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#Enterprise Data Services#Enterprise Data Solution#Enterprise data management#enterprise data management services#enterprise data transformation services#enterprise data & analytics services#enterprise data & analytics solution#Enterprise Data Landscape#Maturity Assessment#Enterprise Data Migration#Data Landscape Modernization#data landscaping solutions#data modernization#DataOps services
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Dominating the Market with Cloud Power
Explore how leveraging cloud technology can help businesses dominate the market. Learn how cloud power boosts scalability, reduces costs, enhances innovation, and provides a competitive edge in today's digital landscape. Visit now to read more: Dominating the Market with Cloud Power
#ai-driven cloud platforms#azure cloud platform#business agility with cloud#business innovation with cloud#capital one cloud transformation#cloud adoption in media and entertainment#cloud computing and iot#cloud computing for business growth#cloud computing for financial institutions#cloud computing for start-ups#cloud computing for travel industry#cloud computing in healthcare#cloud computing landscape#Cloud Computing solutions#cloud for operational excellence#cloud infrastructure as a service (iaas)#cloud migration benefits#cloud scalability for enterprises#cloud security and disaster recovery#cloud solutions for competitive advantage#cloud solutions for modern businesses#Cloud storage solutions#cloud technology trends#cloud transformation#cloud-based content management#cloud-based machine learning#cost-efficient cloud services#customer experience enhancement with cloud#data analytics with cloud#digital transformation with cloud
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🇯🇵 Unveiling the Toshiba T1100: A Journey into the Dawn of Portable Computing!
💻 In the early 1980s, a revolutionary device emerged, transforming the landscape of personal computing forever. The Toshiba T1100, released in 1985, marked a significant milestone in the history of portable computers. The Toshiba T1100 has subsequently been described by Toshiba as "the world's first mass-market laptop computer".
🌐 The Toshiba T1100 was among the first truly portable computers, designed for professionals and enthusiasts seeking computing power on the go. Weighing approximately 4.1 kilograms (9 pounds) with its lead-acid battery, this innovative machine provided users with unprecedented mobility.
⚙️ Equipped with an Intel 80C88 processor running at 4.77 MHz and boasting 256 KB of RAM, the Toshiba T1100 offered impressive computing capabilities for its time. Its 9.6-inch monochrome LCD screen provided a crisp display, while the detachable keyboard enhanced usability.
💾 The T1100 introduced several innovative features, including a built-in 3.5-inch floppy disk drive—a rarity at the time—which allowed for data storage and transfer with ease. This model also featured MS-DOS as its operating system, providing a familiar computing environment.
📈 The Toshiba T1100 set a new standard for portable computing, demonstrating the feasibility and practicality of laptops for business and personal use. Its success paved the way for subsequent generations of laptops, influencing the evolution of mobile computing worldwide.
👨💻 For professionals in various industries, the Toshiba T1100 represented a game-changer, enabling efficient data management, word processing, and spreadsheet tasks on the move. Its portability and functionality empowered users to work beyond traditional office environments.
🌟 Today, the legacy of the Toshiba T1100 lives on in the sleek, lightweight laptops and notebooks that have become indispensable tools for modern professionals and digital nomads. This groundbreaking device remains a testament to Toshiba's commitment to innovation and excellence in the field of computing. The Toshiba T1100 remains an iconic symbol of the dawn of portable computing—a chapter in the ongoing story of technological progress that continues to shape our digital world.
#old technology#techtime chronicles#companies#tech#technology#old tech#technews#information technology#corporations#electronics#toshiba#t1100#toshiba t1100#laptop#laptops#portable computer#computer science#computing#computers#computer#hardware#software#1980s computers#1980s#innovation#made in japan#japan#retro tech#tech review#pc
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Frontier myth vilified the California grizzly. Science tells a new story. (Washington Post)
The grizzly, a subspecies of brown bear, has long held a place in mainstream American myth as a dangerous, even bloodthirsty creature. Its scientific name, Ursus arctos horribilis, means “the horrible bear.” But that image is being challenged by a new set of studies that combine modern biochemical analysis, historical research and Indigenous knowledge to bring the story of the California grizzly from fiction to fact.
In January, a team of experts led by University of California at Santa Barbara ecologist Alexis Mychajliw published a paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B about the diet of the California grizzly bear and how that influenced its extinction. The results challenge virtually every aspect of the bear’s established story.
“Pretty much everything that I thought I knew about these animals turned out to be wrong,” said Peter Alagona, an ecologist and historian at UCSB and co-author of the study.
Much of the grizzly bear’s long-standing narrative comes from stories, artwork and early photographs depicting California grizzlies as huge in size and aggressive in nature. Many of these reports, which found wide readership in newspapers elsewhere in the West and in the cities back East, were written by what Alagona calls the Californian influencers of their time.
“They were trying to get rich and famous by marketing themselves as these icons of the fading frontier,” Alagona said. “A lot of the historical sources that we have about grizzlies are actually not about grizzlies. They’re about this weird Victorian 19th-century celebrity culture.”
The team of ecologists, historians and archivists compared the image of California grizzlies from these frontier reports to harder data in the form of bear bones from museum collections all over the state.
The frontier myth had painted the California bears as larger than grizzlies elsewhere in the country, but the bone analysis revealed that they were the same size and weight, about 6 feet long and 440 pounds for the average adult.
In an even larger blow to the popular story of the vicious grizzly, the bones showed that before 1542, when the first Europeans arrived, the bears were only getting about 10 percent of their diet from preying on land animals. They were primarily herbivores, surviving on a varied diet of acorns, roots, berries, fish and occasionally larger prey such as deer.
As European-style farming and ranching began to dominate the landscape, grizzlies became more like the stories those frontier influencers were telling about them. The percentage of meat in their diet rose to about 25 percent, probably in large part because of the relative ease of catching a fenced-in cow or sheep compared to a wild elk.
Colonialism forced so many changes on the California landscape so quickly, affecting every species that the bears ate and interacted with, that the exact cause of this change will be difficult to ever fully understand.
Still, grizzlies were never as vicious or purely predatory as the stories made them out to be. The narrative of the huge killer bear instead fed a larger settler story of a landscape — and a people — that could not coexist with the settlers themselves. And that story became a disaster for more than just bears.
Although we will never have exact numbers, experts agree that hundreds of thousands of Indigenous people were living in what is now California before White settlers arrived. One frequently cited estimate puts the population at 340,000.
By 1900, that number had been slashed by more than 95 percent to around 16,000 surviving tribal members throughout the state. Eliminating the bear and the vast majority of California’s Indigenous people can be seen as parts of the same concerted effort to replace one landscape — and one set of stories — with another.
“The annihilation of the California grizzly bear was part of a much larger campaign of annihilation,” Alagona said. “I think it’s clear that what happened in California meets the legal definition of a genocide. But in a way, it was even more than that, because these were not just attempts to eliminate groups of people. These were attempts to destroy an entire world.”
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Frogman's Camera Buying Guide
A few weeks ago someone asked if I could recommend an interchangeable lens camera (ILC) to supplement their smartphone photos and hopefully get better pictures of important things like vacations and pets.
I decided to go very extra with my response and due to that... I'm still not finished with it.
I'm worried I am letting this person down because they did not ask for a giant post explaining every detail about cameras in the history of forever.
So I am going to do a camera recommendation post without as much explanation and hopefully I can finish the giant post at some point in the near future.
If you want to take better pictures you are probably going to need a camera with a decent sized sensor, a fast lens, a tripod, and a flash.
The bigger sensor gives you more dynamic range so you can capture brighter and darker things in the photo.
A fast lens has a giant hole in the front that lets in a ton of light. That hole is called the aperture and the bigger it is, the better your photos in dark environments will be. So you will want something that does f/1.8 or f/1.4 (lower f-stop number = bigger hole = more light). This can also help you get a lot of cool background blur.
A tripod will help get you longer exposures without any blur from camera shake. Especially good for landscape photos.
And a flash is for taking photos of pets and other moving subjects when you are indoors and don't have a lot of light. A flash is an absolute game changer for indoor photos.
HOWEVER, never point it directly at your subject.
Point it at a large white ceiling or wall. The flash happens so fast that it freezes motion. It is how I got all of my indoor photos of Otis.
Here he was playing and being rambunctious and he is not blurry.
I used no special settings. I just stuck on a flash and pointed it at the ceiling and suddenly sheep are sticking to things.
Oh, and one other huge benefit of using a flash... you can take much better photos of pets with dark fur. So if you have a cute little void in your home, a flash can help you capture detail in their fur.
Just lift the shadow slider in your image editor and that beautiful fur will reveal itself.
If you get an ETTL or TTL flash, it will output the correct amount of light automatically. You can literally just put your camera in automatic mode, aim the flash at the ceiling, and press the shutter button.
Before I talk about recommendations I want to make one thing very clear.
GETTING A GIANT CAMERA WILL NOT AUTOMATICALLY GIVE YOU BETTER PHOTOS.
Aside from my flash aimed at the ceiling trick, a big boy camera is not a magic solution for better photos. In some cases, you might actually get *worse* photos than your smartphone. You need to learn the basic fundamentals of photography and you also need to learn some basic photo editing skills.
Smartphones employ powerful algorithms and computational processes to make every photo you take look as good as possible.
ILCs say, "Here is your RAW data, you figure out the rest."
You don't have to become an expert, but if you watch this free 6 hour photography course, that will ensure you have the knowledge needed to improve your photos.
youtube
Okay, let's get into the nitty gritty of buying a nice new old ILC.
If you are on a tight budget and cannot afford a fancy mirrorless camera, I would highly suggest a used DSLR. You can get them for very reasonable prices. And unlike just about every other modern technological gadget, cameras and lenses are built to last for decades. So I have no qualms about recommending used photography gear.
However, I do highly recommend using either KEH or MPB, as they have a long trial period and decent customer service. If something goes awry with your used gear, KEH has a 180 day warranty and MPB has a 6 month warranty. So there is much less of a risk than eBay or Facebook Marketplace. You pay a bit of overhead, but the piece of mind is worth it.
Before I start my recommendations I want to quickly explain the difference between APS-C and Full Frame camera bodies. (For brevity's sake I am going to omit Micro Four Thirds bodies as they are not typically geared toward beginner photography.)
APS-C has a "crop" sensor. It is a bit smaller than full frame and does not perform as well in low light (more noise). However these bodies are cheaper and can still produce great photos. You can see above the sensor is still significantly larger than a smartphone. APS-C adds a 1.5x zoom to all lenses. This can be annoying in small spaces but advantageous for outdoor photography like wildlife and sports. You can use full frame lenses on a crop sensor body (within the same brand). APS-C lenses are usually cheaper but of lower quality.
Full frame has a larger sensor that will give you less noise in low light. It is also much easier to get background blur. Full frame also allows you to work in more cramped spaces. You *cannot* use APS-C lenses on a full frame body. However, the lenses meant for full frame cameras tend to be better quality in general.
If you can save up a little more and get a full frame body, I would recommend it. These bodies used to be geared more toward professional use, but since mirrorless cameras became popular, used full frame DSLRs have become much more accessible to those on a budget. Full frame cameras make it easier to get better results in challenging circumstances. And challenging conditions are really the main area where ILCs still kick a smartphone's ass.
For tight budgets I would recommend the following...
Canon or Nikon APS-C DSLR camera body
50mm f/1.8 lens (Nifty Fifty)
18-55mm APS-C lens (good for landscapes and portraits)
Yongnuo ETTL Flash
There are lenses called "superzooms" which can go from (as an example) 18-200mm or 70-300mm and other crazy focal lengths. That sounds fantastic and very versatile... but these are usually utter shite. You may be tempted to get one of these lenses hoping it can do everything you need, but there are no free lunches in lens land. Unless you are spending many thousands of dollars, the wider the focal range, the worse the lens will be.
When you stick to the 18-55mm range, you can be assured the images will be decent. And if you find yourself really needing a telephoto lens, you can save up and add it to your collection later on. The 18-55 will give you wide angle for landscapes all the way to slightly telephoto for portraits and moderately close wildlife. This lens cannot be used indoors or at night without a flash. Which is why I recommend the Nifty Fifty for that purpose. $100 for a moderately sharp low light lens is a no brainer.
Also, stick to Canon, Nikon, Sigma, or Tamron lenses. You can try exotic 3rd party lens brands when you know more what you are doing. And always make sure the lens has autofocus before buying.
It's hard to give you exact recommendations as used items are not reliably in stock. So I'm going to show you an example of the above, but I am not necessarily saying you should buy this *exact* combination. You might be able to get something similar with Nikon as well.
Canon 60D APS-C DSLR
50mm f/1.8 lens
Canon 18-55mm APS-C lens (EF-S mount)
Yongnuo TTL Flash
(I wouldn't recommend getting a used flash, as the Yongnuo is already a great price and you can't know if someone used the flash 100,000 times or 20 times.)
Altogether that is about $500. You can start with the 60D and the 50mm Nifty Fifty for $330 and add on the other two items later on.
My recommended full frame setup...
Full frame Canon or Nikon DSLR body
50mm f/1.8 lens (same as before)
24-70mm full frame zoom lens (full frame equivalent to 18-55mm)
ETTL Yongnuo flash (same as before)
And an example from KEH might be...
Canon 6D Full Frame DSLR
Canon 50mm f/1.8 Lens
Sigma 24-70mm Full Frame Zoom lens (EF mount)
Yonguo ETTL Flash
And that would be about $800 total.
Again, you can start with just the camera and 50mm lens and add the other items later. So invest $500 initially and go from there.
And just to give a Nikon example as well...
Nikon D600 Full Frame DSLR
Nikon 50mm f/1.8 Lens
Tamron 24-70mm
Yonguo ETTL Flash (Nikon version)
I highly recommend researching any camera body and lens before purchase. I can vouch for the items above, but you should definitely check out some YouTube videos before buying.
All of the stuff on KEH and MBP is marked down in price for aesthetic reasons. They do test everything to make sure it is functional. If you care if the camera or lens looks pristine, it will cost a little extra. But if you don't mind if it is beat to hell, you can save some money. Ugly or not, you will get the same photos out of the gear. As I said, photography stuff is built to last for a long time. Almost all repairs are due to user damage and not defects. And usually defects manifest when the product is brand new.
Oh, I forgot about the tripod!
Amazon's $35 tripod is surprisingly decent. It even got a good review on a very picky tripod review site. I recommend starting with this and then upgrading when you know more what you need out of a tripod.
Amazon 60 inch Tripod
I worry I'm leaving out a lot of important information, but hopefully I can expand in the other post I am working on.
That said, if anyone is thinking of buying a camera and you are not sure about the items you selected, please feel free to message me and I will help you assess your choices. Please make sure you include a budget range when asking for buying advice.
I hope that helps. I will try to finish the more in depth post soon. And it will include tips for how to get better photos from your smartphone if you cannot afford an ILC at the moment.
Further resources...
Recipe for Landscape Photos Froggie's Encyclopedia of Lens Terms
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On Tumblr
I will not be moving. I'm fed up with AI but its a system that has poisoned every other site already, and poisoned the internet at large. Other than turning off the toggle and being mad that its happening again, I'm more than aware that my control over my work has already become increasingly flimsy on the internet landscape. Frankly, our data was scrapped through search engines long before tumblr asked for a cut of the pie just due to its public nature. So its hard to care that much by yet another site doing such, but its especially frustrating given how long tumblr did resist many of the temptations of data selling. Additionally, tumblr as a site handles content differently than others. A deleted blog's posts can still circle indefinitely due to the nature of how reblogs work. Deleting everything offers little protection, and moving anywhere else is just an additional ticking clock until similar happens, has already happened, or the sites are so new and flimsy that if you pay attention at all you can already see cracks ghosting along their design or operation. However it should be noted this frustrating move comes directly after another gross mishandling of privacy, site protections, and frankly a bafflingly public display of bigotry at the hand of the site CEO. It has been truly horrific that not only is this a consistent problem, but its one that comes at the tail end of a, frankly, much more upsetting action. I guess if I ask anything its to not let the existence of this new problem completely overwrite those events. Basically, I'm tired. More accurately I'm just fed up. AI scrapping is a problem I get very little say in, that's really the whole issue with its use of scraping as training method- the lack of say. I'm not a paying customer who can revoke support for a product, I'm just another individual experiencing the 'content' equivalent of a pickpocket. Glaze and nightshade are not fullproof solutions, nor do they 'poison' data sets in the way people might believe they do. Its an evolutionary arms race, but one with rollback and a billion different hydra heads. So yeah- I'll just grit and bare it and keep my money to myself. That said, for the people who truly want other options, I have other accounts on Twitter (Consistently used, although I talk and share less) and Bluesky. (Don't particularly like)
Sorry that the modern internet continues to suck!
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Textbooks on biology and forestry make it clear that large parts of Europe would naturally be covered by dense forests. The textbook narrative is that our ancestors felled the forests, drained the swamps and cultivated the heathland. In other words, they created the varied landscapes of meadows, heaths and grasslands that characterized our cultural landscapes before the advent of modern agriculture. But new research from Aarhus University suggests that this is not the case. Elena Pearce, postdoc at the Department of Biology at Aarhus University, and the lead author of the study explains. “The idea that the landscape was covered by dense forest across most of the continent is simply not right. Our results show that we need to reassess our view of what European nature is," she says, and her colleague and co-author Professor Jens-Christian Svenning continues: “Nature during the last interglacial period – a period with a mild climate similar to today, but before modern humans arrived - was full of variation. Importantly, the landscapes harboured large amounts of open and semi-open vegetation with shrubs, light-demanding trees and herbs alongside stands of tall-growing shade trees.”
[...]
According to calculations from the new study, somewhere between 50 and 75 per cent of the landscape was covered by open or semi-open vegetation. And this is most likely due to the large mammals that lived at that time, explains Jens-Christian Svenning. "We know that a lot of large animals lived in Europe at that time. Aurochs, horses, bison, elephants and rhinos. They must have consumed large amounts of plant biomass and thereby had the capacity to keep the tree-growth in check," he says and continues: "Of course, it’s also likely that other factors such as floods and forest fires also played a part. But there’s no evidence to suggest that this caused enough disturbance. For example, forest fires encourage pine trees, but mostly we did not find pine as a dominant species.” Although the research group cannot be 100 percent certain about the extent to which large animals were behind the open areas, there are strong indications that they were. Firstly, large animals such as bison have exactly that effect in areas where they are still found in European forests. Furthermore, beetle fossils from the last interglacial period also show that many large animals lived at that time. “We have looked at a number of finds of beetle fossils from that time in the UK. Although there are beetle species that thrive in forests with frequent forest fires, we found none of them in the fossil data. Instead, we found large quantities dung beetles, and this shows that parts of the landscape have been densely populated by large herbivores," he says.
#trees#forest#wood pasture#ecology#prehistory#more evidence against the closed canopy hypothesis#emphasis added
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Cannot Compute _ Part 2
[Alastor x Robotic Demon!Reader]
Part 1 — Part 2 (here) — Part 3
The worst realization was when you were looking for Alastor after the battle against the exterminators
Alastor took up the task of fighting against Adam while you were to provide support to the others, according to Alastor, there was no point in putting the strongest individuals together. It just wasn’t smart when it came to a war with those angels. So you complied, as a former assassin, you weren’t rusty in any way, after Alastor’s barrier got broken by Adam, you opened your virtual reality that isolated the rest of the angels so that Charlie and Vaggie could go for Lute
You knew something was wrong when you felt Adam attempting to destroy your reality from the outside with his angelic powers. While no one could enter and exit your virtual reality because it was non-existent, one could attempt to destroy it from the outside if they knew where your general area was. Since your virtual reality was a data copy of the landscape you’re in, only technological to give you an advantage
With Charlie’s shout, you let down your virtual reality and released everyone. Confused as to why Adam was still living. Your system went overloaded as fear came to you that Alastor was gone. That gave some angels the gap they needed to tear your arms out and damage your legs to at least immobilize you, you were too much of a threat to them
When the battle was done, you searched for Alastor since everyone knew you couldn’t help much on the renovations. You had a metal pipe like a walking stick before limping on your way
Alastor was having a meltdown. He cared, was caring for those sinners in that inferno hotel! He! The Radio Demon! Said to strike fear and terror to the listeners of his broadcast! The Overlord that rose in ranks by night! How could he be weak? He had to cut off the root. No issue for Charlie and the others
But there was you. You are the one that he found entertaining at first with your gaming demon form and based powers, teenagers of the modern era. Despite the different time periods between you two, you guys clicked slowly and he enjoyed it
That was exactly the issue. He liked it. He liked you. The Radio Demon doesn’t like anyone. Attachments serve to bring him nothing but weakness and ruin. Just look at the relationship his dear mother had with his accursed father. He tortured his father after finding him in Hell, thankful that his mother was in Heaven. “Cut the ties. All that piece of metal is good for is that soul with so much power.”
You nearly wanted to shut down the moment you heard it from Alastor. You ‘unlocked’ angelic healing, basically a strong healing power, after you analysed the corpse of more than a dozen of those angels, not to mention Adam’s body. You wanted to heal Alastor after finding out he was alive
You tried convincing yourself he just needed time after his defeat. But your heart broke. You can’t take it, you needed to recover anyway, the healing only worked with body parts, not robotic parts. But who was going to fix you, never had you been injured to this degree?
Vaggie got you Carmilla Carmine’s help. She offered to remodel your figure and your unique fashion sense that matched your demonic form as a robot or artificial intelligence. She admitted she was going to experiment on you a bit as well to see how far she could make you a force to be reckoned with. Later using you as inspiration for her weapon designs. You agreed since it was advantageous for both of you
“Lady Carmine, tell me, what if the one you love, the one you were fighting for, broke your heart?” You asked before your upgrade, as you saw it. You were there when Vaggie was getting trained by Carmilla before the battle with the angels and heard her lecture on fighting for love. Yet you wonder if you can now that you learned Alastor’s true thoughts on you
“I have an inkling that you are implying something. Have you been in love? Or any form of love.” Carmilla would ask as she walked around, preparing the tools needed and the blueprint for the operation. “And you can call me Carmilla, little AI.”
“I can’t say that I did. I don’t know what love is like, I don’t know what it feels like. Is this what a broken heart feels like? I don’t like this.” Your voice glitched out as your system warned you to calm down or else risk a power outage. You controlled yourself as she watched with pity in her eyes
“There were a lot of ways to deal with heartbreaks, you can seek revenge, and/or find new love, but I think in your case. You might try something else.” Carmilla spoke, she gave you suggestions but put the ball in your court because you knew what was best for you. “Shall we begin?”
You closed your eyes preparing to shut down for a short timed duration, while Carmilla works on you, you can think of what to do in your situation. “I’ll be in your care, Carmilla.”
Note: Part 2~ One more to go! After that is Collector time
Circe Y.
My Works: MASTERLIST
Taglist: @aconfusedwonderland @crowleysthings @donustellaron @mistpurpl3 @lucifers-silhouette @fluffy-koalala @rerarlo
#Circe's Nighty Writings#alastor imagine#alastor x reader#alastor x y/n#alastor x you#hazbin hotel#hazbin hotel alastor#alastor headcanons#alastor fanfiction#alastor#hazbin hotel oneshots#hazbin hotel imagines#hazbin hotel fanfiction#hazbin hotel x reader#Cannot Compute
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this would need like a proper 10-page essay to really delve into but "optimization" culture and bureaucracy have totally changed today's sporting landscape, as with many other sports drivers are becoming more and more objectively ~skilled~ on average because they're growing up with simulators and hordes of data and resources from such a young age that weren't as readily available for older generations, and then on top of the fia consolidating feeder series into a very restrictive pipeline and the limitations of the salary cap + sl system, f1 has basically developed a risk-averse entry bottleneck that forces teams' and drivers' hands in a uniquely modern way. nowadays teams are much happier to be in a "comfortable" position with permissible, proven drivers over risking it on unknown variables, and junior drivers are being brought into academy systems younger and younger and with more volume and frequency and directed in very rigid & conventional ways, to the point that their potential for and pathway into f1 is predetermined fairly early on and f2 at this point is basically meaningless to many top teams that would rather rely on their private assessments of their juniors, which means if you aren't in an academy you're essentially fucked. like the career flexibility (both in terms of actual ability to move + the inherent desire/willingness to do so) just isn't quite as ubiquitous anymore
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From Myspace to Spotify: The Journey of Indie Sleaze Music in the Digital Age 🌐
Hey there, indie dreamer! 🎸 Ready for a nostalgic trip through the evolution of indie sleaze music? From the early days of Myspace to the modern streaming era on Spotify, indie sleaze has undergone a wild transformation. Let's dive into how this raw, rebellious genre has adapted and thrived in the digital age, and why it’s still resonating with listeners today.
1. The Myspace Era: Indie Sleaze’s First Digital Playground
Back in the early 2000s, Myspace was the epicenter of indie music discovery. It was the place where bands could upload their tracks, connect with fans, and build a following without needing a major label. Indie sleaze artists were quick to embrace this new digital frontier, using Myspace as their stage and connecting with a global audience in ways that had never been possible before.
DIY Spirit: Myspace was a haven for the DIY ethos that indie sleaze embraced. Bands like The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Arctic Monkeys used the platform to share their music directly with fans, bypassing traditional media and labels. Their raw, unpolished sound fit perfectly with the unfiltered vibe of Myspace.
Visual Aesthetic: Bands and fans alike used Myspace’s customizable profiles to express their indie sleaze style. With an abundance of glittery backgrounds, band posters, and those iconic “Top 8” friend lists, the platform was a digital reflection of the era’s grungy, glamorous aesthetic.
2. From Downloads to Streams: The Shift to Digital Platforms
As the digital music landscape evolved, so did indie sleaze. The rise of platforms like iTunes and, later, streaming services like Spotify changed the way music was consumed and shared. This transition brought new opportunities and challenges for indie sleaze artists.
Digital Downloads: Platforms like iTunes allowed fans to buy and download individual tracks, making it easier for indie sleaze bands to reach new audiences. Artists could release singles and EPs without needing a full album, and fans could curate their own playlists of their favorite tracks.
Streaming Services: Enter Spotify, Apple Music, and other streaming platforms. The shift from downloads to streaming changed everything. Indie sleaze bands had to adapt to a world where music was less about owning tracks and more about playlist placement and algorithmic recommendations.
3. The Rise of Playlists and Algorithmic Discovery
One of the biggest changes in the music industry over the past decade has been the rise of playlists and algorithmic discovery. For indie sleaze artists, this new way of reaching listeners has both benefits and challenges.
Playlist Power: Playlists like Spotify’s “Discover Weekly” and “Release Radar” have become crucial for indie artists. Getting featured on a popular playlist can lead to a surge in streams and new fans. Indie sleaze tracks with their catchy hooks and raw energy often find a perfect home on these curated lists.
Algorithmic Challenges: While algorithms help discover new music, they also mean that artists need to navigate an ever-changing digital landscape. Standing out in a crowded field requires savvy marketing, consistent releases, and a strong online presence. Indie sleaze bands are learning to leverage social media and streaming data to connect with listeners and build their brand.
4. The Influence of Social Media: TikTok and Beyond
The rise of social media platforms like TikTok has brought a whole new dimension to music discovery. For indie sleaze, TikTok’s short-form video format and viral trends have become a new way to connect with fans and introduce their music to a wider audience.
Viral Hits: TikTok has the power to turn obscure indie tracks into viral sensations. Songs that capture the spirit of indie sleaze—whether through their raw lyrics, catchy beats, or nostalgic vibes—are finding new life on the platform. Creators use these tracks in videos, dance challenges, and memes, leading to a resurgence of interest in the genre.
Fan Engagement: Social media allows artists to interact directly with their fans, building a community around their music. Indie sleaze bands are using platforms like Instagram and Twitter to share behind-the-scenes content, engage with fans, and keep their audience updated on new releases.
5. The Revival of Indie Sleaze: A New Generation Embraces the Sound
Despite the changes in how music is consumed, indie sleaze is experiencing a revival. A new generation is discovering and embracing the genre, inspired by the nostalgia of the early 2000s and the raw, unfiltered energy that indie sleaze represents.
Nostalgic Resurgence: The early 2000s sound is making a comeback, with both new and old artists embracing the grunge pop aesthetic. The rise of vintage-inspired fashion and music is bringing indie sleaze back into the spotlight, with playlists and radio stations dedicated to the genre.
Cultural Impact: Indie sleaze’s influence is seen in modern fashion, film, and art. The grungy, carefree style of the early 2000s is being reinterpreted for today’s audience, blending nostalgia with contemporary creativity.
Final Thoughts, Babe: The Journey Continues
From the DIY spirit of Myspace to the streaming era of Spotify and the viral world of TikTok, indie sleaze has navigated a complex and ever-changing digital landscape. Despite the challenges, the genre remains as vibrant and relevant as ever, resonating with both old fans and a new generation discovering its raw, rebellious charm.
So next time you’re curating your playlist or scrolling through social media, remember the journey indie sleaze has taken to get here. Whether you’re rediscovering the classics or finding new favorites, the spirit of indie sleaze lives on—gritty, glamorous, and forever cool. 🎶✨
#2014 grunge#2014 nostalgia#2014 tumblr#2014 revival#2014 aesthetic#indie music#indie sleaze#bring back 2014#soft grunge#2014core
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Hospital Management Software: Transforming Healthcare with Grapes IDMR
Author : Jerald Nepoleon
In the dynamic healthcare landscape, technology plays a crucial role in streamlining operations, improving patient care, and reducing administrative burdens. Grapes IDMR, a leading provider of hospital management software, offers cutting-edge solutions designed to elevate hospital efficiency and ensure seamless management across departments. With the rise of digital transformation in healthcare, implementing a robust hospital management system (HMS) is no longer an option but a necessity. Let's explore how Grapes IDMR’s software stands out and drives excellence in hospital administration.
Why Hospital Management Software Matters
The primary objective of any healthcare facility is to provide superior care to patients while maintaining operational efficiency. Managing multiple departments, scheduling, billing, inventory, and patient records manually is time-consuming and prone to errors. Hospital management software simplifies these processes, offering a unified platform for tracking every aspect of a hospital’s operations, from patient registration to discharge.
In an era where patient care and experience are paramount, hospital management software optimizes workflows and ensures that healthcare providers can focus more on patients and less on administrative tasks. Here's where Grapes IDMR makes a remarkable difference.
Grapes IDMR Hospital Management Software: A Game-Changer
Grapes IDMR’s hospital management software is a complete, integrated solution tailored to meet the unique requirements of modern healthcare institutions. By bringing together various modules such as appointment scheduling, patient management, billing, reporting, and inventory control, Grapes IDMR offers a seamless and intuitive platform. Here are the key features that make it a preferred choice:
1. Patient Information Management
Managing patient records, histories, test results, and appointments can be challenging, especially for large hospitals. Grapes IDMR's hospital management software provides a central database for storing and retrieving patient data with ease. This ensures timely access to critical information, improving decision-making and patient care.
2. Appointment and Scheduling
With a highly intuitive scheduling system, Grapes IDMR helps hospitals reduce waiting times and optimize doctor appointments. The system allows real-time updates, ensuring that doctors, staff, and patients are aligned, reducing chances of overbooking or under booking.
3. Billing and Payment Integration
Hospitals deal with multiple payment methods and insurance claims on a daily basis. Grapes IDMR simplifies the entire billing process by providing automated invoicing, payment reminders, and integration with third-party insurance systems. This reduces billing errors and accelerates the payment cycle.
4. Inventory and Supply Chain Management
Efficient management of hospital inventory is vital for preventing shortages and ensuring that essential medicines and supplies are always available. Grapes IDMR’s hospital management software offers an automated system that tracks inventory levels, alerts on reorders, and ensures that the right supplies are always stocked.
5. Data Security and Compliance
One of the critical concerns in healthcare is data security. Grapes IDMR takes this seriously by offering state-of-the-art encryption and security measures that protect sensitive patient data. Additionally, the software is fully compliant with healthcare regulations, ensuring that hospitals adhere to industry standards and legal requirements.
6. Reporting and Analytics
Having access to real-time data and analytics is crucial for making informed decisions. Grapes IDMR offers a comprehensive reporting module that provides insights into hospital performance, patient outcomes, financial metrics, and more. This allows hospital administrators to track key metrics and identify areas for improvement.
Benefits of Implementing Grapes IDMR Hospital Management Software
Integrating hospital management software like Grapes IDMR into your healthcare facility comes with a wide array of benefits:
1. Improved Patient Care
By automating routine tasks, doctors and healthcare professionals can focus more on delivering high-quality care. Grapes IDMR ensures that patient data is accessible at the click of a button, allowing for quicker diagnoses and treatment plans.
2. Increased Efficiency
With automated scheduling, billing, and inventory management, hospitals can optimize their operations, reduce redundancy, and increase staff productivity. This not only saves time but also cuts operational costs.
3. Enhanced Communication
Grapes IDMR enhances communication between departments and medical staff, ensuring that everyone is on the same page. This is especially useful in critical situations where time-sensitive decisions are required.
4. Cost Savings
By automating various administrative tasks, hospitals can significantly reduce overhead costs. Billing errors, scheduling conflicts, and inventory issues are minimized, leading to overall cost savings.
5. Data-Driven Decisions
Grapes IDMR’s powerful reporting tools enable hospitals to make data-driven decisions, improving both patient outcomes and financial performance. The software provides valuable insights that can help in resource allocation, process improvement, and patient care management.
Why Choose Grapes IDMR?
When selecting hospital management software, it's essential to choose a system that is reliable, scalable, and adaptable to your facility's needs. Here’s why Grapes IDMR is the ideal solution for hospitals:
Customizable: Grapes IDMR can be tailored to suit the specific needs of any healthcare facility, whether it's a small clinic or a large multi-specialty hospital.
User-Friendly Interface: With an intuitive and easy-to-navigate interface, the software is designed for seamless adoption, even by staff with minimal technical expertise.
Comprehensive Support: Grapes IDMR offers 24/7 support and training for hospital staff, ensuring smooth implementation and continuous operation.
Future-Proof Technology: Grapes IDMR stays updated with the latest technological advancements, offering hospitals a future-proof solution that can scale as the facility grows.
Final Thoughts
In today’s healthcare environment, hospitals need to adopt digital solutions to stay competitive and deliver exceptional patient care. Grapes IDMR’s hospital management software provides the perfect blend of innovation, efficiency, and reliability. By automating administrative tasks, enhancing communication, and ensuring data security, Grapes IDMR empowers healthcare providers to focus on what truly matters: patient care.
If your hospital is looking to boost efficiency and improve patient outcomes, Grapes IDMR’s hospital management software is the solution you need.
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#HospitalManagementSoftware#HealthcareTechnology#PatientCare#HospitalEfficiency#GrapesIDMR#MedicalSoftware#PatientRecords#HospitalAutomation#HealthcareInnovation#DataSecurity#HealthTech#DigitalTransformation#HospitalManagement#HealthInformationSystem#HospitalBilling#HospitalInventory#HealthcareSolutions#MedicalDataManagement#PatientExperience#GrapesInnovativeSolutions#HMS#Youtube
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The humble tree has long protected humans from sickness and even death—and in the modern city, it’s still doing so. As global temperatures rise, so too does the “urban heat island effect”—the tendency for cities to absorb and hold on to the sun’s energy, which is a growing public-health crisis worldwide. On a small scale, the shade under a single tree is an invaluable refuge on a blisteringly hot day. Scaling that effect up, neighborhoods with more tree cover are measurably cooler.
Now research is showing just what an impact this can have on people’s health. A new paper finds that in Los Angeles, planting more trees and deploying more reflective surfaces—something as simple as painting roofs white—could lower temperatures so dramatically, it’d cut the number of heat-related ER visits by up to 66 percent. That research follows a previous study by the same scientists finding that one in four lives lost during heat waves could be avoided with the same techniques.
As urban populations are rising around the world, so are temperatures, putting ever more people in ever-hotter environments. “We’re primarily urban dwellers at this point,” says UCLA environmental researcher Edith de Guzman, coauthor of both studies and the cofounder and director of the Los Angeles Urban Cooling Collaborative. “We know that that’s problematic, because there’s a magnification of heat that occurs in those spaces, because of the preponderance of heat-retaining surfaces that then release that heat at night, when the body seeks to cool off.”
If a heat wave stretches day after day, the physiological stress builds and builds on residents. Elderly and young people are especially at risk, since their bodies can’t cool themselves as efficiently. Extreme heat also leads to the formation of ozone, which exacerbates asthma.
For the new study, published in the International Journal of Biometeorology, de Guzman’s team looked at four different LA heat waves between 2006 and 2010—the same ones were also referred to in the previous study on mortality. These heat waves differed in their length, high temperatures, and humidity. (The higher the humidity, the more difficult it is for the human body to cool off by sweating.) The team then married this data with land-use data showing where in LA County there’s good tree cover, which reflects heat, and where there are impermeable surfaces like pavement, which absorb it. And lastly, they got data on heat-related ER visits in those areas.
They plugged all that data into an algorithm that modeled scenarios in which modifying the urban environment—with more reflective surfaces and more trees—could lower temperatures and avoid those heat-related ER visits. With 25 percent more tree cover, visits might decline by 7 to 45 percent. Bumping that up to 50 percent more tree cover, the heat-related ER visits decline by 19 to 58 percent. And then if LA were to max out its allowable tree cover—40 percent of its total area—those visits would drop by 24 to 66 percent.
“We are able to quantify how outcomes would have been different in real events,” says de Guzman. “I know that projections are for a higher number of extreme heat days in each of these communities.”
In other words: The time to act is now. Tall trees provide shade, for one, but plants in general release water vapor as they photosynthesize, essentially “sweating.” Accordingly, a high-income neighborhood with lots of parks and landscaping might be 15 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than a low-income, more industrialized area—like so many health threats, heat disproportionately affects those who are the most deprived. The urban heat island effect varies not only from neighborhood to neighborhood, but also from block to block and even house to house. Different building materials, like wood and brick, absorb and retain the sun’s energy in different ways.
So the utility of this kind of research is to first of all find whole neighborhoods to prioritize for greening, but then to target specific places to put single trees. “We don’t necessarily in urban areas plant entire forests—we plant an individual tree at a time,” says Portland State University climate adaptation scientist Vivek Shandas, who studies the heat island effect but wasn’t involved in the new research. “If you have a limited amount of funds, and you know where there’s going to be the highest impact from the deployment of this, it’s a no-brainer to be able to identify those locations.”
But it’s not as easy as just sticking a bunch of trees in the ground and calling it a day. LA has embarked on a multiyear Urban Forest Management Plan to increase its tree canopy, especially in its most vulnerable neighborhoods. It has to carefully identify locations to add the plants, but also collaborate with the residents there—for instance, with community feedback meetings. Some people might not want trees outside their home: Maybe a branch once fell on their car, or their sidewalk cracked from underlying roots, reducing the mobility of a grandparent in a wheelchair.
So getting more trees in the urban landscape is also about collaboration and education, getting folks to understand the significant cooling benefits that could well save their lives—and, at the very least, reduce their air-conditioning bills. “If you have a negative tree story, we have to do some education on how we’re going to do better in the future,” says Rachel Malarich, the City Forest Officer of Los Angeles. “How we’ve learned as an industry is to be more selective about what we put where, and make it appropriate for the site, or to change the site so that we can plant something larger.” For example, if a given patch of dirt is too small to fit a tree species big enough to provide good shade, perhaps the city could rework the sidewalks to accommodate that, simultaneously improving mobility and reducing local temperatures.
In LA and elsewhere, scientists are rushing to find tree species that’ll be able to withstand temperatures 10, 15, 20 years from now—you wouldn’t want to plant a tree only to discover it can’t survive in the new climate. Climate change may also help tree pests and diseases spread, adding yet more precarity to urban greenery: A given community might be keen on planting more of their neighborhood’s trademark species of tree—magnolias or what have you—but the future may be increasingly hostile to it.
A tree also needs more maintenance and water in its vulnerable early years, a resource that may be in increasingly short supply as Southern California warms. So in addition to increasing its tree cover, LA is trying to make itself spongier: Lots more green spaces in general that allow rainwater to soak into the underlying aquifer or cisterns for later extraction. Back in February, this spongy infrastructure helped the city capture 8.6 billion gallons of stormwater over just three days.
Being an urban environment with pedestrians, cars, and buildings under the trees, the city has to ensure that the plants aren’t dropping branches. That means inspections and boots on the ground—unlike a proper forest, the urban forest needs constant attention. “We have to manage a little bit higher-touch in an urban environment, because we have these risk factors,” says Malarich. “We want to do planting, maintenance, and then preservation. So keeping existing mature trees in place is actually really critical to canopy expansion.”
And a neighborhood doesn’t have to stop at adding extra trees to mitigate the urban heat island effect. Scientists are researching ways to grow crops on rooftops, shaded by solar panels, which produces both food and free electricity as well as cooling the top floor of a building. And extra points if it’s a “blue-green roof” capable of storing rainwater for residents to use to water plants and flush toilets.
Scientists are also experimenting with “cool pavements,” which bounce more sunlight back into space instead of absorbing it. Reflective coatings do the same for the sides and rooftops of buildings. Painting more surfaces white helps cool an area, but urban designers have to take care not to unintentionally bounce that reflected solar radiation toward people. “I’m a big fan of white paints up high,” says Shandas. “That’s what clouds do naturally: On a cloudy day, a lot of that sunlight is already reflected back up into space. And so if we can get every roof in some way a lighter color, we can start moving in that direction.”
It’s not a matter of whether LA or any other city will be greener or more reflective in the years to come, but how much greener and more reflective it can manage to be. And accordingly, how many lives it can save as the world warms. “While it’s generally a feel-good kind of investment for cities, we need to tie those investments to public health outcomes,” says de Guzman, “because the improvements that can be made are really meaningful.”
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The Cyberpunk Genre: From Fiction to Reality
The Real-World Cyberpunk Narrative
In the realm of science fiction, the cyberpunk genre has long captivated audiences with its vision of a high-tech, low-life future. Cyberpunk, a subgenre that emerged in the early 1980s, combines advanced technology with a layer of dystopian elements, often exploring themes of artificial intelligence, cybernetics, corporate hegemony, and social decay. However, what once seemed a distant future is now becoming a striking reflection of our present reality.
The Cyberpunk Reality of Modern Corporations
As we delve into the corporate world, the parallels between cyberpunk narratives and current events become strikingly clear. This article examines the activities of major corporations like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, SpaceX, and OpenAI, highlighting instances that resonate with cyberpunk themes.
"Google: The Digital Panopticon"
Google, with its vast array of services, has created a digital ecosystem that closely resembles the omnipresent corporations in cyberpunk lore. The company's foray into various sectors, from search engines to smart home devices, has raised concerns about privacy invasion and data control, reminiscent of cyberpunk's surveillance-heavy societies.
"Microsoft: The Silicon Overlord"
Microsoft's dominance in the software industry, particularly with its Windows operating system and Office suite, mirrors the cyberpunk trope of a corporation wielding enormous power over everyday technology. The company's expansion into cloud computing and AI further cements its status as a tech giant with a reach that extends into the very fabric of digital life.
"Amazon: The Corporate Colossus"
Amazon's transformation from an online bookstore to a retail and technology behemoth aligns with cyberpunk's portrayal of mega-corporations that transcend traditional industry boundaries. The company's ventures into cloud computing, AI, and even space travel through its Blue Origin subsidiary evoke images of a corporation with almost limitless ambition and resources.
"SpaceX: Architects of the Starbound Future"
SpaceX, under the leadership of Elon Musk, brings to life the cyberpunk fascination with space exploration and privatization. The company's ambitious projects, including the colonization of Mars and satellite internet services, embody the cyberpunk vision of pushing humanity's boundaries, both technologically and geographically.
"OpenAI: The AI Enigma"
OpenAI, known for its groundbreaking work in AI, reflects cyberpunk's preoccupation with the potential and dangers of artificial intelligence. The development of advanced AI models and their applications in various fields raise questions about the future of human-AI interaction, a central theme in many cyberpunk narratives.
Industrial Espionage: A Cyberpunk Reality
The world of industrial espionage, a staple in cyberpunk plots, is no stranger to these tech giants. The competitive nature of the technology industry, driven by the race for innovation and market dominance, has led to numerous instances of data breaches, intellectual property theft, and corporate spying. These incidents underscore the darker aspects of the corporate world, mirroring the intrigue and deception often found in cyberpunk stories.
Cyberpunk Tropes in the Modern World
Several broad tropes characteristic of the cyberpunk genre are increasingly relevant today:
Technological Advancements vs. Societal Decay: The stark contrast between cutting-edge technology and societal challenges, such as income inequality and privacy concerns, is a recurring theme in both cyberpunk fiction and the modern world.
Corporate Power and Influence: The immense power wielded by mega-corporations, often at the expense of individual freedoms and government authority, is a reality in both the cyberpunk genre and today's corporate landscape.
Ethical Dilemmas of AI and Cybernetics: The ethical and philosophical questions surrounding artificial intelligence, cybernetics, and human enhancement are as pertinent in real life as they are in cyberpunk narratives.
Conclusion: Cyberpunk as a Now Genre
As we examine these parallels, it becomes evident that cyberpunk is no longer a genre fixated on a near future. The themes, concerns, and narratives central to cyberpunk are increasingly manifesting in our current reality. The once speculative fiction has transformed into a lens through which we can view and understand the complexities and challenges of our high-tech, corporate-dominated world. Cyber is no longer a near future genre. It's a now genre.
- Raz
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DOES THE BIG BANG THEORY EXPLAIN COSMIC CREATION??
Blog#321
Wednesday, August 9th, 2023
Welcome back,
The James Webb Space Telescope took pictures of galaxies forming when the universe was young. Some mature galaxies in the early universe surprised scientists as they didn't fit existing theories. Some media wrongly claimed these images disproved the Big Bang, but that's not true. Let's clarify what the Big Bang Theory actually explains.
The Big Bang isn't about the universe being created from nothing. It's a theory about how the universe evolved. The Inflationary Universe model, which guides cosmology, doesn't address the universe's origin. The birth of space, time, matter, and energy isn't covered.
The first version of the Big Bang theory came from Georges Lemaître, a quiet priest and physicist. He used Einstein's ideas to explain the universe's expansion. Lemaître proposed the "primeval atom." He knew about a problem called Kant's First Antinomy, which questioned how the universe could have a cause.
Lemaître used quantum mechanics to suggest that all matter and energy were in a big cosmic atom. This atom decayed without a cause, solving the problem.
But Lemaître's idea didn't explain where the primeval atom came from. This isn't how cosmology explains things now, but it's a step in the story of understanding our universe's history.
As we delve deeper into the story of cosmic creation, we find that the modern version of the Big Bang Theory builds upon Lemaître's foundational ideas.
It proposes that around 13.8 billion years ago, the universe began as an incredibly hot and dense point, smaller than a single atom. This state is commonly referred to as a singularity.
However, the Big Bang Theory does not provide a definitive explanation for what triggered the initial expansion or where the singularity came from. The theory only outlines the subsequent expansion, cooling, and development of the universe as we know it today.
One significant concept within the theory is the cosmic microwave background radiation, often dubbed the "afterglow" of the Big Bang. This faint radiation is detectable throughout the universe and serves as compelling evidence supporting the idea of a hot and dense early universe.
While the Big Bang Theory doesn't provide answers to all the questions about cosmic creation, it has successfully explained the formation of galaxies, stars, and the distribution of elements we observe in the universe today.
It provides a framework for understanding the evolution of our cosmos, while the quest to comprehend the ultimate origin of the universe continues to be a subject of intense scientific exploration and speculation.
As our understanding of the universe continues to advance, scientists are exploring theories that could potentially shed light on the questions the Big Bang Theory leaves unanswered. Concepts like multiverse theories, brane cosmology, and string theory offer alternative perspectives on the origin of our universe and its place within a broader cosmic landscape.
While these theories remain speculative and unproven, they highlight the ongoing quest to unravel the mysteries of cosmic creation. As we eagerly await the data and insights that cutting-edge instruments like the James Webb Space Telescope will provide, we are reminded that the pursuit of understanding our universe's origin is an ongoing journey that inspires awe and curiosity in both scientists and the general public alike.
COMING UP!!
(Saturday, August 12th, 2023)
"HOW MUCH SPACE JUNK IS THERE??"
#astronomy#outer space#alternate universe#astrophysics#universe#spacecraft#white universe#space#parallel universe#astrophotography#earth#moon mars#moon
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The Complicated Ecology of Cemeteries (Sierra Club)
Excerpt from this story from Sierra Club:
Cemeteries are a paradox in the modern Western world. On one hand, they are widely seen as calm and comforting spaces, places to grieve but also quietly contemplate in a world that offers few such chances. But their association with death—and decades of horror films and suspenseful TV shows using them as backdrops—can make them unnerving places. This same complicated relationship extends beyond the human experience of grave sites. For the nonhuman world of plants and animals, cemeteries can be sources of both refuge and danger.
Itescu, along with Jonathan Jeschke of the Freie Universität Berlin, published a paper earlier this year reviewing the biodiversity value of cemeteries and comparing it with other urban spaces like parks and botanical gardens. They found that cemeteries tended to host more native species than city parks, which were often landscaped with non-native or even invasive plants. Parks had their own advantages and contained slightly more species overall, but cemeteries proved to be important plant and animal havens in urban areas, including for endangered species like orchids. It’s one of the first global reviews of the biodiversity of cemeteries, with data from 50 cities in 27 countries.
A high-level study like Itescu and Jeschke’s can tell us a lot about the overall value of cemeteries to wildlife, but there is so much variety in the size, age, and management of individual sites that further inspection can provide even more insight into these unnaturally natural urban oases.
The rural cemetery as we know it, with its parklike landscaping and winding walking paths, is a relatively modern concept, only about 150 years old. Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of the oldest and most visited burial sites in the United States. It was among the first in the country to embrace this new type of design. For its architects, Alexander Wadsworth and Jacob Bigelow, the cemetery was not just a place for the deceased to rest. Rather, it could also be a destination for loved ones and others to visit.
Their design is rare among cemeteries not only for its age and claim to fame but also because it employs a full-time ecologist—Paul Kwiatkowski. When he first came to Mount Auburn in 1999 to work in the greenhouse, the cemetery’s president allowed him to experiment with improving the water quality in their ponds and then collect rainwater to reduce their groundwater usage. Over time, those small steps added up to a more conservation-minded way to manage the whole site, drawing the attention of other experts who wanted to help.
“We invited ecologists, biologists, hydrologists, landscape designers, and herpetologists,” Kwiatkowski said, “and we got everyone together to walk around the cemetery, to have conversations and evaluate where we stood with what we had been doing to improve habitat and create a balance between natural and manipulated areas.”
Today, the 175-acre cemetery is home to a huge variety of wildlife and hosts researchers from around the country studying its flora and fauna. Animals like bats, coyotes, foxes, and raccoons frequently roam the grounds. And it’s become one of the most diverse birding sites in the Boston area, enticing warblers, owls, flycatchers, and other resident and migratory species.
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The Evolution of Local Shopping: How DASH Shop is Leading the Way
Shopping locally has always been more than just a transaction; it’s an experience. From the friendly banter with store owners to the joy of finding that perfect item, local shopping has been a cornerstone of community life. But as times have changed, so has the way we shop. Today, DASH Shop is at the forefront of this evolution, transforming local shopping into a seamless, technology-driven experience that blends the best of the past with the innovations of the future.
A Glimpse into the Past
Back in the day, local shopping was all about brick-and-mortar stores. People would stroll down Main Street, popping into their favorite shops, chatting with neighbors, and enjoying the tactile pleasure of seeing and touching products before buying them. It was a social activity, a chance to connect with others and support local businesses. However, as convenient as it was, this traditional model had its limitations. Store hours were fixed, inventory was finite, and sometimes the perfect item just wasn’t available.
The Modern Challenges
Fast forward to today, and the landscape of local shopping has drastically shifted. The rise of e-commerce giants has posed significant challenges for small, local retailers. With the convenience of online shopping, customers can browse endless aisles of products, compare prices, and have their purchases delivered right to their doorstep. This convenience has drawn many away from local shops, making it harder for small businesses to compete.
Local stores also face logistical hurdles such as managing inventory, offering competitive pricing, and meeting the high expectations of today’s consumers who demand quick, efficient service. The pandemic further accelerated these challenges, pushing even more shoppers online and leaving many local retailers struggling to stay afloat.
Enter DASH Shop: Revolutionizing Local Shopping
DASH Shop is here to bridge the gap between the traditional charm of local shopping and the modern demands of convenience and efficiency. By leveraging cutting-edge technology, DASH Shop is revolutionizing the local shopping experience in several key ways.
Instant Delivery:
One of the most significant ways DASH Shop is transforming local shopping is through its instant delivery service. Gone are the days of waiting weeks for an online order to arrive. With DASH Shop, customers can enjoy the convenience of having their purchases delivered to their doorstep within hours. This not only meets the high expectations of today’s consumers but also gives local retailers a competitive edge.
Robust Analytics:
DASH Shop provides retailers with powerful analytics tools, offering deep insights into sales trends, customer behavior, and inventory management. This data-driven approach helps retailers make informed decisions, optimize stock levels, and tailor their offerings to better meet customer needs. It’s like having a crystal ball for your business, ensuring you’re always one step ahead.
Seamless Integration:
One of the best parts about DASH Shop is its ability to integrate seamlessly with existing sales channels. Retailers don’t have to overhaul their entire system to benefit from DASH Shop’s features. Instead, the platform enhances current operations, adding value without disruption. This means smoother transitions and minimal hassle for business owners.
Community Engagement:
DASH Shop also helps retailers connect with their communities in meaningful ways. The platform supports local charities and community initiatives, fostering goodwill and strengthening community ties. By aligning with social causes, retailers can enhance their brand image and build customer loyalty.
Building Trust and Excitement
DASH Shop isn’t just a platform; it’s a movement. It’s about reimagining local shopping for the 21st century, combining the best of the old with the innovations of the new. By addressing the current challenges faced by local retailers and providing solutions that enhance the shopping experience, DASH Shop is positioning itself as a pioneer in local e-commerce.
So, whether you’re a retailer looking to boost your business or a shopper seeking convenience without compromising on community spirit, DASH Shop is here to lead the way. Join us in revolutionizing local shopping and experience the future today.
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