#Shan MacDonald

[gregor-samsung]

Murmur (Heather Young, 2019)

[goalhofer]

2024 olympians representing non-birth nation by country: part 4

France: Christina Bauer, volleyball (Norway); Anastasia Bayandina, swimming (Russia); Emil Bjorch, water polo (Denmark); Catherine Clot, field hockey (The Netherlands); Marie Fegue, weightlifting (Cameroon); Rafael Fente-Damers, swimming (U.S.A.); Albane Garot-Loussif, field hockey (Belgium); Delfina Gaspari, field hockey (Argentina); Onema Geyoro, soccer (Democratic Republic Of Congo); Makenson Gletty, athletics (Haiti); Varvara Gracheva, tennis (Russia); Aaron Grandidier-Nkanang, rugby (U.K.); Ilionis Guillaume, athletics (Haiti); Azeddine Habz, athletics (Morocco); Tamara Horaček, handball (Croatia); Roger Hunt, diving (U.K.); Yuan Jia, table tennis (China); Nikola Karabatić, handball (Serbia); Anastasiia Kirpichnikova, swimming (Russia); Karl Konan, handball (Côte d'Ivoire); Hilary Kpatcha, athletics (Togo); Youssef Krou, volleyball (Morocco); Juliette Landi, diving (U.S.A.); Dominique Malonga, basketball (Cameroon); Luka Mkheidze, judo (Georgia); Bernardin Matam, weightlifting (Cameroon); Iman Ndiaye, volleyball (U.S.A.); Oscar Nilsson-Julien, cycling (U.K.); Frank Ntilikina, basketball (Belgium); Michael Olise, soccer (U.K.); Hertzka Orsolya, water polo (Hungary); Christo Popov, badminton (Bulgaria); Toma Popov, badminton (Bulgaria); Xuefei Qi, badminton (China); Mia Rycraw, water polo (U.S.A.); Fabrizio Saïdy, athletics (Madagascar); Tessa-Margot Schubert, field hockey (Germany); Dora Tchakounté, weightlifting (Cameroon); Adrien Truffert; soccer (Belgium); Guusje Van Bolhuis, field hockey (The Netherlands); Ming Van Eijken, gymnastics (China); Gabby Williams, basketball (U.S.A.); Meky Woldu, athletics (Eritrea); Antoine Zeghdar, rugby (Monaco) & Alexandre Zhoya, athletics (Australia) Gabon: Virginia Aymard, judo (France) & Noëlie Lacour, swimming (France) Gambia: Alasan Ann, taekwondo (U.S.A.); Ami Barrow, swimming (U.K.); Gina Bass-Bittaye, athletics (Senegal); Sanu Jallow, athletics (U.S.A.) & Faye Njie, judo (Finland) Germany: Samuel Fitwi-Sibhatu, athletics (Eritrea); Grozer György; Jr., volleyball (Hungary); Kathrin Hendrich, soccer (Belgium); Melat Kejeta, athletics (Ethiopia); Camilla Kemp; surfing (Portugal); Szabó Mátyás, fencing (Romania); Alina Oganesyan, gymnastics (Uzbekistan); Dmitrij Ovtcharov, table tennis (Ukraine); Paulina Paszek, canoeing (Poland); Gonzalo Peillat, field hockey (Argentina); Alexis Peterson, basketball (U.S.A.); Amanal Petros, athletics (Eritrea); Constantin Preis, athletics (Moldova); Salou Sabally, basketball (U.S.A.); Artem Selin, swimming (Russia); Xiaona Shan, table tennis (China); Xenia Smits, handball (Belgium); Nelvie Tiafack, boxing (Cameroon); Darja Varfolomeev, gymnastics (Russia); Nick Weiler-Babb, basketball (U.S.A.); Kaii Winkler, swimming (U.S.A.) & Oleg Zernikel, athletics (Kazakhstan) Ghana: Joselle Mensah, swimming (Germany) & Harry Stacey, swimming (U.K.) Great Britain: David Ames, field hockey (South Africa); Jeremiah Azu, athletics (The Netherlands); Georgia Bell, athletics (France); Lizzie Bird, athletics (The Philippines); Sky Brown, skateboarding (Japan); Charlie Elwes, rowing (South Africa); Andy Macdonald, skateboarding (U.S.A.); Mahamed Mahamed, athletics (Ethiopia); Jonathon Marshall, swimming (U.S.A.); Delicious Orie, boxing (Russia); Honey Osrin, swimming (South Africa); Liam Sanford, field hockey (Germany); Cynthia Sember, athletics (U.S.A.); Eve Stewart, rowing (The Netherlands); Saskia Tidey, sailing (Ireland) & Nicole Yeargin, athletics (U.S.A.) Greece: Nick Calathes, basketball (U.S.A.); Kristian Gkolomeev, swimming (Bulgaria); Tatiana Gusin, athletics (Moldova); Dauren Kurugliev, wrestling (Russia); Cameron Maramenides, sailing (U.S.A.); Stamatia Scarvelis, athletics (U.S.A.); Theodoros Tselidis, judo (Russia) & Thomas Walkup, basketball (U.S.A.) Grenada: Tilly Collymore, swimming (U.S.A.); Zackary Gresham, swimming (U.S.A.) & Halle Hazzard, athletics (U.S.A.) Guam: Maria Escano, judo (South Korea); Joseph Green, athletics (U.S.A.) & Nicola Lagatao, weightlifting (The Philippines)

[longerbox]

Machine Man, move on. I mean, help free Jacosta from her evil reprogramming, then you should probably move on.

[the-literata-letters]

reading list - historical fiction

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS MY OTHER READING LISTS.

✵ ACTIVELY UPDATING ✵

☐  AKILAN – Vengayin maindan ☐  ALENCAR, José de – Iracema ☐  ALENCAR, José de – O Guarani ☐  ALLENDE, Isabel – La Isla Bajo el Mar ☐  ANDRIĆ, Ivo – The Bridge on the Drina ☐  ATWOOD, Margaret – Alias Grace ☐  ATWOOD, Margaret – The Blind Assassin ☐  BARICCO, Alessandro – Seta ☐  BOYDEN, Joseph – Three Day Road ☐  BOYDEN, Joseph – The Orenda ☐  BUCK, Pearl S. – East Wind: West Wind ☐  BUCK, Pearl S. – The House of Earth Trilogy ☐  BUCK, Pearl S. – China Trilogy ☐  BUCK, Pearl S. – Dragon Seed & The Promise ☐  BUCK, Pearl S. – Pavilion of Women ☐  BUCK, Pearl S. – Peony ☐  BULGAKOV, Mikhail – The White Guard ☐  BURTON, Jessie – The Minaturist ☐  BUTT, Razia – Bano ☐  CAREY, Peter – Jack Maggs ☐  CAREY, Peter – Oscar and Lucinda ☐  CAREY, Peter – True History of the Kelly Gang ☐  CARPENTIER, Alejo – El reino de este mundo ☐  CATHER, Willa – Death Comes for the Archbishop ☐  CATTON, Eleanor – The Luminaries ☐  CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, Miguel de – El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha ☐  CHATTOPADHYAY, Bankim Chandra – Durgeshnandini ☐  CHATTOPADHYAY, Bankim Chandra – Anandamath ☐  CHEVALIER, Tracy – Girl with a Pearl Earring ☐  CHOY, Wayson – The Jade Peony ☐  CHOY, Wayson – All That Matters ☐  CLAUS, Hugo – Het verdriet van België ☐  CLAVELL, James – The Asian Saga ☐  COETZEE, J. M. – Waiting for the Barbarians ☐  CONIGLIO, Angelo F. – La Ruotaia ☐  CONRAD, Joseph – The Rover ☐  COOPER, James Fenimore – Leatherstocking Tales Pentology ☐  COSTER, Charles De – La Légende...d'Ulenspiegel et de Lamme Goedzak... ☐  CRANE, Stephen – The Red Badge of Courage ☐  DAVIS, Lindsey – Falco series ☐  DeLILLO, Don – Libra ☐  de MADARIAGA, Salvador – El corazón de piedra verde ☐  DICKENS, Charles – A Tale of Two Cities ☐  DOCTOROW, E. L. – Ragtime ☐  DONALD, Angus – Outlaw Chronicles ☐  DRUON, Maurice – Les Rois maudits ☐  DUMAS, Alexandre (père) – The DÁrtagnan Romances ☐  DUMAS, Alexandre (père) – Le Comte de Monte-Cristo ☐  DUMAS, Alexandre (père) – La Tulipe Noire ☐  ECO, Umberto – Il nome della rosa ☐  ECO, Umberto – I'isola del giorno prima ☐  ECO, Umberto – Baudolino ☐  ECO, Umberto – La Misteriosa Fiamma della Regina Loana ☐  ECO, Umberto – Il cimitero di Praga ☐  ELIOT, George – Romola ☐  ELIOT, George – Middlemarch ☐  ENDŌ, Shūsaku – Chinmoku ☐  FARRELL, J. G. – The Siege of Krishnapur ☐  FARRELL, J. G. – Troubles ☐  FAST, Howard – Spartacus ☐  FOWLES, John – The French Lieutenant's Woman ☐  FRASER, George MacDonald – Flashman ☐  GEDGE, Pauline – Scroll of Saqqara ☐  GHOSH, Amitav – Ibis Trilogy ☐  GOLON, Anne – Angélique series ☐  GRAVES, Robert – I, Claudius ☐  GRENVILLE, Kate – The Secret River ☐  HAGGARD, Sir H. Rider – King Solomon's Mines ☐  HARRIS, Robert – An Officer and a Spy ☐  HELLER, Joseph – Catch-22 ☐  HIJĀZĪ, Nasīm – Khaak aur Khoon ☐  HILL, Lawrence – The Book of Negroes ☐  HOLLAND, Cecelia – City of God ☐  HOLLAND, Cecelia – The Lords of Vaumartin ☐  HUGO, Victor – Quatrevingt-treize ☐  HUGO, Victor – Les Misérables ☐  HYDER, Qurratulain – Aag Ka Darya ☐  IBÁÑEZ, Vicente Blasco – Los cuatro jinetes del Apocalipsis ☐  IRVING, Washington – Tales of the Alhambra ☐  JENNINGS, Gary – Aztec ☐  JENNINGS, Gary – Aztec Autumn ☐  JENNINGS, Gary – Raptor ☐  JIN YONG – all works ☐  JOAQUIN, Nick – The Woman Who Had Two Navels ☐  JOHNSTON, Wayne – The Colony of Unrequited Dreams ☐  JOSÉ, Francisco Sionil – Po-on ☐  JUAN MANUEL, Don – Libro do los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio ☐  KADARE, Ismail – Gjenerali i ushtrisë së vdekur ☐  KANEKAR, Amita – A Spoke in the Wheel ☐  KAYE, M. M. – The Far Pavilions ☐  KENEALLY, Thomas – Bring Larks and Heroes ☐  KENNEDY, William – Albany Cycle ☐  KIDD, Sue Monk – The Secret Life of Bees ☐  KINGSLEY, Charles – Westward Ho! ☐  KRISHNAMURTHY, Kalki – Parthiban Kanavu ☐  KRISHNAMURTHY, Kalki – Sivagamiyin Sabatham ☐  KRISHNAMURTHY, Kalki – Ponniyin Selvan ☐  LEONARDOS, George – Palaiologan Dynasty series ☐  LITTELL, Jonathan – Les Bienveillantes ☐  LISS, David – The Coffee Trader ☐  LOWRY, Lois – Number the Stars ☐  MALRAUX, Georges André – Les Conquérants ☐  MALRAUX, Georges André – La Voie Royale ☐  MALRAUX, Georges André – La condition humaine ☐  MANTEL, Hilary – A Place of Greater Safety ☐  MANZONI, Alessandro – I promessi sposi ☐  MARTINEZ, Tomás Eloy – Santa Evita ☐  MASTOOR, Khadija – Aangan ☐  McCORMMACH, RUSSELL – Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist ☐  McCARTHY, Cormac – Blood Meridian ☐  MEHTA, Nandshankar – Karan Ghelo ☐  MICHENER, James A. – all works ☐  MIKSZÁTH, Kálmán – A fekete város ☐  MIN, Anchee – Wild Ginger ☐  MITCHELL, David – The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet ☐  MITCHELL, Margaret – Gone with the Wind ☐  MORANTE, Elsa – La Storia ☐  MORRISON, Toni – Beloved ☐  MORRISON, Toni – Jazz ☐  MULTATULI – Max Havelaar ☐  NEWTON, Nerida – The Lambing Flat ☐  NINH, Bảo – Nỗi buồn chiến tranh ☐  OKSANEN, Sofi – Puhdistus ☐  ONDAATJE, Michael – In the Skin of a Lion ☐  PATTERSON, James & GROSS, Andrew – The Jester ☐  PENNER, Sarah – The Lost Apothecary ☐  PÉREZ-REVERTE, Arturo – Captain Alatriste novels ☐  PÉREZ-REVERTE, Arturo – Falcó novels ☐  PÉREZ-REVERTE, Arturo – El maestro de esgrima ☐  PÉREZ-REVERTE, Arturo – La Reina del Sur ☐  PÉREZ-REVERTE, Arturo – El pintor de batallas ☐  PHILLIPS, Arthur – Prague ☐  PHILLIPS, Arthur – The King at the Edge of the World ☐  PILLAI, C. V. Raman – novel trilogy ☐  POPE, Barbara Corrado – Cézanne's Quarry ☐  POPE, Barbara Corrado – The Blood of Lorraine ☐  POPE, Barbara Corrado – The Missing Italian Girl ☐  PRAMOEDYA, Ananta Toer – Buru Quartet ☐  PRESSFIELD, Steven – Gates of Fire ☐  PRESSFIELD, Steven – Tides of War ☐  PRESSFIELD, Steven – The Afghan Campaign ☐  PRUS, Bolesław – Faraon ☐  PUZO, Mario – The Godfather universe ☐  PUZO, Mario – The Family ☐  PYNCHON, Thomas – Gravity's Rainbow ☐  PYNCHON, Thomas – Mason & Dixon ☐  READE, Charles – The Cloister and the Hearth ☐  RENAULT, Mary – The Last of the Wine ☐  RENAULT, Mary – The Mask of Apollo ☐  RENAULT, Mary – The King Must Die ☐  RICHARDS, D. Manning – Destiny in Sydney ☐  RIZAL, José – Noli Me Tángere ☐  RIZAL, José – El filibusterismo ☐  RUSHDIE, Salman – Midnight's Children ☐  RUTHERFURD, Edward – Russka ☐  SABATO, Ernesto – Sobre héroes y tumbas ☐  SANGHI, Ashwin – Chanakya's Chant ☐  SANKRITYAYAN, Rahul – Volga Se Ganga ☐  SARAMAGO, José – Memorial do Convento ☐  SATYANARAYANA, Viswanatha – Veyi Padagalu ☐  SCOTT, Sir Walter – Quentin Durward ☐  SCOTT, Sir Walter – Tales of the Crusaders ☐  SCOTT, Sir Walter – Ivanhoe ☐  SHAN, Sa – Porte de la paix céleste ☐  SHAN, Sa – La Joueuse de go ☐  SHAN, Sa – La cithare nue ☐  SIENKIEWICZ, Henryk – The Trilogy ☐  SMILEY, Jane – The Greenlanders ☐  SOMOZA, José Carlos – La caverna de las ideas ☐  STEPHENSON, Neal – Cryptonomicon ☐  STIFTER, Adalbert – Witiko ☐  STYRON, William – Sophie's Choice ☐  TOLSTOY, Leo – War and Peace ☐  TOMASI, Giuseppe (di Lampedusa) – Il Gattopardo ☐  TREMAYNE, Peter – Sister Fidelma mysteries ☐  UNDSET, Sigrid – Kristin Lavransdatter ☐  UNDSET, Sigrid – Olav Audunssøn novels ☐  VARGAS LLOSA, Mario – La guerra del fin del mundo ☐  VARGAS LLOSA, Mario – La Fiesta del Chivo ☐  VIDAL, Gore – Narratives of Empire ☐  WALLACE, Lew – Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ ☐  WALTARI, Mika – Sinuhe egyptiläinen ☐  WALTARI, Mika – Mikael Karvajalka ☐  WILDER, Thornton – The Bridge of San Luis Rey ☐  WOOLF, Virginia – Orlando: A Biography ☐  YERBY, Frank – Goat Song ☐  YOURCENAR, Marguerite – L'Œuvre au noir ☐  ŻEROMSKI, Stefan – Wierna rzeka ☐  ZIMLER, Richard – The Warsaw Anagrams ☐  ZIMLER, Richard – The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon ☐  ZUSAK, Markus – The Book Thief

[atlanticcanada]

'Murmur' wins top prize at Screen Nova Scotia awards

"Murmur," a feature film about a lonely, alcoholic woman, has won the top prize at the annual Screen Nova Scotia awards.

The low-budget film, written and directed by Heather Young, follows a convicted drunk driver (Shan MacDonald) who is ordered to perform community service at an animal shelter.

Other prizes handed out at the virtual ceremony held Friday included best television series, which went to the second season of "Pure." The drama focuses on a Mennonite pastor who is working undercover within an organized crime network.

The best documentary award went to "Conviction," which explores the lives of women in prison and the decarceration movement.

"Wildfire," described as an Indigenous Two-Spirit story written and directed by Bretten Hannam, won best short film. A full-length feature version of the story is being adapted into the upcoming film "Wildhood" that's due for release next year.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 6, 2020.

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/36PNPj7

[wozziebear]

In 2018, while the Cornell lab ramped up their TMD [Transition-metal dichalcogenide monolayers] experiments, another graphene surprise launched a second 2D materials revolution. Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, a researcher at MIT and another Columbia alum, announced that twisting one layer of graphene with respect to the layer below created a magical new 2D material. The secret was to drop the upper layer such that its hexagons landed with a slight “twist,” so that they were rotated exactly 1.1 degrees against the hexagons below. This angle misalignment causes an offset between atoms that grows and shrinks as you move across a material, generating a repeating pattern of large “supercells” known as a moiré superlattice. MacDonald and a colleague had calculated in 2011 that at the “magic angle” of 1.1 degrees, the unique crystal structure of the superlattice would compel graphene’s electrons to slow and sense the repulsion of their neighbors.

When electrons become aware of each other, weird things happen. In normal insulators, conductors and semiconductors, electrons are thought to interact only with the lattice of atoms; they race around too quickly to notice each other. But slowed to a crawl, electrons can jostle each other and collectively assume an assortment of exotic quantum states. Jarillo-Herrero’s experiments demonstrated that, for poorly understood reasons, this electron-to-electron communication in twisted, magic-angle graphene gives rise to an especially strong form of superconductivity.

The graphene moiré superlattice also introduced researchers to a radical new way of controlling electrons. In the superlattice, electrons become oblivious to the individual atoms and experience the supercells themselves as if they were giant atoms. This makes it easy to populate the supercells with enough electrons to form collective quantum states. Using an electric field to dial up or down the average number of electrons per supercell, Jarillo-Herrero’s group was able to make their twisted bilayer graphene device serve as a superconductor, act as an insulator, or display a raft of other, stranger electron behaviors.

Physicists around the world rushed into the nascent field of “twistronics.” But many have found that twisting is tough. Atoms have no reason to fall neatly into the “magic” 1.1-degree misalignment, so sheets wrinkle in ways that completely change their properties. Xia, the Cornell graduate student, said she has a bunch of friends at other universities working with twisted devices. Creating a working device typically takes them dozens of tries. And even then, each device behaves differently, so specific experiments are almost impossible to repeat.

TMDs present a far easier way to create moiré superlattices. Because different TMDs have hexagonal lattices of different sizes, stacking a lattice of slightly larger hexagons over a smaller lattice creates a moiré pattern just the way angle misalignment does. In this case, because there is no rotation between the layers, the stack is more likely to snap into place and stay still. When Xia sets out to create a TMD moiré device, she said, she generally succeeds four times out of five.

TMD moiré materials make ideal playgrounds for exploring electron interactions. Because the materials are semiconductors, their electrons get heavy as they slog through the materials, unlike the frenetic electrons in graphene. And the gigantic moiré cells slow them down further: Whereas electrons often move between atoms by “tunneling,” a quantum mechanical behavior akin to teleportation, tunneling rarely happens in a moiré lattice, since supercells sit roughly 100 times further apart than the atoms inside them. The distance helps the electrons settle down and gives them a chance to know their neighbors.

Shan and Mak’s friendly rival, Feng Wang, was one of the first to recognize the potential of TMD moiré superlattices. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggested that these materials should give rise to one of the simplest ways electrons can organize — a state known as a Wigner crystal, where mutual repulsion locks lethargic electrons into place. Wang’s team saw signs of such states in 2020 and published the first image of electrons holding each other at arm’s length in Nature in 2021. By then, word of Wang’s TMD moiré activities had already spread through the tightknit 2D physics community, and the Cornell TMD factory was churning out TMD moiré devices of their own. Shan and Mak also reported evidence for Wigner crystals in TMD superlattices in 2020 and discovered within months that electrons in their devices could crystallize in almost two dozen different Wigner crystal patterns.

At the same time, the Cornell group was also crafting TMD moiré materials into a power tool. MacDonald and collaborators had predicted in 2018 that these devices have the right combination of technical features to make them perfectly represent one of the most important toy models in condensed matter physics. The Hubbard model, as it’s called, is a theorized system used to understand a wide variety of electron behaviors. Independently proposed by Martin Gutzwiller, Junjiro Kanamori and John Hubbard in 1963, the model is physicists’ best attempt to strip the practically infinite variety of crystalline lattices down to their most essential features. Picture a grid of atoms hosting electrons. The Hubbard model assumes that each electron feels two competing forces: It wants to move by tunneling to neighboring atoms, but it’s also repulsed by its neighbors, which makes it want to stay where it is. Different behaviors arise depending on which desire is strongest. The only problem with the Hubbard model is that in all but the simplest case — a 1D string of atoms — it is mathematically unsolvable.

According to MacDonald and colleagues, TMD moiré materials could act as “simulators” of the Hubbard model, potentially solving some of the field’s deepest mysteries, such as the nature of the glue that binds electrons into superconducting pairs in cuprates. Instead of struggling with an impossible equation, researchers could set electrons loose in a TMD sandwich and see what they did. “We can write down this model, but it’s very difficult to answer lots of important questions,” MacDonald said. “Now we can do it just by doing an experiment. That’s really groundbreaking.”

To build their Hubbard model simulator, Shan and Mak stacked layers of tungsten diselenide and tungsten sulfide to create a moiré superlattice, and they attached electrodes to dial up or down an electric field passing through the TMD sandwich. The electric field controlled how many electrons would fill each supercell. Since the cells act like giant atoms, going from one electron to two electrons per supercell was like transforming a lattice of hydrogen atoms into a lattice of helium atoms. In their initial Hubbard model publication in Nature in March 2020, they reported simulating atoms with up to two electrons; today, they can go up to eight. In some sense, they had realized the ancient aim of turning lead into gold. “It’s like tuning chemistry,” Mak said, “going through the periodic table.” In principle, they can even conjure up a grid of fictitious atoms with, say, 1.38 electrons each.

Next, the group looked to the hearts of the artificial atoms. With more electrodes, they could control the supercells’ “potential” by making changes akin to adding positive protons to the centers of the giant synthetic atoms. The more charge a nucleus has, the harder it is for electrons to tunnel away, so this electric field let them raise and lower the hopping tendency.

Mak and Shan’s control of the giant atoms — and therefore the Hubbard model — was complete. The TMD moiré system lets them summon a grid of ersatz atoms, even ones that don’t exist in nature, and smoothly transform them as they wish. It’s a power that, even to other researchers in the field, borders on magical. “If I were to single out their most exciting and impressive effort, that’s the one,” Kim said.

The Cornell group quickly used their designer atoms to settle a 70-year-old debate. The question was: What if you could take an insulator and tweak its atoms to turn it into a conducting metal? Would the changeover happen gradually or abruptly?

With their moiré alchemy, Shan and Mak carried out the thought experiment in their lab. First they simulated heavy atoms, which trapped electrons so that the TMD superlattice acted like an insulator. Then they shrank the atoms, weakening the trap until electrons became able to hop to freedom, letting the superlattice become a conducting metal. By observing a gradually falling electrical resistance as the superlattice acted increasingly like a metal, they showed that the transition is not abrupt. This finding, which they announced in Nature last year, opens up the possibility that the superlattice’s electrons may be able to achieve a long-sought type of fluidity known as a quantum spin liquid. “That may be the most interesting problem one can tackle,” Mak said.

Almost at the same time, the couple lucked into what some physicists consider their most significant discovery yet. “It was actually a total accident,” Mak said. “Nobody expected it.”

When they started their Hubbard simulator research, the researchers used TMD sandwiches in which the hexagons on the two layers are aligned, with transition metals atop transition metals and chalcogenides atop chalcogenides. (That’s when they discovered the gradual insulator-to-metal transition.) Then, serendipitously, they happened to repeat the experiment with devices in which the top layer had been stacked backward.

As before, the resistance started falling as electrons began to hop. But then it plunged abruptly, going so low that the researchers wondered if the moiré had begun to superconduct. Exploring further, though, they measured a rare pattern of resistance known as the quantum anomalous Hall effect — proof that something even weirder was going on. The effect indicated that the crystal structure of the device was compelling electrons along the edge of the material to act differently from those in the center. In the middle of the device, electrons were trapped in an insulating state. But around the perimeter, they flowed in one direction — explaining the super-low resistance. By accident, the researchers had created an extremely unusual and fragile type of matter known as a Chern insulator.

The quantum anomalous hall effect, first observed in 2013, usually falls apart if the temperature rises above a few hundredths of a kelvin. In 2019, Young’s group in Santa Barbara had seen it in a one-off twisted graphene sandwich at around 5 kelvins. Now Shan and Mak had achieved the effect at nearly the same temperature, but in a no-twist TMD device that anyone can re-create. “Ours was a higher temperature, but I’ll take theirs any day because they can do it 10 times in a row,” Young said. That means you can understand it “and use it to actually do something.”

Mak and Shan believe that, with some fiddling, they can use TMD moiré materials to build Chern insulators that survive to 50 or 100 kelvin. If they’re successful, the work could lead to another way to get current flowing with no resistance — at least for tiny “nanowires,” which they may even be able to switch on and off at specific places within a device.

Physics duo finds magic in two dimensions

https://www.quantamagazine.org/physics-duo-finds-magic-in-two-dimensions-20220816/ Comments

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior Home and Quibi Edition July 17, 2020: WE ARE FREESTYLE LOVE SUPREME, DIRT MUSIC, THE PAINTED BIRD and More!

Apologies for being a day late with this week’s column... things came up. 

Since this is a relatively quieter week, at least compared to last week,  I want to talk about something that’s been getting a lot of ridicule and unwarranted hatred in recent months, and that is something called Quibi, and so…

IN PRAISE OF QUIBI

You know, I’ve heard a lot of shit-talking about Quibi for one reason or another.  I think it’s mostly the “too cool for school” #FilmTwitter kids, who haven’t even bothered to watch half the programming and content on the streaming platform – which has absolutely nothing to do with movies, mind you -- so they honestly have no fucking idea what they’re talking about. Sure, I understand the trepidation… short programs that you watch on your phone? Why would anyone get behind that? I mean, everything needs to be a 3 ½ hour Martin Scorsese movie that needs to be seen on the biggest screen possible, right?

Well, no. You see, CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg saw how successful YouTube was with their model – maybe not necessarily their original programming – and he figured he could do them one better. Instead of following the normal TV model of 22 to 60 minutes episodes, he decided to make every episode under 10 minutes. Maybe this seems weird to many people but if you watch any commercial network television, that’s actually the norm. All programs are broken up into smaller increments to allow for the commercials, and the smart shows time those breaks with mini-cliffhangers that makes the viewer want to return after the commercial break rather than switching the station. For the comedies and dramas, it just means you can watch as many episodes as you want without investing the hours involved with binging most shows. You can watch a lot of a series in an hour or more, and you’ll know right away if it’s for you. (There are some I really didn’t like at all such as Dummy and a few others.)

The big problem is that we really shouldn’t be looking at Quibi as an attempted competitor to Netflix, Hulu or any of the other streaming services. Quibi isn’t meant to be for watching movies or to be watched on the biggest screen possible. It’s quick, short bytes of entertainment similar to what you might normally watch on YouTube, but with actual programming. It’s a service geared towards people who don’t have 8 hours a day to binge-watch shows and maybe just want something to watch on a 5 or 10-minute break from sitting at their computers working. (That’s another good reason why having to be viewed on a phone/tablet makes it a good way to take a break from the computer.)

I totally understand some of the trepidation based on the early programming, because I haven’t found much in the narrative realm that has jumped out at me. I like Will Forge and Caitlyn Olsen’s Flipped, since it stars two of the funniest people on television, and the second story on Sam Raimi’s United States of Horror was far better than the first one. I also found a great guilty pleasure in shows like Chrissy’s Court and Dishmantled, each which put a spin on favorite TV genres, the court and cooking shows, both which are hilarious. I binged both of those series, which are about 10 to 12 episodes in a little over an hour, and Reno 911 and Jason Reitman’s The Princess Bride adaptation have been some great recent additions to the service.

The reason why you should be watching Quibi is for the daily programming, which is every bit on par with anything currently on television, mainly because Quibi has joined forces with some of the best news sources and content creators. For instance, the BBC show, Around the World with host Ben Bland, takes all of the great news from the BBC and puts together a daily six-minute “montage” of the most important news from outside the United States. There’s also NBC’s The Report, which offers two episodes on weekdays – the Morning and Evening Report – and two Weekend Reports, and it’s solid news reporting but also nothing that outlasts its welcome like the normal 24-hour news.

Then there’s so much other great programming, including Answered by Vox with host Cleo Abram, where you can learn about so many relevant and timely topics, and it’s become a particularly beneficial during the COVID pandemic. I have to admit that when I first started watching this, I was kind of amused by Abram’s twitchy interviews where she seemed unsure of herself, but over the course of the last couple months, her bubbly personality has really come out, as she’s tackled topics of special interest to herself. Quibi has rightfully been promoting the heck out of the show by advertising it on other shows. I also am impressed by the topics Shan Boodram covers on Sexology, an extremely candid and honest discussion of what some might consider taboo topics.

Similarly wonderful to watch every day is EW’s Last Night Late Night with Heather Gardner, which sums up the previous night’s late night shows – the best jokes, the best bits from the interviews, performances etc. – and there’s also Rotten Tomatoes’ Fresh Daily with Maude Garrett, which gives you a look at the best things to watch on streaming and digital on a day-to-day basis. (For full transparency, a person I greatly respect and one of the few I genuinely like in the industry, Mr. Simon Thompson, writes and produces the show.)  Video game fans may enjoy Polygon’s Speed Run, although it recently changed format and is now three days a week, rather than five, and each episode is now on one subject rather than the segment format previously used. I hope this isn’t a sign of Quibi or these companies trying to save costs because there’s some nervous about the platform lasting.  

Personally, I love Quibi, and I didn’t even hesitate for a second to shell out the $5.30 a month (including tax), mainly for the daily programming. Honestly, I really hope that we’ll get more of Chrissy’s Court and Dishmantled, and I hope to eventually get to some of the shows I haven’t watched, as well. (I’ve had a few issues with streaming and buffering in the last week, which I hope Quibi will resolve, because it’s very frustrating to sit down for my daily watches and just get the spinning ball repeatedly.)

Anyway, let’s get to the movies… and is it possible that Hulu may be receiving the coveted “Featured Flick” two weeks in a row? Certainly looks like it. If you’re trying to figure out what to watch after watching Hamilton on Disney+ for the 20th time, how about going back to the very beginning?

Andrew Fried’s doc WE ARE FREESTYLE LOVE SUPREME (Hulu) looks back at how Wesleyan alum Thomas Kail and Anthony Veneziale put together the group of improvisational performers that would include one Lin-Manuel Miranda. I was lucky enough to know about Freestyle Love Supreme way back when they were starting out, since a good friend of mine managed the East Village club, Mo Pitkins, where the group frequently performed. I knew pretty early on how much talent Miranda had from seeing him perform. Make no mistake that this is not a movie only about Miranda, as it’s as much or more about Kail and Venziale’s efforts to keep the group’s shows happening while Miranda is pulled away to do In the Heights on Broadway, and then ultimately doing his magnum opus, Hamilton.  

For some reason, I thought this doc would mainly be about the idea of bringing Freestyle Love Supreme back for its limited stint on Broadway, but it goes all the way back to the beginning and how they met and came together, plus how they found new members to fill in for Miranda and Christopher Jackson when they went to Broadway.  Freestyle Love Supreme is a pretty amazing group because as the name implies, they’re a bunch of freestyle rappers who improvise every show based on things they get from the audience, but it also allows them to explore their own personal lives and histories and incorporate them into each show. I’m actually a little bummed I never got a chance to see it even though I’ve known about them since the early ‘00s. This doc might feel a little long even at under 90 minutes, but it’s worth sticking with since they’re such an interesting group and the combination of performances and interviews makes it a fine doc about these amazingly talented individuals and how the sum is bigger than the whole of the parts.

Another long-gestating project that has finally seen the light of day is the romantic drama DIRT MUSIC (Samuel Goldwyn), based on Tim Winton’s popular Australian novel that people have been trying to adapt since back when Heath Ledger was still alive. I believe Russell Crowe had been trying to adapt it, too. It stars Kelly Macdonald, who I’ve loved since her first appearance in Trainspotting and who I’m always hoping will find some of those great roles we see other actors her age getting. (Sorry, but Puzzle just wasn’t one of them.)  In Dirt Music, she plays Georgie, a woman living with fisherman Jim Buckridge (David Wenham), a widowed father with two sons, although they’re not married. When Georgie begins a relationship with troubled local musician Lu Fox (Garrett Hedlund), it causes problems within the tight-knit community, but instead of getting into a confrontation with Jim, Lu runs off.

I actually quite enjoyed this drama, partially because it marks the return of Gregor Jordan, an Australian filmmaker who has quite a few decent movies under his belt, including an earlier Ned Kelly movie. It is a little hard to figure out what is happening, partially from the accents but also from the decision to tell the story in a non-linear fashion that isn’t always apparent where each of the characters are in the story. Obviously, a major thing to pay attention to is how great Macdonald and Hedlund are in their roles in this possibly unlikely romance. You can totally see Ledger in the role of Lu, and the fact that Hedlund is so good should help you appreciate him more as an actor. Macdonald also still has this youthful energy despite being in her ‘40s, and that gives their relationship something akin to her relationship with McGregor in Trainspotting.

What really captured my attention was the gorgeous music by the Fox family, and I was even more  impressed to learn that the actors – Julia Stone, George Mason, Neill Maccoll, and yes, Garrett Hedlund – all performed their own vocals in the songs, which includes a gorgeous version of Tim Buckley’s “Song of the Siren” (famously covered by This Mortal Coil). Frankly, I’m most surprised by the fact that Hedlund had musical talent I never knew about, and you can combine that with the emotion he brings to Lu with very few words, and you have another example of why Hedlund just isn’t getting the credit as an actor he deserves. I really liked the way this story was unfolded and where it ended, and I hope we’ll see more great work like this from Jordan.

I was a little more tentative about Wetlands director David Wnendt’s THE SUNLIT NIGHT (Quiver Distribution), which was adapted by Rebecca Dinerstein from her own novel, but not only because it premiered at Sundance way back in early 2019. If you’ve been reading the past few months of columns, you’ll know that there are a lot of recurring themes of movies that play at Sundance, and this one stars Jenny Slate, who had such an impact at Sundance with the movie Obvious Child, which I really didn’t like.  Yeah, I’m not really a fan, even though I like her in smaller roles like her role in Gifted a few years back. In this one, Slate plays Frances, a New York artist, whose parents are about to break up and looking for a change, she accepts an internship with an artist in Northern Norway where the day lasts for months.  It’s a pretty obvious “fish-out-of-water” comedy premise like one we may normally see at Sundance, but it never really delivers on  

Probably my favorite part of the movie was seeing David Paymer as France’s father, mainly because we just don’t see Paymer in many movies these days, but Zack Galifianakis’ character, one of the Norwegians who has an affinity for Vikings, just doesn’t add very much to the story. While I liked the set-up for the movie and Slate is generally likeable in the lead role, the movie just isn’t funny enough to be deemed a comedy nor enough drama to have much of an emotional impact, and the romance between Slate and a local didn’t do much for me either. By the end of the movie, Sunlit Night had veered too far into the most obvious indie territory, so it ultimately fell short for me. I just wish Dinerstein had more (or anything) to say with this story, and I feel like Wnendt and his cast probably did the best they could with what they had to work with.

A movie that’s finally being released after playing a number of festivals last year is the Czech Republic’s 2019 Oscar selection, Václav Marhoul’s THE PAINTED BIRD (IFC Films), based on Jerzy Kosinski’s novel about a young Jewish boy navigating the landscape of WWII-era Eastern Europe all on his own, ending up in one horrifying situation after another.

While this is a beautifully-told story featuring equally beautiful and quite stark black and white cinematography, I can’t wholly recommend it to everyone, because that beautiful camerawork is used to depict some of the most horrible depravity and violence, all experienced by this young boy who just can’t seem to catch a break.

There is very little dialogue in a film that takes an episodic approach to following this young boy’s journey as he either watches horrifying things or is put through grueling torture and even rape as he’s handed and bartered from one adult to another. The “painted bird” of the title is a literal bird that’s painted to attract other birds that attack it, and it’s clearly meant as an analogy for the boy.

If you’ve watched any Czech films over the years, you’ll know that they’re generally pretty grim (they’re a grim people), and you’ll probably know fairly soon whether you want to sit through the entire 2 ¾ running time to see how this boy fares with everything he faces. (Note: A big deal has been made about some of the more horrifying violence in the movie, but honestly? Being in black and white, it isn’t that gory, and I’ve seen far, far worse. A lot of the worst of it is off-screen and your mind tends to fill in the blanks much like last year’s The Nightingale.)

Barely saying a single word, Petr Kotlár is able to carry the film, and it’s interesting when more familiar actors like Udo Kier, Harvey Keitel, Stellan Skarsgaard, and Barry Pepper are brought into this world Marhoul has created from Kosinski’s book. Like so many other movies right now, it’s a shame this won’t be seen on the big screen where you’re forced to really focus on what you’re watching without distractions.  

The Butterfly Effect writer/director Eric Bress’s latest horror film is GHOSTS OF WAR (Vertical) about a group of American soldiers -- including Brenton Thwaites, Sklar Astin and Theo Rossi -- who travelling across France during WWII when they come upon a French Chateau where they decide to hole up. That is, until they learn there’s a supernatural enemy that may be worse than the Nazis they’re hiding from.  

The premise for Bress’ latest venture into the supernatural is a fairly simple one, and it’s hard not to watch this movie and not think of the far superior Overlord from a few years back. As soon as the soldiers get to the estate, it’s pretty obvious (mainly from the title) where things are going to go from there, and unfortunately, the bland casting doesn’t do very much to elevate that simple premise, the weak writing, and none of it feels particularly scary.  If that general premise doesn’t seem very interesting to you, then Ghosts of War introduces a pretty out-there last act twist that’s either gonna be praised for changing things up or it will be condemned for being so out there. The problem is that the movie just hasn’t built enough good will to earn its twist, and viewers will probably just be even more annoyed by it.

Ghosts of War will be available On Demand, via Virtual Cinema Screenings and digitally after being on DirecTV for the past few weeks.

Down at New York’s Film Forum, you can rent Elizabeth Coffman and Mark doc Flannery (Film Forum), winner of the Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize with its look at author Flannery O’Connor. The repertoryVirtual Cinema adds Jean-Luc Godard’s Made in the U.S.A. (1966) and Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Michael (1924), the latter part of the Forum’s “Pioneers of Queer Cinema” program.

Starting on Film at Lincoln Center’s Virtual Cinema this Friday is Koji Fukada’s Mayak (Andreevsky Flah Film Company/Anniko Films), while FilmLinc is also starting its annual Dance on Camera Festival, the 48th edition, although this time virtually.

Available via Film Movement’s Virtual Cinema is Emily Harris’ adaption of Joseph Sheridan le Fanu’s Gothic vampire novella, Carmilla, starring Hannah Rae as 15-year-old Lara who lives in isolation on her family’s country estate with her strict governess Miss Fontaine (Jessica Raine) until a carriage crash brings a mysterious girl into their lives.

Now we’re getting to more movies that I just didn’t find the time to see even though I had screeners for a couple of them, like the latest in Hulu’s popular monthly horror series, INTO THE DARK:  THE CURRENT OCCUPANT, which will hit the streamer this Friday. It’s directed by Julius Ramsay and written by D.C. speech writer Alston Ramsay, taking place in a psychiatric ward where a man trapped with no memory, played by Barry Watson, believes that he’s the President of the United States and the subject of a political conspiracy. No, it’s not a documentary.

Over on Netflix, there’s Catrin Einhorn and Leslye Davis’ doc Father Soldier Son, which follows a former platoon sergeant and his two sons over a decade after his return home from a serious injury in Afghanistan, showing the long-term effects of military service on a family.

Dan Wingate’s doc Kaye Ballard - The Show Goes On (Abramorama) will get a Virtual Cinema release this Friday. I actually am not familiar with the actress, singer and comedian but apparently, she’s had a career that has spanned eight decades, starting in the 40s, and her friends include Ann-Margret, Carol Burtnett, Carol Channing, my good pal Red Reed and more, all of whom are interviewed, along with Ballard.

Also out on Digital this week is Steve Ohi’s sci-fi horror comedy Useless Humans (Quiver Distribution) about a ruthless alien who crashes a 30th birthday party causing four friends to team up to save the world. Will Addison’s Easy Does It (Gravitas Ventures), stars Linda Hamilton, as well as Ben Matheny and Martin Martinez, the latter two as friends who want to escape their Mississippi hometown when they learn there’s a cache of hidden loot in California. Hamilton plays their hometown criminal matriarch “King George” who learns of the money and has her bounty hunter daughter (Susan Gordon) chase the friends down.

On Friday, New York’s Japan Society will kick off its annual “Japan Cuts” program of new and repertory Japanese cinema, and like most other festivals and series this year, it’s going on line, beginning with Shinichiro Ueda’s Special Actors (the Opening Night film), Fukushima 50 (the Centerpiece) and Labyrinth of Cinema, for $7.00 each, which is a pretty good deal. (There’s also a new competitive section called “Next Generation” which focuses on new Japanese talent.) And then for $99, you can get an all access pass to watch all 42 films in the festival, which includes a lot of movies you may never have a chance to see in the States otherwise. You can watch a playlist of trailers from the movies here. All 42 films will be available starting this Friday, so make sure to include this in your weekend plans.

In related news, the New York Asian Film Festival (which cancelled this year altogether) and the Korean Culture Center of New York are teaming once again for Korean Movie Night, this year doing them virtually with a new program called “A League Of Its Own,” which focuse on Hit Korean Baseball Movies, plus there’s a bunch of other Korean films you can watch (FOR FREE!) here until July 25.

Also, if you’re anywhere near some of the drive-ins taking part in Amazon’s summer movie program, you can catch “Movies To Make You Proud” Black Panther and Creed on Wednesday night.

Next week, more movies mostly not in theaters!

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

[my-dreamscape]

Strongly correlated electrons and hybrid excitons in a moiré heterostructure

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[surejaya]

Urban waterfront promenades

Download : Urban waterfront promenades More Book at: Zaqist Book

Urban waterfront promenades by Macdonald, Elizabeth

Some cities have long-treasured waterfront promenades, many cities have recently built ones, and others have plans to create them as opportunities arise. Beyond connecting people with urban water bodies, waterfront promenades offer many social and ecological benefits. They are places for social gathering, for physical activity, for relief from the stresses of urban life, and where the unique transition from water to land eco-systems can be nurtured and celebrated. The best are inclusive places, welcoming and accessible to diverse users. This book explores urban waterfront promenades worldwide. It presents 38 promenade case studies--as varied as Vancouver's extensive network that has been built over the last century, the classic promenades in Rio de Janeiro, the promenades in Stockholm's recently built Hammarby Sjostad eco-district, and the Ma On Shan promenade in the Hong Kong New Territories--analyzing their physical form, social use, the circumstances under which they were built, the public policies that brought them into being, and the threats from sea level rise and the responses that have been made. Based on wide research, Urban Waterfront Promenades examines the possibilities for these public spaces and offers design and planning approaches useful for professionals, community decision-makers, and scholars. Extensive plans, cross sections, and photographs permit visual comparison.

Download : Urban waterfront promenades More Book at: Zaqist Book

[mel-loly]

Thanks for the tag Ferret and Foggy

Relationship status: Single.

Favorite color: Yellow.

Three favorite foods: sweet pizza, lasagna and MacDonalds.

Song stuck in my head: Sorry not Sorry - Demi Lovato

Last song I listened to: Hiosaki - Eu odeio amar você (I hate loving you)

Last thing I googled: Tradutor (translator)

Time: 3:06 pm

Dream trip: Travel to Canada.

Anything I really want right now: To be really well..

@lost-cloud0 @heywolfy @togahimikoposts @sleepychippy @angel-the-blocker @ask-three-baldimores @orimasuartz55love @felipegamer @fluff-lord @mimi-shan @mimiocto and everyone else

Tagged by @steamcaptain

Rules: Tag ten people to get to know better.

Relationship status: Married.

Favorite color: green and a specific shade of blue.

Three favorite foods: pizza, Chinese, and steamed buns.

Song stuck in my head: Way Less Sad by AJR

Last song I listened to: We Could Get More Machinegun Psystyle! -And More Genre Switches by Camellia

Last thing I googled: the title of that song lol

Time: 9:33 pm

Dream trip: the tropics or a cabin in butt fuck nowhere.

Anything I really want right now: to start my next fursuit project!

I tag @upsidedownrain @insecure-kitten @invaderskoodge @bunjywunjy @xambler2 @z0roark @roboticfennec @grayrose2403 anyone else who wants to do this!

[gregor-samsung]

Murmur (Heather Young, 2019)

[chicagoindiecritics]

New from Solzy at the Movies by Danielle Solzman: Toronto 2019: Murmur

Murmur offers a taste of bold experimental filmmaking surrounding the connections between humans and the animals in our lives. Documentary-narrative feature hybrids are starting to become more of a thing.  The main focus in this film is Donna (Shan MacDonald).  Donna is an alcoholic and following a recent DUI charge, she’s been ordered to perform community service.  Her community service obligations find her serving or time at an animal rescue shelter.  While putting in her…

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[denner22]

It has been a couple of weeks since I last wrote …. mostly filled with one diploma examination after another. There was a typhoon here two weeks ago, so that weekend was mostly spent indoors, as we were warned not to go outside much in any case. However the following weekend was bathed in polluted sunshine – enough to burn a little.

On Sunday, I was taken out to Saikung and then to an Island in the South China Sea, fifteen minutes ferry ride away. The Island (like much of the rest of Hong Kong)  is owned by the Hong Kong Jockey Club and is basically an eighteen hole golf course. We had a lovely lunch in the South China Sea and a walk around the parts of the Island where non-golfers were allowed to meander. The course is apparently one of the few public courses in Hong Kong, so there was an emphasis on learning how to play the game, with a large driving range and learning centre. It was a beautiful day – relatively clear –  and with good company, it was most enjoyable.

  After arrival back at Saikung, we wandered into a coffee shop – twice! – once for good coffee and once again to retrieve a lost Oyster Card (not mine!), which we found on the floor next to some people that had already taken our chairs. Saikung is quite a long way out from Hong Kong Central, but I am told that quite a lot of expatriates live out there, as the district is pretty much bush with little settlements dotted along the coast line. I am told there are a lot of good tramping walks out there. Saikung itself has a large fishing market on the waterfront, where the local fisher-people come in with their catch of the day and sell it. The sights (and smells) were extraordinary, with both fresh and dried fish products being added to many shopper bags during the afternoon

  On the two Mondays, I decided to rent a bicycle and go for a ride (HKD$80 the first week and HKD$90 the second week – I bargained, because he wanted to charge me $100 the second week….). My first Monday, I rode from Tai Wai to Tai Po and back. Apparently about 20km each direction. The cycle path goes along beside the Shing Mun River for about 10 km and then one can choose to go to Tai Po, or to Ma on Shan. It was very peaceful after escaping busy Tai Wai, to ride along this perfectly flat path. Some of it was a shared path, but mostly the cycle path was separate from the walking paths and the parks. I remembered it a little from having examined out this way 5 years ago, but I really enjoyed having the bite of some “fresh” air on my face – and I did get burnt – despite using some sunscreen – on ONE arm. Silly boy! It wasn’t too badly burned, but definitely red…October in Hong Kong!!

I did get lost a couple of times…the bike path might be well signposted if you read Chinese, but I do wonder if not all the English signs were there. So I saw the centre of Shatin before turning back. When the path came to an end at the Tai Po waterfront park, I met some men who were flying their kites and they persuaded me to take over for a while. I tried to tell them about the many hours I spent flying a kite in my childhood, but their English wasn’t good enough and my Cantonese is little more than non-existent!

The next Monday ( today), I rode out along the same path but took a turning to go to Ma On Shan, which basically looks over toward Tai Po. I did get a little lost in the parks  and building construction at the end – taking a few paths that I am sure I was not meant to ride along, but nobody shouted at me, so I eventually found my way around and back again – only to lose myself on the return journey and end up by the Hong Kong Baptist University. Exciting stuff isn’t it!!

During the week, my time is of necessity taken up with work, but I have had a few vacancies, so have managed to get over to see more of the Nan Liang Gardens next to where I examine. They are beautifully cultivated gardens, with a little lake in the centre and a small temple in the lake. It is connected to the Chi Lin Nunnery by a bridge going over the road. I know I put some photos into my last meanderings, but here are some of the Nunnery and the shrines there. I was told to put my camera away at one of the shrines. When I immediately just went outside and walked along the windows looking in, the lady official, proceeded to follow me, so I waved at her, received the typical grimace in return and so I smiled and left.

I have had some amazing meals, but one that I should mention is a vegetarian hamburger patty . It included Beet, which many of you may know I don’t really eat after a childhood of choking on red beetroot in sweet vinegar. However this patty was amazing. It was a lot more beefy than any MacDonald’s burger I have tasted. Now, that may not mean a lot, but this was one of the best burger patties I have ever eaten. We had to barbecue it ourselves and it was really worth waiting for.

So life in Hong Kong has been pretty busy. Everything here is expensive. I think you can still get cheap clothing in the markets, but I am not really interested in clothing that falls apart after been worn and washed a few times. The electronics I have been interested in are mostly cheaper or comparable in New Zealand, so I shan’t be disturbing Her Majesty’s Customs when I return. However I have enjoyed seeing even more of this fascinating place on my meanderings.

Hong Kong Meanderings It has been a couple of weeks since I last wrote .... mostly filled with one diploma examination after another.

[atlanticcanada]

Doctor makes presentation to public-health staff to combat disinformation on vaccines

HALIFAX -- Each year, thousands of Canadians die from flu-related illness and even more are hospitalized.

Health Canada says it's a vaccine-preventable disease, but health professionals say there's still a great deal of misinformation surrounding flu shot.

"People say 'I don't need a flu shot because I take my vitamins, I run, I eat well, I'm healthy,'" said Dr. Noni MacDonald. "When you get influenza, it's like a truck hit you. You are really sick. We also know influenza in older people, a week after you get influenza -- increased rates in stroke, increased rates of heart attacks."

MacDonald says in the era of Dr. Google, or turning to the internet to access health information, it's important for medical professionals to work to debunk immunization myths.

On Tuesday, she gave a presentation to public health employees on how to combat information spread by science deniers.

"How the patient hears information from a health care professional and what they hear really affects and can influence their decision to accept immunization or other health care intervention treatment that they need," MacDonald says.

Cindy Shan, the regional medical officer of health for Halifax, Eastern Shore, and West Hants says "there's been an increase in the number of patients who come in with concerns related to vaccinations."

MacDonald tells front line staff, the best way to combat vaccination misinformation is to use evidence based guidance and to make the public aware of how people can skew science.

"It's concerning because really, vaccines are important for individual protection against a number of communicable diseases, but also it's important for community protection," Shen said. "So, if everyone gets vaccinated, then we are better at preventing the spread of infectious diseases."

The goal of Tuesday's presentation was to arm front line public health staff with tactics they can use to debunk myths around vaccinations and ensure everyone has access to science-based information.

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/2s2e3gj

[worldhotelvideo]

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[btvsportsnews]

Afridi invited to Toronto to promote cricket

New Post has been published on http://www.btvsports24.com/afridi-invited-to-toronto-to-promote-cricket/

Afridi invited to Toronto to promote cricket

Toronto Mayor John Tory has invited Pakistan’s cricket star Shahid Afridi in an effort to make cricket popular in the multi-cultural city and elsewhere in Canada.

“This is a great honour for me to be here,” Afridi said as he stood with Tory and Councillor Neethan Shan on Thursday at the city hall.

“This is my fourth trip to Toronto. Such a beautiful country, such a beautiful city.”

Afridi took over as captain of the Pakistan national cricket team in 2009 and has been named Man of the Match 32 times, the most of any Pakistani player.

Toronto is the most multicultural city in Canada with a large number of immigrants from South Asian origin where cricket is one of the most popular sports.

According to Statistics Canada, the province of Ontario is the home to 62% of all Canadians of South Asian origin, while another 22% lived in British Columbia.

“We look forward to taking you up on your offer of some help with our young people and others who are interested in cricket, because I know you’ll be a powerful influence on them and a positive influence and we really appreciate that,” Mayor Tory told Afridi.

This trip to Toronto follows Afridi’s February announcement that he has retired from the sport on the international stage, but he continues to promote cricket internationally off the field, the CBC News reported.

“Your participation in this visit is actually making that push, and that momentum grows for us to bring more cricket and more international cricket, as well as more cricket facilities for … young men and young women who play this beautiful sport,” Coun. Shan, who helped organised the trip told Afridi.

Toronto is one of the megacities with 5.5 million population where over 140 languages and dialects are spoken.

“Cricket was once declared as Canada’s national sport by Sir John A Macdonald and Mayor Tory has recognised an increase in interest in the sport across the city.”

“The game itself has been exploding in Toronto regarding the interest and participation of young people,” Tory said. “We’re left to think about how we can best use his time and talents to (help kids inspired by him).”

The cricket star is also in the city to introduce Canadians to the Shahid Afridi Foundation, which supports impoverished communities in Pakistan.

“I want to do something here for cricket and some noble causes as well,” Afridi said, according to CBC News.