged out. On the other hand, if somebody has a higher frequency than yours and that frequency is chaotic, it will make you nervous. There are many of those examples.
DiCarlo: I like the example you give of the man and woman who attend the same social function. Even though they might ignore and pretend to not notice each other, this is not the case since at the level of their fields there is a great deal of activity, cascades of energy moving back and forth which indicates a genuine interest and a testing of each others fields for compatibility.
Brennan: Right. That happens a lot. All of the beginning stages of courtship can be seen quite clearly in the field.
DiCarlo: If you read all the self-help literature that is available, it would seem that we could all benefit from learning to forgive ourselves and others. That certainly seems like the right thing to do in life but I'm wondering, from a more concrete perspective, what happens in our energy field when we do this?
Brennan: When you forgive yourself, there are some wonderful things that happen. There is a certain tension and stagnated energy that is held in the field whenever there is anything that you won't accept within yourself. It's kind of like a mucous that you get when you have a cold. So you actually create distortions in your own energy pattern that have to do with unforgivingness towards your self. These distortions will eventually lead to illness. When you forgive yourself, you are actually unblocking the flow of energy in your field so that it can flush itself out. It allows for the resumption of the normal life flow.
Life is associated with constant movement in the personal energy field, so any attitude of non-forgiveness within the self will create blockage. When you have an non-forgiving attitude towards an individual, there will be a definite pattern in your field. The outer edge of your field will become rigid and brittle when interacting with that person. There will be additional ways that you will not let your life energy flow out towards that person.
There are great bands of energy or bio-plasmic streamers that normally flow between people when they interact. If you have an unforgiving attitude towards another person, that won't happen. So there's not an exchange of life energy that normally goes on between all living things and it's not just human beings. There's a flow between humans and animals. Humans and plants.
But if there is a sense of unforgiveness, all that will be stopped. There will be the same type of stoppage in the other individual also. It's usually a two way street.
DiCarlo: Would that be the same phenomena you would observe if someone was judging another person?
Brennan: That would be a little bit different. All of these different attitudes and mental states would result in a little bit different flow. Usually judgement has to do with an energy flow running up the back of the body and sometimes hooking over and a rigid withdrawing back. Also, energy running up the front of the body and kind of "hooking over" towards the other person.
If you look at the energy field, there are three major aspects: reason, will and emotion that are associated with psychological phenomena. When you judge another, you stop the flow of your emotions towards that person which would be on the front of the body, and you would be pushing your energy to the back of the body, into the will, and then running it up into the mind. So you "will not" accept this person, and then the energy moves up your body to the head region and you rationalize it in the mental sensors.
DiCarlo: What if someone is experiencing love?
Brennan: With love, especially when both people are feeling love towards each other, there is a tremendous flow of energy between the two. But you don't even have to have two people. When a person allows love into their field, the field becomes very soft, very flowing, resilient. The whole field blows up sort of like a balloon. It becomes very energized and the energy flows out of the field in a very healthy way.
All fields have different kinds of boundaries, so the boundary of someone who has a lot of love or is feeling love toward a particular person, will be soft and more resilient. As a result they can interact with another human being in a much easier way.
DiCarlo: Well, how would that compare with a person who was experiencing gratitude in their life?
Brennan: To feel grateful is one of the most important experiences we need as humans. When we feel it, there is an acceptance of everything in our life and a surrender to basic values in life. We can see the positive in everything and also feel thankful for it. That's essential, because it allows a connection to take place between the personality self and the deeper regions of the human being, the core essence or the divinity within.
The intense energy from the core essence then radiates out. It's as if a corridor opens from the core essence of an individual, an the energy is able to flow out and into the entire world. Also, the connection from the personality to the spiritual or divinity within is open and made more solid. The feeling of gratitude is an essential experience we all need.
Gratitude also puts the individual in synchronicity with the universal energy field that connects all of life, the flow of the life force, or the morphonogenic fields of the whole planet and the solar system. That is also very important because it puts you in sync with your life. When you can flow in that way and find that place in life then the entire universe becomes very supportive. Gratitude is essential.
DiCarlo: So when you have the experience of being in sync, in the universal flow, do more positive events, circumstances and people come into your life experience?
Brennan: Yes, because you will allow them. You won't be stopping them. This is the opposite of judgement, which stops the flow of energy. You don't let anything in and you don't let anything out- or what you do let out isn't so nice.
DiCarlo: Do you find the environment effects the human energy field, take for example fluorescent lighting?
Brennan: Yes. The environment effects the field very much and there are several chapters in Light Emerging about that. I can't work under fluorescent lights. I have spoken with Dr. Brainard, a professor at Thomas Jefferson Medical Center in Philadelphia who's been studying the effectiveness of fluorescent lights in reducing "Seasonal Affective Disorder" (SAD). He has helped develop a very high frequency (40 kilowatt) pulsing flourescent light with x-ray shield. It as well as halogen work well for SAD without disturbing the field as much as normal flourescent lighting. Full spectrum flourescent lights also need to be converted to a higher frequency and have x-ray shields.


text:
by Brian DeCandia, sports information graduate assistant
MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. – Junior cross country runner Daniel Horseman (Cohutta, Ga.) has been awarded Georgia College Athlete of the Week for the week ending Nov. 21. This is his third athlete of the week honor.
Horseman took 25th this weekend at the NCAA Southeast Regional Championships, helping the team to a ninth place finish. Pacing the Bobcats for the fifth time this season, Horseman crossed the finish line in the 10K race at 32:51, shattering the previous school record set in 2008 (Rob Manning, 33:56) by over a full minute.
The regionals brought a close to the 2010 season for Bobcat cross country, a year that saw Horseman snap both the 8K and 10K distance school records. The GC men also finished in the top three in each of their first six races, including a victory at the Young Harris Invitational. Horseman became the seventh All-Peach Belt Conference men's runner in school history.
The Georgia College Department of Athletics, back-to-back winners of the PBC Commissioner's Cup, sponsors 10 varsity athletic programs at the NCAA Division II level. As a Division II program, Bobcat Athletics prides itself on balancing the life of the student-athlete, evidenced by the teams' multiple appearances in post-season competition as well as documented academic success and community-service involvement. Sign up at www.twitter.com/GCSUBobcats and www.facebook.com/gcbobcats for up-to-the-minute reports, and visit www.GCBobcats.com for more information, and to nominate your favorite former Bobcats and Colonials to the GC Athletics Hall of Fame.


text:
Peter Gabriel At United CenterThe progressive-rock pioneer decided to add a special twist to his latest project, New Blood, an album of orchestral reinventions. Banning drums and guitar from his studio, [lastfm]Peter Gabriel[/lastfm] set about recording his New Blood album with a 46-piece orchestra, a move that required a complete rearrangement of each and every song. When it finally hit the stage earlier this year in London, the results were simply magical — and you can watch a Live on Letterman concert webcast right here (or on CBS.com) on Wednesday, Nov. 9 live from New York's Ed Sullivan Theater at 9pm Eastern (6pm Pacific).
To get geared up, here are 20 great videos and facts you might not have known about the singer, songwriter, producer and former member of [lastfm]Genesis[/lastfm].
1. Peter was born and raised in Surrey, England. He attended private prep schools growing up learning to play the clarinet at an early age. The pupils he met at Charterhouse prep school would go on to a have a big influence in Peter's life.
One More Thing You(Probably) Didn't Know About Peter Gabriel


text: Home More Story by Stacy™ Story by Stacy™ We are excited to partner with Stacy Julian to launch the Story by Stacy™ product line! These story-based products are designed to teach you how to create authentic, personal stories with your memories. Story by Stacy™ will help anyone discover, access, and grow their storytelling skills to share them with others in meaningful ways. Story Starter The Story Starter workshop kit will have you telling your stories in no time. Follow the step-by-step instructions to assemble a mini album that tells the story of a person, place, or thing that you love. Shop » Short Story Build your creative intiution and storytelling skills with the Short Story! This workshop kit will walk you through the process of visual storytelling with a large group of photos topped off with a personal story written at the end. Shop » Stories I Love Document the photos and stories that truly capture your heart with Stories I Love! This workshop kit will teach you how to explore the memories behind the photos you treasure and write detailed stories to go with them. Shop » Storyteller This how-to book gathers the writing tools from each workshop kit—Story Starter, Short Story, and Stories I Love — for you to reference in one place and see how to use them in any scrapbooking format. It also introduces you to a new writing tool and creative process, Extended Story. Shop »


text:
Follow RFF News on your cell phone. Text follow rff to 40404 you will receive txt messages with RFF News
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but why they recruited teams starting after the first All-Stars?
Also I forgot to add, Meghan & Cheyne were finalists for TAR 14 too! We were together a lot during the casting and they had no idea I was deaf
I would love for Billy and Carissa to race. Billy has 2 more years in the Air Force and Carissa just turned 17 so maybe in a few years you might see them again. In fact it would be awesome if they brought back the kids as adults from season 8
Page created in 0.077 seconds with 32 queries.


text:
With the loss of All-Area Girls' Water Polo Player of the Year Sabrina Hatzer, as well as coach Pete Loporchio, who navigated the Crescenta Valley High girls' water polo team to consecutive CIF semifinal runs and undefeated Pacific League campaigns, one might surmise the Falcons' fortunes this season are a bit up in the air.
But under new coach Brent Danna with a host of experienced returners, the Falcons are seen as a prohibitive favorite in the Pacific League by their counterparts and are ranked fifth in CIF Southern Section Division V.
"It's not wide open at all," said Glendale Coach Forest Holbrook of the Pacific League, which has been won three consecutive seasons by the Falcons. "They've got an amazing coach.
"I think Crescenta Valley's gonna be a real powerhouse."
While the Falcons made an amazing run to the semifinals last year that saw them reel off 31 straight wins to start the season, Glendale was the only other local to make the playoffs and lost in the opening round.
The Nitros are hoping to get back to the CIF dance, while Hoover, Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy and Flintridge Prep are all seemingly still putting their respective programs' foundations in place.
The Falcons are expected to boast the return of standout goaltender Gabriel Isacson, fellow standouts Shannon Hovanesian and Breanna Lawton and experienced juniors Katie Benson and Elissa Arnold.
Glendale, meanwhile, is hoping to contend with the predicted likes of Burroughs and Pasadena for a spot in the top three of the league.
The Nitros lost a bunch of experience from last season's fourth-place squad that went to the postseason, but Holbrook expects big things from seniors Biyouregh Boghozian and Maddie Corpus.
"The girls are looking good," said Holbrook, whose team lost to eventual champion Temescal Canyon, which also eliminated Crescenta Valley, in the first round of the playoffs. "They've put in a lot of work."
With his girls absent of a club option in most cases, Holbrook made the decision to give them full practices in the fall after school, with his boys' team usually practicing after the girls. And now, after coaching the Nitros' boys' team to a CIF Division V final run, the girls are now raring to go, though decisions on starters are still yet to be made for the most part.
Hoover, under coach Kevin Witt, is coming off a one-win season and is still searching for numbers.
"We still have the same number of new players as last year. Again we're a very young team," Witt said. "I'm hoping we learn and get better every game."
Hoping for key contributions from senior utility Lianna Khachikyan and senior driver Se-Yeon Kim, Witt has tempered any goals in terms of amount of wins.
"I want to go out there and win every game, but at some point I have to realize that's not going to happen," Witt said. "So, we have to focus on getting better so we have goals at the end of the season rather than the beginning."
For the third time in as many seasons, Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy will have a different coach.
Carlos Ponce, who formerly coached at Burroughs and last coached in 2009, has taken the Tologs' helm.
"Being away from the game a bit, it's been a transition for myself," Ponce said. "It's a long process, but these girls are excited for something new."
Having won just one game in the arduous Mission League a season ago, Ponce believes this is a rebuilding year, but still thinks the Tologs can fight for third place and a playoff spot.
"The third spot, there's always a fight for it," Ponce said. "We're not gonna give up on that."
Senior Hannah Walleck will be the focal point for the team.
"She's a very notable player," Ponce said. "I've tried to surround her with the right girls."
That would include junior goalie Elizabeth Hinkley and senior drivers Anna Porter and Kelsey Gorman.
Under second-year coach Ryan Goto, the Rebels have modest hopes of staying competitive with the season goal of building for the future.
"We lost a really big chunk of our starting lineup," said Goto, who said he has just three returning starters and only four seniors. "We're definitely a smaller squad than we were last year.
"We're really focused on building the team. We just hope to give everybody a good game."
Savannah Hart, a senior, and Erin Dennis, a junior, look to lead the team, while two freshmen and two sophomores look to provide for the future.
Said Goto: "We have potential to really learn the game and set a strong foundation for seasons to come."


text:
What do guys think about polyrhythm?
For those who don't know Polyrhythm is the simultaneous use of two or more conflicting rhythms e.g. triplets at the same time as duplets
We use cookies on this site to enhance your user experience
By clicking any link on this page you are giving your consent for us to set cookies.
For those who don't know Polyrhythm is the simultaneous use of two or more conflicting rhythms e.g. triplets at the same time as duplets
For me I can't wait to be done my piano sonata but I also am excited to compose a concerto for piano and orchestra!
(Engl) For those who like piano duets. Thanks for listening.
(Ital) Per quelli che piacciono i duetti. grazie per l'ascolto.
(Port) Para quem gosta de duetos, Obrigado por ouvir,
Hey guys!! :D How are you? ♥ I would like to share my first score with you :D https://musescore.com/user/28725539/scores/5470048 I hope you like it! :3
Have a great day!! Kisses from Argentina! ♥
I play The flute. And I was wondering what piece I should play next… I learned the music really easily I've been playing with it for about 3 1/2 years any recommendations would mean a lot, Thank you!
If you have any feedback or recommendations for this piece that would be great thanks!
Hello! I've been playing clarinet for about 3 months now, but I have never quite been able to play in the upper register successfully. If any of you out there could give me some tips, it would be much appreciated!
Edit: Thank you all for your help!
i am working on a piano sonata
Hi, my name is Noah (Z. Værum) and i am a composer/clarinetist and i come from Denmark, i've composed a litlle piece for 4 horns, so i hope you like it. If you want to buy it, the link is below ;)
I am seeking advice from ensemble players and/or anyone reasonably experienced with scoring for winds, especially if you have a background in chamber music.
I compose and arrange for piano, strings, and guitar, but I am hoping to expand my horizon and beginning to look into orchestration in general.
I own a grand flute and have a basic understanding of what it can do and how it will sound not as MIDI but in real life. What it can cut through, and what it will only ever-so-slightly color.
By extension albeit to a lesser extent I can claim the same for the piccolo.
However, I have zero experience writing for oboe, clarinet, or bassoon.
The following piece is my very first attempt at balancing all five woodwinds mentioned above, and not just against one another but against five string instruments as well.
Owing to complete inexperience, at first I tried to tackle this by thinking in terms of flute and string quartet, and treating the rest of the players as supporting cast. I have no idea if that's the wisest thing to do, but that's what I know. So it starts off tame and only gradually grows more confident.
The piece is tonal and requires no virtuosity from any of the players. I am not concerned with what's playable and what isn't. I am concerned with balance, texture, and color.
So if the individual parts are unremarkable that's a good thing. My focus is on making them come together to form a cohesive whole. Not on pushing the envelope, but on acquiring an understanding of the basics. There's no point in writing the next Rite of Spring if you can't even orchestrate two bars of a simple waltz.
In brief, I have no idea how any of this will sound on actual instruments, what to look out for, and what not to worry about.
So if something jumps out at you as an experienced ensemble player, by all means do let me know.
If nothing does, all the better.
The runtime is six minutes.
Thank you in advance.
So im in marching band and I'm the only flute out of 16 hornline, mostly brass...
I keep trying to play louder but it always goes up an octave or makes an awful screeching noise. Even though I have been playing for about two years, I've never found a solution to the problem. I was wondering if any of you could give me some tips on how to play louder but still sound decent during competitions.
Should I extend it?
You may or may not know this but I am arranging the Pathetique Sonata for a symphony orchestra. I have gotten to the second Grave section and the notes reach the very lowest register of the bassoon. Before I get too deep into it, I need some advice about the bassoon, preferably from someone who plays the bassoon.
Can the bassoon play pianissimo in its lowest register? Because the last note of the Grave section that I would put in the bassoon part is a B natural below the bass staff. I know the bassoon can be very mellow sounding but can B natural below the bass staff be played pianissimo? If not, then I will just have that note played by the double basses and notate it up an octave from where it is in the piano score to get the desired pitch.
I need to find a name for my antique 1940s solid metal clarinet... my flute is named Felipe, and need a name that goes nicely with it.
Thanks for your help!
Does anybody think it's possible to write out trumpet aheet music for Missed Connection by the Head and the Heart? If you can, thanks so much.
曲名は「morning tea」です。
I arranged City of Stars to be played with a trumpet, piano, and trombone. The trombone that it was designed for is relatively new at the instrument so I wanted the trombone part to be pretty easy. If you could look at the trombone part and give feedback on both the skill level needed to play it and how that part works with the rest of the song that would be great. Thanks!


text:
Safe Sitter Workshop
Holy Spirit - A Geisinger Affiliate will be presenting this babysitter training program for ages 11-13. To register call Cheryl Sola at Holy Spirit at 763-2553 and leave a message including your name, address, and phone number. A registration packet will be mailed to you. You must attend both sessions to receive a certificate of completion. There is a $30 fee which will include a manual, a backpack and additional supplies. T-shirts and sweatshirts will also be available for purchase. Bring a bag lunch.