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bittermause · 2 years

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End of the Year Review: A Three Year Act Edition

My birthday is ten days away, so I felt it appropriate to write another one of these End of Year Reviews before then. I decided to summarize the last two years since I didn't bother to do so after 2019. The motivation to do this came from regretting to not record and keep any of my previous EoY posts from 2018 and earlier. As I get older, those said years became a blur to me, which is unfortunate. But I digress, let's start things off with the glorious year of...

2020

The year when Covid went into full swing around the globe, but also the year of brand new beginnings and a year full of insane luck and precise timing. In 2019, literally the day after Christmas, I was offered a job as a 2D Animator for a unique Cybersecurity training firm in CA. After a brief moment of panic and my best friend convincing me to take a chance with this new venture, I agreed to move out west at the end of January, and start my new job in February. For first two weeks I stayed at an AirBnB close to my job, and eventually moved into a makeshift studio space attached to a family home that belonged to a fellow alumni's mother. I never imagined I would finally leave Michigan after 35 years of personal pain and misery, to have a job that actually paid a livable wage that was also synonymous with my career path, and be able to leave behind an environment that put me in a constant state of stress and depression. For the first time in ages, I felt truly blessed. In the Spring, my best friend and I started getting re-acquainted with an old mutual friend of ours that we seldom spoke to in years. We ended up spending weekend nights having three way calls, discussing creative projects and talking about life in general. Never thought I'd re-connect with them in such a way, but now we have a much tighter friendship bond than we did in the past.

2021

After being able to save a lump sum of money thanks to the low rent cost and full on public transit reliance, I finally acquired a car. It didn't take me long to get re-acquainted with driving on the road; not having to deal with the iconic pot holes and rough weather worn terrain made travel cakewalk. I took my time to discover some great local haunts, like GraphAids and Record Outlet. However, in October I realized that my body was out of shape, and when I weighed myself for the first time in forever, I was hitting 231 Lbs. I took it upon myself to start a weight and task log in order to keep track of CICO, and exercise again. ( I was rotating between DDPY, Ringfit and the mini-elliptical) I also acquired a nutritionist to guide me in making better decisions for my diet. When November rolled around, I came to the conclusion that I needed to move out of the little studio space and into my own apartment. While it helped me save a great deal of money, the space was tiny, I missed having a stove, and a washer and dryer nearby. My landlady was oddly avoidant on giving rent history to my soon-to-be apartment management, but come later December I was still able to get approval for a unit. That same month, I announced the end of my long running web comic The Shufflers. It was one of the hardest decisions I had to make, but a necessary one. I still think about whether or not I can pick it back up again, but only time can tell.

2022

No doubt, is perhaps one of my favorite years living out in CA by far. I moved into an upper level apartment, got promoted to Production Supervisor at my workplace, I traveled to Colorado Springs to hang out with my friend, got to visit The Academy Museum with my workmates and explored the Studio Ghibli exhibition, and roamed a little bit around my new city and found some neat shops and restaurants. Along with it's pleasures, also came with great internal struggles; even though I left my old life two years ago, some of the excess baggage was still clinging on to me, and my perception of self was still very unhealthy. I started receiving therapy in June twice a month, in order to help me untangle my past grievances with myself and to help me pull away from the people that caused it. These sessions have been a real eye opener, and keeping a journal based on each one has greatly helped. One of the hardest challenges I've ever faced so far was convincing myself that I am worthy of self love and respect, to undo the belief that I am an unlovable, creep-ass overweight toad, and stop hiding my honest feelings and insecurity behind a goofy ass mask. While it's been a painful journey, the self-discovery was worth it.

Plans for 2023

I'll be continuing my self-improvement goals throughout this year. Since last October, I went down to 202 LBS. Next year I'd like to hit 175 or less. (Ideally I should be aiming for 135 as the ultimate end goal, but that won't be likely for another year and a half). Outside of that, the other goals I'd like to achieve are;

Continue making Animated shorts.

Get contacts, particularly ones I can wear if I decide to go swimming.

Get my hair professionally colored. Been thinking of doing a red violet or dark purple.

Re-work my wardrobe more

Continue exploring and go to more events.

Work on an actual comic project again.

So far for all the goals I've set in previous years, I was able to attain them. I hope that I'll be able to continue that trend in the next year.

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dustedmagazine · 2 years

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Learning to go out again: Jennifer Kelly’s 2022 in review

Meg Baird plays Chicago

Meg Baird calls it “people practice,” the ordinary skills that we require to interact successfully with other human beings. Small talk, the appropriate amount of eye contact, a certain minimal degree of comfort in crowds: these are all things that eroded in the pandemic. And going even further, I’d add we ran short of “leaving your living room practice,” the difficult process of readjusting to unpredictable environments again. I got really bad at that in 2020 and 2021.

So, while 2022 was, in many ways, a joyous return to the norm, it was also deeply uncomfortable. Again and again, I’d show up far too early to shows and avoid talking to strangers. I’d mistake soundchecks for music. I’d get bands mixed up and think the opener was the headliner or at least the second band. It was like I’d never been to a show in my life. But gradually, over a year that was really genuinely rich in opportunities to see live music, I started to remember why I loved it — and how to be marginally less annoying to everyone around me. And I got to see some wonderful performances.

There was James Xerxes Fussell’s intricately re-arranged Americana on the eve of a blizzard in January and Jaimie Branch’s mesmerizing Anteloper just a month or so before she died. Our local festival, Thing in the Spring, once again delivered incredible abundance with Lee Ranaldo, Myriam Gendron, Jeff Parker, Tashji Dorji and others all taking turns on the stage. I experienced the twilight magic of Bill MacKay and Nathan Bowles on a back porch in Northampton as the bats darted overhead, as well as the viscera-stirring low tones of Sarah Davachi at a three-story-tall pipe organ at Epsilon Spires in Brattleboro. I got to see one of my very favorite bands, Oneida, at a club in Greenfield, MA, late in the year. I saw my friend Eric Gagne’s band Footings expand Bonny Prince Billy’s songs into epic, twanging bravado. Yo La Tengo came to my tiny little town and tore the place down. In Chicago for my birthday weekend, I got a chance to hear Meg Baird and Chris Forsyth at a whiskey distillery on the Chicago River. It was a great year. I’m so glad I was there for it.

It was also an exceptional year for recorded music as, honestly, it always is. Here are the records I enjoyed the most in 2022, but don’t pay too much attention to the numbers. The order could change tomorrow, and I may very well discover more favorites in other people’s lists. (We’ll have a Slept On feature at some point early in 2023.) I’ve written a little bit about the top ten, but you can find longer reviews of most of them in the Dusted archives. I’ve linked these where available.

1. Winged Wheel—No Island (12XU): An underground-all-star remote collaboration melds the hard punk jangle of Rider/Horse’s Cory Plump, the unyielding percussion of Fred Thomas, the radiant guitar textures of Matthew J. Rolin and the ethereal vocal atmospheres of Matchess’ Whitney Johnson in a driving, enveloping otherworld. Just gorgeous.

2. Oneida—Success (Joyful Noise): The best band of the aughts has dabbled in all manner of droning, experimental forms in recent years, but with Success, they return to basics. “Beat Me to the Punch” and “I Wanna Hold Your Electric Hand” are gleeful bangers. “Paralyzed” is a keyboard pulsing, beat-rattling psychedelic dreamworld. Success is Oneida’s best album since Secret Wars and maybe ever. (I wrote the one-sheet for Success, but I would feel this way regardless.)

3. Cate Le Bon—Pompeii (Drag City): Eerie, madcap Pompeii refracts pandemic alienation through the lens of ancient disaster, floating narcotic imagery atop herky-jerk rhythms. Abstract and experimental, but also sublimely pop, Pompeii haunts and charms in equal measure.

4. Destroyer—Labyrinthitis (Merge): Dan Bejar is always interesting, but the COVID lockdown seems to have shaken him loose a bit. Labyrinthitis is typically arch, elliptical and elegant, but also a bit unhinged. Hear it in the extended rap that closes “June” or in the manic disco beat of “Suffer” or oblique but perfect wordplay in “Tinoretto, It’s for You.”

5. Horsegirl—Versions of Modern Performance (Matador): Horsegirl elicits a lysergic roar that’s loud but somehow serene, urgent but chilled. The trio out of Chicago were everywhere suddenly and all at once, as sometimes happens to bands, but on the strength of “World of Pots and Pans” and “Billy” I suspect they’ll stick around.

6. Jake Xerxes Fussell—Good and Green Again (Paradise of Bachelors): An early favorite that refused to fade, Good and Green Again considers old-time music from a variety of angles, often incorporating more than one version of a traditional tune in a seamless way. The music is lovely, made more exquisite still by James Elkington’s arrangements, which are subtle, right and unexpected.

7. Lambchop—The Bible (Merge): Stark and lavish at the same time, The Bible catches Kurt Wagner at his morose and mesmerizing best. Surreal sonic textures—including orchestral flourishes and autotuned funk beats—wreathe his weathered baritone, as he traipses through ordinary landscapes turned strange and warped.

8. The Weather Station—How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars (Fat Possum): Tamara Lindeman drew on Toronto’s vibrant jazz community to form her band for this sixth album as the Weather Station. The band improvised alongside here as it learned the songs. As a result, these songs have the usual pristine folk purity, but also a haze of late night sophistication in elegant runs of piano and pensive plucks of bass.

9. The Reds, Pinks and Purples—Summer at Land’s End (Slumberland): Glenn Donaldson is pretty much the best at bittersweet jangle pop right now, and this wistful, graceful collection of songs about life’s dissatisfactions is every bit as good as last year’s Uncommon Weather. Plus it’s got a seven-plus minute improvised guitar piece right in the middle, what’s not to love?

10. Tha Retail Simps—Reverberant Scratch (Total Punk): Montreal’s Retail Simps make ferocious garage rock with a bit of soul in its tail feathers. “Hit and Run” sounds like a lost Sam and the Shams b-side and “End of Times – Hip Shaker” with having doing exactly that. If they ever remake Animal House, here’s the band.

25 more albums I loved:

Non Plus Temps—Desire Choir (Post-Present Medium)

Joan Shelley—The Spur (Important)

Mountain Goats—Bleed Out (Merge)

The Sadies—Colder Streams (Yep Roc)

Spiritualized—Everything Was Beautiful (Fat Possum)

Superchunk—Wild Loneliness (Merge)

Hammered Hulls—Careening (Dischord)

Kilynn Lunsford—Custodians of Human Succession (Ever/Never)

Oren Ambarchi/Johan Berthling/Andreas Werliin—Ghosted (Drag City)

Green/Blue—Paper Thin (Feel It)

E—Any Information (Silver Rocket)

Sick Thoughts—Heaven Is No Fun (Total Punk)

Pedro the Lion—Havasu (Polyvinyl)

Pan*American—The Patience Fader (Kranky)

Weak Signal—War & War (Colonel)

Frog Eyes—The Bees (Paper Bag)

Pinch Points—Process (Exploding in Sound)

LIFE—True North (The Liquid Label)

Mary Lattimore & Paul Sukeena—West Kensington (Three Lobed)

Wau Wau Collectif—Mariage (Sahel Sounds)

Vintage Crop—Kibitzer (Upset the Rhythm)

Anna Tivel—Outsiders (Mama Bird)

Chronophage—S-T (Post-Present Medium/Bruit Direct Disques)

Sélébéyone— Xaybu: The Unseen (Pi)

Zachary Cale—Skywriting (Org Music)

Jennifer Kelly

#dusted magazine #yearend 2022 #jennifer kelly #winged wheel #oneida #cate le bon #destroyer #horsegirl #jake xerxes fussell #lambchop #the weather station #the reds pinks and purples #tha retail simpls

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robinruns · 2 years

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Kicking 2023 off with a solid start at the gym. 35 minutes on the treadmill and elliptical and upper body strength training.

Typically, odd numbered years aren't the best for me, plus I'm in my twelfth house profection year until September, so like I'm just gonna be lowkey bracing myself for shit to hit the fan at any point. But for now I'm gonna make the most of the good times and hopefully we get more of a 2015 or 2017 than a 2019 or 2021.

#running #workout

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sbknews · 2 years

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2023 Honda CBR650R

Model updates: Honda’s versatile middleweight sports bike was the best-selling sports bike in Europe in 2021. It continues to carve out a strong following thanks to its unmistakeable CBR look and rich specification including 41mm Showa Separate Function Big Piston USD forks, high-revving four-cylinder engine, HSTC, assist/slipper clutch, under seat USB Type-C socket and LCD display. For 23YM, visual updates further heighten the appeal. - Introduction Honda’s fully faired CBR650F, launched in 2014 alongside the naked CB650F, provided a healthy slice of four-cylinder middleweight performance, very much at the sporty end of the ‘sports touring’ spectrum. Five years later, the CBR650F became the CBR650R, the upgrade from ‘F’ to ‘R’ indicating an even more potent shot of sporty ability designed to be explored, used and enjoyed on the street. In the process of its transformation the CBR650R became, deliberately, a rare breed: a four-cylinder sports bike that provides similar pleasure, enjoyment and adrenaline to an RR machine, yet with enough practicality – and sensible running costs – to make it a viable option as day-to-day transport in addition to weekend fun. It’s a direction that’s been well received. In 2021, the CBR650R was the best-selling sports bike in Europe. The 21YM version continued the development curve with user-driven detail improvements and a major upgrade for the front suspension. For 23YM the CBR650R gains aesthetic updates to both colour options that further enhance its road presence and desirability.

- Model Overview The CB650R received a significant refresh for 21YM. The major news was application of 41mm Showa Separate Function Big Piston (SSF-BP) USD forks – high quality suspension that really elevates the bike’s handling ability. EURO5 compliance for the engine was achieved with no loss of top end power; other detail improvements included improved visibility for the LCD display and USB Type-C charging socket under the seat. The headlight reflectors, side panels and rear mudguard were all also updated. The 23YM CBR650R will be available in two colour options: Mat Gunpowder Black Metallic with new black engine and cam covers, blue highlights and red shock spring Grand Prix Red with new black engine and cam covers, black belly pan and front mudguard and red Honda logo and shock spring

- Key Features 3.1 Chassis - 41mm Showa Separate Function Big Piston (SFF-BP) USD forks - Four-piston, radial-mount front brake calipers and floating discs - 120/70-ZR17 and 180/55-ZR17 front and rear tyres The steel diamond frame uses pressed swingarm pivot plates and twin elliptical spars with a rigidity balance specifically tuned (stiffer around the headstock and more flexible in the spar sections) to deliver balanced handling characteristics, with high levels of rider feedback. Rake is set at 25.5° with trail of 101mm and wheelbase of 1,450mm. Kerb weight is 208kg. Showa’s 41mm Separate Function Big Piston (SFF-BP) USD forks offer high-quality reaction. A pressure separation damper in one fork tube and spring mechanism in the other deliver high damping performance and lighter weight. Together with the use of a larger sized piston the result is increased feel, bump absorption and control. Adjustable for 10-stage spring preload, the single-tube monoshock (with its spring now finished in red) operates directly on the curvaceous gravity die-cast aluminium swingarm. Four-piston radial-mount front brake calipers work 310mm wave-pattern floating discs, and are paired with a single-piston rear caliper and 240mm disc. The ABS is a two-channel system. Cast aluminium wheels mount 120/70-ZR17 and 180/55-ZR17 front and rear tyres.

3.2 Styling & equipment - Minimal panels and rear mudguard/number plate mount - LCD display easy to read - USB Type-C socket under the seat - New visual updates or both colours including new all black engine cases and cam cover With its four-cylinder power unit clearly on display the CBR650R’s wrapping ramps up pure sporting appeal; dual LED headlights emit an uncompromising stare, and the upper and lower fairings blend muscularity with slim lines and angles. The seat unit, too is compact and truncates the rear of the machine, adding to the hard-edged sense of purpose. Trim side panels accentuate the minimalism, as does the steel rear mudguard/number plate mount. The aggressive riding position starts with clip-on handlebars that mount beneath the top yoke, matched to rear set footpegs. There’s also a USB Type-C socket located under the seat, for easy charging of a mobile device. Seat height is set at 810mm. Stylish, easy-to-read LCD instruments include Shift-Up, Gear Position and Peak Hold indicators. For 23YM, both colour options receive visual updates including new all black engine and cam covers. The Mat Gunpowder Black Metallic features new blue highlights on the tank, tail and fairing, and a new red shock spring. The Grand Prix Red features a new black front mudguard and a new black belly pan that features a bold red Honda logo that chimes neatly with the new red fork spring.

3.3 Engine - 70kW peak power, 63Nm peak torque with 35kW A2 licence option - Honda Selectable Torque Control (HSTC) - Assist/slipper clutch The 649cc, DOHC 16-valve engine is tuned to create the purest, most enjoyable mid-sized four-cylinder performance possible, with the classically fast ‘pick-up’ through the rev range and hard-hitting, high-revving top-end for which Honda’s in-line’s fours are renowned. Peak power of 70kW arrives @ 12,000rpm with peak torque @ 63Nm delivered at 9,500 rpm. A 35kW option is available for A2 licence holders. Direct cam actuation makes for a compact cylinder head; bore and stroke is set at 67mm x 46mm with compression ratio of 11.6:1. Iridium spark plugs are employed and twin air ducts – either side of the fuel tank – feed the airbox and produce a throaty intake roar. Asymmetric piston skirts minimise bore contact and reduce friction. Ferrous spines on the outer surface of the cylinder sleeves reduce oil consumption (and friction) with improved heat transfer and a silent SV cam chain reduces frictional losses by using a Vanadium coating on its pins. Internal water channelling from cylinder head to cylinders does away with most of the exterior hoses. The engine uses a compact internal architecture, stacked six-speed gearbox and starter layout with the cylinders canted forward 30°. An assist/slipper clutch eases upshifts while managing rear-wheel lock up under hard braking and rapid downshifts. Honda Selectable Torque Control (HSTC) manages rear wheel traction; it can be turned off should the rider choose. Fuel consumption of 20.4km/l (WMTC mode) gives a range of over 300km from the 15.4L fuel tank. EURO5 compliance required revisions to the ECU, cam lobes, intake timing, exhaust pipe, catalyser and silencer, as well as the addition of a crank pulsar. - Accessories A range of Genuine Honda Accessories are available for the CBR650R, both available as individual items and grouped in packs, that are ready to bolt straight on to the bike: The Sport Pack enhances the dynamism and sportiness of the motorcycle by featuring the following accessories: - Quickshifter - Colour matched Rear Seat Cowl - Smoke High Wind Screen - Tank Pad The Comfort Pack has been designed to increase rider comfort and features: - Clear High Wind Screen - Grip Heaters & Attachment The Travel Pack includes all the parts necessary to maximize the carrying capacity of the CBR650R and features - Tank Bag & Attachment - Rear Seat Bag & Attachment The line-up is completed with Wheel Stripes available in different colours. All the accessories featured in packs can also be purchased individually. - Technical Specifications ENGINE Type Liquid-cooled 4-stroke 16-valve DOHC inline-4 cylinder Engine Displacement (cm³) 649cc Bore x Stroke (mm) 67.0mm x 46.0mm Compression Ratio 11.6:1 Max. Power Output 70kW/12,000rpm Max. Torque 63Nm/9,500rpm Oil Capacity 2.7L Noise Level (dB) Lwot - 80 Lurban - 76 FUEL SYSTEM Carburation PGM-FI electronic fuel injection Fuel Tank Capacity 15.4L Fuel Consumption 20.4km/litre ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Starter Electric Battery Capacity 12V/8.6AH ACG Output 370W DRIVETRAIN Clutch Type Wet, multiplate disc Transmission Type 6-speed Final Drive Chain FRAME Type Steel diamond CHASSIS Dimensions (LxWxH) 2120 x 750 x 1,150mm Wheelbase 1450mm Caster Angle 25.5° Trail 101mm Seat Height 810mm Ground Clearance 130mm Kerb Weight 208kg Turning radius SUSPENSION Type Front 41mm Showa Separate Function front Fork Big Piston (SFF-BP) USD forks Type Rear Monoshock damper with 10 stage adjustable preload, 43.5mm stroke WHEELS Rim Size Front Hollow section 6-spoke cast aluminium Rim Size Rear Hollow section 6-spoke cast aluminium Tyres Front 120/70ZR17 M/C (58W) Tyres Rear 180/55ZR17 M/C (73W) BRAKES ABS System Type 2 channel; hydraulic dual disc 310mm front, hydraulic disc 240mm rear INSTRUMENTS & ELECTRICS Instruments Digital speedometer, digital bar graph tachometer, dual trip meter, digital bar graph fuel gauge, gear position and upshift indicator, digital clock Headlight LED Taillight LED # Please note that the figures provided are results obtained by Honda under standardised testing conditions prescribed by WMTC. Tests are conducted on a rolling road using a standard version of the vehicle with only one rider and no additional optional equipment. Actual fuel consumption may vary depending on how you ride, how you maintain your vehicle, weather, road conditions, tire pressure, installation of accessories, cargo, rider and passenger weight, and other factors. For more Honda Motorcycles UK news check out our dedicated page Honda Motorcycles UK News or head to the official Honda Motorcycles UK website honda.co.uk/motorcycles.html Read the full article

#Honda #HondaCBR650 #HondaMotorcycles #HondaUK #MotorcycleNews #Motorcycles

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jcmarchi · 8 months

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Most Early Galaxies Looked Like Breadsticks Rather Than Pizza Pies or Dough Balls - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/most-early-galaxies-looked-like-breadsticks-rather-than-pizza-pies-or-dough-balls-technology-org/

Most Early Galaxies Looked Like Breadsticks Rather Than Pizza Pies or Dough Balls - Technology Org

Columbia researchers analyzing images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have found that galaxies in the early universe are often flat and elongated, like breadsticks—and are rarely round, like balls of pizza dough.

“Roughly 50 to 80% of the galaxies we studied appear to be flattened in two dimensions,” explained Viraj Pandya, a NASA Hubble Fellow at Columbia University, and the lead author of a new paper slated to appear in The Astrophysical Journal that outlines the findings.

“Galaxies that look like long, thin breadsticks seem to be very common in the early universe, which is surprising, since they are uncommon among galaxies in the present-day universe.”

Sample shapes of distant galaxies identified by the James Webb Space Telescope’s Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) survey. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Steve Finkelstein (UT Austin), Micaela Bagley (UT Austin), Rebecca Larson (UT Austin)

The team focused on a vast field of near-infrared images delivered by Webb, known as the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey, plucking out galaxies that are estimated to have existed when the universe was 600 million to 6 billion years old.

While most distant galaxies look like breadsticks, others are shaped like pizza pies and balls of pizza dough. The “balls of pizza dough,” or sphere-shaped galaxies, appear to be the smallest type of galaxy and were also the least frequently identified.

The pizza pie-shaped galaxies were found to be as large as breadstick-shaped galaxies along their longest axis. “They are more common in the nearby universe which, due to the universe’s ongoing expansion, is made up of older, more mature galaxies.”

Which category would our Milky Way galaxy fall into if we were able to wind the clock back by billions of years?

“Our best guess is that it might have appeared more like a breadstick,” said co-author Haowen Zhang, a PhD candidate at the University of Arizona in Tucson. This hypothesis is based partly on new evidence from Webb—theorists have “wound back the clock” to estimate the Milky Way’s mass billions of years ago, which suggests its likely breadstick shape in the distant past.

Images of what researchers believe are elongated, ellipsoid (i.e. breadstick-shaped) galaxies, captured with the James Webb Space Telescope. The word “believe” reflects the fact that some of the galaxies may be disk (i.e pizza pie) shaped galaxies seen from the side. Image Credit: Viraj Pandya et al.

These distant galaxies are also far less massive than nearby spirals and ellipticals—they are precursors to more massive galaxies like our own. “In the early universe, galaxies had had far less time to grow,” said Kartheik Iyer, a co-author and NASA Hubble Fellow also at Columbia University.

“Identifying additional categories for early galaxies is exciting—there’s a lot more to analyze now. We can now study how galaxies’ shapes relate to how they look and better project how they formed in much more detail.”

Hubble, the space telescope that launched in 1990 and collects data to this day, “has long showed an excess of elongated galaxies,” explained co-author Marc Huertas-Company, a faculty research scientist at the Institute of Astrophysics on the Canary Islands.

But researchers still wondered: Would additional detail show up better with the sensitivity to infrared light that the Webb telescope, which launched in 2021, has? “Webb confirmed that Hubble didn’t miss any additional features in the galaxies they both observed. Plus, Webb showed us many more distant galaxies with similar shapes, all in great detail,” Huertas-Company said.

One question, of course, is why early galaxies tended to be so flattened and elongated. One hypothesis, Pandya explained, is that the early universe may have been filled with filaments of dark matter that formed a kind of “skeletal background,” or “cosmic highway,” that ushered gas and stars along it.

These filaments still exist, but they have grown much more diffuse as the universe has expanded, so they may be less likely to promote the formation of breadstick-shaped galaxies.

The paper is called “Galaxies Going Bananas,” yet another food analogy that sprang into the authors’ minds as they looked at their data. When the authors plotted galaxies’ aspect ratios against their longest axis length, they found that the diagrams that emerged looked distinctly like bananas, a shape that reflects their elongated, ellipsoid (i.e. breadstick) shape.

“The bananas are another way of saying that these intrinsically elongated galaxies seem to be the dominant ones in the first 4 billion years of the universe,” Pandya said.

There are still gaps in our knowledge. Researchers not only need an even larger sample size from Webb to further refine the properties and precise locations of distant galaxies, they will also need to spend ample time tweaking and updating their models to better reflect the precise geometries of distant galaxies.

“These are early results,” said co-author Elizabeth McGrath, an associate professor at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. “We need to delve more deeply into the data to figure out what’s going on, but we’re very excited about these early trends.”

Source: Columbia University

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kammartinez · 1 year

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By Katy Waldman

n the 2022 song “Anything but Me,” MUNA, a pop group known for sweet, close harmonies and an aesthetic of “queer joy,” sings, “You’re gonna say that I’m on a high horse / I think that my horse is regular-sized / Did you ever think maybe / You’re on a pony / Going in circles on a carousel ride?” Beware the woman on her high horse: like the animal she steers, she is extravagant, willful, disobedient. She takes her grandiosity seriously, even if “high” is a subjective word, even if any horse might appear too high with a woman on its back. Ask the British author Deborah Levy, who considers the idiom in “Real Estate” (2021), her third “living autobiography.” The book, which Levy wrote after getting divorced in her fifties, chronicles her attempts to unlearn the lessons she absorbed during her marriage—namely, that she should subordinate her life to caregiving and housework. In an anthemic passage, she envisions the kind of woman into whom she is trying to transform herself:

If I could not find her in real life, why not invent her on the page? There she is, steering her high horse with flair, making sure she does not run over girls and women struggling to find a horse of their own. Does she scoop them up and ride the high horse with them? Do they scoop her up and take over the reins? Did that feel true? I hoped so. My fifties had been a time of change and turbulence, energetic and exciting. A time of self-respect and perhaps a sort of homecoming. So there you are! Where have you been all these years?

“Real Estate” and Levy’s two earlier living autobiographies, “Things I Don’t Want to Know” (2014) and “The Cost of Living” (2018), are bound together by her search for this figure, the elusive “major female character” or “missing female character”—a woman who would be the hero of her own life. (In “Real Estate,” Levy further complicates this quest by looking for the older female protagonist.) Levy has been writing fiction, plays, poetry, and essays since the early eighties, and has twice been short-listed for the Booker Prize, for the novels “Swimming Home” and “Hot Milk.” But the three living autobiographies, named for their elliptical quality, the way they drift backward and forward in time, may be her best-loved works. A pleasing paradox of Levy’s career is that new generations have received her rejection of maternal martyrdom as a gesture of care. The books have connected her to an audience of women grateful for the mentorship and encouragement in their pages; a recent Guardian profile describes readers coming to Levy’s events for life advice, as if travelling to Canterbury.

In “Things I Don’t Want to Know,” which Levy wrote in her late forties and early fifties, she excavates her childhood in apartheid South Africa, her early years as a playwright, and the beginnings of her marriage. “The Cost of Living” and “Real Estate” cover her divorce and subsequent self-reinvention. Levy travels across Europe; she covets imaginary mansions with fountains and pomegranate trees; she throws elaborate dinner parties with her daughters.

The books have their manifesto-like moments. “To strip the wallpaper off the fairy tale of the Family House in which the comfort and happiness of men and children have been the priority is to find behind it an unthanked, unloved, neglected, exhausted woman,” Levy writes in “The Cost of Living.” But much of their appeal flows from Levy’s honesty about her own ambivalence and uncertainty. Her account of becoming free—filling her days with art and work, thinking through solitude, battling loneliness—refuses triumphalism. “I was unmaking the home that I’d spent much of my life’s energy creating,” she writes. “My new life was all about fumbling for keys in the dark.”

In her fiction, too, Levy evokes characters who are unrealized or in transition. “Swimming Home” features a Polish émigré turned cosmopolitan poet. The historian in “The Man Who Saw Everything” can’t put the events of his life in the right order. “August Blue,” Levy’s eighth and newest novel, extends this project. When the book opens, the main character, Elsa, a concert pianist, is in crisis. She keeps catching glimpses of a woman whom she believes in some enigmatic way to be her double. She has just sabotaged a performance at a concert in Vienna: instead of Rachmaninoff’s second concerto, her fingers, as if possessed, began to tap out an alien composition. Elsa’s own origins are equally mysterious to her. Her birth parents gave her up when she was very young to a neighboring family. Later, she was adopted by the renowned maestro Arthur Goldstein. The novel is shaped by Elsa’s longing for her birth mother and her struggle to make peace with women who turn away from their children, as Elsa’s mom did, and toward themselves, as Elsa herself must. The book unspools, in spare, charged vignettes, as a kind of pilgrim’s progress, with Elsa moving closer to her doppelgänger, the buried truth of her parentage, and her own artistic voice.

The novel, like much of Levy’s fiction, takes place in a world that feels at once familiar and permeated with tones and shapes from its protagonist’s unconscious. Obscurely symbolic horses dance and stamp; the double seems somehow to have accessed Elsa’s earliest memories. Elsa is searching for what the typical Levy heroine seeks—a blueprint for becoming the major female character—and her desire pushes her to strange and poetic acts of self-repossession. She uses her hands, insured for millions of dollars, to pull sea urchins from the ocean. Declaring independence from nature itself, she dyes her hair blue.

When I spoke to Levy, who is sixty-three, over Zoom, she had recently concluded her U.K. book tour. She appeared at her desk, in front of a wide-open window, clad in a wavy blouse that matched her plummy lip gloss. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

How are you doing?

It’s a sunny day in Paris. It’s been raining endlessly, as if there were no other weather here. But now it’s warm and the sky is blue. And I have the window open and that feels good.

I’m in Paris because my French publishers keep me busy, and they have just brought out a book of my unpublished collected writing—essays, stories, letters, and so on—called “The Position of Spoons.”

Why “The Position of Spoons”?

It’s the title of a story in the anthology, and there’s something about putting a collection of writing together. You’re positioning, you’re deciding what’s going to be against what.

Was there something in particular that drew you to spoons?

The French title is “La Position de la Cuillère,” which means “the spoon position.” And when the book is published in the U.K. next year, it will also be “Spoon Position”—a title with a different meaning, I think. Just slightly sexualized. The story is about a man who always wants his spoon, when he eats his boiled egg, to face the egg. It’s a little obsessional. He feels faint and disoriented if the spoon changes position.

Your work feels very French to me, even though you’re not from France. It’s maybe to do with sensuality and the absence of puritanical shame. Pleasure is healthy but not fetishized; you pay attention to the idea of living well. Does that seem fair?

There is certainly a lack of shame in the living autobiographies. They’re not written with the shame of a shipwrecked marriage; they try to write themselves out of societal shame. And my characters take pleasure in small things. It’s a suffering world and a nourishing one; it contains many things that are of sustenance.

I grew up on French literature, by mistake, at my school in London. We had an Irish librarian and translated literature was very hard to find, especially for my generation. My mother had introduced me to Colette—I’d never been to France and was thirteen, fourteen—and it was as if a wind had blown in from Burgundy and from Paris. When I read about Colette’s mother, in her book “Sido,” I wanted my mother to be just like Sido, to make me hot chocolate and to point out spiders, the silk of their webs, and to show me the dew on a rose in the morning. But my mother was scared of spiders.

Your writing has a very dreamlike, inward quality. There are the doubles in “August Blue.” Even the autobiographies have an associative logic that makes them feel as though they’re transpiring half within the narrator’s head. But that self-involvement, for lack of a better word, doesn’t collapse into self-loathing. Characters aren’t ashamed to live in their thoughts or to put their artistic practice first. So much recent American literature seems mired in self-awareness and shame. Your work feels different.

A friend, a radio producer, was telling me about making a program about music teachers. A student was playing Chopin, and the teacher said, “Stop! Don’t you realize all of life and all of death is in this chord?” [Laughs.] Now that’s not how I would speak about writing. But, in a way, it’s how I think about writing. Elsa, the protagonist of “August Blue,” is a concert pianist, and the mercilessness of her training really interested me. I’ve always wanted to write about merciless training, which I have a great deal of respect for. I was slowly building up to Elsa because I wanted [the training] to come apart—just to see what would happen. If there’s something locked inside you and you are fearful, as she is fearful, of unlocking it and playing it . . . perhaps there is shame in that, in showing the composition to others—as well as, I suppose, in keeping it locked up. But one hopes that the shame isn’t the sum of the story.

In some ways, “August Blue” reminds me of your other work, especially the autobiographies. A woman’s way of life comes to an end, partly because she chooses to end it, and she has to find something new. What drew you to this configuration of the problem, these details?

I was writing the book during and after the lockdowns of the pandemic. I became very addicted to my news feeds, which I read every day. What was I looking for? It was as if I were looking for a narrative for the end of the world. I had to read everything. I realized that the anxiety was pervasive: my friends and family felt it, too. I wanted to scoop up that mood, all the low-level anxiety, and put it in the body of my protagonist. And I was listening to a lot of classical piano. I wanted no words at that time. The feeling of wordlessness—I think it amplified my sense that the world needs a new composition.

I know we don’t want pandemic novels—my heart sinks if someone tells me to read one—but I have to own that I wrote one. I had to decide: What do I do with it? What do you do with a momentous historical moment that you lived through? Do you just pretend it didn’t happen? I decided that I wanted to mark it in some way because it marked me. I was thinking of Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway,” which was set in 1923, soon after the First World War and the Spanish Flu. Of course Woolf had Mrs. Dalloway buy flowers! Because of the grim time that Woolf lived through, she would need to begin with the character doing something totally frivolous. That’s why I had Elsa buy a pair of mechanical dancing horses. In “Mrs. Dalloway,” Woolf and Clarissa Dalloway merge, and their double, as it were, is Septimus Smith, the shell-shocked soldier. I could hear the echo, the haunting, of Woolf’s book in my mind all through the writing of “August Blue.”

You often return to the figure of the horse, especially in connection with women. Who is the woman on the high horse?

There aren’t many female doppelgängers in literature. I was thinking of Jean Genet, who was an orphan. I remember reading, in Edmund White’s brilliant biography, that Genet used to write under the light of a lamp at night. He would look up at every woman passing just in case it was his mother. That’s not rational: how would he know? But he was in that interesting place that Elsa is in, looking for her mother in the double. When Elsa is just a baby, her birth mother gives her up. And Elsa, on a very subliminal level, when she’s playing the piano, aged five and six, experiences a feeling that she’s playing to someone. I reckon that would be her unknown mother. When she talks about her double as someone who’s listening to her very attentively, I wanted, without underlining it in any way, to mirror the mother. The double is the split self; usually, there’s a good and a bad self, and they’re hellbent on destroying each other.

The double struck me as an example of the “missing female character” or “unwritten female character” that you’ve said you’re looking for. In a way, she’s Elsa, and she’s Elsa’s birth mother, and she’s possibly her lover, too. What made you want to blur those relationships?

I don’t feel that mothers are lovers. But maybe you’re talking about affection, attachment, or detachment—all wonderful subjects. All my subjects, I think. It’s not clear in the book whether this woman who bought the mechanical dancing horses actually is identical to Elsa. I leave some space there. A little later we hear that Elsa has green eyes and her double has brown eyes. She must represent Elsa, and yet I wanted her to be embodied, with needs of her own.

You said that Elsa, when she plays piano, is always playing to her mother. Who were you writing to when you wrote the novel?

Maybe I’m writing to my father. Elsa and Arthur have a confusing relationship—one that I didn’t have with my own father, by the way. He wasn’t my teacher. But Elsa’s been gifted to Arthur, who is her father-teacher. I was interested in the relationships that we have with a mentor. I can see that, writing Arthur’s death, I had my father’s recent death in mind. We all sat on his deathbed and fed him ice cream. I was so struck by how much he was enjoying the ice cream. That’s what it comes down to in the end: a little bit of ice cream on a teaspoon.

Who else am I writing to? I’m in conversation, I think, with a generalized contemporary anxiety. “August Blue” is not really about finding an identity; it’s about losing one. It contains my rage about the old composition of the suffering world. It’s about how badly we need a new language, and how hard it is to make it. I don’t just mean a literary language or musical language. [While writing the book,] I was watching films of the third generation of dancers who followed Isadora Duncan. Duncan was the mother of modern dance and broke through all the ballet conventions. Hers is a very easy language to mock: I would find myself doing the mocking and the admiring in equal measure. But then I decided it was much more interesting to respect it. To respect it would be to move, as Duncan often does, upward and outward, instead of only inward and downward. And so, having come from those pandemic years of inward and downward, I thought, Yes, what we have to do is move upward and outward. I repeat that in the novel, because it’s somewhere for Elsa to get to as well. Upward and outward. With the help of a possible double.

Tell me about your ongoing search for the “missing female character.”

You’re talking about the living autobiographies, where I riff on major characters and minor characters. In “The Cost of Living,” a young Englishwoman is invited to the table of an older man, and she is brave—she decides to take him up on it—and she begins to speak about herself. He says, “You talk a lot, don’t you?” It’s as if she doesn’t understand that he’s the major character and she’s the minor character. The talking, which she’s doing too much of, isn’t required; she’s not required to come with a whole life and libido of her own.

What kind of female character is Elsa? How does she fit into your search?

Do I think Elsa is my “major unwritten female character”? No, I don’t. The major female character is more of an ideal than a person. Elsa is both immensely powerful and immensely fragile. I like the back-and-forth of the two together; for some reason, it still feels subversive. I’ve never believed in binaries. So to mess with them in fiction interests me.

How do you decide, when you have an idea that might be part memory and part theory of human nature, whether to flesh it out as fiction or as autobiography?

In “August Blue,” I wanted avatars; I wanted them to go and do all the work for me. I asked myself, “What did I want to read?” I regard the novel as an intellectual entertainment, which is why I loved reading Colette when I was young. The world is so vivid in her work. It’s not otherworldly. I think too much otherworldliness is a mistake. We might not understand our motivations, we might not understand our desires—why we’re sad or angry—but the pleasure of writing in any form is when something totally incoherent to oneself becomes more coherent. You smell the smoke, the blast of something that seems so impossible getting closer. But it works the other way, too. What was once coherent and understandable suddenly becomes much less so. That to-and-fro, in my work, of coherence and incoherence interests me a lot. I don’t know anyone who’s entirely clever or anyone who’s entirely stupid.

Many of your characters are mysteries to themselves, or at least find parts of their own psychologies obscure.

It’s not exactly that the characters are “mysteries to themselves.” The truth is that it’s extremely hard, extremely painful, to feel things, and so the failure to access feelings, to actually get somewhere near them, is one of my subjects. Some people don’t want to go there. Fair enough; I have a lot of respect for that position. This idea that we all have to go there is rather punitive.

Are there particular feelings that you’re interested in unearthing, or I guess not unearthing?

I was trying something, in “August Blue,” with the reveal and the conceal. I became aware that I didn’t want the reveals—and there are few of them—to be “Ta-da!” moments. I wanted them to be in the middle of lots of other things, like the noise of a restaurant, the sound of a road being drilled up outside, the distraction of a conversation about something else altogether. You know, you’re crossing the road and you see a truck go by and it’s raining and water splashes on your favorite pair of shoes and you’re thinking about your shopping list. But then what you’re really thinking about suddenly comes closer to you. I had to give up quite a lot of writing ego to do it like that. I wrestled with it for some time; I wrote up a storm. I wrote two glorious reveals, and then I got rid of them.

Yet you did include a spectacular moment when Elsa dyes her hair, and both she and Arthur declare that she’s a “natural blue.” I love that phrase; it’s a place in the book where the themes of heredity, art, and identity seem to intersect.

When Elsa dyes her hair, when the foils are off and her blue hair ripples down, she says, “I could hear my birth mother gasp.” It’s like a separation from her DNA. She no longer asks all those questions about her birth parents: Do I look like them? Who do I look like, my mother or my father? Where do I get my height from? Where do I get the shape of my nose from? She’s solved that.

Did you study music as a child?

Regretfully, no. I just loved to play the piano as a kid. I think I understood that you could speak through the keys and that it was a kind of musical diary. But I had to dare myself to make her a concert pianist. Elsa never speaks viscerally about the sensation of playing the piano. I didn’t dare go there. If I listen to cello, for example—such a warming feeling, cello—I can feel it vibrating through my body. But Elsa doesn’t use that sort of language, about what it feels like to play the piano, in “August Blue.”

Toward the end of the novel, there’s an image of Elsa’s birth mother sunbathing against the wall, closing her eyes in the sunlight. That seems right to me. Maybe it feels like that.

The scene in which her mother is taking in the sun was one of my favorites to write. Usually the mother who has given up her child is supposed to suffer. That’s the script written for her. So I wanted a moment that she’s taking for herself, where she is sunbathing, topless, with her scarf wrapped around her waist, her back pressed against the warm stones of a wall in a field. Why not? Give her some pleasure.

#writing

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kamreadsandrecs · 1 year

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By Katy Waldman

In the 2022 song “Anything but Me,” MUNA, a pop group known for sweet, close harmonies and an aesthetic of “queer joy,” sings, “You’re gonna say that I’m on a high horse / I think that my horse is regular-sized / Did you ever think maybe / You’re on a pony / Going in circles on a carousel ride?” Beware the woman on her high horse: like the animal she steers, she is extravagant, willful, disobedient. She takes her grandiosity seriously, even if “high” is a subjective word, even if any horse might appear too high with a woman on its back. Ask the British author Deborah Levy, who considers the idiom in “Real Estate” (2021), her third “living autobiography.” The book, which Levy wrote after getting divorced in her fifties, chronicles her attempts to unlearn the lessons she absorbed during her marriage—namely, that she should subordinate her life to caregiving and housework. In an anthemic passage, she envisions the kind of woman into whom she is trying to transform herself:

How are you doing?

It’s a sunny day in Paris. It’s been raining endlessly, as if there were no other weather here. But now it’s warm and the sky is blue. And I have the window open and that feels good.

Why “The Position of Spoons”?

It’s the title of a story in the anthology, and there’s something about putting a collection of writing together. You’re positioning, you’re deciding what’s going to be against what.

Was there something in particular that drew you to spoons?

You often return to the figure of the horse, especially in connection with women. Who is the woman on the high horse?

You said that Elsa, when she plays piano, is always playing to her mother. Who were you writing to when you wrote the novel?

Tell me about your ongoing search for the “missing female character.”

What kind of female character is Elsa? How does she fit into your search?

How do you decide, when you have an idea that might be part memory and part theory of human nature, whether to flesh it out as fiction or as autobiography?

Many of your characters are mysteries to themselves, or at least find parts of their own psychologies obscure.

Are there particular feelings that you’re interested in unearthing, or I guess not unearthing?

Did you study music as a child?

Toward the end of the novel, there’s an image of Elsa’s birth mother sunbathing against the wall, closing her eyes in the sunlight. That seems right to me. Maybe it feels like that.

#writing

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eazy-group · 1 year

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Veronica lost 53 pounds

New Post has been published on https://eazydiet.net/veronica-lost-53-pounds/

Veronica lost 53 pounds

Transformation of the Day: Veronica lost 53 pounds. Her turning point happened when she found out her cholesterol levels were very high, and there was concern about blocked arteries. She decided to focus on fitness and switch to a Mediterranean diet to improve her health. She plans to compete in the 2024 Senior Olympic Games.

Social Media: Facebook: facebook.com/veronica.beard.58 Instagram: @urban_cowgirl1 (I will be posting my journey to the 2024 Senior Olympic Games, so stay tuned!)

What was your motivation? What inspired you to keep going, even when you wanted to give up? Five things have motivated me to start my weight loss journey:

Heart health and chronic joint pain

Getting fit to sprint in the next Senior Olympic Games for 50 and up runners.

Wanting to be the best version of myself when I look in any mirror

I want to look great next to my boyfriend, who also works out and looks amazing for his age. He and my sister are my biggest supporters!

I am also motivated by other weight loss stories I have seen on your platform. I have been a follower of the Black Women Losing Weight platform for a couple of years now. I love it!

How did you change your eating habits? After observing tingling in my hands and feet, fainting, and having blackouts in 2021, I sought the expertise of a cardiologist. My cholesterol levels were very high, and there was a concern about blocked arteries.

I didn’t want to give in to this health issue. I wasn’t prescribed medication but was advised to drop weight to help with my symptoms. I weighed 232 lbs at that time, and I am 5’8″. I began to follow the Mediterranean diet plan but with seafood. I knew what I needed to do and immediately cut out all meat, focused on living a pescetarian lifestyle, and began walking out during “lunch.”

I lost 26 pounds in three months before going back to see my doctor. My symptoms improved, but I was still not out of the woods.

What is your workout routine? I do cardio four days a week for a minimum of 1 hour (keeping in mind that you don’t reach fat-burning mode before 30-45 consecutive minutes of active cardio), weight training twice a week, and I finish up with 15 minutes of elliptical training. I practice at a local track, running drills and focusing on sprinting techniques.

How often did you work out? I work out every day except Sundays.

What was your starting weight? 232 pounds

What is your current weight? 179.3 pounds

What is your height? 5’8″

When did you start your journey? October 2021

How long did your transformation take? Today is July 9, 2023, and I have lost a total of 53 lbs in 21 months. I am in total menopause, so my hormonal imbalance is always a challenge for me. Not to mention I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis almost 12 years ago. I struggle with inflammatory issues, which is why I chose the Mediterranean Diet’s meal plan. It’s a lifestyle change rather than a diet.

Is weight loss surgery part of your journey? I had weight loss surgery in 2014, vertical sleeve gastrectomy. I weighed over 250 lbs and lost 80 lbs. I kept it off for four short years, but because I didn’t realize what I was eating caused my body to become inflamed, I started to regain all the weight that I lost. This is why I chose the Mediterranean (pescetarian) lifestyle. It’s sustainable for me and MY health situation.

What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned so far? What will help me to win is Consistency, Discipline, and Action. These three lessons I have learned since January of this year have kept me on a successful track. Additionally, I have learned that I do NOT need Cheetos or chocolate-covered almonds to make me happy. I have lost the craving for snacking and eating junk food. I have replaced these unhealthy items with nuts., fruits, and veggies.

Creating a calendar that indicates the days I worked out and when I didn’t holds me accountable each week. Lastly, recovery is just as important as working out! LISTEN to your body. Don’t overwork your body to the point where you are hurt or injured.

What advice do you have for women who want to lose weight? My advice is to remember why you started. Don’t make it about getting into a new outfit or losing weight for an event. These things will only keep you motivated for a short time. Do it for a purpose. Do it for a cause. Do it for YOU!

Do not listen to anyone who pores negativity into your heart, mind, and soul. Move those people out of your life! In addition to that, surround yourself with like-minded people. No one needs a sabotager in their midst. My best friend is my sister. She supports my every endeavor in this process. She continues to motivate me, and I do the same for her.

Also, don’t tell people what you plan to do. They can be your downfall. Just show up with your results. I guarantee they will want to know how you did it! Finally, do lots of research. You may find out that your diet is what is holding you hostage. Make the changes to your diet for a healthier you!

There is no end date. I will forever be on this journey

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drownmeinbeauty · 1 year

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THE SHOWS GO ON

What's happening at the Guggenheim? The museum, housed in the most iconic modern building in New York City, can't seem to put together exhibits that make sense inside. It began with Countryside, The Future in 2021, a show that smothered the rotunda's interior with printed vinyl, sucking out all space and pleasure.

Now the museum is mounting two or more major exhibits simultaneously, perhaps for inclusivity. In the spring a potentially magnificent Nick Cave exhibit was squeezed into the Richard Meier-designed addition in back, broken over three small galleries on different floors, while an Alex Katz retrospective unspooled seamlessly in the rotudia. It was a pity because Cave's Soundsuits would have cut splendid figures on the ramp, while Katz's canvases would have looked just as elegant in the smaller galleries. The installation strategy did not serve art or politics well.

The rotunda currently features work from artists Gago and Mary Sze. Gago's sculptures assemble metal wire and hardware into complex suspended geometric nets. They're ethereal and monumental, intellectual and dreamy. Sze's multimedia installation, on the museum's highest level, combines painting, video and found objects to create a landscape of tenuous, elliptical happenings. Yet the works of both artists -- while distinctive -- do not occupy the rotunda well. Gago's are best seen in the round. They're flattened visually when pinned against a white wall, don't feel like much more than doodles. A historic photograph on display shows some of these same works installed in a small room, layered one over one other, evoking spatial harmonics that aren't perceptible here. Sze's installation is tied, physically, to the lower level and, perceptually, to its exterior, where images captured are broadcast inside the rotunda. But it's physically dispersed, sculpturally unobstrusive, and makes little impact in the space.

There is also a Picasso exhibit, centered around an early Paris canvas, in the lowest gallery in back. It's refreshing that the rotunda is given over to two female artists, one Latin American and one Asian, while Picasso is backgrounded. But what good does it do when that the rotunda doesn't serve these two artists well? The architecture of this building can devour artworks. The exhibit design needs to address it head-on.

#SCULPTURE #ART #EXHIBIT #MUSEUM #GUGGENHEIM #Mary Sze #Gago

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andrews-petersans · 2 years

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Are Skar Subwoofers Good

If you're looking to enhance your vehicle radio, you may have heard of Skar Audio, a more recent participant in the industry. Why is Skar Audio a topic of conversation? There are several reasons, including high ratings for quality and longevity as well as affordable prices. These are 5 reasons why Skar Audio is a promising new audio company.

IT IS STILL BELOW THE RADAR VALUE

In the competitive vehicle audio industry, Skar is still relatively new and unheard of compared to well-known companies like Pioneer, Kenwood, and JL. But although though the Florida firm, started in 2 0 1 2, already produces automotive audio systems that can compete with the big boys, they sell for a fraction of the price. This may be changing, though, since Newsweek magazine has named Skar one of the "Top Trending Internet Stores" of 2021.

2 SKAR PROVIDES A SPEAKER TO MEET ANY NEED

Skar Audio jokingly informs clients of the trade-offs in each model's value vs. quality by categorising its coaxial and component vehicle speaker products as Excellent, Best, or Crazy. Nevertheless, Skar does more than just allow you to manage your financial worries; its coaxial speakers are available in a variety of sizes and forms to meet the requirements of your car. In addition to 4x6, 6x8, and 6x9 elliptical shapes, it also provides round speakers that are 4 inches, 5.25 inches, and 6 inches.

3 SKAR ALSO PROVIDES SUBWOOFER OPTIONS

It is important to emphasise that Skar Audio also provides bass speakers with adjustable size and power. This is especially helpful when trying to find room in your car for a sub. If you have the space, you can get the huge, deep 1 8-inch subwoofer of your dreams, but if your space is limited, you can choose a little, 8-inch subwoofer that is just right for the task. Better better, Skar Audio offers versions with 1 000, 800, 1200, 1600, 2500, 3000, or even 3200 Watts of power, whether you choose an 8-inch, 5-inch, 6-inch, or 8-inch subwoofer.

YES, AMPLIFIER ALSO HAS OPTIONS

The idea that some vehicles might not have enough room for the additional audio quality increase that speakers receive when supported by a powerful aftermarket amplifier is frequently ignored by car audio dealers or even manufacturers. Skar provides a variety of tiny amplifiers, some of which are less than half the size, in addition to a range of Better and Best amplifiers with power outputs up to a strong 4 5 00 Watts. They nevertheless generate a decent 4 000 to 900 Watts, while not being as potent as Skar's most potent amplifiers.

5 STRONG CLIENT SUPPORT

When it comes to customer care, Skar Audio is more agile than the large brands since it is a relatively small, indigenous company that was founded in the internet age. The business not only has excellent online help, but it also has a great reputation for quick order fulfilment, quick problem solutions, and long-lasting product warranties.

youtube

#Youtube

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unknowncallers-world · 2 years

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ok the first time we even messaged on snap she told me about poems and books. I remember it all. I was at home on the elliptical. it was December 2020. in September 2021 I came back home and she was back. she said “ma’am did you see the moon tonight”. It was a full moon that night. I had gone out for milkshakes that night with my best friends. Because she had also said “ma’am where did you get that”.

Don’t ask me what my favorite food is. What my favorite color is. What my pet peeve is. I don’t give a shit. And I sure as hell don’t give a shit about yours. You want me to like you. No because it honestly it isn’t that deep. But if you do then be ducking interesting. If I had known Taylor would be the only interesting person I wouldn’t have been with her cause no my life will forever be shit.

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legacysuite · 2 years

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The Best Apps for Password Management- A Comprehensive Guide

It is time to invest in a password manager if you frequently lose track of your login information and are locked out of online accounts because you cannot remember them. A password manager will help you organize all of your login information while assuring password security. They can also be used to automatically fill out forms and sync data between Mac, Windows, iPhone, and Android devices.

A password manager serves as a digital vault where you can keep the passwords to your accounts for mobile apps, websites, and other services. The best password manager offers a password generator to help you establish strong, unique passwords. It also ensures you are not using the same password across many accounts and safeguarding your identity, sensitive data, and credentials.

Here are some crucial guidelines you must abide by to choose the perfect password manager.

Best Apps for Password Management

As per the report of Keeper Security, more than 81% of data breaches are the result of poor password security. Additionally, the report of IBM’s cost of a Data Breach in 2021 says that the average cost of a data breach to a corporation is $4.24 million.

Users can generate secure passwords with the help of password managers by automatically logging in to websites without remembering them. Many also offer secure private browsing networks, examine accounts for data breaches, and test the strength of passwords.

After evaluating more than a dozen password managers, we have selected the top ones based on a variety of factors, including reputation, cost, usability, features, additional security, and quality of free plans. Some of the password managers are listed below:

LastPass

LastPass offers an extensive array of free features enabling users to obtain everything they want without having to pay anything. It is accessible on almost all smart devices and most browsers, and its subscription editions provide sharing more comprehensive options.

Dashlane

With Dashlane, you can easily and securely manage your passwords and store other login details. It provides dark web scanning for data leakage, a password changer option, and a safe virtual private network.

1Password

1Password allows you to access your services and accounts with one master password. It is more suitable for families as it gives a high level of protection for the entire family that goes beyond basic password security. Also, it is simple to administer and add individual users. 1Password was selected as the best app for families.

However, the best password managers can sometimes have security flaws and even be hacked. Therefore, we present Legacy Suite, which can help you secure all your data from hacks and breaches and store them in a single secure vault.

LegacyPass- The Best App for Safe Password Management

While the options above are solid choices in their own right, password management is simply a part of your wider operational security. Legacy Suite takes a wider approach to automating the security of your digital life, and LegacyPass is an essential component within their array of services. LegacyPass is the best password manager that aims to simplify your digital life. With LegacyPass, you can secure, classify, and share passwords with your favorite person as well as Legacy contacts for different accounts using this solution.

The key to opening your digital life is your password. With the use of blockchain technology, LegacyPass was created to offer users security, privacy, and simplicity. Some of its key features are:

Elliptic Curve Integrated Encryption Scheme (ECIES)

On-the-go access

AES256 encryption

Decryption

The Key Takeaways

Your digital legacy might benefit from a password manager. You could wish your heirs or executor to access your distinct accounts in the event of your demise, either to close them or to grant access to co-workers or clients. For an executor to complete any digital details, you might leave the master key with the best password manager.

If you look forward to streamlining your digital life, then LegacyPass is the best password manager for you. For more updates and information, please visit https://www.legacysuite.com/.

#best password manager app #legacy suites

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