David L. Norton

David Lloyd Norton (March 27, 1930 – July 24, 1995) was an American philosopher. He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, March 27, 1930, to Cecil V. Norton and (Adelene) Ruth Essick Norton. He was the brother of Douglas C. Norton (born 1945) of Norton's Fine Art in St. Louis.
Studies, family and early career.
Norton earned a Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis in 1952. In 1953 he married Joan Marie Carter of Webster Groves, Missouri, and in 1954 their first child, Anita Lee Norton (later Kronsberg) was born. During these years Norton also served as Associate Leader of the St. Louis Ethical Society. He and his wife lost an infant daughter, Nancy Ann, to crib death (or sudden infant death syndrome) in 1959. In 1961 Norton and his wife adopted an infant son, whom they named Ronald Vallet Norton.
After working as a civil engineer in California, Norton returned to Washington University to study philosophy, earning a Master's degree in 1962. He then took up doctoral work at Boston University, earning his Ph.D. in 1968. While in Boston, Norton served as Leader of the Boston Ethical Society. His second son, Peter, was born in Boston in 1963. His dissertation was "Transcendental Imagination: A Post-Kantian Appraisal."
In 1966 Norton moved with his family to Newark, Delaware, to serve on the faculty of the University of Delaware's philosophy department. Shortly thereafter he divorced and remarried. He fathered two more sons, Tucker (b. 1971) and Cory (b. 1976).
Philosophy.
Norton taught at the University of Delaware for 29 years. In 1976 Princeton University Press published his book "Personal Destinies: A Philosophy of Ethical Individualism," which received wide notice. His next book, "Democracy and Moral Development," was published by the University of California Press in 1991. In 1995 Norton succumbed quickly to cancer, dying July 24. His final book, "Imagination, Understanding, and the Virtue of Liberality," published by Rowman and Littlefield, appeared soon after.
In the last of the works listed above, Norton summarized his three books' related purposes. In "Personal Destinies," he "addressed the fundamental moral question, What is a worthy life for a human being?" In "Democracy and Moral Development," he took up "the inescapable correlative, What is a good society?" Finally, in "Imagination, Understanding, and the Virtue of Liberality," Norton asked "what kind of world can productively accommodate a plurality of good societies?" and identified the traits of character required of individuals who would promote it.
As an academic philosopher, Norton devoted attention to the fundamental and practical problems of the life well lived. For his inspiration Norton turned chiefly to the Greeks, and especially to the dialogues of Plato. He called himself an ethical individualist, seeing a harmony between the individual's fidelity to his own "personal destiny" and the fulfillment of society's collective needs. He held that within each person is an innate potentiality (his "daimon," or soul), and that each person's life task is to discover it and actualize it. This conviction shaped Norton's views on the distinct purposes of each of life's stages, on the proper roles of parents and schools, and on the best social and political arrangements.
In a late essay, Norton put his philosophy in succinct terms: "There is a distinctive course of life that is right for each individual, amid countless possibilities. This is the individual's vocation, variously termed his or her 'genius,' 'daimon,' 'Buddha nature,' or 'atman.' It consists in innate potentialities that predispose persons to a particular direction in life. As distinguished from other possibilities, the actualization by an individual of his or her potentialities affords intrinsic rewards to that person—that is, the activity is personally fulfilling and satisfying. Self-knowledge, then, is knowledge of the activities, situations, and relationships that the individual experiences as intrinsically rewarding. Engaged at these, the individual invests the best of himself or herself and strives continuously to improve, while in the process contributing objective values to others." ["Education for Self-Knowledge and Worthy Living," in Howie and Schedler, eds., "Ethical Issues in Contemporary Society" (Southern Illinois University Press, 1995)].
Norton's own philosophy recognized "duplicity" as a "hallmark of human nature," and saw in it the ultimate threat to the life well lived ("Personal Destinies," ch. 1). The epigraph to "Personal Destinies"' is an appeal from Socrates to unite "the outward and inward man." As Norton wrote in 1976, "Philosophy will sometimes present an individual with features of his acts and principles that horrify him, producing in him an exchange of principles and patterns of behavior" ("Personal Destinies," "Unscholarly Epilogue").
Quotations.
• "In pre-Hellenic Greece, sculptors made busts of the semi-deity Silenus that had a trick to them. Inside the hollow clay likeness was hidden a golden figurine, to be revealed when the bust was broken open. ... Each person is a bust of Silenus containing a golden figurine, his daimon. The person's daimon is an ideal of perfection—unique, individual, and self-identical. It is neither the actual person nor a product of the actual person, yet it is fully real, affording to the actual person his supreme aim and establishing the principle by which the actual person can grow in identity, worth, and being." —"Personal Destinies," ch. 1.
• "From the humanistic standpoint a philosophy that seeks converts is a contradiction in terms. The function of humanistic philosophy is not to impose invented forms upon human life, but to elicit and clarify the forms the lives of persons implicitly possess." —"Personal Destinies," "Unscholarly Epilogue."
• "Those who accepted classical liberalism's invitation also incurred great costs, for with it they accepted an economistic conception of self and society that has by its moral minimalism rendered invisible the large demands and rewards of worthy living." —"Democracy and Moral Development," ch. 7.
• Autonomy is not "total self-sufficiency" but "the entitlement of each interactive entity to determine for itself what its contributions to others will be and, likewise, to determine for itself what use it will make of the self-determined contributions of other entities." —"Imagination, Understanding, and the Virtue of Liberality," ch. 4.
Bibliography.
Books
"Imagination, Understanding, and the Virtue of Liberality" (Rowman & Littlefield, 1996).
"Democracy and Moral Development" (University of California Press, 1991).
"Personal Destinies: A Philosophy of Ethical Individualism" (Princeton University Press, 1976).
"Japanese Buddhism and the American Renaissance" (in English and Japanese editions; Tokyo: Institute of Oriental Philosophy, 1993).
Articles and Book Chapters
“Moral Integrity, Organizational Management, and Public Education,” "International Journal of Public Administration" 17, no. 12, pp. 2259–2284.
“Education for Self-Knowledge and Worthy Living,” in John Howie and George Schedler, eds. "Ethical Issues in Contemporary Society" (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1994), ch. 6.
“Education for Moral Integrity,” in Dayle M. Bethel, ed., "Compulsory Schooling and Human Learning: The Moral Failure of Public Education in America and Japan" (San Francisco: Caddo Gap Press, 1994), ch. 1.
“Parents as Learning Enablers,” in Bethel, "Compulsory Schooling," ch. 6.
“On Recovering the Telos in Teleology, or ‘Where’s the Beef?’” "The Monist" 75, no. 1 (January 1992), 3-13.
“Humanistic Education for World Citizenship,” in Osamu Akimoto, ed., "The Way Toward Humanistic Education" (Tokyo: Daisan Press, 1992), 169-200.
“Moral Education for Values Creation,” in Osamu Akimoto, ed., "The Way Toward Humanistic Education" (Tokyo: Daisan Press, 1992), 202-230.
“Education for Values Creation,” "Soka Gakkai News" (Tokyo) 11, no. 259 (September. 1990), 14-22.
“Makiguchi: A Philosophical Appraisal,” in Dayle M. Bethel, ed., E"ducation for Creative Living: Ideas and Proposals of Tsunesaburo Makiguchi" (Iowa State University Press, 1989), 203-214.
“Moral Minimalism and the Development of Moral Character,” in Peter A. French, et al., eds., "Midwest Studies in Philosophy," vol. 13: “Ethical Theory: Character and Virtue” (Notre Dame University Press, 1988), 180-195.
“The New Moral Philosophy and Its Application to Organizational Life,” in N. Dale Wright ed., "Papers on the Ethics of Administration" (State University of New York Press, 1988), 47-66.
“Social Organization and Individual Initiative: A Eudaimonist Model,” in Konstantin Kolenda, ed., "Organizations and Ethical Individualism" (Praeger, 1988), 107-136.
“Liberty, Virtue, and Self-Development: A Eudaimonist Perspective,” "Reason Papers" 12 (1987), 3-15.
“Tradition and Autonomous Individuality,” "Journal of Value Inquiry" 21 (1987), 131-146.
“The Moral Individualism of Henry David Thoreau,” in Marcus G. Singer, ed., "American Philosophy" (Cambridge University Press, 1986), 239-253.
“Is ‘Flourishing’ a True Alternative Ethics?,” "Reason Papers" no. 10 (spring 1985), 101-105.
“Life-Shaping Choices,” "The Humanist," Sept.-Oct. 1983, 41-42.
“Good Government, Justice, and Self-Fulfilling Individuality,” in Roger Skurski, ed., "New Directions in Economic Justice" (Notre Dame University Press, 1983), 33-52.
“Nature and Personal Destiny: A Turning Point in the Enterprise of Self-Responsibility,” in A. T. Tymieniecka, ed. "The Philosophical Reflection of Man in Literature" (Reidel, 1982), 173-184.
“Toward the Community of True Individuals,” in Konstantin Kolenda, ed., "Person and Community in American Thought" (Rice University Press, 1981), 119-133.
“On an Internal Disparity in Universalizability-Criterion Formulations,” "Review of Metaphysics" 33, no. 3 (March 1980), 51-59.
“On the Tension Between Equality and Excellence in the Ideal of Democracy,” in Maurice Wohlgelernter, ed., "History, Religion, and Spiritual Democracy: Essays in Honor of Joseph L. Blau" (Columbia University Press, 1980).
“On the Concrete Origin of Metaphysical Questions in Childhood,” in Matthew Lippman and Ann Margaret Sharp, eds., "Growing Up with Philosophy" (Temple University Press, 1978), 121-130.
“Can Fanaticism Be Distinguished from Moral Idealism?” "Review of Metaphysics" 30, no. 3 (March 1977), 497-507.
“Individualism and Productive Justice," "Ethics" 87, no. 2 (January 1977), 113-125.
“Rawls’ Theory of Justice: A Perfectionist Rejoinder,” "Ethics" 85, no. 1 (October 1974), 50-57.
“On Teaching Students What They Already Know,” "School Review" (Chicago University Press) 82 no. 1 (November 1973), 45-56.
“Social Entailments of Self-Actualization” (co-author), "Journal of Value Inquiry" 7 no. 2 (summer 1973), 106-120.
“Eudaimonia and the Pain-Displeasure Contingency Argument” "Ethics" 82, no. 3 (spring 1972), 314-320.
“From Law to Love: Social Order as Self-Actualization,” "Journal of Value Inquiry" 6, no. 1 (spring 1972), 91-101.
“Does God Have a Ph.D.?” "School Review" 80, no. 1 (November 1971), 67-75.
“Toward an Epistemology of Romantic Love,” "Centennial Review" 14, no. 4 (fall 1970), 421-443.
“The Rites of Passage from Dependence to Autonomy,” "School Review" 79, no. 1 (November 1970), 19-41.
“Learning, Life-Style, and Imagination,” "School Review" 78, no. 1 (November 1969), 63-79.
“Daimons and Human Destiny,” "Centennial Review" 13, no. 2 (spring 1969), 154-165.
“Philosophy and Imagination,” "Centennial Review" 12, no. 4 (fall 1968), 392-413.
“Art as Shock and Re-Beginning,” "Centennial Review" 12, no. l (winter 1968), 96-109.
“Life, Death, and Moral Autonomy,” "Centennial Review" 10 no. 1 (winter 1966), 1-12.
“Humanism as a Culture,” "The Humanist," no. 6 (1963), 180-184.
“The Elders of Our Tribe,” "The Nation," February 18, 1961.
“Return to the Hearth’s Longing,” "The Nation," August 20, 1960.
“New Ear for Emerson,” "The Nation," March 12, 1960.


MagLev (software)

MagLev is an alternative implementation of the Ruby programming language built on the GemStone/S virtual machine from GemTalk Systems. Much of Maglev was set out to be written in Ruby as much as possible, resulting in some collaboration with the Rubinius project. As of the first beta release, the project runs RubyGems 1.3.5 natively, with support for C and Smalltalk extensions. MagLev has a distinct VM architecture that allows it to share code and data between runtimes and execution cycles through a Ruby API.
Architecture.
Maglev runs inside an image like Smalltalk, offering transparent object persistence to Ruby objects and classes. Object persistence is based on ACID transactions that allow multiple running instances to see a shared object graph. Maglev uses a process-based concurrency model, mapping Ruby threads to Smalltalk Processes, which are scheduled in the VM as green threads. Using MagLev should yield performance increases when using Ruby, along with allowing Ruby processes over multiple machines to use the same objects at the same time.
Installation.
MagLev is installed with RVM, using the following code snippets, copied directly from the maglev github.
 rvm install maglev
 rvm use maglev
The status can be checked using
 $ maglev status
Ruby Compatibility.
Maglev targets Ruby 1.8.7 and runs a significant number of RubySpec. It supports several C extensions including Nokogiri, JSON and bcrypt.


Robin Wood (critic)

Robert Paul Wood (23 February 1931 – 18 December 2009) – known as Robin Wood – was an English film critic and educator who lived in Canada for much of his life. He wrote books on the works of Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, Satyajit Ray, Ingmar Bergman, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Arthur Penn. Wood was a longtime member - and co-founder, along with other colleagues at Toronto's York University - of the editorial collective which publishes "CineACTION!", a film theory magazine. Wood was also York professor emeritus of film.
Biography.
Early life.
Wood was born in Richmond, Surrey, England. According to "Contemporary Authors" he attended Jesus College, Cambridge, where he was influenced by F. R. Leavis and A. P. Rossiter, and graduated in 1953 with a diploma in education. From 1954 to 1958, Wood taught in schools in both England and Sweden. After a year in Lille, France, teaching English, Wood returned to schools in England, and again in Sweden, where he met Aline Macdonald whom he married on 17 May 1960. (They would have three children: Carin, Fiona, and Simon).
Early career.
Wood began to contribute to the film journal "Movie" in 1962, primarily on the strength of an essay he wrote for "Cahiers du cinéma" on Hitchcock's "Psycho". In 1965, he published his first book, "Hitchcock's Films" (New York: A. S. Barnes, 1965). From 1969 to 1972, under the aegis of Peter Harcourt, Wood was a lecturer in film at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. In September 1974, Wood and his wife divorced. Around this time, he also had a relationship with John Anderson, the dedicatee in at least one of Wood's books. Later he was to meet Richard Lippe, with whom he lived from 1977 until his death in 2009.
From 1973 to 1977, Wood was a lecturer on film studies at the University of Warwick, Coventry, one of the first three such courses in Britain, which he founded with financial support from the British Film Institute. Here he met the future film scholar Andrew Britton, whose influence on Wood, by Wood's own account, was as great as Wood's on his student. Britton is said to have led him away from liberal attitudes and towards a further-Left position but this is a fallacy. The development of Wood's critical thinking is indicated in 'An Interview with Robin Wood' by Elizabeth Aherene and Jenny Norman, dated 9 May 1974 and published in the first issue of the film journal "Framework" by June 1975. Further insight can be obtained through lectures given by Wood during February–March 1975, prior to the arrival of Britton.
Recognition.
It was Wood's initial rejection by the British journal "Sight & Sound" and recognition by "Cahiers du cinéma", through the publication of his Hitchcock essay, which launched his career as a film critic. This prompted him to study and gradually embrace notions of the Nouvelle Vague directors: from Claude Chabrol to Jean-Luc Godard. He wanted to understand semiology – the science of signs – which explains cultures in terms of sign systems. This approach of breaking films down into signs leads the critic to ask "What does it mean and why is it there?" – analyzing, for example, techniques such as camera distance/movement, etc. So, instead of purely celebrating 'auteur theory' (which originated as 'auteur policy', from François Truffaut) – the fact that some directors are establishable as artists and others are not – he became captivated by the idea of relating a film to a whole culture at a particular time, opposed to a specific director. Through ultimately recognizing the importance of the work done by those who had recognized him, Wood traded the hypocrisies of accepting a 'comfortable life' – by allowing one's scruples to be purchased by the highest bidder – for integrity: a quality he valued the highest among artists and critics, alike, of significant merit. In answer to a student who complained in 1976, "I'm not interested in politics!", Wood responded with words to the effect: "The very fact of living is a political act!"
He became professor of film studies at York University, Toronto in 1977, where he taught until his retirement in the early 1990s. In 1985, he helped form a collective with several other students and colleagues to found and publish "CineAction" (originally styled CineACTION!).
Wood's books include "Ingmar Bergman" (Praeger, New York, 1969), "Arthur Penn" (Praeger, New York, 1969), "The Apu Trilogy" (Praeger, New York, 1971), "The American Nightmare: Essays on the Horror Film", edited by Robin Wood and Richard Lippe (Festival of Festivals, Toronto, 1979), "Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan" (Columbia University Press, New York, 1986), "Sexual Politics and Narrative Film: Hollywood and Beyond" (Columbia University Press, New York, 1998), "The Wings of the Dove: Henry James in the 1990s" (British Film Institute Publishing, London, 1999), and "Rio Bravo" (BFI Publishing, London, 2003). His novel "Trammel up the Consequence" was published posthumously by his estate in 2011.
Wood died of leukaemia on 18 December 2009 in Toronto. Wood’s book "Hitchcock’s Films" received four votes in a 2010 "Sight & Sound" poll of the best film-related books ever written.
Scholarship and analysis.
Changes in Wood's critical thinking divide his career into two parts. Wood's early books are still prized by film students for their close readings in the auteur theory tradition and their elegant prose style. Wood brought psychological insight into the motivations of characters in movies such as "Psycho" and "Marnie", and Wood was admired for his tendency to champion under-recognized directors and films.
After his coming out as a gay man, Wood's writings became more – though not exclusively – political, primarily from a stance associated with Marxist and Freudian thinking, and with gay rights. The turning point in Wood's views can arguably be pinpointed in his essay "Responsibilities of a Gay Film Critic", originally a speech at London's National Film Theatre and later published in the January 1978 issue of "Film Comment". It was subsequently included in the revised edition of his book "Personal Views".
Legacy.
Some of Wood's students have also become notable film scholars, including Andrew Britton and Tony Williams. His former student Bruce LaBruce is now an underground film director. Former student Daniel Nearing is director of the experimental Chicago Heights and Hogtown.
Bibliography.
Columbia University Press has reprinted and updated Wood's book on Hitchcock, and Wayne State University Press has recently begun a series of reprints of his early books, with new introductions. The first in the series is "Howard Hawks" in 2006, to be followed by "Personal Views" in 2006, and "Ingmar Bergman".


Tisias

Tisias (; ; fl. 5th century BC), along with Corax of Syracuse, was one of the founders of ancient Greek rhetoric. Tisias was reputed to have been the pupil of the lawyer Corax, who agreed to teach Tisias under the condition that he would give him payment for schooling if he won his first case. If on the other hand, he did not win his first case he would not have to pay the fee because the instruction was useless. Tisias is said to have developed legal rhetoric upon the foundations laid by Corax's pioneering work in the field of philosophical argument. He is also believed to have been the teacher of Isocrates. It has sometimes been asserted that Tisias and Corax are merely legendary personages. Other scholars contend that Corax and Tisias were the same person. All we know of the work of Tisias is from references made by later writers, such as Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero.


Patrick Suppes

Patrick Colonel Suppes (; March 17, 1922 – November 17, 2014) was an American philosopher who made significant contributions to philosophy of science, the theory of measurement, the foundations of quantum mechanics, decision theory, psychology and educational technology. He was the Lucie Stern Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Stanford University and until January 2010 was the Director of the Education Program for Gifted Youth also at Stanford.
Early life and career.
Suppes was born on March 17, 1922, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He grew up as an only child, later with a half brother George who was born in 1943 after Patrick had entered the army. His grandfather, C. E. Suppes, had moved to Oklahoma from Ohio. Suppes' father and grandfather were independent oil men. His mother died when he was a young boy. He was raised by his stepmother, who married his father before he was six years old. His parents did not have much formal education.
Suppes began college at the University of Oklahoma in 1939, but transferred to the University of Chicago in his second year, citing boredom with intellectual life in Oklahoma as his primary motivation. In his third year, at the insistence of his family, Suppes attended the University of Tulsa, majoring in physics, before entering the Army Reserves in 1942. In 1943 he returned to the University of Chicago and graduated with a B.S. in meteorology, and was stationed shortly thereafter at the Solomon Islands to serve during World War II.
Suppes was discharged from the Army Air Force in 1946. In January 1947 he entered Columbia University as a graduate student in philosophy as a student of Ernest Nagel and received a PhD in 1950. In 1952 he went to Stanford University, and from 1959 to 1992 he was the director of the Institute for Mathematical Studies in the Social Sciences (IMSSS). He would subsequently become the Lucie Stern Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at Stanford.
Work.
Computer-aided learning.
In the 1960s Suppes and Richard C. Atkinson (the future president of the University of California) conducted experiments in using computers to teach math and reading to school children in the Palo Alto area. Stanford's Education Program for Gifted Youth and Computer Curriculum Corporation (CCC, now named Pearson Education Technologies) are indirect descendants of those early experiments. At Stanford, Suppes was instrumental in encouraging the development of high-technology companies that were springing up in the field of educational software up into the 1990s, (such as Bien Logic).
One computer used in Suppes and Atkinson's Computer-assisted Instruction (CAI) experiments was the specialized IBM 1500 Instructional System. Seeded by a research grant in 1964 from the U.S. Department of Education to the Institute for Mathematical Studies in the Social Sciences at Stanford University, the IBM 1500 CAI system was initially prototyped at the Brentwood Elementary School (Ravenswood City School District) in East Palo Alto, California by Suppes. The students first used the system in 1966.
Suppes' Dial-a-Drill program was a touchtone phone interface for CAI. Ten schools around Manhattan were involved in the program which delivered three lessons per week by telephone. Dial-a-Drill adjusted the routine for students who answered two questions incorrectly. The system went online in March 1969. Touchtone telephones were installed in the homes of children participating in the program. Field workers educated parents on the benefits of the program and collected feedback.
Decision theory.
During the 1950s and 1960s Suppes collaborated with Donald Davidson on decision theory, at Stanford. Their initial work followed lines of thinking which had been anticipated in 1926 by Frank P. Ramsey, and involved experimental testing of their theories, culminating in the 1957 monograph "". Such commentators as Kirk Ludwig trace the origins of Davidson's theory of radical interpretation to his formative work with Suppes.


Thede Kahl

Thede Kahl (born 30 March 1971 in Hamburg) is a German ethnographer and ethnolinguist. He currently is the head of the Institute of South Slavic Studies in the University of Jena (in which he is a professor), in Germany. His research focuses are the Slavs, endangered languages and dialects, minorities of the Balkans and Anatolia and other topics related to ethnography and ethnolinguistics. Kahl has received numerous awards, such as the "Distincția Culturală" diploma from the Romanian Academy. He is also a member of various organizations like the Austrian Academy of Sciences and editor and co-editor of the journal "Symbolae Slavicae".


List of films based on Romeo and Juliet

William Shakespeare's 1590s play "Romeo and Juliet" has been adapted to film and television many times. Some of these adaptations include:


George E. McCarthy

George E. McCarthy (born February 16, 1946) is a professor of sociology at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, USA.
Career.
George E. McCarthy became National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished Teaching Professor of Sociology in 2000. He has been a research fellow at the University of Frankfurt am Main, a guest professor at the Institute for Political Science at the University of Munich, and a Senior Fulbright Research Fellow in philosophy and sociology at the University of Kassel. He has received a Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD), Fulbright Research Fellowship, and an NEH Research Fellowship. McCarthy's courses at Kenyon College focus on ethics and social justice, political and social theory, philosophy and sociology of science, German social thought and Greek philosophy/literature, and American political economy. His major area of concentration is nineteenth- and twentieth-century German social theory: Karl Marx, Max Weber, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse and Jürgen Habermas.


La Mancha Negra

La Mancha Negra (The Black Stain) is a mysterious black substance that has oozed from roads in Caracas, Venezuela, first appearing in 1986. Since the appearance of La Mancha Negra, it has caused multiple car accidents and claimed many lives. This phenomenon was proved to be false.
History.
In 1986, La Mancha Negra first appeared as a smudge 50 yards long. It was noticed by workers as they patched the 30-year-old asphalt on a highway between Caracas and its airport. Initially, concerns for the blob were low but it soon spread. As much as 8 miles of highway were soon covered with the unknown material that contracted and expanded with the weather. It was found to grow when conditions were hot and wet but shrink when it was cold and dry. It seemed to prefer tunnels and the uphill slopes outside the airport. Gummy in texture, the blob rendered the roadway extraordinarily unsafe, causing vehicles to crash into one another or run off the road. In 1991, a group of experts consulted President Carlos Andrés Pérez about the problem but could not pinpoint the cause of the substance. 1,800 deaths were then attributed to La Mancha Negra in the five years before 1992 and by that time, the stain had spread throughout the city of Caracas.
The Venezuelan government stepped in, stating that it devoted "millions of dollars" to investigating the problem, even consulting experts in the U.S., Canada and Europe. In 1994, the Ministry of Transport and Communications attempted to wash away La Mancha Negra believing it was paste consisting of oil and dust and even suspended work when it rained believing it would wash away the substance. They tried spraying the stain away with pressurized water, but this did not work. They tried scrubbing it away with detergents to no avail. They even repeatedly scraped away the top layer of the roads, resurfacing it, only to watch La Mancha Negra reappear. Finally, the government poured tons of pulverized limestone over the stain to 'dry it up'. This seemed to work for a while, but created a different problem; the roads then became so dusty that drivers and local residents complained that the air was unbreathable.
In January 1996, the lack of maintenance, low rainfall and the poor quality of vehicles in Caracas made the roads slick with the substance once more. La Mancha Negra was thought to have been dealt with in 1996 after special cleaning equipment was brought from Germany. However, La Mancha Negra reappeared in 2001 on Baralt, Nueva Granada, Fuerzas Armadas, Sucre and Urdaneta Avenues in Caracas.
Analysis.
Composition.
La Mancha Negra has been described as an inch-thick, greasy, black, thick blob that has the consistency of chewed bubble gum, though Venezuelans describe the roads it covers as "slick as ice". A team of the Venezuelan Ministry of Transport and Communications believed La Mancha Negra was composed of dust, oil, and various organic and synthetic materials. In 2001, "The Sunday Telegraph" stated that one report showed it "was a mixture of used engine oil and highly corrosive brake fluid", but concluded that "After 14 years of study, no one knows what the stuff is, where it comes from, or how to get rid of it".
Causes.
Various theories have been put forward to explain the phenomenon, but no one has established its exact nature.
Originally, some believed that raw sewage from nearby slums was running downhill, under the asphalt, and causing a chemical reaction that broke the roads down. Venezuelan engineer and official Fernando Martinez Móttola stated in 1991 that he would not only remove the La Mancha Negra but also the residents near the Caracas-La Guaira highway since "they were part of the problem by creating leaks in the road".
Another theory was that La Mancha Negra was oil that seeped from sub-standard asphalt, with Venezuelans believing someone laid flawed asphalt that would leak oil when temperatures rose. However, the Ministry of Transport and Communications stated that the composition of the asphalt did not have anything to do with the formation of the substance.
The most accepted theory is that La Mancha Negra is the result of countless leaky, old cars spraying their fluids over the roadway. Professor Giannetto, a commissioner of the Ministry of Transport and Communications, believed that La Mancha Negra was an accumulation of dust on the roads and oil released from cars that formed a paste on the roads. In 1996, "The Wall Street Journal" reported that due to the cheap gasoline prices in the country, Venezuelans would drive dated gas guzzlers, stating "Locals call the highway 'la mancha negra,' or the black stain, because it literally shines with the oil drippings of thousands of big cars that labor up an incline into the city each day. Water-tank trucks periodically spray down the road in vain attempts to wash away some of the oil slick that causes hundreds of accidents a year".
Politicization.
Under the Carlos Andrés Pérez presidency in 1992 during a time of political turmoil, allegations were made that his political opponents were spreading oil on the roads to tarnish his reputation as a leader. In 2001 following Hugo Chávez's Bolivarian Revolution, the substance was used as a political tool once more, with chavista mayor Freddy Bernal stating that the opposition had hired homeless Venezuelans to spread it from plastic bags during the night.


Stephen Stich

Stephen P. Stich (born May 9, 1943) is an American academic who is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at Rutgers University, as well as an Honorary Professor in Philosophy at the University of Sheffield. Stich's main philosophical interests are in the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and moral psychology. His 1983 book, "From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science: The Case Against Belief", received much attention as he argued for a form of eliminative materialism about the mind. He changed his mind, in later years, as indicated in his 1996 book "Deconstructing the Mind".
Education and career.
Stich was an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania from 1960–1964 where he was a member of the Philomathean Society. He received his BA in 1964 ("Summa Cum Laude" with distinction in Philosophy). He did graduate work at Princeton University from 1964–1968, receiving his PhD in 1968 under the direction of Paul Benacerraf and Gilbert Harman.
He has held full-time teaching positions at University of Michigan (1968-1978), University of Maryland, College Park (1978-1986), University of California, San Diego (1986-198), and, since 1989, at Rutgers University.
Stich joined the University of Sheffield as an honorary professor in their philosophy department in February 2005. He remains primarily at Rutgers, but visits Sheffield periodically, where he teaches and works at the Hang Seng Centre for Cognitive Studies.
In 2007 he was awarded the Jean Nicod Prize and gave a series of lectures in Paris titled "Moral Theory Meets Cognitive Science: How the Cognitive Science Can Transform Traditional Debates".
In 2009, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In 2020, he became a visiting professor at Princeton University through the University Center for Human Values.
Philosophical work.
Stich is primarily known in philosophy for his work in the philosophy of mind, cognitive science, epistemology, and moral psychology. In philosophy of mind and cognitive science, Stich (1983) has argued for a form of eliminative materialism—the view that talk of the mental should be replaced with talk of its physical substrate. Since then, however, he has changed some of his views on the mind. See "Deconstructing the Mind" (1996) for his more recent views. In epistemology, he has explored (with several of his colleagues) the nature of intuitions using the techniques of experimental philosophy, especially epistemic intuitions that vary among cultures—see Stich (1988) and Stich, et al. (2001). This work reflects a general skepticism about conceptual analysis and the traditional methods of analytic philosophy. In "The Fragmentation of Reason" he briefly sketched a form of epistemic relativism "in the spirit of pragmatism."
He and Shaun Nichols are responsible for a theory of how humans understand the mental states of ourselves and others, or mindreading, which they present in Nichols and Stich (2003). Their theory is a hybrid, containing elements of both the simulation theory and theory theory, and also aims to explain the mental architecture that enables pretence.


Looks That Kill (film)

Looks That Kill is a 2020 American dark romantic comedy written and directed by Kellen Moore. The film stars Brandon Flynn, Julia Goldani Telles, and Ki Hong Lee.
The film was released digitally on June 19, 2020.
Plot.
The story is of sixteen-year-old Max Richardson, who is forced to live with a lethally attractive face until he meets Alex, a girl with her own bizarre ailment who aids him on his quest of self-discovery, without accidentally killing anyone.
Alex suffers from a rare heart disease that causes her heart to grow (cardiomegaly) if she feels any emotion (happiness-anger-sorrow-jealousy), because it can't process them. If it gets too big, it'll stop working.
The two meet after he accidentally kills his latest therapist. Max wants to jump off a bridge to kill himself, but Alex talks him out of it by saying "you jump I'll jump". He searches for her after that, and a week long search leads him to her bus stop.
They have an adventure of young love and Alex even takes him to an area she has never showed anyone else; the retirement home she volunteers at. One friend of hers who resides at the home, Esther is writing a novel of her drop into Alzheimer's.
Their romance begins to weaken after they accidentally crash a school dance when some bullies tear Max's mask off and kill his best friend's latest girlfriend.
He gets arrested and is bailed out and spends Alex's last days with her because her heart starts failing due to her refusal to continue taking her medication.
After she dies he becomes an angel of death granting euthanasia to all who request it.
Production.
In March 2018, Brandon Flynn, Julia Goldani Telles and Ki Hong Lee were cast in leads roles in the film, with a directorial debut from Kellen Moore, who also penned the screenplay.
Release.
In April 2020, it was announced Gravitas Ventures had acquired distribution rights to the film, setting a June 19 digital release for the film amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It was made available through video on demand platforms, including Amazon and iTunes.
Reception.
Critical response.
Liz Braun of "AWFJ.org" wrote ""Looks That Kill" begins as a dark comedy, evolves into a romantic teen fable, and suddenly veers off into euthanasia territory. Kind of a tone whiplash situation, but a YA audience will probably find lots to like regardless." Lisa Payne of "RedCarpetCrash.com" said the film had "an interesting premise that didn't really go anywhere". Gwen Ihnat of "The A.V. Club" called it "a quirky take on the teen ailment drama".


Glasspool Trust

R L Glasspool Charity Trust, known as Glasspool Trust, is a British charitable trust established in 1939 by businessman and philanthropist Richard Louveteau Glasspool.
History.
The organisation was founded in 1939 by a wealthy businessman Richard Louveteau Glasspool. Glasspool decided that it would be more cost-effective to establish his own charity, thereby reducing his income tax liabilities.
Mission.
The Trust describes its aim as "the relief of persons who are in need, hardship or distress; or sick, convalescent, disabled or infirm". The Trust assists such individuals and families by providing grants of financial assistance; providing goods, services and facilities; and making grants to other organisations with similar aims. More than 86% of the grants made in 2012/13 were made to those receiving social welfare benefits.
Controversy.
In 2016, the Trust attracted controversy after selling 63 investment properties it owned in Walthamstow to a newly formed property investment company, which took steps soon after the sale to evict some of the established tenants, and re-sold two of the properties in February 2016. Tenants argued that the Trust had failed to give them an opportunity to purchase the properties they were renting before selling the properties. The Charity Commission subsequently launched an investigation into the sale amid concerns the Trust might have breached obligations to dispose of charity assets for a fair market price. "The Guardian" suggested the terms of the sales meant the charity "could have lost more than £3m, or almost twice the total it awarded in charitable grants last year".
During what was described by "The Guardian" as a 'bad tempered' meeting with the Labour MP for Walthamstow, Stella Creasy, Dr Keith Nunn, the Glasspool Trust Chair of Trustees, was accused by Creasey of making dismissive remarks about the effected tenants. Creasy was reported to have ended the meeting and asked a police officer to escort Nunn out of the Palace of Westminster as he was 'no longer welcome'.


Jainism in Mumbai

Mumbai has one of the largest populations of Jains among all the cities in India. Mumbai also has numerous Jain temples. One of the best known is the Babu Amichand Panalal Adishwarji Jain Temple, Walkeshwar (Malabar Hill).
Jains are among the most prosperous communities in Mumbai, with a number of big businesses owned and industries dominated by them.
On Mahavira Janma Kalyanak of 2019, more than 108 Sanghas of Mumbai together hosted Varghoda which ended at Godiji Parshvanath temple.
Godiji Parshwanath Temple.
The Godiji Parshwanath Temple in Pydhonie is one of the oldest Jain temple in Mumbai, constructed in 1812. The white idol of the "mulnayak" Tirthankar Godi Parshwanatha was brought from an ancient temple at Hamirpur in Rajasthan.
Religious organisations.
The Dakshin Bharat Jain Sabha is a religious and social service organisation of the Jains of South India. The organisation is headquartered at Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India. The association is credited with being one of the first Jain associations to start reform movements among the Jains in modern India. The organisation mainly seeks to represent the interests of the native Jains of Maharashtra (Marathi Jains), Karnataka (Kannada Jains) and Goa.


A Year of the Quiet Sun

A Year of the Quiet Sun () is a 1984 Polish film written and directed by Krzysztof Zanussi and starring Maja Komorowska and Scott Wilson. It tells the story of a romance between a Polish woman and an American soldier in Poland, shortly after WWII.
The film was nominated for 1986's Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film. At the Venice Film Festival, the film was awarded the Golden Lion and Pasinetti Awards.


2008 Greenlandic self-government referendum

A non-binding referendum on Greenland's autonomy was held on 25 November 2008 to support or oppose the Greenland Self-Government Act. It was passed with 75% approval (63% in Nuuk) and a 72% turnout. The non-binding referendum was on expanded home rule in 30 areas, including police, courts, and the coast guard; gave Greenland a say in foreign policy; provided a more definite split of future oil revenue; and made the Greenlandic language the sole official language.
The referendum was announced by Prime Minister Hans Enoksen on 2 January 2008. Enoksen also announced the launch of an information and discussion campaign on the issue of self-government. This included town hall meetings throughout the country.
Background.
Greenland became a Denmark–Norway colony in 1775 and was made a province of Denmark in 1953. In 1979, it was made an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, with a parliament and local control of health care, schools, and social services. In 1985, it withdrew from the then European Economic Community (now known as the European Union) to maintain control of fishing in its waters. There has been some movement towards independence, encouraged by Denmark but held back by Greenland's need for economic subsidies.
A 2003 report from the Commission on Self-Governance outlined six possibilities for the future of Greenland. These were:
Proposal and expansion of home rule.
Although it was a non-binding referendum, the Danish parliament supported it and promised to honour its results. The expansion of home rule took effect on 21 June 2009, the 30th anniversary of the establishment of home rule, when the Act on Greenland Self-Government took affect.
Greenland gained greater control of the police, coast guard, and courts. In addition, the Greenlandic language became the sole official language.
Oil revenues will be divided differently, with the first 75 million Danish kroner (US$13.1 million) going to Greenland, and the remaining revenue split evenly with Denmark.
Greenland's subsidies from Copenhagen will be phased out. The subsidy is currently 3.5 billion kroner ($588 million) per year, which accounts for about one-third of the island's gross domestic product of 10.5 billion kroner and almost two-thirds of the total income of the home rule government of 6.1 billion kroner.
Greenlanders are also recognized as a separate group of people under international law.
The changes were met with skepticism from some Danish politicians. Per Ørum Jørgensen, who helped negotiate the agreement, said that it may be "30–40 years" before Greenland is ready to take charge of itself. MP Søren Espersen from the Danish People's Party controversially claimed that Greenlanders had been "brainwashed with unprecedented propaganda" and that he believed "huge problems are waiting in the future".
Results.
The referendum passed. The Greenlandic government was pursuing future independence, and the result was seen by some observers as a "major step" in that direction.


Giovanni Piana

Giovanni Piana (April 5, 1940 – February 24, 2019) was an Italian philosopher. He taught theoretical philosophy at the University of Milan from 1970 to 1999.
He was a disciple of Enzo Paci and wrote his dissertation on Husserl's unpublished works.
His philosophical position is characterised by the concept of phenomenology ("phenomenological structuralism") influenced by Husserl, Wittgenstein, and Bachelard. Some indications about phenomenological structuralism are contained in the article: "Phenomenology as philosophical method" and in "The idea of a phenomenological structuralism".
His thought was oriented towards the philosophy of knowledge, the philosophy of music, and the fields of perception and imagination.


The Sportswriter

The Sportswriter is a 1986 novel by Richard Ford, and the first of four books of fiction to feature the protagonist Frank Bascombe. In "The Sportswriter", Bascombe is portrayed as a failed novelist turned sportswriter who undergoes an existential crisis following the death of his son. The sequel to "The Sportswriter" is the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Independence Day", published in 1995. After the third installment in the series, titled "The Lay of the Land", was published in 2006, the three books together are sometimes identified as "The Bascombe Trilogy." Ford called them "The Bascombe Novels." In 2014, a fourth book in the series, titled "Let Me Be Frank With You," was published.
In 2007, HBO announced that it was adapting the books into a six-hour HBO miniseries, but HBO subsequently dropped their option, and any future plans to adapt the novels for the screen have been shelved.
When it appeared in 1986, "The Sportswriter" was Ford's third published novel.
"The Sportswriter" is mentioned several times in Lee Ranaldo's "JRNLS80s".
Awards and nominations.
The novel was named one of "Time" magazine's five best books of 1986 and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. In 2005, "Time" also named it one of the 100 best novels in English from 1923 to 2010.


Howard Foundation (UK)

The Howard Foundation is a charitable trust with the aims of establishing and maintaining scientific research into nutriceuticals and in assisting the construction and maintenance of buildings at Downing College Cambridge University.
History.
In 1982 Dr Alan Howard, together with his son Jon, formed the Howard Foundation into which all royalties and profits from worldwide sales of the Cambridge Diet and other intellectual property rights were paid. The Foundation currently focuses on biomedical research and philanthropy. The Foundation sponsors research into human nutrition and conferences on obesity, prostate cancer, creatine, and on macular carotenoids.
Philanthropy.
The Foundation has made significant donations to buildings and other works at Downing College Cambridge University. In particular, the Howard Building (1986) and the Howard Lodge (1991) both designed by Quinlan Terry and the Howard Theatre designed by Quinlan and Francis Terry (2009). The Foundation sponsored the book by Tim Rawle: "A Classical Adventure – the Architectural History of Downing College, Cambridge".
The Foundation also made donations to the Waterford Institute of Technology towards the construction of the Howard Laboratory (an analytical chemical laboratory) and the Howard Gate at Carriganore House, on the west campus of the Waterford Institute of Technology.
Conferences.
In May 2010, the Foundation sponsored a conference on "Creatine in Health, Medicine and Sport", held at Downing College, Cambridge. This was followed by the first Macular Carotenoids Conference also held at Downing College in July 2011 which led to a book, "Carotenoids and Retinal Disease". Further conferences on Macular Carotenoids at Downing College were held in 2013 and 2015. The BON (Brain and Ocular Nutrition) Conference is to be held 11-13 July 2018 again at Downing College, Cambridge.
Research.
Since 2009 the Foundation has sponsored numerous clinical trials conducted by the Waterford Institute of Technology, and has funded numerous Fellowships, the principal bequest being a Chair in Human Nutrition funded permanently by it from October 2016, the current holder being Professor John Nolan PhD.


Benjamin Hudson

Benjamin T. Hudson is an American medievalist based at Pennsylvania State University in State College, Pennsylvania. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree at Pennsylvania State University, received his Masters at University College, Dublin, and his D.Phil. at Worcester College, Oxford. He specializes in the history of Celtic-speaking peoples in the British Isles in the Early and High Middle Ages, and in the Norse-Gaelic Irish Sea region of the same period.


Metamorphism (computer science)


Buy Now, Die Later

Buy Now, Die Later (formerly Death and Senses) is a 2015 Filipino supernatural psychological horror suspense film directed by Randolph Longjas starring Vhong Navarro, Alex Gonzaga, Rayver Cruz, John Lapus, Lotlot de Leon, TJ Trinidad and Janine Gutierrez. It is an official entry to the 2015 Metro Manila Film Festival.
The film is about a compendium of five interrelated stories brought together by the proprietor of a curio shop selling unusual items. Santi (portrayed by TJ Trinidad), who says the role is "kind of demonic". Each of the character's story is weaved around the five senses – sense of sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste.
The film's official trailer was released on Dec 4, 2015.
Plot.
"Masid" (Sight).
The story starts with Odie (Vhong Navarro), a photojournalist. He is a desperate vlogger who wants to be as famous as his father, who was a renowned photographer. After failing to get the controversial picture of a congressman and his mistress Natasha, his boss gives him an ultimatum that if he fails to submit a picture, he will be fired.
He confides his problem to his best friend Ato (Rayver Cruz), who is a successful owner of a restaurant. Odie walks by himself and comes across an antique shop he had never seen before. He goes in and is greeted by Santi (TJ Trinidad), the eccentric owner of the antique shop. Odie's attention is caught when he sees a portrait of a beautiful woman which he recognized was the work of his late father. He offers him a camera that will solve all of his problems, but in return, he had to sign a contract that states:
A slash on his hands soon appear.
Odie reached the peak of his career when Natasha, the congressman's mistress is found by Odie himself, dead in a car. He takes pictures and uploads it to his vlog, gaining him his wanted fame. Then the congressman soon dies, escalating his fame even more when he also found the body. Odie felt guilt when he realizes the happenings are not normal.
His camera then reveals another victim and Odie attempts to save the next life. He goes to a parking space where he believes the next victim would be. He is then struck in the back by Chloe Narciso (Alex Gonzaga). Odie grabs the blunt object from her. He then realized that all along, the camera has been possessing him and he was the one who killed Natasha and the congressman. Odie turns violent and started to move towards Chloe. In fright, Chloe attempts to escape only to be run over by a car.
"Dinig" (Hearing).
The scene then jumps to Chloe walking into a talk show. Chloe is a well-known singer who was pushed to fame by her ambitious mother Maita (Lotlot de Leon). Before her fame, she was really a frustrated and terrible singer. Maita then told her to "visit" someone she knew who could help her. The two then went to Santi's shop and asked for his help. Santi offered Chloe a phone which will make her famous and grant all her wishes, but she was asked to sign a contract that states:
As with Odie, a slash then appeared on her hands.
One night, Chloe attempted to record herself playing the guitar while singing. As she knew was really terrible at doing so, she decided to watch the whole video; to her surprise, she sounded amazing. This led to her being one of the most recognized singers in town. Some time later, what seemed to be a virtual assistant mobile app popped into her screen, and it started asking Chloe questions that were impossible to be said by a mere app. She started talking to it like a real person and it always tells her everything about everyone.
When a blind item rumor against Chloe spread all over the internet, the app warned her that it was done by her friends, one of which included Natasha (the congressman's mistress), whom she confronted in a restaurant. The app asked Chloe what she wants to do, and wished Natasha dead. Natasha, in reality was killed when a vlogger (Odie) revealed it in his website.
After telling her story, Chloe breaks down and the talk show was forced to cut. Suddenly, the voice of the app began bothering her again. She runs to her dressing room and was followed by Maita. The two have a heated argument when Chloe told her she destroyed the phone; Maita walks out. To Chloe's fright, the phone came back, good as new, and threatens Chloe that it would victimize her mother next. Chloe runs out of the dressing and into the parking lot where she was confronted by someone before being run over by a car.
"Sarap" (Taste).
Ato is then seen in front of a Gothic-looking house, delivering food from his restaurant. It was raining hard and he is bothered by the odd behavior of the family. When he was forced to stay due to the bad weather, he seemed more and more uncomfortable. The family was speaking about cannibalism. When the patriarch (Jason Gainza) arrived home, he asked Ato to help him carry a body bag inside the house. Reluctant and frightened about it, he goes along. He felt relieved and relaxed when the body bag contained a roasted pig.
He realized that the family's youngest member was having a horror-themed birthday party, hence the creepiness he had felt. When the family started to eat the cake Ato made and delivered, they all felt sick and began to vomit, eventually dying.
It was revealed that Ato deliberately poisoned them. Before he was a successful restaurant owner, he consulted Santi for help. Santi gave him a small handbook with potion recipes, but he needed to sign a contract stating that:
As with those before him, a slash appeared on his hands.
He spiked the cake with poison, killing the family. The secret of his restaurant success was that he uses human meat to serve his customers, adding concoctions from his book to make it extra special.
"Halimuyak" (Smell).
The scene jumps to a gay man named Pippa (John Lapus) on an eyeball date with a good-looking man (Markki Stroem). Realizing Pipa was gay, he left him in rage. Pippa became really conscious about how he looks and was always teased by men for him being a homosexual. He also ends up jealous with his sister Larra (Cai Cortez) when Pippa's childhood crush Aldo (Manuel Chua) harbors feelings for her.
One night, Pippa is accosted by drunk men. He comes across Santi's shop, who offers to help him. He gives him a bottle of perfume that will make him attractive to all men, but he needed to sign a contract with the following terms:
Everyday, Pippa is chased through town by handsome men. One day, he goes to a restaurant to meet with the Chloe Narciso Fans Club. Pippa then sees Ato (his high school classmate) talking to Odie about something important. Pippa then spots Maita in the restaurant with Chloe, confronting Natasha. As a big fan, Pippa asked Maita if he can have Chloe's autograph, to which Maita gladly obliged.
As time runs by, Pippa becomes abusive with his perfume, taking more than one spray a day, and has an army of men as slaves. Larra becomes worried about her brother. When Larra and Aldo (along with his other male friends) went out for the night, Pippa confronted them and poured all the perfume on himself; the men then became voracious zombies and chased Pippa all around town. He was then cornered as dozens of zombies surrounded him.
"Kanti" (Touch).
After Maita and Chloe's fight in the dressing room, Maita went back to Santi's shop and asked him to help Chloe be herself again. Santi rebuffed her pleas and instead handed her an age-reversing cream, implying that what Maita really wanted was to be beautiful again. She was asked to sign a contract that says:
It was revealed that Maita was the beautiful lady in the portrait Odie saw earlier. Her fame stopped when she was raped, with Chloe as the child. Maita (Janine Gutierrez), now looking young and beautiful, ventured into a bar to attempt reconciling with Chloe. She was helped in by the man whom Pippa was seen with earlier. She completely forgets about Chloe and started to party hard.
Suddenly, bugs began bothering her skin. In fright, she ran out of the bar but was stopped by the good-looking man and started to sexually assault her. At the parking area, Odie came to his senses and started to look for Chloe. He saw her unconscious body on the floor and shouted at the car driver to help him get Chloe to the hospital. The driver was revealed to be Ato, who is determined to make Chloe his next course in the restaurant. Ato points a gun at Odie and before he could kill him, a weakly Chloe bludgeons Ato unconscious. Odie then accompanies Chloe to the hospital to treat her injuries.
Meanwhile, Pippa was still being chased by the undead men, but he comes across a dumpster. He dives in the dumpster to hide his smell from the perfume. As the zombies began to retreat, Pippa spots Maita being molested. He saves Maita from the man and the two recognized each other, having previously met at the restaurant. Pippa and Maita then go to the hospital and came across Odie and Chloe. Realizing they were all cursed by Santi, they decided to finish it once and for all.
Odie concluded that if they exchange their respective products from Santi's shop, they will be able to destroy it without harm. Odie gave Chloe his camera and she gave him her cellphone. Maita gave Pippa her cream and Pippa gave her his perfume. The four confronted Santi when Ato also arrived still with his violent approach. Santi then put them all into a trance as he revealed himself to be the Devil and revealed that their lives are payment for the products they bought. Ato, not being a part of Odie's plan, was killed by Santi. Chloe was threatened by Santi but before he could kill her, Chloe destroyed the camera. Her ears soon bleed. Pippa was almost killed by Santi when he impersonated his sister Larra but Pippa destroyed Maita's cream and escaped. Maita was then surrounded by thousands and thousands of bugs but was able to destroy Pippa's perfume allowing her to escape as well. Odie was confronted by Santi. He was able to smash Chloe's phone before being stabbed in the eye.
In the real world, Chloe couldn't hear anything, Odie was blind and Pippa became sensitive to smell. They destroyed the remaining things of Santi and Maita sacrificed herself to burn the contracts and the store. Maita and Santi were then killed in the fire.
Sometime later, Chloe, now deaf, was in a press conference, with Pippa being her translator. After the conference, they met with a blind Odie. As the three boarded Chloe's van, Santi, who was revealed to be still alive, was seen in front of his closed store selling a new batch of items to a new batch of people.


Judith Crist

Judith Crist (; May 22, 1922 – August 7, 2012) was an American film critic and academic. She appeared regularly on the "Today" show from 1964 to 1973 and was among the first full-time female critics for a major American newspaper, in her case, "The New York Herald Tribune". She was the founding film critic at "New York" magazine and became known to most Americans as a critic at the weekly magazine "TV Guide" and at the morning TV show "Today". She appeared in one film, Woody Allen's dramatic-comedy film "Stardust Memories" (1980), and was the author of various books, including "The Private Eye, The Cowboy and the Very Naked Girl; Judith Crist's TV Guide to the Movies"; and "Take 22: Moviemakers on Moviemaking".
Early life and education.
Crist was born Judith Klein in The Bronx, borough of New York City, New York, the daughter of Helen (née Schoenberg), a librarian, and Solomon Klein, a manufacturing jeweler. She attended Morris High School in The Bronx, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Hunter College and a Master of Science degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Career.
After graduating from Columbia in 1945, she was employed by "The New York Herald Tribune" as a reporter, film critic, and arts editor for 22 years, and she also worked as "TV Guide"'s resident film critic. After the "Tribune" ceased publication, she was named the first film critic at "New York" magazine. Upon her death, "New York" magazine film critic David Edelstein said, "Judith Crist helped set the stage for "New York" Magazine as a place for popular and yet essentially serious and wide-ranging film criticism. She was tart, sensible, and irresistibly readable, and she cut a colorful figure on the festival circuit, building bridges between filmmakers and audiences in her famous weekend seminars."
She was an adjunct professor at Columbia's School of Journalism (1958-2008). There, she taught a course called “Personal and Professional Style.” Her students included film critics Kenneth Turan, David Denby of "The New Yorker" and "New York Times" critics Anna Kisselgoff and Margo Jefferson. In 1963, she was awarded an Alumni Award by the Journalism School Alumni Association.
In April 5, 2008, the school presented her with its Founder's Award on her completion of 50 years as a faculty member. She taught until just before her death. She was a longtime member of the Executive Committee of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Alumni Association and served three terms as President of the Alumni Association during the 1960s.
In 1948, Crist took part in Dr. Fredric Wertham's attack on comic books and published an article in Collier's magazine quoting Wertham and calling for action against violent, sadistic, and provocative comic books which Crist perceived to be affecting the morality of American youth.
Like Dwight Macdonald, Crist reviewed films for the "Today" show in the 1960s. She conducted the Judith Crist Film Weekends at Tarrytown House, in Tarrytown, New York, from 1971 to 2006.
She wrote the article "Tribute to a Partnership", a tribute to Rodgers and Hammerstein, in 1965, for a booklet that accompanied RCA Victor's original LP release of the soundtrack album of "The Sound of Music". However, the article has not been reprinted for any of the CD releases of the soundtrack.
She cited Charlie Chaplin's "The Gold Rush" as her "first and to-this-day-most-vivid film experience."
Personal life.
Judith married William B. Crist in 1947, changing her last name. Her husband died in 1993. Judith Crist died at age 90 in her Manhattan home.
She was the mother of Steven Crist, a thoroughbred handicapper and publisher of the "Daily Racing Form".


D-Beam

The D-Beam was originally manufactured by Interactive Light, as a stand-alone unit, around 1996. It was then soon purchased by Roland Corporation, becoming trademarked and rebranded as D-Beam Controller for their own music equipment.
Background.
After being acquired by Roland, the D-Beam Controller was introduced on a larger scale through the Roland MC-505 in 1998, was further incorporated into a large number of Roland's grooveboxes, workstations, keyboards, and digital samplers over the years. The D-Beam is an interface that can control and manipulate sounds by hand movements interacting with an infrared beam of light. The controller is usually mounted in the equipment's panel facing upwards, and senses the performer's hand (or other body part) at a height of up to 15" (~40 cm) or so above the device. Although controlled in a similar manner to a theremin, the operating principles are fundamentally different; the theremin uses Capacitive sensing.


R. Geraint Gruffydd

Robert Geraint Gruffydd, FLSW, FBA (9 June 1928 – 24 March 2015) was a scholar of Welsh language and literature. From 1970 to 1979, he was Professor of Welsh Language and Literature at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and was made Emeritus Professor in 1993.
Early life.
Gruffydd was born on 9 June 1928 in Tal-y-bont, Ardudwy, Wales. He was a graduate of Bangor University and Jesus College, Oxford. He commenced his studies at Oxford in 1948.
Career.
During his academic career he held three notable offices:
After his academic retirement in 1993 he was President of the International Congress of Celtic Studies until 2003 and he also served as Vice-President of University of Wales, Aberystwyth. In 1999 he succeeded Professor J. E. Caerwyn Williams as Consultant Editor of Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru, the leading Welsh dictionary.
He wrote books and chapters on a wide range on subjects in all periods of Welsh literature, from his treatment of the earliest Welsh poetry through the work of the medieval poet, Dafydd ap Gwilym, and the Methodist hymn-writer, William Williams Pantycelyn, to 20th-century writers such as Saunders Lewis.
Personal life.
Gruffydd's father, Moses Griffith, was the first Treasurer of Plaid Cymru.
He was a friend of Sheldon Vanauken at Oxford, and was mentioned in Vanauken's memoir A Severe Mercy.
Honours.
Gruffydd was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) in 1991. He was a Founding Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.
Works.
A full bibliography of his publications to 1995 by Huw Walters is included in "Beirdd a Thywysogion", ed. B. F. Roberts & M. E. Owen (1996)
As an editor of medieval Welsh poetry texts, he was general editor of the "Cyfres Beirdd y Tywysogion" series and has contributed to various volumes in that series and in the "Cyfres Beirdd yr Uchelwyr" series. These include:


Celeste West

Celeste (Celestia) West (November 24, 1942 – January 3, 2008) was an American librarian and lesbian author, known for her alternative viewpoints in librarianship and her authorship of books about lesbian sex and polyfidelity. She herself was polyamorous.
Biography.
West was born in Pocatello, Idaho. She earned her BA in journalism from Portland State University, and her master's in Library Service from Rutgers University in 1968. She then moved to San Francisco, where she worked at the headquarters of the Bay Area Reference Center at the San Francisco Public Library. She was the second editor of its magazine, "Synergy", which won two ALA awards but lost its funding in 1973 after West published an unflattering photograph of Richard Nixon.
In 1972, West co-founded Booklegger Press, the first woman-owned American library publisher with her partner at the time, librarian Sue Critchfield, and Valerie Wheat. The press's first publication was an anthology edited by West and Elizabeth Katz entitled "Revolting Librarians". The anthology, which described biases in contemporary library practices and proposed alternative library models, sold 15,000 copies in three years. She also published the feminist library journal "Booklegger Magazine" from 1973 through 1976. Between 1989 and 2006, West worked as the library director at the San Francisco Zen Center.
In 1977, West became an associate of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press (WIFP). WIFP is an American nonprofit publishing organization. The organization works to increase communication between women and connect the public with forms of women-based media.


Michael Maestlin

Michael Maestlin (also Mästlin, Möstlin, or Moestlin) (30 September 1550 – 26 October 1631) was a German astronomer and mathematician, known for being the mentor of Johannes Kepler. He was a student of Philipp Apian and was known as the teacher who most influenced Kepler. Maestlin was considered to be one of the most significant astronomers between the time of Copernicus and Kepler.
Early Life and Family.
Maestlin was born on September 30, 1550 in Göppingen, a small town in Southern Germany, about 50 kilometers east of Tübingen. The son of Jakob Maestlin and Dorothea Simon, Michael Maestlin was born into a Protestant family. Maestlin had an older sister named Elisabeth and a younger brother named Matthäus. The original family name of the Maestlin was Leckher or Legecker and they lived in the village of Boll, just a few kilometers south of Göppingen (Decker 103). In his autobiography, Maestlin recounts how the family name of Legecker became Mästlin. He claims that one of his ancestors was given this as a nickname when an old blind woman touched him and exclaimed “Wie bist du doch so mast und feist! Du bist ein rechter Mästlin!” This roughly translates to “How are you so large and plump? You rightly are a fatso!"
Maestlin married Margarete Grüniger on 9 April 1577. There is little information on his children from this marriage. However, it is known that he had at least three sons, Ludwig, Michael and Johann Georg, and at least three daughters, Margareta, Dorothea Ursula and Anna Maria. In 1588, Margarete died at the age of 37, potentially due to complications from child birth. This untimely death left several children under Maestlin's care and could have influenced his decision to remarry the following year. In 1589, Maestlin married Margarete Burkhardt. Maestlin and Burkhardt had eight children together. In a 1589 letter to Johannes Kepler, Maestlin recounts how the death of his month-old son, August, deeply troubled him.
Education.
In 1565, when Michael was around 15 years old, he was sent to the nearby Klosterschule in Königbronn. In 1567, Michael transferred to a similar school in Herrenalb. Upon finishing his education at Herrenalb, Maestlin enrolled in university, matriculating on 3 December 1568 at the University of Tübingen. When Maestlin entered the university in 1569 he did so as one of the beneficiaries of a scholarship from the duke of Württemberg. He studied theology at the Tübinger Stift, which was founded in 1536 by Duke Ulrich von Württemberg, and was regarded as an elite institution of education. He obtained his Baccalaureate in 1569 and his master's degree in 1571. After receiving his masters degree Maestlin remained at the university as a student in theology and as a tutor in the theological seminary church located in Württemberg. In letters sent to Maestlin regarding his qualifications, it was revealed that he graduated summa cum laude and ranked third in his graduating class of twenty. During the time he spent on earning his master's degree, Maestlin studied under Philipp Apian. It is not certain, but it is believed that Apian taught courses on Frisius's "Arithmetic", Euclid's "Elements", Proclus's "Sphera", Peurbach's "Theoricae Novae Planetarus", and the proper use of geodetic instruments. Apian's teachings evidently influenced Maestlin's paper on sundials as the contents of this essay involve elements of structured celestial globes and maps.
In 1584, Maestlin was named Professor of Mathematics at Tübingen. He was elected Dean of the Arts Faculty for the following terms: 1588-89, 1594–95, 1600–01, 1607–09, 1610–11, 1615, 1623, and 1629. Maestlin taught trigonometry and astronomy. It was very likely that he used his book "Epitome Astronomiae" in his lectures.
In 1576 Maestlin had been sent to be a deacon at the Lutheran church in Backnang, a town about 30 kilometers Northwest of Göppingen. While there, he observed a comet that appeared in 1577. Tycho Brahe in Denmark observed the same comet, and from observations of its parallax, both Tycho and Maestlin were able to determine that the comet must be above the moon, contrary to the astronomical theories of both Aristotle and Ptolemy. Maestlin concluded that, in the Copernica system, the comet must lie in a region between the sphere of Venus and that of the Earth and Moon. Maestlin served as the Duke's chief scientific adviser from 1577-1580.
Career.
Maestlin studied theology, mathematics, and astronomy/astrology at the University of Tübingen—the Tübinger Stift. (Tübingen was part of the Duchy of Württemberg.) He graduated as magister in 1571 and became in 1576 a Lutheran deacon in Backnang, continuing his studies there.
In 1580 he became a professor of mathematics, first at the University of Heidelberg, then at the University of Tübingen, where he taught for 47 years from 1583. In 1582 Maestlin wrote a popular introduction to astronomy. While teaching at the university Maetslin tho a Copernican taught traditional Ptolemaic astronomy in his courses. However, Maestlin did present Copernican's heliocentric astronomy to his advanced students.
Among his students was Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) who considered Maestlin not only a teacher, but also a lifelong mentor. Although he primarily taught the traditional geocentric Ptolemaic view of the solar system, Maestlin was also one of the first to accept and teach the heliocentric Copernican view. Maestlin corresponded with Kepler frequently and played a sizable part in his adoption of the Copernican system. Galileo Galilei's adoption of heliocentrism was also attributed to Maestlin.
The first known calculation of the (inverse) golden ratio as a decimal of "about 0.6180340" was written in 1597 by Maestlin in a letter to Kepler.
Michael Maestlin was one of the very few astronomers of the sixteenth century that fully adopted the Copernican hypothesis, that proposed that the Earth was a planet and that it moved around the sun. 1570 he acquired an edition of his main work De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (his edition with many commentaries is in Schaffhausen). Maestlin reacted to the thought of distant stars spinning around a fixed earth every 24 hours and taught everything that he could about Copernicus to Kepler.
In November 1572 Maeslin and many others around the world witnessed a strange light in the sky that we now know was a galactic supernova. Maeslin attempted to explain this phenomenon in his tract entitled Demonstratio astronomica loci stellae novae, tum respectu centri mundi, tum respectu signiferi & aequinoctialis. This tract of Maeslin’s was a short mathematical and  astronomical appendix detailing the nova and was published in Tübingen in March or April of 1573.This nova was called the Nova of Cassiopeia and was the first galactic supernova to be observed in Europe. Maeslin’s treatise attracted the attention of Tycho Brahe, who reproduced it in its entirety, along with his criticism, in one of the best known publications on the nova, in his posthumously printed Astronomiae instauratae progymnasmata. Maestlin's treatise is available in manuscript format in Stuttgart and in Marburg.
The programme of Maestlin’s treatise of 1573 over the supernova was practically identical to that of Tycho Brahe's longer treatise De stella nova, which published in the same year two or three months later. Tycho’s Progymnasmata, was also nearly identical to Maeslin’s treaties, which was ﬁnished latter in 1592 but published only in 1602, a year after Tycho Brahe's death.
Maestlin in following the copernicium solar system believed that the ‘movement of commutation’ (or ‘parallactic motion’) of the superior planets, those being planets with a farther distance from the sun compared to the earth, and the lack of parallactic motion in the nova meant that the nova had to occur outside the planetary rings and in the ring of fixed stars. This nova occurring in the ring of fixed stars contradicted the previous understandings of Ptolemaic and Aristotelian. Maestlin also concluded that the nova helped to prove the heliocentric solar system as he said unless people concede that comets can be placed in the stellar orb, whose altitude is immense and whose extension we do not know, to which also the distance between the Sun and the Earth is incomparable, as witnessed by Copernicus.
In 1580, Maestlin observed another comet and began to gather up some ideas on how it formed. Nine years later in 1589, Maestlin shared his conclusions about the appearance of the comet with his friend the astrologer, Helisaeus Roeslin, who said that the moon was located in front of the Great Comet of 1577, Also this same year, Maestlin published a dissertation on the fundamental principles of astronomy and the first edition of his book "Epitome Astronomiae" (Epitome of Astronomy). "Epitome Astonomiae" consisted of six editions and used works like Ptolemy’s famous geocentric model to create his descriptions of astronomy.
The preface in the 1596 republication of Rheticus' Narratio Prima was also written by Maestlin. This preface was an introduction to the work of Copernicus. Additionally, Maestlin made many contributions to tables and diagrams in Kepler's "Mysterium Cosmographicum". Kepler's publication of "Mysterium Cosmographicum" was supervised by Maestlin, in which he added his own appendix to the publication over Copernican planetary theory with help from Erasmus Reinhold's Prutenic Tables. A discussion of the great sphere and the lunar sphere, as well as more discussion and conclusions to his descriptions of the Copernican planetary theory was also added by Maestlin in Kepler's book.
Maestlin and Kepler communicated through a series of letters about Kepler’s book the "Mysterium Cosmographim" in which Maestlin added his appendix “On the Dimensions of the Heavenly Circles and Spheres, according to the Prutenic tables after the theory of Nicolaus Copernicus” This appendix contained a set of planetary distances in addition to a method of deriving them from the Prutenic tables. Maestlin also added his own understanding of Nicolaus Copernicus’ geometry to Kepler's book. When. Maestlin and Kepler were communicating through letters regarding Kepler's book the discussed such topics such as the inaccuracy of the values that Copernicus used when calculating the spheres of the cosmos.
With the help of Maeslin in 1595, Kepler believed that he had discovered the relationship between the planets period and the distance from the sun. He did so by first assuming equal velocity of each planet and then observing that the planets did not just revolve just according to the length of their radii. Kepler observed that the sun exerted a force that was progressively attenuated as planets are farther and farther away from the sun itself. Maeslin even provided the geometry to help visualize Kepler’s theory of the sun force and its effects of the other planets.
While frequent in communication with Kepler through the form of letters during the years 1594 to 1600, Maestlin appeared to quit the dialogue with his former student. Kepler, eager to keep the conversation alive, wrote more letters to which he would receive no response. This lasted between the years of 1600 to 1605. It is said that Maestlin’s period of silence ensued due to his fear that Kepler would publish their letters of correspondence. There have been other reasons speculated as to why Maestlin cut off communication with his disciple Kepler including a personal crisis in reaction to rumors of his own suicide. Kepler, frustrated with his teacher’s refusal to continue their written communication, complained in a letter dated December 14, 1604, to respond about his thoughts on the nova recently discovered and highly discussed. To not write about this event would to Kepler make Maestlin guilty of “crime of deserting astronomy”. Maestlin finally began talking again the month after this letter, around the end of January 1605. In this letter he accomplished several things. He first explained and gave reason to his silence as being because there was nothing more of use to add to the prior explanations concerning the questions Kepler had addressed to him. In regard to the nova, he deduced that it was in fact just a star that had previously not been discovered or noticed.
Astronomy.
While Maestlin had many interests like calendar reform and mathematics, he was above all, an astronomer. He spent much time researching the sun, moon, and eclipses. His 1596 work, "Disputatio de Eclipsibus" is almost entirely about the sun and the moon and is often referred to in Kepler's 1604 work, "Astronomiae pars optica ." In 1587, Maestlin published a manuscript entitled "Tabula Motus Horarii" in which he gives the daily motion of the sun in hours and minutes with its positions in two-minute intervals. There are a few other tables he published that gives equivalent information but in degrees, minutes, and seconds.
Maestlin is also responsible for adding an appendix to Kepler's "Mysterium" and, based on correspondence with Kepler, which he had frequently, he is known to have been more involved in the editing process of its creation. Maestlin and his former student, Kepler, have been known to have had frequent correspondence via letters, however, there was a time when Maestlin stopped responding to Keplers messages. When he finally started responding to Kepler's letters again, he explained his silence in that he wouldn't have been able to add anything of meaning to Kepler's requests for help with his work, however, this Maestlin would prove his own statement wrong by being greatly involved in Kepler's work in the future. Maestlin was involved in Kepler's "Mysterium" in that he added diagrams of his views on the order of the planets and the spacing between them to clarify his point. This was the first time such a thing had been done. These very diagrams are what caused a misunderstanding that lasted over centuries. Maestlin did not make it clear whether the planets were supposed to be moving on the lines of the circles that were supposed to represent his planetary system, or whether they were meant to be moving within the spaces drawn by Maestlin. This led to many people believing that the planetary system suggested by Copernicus included a smaller number of modifications (such as epicycles) than that of Ptolemy, when the very opposite was the case. Despite the confusion these diagrams caused, Maestlin contributed greatly to Kepler's "Mysterium", which even lead Kepler so far as to acknowledge Maestlin's co-authoring the book in a letter Maestlin.
Maestlin’s added appendix also contained more than just the set of planetary distances and their methods of derivation from the tables of corrections. On top of this, he included an assessment of the Copernican models, including his understanding of the geometry behind these models for the earth, moon, and other planets. In what would be the final form of the appendix Maestlin also discusses his student, Kepler, and the quality of his findings and knowledge on the subject of astronomy.
Maestlin’s treatise on the nova of 1572 featured many aspects extremely similar to Tycho de Brahe’s much longer treatise on the same nova titled De Stella Nova. Both were published the same year, 1602, even though Maestlin’s was thought to be written much earlier. In this treatise, Maestlin focused extensively on the mathematics behind the new star’s exact location.
In accordance to the Copernican view of the heavens, Johannes Kepler calculated there to be empty spaces between the planetary orbs of the heavens, and Maestlin suggested that these empty spaces might be where comets frequently occur. This sort of revelation was only possible under the assumption of a heliocentric universal organization. Maestlin is believed to have come to this heliocentric view after observing the path of a comet in 1577. When that comet appeared, Maestlin, alongside with the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe were the first people who actively tried to calculate its path in a more complex way than simply track its path in the sky. Tycho Brahe and Maestlin in tracking the comet deduced that the comet was not only travelling across the sky but it was going through Aristotle's and Ptolemy's solid geocentric orbs suggesting that the spheres of planets were not solid as previous astronomers believed.
In 1604, Maestlin was one of the first astronomers able to observe the 1604 Supernova (later dubbed Kepler's Supernova) on 9 October 1604. He made his observations visually without instruments and took intense personal note of his observations, however, did not immediately publish them. Instead, be began working on a treatise, entitled "Consideratio Astronomica inusitatae Novae et prodigiosae Stellae, superiori 1604 anno, sub initium Octobris, iuxta Eclipticam in signo Sagittarii vesperi exortae, et adhuc nunc eodem loco lumine corusco lucentis (Astronomical consideration of the extraordinary and prodigious new star that appeared near the ecliptic in the sign of Sagittarius one evening in early October in the preceding year 1604, and continues to shine in the same place with a tremulous light)" with the intent to publish it in the coming years. He began seriously working on the treatise in 1606, however, it was never fully completed.
In 1613, Maestlin obtained his first set of telescopes. In a letter to Kepler, Maestlin says he was unable to view the satellites of Saturn or the phases of Venus, however, he was able to see the moons of Jupiter.
A conference was held in Tubingen (where Maestlin was a professor at the university) in 2000 on Maestlin and his life and works. From these, Gerhard Betsch Gerhard Betsch produced a collective volume on their findings and breakdown of his works as well as a summary of Maestlin’s nachlass, a german word meaning collection of manuscripts, notes, letters, correspondence, etc. left behind when a scholar passes. His nachlass had been kept and preserved among different library archives in both Germany and Austria. Betsch discussed many things in his dissertation including a treatise composed by Maestlin on the Comet of 1618-1619 written completely in German. An important work Betsch failed to mention was Maestlin’s treatise on the Comet of 1604. This work, written completely in Latin this time, was titled Consideratio Astronomica inusitatae Novae et prodigiosae Stellae, superiori 1604 anno, sub initium Octobris, iuxta Eclipticam in signo Sagittarii vesperi exortae, et adhuc nunc eodem loco lumine corusco lucentis. Or in english, Astronomical consideration of the extraordinary and prodigious new star that appeared near the ecliptic in the sign of Sagittarius one evening in early October in the preceding year 1604, and continues to shine in the same place with a tremulous light. The work consisted of a view of his thoughts on the comet and extends just over 12 pages but is problematic to read. There are many cancellations and additions as well as notes and marks on words. The work is also unfinished which leads scholars to believe either Maestlin failed to finish or the final pages have been lost sometime in the past centuries. The best estimated date for his treatise has been noted as April 1605. Maestlin describes the months of February or March when the comet showed signs of decreasing intensity and brightness. He estimated its expiration or disappearance for May of the same year. His reasoning for this estimation came from the fact that the sun would be in opposition with the nova at this point in time. He discusses extensively the intensity and magnitude of the nova and how it differs from the patterns seen in previous novas such as that of 1572. This comet of 1572 was first seen at a certain magnitude and like others before and after it, experienced a constant decreasing throughout its visibility. This comet of 1604 however, maintained a large magnitude for sometime as a first-magnitude star like that of Venus and the other brightest stars.
Christianity.
During the days of Maestlin and Kepler, it could be considered dangerous business to be questioning God's responsibility for creating the world and all the creatures in it, because one might be accused of blasphemy. Maestlin saw things in a different light, however. He was a follower of the Lutheran church, and as such, he believed that studying the natural world and unraveling the laws that embody it will bring humanity closer to God. In Maestlin's opinion, understanding God's creations will enable his children to be closer to him and his divine plan. He further believed that finding out more about the natural world we live in will enrich the knowledge we have of God. Maestlin at one time had even been a Lutheran pastor.
Legacy.
In Jules Verne's "Cinq semaines en ballon (Five Weeks in a Balloon)" the character of Joe, the manservant, is described as enjoying, "in common with Moestlin, Kepler's professor, the rare faculty of distinguishing the satellites of Jupiter with the naked eye, and of counting fourteen of the stars in the group of Pleiades, the remotest of them being only of the ninth magnitude."


List of things named after Johannes Kepler

This is a list of things named after German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571 – 1630).


Strong Poison

Strong Poison is a 1930 mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her fifth featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and the first in which Harriet Vane appears.
Plot.
The novel opens with mystery author Harriet Vane on trial for the murder of her former lover, Phillip Boyes: a writer with strong views on atheism, anarchy, and free love. Publicly professing to disapprove of marriage, he had persuaded a reluctant Harriet to live with him, only to renounce his principles a year later and to propose. Harriet, outraged at being deceived, had broken off the relationship.
Following the separation, the former couple met occasionally, and the evidence at trial points to Boyes suffering from repeated bouts of gastric illness at around the time that Harriet was buying poisons under assumed names, to demonstrate – so she says – a plot point of her novel then in progress.
Returning from a holiday in North Wales in better health, Boyes dined with his cousin, the solicitor Norman Urquhart, before going to Harriet's flat to discuss reconciliation, where he accepted a cup of coffee. That night he was taken fatally ill, apparently with gastritis. Foul play was eventually suspected, and a post-mortem revealed that Boyes died from acute arsenic poisoning. Apart from Harriet's coffee and the evening meal with his cousin (in which every item had been shared by two or more people), the victim appears to have taken nothing else that evening.
The trial results in a hung jury. As a unanimous verdict is required, the judge orders a re-trial. Lord Peter Wimsey visits Harriet in prison, declares his conviction of her innocence and promises to catch the real murderer. Wimsey also announces that he wishes to marry her, a suggestion that Harriet politely but firmly declines.
Working against time before the new trial, Wimsey first explores the possibility that Boyes took his own life. Wimsey's friend, Detective Inspector Charles Parker, disproves that theory. The rich great-aunt of the cousins Urquhart and Boyes, Rosanna Wrayburn, is old and senile, and according to Urquhart (who is acting as her family solicitor) when she dies most of her fortune will pass to him, with very little going to Boyes. Wimsey suspects that to be a lie, and sends his enquiry agent Miss Climpson to get hold of Rosanna's original will, which she does in a comic scene exposing the practices of fraudulent mediums. The will in fact names Boyes as principal beneficiary.
Wimsey plants a spy, Miss Joan Murchison, in Urquhart's office where she finds a hidden packet of arsenic. She also discovers that Urquhart had abused his position as Rosanna's solicitor, embezzled her investments, then lost the money on the stock market. Urquhart realised that he would face inevitable exposure should Rosanna die and Boyes claim his inheritance. However, Boyes was unaware of the will's contents and Urquhart reasoned that if Boyes were to die first, nobody could challenge him as sole remaining beneficiary, and his fraud would not be revealed.
After perusing A.E. Housman's "A Shropshire Lad" (in which the poet likens the reading of serious poetry to King Mithridates' self-immunization against poisons) Wimsey suddenly understands what had happened: Urquhart had administered the arsenic in an omelette which Boyes himself had cooked. Although Boyes and Urquhart had shared the dish, the latter had been unaffected as he had carefully built up his own immunity beforehand by taking small doses of the poison over a long period. Wimsey tricks Urquhart into an admission before witnesses.
At Harriet's retrial, the prosecution presents no case and she is freed. Exhausted by her ordeal, she again rejects Wimsey's proposal of marriage. Wimsey persuades Parker to propose to his sister, Lady Mary, whom he has long admired. The Hon. Freddy Arbuthnot, Wimsey's friend and stock market contact, finds a long-delayed domestic bliss with Rachel Levy, the daughter of the murder victim in "Whose Body?"
Title.
The novel's title appears in some variants of the Anglo-Scottish border ballad "Lord Rendal" whose title character was poisoned by his lover:
<poem>
"What did you have for your breakfast, my own pretty boy?
What did you have for your breakfast, my comfort and joy?"
"A cup of strong poison; mother, make my bed soon,
There's a pain in my heart, and I mean to lie down."
</poem>
Literary significance and criticism.
In their review of crime novels (1989 edition), the US writers Barzun and Taylor called the novel "highest among the masterpieces. It has the strongest possible element of suspense – curiosity "and" the feeling one shares with Wimsey for Harriet Vane. The clues, the enigma, the free-love question, and the order of telling could not be improved upon. As for the somber opening, with the judge's comments on how to make an omelet, it is sheer genius."
The effect of arsenic as described in the novel was accepted by the science of the time, but it is now believed that long-term consumption would in fact have caused many health problems.
Adaptations.
The novel was adapted for a BBC television series in 1987 starring Edward Petherbridge as Lord Peter and Harriet Walter as Harriet Vane.
It has been adapted for radio three times:
Background.
While Sayers was working on her first novel, "Whose Body?", she began a relationship with John Cournos, a writer of Russian-Jewish background. Cournos was an advocate of free love: he did not believe in marriage and did not want children. Cournos pressed Sayers to have sex with contraception, but she, a High Anglican, resisted to avoid what she called "the taint of the rubber shop". Their relationship foundered on the mismatch of expectations, and within two years Cournos – apparently not believing in the ideas he had professed – had married somebody else. Both Sayers and Cournos later wrote fictionalised versions of their relationship: Sayers in "Strong Poison" (1930) and Cournos in "The Devil is an English Gentleman" (1932).