#posted two matrix drawings in a row ..

[jeebits]

the cycle continues

[hopekiedokie]

The Dreaded First Day of School (single dad!jimin)

SUMMARY: On his son’s first day of school, we learn that the badass, leather jacket wearer, and tattoo clad single dad might not be so tough after all. Or maybe, his soft little son isn’t as pure as he ought to be. (In short, Jimin’s baby is growing up and he’s not prepared for it.)

GENRE: fluff, humour, maybe angst if you squint hard enough

WORD COUNT: 1.6k

NOTES: So Jimin isn’t supposed to be a mean or awful dad here. He’s just still not totally equipped to be one even after five years now. This might become a mini series with Ms. Y/n being Haneul’s teacher in the future. Who knows? Also, the photo is not mine.

POSTED ON: 26th March, 2021

What the actual heck is this??

Jimin has seen a lot of crazy things in his life but this, whatever is happening in front of him, is something he truly cannot believe.

You see, today is his son's, Haneul, dreaded™ first day of school.

The kid was up until 3 in the morning, crying his eyes out. He kept begging Jimin to not let him go, saying things like “I’ve been a good boy.” or “I don’t know those people.” or “Please, daddy, I don’t want to go!”

Half of the time, Jimin didn’t even understand what he was saying because he was crying so much.

The worst part is that Jimin had half the mind to give in to all these excuses and to just let Haneul attend school next year.

Contrary to popular belief though, he’s not entirely an awful example of what a father should be. In general, yes, he’s done a lot of questionable things. But in particular, as a father, he does like allowing his son to eat whatever junk food he wants, watch whatever is on the tv, or letting him up way past his bedtime (as late as 4am).

BUT he still has a smidge of decency left in his being and he actually wants his son to grow up decent.

(Which for the most part, is going along fine since Haneul is probably one of the sweetest and softest kids he’s ever seen. How though? Jimin has no idea.)

So with tired eyes and barely 4 hours of sleep, he dragged his son to school.

Even during the drive, Haneul was still adamant about skipping school and all the while, he kept using his cute crying voice that ALWAYS turns Jimin into mush.

Not this time though.

“It’s gonna be okay. You’ll meet a lot of friends and you’ll play with them! It’s gonna be fun, I promise.” This is one of the many things he said to lift his son’s spirits up.

All his efforts are still not enough to pacify Haneul as the tiny boy kept throwing a tantrum. Jimin even had to carry him after getting out of the car and during the entire walk to the school gymnasium where the assembly is, Haneul held his arms tightly around his neck.

To be completely honest, Jimin thought that it would be embarrassing but actually, he found the entire thing quite endearing.

Maybe it’s the narcissistic prick inside him that’s talking but seeing and hearing his son say that he’d rather spend time with him makes him feel like perhaps he’s not so bad of a dad after all.

Which brings us to the present.

To reiterate, Jimin cannot believe what’s happening.

One moment, his son is clinging to him for his dear life, then in an instant, he watched him grow up right in front of him.

In the worst way possible.

Not to be dramatic, but it was like watching his entire life slip away from his grasp.

The beginning of the end started when Jimin pointed to these three boys and insisted Haneul to introduce himself.

Boy, oh boy, oh boy, BIG mistake on his behalf!

He probably should’ve pushed his son to the “nerdier” looking kids. That would’ve helped him in the long run, as well!

At first, he watched in awe from a far as Haneul progressively turned less tense and more comfortable with those boys. They started with cute small smiles but it quickly turned into wildly animated gestures while comparing their Paw Patrol themed trolley backpacks.

“That’s my boy! Already making friends and it’s only been 5 minutes.” Jimin proudly thought to himself.

Okay, maybe Haneul is going to be fine. All that crying thinking Jimin did the entire night was for nothing! His cute soft son can totally do this.

Now, Jimin’s life altering moment comes. The time to actually say goodbye is here.

A teacher announces that they’re taking the kids to their respective classrooms and even if they cry or make a huge fit about it, the parents or guardians should stay where they are. They should refrain from “babying” their child.

Alright, now’s the time for Haneul to cry again! There’s no way he doesn’t cry even just a tiny bit��....Right?

Jimin makes eye contact with Haneul and, without any second thoughts, proudly mouths “I love you” while pointing to him.

Normally, Haneul is quick to return the gesture. Heck, he even goes as far as drawing a huge heart with his tiny pointer fingers!

But today, he doesn’t do that. No no no no no!

Instead, Haneul discreetly looks around him to check if anyone is watching him then……….

He shakes his head towards his father then faces back to his new friends.

Gasp! What is this???

Jimin has never felt so betrayed in his entire life! Not to mention, by his OWN son too.

This irks him so much.

So much so that he stands and gets close to his son, opposing the teacher’s instruction of letting their kids be.

Bitch, no. He’s getting his “I love you” from his son no matter what.

As he walks towards Haneul, it’s apparent that the kid had somehow done a complete 180 from his mood 10 minutes ago.

How can this be? How is he suddenly so cold towards his own man?

When he finally gets to Haneul, he literally, no joke, had to call his name 4 times to get his attention. The actual audacity of this kid!

“Hey, Haneul. Daddy’s gotta go!” Jimin says with his world famous “no eyes” smile.

Haneul’s face drops.

Bingo!

This kid is about to get a huge reality check or so Jimin thinks he is.

He’s waiting for any signs of despair, a sniff or maybe some glassy eyes but nothing happens.

Come on, where are the water works?? Where are all the hugs and kisses???

Haneul is like (・-・) to Jimin.

O-okay…….

“...”

“...”

“...”

Nothing???

“There’s a lot of scary strangers here……”

Okay, so that was really mean for Jimin to say bUT HE ONLY WANTS TO SQUEEZE EVEN JUST A DROP OF AFFECTION FROM HIM. Sue him!

Haneul finally opens his mouth.

Jimin quietly anticipates his son to return to his warm and loving self that he still doesn’t quite know where he gets from...

“So what, daddy? I’m a big boy! I don’t need you.”

(´⊙ω⊙`)?！

Uhm exCusE mE, but W H A T??

Needless to say, that statement hurt Jimin like a buttcheek on a stick.

However, he’s not gonna break away from his badass persona in front of all these people, especially around these little shits that they call “children”. He has an ✨𝓪𝓮𝓼𝓽𝓱𝓮𝓽𝓲𝓬✨ that he strictly abides to, people!

And frankly, he’s not gonna let his son walk all over him.

So without any word, Jimin leans down to give Haneul a kiss. If he’s not gonna receive any affection through words then fine! He’s gonna get it through a different way.

Jimin’s lips are almost in contact with Haneul’s plush cheeks. They are literally a hair away that Jimin can feel the heat emitting from it but all at once, that heat is gone.

You know why?

Because Haneul is quick to do that matrix shit where he bends his back to avoid his father’s lips.

Then he saunters away, leaving Jimin hanging.

(๑´⊙ ₃ ⊙`๑)

Jimin calls him a couple times but again, he did not look back.

S I G H

Alright, then. He doesn’t normally raise his voice towards his son (nor disciplines him tbh) but oh boy, oh boy! This kid is practically asking for it.

He doesn’t give a fuck if he’s five, no son of his is gonna be allowed to treat him like that!

“HANEUL! GET BACK HERE. NOW!”

Well, that got him looking back towards his father.

Jimin points in front of him to which Haneul begrudgingly complies after taking a peek from his new found friends.

Haneul hears the other boys snicker behind him as he trudges towards his slightly pissed father.

When he’s standing right where his father wants him, Jimin leans his cheek down again for him to kiss.

Now, the other boys are blatantly laughing at him.

Maaaaaaaan. He can’t be a laughing stock on his first day of school! He needs to be as cool as his daddy!

As Haneul contemplates his life choices, Jimin patiently waits for his kiss. There’s no way Haneul is gonna reject him for the third time in a row within a span of two minutes!

Within a few seconds, he feels Haneul’s lidol babie hand against his cheek.

O M G

How 😭 cute 😭 is 😭 this 😭 ??

This has got to be one the softest moments they have shared together. AND it’s in front of all these people!

Take that Namjoon hyung for saying I can’t be a gentle and tender loving father!

Jimin is about to place a hand over Haneul’s small one to caress it but then Haneul pushes his face away.

“Just go, daddy!”

Before Jimin is able to process what just transpired, Haneul is already strutting towards the other kids, feeling like a king or a boss for bitch-slapping his own father.

This little fUqer!!!

Who does he think he is to act like this towards Jimin iN FRONT OF OTHER PEOPLE??

This is what happens when he lets his son spend too much alone time with his Uncle Jungkook and Uncle Taehyung.

But to be fair, Haneul is still Jimin’s son at the end of the day so…..like, maybe he shouldn’t be too surprised??

Yet, still, he truly cannot believe it.

All it took was 5 minutes and a rowdy set of friends, then his kid has grown up.

He apparently “doesn’t need him” anymore, according to the kid.

To think that Jimin got up early to make him those cute bento boxes. He even specifically made them look like various pokemons that Haneul fancies!

Wow. Just. WOW.

Excuse him, but he’s just gonna get in his car and crank up “Slipping Through My Fingers” by ABBA while he ugly sobs.

[googldoodle-blog]

The Vatican City: This post is about Vatican City's historical places

The Vatican City is world famous as the centre of the Roman Catholic Church.

is the smallest state in Europe, both in population and expanse.

The Vatican City or Holy See or The heart of Rome:

vatican city population : 1000

vatican city area : 44 ha

vatican city Continent: Europe

vatican city government : Unitary absolute monarchy under an ecclesiastical and elective theocracy

vatican city capital : Vatican City

vatican city currency : Euro

vatican city flag : Divided vertically into two equal stripes, yellow (at the hoist) and white (at the fly). The white stripe bears the traditional papal emblem, the crossed keys of St. Peter beneath the papal tiara. It is commonly called the “papal flag” (Italian, bandiera pontificia)

vatican city Language: Italian

Vatican City (Città del Vaticano in Italian) is an independent city state located in the heart of Rome, ruled by the Pope (Bishop of Rome). It is the centre of authority over the Roman Catholic Church.

The Vatican is the smallest state in Europe. It has a total area of 0,44 km² and inside its wall live approximately 1000 people.In this small state lives the Pope, in the Apostolic palace surrounded by beautiful gardens. The palace is open to the public, but visitors have to book in advance.The Vatican City was declared independent from the rest of Italy on 11 February, 1929, with the signing of the Lateran Treaty between Pope Pius XI and Mussolini.

Holy See : 'See' as a noun means "the seat or office of a bishop". 'Holy See' means the see of the bishop of Rome. Therefore, the term refers to the city-state of Vatican because it happens to be the territory in which the Pope resides. The term as used by the United Nations refers not to the city of Vatican but to the government of the Roman Catholic Church. It is this government, not Vatican City, which is represented at the UN.

St. Peter's Square:

St. Peter's Square is located directly in front of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City, the papal enclave inside Rome, directly west of the neighbourhood or rione of Borgo. Both the square and the basilica are named after Saint Peter, an apostle of Jesus considered by some to be the first Pope. The St. Peter’s Square was built by Gian Lorenzo Bernini between 1656 and 1667,during the pontificate of Alexander VII (1655-1667), and is located on the St. Peter’s Basilica. This is the square where the giant St. Peter and Egyptian Obelisk can be found. Of great interest is the Royal Staircase, which links the square to the Vatican Palaces. It was built between 1662 and 1666, and although it actually measures 60 metres, perspective devices, such as the progressive narrowing of the width and a reduced distance between the columns towards the top, make it look much longer.

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The square is made up of two different areas. The first has a trapezoid shape, marked off by two straight closed and convergent arms on each side of the church square. The second area is elliptical and is surrounded by the two hemicycles of a four-row colonnade, because, as Bernini said, “considering that Saint Peter’s is almost the matrix of all the churches, its portico had to give an open-armed, maternal welcome to all Catholics, confirming their faith; to heretics, reconciling them with the Church; and to the infidels, enlightening them about the true faith.” Bernini had in fact designed a three-armed portico, but after Alexander VII’s death, construction of the portico was halted, and the third arm was never built. It would have enclosed the whole building and separated the ellipse from the “Borgo” quarter, thus creating a “surprise effect” for the pilgrim who suddenly found himself in the square. This effect was somewhat achieved by the buildings surrounding the square, the so-called “Spina di Borgo”, which naturally “closed in” the square. In 1950, Via della Conciliazione, a new, wide street leading to the Vatican Basilica, was opened.

It amplifies the majestic view of Saint Peter’s dome, but it also profoundly modified Bernini’s original plan. The measurements of the square are impressive: it is 320 m deep, its diameter is 240 m and it is surrounded by 284 columns, set out in rows of four, and 88 pilasters. Around the year 1670, Bernini’s pupils built 140 statues of saints, 3.20 m high along the balustrade above the columns. On either side of the obelisk, which was moved to the middle of the square by Domenico Fontana in 1585, are two great fountains built by Bernini (1675) and Maderno (1614). Below, at the foot of the staircase in front of the basilica, the statues of Saint Peter and Saint Paul seem to welcome visitors.

St. Peter's Basilica:

Source 1:

One of the largest churches in the world, St Peter’s Basilica, built in Italian Renaissance style is located in the Vatican. Numerous Popes have been buried here. St. Peter’s Basilica is one of the holiest temples for Christendom and one of the largest churches in the world. Besides, it is where the Pope presides many liturgies all year round.

The construction of the new basilica began in 1506, when the old basilica had been torn down, and was finished in 1626. It was consecrated on 18 November, 1626. Several renowned architects designed the temple, highlighting the works of Bramante, Michelangelo and Carlo Maderno. The basilica was called St Peter’s after one of Jesus’s twelve disciples known as Saint Peter, who became one of the founders of the Catholic Church and was executed in Rome and buried where the Basilica now stands.

One of the most impressive parts of the Basilica is its incredible dome. Its design was started by Michelangelo and continued by Giacomo Della Porta. Carlo Maderno finished the dome in 1614.

This dome has served as inspiration for many other cathedrals and buildings, for example, the Capitol in Washington and St Paul’s Cathedral in London. Visiting St Peter’s Basilica is an unforgettable experience when staying in Rome. Visitors mustn’t miss out on climbing to the top of the dome, where a stunning view of St Peter’s Square, and if the day is clear of most of the city, awaits them.

Climbing to the top might prove to be a little oppressive for some, as the last part of the ascent is a narrow and steep spiral staircase.

source 2:

The church is built on Vatican Hill, across the Tiber river from the historic center of Rome. The location is highly symbolic: this was the site where Saint Peter, the chief apostle, died a martyr and where he was buried in 64 AD. St. Peter is considered the first pope, so it made perfect sense for the papacy to build the principal shrine of the Catholic church here.

Brief History: The First Basilica: In the early fourth century Emperor Constantine, the first Christian emperor of Rome, decided to build a basilica on Vatican Hill at the site of small shrine that marked the likely location of the tomb of St. Peter. Construction of the basilica started between 319 and 322. It was consecrated in 326 AD and finally completed around 349 AD. To facilitate the construction, a part of the terrain was leveled and the necropolis where St. Peter was originally buried was demolished.

The basilica had an eighty-five meter (279 ft) long nave with four aisles and a spacious atrium with a central cantharus (fountain), enclosed by a colonnade. A bell tower stood at the front of the atrium. Visitors entered the atrium through a triple-arched portico.

In the middle of the fifteenth century, the basilica was falling into ruin and pope Nicolas V ordered the restoration and enlargement of the church after plans by Bernardo Rossellino. After Nicolas V died, works were halted.

No progress was made for half a century until pope Julius II decided to build a completely new church. He appointed Donato Bramante as chief architect. Bramante designed a structure with a high dome on a Greek cross plan (all sides have equal lengths). In 1506 Julius II laid the first stone of the new basilica which was to become the largest in the world.

After Bramante's death in 1514 he was succeeded by a number of different architects, all of whom made changes to the design, most notably Michelangelo Buonarroti, who became chief architect in 1547 at the age of seventy-two. He conceived the imposing dome and made further alterations to the plans.

At the time of Michelangelo's death in 1564 only the drum of the dome was built. The dome was finally completed in 1590 by Giacomo della Porta. On request of pope Paul V the imposing edifice was extended further into a true Latin cross plan by Carlo Maderno, who completed the main facade in 1614. The church was finally reconsecrated in 1626 by pope Urban VIII, exactly 1300 years after the consecration of the first church. Ever since, the St. Peter's Basilica has been the center of Christianity, drawing pilgrims and tourists from all over the world.

Visitors on their way to the St. Peter's Basilica pass along St. Peter's Square, a grandiose elliptical esplanade created in the mid seventeenth century by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The square is bordered by massive colonnades that symbolize outstretched arms. Bernini and his assistants sculpted the 140 statues of saints that grace the balustrades on the colonnades. The square is decorated with fountains and an Egyptian obelisk that was transported to Rome in 37 AD.

The view of St. Peter's Basilica from the square is unfortunately a bit disappointing; the result of the enlargement of the church carried out by Carlo Maderno, which partly obscures Michelangelo's dome.

The building itself is truly impressive. The largest church in the world, it has a 211.5 meter long nave (694 ft, including the narthex). The basilica's dome is one of the world's largest measuring 42 meters in diameter and reaching 132.5 meters high (more than 434ft).

Front Facade: The travertine front facade of the basilica was created by Carlo Maderno, who slightly altered Michelangelo's original design by widening the narthex to 114.7 meters. Maderno also placed the massive columns against the walls instead of in front of the building, as Michelangelo had intended.

The 45.5 meters (149 ft) high facade is crowned with 5.7 meter tall statues of Christ, John the Baptist and the apostles except for St. Peter. On either side are huge clocks supported by angels and decorated with ornaments and the papal crest. They were added in the early nineteenth century and are the work of Giuseppe Valadier. Below the clock on the left you can see the church bells.

Five entrances lead to the narthex (the lobby area) of the church, where you find an equestrian statue of Charles the Great on the left and another equestrian statue of Emperor Constantine, created by Bernini. Five doors lead from the narthex to the nave of the basilica. The central bronze door was created in the fifteenth century by the Florentine sculptor and architect Filarete for the old basilica. The door on the right is the Porta Santa, the holy door which is only opened once every twenty-five years.

Interior: Once inside the nave the enormous size of the church becomes apparent. The basilica has a surface area of 15,160 square meters, enough space to accommodate 60,000 visitors. It is covered by a coffered barrel vault ceiling and a huge central dome.

The opulence of the interior bears testimony to the wealth of the Catholic church in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is decorated with large monuments, many of which were created by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, one of the greatest artists of all time.

One of his main creations invariably draws the immediate attention of visitors: the enormous, twenty-six meter high bronze baldachin over the papal altar. The Baroque masterpiece is crafted from bronze that was taken from the ceiling and pediment of the Pantheon. The design of the spiraling columns was inspired by marble columns that originally adorned the crypt of the old basilica.

In front of the papal altar is the confessio (burial crypt) that marks the presumed grave of St. Peter. It is encircled by a balustrade with ninety-five bronze oil lamps.

The confessio is located right below the majestic dome. Look up and you'll see the impressive colorful vaulting with sixteen ribs that are supported by four massive pillars. The triangular spaces where the pillars meet the dome are decorated with mosaics depicting the evangelists. Light enters through the lantern and the sixteen large windows below the cornice.

Huge niches in the pillars hold five meter tall statues of the saints Andrew, Veronica, Helena and Longinus. The latter was created by Bernini, the others by students and assistants of the master. They stand on pedestals that are almost as tall as the statues that are placed on them. Above the niches are loggias that hold the relics associated with the four saints.

The pillar with the statue of Longinus also provides the backdrop for a bronze statue of St. Peter. First thought to be a late-classical work, it is now attributed to Arnolfo di Cambio, a thirteenth century architect and sculptor.

The apse of the basilica is decorated with a bombastic Baroque work that integrates the Cathedra Petri, the supposed chair of St. Peter. The chair is encapsulated in a bronze throne with reliefs that is supported by four church fathers; Athanasius and Johannes represent the Eastern Church while Ambrose and Augustine represent the Western Church. Above the throne is a large oval window surrounded by numerous angels.

The tomb of pope Urban VIII, to the right of the throne, was also created by Bernini. The tomb opposite, of Paul III, is the work of Giacomo della Porta. There are plenty more tombs and sepulchral monuments in St. Peter's, most notably the monument to Alexander VII, another work of Bernini. It depicts the pope praying in front of a skeleton holding an hourglass. Statues alongside the skeleton represent virtues. One of the figures was originally nude but the prudish pope Innocent XI ordered Bernini to cover it with a marble drape. Another notable monument is the tomb of Innocent VII, sculpted in 1498 by Antonio del Pollaiolo. It is the only papal tomb in the church that was transferred from the original fourth century basilica.

The most famous monument in the St. Peter's Basilica is the Pietà, a marble sculpture of a young looking Mary holding the dead body of her son. It was created in 1499-1500 by Michelangelo at the early age of twenty-five. The monument is located in the first chapel on the right. It is the only work of Michelangelo that bears his signature. He etched his name on the ribbon that runs across Mary's chest, allegedly after he heard that people attributed his work to another artist. The sculpture was heavily damaged in 1972 when a deranged visitor hit it with a hammer; it is now protected by a bulletproof glass screen.

Most of the paintings in the church are replicas of the original paintings created for the basilica, many of which are now on display in the Vatican Pinacoteca. The high humidity in the church ruined the oil paintings which started to suffer from mold damage. Some have been replaced by mosaics such as 'The Transfiguration', a painting by Raphael, which was recreated in 1774 as a mosaic by Stefano Pozzi.

The floor of the basilica has a colorful marble pattern. Look for the red porphyry disc near the central door. In the old church it was located in front of the main altar. Emperors - most notably Charles the Great (in 800 AD) - were crowned while standing on the disc. There are also bronze markings that compare the size of the church with that of others, including the St. Paul's Cathedral in London and the Cologne Cathedral.

Right in front of the left transept is the entrance to the Museo Storico-Artistico (entrance not free), better known as the tesoro or treasury. On display are several historic crucifixes, including the sixth-century Crux Vaticana. There are also objects taken from the old church, such as a tabernacle created by Donatello.

It is also possible to visit the Sacre Grotte or Grotte Vaticane, a necropolis below the nave where you find the graves of more than one hundred popes. The Grotte was created when the floor of the new basilica was built 3.2 meters above the old one. It can be reached via a stair near the statue of Longinus.

The crowning piece of the St. Peter's Basilica is the majestic dome, a masterpiece designed by Michelangelo. The dome has a diameter of 42.34 meters and rests on four massive five-sided pillars. On top of the pillars rests a cylindrical drum - with sixteen large rectangular windows - that supports the ribbed vault. The ribs come together at the oculus on which an enormous lantern is placed. The outside of the drum and lantern are decorated with double Corinthian pillars.

There is a viewing platform at the base of the lantern from where you can enjoy an unparalleled panorama over Rome. You have the option of taking the elevator or the stairs, the latter being a bit cheaper. At the foot of the dome you can walk onto the roof terrace, from where you get a close-up view of the dome. The galleries inside give you a birds-eye view of the interior of the church. From here a long, narrow and spiraling staircase brings you to the top of the dome. The staircase is situated between the inner and outer shells of the dome, so the walls are somewhat slanted. The rather uneasy climb and the entrance fee are definitely worth it though since you are rewarded with one of the best views over the city.

source 3:

The Constantinian basilica disappeared with time. Over 150 years passed from the decision of Nicholas V Parentucelli to enlarge and restore the ancient basilica to the completion of the Renaissance building with the façade (1612). This is quite a long period of time in terms of the number of years, but it is absolutely understandable if one remembers the enormous amount of work and the continuous changes in the planning. In the over 150 years required to complete the basilica, the most famous artists of the time directed the “Fabbrica di San Pietro”. Among these were Raphael Sanzio, who decided to transform Bramante’s Greek cross design with a Latin cross-like structure in 1514; Antonio da Sangallo the Younger; and Michelangelo who, during the pontificate of Paul III, decided to reuse the original Greek cross plan, designed the dome and supervised its construction until his death in 1564.

Over the course of the next thirty years, the “Fabbrica di San Pietro” was directed by Giacomo Vignola, and then by the architects Giacomo Della Porta and Domenico Fontana, who completed Michelangelo’s plan of the dome around 1588. Saint Peter’s Basilica reached its present state thanks to Carlo Maderno, who went back to the Latin cross plan and defined the scenographic aspect of the façade.

Work on the basilica was completed during the pontificate of Urban VIII in 1626, but it was only between 1656 and 1667 that Bernini, commissioned by Alexander VII, planned and constructed the great colonnade in Saint Peter’s Square with the 1st century B.C. obelisk in the middle. Originally set in the centre of Caligula’s Circus, where Saint Peter was martyred, it was moved to the present site in 1585 by Domenico Fontana, who was directed to do so by Sixtus V. Saint Peter’s Basilica can host 20,000 people. It is 190 m long, the aisles are 58 m wide, the nave is 45.50 m high as far as the vault, the dome is about 136 m high as far as the cross. The interiors, characterized by huge mosaics, are sites of some of the most famous art works from all over the world, for example, Bernini’s baldachin and Michelangelo’s Pietà.

Vatican Museums:

Source 1:

The Vatican Museums are the Vatican city's museums and includes admissions to Sistine Chapel, Chapel of Beato Angelico and Raphael Rooms

The origins of these museums go back to 1503, the year in which the recently named Pope Julius II donated his private collection. Since that moment private families and other popes have enlarged the collection of the museums to the point where it has become one of the largest in the world.

At present, the Vatican Museums receive more than 6 million visitors annually, although without doubt, one of the reasons for this is that they form the entrance to the Sistine Chapel.

What museums are there in the interior?

Pio-Clementino Museum: Created thanks to the popes Clement XIV and Pius VI, this museum holds the most important Greek works in the Vatican. Apartment of Pius V: The work of Pope Pius V, this museum contains Flemish tapestries from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a collection of medieval ceramics and another of medieval miniature mosaics.

Gallery of the Chandeliers: Roman replicas of Greek originals and enormous chandeliers from the second century A.D. decorate this elegant gallery. Ethnological Missionary Museum: This museum contains works of art from all the papal missions of the world, among which there are objects originating from Tibet, Indonesia, India, the Far East, Africa and America.

Gallery of Maps: Carried out between the years 1580 and 1585, the beautiful maps painted in fresco on the walls of this gallery represent the Italian regions and the possessions of the Church.

Historical Museum - Carriage Pavilion: In this section you will find coaches, saddles, cars, and even the Vatican City´s first locomotive. Gallery of Tapestries: Exhibition of Flemish tapestries created between 1523 and 1534.

Pio-Christian Museum: The collection of Christian antiquities is composed of statues, sarcophagi and archaeological ruins from the sixth century.

Pinacoteca: The eighteen rooms in the Pinacoteca building contain pictorial works dating from the Middle Ages until 1800. Sobieski Room and the Room of the Immaculate: In both rooms you will find paintings originating in the Italian "Ottocento".

Egyptian Museum: Among other pieces acquired by the popes you can find some impressive Egyptian sculptures, besides the prized sarcophagi from the third century B.C. There are also some black basalt statues originating from the Villa Adriana, which are replicas of Egyptian models.

Etruscan museum: This part of the museum contains elements of ceramic, bronze and gold belonging to the Etruscan civilization.

Chiaramonti Museum: Created thanks to Pius VII Chiaramonti, this gallery holds thousands of sculptures including portraits of emperors, images of the gods and some funeral monuments.

Gregorian Profane Museum: Its rooms hold Greek and Roman sculptures from the first to third centuries A.D. Borgia Apartment: The apartments that belonged to the Pope Alexander VI Borgia today serve as exhibition rooms for the Collection of Modern Religious Art. Raphael Rooms: Rafael and his assistants decorated the apartments of the Pope Julius II with unparalleled taste. Sala Della Biga: A monumental figure of marble of a chariot drawn by two horses carried out in the first century A.D. fills the space and gives the room its name.

Source 2:

History of the Museums

The Vatican Museums were founded under the patronage of two eighteenth-century popes - Clement XIV (1769-1774) and Pius VI (1775-1799) - who were among the first to open collections of art to the general public for viewing, therefore promoting culture among the masses. Appropriately, the first building in the museum complex, the Pio-Clementine Museum, was named after these two pontiffs.

The origin of the museums' collection goes back much further. It all started in 1480 with the discovery of a Roman statue, 'The Apollo of Belvedere', still one of the highlights of the Vatican Museums. In 1503 Julius II had the statue placed in the Cortile Ottagono, an octagonal courtyard.

As the decades passed, more popes added to the amazing collection of diverse artworks owned and displayed by the Vatican. Today, there are thirteen museums in a huge architectural complex comprising of two Vatican palaces. Octagonal courtyard, Vatican Museums Octagonal courtyard

Detail from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Museums Sistine Chapelx The building complex is worth a visit in itself as all the rooms and hallways are lavishly decorated with marble and frescoes.

The Museums and Collections It's best not to try and see everything in one visit - the whole route along all the museums is seven kilometers long (4.4 mi) - but focus on a number of highlights or museums you want to see. And make sure you have some time and energy left over for the Raphael Rooms and the Sistine Chapel, which are located towards the end of the museum.

To keep the massive crowds under control, the museum has four color-coded itineraries that range from one and a half hours to more than five hours. All itineraries end in the Sistine Chapel.

Classical Antiquities One of the Vatican Museums' main strengths is the collection of ancient Roman and Greek art, which is spread over four museums. Some of the most famous statues, including the Laocoön and the Apollo del Belvedere can be found here.

The Pio-Clementine Museum (Museo Pio—Clementino) forms the core of the Vatican Museums. Most of the collection consists of statues discovered in and around Rome.

Among the many highlights is the so-called Apoxyomenos (the Scraper), a 1st century marble copy of a famous bronze statue by Lysippos. The statue was discovered in 1849 in Trastevere. It depicts an athlete scraping the sweat of his body. The fig leaf was added later (Romans and Greek never censored their artwork).

The Octagon Court (Cortile Ottagonale), the oldest part of the Vatican Museums, contains several masterpieces. Among them the Apollo of Belvedere, another Roman copy of a Greek original by Leochares. The statue of the god Apollo stretching out his arm has been described as the perfection of aesthetics.

But even more famous is the Laocoön, a sculpture group discovered in 1506 on the Esquiline Hill. The group was created in around 30 BC by three sculptors from Rhodes who probably copied an original from the 2nd century BC. It depicts the Trojan priest Laocoön and his two sons being strangled by serpents. According to a story by the Roman poet Virgil, Laocoön warned the Trojans not to bring the wooden horse into Troy so the goddess Athena sent two serpents out to kill the priest. The sculpture group is acclaimed for its dignified portrayal of agony.

The Hall of the Muses (Sala delle Muse) is decorated with frescoes of Apollo and the Muses, created in the late eighteenth century by Tommaso Conca. The centerpiece here is the Belvedere Torso. The statue was found in the Campo de' Fiori and is signed by Apollonius of Athens, a Greek sculptor of the first century BC. Unfortunately the legs and arms are missing but the torso is considered a perfect example of male anatomy. The torso inspired Michelangelo for his nudes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

The adjoining Round Room (Sala Rotonda) is modeled after the Pantheon. The floor is paved with a magnificent Roman mosaic from the second or early third century AD that depicts various sea monsters and other mythological figures. The floor was discovered in Otricoli, a small town in Umbria. From the same site comes the Otricoli Zeus, a copy of a bust by the Greek sculptor Bryaxis from the fourth century BC. In the middle of the room is a large porphyry basin - the so-called 'bathtub of Nero' - that was found in Nero's Golden House. The niches surrounding the rooms hold a variety of statues. The most impressive is the colossal statue of Hercules in gilt bronze from the 2nd century AD.

Other interesting rooms of the Pio-Clementine Museum include the Gallery of Statues, with a sensual sculpture of a Sleeping Ariadne that was a favorite inspiration for many neoclassical sculptors. The Room of the Animals has an excellent collection of animal statues and mosaics, and the Cabinet of the Masks is named for the mosaics of masks that were integrated in the floor and come from Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli. The Greek Cross Room holds the sarcophagi of Helen (the mother of Emperor Constantine) and her granddaughter Constantina.

The Museo Chiaramonti is named after its founder Pius VII, who was born Luigi Barnaba Chiaramonti. The museum occupies part of the three hundred meter long (about 1000ft) wing that was built in 1807 after a design by Bramante. It holds a massive amount of statuary, including many busts that were used by the Romans as ancestral portraits.

The rest of the gallery is home to the lapidary (Galleria Lapidaria), with a large epigraphic collection that contains more than four thousand inscriptions. Unfortunately this department is closed except by special permission.

The Chiaramonti gallery is followed by the New Wing (Braccio Nuovo), which boasts a magnificent floor made of Roman mosaics. Here you find more Roman statues, including the Augustus of Prima Porta that portrays the Roman Emperor Augustus. The statue was discovered in 1863 at the villa of Livia Augusta.

Another highlight is the colossal personification of the Nile. It shows the river god lying on his side and leaning on a sphinx. At his foot is a crocodile and the god holds a bushel of wheat in his hand, symbol of the fertile ground of the Nile valley that was a result of the river's regular flooding. It is thought that the sixteen infants who crawl over him are a reference to the ideal height of sixteen cubits to which the Nile river had to rise to guarantee fertile soil.

Gregorian Museum of Pagan Antiquities The Gregorian Museum of Pagan Antiquities (Museo Gregoriano Profano) is another museum with Roman and Greek statuary. The museum was established in 1884 by Gregory XVI and contains statues, sarcophagi, reliefs and funerary monuments, most of which date back to the Imperial age (1st and 2nd century AD). The most famous work here is Athena and Marsyas, a copy of the bronze original from the fifth century BC by the Greek sculptor Myron. There are also mosaics of athletes from the Baths of Caracalla and fragments from the Parthenon on display.

Gregorian Etruscan Museum The Etruscan Museum (Museo Gregoriano Etrusco) was founded by Pope Gregory XVI in 1837. It is one of the most important museums of its kind although it is now eclipsed by the National Etruscan Museum in Villa Borghese that was founded after the unification of Italy.

The Etruscan Museum of the Vatican has a particularly fine collection of vases, which show the influence of Greek techniques and decorations on the Etruscans. A notable example is an amphora decorated with the figures of Achilles and Ajax playing dice. Another highlight of the collection is a series of objects found in the Regolini-Galassi tomb at Cerveteri, among them a wooden throne and a carriage from the seventh century BC. The most significant statue is the Mars of Todi, a bronze statue from the fifth century BC.

The Gregorian Egyptian Museum (Museo Gregoriano Egizio) is another museum founded by pope Gregory XVI, who had a keen interest in Egypt. Featuring nine rooms, objects d'art in this museum range from stelae and hieroglyphics from around 2500 BC to Roman replicas of Egyptian statues from the second century AD.

Not to miss here is the collection of mummies and mummy cases from around 1000 BC that were found at the Necropolis of Deir el-Bahri in Thebes. One room in the Egyptian museum contains a reconstruction of Canopus from Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli including the Shrine of Serapis and statues of Egyptian gods.

Vatican Picture Gallery The Vatican Picture Gallery (Pinacoteca Vaticana) is a relatively new museum. It was founded in the late eighteenth century by Pius VI and opened in 1932. The sixteen rooms of the museum contain paintings that range in age from the twelfth to the nineteenth century. Most of the works are from Italian masters but there are also some foreign artists represented. There's even a whole room devoted to the Austrian painter Wenzel Peter.

Among the early highlights is the Stefaneschi-triptych that Giotto created around the year 1300 for the old basilica of St. Peter. Another notable work is a fifteenth-century fresco that depicts the founding of the Vatican Library. The painting by Melozzo da Forlì shows the first librarian kneeling before pope Sixtus IV.

There is also a room dedicated to Raphael which includes the tapestries made by the Flemish artist Pieter van Aelst to cartoons created by Raphael and his students. The tapestries were made to cover the lower walls of the Sistine Chapel. The cartoons are now in the V&A Museum in London. There are also several of Raphael's paintings in this room, including 'the Coronation of the Virgin', which he made when he was only nineteen years old.

Other highlights include Leonardo da Vinci's unfinished 'St. Jerome' (1480), Titian's 'Madonna of the Frari' (1535), Federico Barocci's 'Rest on the Flight to Egypt' (1573) and Caravaggio's Deposition (1603).

The Collection of Modern Religious Art (Collezione d'Arte Religiosa Moderna) features fifty-five rooms. It was established in 1973 by behest of Pope Paul VI and is the largest museum of its kind. It contains works from many of the world's most important modern artists including Dali, Kandinsky, Kokoschka, Le Corbusier, Matisse, Munch, Picasso, Rodin and van Gogh.

Pio Christian Museum The Pio Christian Museum (Museo Pio Cristiano) holds a collection of sculptures, sarcophagi and mosaics from the early Christian era. The museum was established in 1854 by Pius IX. The most famous object here is the statue of the Good Shepherd, created in the third century AD.

Ethnological Missionary Museum Founded by Pius XI in 1926, the Ethnological Missionary Museum features objects of a religious nature from four geographical areas - Asia, Oceania, Africa, and America. Many of the 100,000 pieces in the collection were acquired by missionary workers. The museum was originally housed in the Lateran Palace but was relocated here in 1973. Among the highlights are a statue of the god Quetzalcóatl from Mexico, a mask from Sierra Leone and a wooden sculpture of the deity Tūmatauenga, from French Polynesia.

Vatican Library The Vatican Library (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana) was founded by pope Nicholas V in 1450, when it contained about 340 books. Today it is one of the world's most important libraries with more than half a million books and over 60,000 manuscripts. Some of the most valuable pieces are displayed in the Sistine Hall (Salone Sistino), a magnificent vaulted hall built in 1588 by Domenico Fontana. The eighty meter-long and fifteen meter-wide hall (appr. 260x50ft) is magnificently decorated with colorful wall and ceiling paintings.

The library also houses a number of museums, including the Profane Museum (Museo Profano) and the Sacred Museum (Museo Sacro). The latter holds a number of ancient Christian objects found in Roman catacombs as well as medieval glassware and objects made from precious materials such as ivory and enamel.

Vatican Historical Museum The Vatican Historical Museum (Museo Storico) provides a fascinating look at the long and sometimes turbulent history of the Vatican. The museum was founded in 1973 at the request of pope Paul VI. It was originally located near the Vatican Pinacoteca but in 1991 it moved to the Lateran Palace near the rear entrance of the basilica of St. John Lateran. The museum contains a collection of arms, armor and uniforms of the Papal armed forces as well as portraits of popes and the so-called popemobiles, the carriages and cars used by the popes.

There are plans to move the collection back to the Vatican. In the meantime the museum can only be visited by booking a guided group tour.

Belvedere palace Part of the lure of a visit to the Vatican Museums is the chance to admire the lavish palace complex that houses the museums. The complex was built between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries and served as the main residence of many popes. Several rooms, including the Sistine Chapel, are occasionally still used by the papacy.

Today the pope is mostly a spiritual figure but before the unification of Italy the pope was also the head of a large worldly realm and the Vatican complex reflected their importance as heads of state. The popes hired the world's most renowned architects and artists to decorate their residences, and these decorations, in particular the wall paintings in the private papal apartments, are worth a visit on their own.

Belvedere courtyard: The buildings that accommodate the Vatican Museums' collection comprise of two palaces. To the north is the Belvedere Palace, built in the late fifteenth century as the Villa Belvedere. To the south, adjoining the St. Peter's Basilica is the Apostolic Palace, which has served as the main residence of the popes since their return from Avignon in 1377. The current palace was built in the mid-fifteenth century and replaced an older building from the fifth century.

In the early sixteenth century Bramante connected the two palaces to each other with the construction of two long wings that enclosed a large courtyard, the Cortile del Belvedere. In 1585-1590 a new wing for the library divided the courtyard in two. The lower courtyard is still known as the Cortile del Belvedere while to upper courtyard is known as the Cortile della Pigna (Pine cone courtyard). The addition of the New Wing (Braccio Nuovo) in 1820 created another, smaller, courtyard in the middle: the Cortile della Biblioteca (Library courtyard).

Pine cone courtyard: The library courtyard and belvedere courtyard are not accessible but almost any visitor to the Vatican Museums will get to visit the beautiful pine cone courtyard. The courtyard is named after the huge bronze pine cone that is installed in a large exedra built by Pirro Ligorio.

The pine cone is an ancient fountain that was discovered near the Pantheon and probably belonged to a temple dedicated to Isis. Water used to flow out of the scales. The two bronze peacocks that flank the pine cone are replicas of ancient sculptures that were found in the Mausoleum of Hadrian. The originals are now in the New Wing.

In the middle of the courtyard is a modern bronze sculpture, named 'sphere within a sphere'. It is a creation of Arnaldo Pomodoro that was placed here in the 1990s.

Gallery of Maps: The two long wings that connect the Apostolic Palace with the Belvedere Palace are each about three hundred meters long (close to 1000ft). The east wing houses the aforementioned Chiaramonti Museum, crammed with statuary from the antiquity, and the Lapidary gallery, which is unfortunately not accessible to the public. The west wing is home to three more galleries. The first coming from the Belvedere Palace is the Candelabras Gallery (Galleria dei Candelabri), an eighty meter long (262ft) room with Greek and Roman sculptures. This room leads to the Tapestry Gallery (Galleria degli Arazzi), with tapestries from the fifth to the seventeenth centuries.

The final and longest gallery (175m/600ft) is the Gallery of Maps (Galleria delle Carte Geografiche). The walls of this gallery are decorated with large paintings of maps created by Antoni Danti between 1580 and 1583. His brother Egnazio Dante, an architect and cosmographer, provided the necessary information. The maps show Italian cities, islands in the Mediterranean Sea and papal territories. Ceiling frescoes depict events that took place in these locations.

Rooms of the Apostolic Palace The Renaissance popes commissioned the most talented artists of the era to lavishly decorate their palatial residences. Many of the rooms, including the Borgia Apartments and the Raphael Rooms are open to the public and included in the itinerary of the Vatican Museums.

Borgia Apartments The Borgia Apartments (Appartamento Borgia) are a series of rooms that were converted into private apartments for pope Alexander VI, Rodrigo de Borgia. The pope was a patron of the arts and he called upon Pinturiccio to decorate the rooms with magnificent frescoes. Between 1492 and 1495 Pinturiccio and his pupils painted six of the Borgia rooms. The frescoes depict religious themes (such as the martyrdom of saints and the mysteries of faith) and medieval themes (Trivium and Quadrivium). Most of the rooms are currently used to display a selection of the collection of modern religious art.

Chapel of Nicholas V Often skipped by visitors on their way to the Sistine Chapel but certainly worth a visit is the intimate Chapel of Nicholas V (Cappella di Niccolo V), decorated with wonderful frescoes painted by Fra' Angelico between 1447 and 1449. The frescoes depict scenes in the lives of saints Stephen and Lawrence.

Leo the Great meeting Attila: The Raphael Rooms (Stanze di Raffaelo) were commissioned by pope Julius II who preferred to distance himself from Alexander VI and thus refused to reside in the apartments created for his predecessor. He planned on inviting a variety of renowned master painters to decorate his own private apartments (situated above the Borgia apartments) but after seeing the work of the twenty-five year old painter and architect Raffaello Santi (Raphael), he dediced to instead enthrust the work to him.

From 1508 on Raphael worked on and off on the decoration of the apartments, often distracted by his other work including the construction of the St. Peter's Basilica. Raphael died in 1520, before the frescoes of the papal apartments were complete but his assistants finished the work following his designs. The frescoes are considered absolute masterpieces of Renaissance art.

Battle of the Milvian Bridge, Raphael Rooms, Vatican Museums Battle of the Milvian Bridge The first room is the Constantine Hall (Sala di Constantino), which was painted after Raphael had died by his assistants Giulio Romano and Francesco Penni. It shows scenes from the life of the Roman Emperor Constantine - who made Christianity the official religion - and the triumph of Christianity over Paganism. The 'Battle of the Milvian Bridge' depicts the battle between Constantine and Maxentius, during which the outnumbered army of Constantine crushed the army of Emperor Maxentius by pushing the soldiers into the river.

The next room is the Room of Heliodorus (Stanza di Eliodoro), partly carried out by Raphael between 1512 and 1514. The theme of the room is the divine intervention protecting the church and saints. The room is named after one of the paintings, the 'Expulsion of Heliodorus', which depicts a scene from the bible. On the left are figures depicting pope Julius II, Raphael himself and his pupil Giulio Romano. By the time Raphael painted 'Leo the Great meeting Attila' Julius II had passed away, and as a result his successor Leo X is portrayed twice in this fresco: Raphael initially painted him as a cardinal accompanying Leo I but later Leo X asked one of Raphael's pupils to portray himself as Leo I.

School of Athens, Raphael Rooms, Vatican Museums School of Athens The Room of the Segnatura (Stanza della Segnatura) is named after a special committee that gathered here. Raphael started with this room in 1508 and it is the only room that was completely painted by the master himself. The subject is the harmony between the values of the antiquity and Christianity. It is best known for the 'School of Athens', the most famous fresco painting in the Raphael Rooms. It is particularly acclaimed for its masterful use of perspective. The painting depicts a debate between Plato and Aristotle, two famous Greek philosophers. Many other famous figures from the antiquity are shown, including Euclid, Socrates, Pythagoras and Archimedes. Raphael inserted the portrait of many contemporary figures in the painting. Among them his friend Bramante, the pope Julius II, Leonardo da Vinci and even his rival Michelangelo, who at the time was painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Fire in the Borgo, Stanze of Raphael, Vatican Museums Fire in the Borgo The last of the four rooms is the Room of the Fire (Stanza dell'Incendio), named after one of the frescoes. The room was decorated in 1514-1517 (mostly by Raphael's assistants) during the pontificate of Leo X. He chose the lives of his namesakes Leo III and Leo IV as the theme for the room. The most important fresco is the Fire in the Borgo, which was painted after a sketch created by Raphael. It shows Leo IV extinguishing a fire by making the sign of a cross. The painting draws parallels with scenes from the antiquity by showing Aeneas on the left who carries his father Anchises on his back out of the burning city of Troy.

Loggia of Raphael The Room of Constantine is connected to the Loggia of Raphael, another masterpiece of the artist. Unfortunately the loggia is only accessible by appointment. The loggia is decorated with twelve frescoes that illustrate events from the bible.

Sistine Chapel The most famous attraction in the Vatican Museums is undoubtedly the Sistine Chapel.

The chapel was built in the fifteenth century as a private chapel for pope Sixtus IV. In 1508 pope Julius II asked Michelangelo to repaint the ceiling. Michelangelo, who didn't see himself as a painter, only reluctantly accepted the commission.

Michelangelo decided to decorate the ceiling with nine scenes from the Old Testament. The most famous is the 'Creation of Adam', which shows god descending from heaven to bring Adam to life.

The walls of the chapel are also completely covered with paintings. The most famous of these is The Last Judgment on the altar wall, from the same artist.

Staircase Spiral staircase in the Vatican Museums Spiral staircase Before exiting the museum you have the chance to admire one of the world's most famous staircases.

Designed in 1932 by Giuseppe Momo, the staircase consists of a double helix, one leading up and one leading down. The beautiful bronze staircase is decorated with papal coats of arms.

Source 3:

The Vatican Museums contain masterpieces of painting, sculpture and other works of art collected by the popes through the centuries. The Museums include several monumental works of art, such as the Sistine Chapel, the Chapel of Beato Angelico, the Raphael Rooms and Loggia and the Borgia Apartment. The Pinacoteca, or Picture Gallery, is situated in a building that dates back to 1932 and that was designed by the architect Beltrami. It is connected to the Museum complex (at the entrance of the Quattro Cancelli) by an elegant portico. The Christian, Profane and Missionary-Ethnological Museum contains a collection of artistic and archaeological objects, some of an ethnological nature, that were once housed in the Lateran Palace.

The Collection of Modern Religious Art was added to the Museums in 1973. The History Museum is located in the Lateran Palace and includes, among other things, items that belonged to the Pontifical Military Corps.

The Museums are usually open to the public every weekday morning and in the early afternoon in summer. Entry is free on the last Sunday of every month. The entrance to the Museums is on Viale Vaticano, near Piazza Risorgimento. A Workshop for Restoring paintings, bronzes, marble, tapestries and other items, is part of the Museums which also includes a Scientific Research Laboratory.

Sistine Chapel:

The Sistine Chapel is one of the greatest treasures of the Vatican City. Designed by the brilliant Michelangelo, it is one of the most impressive tourist attractions.

The Sistine Chapel is one of the greatest treasures of the Vatican City, of Rome and of the world in general. It is known as much for its decoration, as for being the temple in which popes are chosen and crowned.

The construction of the building was carried out between 1473 and 1481 during the mandate of Pope Sixtus IV, to whom it owes its current name. The architect responsible for the construction was Giovanni of Dolci and it is the only work that he is remembered for.

What grabs the attention in the Sistine Chapel is not its architecture, but the frescoes that completely cover the walls and the ceiling. Some of the most important artists who worked in the chapel are Botticelli, Perugino, Luca and Michelangelo.

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel All of the frescoes of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel are the work of Michelangelo, who spent four years painting the vault between 1508 and 1512.

If there is one thing that stands out from among the images on the ceiling, it is the nine stories from Genesis that occupy the central area: The scenes from the Drunkenness of Noah to the Separation of Light from Darkness are represented.

The Creation of Adam Without any doubt, The Creation of Adam is the best-known image from the Sistine Chapel. It is located in the central part of the vault and represents the story from Genesis in which God gives life to Adam.

The Final Judgment Located over the high altar and with some magnificent dimensions (13.7 by 12.2 metres), Michelangelo’s other masterpiece, The Final Judgment, is found. It is a fresco that represents the Apocalypse of St. John.

Decorating the apse occupied five years of Michelangelo’s life, between 1536 and 1541. It was an assignment of the Pope Paul III to cover the murals that existed to that point.

References

http://www.vaticanstate.va/content/vaticanstate/en/monumenti/basilica-di-s-pietro/la-piazza.html

https://www.aviewoncities.com/rome/sanpietro.htm

https://www.romesightseeing.net/st-peters-square/

https://www.rome.net/vatican-city

[physicalcomputingwithj]

Experiment #4 : Look Emitting Diodes

Experiment conducted 2021/03/16

I decided to have a look at the components provided in the kit and see which might be fun in combination. I saw the joystick and 8x8 led matrix display, and thought it might be fun to make something that moves around on the screen depending on the joystick input. As I made the screen display a face you can make look in different directions, I've dubbed them the "Look Emitting Diodes"!

Components Used

This experiment uses the Arduino UNO R3 Project Starter Kit.

1 x UNO R3 Controller Board (the Arduino)

1 x Breadboard

Breadboard jumper wires

1 x 8x8 LED Dot Matrix Display (MAX7219)

1 x Joystick

Part 1: Wiring the Display

The Wiring

I first connected the 8x8 matrix display as shown. n.b. TinkerCAD doesn't have an LED matrix or a joystick, so I created both in MS Paint.

To be able to control the display from the Arduino, I installed the LedControl library by Eberhard Fahle V1.0.6. I ran the example code from lesson 15 of the Elegoo starter kit PDF to verify that the display was working!

Can't see the video? Watch it on YouTube!

The Code

To see how I could write my own output to the display, I wrote a program that displayed the static outline of my eyeball, with intention to add the moving pupil next.

At the start of the program, we include the LedControl library and initialise an interface to our display.

#include "LedControl.h" // LedControl library by Eberhard Fahle V1.0.6. LedControl display = LedControl(12, 10, 11, 1); // Connect to DataIn, CS, and CLK respectively

Next, I create a constant array of bytes, which I essentially treat as an 8x8 2D array of bits. In C++, putting a B before a sequence of ones and zeros creates a byte literal, meaning the language will interpret the numbers as binary, and not base 10.

// An array of bytes, where each byte corresponds to a column, and each bit to an LED // The array is constant as it stores the static parts of the eyeball const byte eyeball[8] = { B00111100, B01000010, B10000001, B10000001, B10000001, B10000001, B01000010, B00111100, };

In the setup function, we prepare the display for showing our output. Most notably, we have to wake up the display from power saving mode.

void setup() { display.shutdown(0, false); // This "wakes-up" the display, which is in power saving mode by default display.setIntensity(0, 8); display.clearDisplay(0); }

In the loop function then, we literate over each byte in the array, and write it to the corresponding column in the display. Thankfully, the library handles the complexity of this for us!

void loop() { for (int col = 0; col < 8; col++) { display.setColumn(0, col, eyeball[col]); } delay(1000); // These delays are just in place for testing display.clearDisplay(0); delay(1000); }

You can view the complete code on GitHub.

Part 2: Completing the Eyeball

The Wiring

Next I wired the joystick, which was pretty straightforward. I didn't wire up the switch pin and I wasn't using it for this experiment, though I suppose I could have rigged it up to trigger a blink animation. Throughout the experiment I kept switching which wire I treated as the "x" input and which as the "y" as I kept holding the joystick at different angles.

The Code

To be able to read in from the joystick I updated my setup function.

void setup() { Serial.begin(9600); pinMode(A0, INPUT); // Read in the 10-bit analog signal from pin A0 (x signal) pinMode(A1, INPUT); // Read in the 10-bit analog signal from pin A1 (y signal) display.shutdown(0, false); // This "wakes-up" the display, which is in power saving mode by default display.setIntensity(0, 8); display.clearDisplay(0); }

The real magic of drawing the moving pupil then I do in the loop function, predominately through the use of bit operators.

void loop() { int x = 1023 - analogRead(A1); // Doing 1023 minus the singal inverts it, which I did to ensure the pupil's vertical movement is not inverted from that of the joystick's int y = analogRead(A0); // Downscale the input range to the width/height of the matrix // Bitshifting the 10 bit input 7 bits to the right causes it to be 3 bits, i.e. 0-7 x = x >> 7; y = y >> 7; // Draw the eyeball byte pupil = 3 << x; // 3 is 11 in binary. These bits are then shifted as far as they need to go for (int i = 0; i < 8; i++) { byte col = eyeball[i]; if (i == y || i == y - 1) { col = col | pupil; // | is the bitwise inclusive OR operator. Each bit of it's operator is the result of ORing the corresponding bits in it's inputs // In essence, this combines the outline of the eyeball with the pupil } display.setColumn(0, i, col); } display.clearDisplay(0); // Clear the display }

With the exception of some odd behaviour around the edges, it worked well!

You can view the complete code on GitHub.

Can't see the video? Watch it on YouTube!

Part 3: A New Face in Town

Now the experiment was working, I decided a single eyeball was a little creepy, and wanted to replace it with a face that had two eyes. This worked in largely the same way as before, but I added some additional logic to make the eyes move closer together as the user moves up against the edge of the display. As each eye is just a line, I do this by clamping the x position of each eye to be within certain bounds. Though, this code got a little messy as I tried to find ways to let the user reach the edge of the display without having to push the joystick absolutely as far as it could go.

When writing my new code, I also realised that I didn't need to clear the display on each loop. This is because when the library writes each byte, it still writes the zeros, essentially clearing anything that was there before.

This is the loop function of the new code.

void loop() { int x = analogRead(A1); int y = 1023 - analogRead(A0); // Doing 1023 minus the singal inverts it, which I did to ensure the pupil's movement is not inverted from that of the joystick's // Map the positions to the range of the display, and also clamp the positions x = map(x, 0, 1023, -3, 3 + 1); y = map(y, 0, 1023, -7, 1 + 1); x = min(x, 3); y = min(y, 1); // Determine the position of the eyes int top = 6 + y; int left = 2 + x; // (the x axis is 0 at the right side of the matrix from my perspective) int right = 5 + x; // Clamp the positions right = constrain(right, 2, 7); // These are likely muddled up! left = constrain(left, 0, 5); // Draw the eyes for (int i = 0; i < 8; i++) { byte row = 0; if (i == left || i == right) { row = B111 << top - 1; } display.setRow(0, i, row); // Now we are drawing rows, not columns, as that made the most sense for the new vertical lines for eyes } }

You can view the complete code on GitHub.

Hello World!

Can't see the video? Watch it on YouTube!

I think the end result is pretty charming! It was definitely an interesting application of binary bit manipulations and helped me practise my skills in using them. Though, the final code could definitely be un-muddled and improved. I definitely learned more about what to be thinking about when interpreting input signals from electronics in non-continuous ways - dealing with nuances such as ensuring the absolute maximum value of the input signal does not have it's own discrete output value.

[scartale-an-undertale-au]

it was about damn time that I would post scar’s background. obviously she has the new set of clothing and glasses, but this is the basics. sorry for not looking the most amazing, drew it a while ago.

Original name, Yam. Female. 21-22. human. originally from a world with no magic or monsters.

-  Was born with eyes dark as void. Scared her parents shitless.

-  Has the ability to see rips in the reality, tried to tell her parents but they just said that she was imagining things.

-  Was tested for blindness or any kind of disability. Nothing was amiss. Sees perfectly well.

Where it all begun.

-  Was walking with her mother when she was eight in the park when she saw an extremely big rip and tugged her mother excitedly to it, telling her how you could see stars and galaxies from the rip. Mother got annoyed and told her to stop being a baby and stop imagining things that were not there when someone bumped into her, causing the woman to topple forward and send Yam through the rip.

-  Yam got up from falling to find herself in a barren field. Confused, she rushed back through the rip in hopes to get back to the park, but found herself in a wooden house, scaring the residents who were just seated to eat supper.

-  Terrified and alone, she began searching for a way home, travelling many realities and after the initial shock faded, she found magic and went to people to teach her magic.

Eleven years later.

-  Finally, she managed to get back to her reality, only to find out that the moment that she had left it, all memory of her was overwritten. Her parents and friends forget everything about her.

- Devastated, she stayed there for a week before realizing that she couldn't do it and went back to travelling, casting her name and calling herself 'scar' because of the scar she has over her back.

Discovery.

- Later, she finds an old book in a giant library timeline with the title ‘Matrix - reality bending tips’ and immediately took it, too excited about the prospect of bending reality and getting her old world to remember her to care about stealing. But even after studying the book for two years, she didn’t manage to even use the simplest of the spells. Annoyed but not wanting the book to fall into the wrong hands, she kept it with her.

Ghosty.

- At one point she met a ghost, who was the only who remembered her and so became her companion and helped her with access to the spirit world when she needed advice or was there when she became too lonely.

THE SCARTALE TIMELINE (optional)

-  She was at a sci-fi timeline that had virtual reality games on it. Undertale was one of the usual console games and after getting warm recommendations, she played it and fell in love with Frisk and Chara, especially after reading more of the lore and learning as much as possible about the game.

-  She begun to wonder how would it be to get into that reality and if one of the rips would lead to it. Someone apparently heard her since someone had approached her to try on a new virtual reality set for Undertale that had new features on it. She agreed, excited to play as Frisk, and tried it on.

-  She found herself in front of the menu box and clicked START. She wrote ‘Scar’ as the requested name, wondering why it hadn’t said to name the fallen child, and pressed CONTINUE.

-  Extreme pain had then engulfed her and she felt as if she was getting ripped apart and then stitched back in a very wrong way. She finally passed out and woke up to find herself in the fields outside mount ebott.

-  Shocked and fearful, she searched for the equipment placed on her and when she felt only her skin, began to panic. She took off her glasses to search for any rips in space, and tried to go through one that she had found only to feel extreme pain envelop her and she was pushed back from it. She was really scared now since her getaway plan had failed, the one thing that was a constant in all her travels had just turned unpassable.

-  Left with no choice, she made her way to the mountain, wondering if she was playing as Frisk now and the way to get back was to beat the game. But when she reached the mountain, she saw a slightly different looking from the game sprite Frisk (longer hair and open eyes with a tanned skin rather than yellow) walk up the mountain. Curious, she followed and saw as Frisk investigated the hole and tripped and then fell. She went to rush after them, but was stopped by Ghosty. She realized that if she interrupted Frisk’s journey, it could have pretty bad repercussions, so she decided to see what she could find out about this reality that she was stuck on.

-  As frisk goes through their journey, scar gets more frustrated since this reality keeps returning back in time. She had to do her research again sometimes or would have to talk to the same people again. She even lost sleep since she would sleep and it returned to an hour before she even went to sleep. She was annoyed and when a man was demanding her to pay for her, she murmured the first spell in her mind and a bag of coins fell from her hand. She and the man stared at it for a very long time and she then shakily shrugged, trying to laugh it up.

-  She then tried again the spell and with her glasses off, she suddenly could see rows of the same language as the virtual reality games had in times and found that she could somewhat understand it.- 

Apparently the reality bending book was actually a book to manipulate code. She began to experiment with the book and found herself a place to stay at and with an identity in this reality.

-  When Frisk emerged with the monsters, she cheered and went to check on Frisk, wanting to welcome the monsters and help them since she was always so curious about how the pacifist ending would go.

-  Instead of a curious child that she had seen entering the mountain, she saw a broken one, with body mutilated. Horrified, she accessed Frisk’s code and found a virus with corrupted DT and Void, a copied data that lived in the same body as Frisk. Void told her through the code about the lack in DT which had led to the creation of the scars and the virus’ birth at Asgore’s battle.

-  She grew protective of Frisk and swore to make sure that she would make the integration of the monsters into the human world the easiest as possible. So she then begun to alter code of some high-up people. She knew she couldn’t just go to each person and alter their code so she had to pray that they would accept the monsters like the government.

-  She wondered over getting into Frisk’s life since she understood them the most, having played the game several times already. She then decided that she would just intervene if something really bad happens since she felt like she shouldn’t intrude.

-  apparently , code-based realities are prone to be invaded by viruses or timeline-hopping monsters trying to gain access to the code to take over the place. Scar would take care of those pretty easily luckily. There were only three incidents.

-  She watches over Frisk and since she knew Chara was there from ghosty and the strange extra code to frisk’s SOUL, she is now constantly without her glasses so she could see codes and now Chara.

Abilities

She has proper hang on lightning and fire magic, struggles with summoning spells. Wants to learn healing but is only able to sooth pain over small cuts.

Can see rips in space.

In Scartale she can see code and is able to alter it after reading the book.

Personality

-  Mostly seen as a bright person, but in all honestly she just tries to be positive so as to not feel like a lost little child.

-  has an excitable personality like getting awed by simple things, curious as hell, liking to just goof around and not work. She literally prefers just to sit in the middle of a barren battlefield and create small skeletons and watch them run around than actually doing something with her knowledge and magic.

-  She likes drawing and writing but is too lazy to actually purchase the materials and create.

-  Hates to be alone and so in each reality she enters, she finds the nearest child and gives him a big hug. She sometimes forgets to ask for a permission and has to flee from the group because of yells of kidnapper or creep.

-  She wants to help people but hates criticism to herself, makes her feel worse.

-   Contradicts herself a lot. But promises are promises.

-   An old lady that tried to teach her to voodoo told her she was an immature brat and if she wanted to be a great witch, that she needed to grow up. Scar took offence to that and ran away, only later realizing that the woman was right. She tries to be more mature now, but reverts to her excitable nature the moment she loses focus… which happens all the time.

-   When she develops a connection to someone, she will feel compelled to do everything in her power that they will be happy. It made her do some questionable actions but she didn't care. (example: frisk and chara. ghosty.)

-  She had grown lonelier after finding her home reality, being in a depressed state until she had met ghosty. Now can have bouts of depression if left alone for too long, hence why she always tries to be busy.

[wsmith215]

Facebook’s voice synthesis AI generates speech in 500 milliseconds

Facebook today unveiled a highly efficient, AI text-to-speech (TTS) system that can be hosted in real time using regular processors. It’s currently powering Portal, the company’s brand of smart displays, and it’s available as a service for other apps, like VR, internally at Facebook.

In tandem with a new data collection approach, which leverages a language model for curation, Facebook says the system — which produces a second of audio in 500 milliseconds — enabled it to create a British-accented voice in six months as opposed to over a year for previous voices.

Most modern AI TTS systems require graphics cards, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), or custom-designed AI chips like Google’s tensor processing units (TPUs) to run, train, or both. For instance, a recently detailed Google AI system was trained across 32 TPUs in parallel. Synthesizing a single second of humanlike audio can require outputting as many as 24,000 samples — sometimes even more. And this can be expensive; Google’s latest-generation TPUs cost between $2.40 and $8 per hour in Google Cloud Platform.

TTS systems like Facebook’s promise to deliver high-quality voices without the need for specialized hardware. In fact, Facebook says its system attained a 160 times speedup compared with a baseline, making it fit for computationally constrained devices. Here’s how it sounds:

VB Transform 2020 Online – July 15-17: Join leading AI executives at the AI event of the year. Register today and save 30% off digital access passes.https://bit.ly/2ZeHCJQ

“The system … will play an important role in creating and scaling new voice applications that sound more human and expressive,” the company said in a statement. “We’re excited to provide higher-quality audio … so that we can more efficiently continue to bring voice interactions to everyone in our community.”

Components

Facebook’s system has four parts, each of which focuses on a different aspect of speech: a linguistic front-end, a prosody model, an acoustic model, and a neural vocoder.

The front-end converts text into a sequence of linguistic features, such as sentence type and phonemes (units of sound that distinguish one word from another in a language, like p, b, d, and t in the English words pad, pat, bad, and bat). As for the prosody model, it draws on the linguistic features, style, speaker, and language embeddings — i.e., numerical representations that the model can interpret — to predict sentences’ speech-level rhythms and their frame-level fundamental frequencies. (“Frame” refers to a window of time, while “frequency” refers to melody.)

Style embeddings let the system create new voices including “assistant,” “soft,” “fast,” “projected,” and “formal” using only a small amount of additional data on top of an existing training set.  Only 30 to 60 minutes of data is required for each style, claims Facebook — an order of magnitude less than the “hours” of recordings a similar Amazon TTS system takes to produce new styles.

Facebook’s acoustic model leverages a conditional architecture to make predictions based on spectral inputs, or specific frequency-based features. This enables it to focus on information packed into neighboring frames and train a lighter and smaller vocoder, which consists of two components. The first is a submodel that upsamples (i.e., expands) the input feature encodings from frame rate (187 predictions per second) to sample rate (24,000 predictions per second). A second submodel similar to DeepMind’s WaveRNN speech synthesis algorithm generates audio a sample at a time at a rate of 24,000 samples per second.

Performance boost

The vocoder’s autoregressive nature — that is, its requirement that samples be synthesized in sequential order — makes real-time voice synthesis a major challenge. Case in point: An early version of the TTS system took 80 seconds to generate just one second of audio.

The nature of the neural networks at the heart of the system allowed for optimization, fortunately. All models consist of neurons, which are layered, connected functions. Signals from input data travel from layer to layer and slowly “tune” the output by adjusting the strength (weights) of each connection. Neural networks don’t ingest raw pictures, videos, text, or audio, but rather embeddings in the form of multidimensional arrays like scalars (single numbers), vectors (ordered arrays of scalars), and matrices (scalars arranged into one or more columns and one or more rows). A fourth entity type that encapsulates scalars, vectors, and matrices — tensors — adds in descriptions of valid linear transformations (or relations).

With the help of a tool called PyTorch JIT, Facebook engineers migrated from a training-oriented setup in PyTorch, Facebook’s machine learning framework, to a heavily inference-optimized environment. Compiled operators and tensor-level optimizations, including operator fusion and custom operators with approximations for the activation function (mathematical equations that determine the output of a model), led to additional performance gains.

Another technique called unstructured model sparsification reduced the TTS system’s training inference complexity, achieving 96% unstructured sparsity without degrading audio quality (where 4% of the model’s variables, or parameters, are nonzero). Pairing this with optimized sparse matrix operators on the inference model led to a 5 times speed increase.

Blockwise sparsification, where nonzero parameters are restricted to blocks of 16-by-1 and stored in contiguous memory blocks, significantly reduced bandwidth utilization and cache usage. Various custom operators helped attain efficient matrix storage and compute, so that compute was proportional to the number of nonzero blocks in the matrix. And knowledge distillation, a compression technique where a small network (called the student) is taught by a larger trained neural network (called the teacher), was used to train the sparse model, with a denser model as the teacher.

Finally, Facebook engineers distributed heavy operators over multiple processor cores on the same socket, chiefly by enforcing nonzero blocks to be evenly distributed over the parameter matrix during training and segmenting and distributing matrix multiplication among several cores during inference.

Data collection

Modern commercial speech synthesis systems like Facebook’s use data sets that often contain 40,000 sentences or more. To collect sufficient training data, the company’s engineers adopted an approach that relies on a corpus of open domain speech recordings — utterances — and selects lines from large, unstructured data sets. The data sets are filtered by a language model based on their readability criteria, maximizing the phonetic and prosodic diversity present in the corpus while ensuring the language remains natural and readable.

Facebook says this led to fewer annotations and edits for audio recorded by a professional voice actor, as well as improved overall TTS quality; by automatically identifying script lines from a more diverse corpus, the method let engineers scale to new languages rapidly without relying on hand-generated data sets.

Future work

Facebook next plans to use the TTS system and data collection method to add more accents, dialogues, and languages beyond French, German, Italian, and Spanish to its portfolio. It’s also focusing on making the system even more light and efficient than it is currently so that it can run on smaller devices, and it’s exploring features to make Portal’s voice respond with different speaking styles based on context.

Last year, Facebook machine learning engineer Parthath Shah told The Telegraph the company was developing technology capable of detecting people’s emotions through voice, preliminarily by having employees and paid volunteers re-enact conversations. Facebook later disputed this report, but the seed of the idea appears to have germinated internally. In early 2019, company researchers published a paper on the topic of producing different contextual voice styles, as well as a paper that explores the idea of building expressive text-to-speech via a technique called join style analysis.

Here’s a sample:

https://bit.ly/2T9fcgx

“For example, when you’re rushing out the door in the morning and need to know the time, your assistant would match your hurried pace,” Facebook proposed. “When you’re in a quiet place and you’re speaking softly, your AI assistant would reply to you in a quiet voice. And later, when it gets noisy in the kitchen, your assistant would switch to a projected voice so you can hear the call from your mom.”

It’s a step in the direction toward what Amazon accomplished with Whisper Mode, an Alexa feature that responds to whispered speech by whispering back. Amazon’s assistant also recently gained the ability to detect frustration in a customer’s voice as a result of a mistake it made, and apologetically offer an alternative action (i.e., offer to play a different song) — the fruit of emotion recognition and voice synthesis research begun as far back as 2017.

Beyond Amazon, which offers a range of speaking styles (including a “newscaster” style) in Alexa and its Amazon Polly cloud TTS service, Microsoft recently rolled out new voices in several languages within Azure Cognitive Services. Among them are emotion styles like cheerfulness, empathy, and lyrical, which can be adjusted to express different emotions to fit a given context.

“All these advancements are part of our broader efforts in making systems capable of nuanced, natural speech that fits the content and the situation,” said Facebook. “When combined with our cutting-edge research in empathy and conversational AI, this work will play an important role in building truly intelligent, human-level AI assistants for everyone.”

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[michaelteeuw]

Electrocard Part 3: Writing The Software

Now that the hardware part of my Electrocard is done, it's time to start working on the software side of my electronic business card.

This is a 3 part story. Check out the previous parts here:

Part 1: Designing the PCB. Part 2: Soldering the board.

First of all, it's good to make a list of the desired functionalities. Of course, the OLED screen combined with the 3 push buttons give me a lot of nice opportunities, so most of all, the display will be used to display the important company information for as far as it isn't already printed on the PCB's.

Secondary, it would be nice to display some debug information regarding the battery, the memory and the software version.

And last but not least, it's mandatory to add a nice easter egg to a business card like this. But more about that later.

The controls

Since I have three buttons, and have both primary and secondary functionalities, I want to add a short press and long press feature to the buttons. This is easily done with the help of the clickButton library. It gives me a simple way to add 6 desired modes:

Button A, Short press: Power on / Display the startup screen.

Button B, Short press: Display my company's address.

Button C, Short press: Display my company's & blog's url.

Button A, Long press: Standby mode (also initiated after 30 seconds of inactivity).

Button B, Long press: Debug mode.

Button C, Long press: Start the easter egg.

With the help of the earlier mentioned button library and a simple state machine the user can switch between the various modes, without the need of an complicated user interface.

Controlling the display

Controlling the display isn't particular difficult, especially since there are a lot of example codes and libraries available to control the SSD1306 OLED controlled I've used. I've tried a few of them, and most of them run fine on the ATTiny85 processor. But during the process I found out there are actually two separate challenges.

Control the display by sending an image to the OLED controller.

Drawing realtime graphics onto the screen.

The first challenge isn't extremely difficult. Most of the available libraries allow you to send a 128x32 pixel monochrome image (a BPM converted to a HEX values stored in the micro controller's flash memory) to the OLED controller. It took a while to figure out how to convert the BPM to the correct values, since it depends a bit on how the library reads and writes the data. But after some googling I found a working combination of the TinyOLED library and the LCD Assistant image converter.

This is the same method as used for writing text to the OLED. In stead of one complete stream of image data, every letter has a small portion of data (6 bytes) which is read from the micro controller's flash memory.

The second part is a bit more complicated, and that is mostly due to the limited available memory (RAM) of the ATTiny85 micro controller.

The OLED expects a sequential stream of bytes to control 8 vertical pixels per byte. The 128x32 pixel oled is built up by four rows (called pages) of 8 vertical pixels (1 byte). Each 128 bytes width. In total that adds up to 512 bytes.

If you want to draw lines and shapes on any position on the screen, you'll need to create a buffer for those 4096 pixels (512 bytes) in the micro controller's memory, to which you can draw. After drawing to the buffer, you send the full buffer to the OLED and your lines and shapes are displayed on the screen. That's how most OLED libraries work (for example, the popular Adafruit SSD1306 library).

The problem is, that you'll need to allocate 512 bytes of memory in you micro controller as the buffer. Since the ATTiny85 I used only has 512 bytes of RAM in total, there isn't enough memory to allocate this buffer.

In other words: I can't allocate a buffer. I need to render the drawing while I'm writing all the graphics data to the OLED controller. This turned out to be a BIG challenge. And while I only needed this for incorporating the easter egg, it's something I wanted to solve.

The Easter Egg: Horizontal Micro Tetris!

So, as told, I wanted to add a nice easter egg. I already programmed Pong once. But with the 3 push switches and the width 128x32 pixel screen, i reckon Tetris was better suited. Or to be more precise: horizontal Tetris. The added benefit of tetris is that it doesn't need a high frame rate. And honestly, seeing such a cute little Tetris game on a business card, brings a smile to most people's faces.

Due to the size of the screen, I opted to go for Tetris blocks of 4x4 pixel squares. This way, 8 blocks will fit vertically, and there is room for 32 horizontal blocks. In total there will be room for 256 blocks.

The blocks that are already on screen will be stored in an array called the arenaMatrix. And since each vertical row has 8 blocks, this array will consist of 32 bytes.

unsigned char arenaMatrix [32] = {};

The currently falling piece will be stored in a 4x4 block matrix, called the userMatrix. And since since we only need 16 bits of data, we can easily store this in an integer.

unsigned int playerMatrix = 0;

In other words, for storing all the blocks, we only need 34 bytes of data. Leaving us 478 bytes for additional variables (like the score and the user's piece position) but of course also a lot of other objects and pieces of code that's loaded in to memory.

Since the two matrixes matrices contain every piece of information I want to display on screen during a game of tetris, the render function can "simply" lookup and calculate the bytes of data for the OLED controller on the fly. This solves the lack of the graphics buffer. Or, if you look at it from a different perspecitve: this is an alternative graphics buffer with a 1/16th resolution (since the blocks are made of of 4x4 pixels).

In any way: it allowed me to render tetris without the use of any helper methods like drawLine() or drawSquare(). It all comes down to flipping bits one by one. Which isn't the most convenient, but did teach me A LOT about bit manipulation.

Now, of course, drawing a few matrices to the screen isn't enough to make a playable tetris. It needs some timers to drop the pieces. It needs collision detection to check if the blocks hit an other block. It needs a way to check if a fill line is filled with blocks, and it needs a way to remove the fully filled lines.

The Code

I'd love to run you thru the code, but that would probably account for a full year of blog posts. So to make things easier, I put all my code on GitHub so you can take a look at everything that's in there. Feel free to take a look at the Electrocard Repository.

If you're not familiar with the PlatformIO folder structure, you might want to start at the entrance point of the firmware in the main.cpp file. If you're mainly curious for the Tetris code, check out the Tetris.cpp file.

Fun fact: the full code used almost every byte of flash available in the the ATTiny85 (8KB). Of course, I could work on making the code more efficient, but everything I wanted to be in there is in the code.

Game Over

And with this information, I think this project is a wrap. It was an extremely satisfying and fun project to work on. Both the electronics and the code.

Although I'm extremely satisfied with the end product, there are some things to reconsider if I start a similar product:

Consider a different micro controller. Finding a solution for the limited amount of memory of the ATTiny85 was fun, but having a little bit more memory would probably allow me to add a few nice effects.

If I did have an other micro controller, I'd probably have more GPIO pins, which allowed me to add more buttons, and a nice colorful LED. Every project is better with a LED.

In the future, I'll definitely check EVERY footprint before I order my PCB's.

Work on the software on the breadboard prototype before you finish up the PCB. This would have showed me the limiting factor of the ATTiny85. I would have given me a heads up before I pulled out all my hairs during the search for a solution.

If you have any question or suggestions about this project, feel free to leave them in the comments down below.

[dipayan-banerjee]

Cluster Analysis - KMeans

It is basically a type of unsupervised learning method . An unsupervised learning method is a method in which we draw references from datasets consisting of input data without labeled responses. Generally, it is used as a process to find meaningful structure, explanatory underlying processes, generative features, and groupings inherent in a set of examples. Clustering is the task of dividing the population or data points into a number of groups such that data points in the same groups are more similar to other data points in the same group and dissimilar to the data points in other groups. It is basically a collection of objects on the basis of similarity and dissimilarity between them.

The k-means clustering algorithm is as follows: 1. Initialize cluster centroids μ1, μ2, . . . , μk 2 Rn randomly. 2. Repeat until convergence: { For every i, set c(i) := argmin j ||x(i) − μj ||2. For each j, set μj := Pm i=1 1{c(i) = j}x(i) Pm i=1 1{c(i) = j} . } In the algorithm above, k (a parameter of the algorithm) is the number of clusters we want to find; and the cluster centroids μj represent our current guesses for the positions of the centers of the clusters. To initialize the cluster centroids (in step 1 of the algorithm above), we could choose k training examples randomly, and set the cluster centroids to be equal to the values of these k examples. (Other initialization methods are also possible.) The inner-loop of the algorithm repeatedly carries out two steps: (i) “Assigning” each training example x(i) to the closest cluster centroid μj , and (ii) Moving each cluster centroid μj to the mean of the points assigned to it.

CODE:

from pandas import Series, DataFrame import pandas as pd import numpy as np import matplotlib.pylab as plt from sklearn.cross_validation import train_test_split from sklearn import preprocessing from sklearn.cluster import KMeans

""" Data Management """ data = pd.read_csv(r"C:\Users\11042\Desktop\Data\tree_addhealth.csv")

#upper-case all DataFrame column names data.columns = map(str.upper, data.columns)

# Data Management

data_clean = data.dropna()

# subset clustering variables cluster=data_clean[['ALCEVR1','MAREVER1','ALCPROBS1','DEVIANT1','VIOL1', 'DEP1','ESTEEM1','SCHCONN1','PARACTV', 'PARPRES','FAMCONCT']] cluster.describe()

# standardize clustering variables to have mean=0 and sd=1 clustervar=cluster.copy() clustervar['ALCEVR1']=preprocessing.scale(clustervar['ALCEVR1'].astype('float64')) clustervar['ALCPROBS1']=preprocessing.scale(clustervar['ALCPROBS1'].astype('float64')) clustervar['MAREVER1']=preprocessing.scale(clustervar['MAREVER1'].astype('float64')) clustervar['DEP1']=preprocessing.scale(clustervar['DEP1'].astype('float64')) clustervar['ESTEEM1']=preprocessing.scale(clustervar['ESTEEM1'].astype('float64')) clustervar['VIOL1']=preprocessing.scale(clustervar['VIOL1'].astype('float64')) clustervar['DEVIANT1']=preprocessing.scale(clustervar['DEVIANT1'].astype('float64')) clustervar['FAMCONCT']=preprocessing.scale(clustervar['FAMCONCT'].astype('float64')) clustervar['SCHCONN1']=preprocessing.scale(clustervar['SCHCONN1'].astype('float64')) clustervar['PARACTV']=preprocessing.scale(clustervar['PARACTV'].astype('float64')) clustervar['PARPRES']=preprocessing.scale(clustervar['PARPRES'].astype('float64'))

# split data into train and test sets clus_train, clus_test = train_test_split(clustervar, test_size=.3, random_state=123)

# k-means cluster analysis for 1-9 clusters                                                           from scipy.spatial.distance import cdist clusters=range(1,10) meandist=[]

for k in clusters:    model=KMeans(n_clusters=k)    model.fit(clus_train)    clusassign=model.predict(clus_train)    meandist.append(sum(np.min(cdist(clus_train, model.cluster_centers_, 'euclidean'), axis=1))    / clus_train.shape[0])

""" Plot average distance from observations from the cluster centroid to use the Elbow Method to identify number of clusters to choose """

plt.plot(clusters, meandist) plt.xlabel('Number of clusters') plt.ylabel('Average distance') plt.title('Selecting k with the Elbow Method')

# Interpret 3 cluster solution model3=KMeans(n_clusters=3) model3.fit(clus_train) clusassign=model3.predict(clus_train) # plot clusters

from sklearn.decomposition import PCA pca_2 = PCA(2) plot_columns = pca_2.fit_transform(clus_train) plt.scatter(x=plot_columns[:,0], y=plot_columns[:,1], c=model3.labels_,) plt.xlabel('Canonical variable 1') plt.ylabel('Canonical variable 2') plt.title('Scatterplot of Canonical Variables for 3 Clusters') plt.show()

""" BEGIN multiple steps to merge cluster assignment with clustering variables to examine cluster variable means by cluster """ # create a unique identifier variable from the index for the # cluster training data to merge with the cluster assignment variable clus_train.reset_index(level=0, inplace=True) # create a list that has the new index variable cluslist=list(clus_train['index']) # create a list of cluster assignments labels=list(model3.labels_) # combine index variable list with cluster assignment list into a dictionary newlist=dict(zip(cluslist, labels)) newlist # convert newlist dictionary to a dataframe newclus=DataFrame.from_dict(newlist, orient='index') newclus # rename the cluster assignment column newclus.columns = ['cluster']

# now do the same for the cluster assignment variable # create a unique identifier variable from the index for the # cluster assignment dataframe # to merge with cluster training data newclus.reset_index(level=0, inplace=True) # merge the cluster assignment dataframe with the cluster training variable dataframe # by the index variable merged_train=pd.merge(clus_train, newclus, on='index') merged_train.head(n=100) # cluster frequencies merged_train.cluster.value_counts()

""" END multiple steps to merge cluster assignment with clustering variables to examine cluster variable means by cluster """

# FINALLY calculate clustering variable means by cluster clustergrp = merged_train.groupby('cluster').mean() print ("Clustering variable means by cluster") print(clustergrp)

# validate clusters in training data by examining cluster differences in GPA using ANOVA # first have to merge GPA with clustering variables and cluster assignment data gpa_data=data_clean['GPA1'] # split GPA data into train and test sets gpa_train, gpa_test = train_test_split(gpa_data, test_size=.3, random_state=123) gpa_train1=pd.DataFrame(gpa_train) gpa_train1.reset_index(level=0, inplace=True) merged_train_all=pd.merge(gpa_train1, merged_train, on='index') sub1 = merged_train_all[['GPA1', 'cluster']].dropna()

import statsmodels.formula.api as smf import statsmodels.stats.multicomp as multi

gpamod = smf.ols(formula='GPA1 ~ C(cluster)', data=sub1).fit() print (gpamod.summary())

print ('means for GPA by cluster') m1= sub1.groupby('cluster').mean() print (m1)

print ('standard deviations for GPA by cluster') m2= sub1.groupby('cluster').std() print (m2)

mc1 = multi.MultiComparison(sub1['GPA1'], sub1['cluster']) res1 = mc1.tukeyhsd() print(res1.summary())

OUTPUT:

After preprocessing the data & fiting the KMeans algorithm, we plot a point to find the K using Elbow Method

Plotting the canonical variables upon applying PCA

Canonical discriminant analyses was used to reduce the 11 clustering variable down a few variables that accounted for most of the variance in the clustering variables. 

 A scatterplot of the first two canonical variables by cluster (Figure 2 shown below) indicated that the observations in clusters 1 (green) was densely packed with relatively low within cluster variance, and did  overlap very much with cluster 2 (blue). Cluster 2 was a bit wider and overlap mostly with cluster 1. Observations in cluster 3 (yellow) were spread out more than the other clusters, showing high within cluster variance. The results of this plot suggest that the best cluster solution may have fewer than 3 clusters, so it will be especially important to also evaluate the cluster solutions with fewer than 3 clusters.

Cluster Counts:

Out[1213]: 2    1419 0    1101 1     682 Name: cluster, dtype: int64

Clustering variable means by cluster

The Coefficients:

OLS Regression Results                             ============================================================================== Dep. Variable:                   GPA1   R-squared:                       0.078 Model:                            OLS   Adj. R-squared:                  0.078 Method:                 Least Squares   F-statistic:                     136.0 Date:                Tue, 09 Jul 2019   Prob (F-statistic):           2.10e-57 Time:                        11:34:01   Log-Likelihood:                -3596.8 No. Observations:                3202   AIC:                             7200. Df Residuals:                    3199   BIC:                             7218. Df Model:                           2                                         Covariance Type:            nonrobust                                         ===================================================================================                      coef    std err          t      P>|t|      [0.025      0.975] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Intercept           2.8337      0.022    126.312      0.000       2.790       2.878 C(cluster)[T.1]    -0.4098      0.036    -11.298      0.000      -0.481      -0.339 C(cluster)[T.2]     0.1614      0.030      5.397      0.000       0.103       0.220 ============================================================================== Omnibus:                      152.383   Durbin-Watson:                   2.017 Prob(Omnibus):                  0.000   Jarque-Bera (JB):               92.763 Skew:                          -0.280   Prob(JB):                     7.19e-21 Kurtosis:                       2.382   Cond. No.                         3.83 ==============================================================================Warnings: [1] Standard Errors assume that the covariance matrix of the errors is correctly specified. means for GPA by cluster             GPA1 cluster           0        2.833712 1        2.423876 2        2.995067 standard deviations for GPA by cluster             GPA1 cluster           0        0.728128 1        0.782335 2        0.738169 Multiple Comparison of Means - Tukey HSD,FWER=0.05 ============================================= group1 group2 meandiff  lower   upper  reject ---------------------------------------------  0      1    -0.4098  -0.4949 -0.3248  True  0      2     0.1614   0.0913  0.2315  True  1      2     0.5712   0.4899  0.6525  True ---------------------------------------------               index   ALCEVR1  MAREVER1    ...      PARACTV   PARPRES  FAMCONCT cluster                                     ...                                 0        3319.652134  0.946562 -0.058121    ...     0.158664  0.109642  0.236515 1        3330.536657  0.661676  1.085233    ...    -0.416451 -0.484017 -0.960210 2        3238.273432 -1.056455 -0.474480    ...     0.091971  0.156849  0.299811

[3 rows x 12 columns]

So we determine the number of cluster to be taken into account by use of elbow method.

So on using number of cluster as 3, we try to fit the model in the training data. It gives us a assigned cluster number per each data point.

In order to externally validate the clusters, an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was conducting to test for significant differences between the clusters on grade point average (GPA). A tukey test was used for post hoc comparisons between the clusters. Results indicated significant differences between the clusters on GPA (F(3, 3197)=82.28, p<.0001). The tukey post hoc comparisons showed significant differences between clusters on GPA, with the exception that clusters 1 and 2 were not significantly different from each other. Adolescents in cluster 4 had the highest GPA (mean=2.99, sd=0.71), and cluster 3 had the lowest GPA (mean=2.36, sd=0.78).

[theleagueofsupermushrooms]

The Villain Wrangler : Chapter One

(Before I begin I became inspired to write this because of a tumblr post/thread I came across on Pinterest and it got my creative writing brain excited . So yeah I’ll be putting their ideas into book form and hopefully create my own. So to those who created the idea of the Villain Wrangler and the universe they live in I hope my FanFiction of your post does it justice. )

My eye twitched. A Villain. They assigned me to find some Villain with, apparently, a moral code to fulfil a child’s wish. Could we even legally do that? Heroes sure but they weren’t known for killing people, still this kid deserved the wish. God knows how hard it must be to suffer from an illness that might just kill you before you get a chance to really live and for whatever reason they idolised this guy. Some masked hooligan who looked like he’d just finished co creating a costume with Lady Gaga and a bottle of glitter thrown in for fun. Shouldn’t be too hard to track the guy down.

“You have around a month so don’t mess this up like you did with that hero masked minatour” The gruff, agitated voice of my boss instructed with no hint of amusement as my co workers sniggered at the memory. Not exactly my fault he turned out to have terrible grammar and less humour than a rock, luckily for us Alexandra, miss perfect herself, managed to sway him with her charm and good looks and ability to be perfect. She was good at getting people to do her bidding like that. Not even the most prestige supers could deny her and so as you can imagine she is infuriatingly fascinating and I hate her.

“Yeah well I won’t let the kid down” I replied before letting out a sigh of relief as my boss left with all the grace of a really graceful elephant. A sigh escaped me as I got to work “Loco eh? Well let’s hope you are easy to find” and so my first job started involving villains and with Alex away she couldn’t annoy me with knowing everything and proving me wrong 24/7.

A week later and I’m sat in the same place I’ve been staking out for 5 days now. A bar filled with crooks and terrifying shady looking people of presumably varying degrees of villainy attached to them, some I recognised and some were either new or wisely stayed away from media coverage. Either way as soon as they realised I was becoming a regular to the bar they became highly amused and I swear they started taking bets on me. And considering I’m in no way attractive or interesting it’s probably on how I’ll die.

“Orange juice? Again? 5 days in a row eh?” The bartender gave the usual polite and cheery smile. Dude had multicoloured hair and did not shy away from dressing however he wanted. I admired him for it, out of everyone he was polite and seemed to be generally interested in me, not that there was much for me to tell past why I was staking the bar out.

"What can I say? I really like orange juice.“ I replied as I cleaned my glasses and gladly payed for the drink. If I hadn’t sworn to stop drinking I would legitimately be trying the cocktails here.

With a sudden burst through the door the one I was looking for strode in wearing blacks shades and all black clothing. If the bartender had not pointed him out with a dreamy look on his face and then kissed him I wouldn’t have guessed it was him at all. Still I had to admit they were cute together, guess even despicable people were luckier in love than the average law abiding citizen. Good to know. After they had finished swapping spit and looking at each other lovingly I made my move on who was apparently glitter guy. Who knew the guy could go from incredibly flamboyant and colourful to Neo from the matrix? With that I chugged down my orange juice like it was a beer and I began.

"Uhh hi uhmm you’re uhh Shock Master right?” He turned to me, as did the whole bar, and the bar tender gave me a thumbs up, “Well you see I’m from the making a wish come true and there’s this kid who really admires you and suffered a horrible accident when running away from home. We don’t know if he’ll recover and he really wants to meet you. I promise you there will be no cops or heroes.” So maybe I spoke a little quickly due to nerves but what I had not expected was laughter. Seriously? The guy was laughing? Dude was in stitches as was everyone else apart from the bar tender who was about to say something when I punched the guy who was a good foot taller than me square in the jaw so hard he was taken by surprise and fell to the floor. I mean all he had was a bruise and glasses had fallen off. If I wasn’t so angry I would have been amazed at the striking purple eye which now looked angry.

“Listen here you piece of shit, that kid ran away from most likely an abusive environment and lived on the streets. Alone. Where he did god knows what to survive and by the time someone realised he was sick and needed to go to a hospital he was informed that he probably wouldn’t survive and that kid is stronger than you’ll ever be!” I couldn’t stop my anger once it started. Since I was usually the quiet one I doubt anyone expected me to have a temper. “So don’t you dare because that kid, for whatever reason, idolises you. Is always talking about how he wished he was strong enough to be like you stand up for himself and god damn it he deserves more than your stupid laughter you complete and utter-” I squeezed my eyes shut and cut myself off. My mouth clamped shut. I was going to get nowhere by screaming in his face. And when I opened my eyes again the room was silent and he was towering over me with his glasses back on and presumably glaring. His hand, with some lovely red nail polish done rather well, caught the back of my shirt and he dragged me out to the back of the building and pushed me up against an ally way. That was it. This was how I die.

"No cops or heroes. And I won’t be able to give a specific time next week I’ll pop up but if you give your contacts to my boyfriend he’ll sort you out.“ He mumbled and my eyes widened.

"Wait really? Oh my god the kid is gonna be over the moon. Oh he loves drawing and designing clothes and is 15. He won’t tell us exactly why he ran away or what happened on the streets but at least you’ll be able to put a smile on his face” I beamed at him as his facial expression softened considerably. “We should get some ice on that though. I’ll tell you more about him inside.” As we walked in you could see the split in the room, they were taking bets for sure. Some cheered while majority groaned and handed over their money and all the Villain could do was sit down next to me and ruffle my hair.

"You got guts. If this goes off without a hitch I’ll tell others about you but if you betray me?“ The threat went without saying and I rolled my eyes as I gave the bartender my details.

"I quite like enjoy having no broken bones and containing the right amount of blood pumping around my body while using functioning organs.”

“Yeah well you continue punching people with a right hook like that and you won’t last five minutes” we both shared a smirky smile.

4 days later and I was in a room with an evil villain who was determined to make this kids life happier, his boyfriend who was equally just as excited and doing the boys hair any wacky colours he wanted and a kid who looked like he was in heaven. My heart swelled and it was at times like this where I realised staking out a bar full of guys who were betting on how long I’d live was worth it. And if two random guys just so happened to start paying for better health care for the kid as well as start inquiring about the process of adoption while looking weirdly familiar it was pure coincidence. I swear.

[runridedive]

The New Audi TT RS Coupé and the New Audi TT RS Roadster

Audi Sport hones the top model of the TT model series: With an even more dynamic look, the new TT RS (combined fuel consumption l/100 km: 8,1 – 7,9; combined CO2 emissions in g/km: 183 – 181) showcases with confidence what it has to offer. Its five-cylinder engine delivers 400 metric horsepower, accompanied by the unmistakable five-cylinder sound. The new TT RS will be available to order beginning on February 7th, 2019. The Coupé and Roadster will be found at dealers in Germany and other European countries from spring of 2019 on. South African release date to be confirmed.

“The new TT RS is in absolute peak form,” says Michael-Julius Renz, CEO of Audi Sport GmbH. “Like a well-trained athlete, it showcases even more prominently how much power lies beneath its muscular outer skin.” Oliver Hoffmann, Technical Managing Director of Audi Sport GmbH, adds: “The outstanding performance is achieved by the low weight, the maximal athletic tuned suspension, and our award-winning five-cylinder. We have received the sought-after “International Engine of the Year Award” with the 2.5 TFSI engine for the ninth time in a row.”

Dynamic appearance: The exterior design The TT RS has never been this masculine. The completely redrawn front end and the striking rear end give it a dynamic appearance. The quattro logo in a matt titanium-look is positioned in the lower section of the gloss black grill with its matt black Singleframe. The lateral air inlets, which have been enlarged once again, are each divided by vertical strips on the inside and outside. For cooling purposes there are additional radiators located behind the typical RS honeycomb grill. The lateral air inlets that extend almost all the way to the front wheel wells make the new TT RS appear extremely wide.

A continuous front spoiler that is drawn up steeply at the lateral ends pulls the front apron down sharply, giving the car its distinctive, motorsport-inspired look. The blade is painted in body color as standard, but is also available in a matt aluminum look or gloss black. The RS model has a gloss black inlay in the newly designed side sill. The exterior mirror housings are available in body color, matt aluminum look, gloss black, and carbon.

At the rear, it is the newly designed fixed rear wing with side winglets that catches the eye. As part of the aerodynamics concept, it supports RS-typical performance and efficiency. There are vertical design elements on both sides above the new RS-specific diffusor. Two large oval exhaust tailpipes create the typical RS finish.

LED headlights are standard. The optional matrix LED units regulate the high beams intelligently and with great flexibility. The optional matrix OLED reversing lights (organic light emitting diode) with a 3D design distribute their extensive light with extreme homogeneity and precision. When the ignition is switched on, the OLED reversing lights put on a spectacular display. In the interior, there is a new red 12 o’clock marking on the steering wheel rim.

The new TT RS is available in eight different colors, including the new RS-specific color Kyalami green and the new colors Pulse orange and Turbo blue. Upon request, matt aluminum and gloss black styling packages highlight the blade and rear wing. The gloss black styling package includes the Audi rings and the TT RS model logo in black on the front and rear as an option. The fabric top of the TT RS Roadster is black. The Audi exclusive program offers various additional possibilities for individualization.

Award-winning performance: The 2.5 TFSI Five-cylinder, 294 kW (400 metric horsepower) output, 480 Nm of torque, quattro all-wheel drive—the Audi TT RS impresses with inner values and offers an outstanding driving performance. The Coupé sprints from 0 to 100 km/h in only 3.7 seconds. Musical accompaniment is provided by the typical five-cylinder sound: 1-2-4-5-3. Due to this ignition sequence, ignition alternates between adjacent cylinders and those far apart from one another. This unique rhythm is music to the ears of many horsepower purists.

Last year, Audi Sport received the sought-after “International Engine of the Year Award” for the 2.5 TFSI engine for the ninth consecutive time. The turbo engine draws its power from an engine displacement of 2,480 cm3. The engine’s maximum torque of 480 Nm is available between 1,950 and 5,850 rpm. The top speed is regulated at 250 km/h or an optional 280 km/h.

The forces of the five-cylinder engine flow via a seven-speed S tronic to the quattro permanent all-wheel drive that distributes the power as needed between the axles via a multi-plate clutch. Wheel-selective torque control makes handling even more agile and safe. The driver can use the Audi drive select dynamic handling system to influence the quattro drive and other components such as the steering, S tronic, engine characteristic, and exhaust flaps. The four modes available for this are comfort, auto, dynamic, and individual.

Pure dynamism: The suspension The low weight and the consistently sporty suspension provide the basic prerequisites for the excellent handling of the Audi TT RS. The progressive steering adapted specifically to the RS ensures close contact with the road. At the front axle, ventilated and perforated steel discs are in action behind the 19-inch or 20-inch wheels. The brake calipers are painted black as standard, but are available in red as an option. As an option, the RS sport suspension plus is available with adaptive dampers in Audi magnetic ride technology. Their control technology is also integrated into the Audi drive select dynamic handling system.

Inspired by motorsports: The interior Controls and display in the new TT RS are focused completely on the driver. The RS sport seats with the rhombus pattern in Alcantara or optionally with a honeycomb pattern in fine Nappa leather as well as the RS logos on the seats, steering wheel, door sill trims, and selector levers underline the sporty character of the 2+2 seater. Special RS displays in the standard Audi virtual cockpit with a 12.3-inch screen provide information on tire pressure, torque, and g-forces. In manual mode, the shift light display prompts the driver to upshift when the maximum engine speed is reached. In addition to multifunction buttons, the RS sport leather steering wheel with shift paddles features two satellite controls for turning the engine on and off as well as the Audi drive select dynamic handling system.

The new RS design package adds red or blue highlights to the car on the air vent doors, the seat belts, and the floor mats with the RS logo. The extended RS design package also offers contrasting design elements on the seats and center console.

Up to date: The infotainment system Audi also offers a great deal of infotainment features. The options include MMI navigation plus with MMI touch including free text search and natural language voice control, as well as the Wi-Fi hotspot and the Audi connect online module. Online services reach the vehicle via the fast LTE standard. The Audi smartphone interface connects smartphones with the TT RS and can stream content seamlessly to the Audi virtual cockpit via USB. The Bang & Olufsen sound system provides an excellent sound experience on board with an output of 680 watts.

The post The New Audi TT RS Coupé and the New Audi TT RS Roadster appeared first on Run Ride Dive.

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[sportscarss]

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First mass-market EV by German marque puts out 300kW and offers 400km of range.

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After a continued run of teasers and previews, the Audi e-tron quattro electric crossover has clearly been revealed, as it apparatus up to booty on the new Mercedes-Benz EQC and accessible BMW iX3.

Measuring 4901mm long, 1935mm wide, and 1606mm tall, the e-tron quattro is 238mm longer, 37mm added and 51mm lower than an Audi Q5. Its 2928mm wheelbase, meanwhile, is 96mm best than the Q5 and 66mm beneath than the beyond Q7.

Power comes from two electric motors developing accumulated outputs of 300kW and 660Nm, with 0-100km/h claimed to booty “fewer than six seconds” on its way to a top acceleration of 200km/h.

Those motors draw from a 95kWh lithium-ion array pack, with alive ambit rated at “over” 400km on the ‘realistic’ WLTP testing procedure.

Using the accepted 11kW charging solution, the e-tron quattro can be absolutely answerable in about 8.5 hours. An alternative 22kW charging arrangement will be accessible from 2019, while a 150kW DC fast-charge base can furnish about 80 per cent accommodation in “less than bisected an hour”.

In agreement of design, there’s bright access from the 2015 e-tron quattro concept, forth with $.25 and bobs adopted from Audi’s latest models including the all-new Q3 and Q8.

Angular LED headlights sit up front, accumulation an e-tron-specific LED daytime-running ablaze signature with four accumbent ‘struts’. There’s additionally a Platinum Gray single-frame grille with accumbent and vertical slats, admitting the assemblage itself is “largely enclosed” accustomed the electric powertrain doesn’t crave the aforementioned bulk of airflow as a agitation engine. Matrix LED lights are optionally available.

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There’s a affiliated accept band extending from the headlights to the tail-lights, accompanied by abundant appearance curve forth the beanie and fenders that accord the e-tron quattro a wide, able-bodied stance.

Down back, the LED tail-lights are affiliated through the centre via an LED band that is a accepted architecture affection beyond models like the A6, A7 and A8, while the vertical struts on anniversary ancillary answer the daytime-running ablaze signature.

Twelve anatomy colour options will be available, including the absolute Antigua Blue you see here, absolute by allegory axle and caster accomplished trims to accommodate an off-road-style look.

Additional architecture appearance accommodate an e-tron logo on the allegation accessory and alternative orange anchor calipers. A set of aero-optimised 19-inch auto are standard, captivated in low rolling attrition 255/55 tyres.

The underbody is additionally fully-clad to abate drag, and includes an aluminium bowl to assure the array pack.

Inside, the e-tron quattro is rather conventional, featuring a berth that wouldn’t attending out of abode in any of Audi’s latest flagship models – anticipate A6, A7 and A8.

The disciplinarian is faced with several displays, including the Audi Virtual Cockpit agenda apparatus array with added e-tron content, and the dual-touchscreen centre animate architecture (10.1-inch top, 8.6-inch bottom) that digitises the altitude controls beneath a accepted infotainment display.

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Vehicles optioned with ‘virtual exoteric mirrors’ affection added displays in the advanced doors, announcement a alive camera augment in abode of accepted addition mirror units.

A ambit of autogenous trims and colour schemes are accessible – including open-pore ash copse absolute to the e-tron – forth with alternative appearance like wireless smartphone charging.

Behind the advanced row, Audi is claiming the e-tron quattro offers segment-leading commuter and burden space. Thanks to the electric drivetrain there’s no centre tunnel, which agency all three second-row cartage account from a collapsed floor.

The baggage breadth measures 660L with the additional row in place, including a 60L alcove beneath the floor. Folding the aback seats increases accommodation to 1725L, accessed via an electric aperture and closing tailgate.

Dual-zone altitude ascendancy with rear air vents is adapted as standard, with a four-zone arrangement optionally available. The closing additionally includes an air ioniser to advance “premium air quality”.

Audi claims the near-silent drivetrain and well-insulated berth accomplish for “an about absolute faculty of calm”, with markets like North America and Asia accepting a loudspeaker in the advanced right-hand caster accomplished to comedy complete advised to acquaint added anchorage users the agent is approaching.

As we’ve appear to apprehend from Audi, the e-tron quattro is loaded with disciplinarian abetment and alive assurance technologies.

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The Tour Abetment amalgamation incorporates adaptive cruise ascendancy with cartage jam assist, lane-assist and cartage assurance acceptance systems to accommodate semi-autonomous alive capability. Added accessible appearance accommodate a 360-degree camera system, rear cross-traffic assist, lane-change and avenue warning, an automatic esplanade assistant, and all-round sensors.

Audi will body the e-tron quattro at its CO2-neutral accomplishment ability in Brussels, with a European bazaar barrage appointed for the end of 2018, with appraisement to alpha about €80,000 ($130,325).

We’re cat-and-mouse to apprehend from Audi’s bounded analysis apropos back we can apprehend to see the e-tron quattro Down Under, forth with projected pricing.

Stay acquainted to CarAdvice for all the latest, and bang actuality for added images.

MORE: Audi e-tron coverage

MORE: Everything Audi

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[planetarduino]

Simulate PIC and Arduino/AVR Designs with no Cloud

I’ve always appreciated simulation tools. Sure, there’s no substitute for actually building a circuit but it sure is handy if you can fix a lot of easy problems before you start soldering and making PCBs. I’ve done quite a few posts on LTSpice and I’m also a big fan of the Falstad simulator in the browser. However, both of those don’t do a lot for you if a microcontroller is a major part of your design. I recently found an open source project called Simulide that has a few issues but does a credible job of mixed simulation. It allows you to simulate analog circuits, LCDs, stepper and servo motors and can include programmable PIC or AVR (including Arduino) processors in your simulation.

The software is available for Windows or Linux and the AVR/Arduino emulation is built in. For the PIC on Linux, you need an external software simulator that you can easily install. This is provided with the Windows version. You can see one of several videos available about an older release of the tool below. There is also a window that can compile your Arduino code and even debug it, although that almost always crashed for me after a few minutes of working. As you can see in the image above, though, it is capable of running some pretty serious Arduino code as long as you aren’t debugging.

Looks and sounds exciting, right? It is, but be sure to save often. Under Linux, it seems to crash pretty frequently even if you aren’t debugging. It also suffers from other minor issues like sometimes forgetting how to move components. Saving, closing the application, and reopening it seems to fix that. Plus, we assume they will squash bugs as they are reported. One of my major hangs was solved by removing the default (old) Arduino IDE and making sure the most recent was on the path. But the crashing was frequent and seemed more or less random. It seemed that I most often had crashes on Linux with occasional freezes but on Windows it would freeze but not totally crash.

Basic Operation

The basic operation is pretty much what you’d expect. The window is broadly divided into three panes. The leftmost pane shows, by default, a palette of components. You can use the vertical tab strip on the left to also pick a memory viewer, a property inspector, or a file explorer.

The central pane is where you can draw your circuit and it looks like a yellow piece of engineering paper with a grid. Along the top are file buttons that do things like save and load files.

You’ll see a similar row of buttons above the rightmost pane. This is a code editor and debugging window that can interface with the Arduino IDE. It looks like it can also interface with GCBasic for the PIC, although I didn’t try that.

You drag components from the left onto the circuit. Wiring isn’t a distinct operation. You just let the mouse float over the connection until the cursor makes a cross. Click and then drag to the connection point and click again. Sometimes the program forgets to make the cross cursor and then I’ve had to save and restart.

Most of the components are just what you think they are. There are some fun ones including a keypad, an LED matrix, text and graphic LCDs, and even stepper and servo motors. You’ll also find several logic functions, 7400-series ICs, and there are annotation tools like text and boxes at the very bottom. You can right click on a category and hide components you never want to see.

At the top, you can add a voltmeter, an ammeter, or an oscilloscope to your circuit. The oscilloscope isn’t that useful because it is small. What you really want to do is use a probe. This just shows the voltage at some point but you can right click on it and add the probe to the plotter which appears at the bottom of the screen. This is a much more useful scope option.

There are a few quirks with the components. The voltage source has a push button that defaults to off. You have to remember to turn it on or things won’t work well. The potentiometers were particularly frustrating. The videos of older versions show a nice little potentiometer knob and that appears on my Windows laptop, too. On Linux the potentiometer (and the oscilloscope controls) look like a little tiny joystick and it is very difficult to set a value. It is easier to right click and select properties and adjust the value there. Just note that the value won’t change until you leave the field.

Microcontroller Features

If that’s all there was to it, you’d be better off using any of a number of simulators that we’ve talked about before. But the big draw here is being able to plop a microcontroller down in your circuit. The system provides PIC and AVR CPUs that are supported by the simulator code it uses. There’s also four variants of Arduinos: the Uno, Nano, Duemilanove, and the Leonardo.

You can use the built-in Arduino IDE — just make sure you have the real Arduino software on your path and it is a recent version. Also, unlike the real IDE, it appears you must save your file before a download or debug will notice the changes. In other words, if you make a change and download, you’ll compile the code before the change if you didn’t save the file first. You don’t have to use the built-in IDE. You can simply right click on the processor and upload a hex file. Recent Arduino IDEs have an option to export a hex file, and that works with no problem.

When you have a CPU in your design, you can right click it and open a serial monitor port which shows virtual serial output at the bottom of the screen and lets you provide input.

The debugging mode is simple but works until it crashes. Even without debugging, there is an option to the left of the screen to watch memory locations and registers inside the CPU.

Overall, the Arduino simulation seemed to work quite well. Connecting to the Uno pins was a little challenging at certain scales and I accidentally wired to the wrong pin on more than one occasion. One thing I found odd is that you don’t need to wire the voltage to the Arduino. It is powered on even if you don’t connect it.

Besides the crashing, the other issue I had was with the simulation speed which was rather slow. There’s a meter at the top of the screen that shows how slow the simulation is compared to real-time and mine was very low (10% or so) most of the time. There is a help topic explaining that this depends if you have certain circuit elements and ways to improve the run time, but it wasn’t bad enough that I bothered to explore it.

My first thought was that it would be difficult to handle a circuit with multiple CPUs in it since the debugging and serial monitors are all set up for a single CPU. However, as the video below shows, you can run multiple instances of the program and connect them via a serial port connection. The only issue would be if you had a circuit where both CPUs were interfacing with interrelated circuitry (for example, an op amp summing two signals, one from each CPU).

A Simple Example

As an experiment, I created a simple circuit that uses an Uno. It generates two PWM signals, integrates them with an RC circuit and then either drives a load or drives a load through a bipolar emitter follower. A pot lets you set the PWM percentages which are compliments of each other (that is, when one is at 10% the other is at 90%). Here’s the circuit:

Along with the very simple code:

int v; const int potpin=0; const int led0=5; const int led1=6; void setup() { Serial.begin(9600); Serial.println("Here we go!"); } void loop() { int v=analogRead(potpin)/4; Serial.println(v); analogWrite(led0,v); analogWrite(led1,255-v); delay(250); }

Note that if the PWM output driving the transistor drops below 0.7V or so, the transistor will shut off. I deliberately didn’t design around that because I wanted to see how the simulator would react. It correctly models this behavior.

There’s really no point to this other than I wanted something that would work out the analog circuit simulation as well as the Arduino. You can download all the files from GitHub, including the hex file if you want to skip the compile step.

If you use the built-in IDE on the right side of the screen, then things are very simple. You just download your code. If you build your own hex file, just right click on the Arduino and you’ll find an option to load a hex file. It appears to remember the hex file, so if you run a simulation again later, you don’t have to repeat that step unless you moved the hex file.

However, the IDE doesn’t remember settings for the plotter, the voltage switches, or the serial terminal. You’ll especially want to be sure the 5V power switch above the transistor is on or that part of the circuit won’t operate correctly. You can right click on the Arduino to open the serial monitor and right click on the probes to bring back the plotter pane.

The red power switch at the top of the window will start your simulation. The screenshots above show close-ups of the plot pane and serial monitor.

Lessons Learned

This could be a really great tool if it would not crash so much. In all fairness, that could have something to do with my PC, but I don’t think that fully accounts for all of them. However, the software is still in pretty early development, so perhaps it will get better. There are a lot of fit and finish problems, too. For example, on my large monitor, many of the fonts were too large for their containers, which isn’t all that unusual.

The user interface seemed a little clunky, especially when you had to manipulate potentiometers and switches. Also, remember you can’t right-click on the controls but must click on the underlying component. In other words, the pot looks like a knob on top of a resistor. Right clicks need to go on the resistor part, not the knob. I also was a little put off that you can’t enter multiplier suffixes directly in component values. That is, you can’t enter a resistor value as 1K. You can enter 1000 or you can enter 1 and then change the units in a separate field to Kohms. But that’s not a big deal. You can get used to all of that if it would quit crashing.

I really wanted the debugging feature to work. While you can debug directly with simuavr or other tools, you can’t easily simulate all your I/O devices like you can with this tool. I’m hoping that becomes more robust in the future. Under Linux it would work for a bit and crash. On Windows, I never got it to work.

As I always say, though, simulation is great, but the real world often leads to surprises that don’t show up in simulation. Still, a simulation can help you clear up a host of problems before you commit to heating up the soldering iron or pulling out the breadboard. Simuide has the potential to be a great tool for simulating the kind of designs we see most on Hackaday.

If you want to explore other simulation options, we’ve talked a lot about LTSpice, including our Circuit VR series. There’s also the excellent browser-based Falstad simulator.

Simulate PIC and Arduino/AVR Designs with no Cloud was originally published on PlanetArduino

[justincaseitmatters]

RIP, Dave Berry

Like just about everyone else in the Kansas City film community, I was crushed to hear that filmmaker Dave Berry was no longer with us.

Back in 2006, Dave was kind enough to let me stare at him like a gargoyle as he was nervously waiting for his Macintosh to render a technically demanding short film that was due that evening. He was competing in the Kansas City Independent Filmmakers Coalition’s One Night Stand competition.

He and others had 10 hours to shot, edit and present a three-minute film. It was the middle of the summer, and I had just accompanied another group of filmmakers as they had toiled in a poorly ventilated warehouse. All of us were drenched in sweat, so going to Dave’s home was a welcome break.

Despite his relative comfort, he was nervous as well because he had decided to make a film that featured 25 individual morphs. I could see the potential for what he was doing, and it looked as if the final result would be funny and worth the effort. That said, in 2006, all those morphs maxed out his equipment and waiting for a render was nailbiting.

Despite the pressure, Dave was generous with his limited time on that day and when I ran into him later. To pull off all those morphs, he had to be a skilled technician, but he was also a genial and engaging fellow who answered all of my questions, even the silliest ones.

I’m including the article I wrote about the competition in The Kansas City Star. Without Dave, it wouldn’t have been as much fun to read.

Ready, set, film - Competitors have 10 hours -- and a tough list of rules -- to pull off a memorable movie.

Kansas City Star, The (MO) - July 6, 2006

Author/Byline: DAN LYBARGER

Section: PhotoPage: 19

Readability: 11-12 grade level (Lexile: 1220)

LOCAL FILMMAKING | One Night Stand

Last month, for the sixth year in a row, local filmmakers met an unusual and possibly cruel challenge: Shooting, editing and presenting a three-minute, 30-second film in 10 hours.

To make the task more grueling, they had to incorporate a line of dialogue from a classic movie ("I coulda been a contender" from "On the Waterfront"), an object (a love letter) and a theme (exile).

These stipulations were unknown before they were drawn out of a hat at 10 the morning of the event.

The annual Independent Filmmakers Coalition of Kansas City started the One Night Stand competition at the suggestion of former president Matthew Stevens, and it has evolved over the years. More teams are competing, and they're creating better films.

"Most other places only do this as a 48-hour contest," said current coalition president Joe Heyen. "They're pansies."

While the completed films varied widely in content and quality, none of the people who made them could be called wimps.

Jefferson Donald's "Harvest" was a grim but powerful adultery drama.

Thad Parnell's "Cigarette Burns" was a comedy about a delusional loser that was shot in 3-D.

Chetan Patel's "KC" was a funny look at forbidden love with a space alien, who looked a lot like a guy in a bear suit.

This year 32 teams tried to complete the competition, and most succeeded in meeting the 8 p.m. deadline at the Just Off Broadway Theatre. A few missed the mark, but their films were screened away from the competition.

Missing the cut

One that fell behind was Paul Campbell's "The Probies," a "Matrix" parody about a female martial arts whiz (Amanda Harrison) who steals a volleyball from a security guard who looks a bit like Agent Smith (Tim Harvey).

Campbell's team members faced a crushing blow when they arrived at their first location and were not allowed to shoot. Despite an earlier agreement, the crew had to quickly move to a warehouse that wound up being one of two locations instead of three.

Even as a parody, "The Probies" took work because the warehouse had to have its lights adjusted to look "Matrix-y," and Harrison and Harvey practiced diligently with choreographer Drew Ebert to throw kicks and punches that didn't hurt each other.

"It takes five hours to shoot a three-minute short, and you still have three hours to edit it. And it takes an hour to turn it in," said Campbell, who serves as the coalition's event coordinator. "Luckily the draw didn't force us to change our storyline a lot."

To their credit, the team discovered that red yarn does pass for laser beams when it's lit properly.

The Garage tape

Despite missing the 10-hour deadline with "The Probies," Campbell, Harrison, David Winger and makeup artist Deborah Keeney all contributed to David Berry's "Misfit."

Berry's short featured a lovelorn man (Brian Boye) lamenting his situation and then gradually morphing into each person he discusses. As he transforms, so does the computer-generated background.

Not bad for a clip photographed against the green wall of Berry's garage.

"I’ve seen a lot of films that are done on the One Night Stand," he said. "There are typically two kinds of films: There are really well-thought out films, and there's a bunch of junk. I wanted to make a film that really stood out. I think it's pretty safe to say I m the only one doing anything with morphing today."

Berry's task was still tricky because keeping up with all 25 morphs proved mind-numbing. Dennis Mills, who assisted Berry, said he "went into a coma after 20."

With only 100 minutes before the deadline, Berry had to wait on his computer to render his final edit. Once he clicked his mouse, the film was out of his hands until his Macintosh finished processing.

"Ask me if I m nervous about it," he said as the computer worked, "Hell, yes!"

He made the deadline with six minutes to spare.

And the winner is

The judges -- former U.S. Rep. Karen McCarthy, actor Luc A. Alvarez ("Opening") and 98.9 the Rock personality Jason Nivens -- awarded best acting to "Harvest," best photography to Patel's entry and best slam to Chris Swartz's "Post House."

"Misfit" took third place, "Cigarette Burns" landed second place and the grand prize went to veteran competitor Susan Sarachek's remarkably effective ghost story, "Red." It featured a little girl who learns a strange secret about her grandmother.

The audience choice award was shared between Parnell's and Patel's entries.

see for yourself

The One Night Stand winners (and other entries) will be shown at dusk Friday in the parking lot of Smokin Joe's at 19th and Baltimore in the Crossroads district.

Some entries also can be found at Preview Extra on KansasCity.com.

[ngop3]

8 technologies transforming the database https://www.infoworld.com/article/3226045/database/8-technologies-transforming-the-database.html That database has come a long way from tables of rows and columns, and the journey is far from over By Peter Wayner Contributing Editor, InfoWorld | Sep 18, 2017 What is a database? Once upon a time, it was simple. The database was a modern Bob Cratchit putting data in tables made up of very straight columns filled with one row per entry. Long, endless rectangles of information stretching on into the future. The relational database has been the bedrock of modern computing. The vast majority of websites are just a bunch of CSS lipstick painted on top of SQL. Everything that makes us special is just another row in the big table of life. The love affair with the big matrix of bits is slowly fading as developers are realizing that not everything fits into a simple table. And because developers are smart and obsessive about finding solutions for every need, they’ve started creating new and better places to store the information. The last few years have brought an explosion in other mechanisms for squirreling away our data. Are these wonderful new options still databases? Does the data have to fit into some big matrix to be a database? Some like to use the word “data store” to differentiate the modern mechanisms because the word “database” is too tightly linked in our minds to the old tabular structure. We’ll leave that up to the philosophers. Data goes in and answers come out. Here are eight ways that the database is being reinvented in new shapes and forms. GPU computing Once upon a time, video cards were built to draw elaborate scenes for kids’ games, but now the so-called graphics processing units are doing plenty of non-graphical processing. Searching through data is just one of the best non-graphical operations for them to tackle. And why not? Plowing through endless piles of data looking for a match is an inherently parallel operation made up of lots of rudimentary jobs (testing equality) repeated millions of times. So it is pretty simple to turn the job over to the thousands of processors in the GPU. The biggest wins aren’t in answering each query (which are obviously many times faster) but in the preparation work, because there is little need for preprocessing. Many databases save time by maintaining an index, which is effectively a precomputed result of every possible search. If this index is corrupted or destroyed, rebuilding it can take hours, days, or maybe even months. If the data can fit inside a GPU’s memory, though, you can usually get by without the index. If the data is changing quickly and most of the index is never used, then skipping the preprocessing can be quite effective. Check out MapD, Kinetica, Brytlyt, and others to see whether your data and searches can be accelerated. Non-volatile memory (NVRAM) Programmers who cut their teeth 50 years ago had it easy. They didn’t have to juggle data between the RAM and the disk with elaborate protocols for ensuring consistency. That’s because the memory back then was iron core and wasn’t erased when the power was turned off. Those good times may be back again soon because chip manufacturers are talking about replacing RAM with NVRAM or non-volatile memory. This is a big game changer for database programmers because one of their biggest challenges (and even their greatest reason for living) is disappearing. Some suggest that the databases can get much faster because the transaction semantics can be simpler. Others float the idea of building the recovery log after the data is written to the media, not before. No one knows how the dust will settle. Will people still use a database at all if they don’t need a permanent record? Or will the searching and indexing keep them coming back? All of the algorithms and all of the architectures are up for rethinking. We’ll know the best way to use NVRAM in a decade or so. Scale-out SQL When the NoSQL movement began, one of the big features was the ability to spread your data storage across multiple nodes. NoSQL databases like Cassandra and MongoDB made it seem like getting all of the nice features of large-scale storage meant abandoning the comfortable world of SQL. In reality, there doesn’t need to be a tradeoff. While the earliest experiments in large-scale databases were easier to create because they left behind all of the SQL baggage, there’s no reason why SQL can’t work well across multiple machines running at huge scale. Indeed, companies like Oracle have been doing it for years. The newest large-scale databases let you use all of your SQL knowledge and convenience with a set of data spread out across a big cluster. CockroachDB, for instance, offers a standard SQL query engine that accesses data replicated in multiple nodes, all with ACID guarantees. Yes, you’ll pay for some of this belt-and-suspender support for data consistency, but perhaps less than you expected. If guaranteed consistency is important to your work, start by checking out stacks like CockroachDB, Google Cloud Spanner, Clustrix, Azure SQL, and NuoDB. Geospatial databases Traditional databases are built for one-dimensional data sets, not the two dimensional coordinates from geography. You can fake it and use a standard database to accomplish basic tasks with geographic coordinates. If you stick latitude and longitude in separate columns, it’s not hard to search for rows that fall within a box defined by a range of latitudes and longitudes. But once you want to go beyond this basic box, standard SQL queries just don’t cut it. Geospatial databases add a few extra functions that make searching, sorting, and intersecting much easier in two-dimensional space. Spatial indices, for instance, usually work by adding a grid on top of the coordinate space to make it much faster to search for rows that are adjacent in two-dimensional and three-dimensional worlds. These indices make it possible to write queries with operations like “contain,” “overlap,” and even “touch” with sets that are defined by polygons. All of this makes reasoning about the real world that much more efficient. Check out Neo4j Spatial, GeoMesa, MapD, and PostGIS for some good places to begin. Graph databases Tables are a good repository for many data structures but they don't do a great job of modeling one big, emerging data structure that has powered the last 10 years of Internet evolution: the network. As the so-called “social graph” explodes, we’re filling our computer with more and more nodes with links between them. And the connections between the nodes are often more important than the data in them. Sure, storing and retrieving one link between one pair of nodes is easy to do in a classic relational database, but more complicated queries start to get impossible. Is Bob two or three hops away from Chris in the friendship network? Is Mary dating the ex of one of her friends? Graph databases make queries like this easier to run. There is no endless fetching from tables because the query knows how look in the neighborhood specified by the links. Tools like Neo4J, OrientDB, and DataStax are just a few of the options that now can barely be counted on two hands and two feet. They have their own query languages too. Cloud databases One of the biggest changes lies in how we buy database software. In the past, we bought our own machines and signed licensing deals to run the software on our machines. Now the cloud companies are offering services that store blobs of data off somewhere that we can’t see or touch. They just say the data will be there when we want it. #ITPro #SoftwareDeveloper The advantages are obvious. There is no need to maintain the server or the room holding it. There is no need to worry about licensing or configuration or installing patches. Someone else deals with all of those headaches. The solution is often cheaper too — especially if you don’t have a ton of data to store. The services usually charge by the byte. But the dangers, if there are any, are lying in the shadows. Does someone else have access to the data? Is the server protected from power surges, lightning storms, or floods? Is the data backed up to a trustworthy offsite location? You’ve got to trust the cloud provider on everything. Major cloud service providers Google, Microsoft, and Amazon offer a long list of database services. These days Oracle, MongoDB, and DataStax also make their databases available in the cloud. Artificial intelligence (AI) Some say that artificial intelligence is just a term for the latest generation of research that is just rolling out of the labs and into production. If so, there are a number of new products and solutions adorned with buzzwords like “machine learning” or “neural networks” or “deep learning.” They may not seem like a database, but you fill them with data and ask them questions. Why not? The good news from artificial intelligence solutions is that you don’t need to know what you’re looking for. You can just wave your hand and ask for something nebulous like “most interesting” or “closest.” There is no need for the right key, the infernal reference number that the customer service folks are always asking you to write down. The bad news is that you won’t know if you’ve gotten the right answer because you didn’t specify the question with any precision. Is that blog post really the most interesting? The biggest secret for Google’s success is that there is no absolute right answer. If you’re in the ball park no one can complain. The list of machine learning toolkits is almost too long to contemplate. You can always ask your favorite search engine for the “most interesting” AI. Blockchain The word blockchain may be tangled up with the complicated economics and politics of Bitcoin, but underneath all of the talk about currency is an extremely stable and practical distributed data store. Everyone has a chance to update the data in the long table and everyone gets to share in the answer. The big excitement is the fact that everyone shares in the same answers. It’s perfect for businesses that are frenemies. Some developers take this a bit further and talk about “smart contracts,” which is another way of saying that the bits in the database are trustworthy enough for people to base legal issues like ownership upon them. You can’t do that with a regular database, which can be tweaked by anyone with administrative privileges. There are weak points, though. Each user must maintain an encryption key because all transactions must be digitally signed. If that key gets lost or forgotten, the data in those rows is frozen forever. If that key gets stolen, well, all bets are off. The blockchain isn’t perfect, in other words, but it’s much more reliable than the standard model. R3, Ripple, and IBM are just three of the many competitors exploring the space. Many of the leading banks have their own internal projects. And then there are the Bitcoin and Altcoin companies themselves, which are also big parts of the ecosystem.

[creativesage]

(via Stories Can Change The World | HuffPost)

“People think in stories, communicate in stories, even dream in stories. If you want to get anything done in an organization, you need to know how to use story to move people.”  — Steve Denning

By Vala Afshar

The power of storytelling can make or break the success of your organization.  In today’s rapidly changing landscape, it is an imperative for success and a key element for any transformation, as Founder and Chief Catalyst of the Business Innovation Factory (BIF) Saul Kaplan reminds us, we live in a time that screams for transformation and the best we seem to come up with is tweaks. Nothing can be transformed without effective storytelling, Stories inspire us and catalyze us to act. Stories can create an emotional connection, generate the next big idea, reshape our most vital systems, or according to Saul, stories can change the world.

Saul (@skap5) knows from experience how powerful storytelling can be. BIF’s annual Collaborative Innovation Summit, #BIF2017 on September 13-14 in Providence, Rhode Island, has been doing just that for the past 13 years, bringing together innovators and changemakers from across the country and the world to share their personal stories of transformation. Why? The prerequisite for change starts with creating an emotional connection. Smart leaders know that today, tweaks aren’t enough in order to avoid being netflixed, obliterated by unsuspecting disruptive business models and that transformation starts with the human side of innovation.

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” ― Maya Angelou  

I asked Saul to tell us more about his philosophy, experience and work at BIF.  

Why is storytelling essential to transformation?

Storytelling is a BIF core value.  We believe that advancing our mission to enable system change in health care, education, and public services is critically dependant on our ability to create, package, and share stories from our community and our work. One of the first things I did while launching BIF, 13 years ago, was to create an Innovation Story Studio as a platform to integrate storytelling into everything we do. By openly sharing stories about the process and output of BIF’s work we are strengthening our community of innovators and becoming more purposeful with every new story. 

My good friend Alan Webber, Co-founder of FastCompany and #BIF2017 storyteller, once told me “Facts are facts, but stories are who we are, how we learn, and what it all means” and I think that holds true even today. Storytelling is an important tool, not only innovators, but for anyone seeking to enable transformative change. It’s the heart of what we do at BIF. It’s in our DNA. We believe that in order to transform our most vital systems in healthcare, government, and education, it’s imperative that we craft the right narrative and by sharing these change stories, we become more purposeful in our community of innovators and across our networks.

When we connect outside our normal silos, we build our network of capabilities and gain the most by experiencing change through the lens of others. Transformation requires omes an emotional connection to the work. When we feel involved, when we feel like we are an essential part of the story, only then do we begin to really see transformation start to happen.

What have you learned about the importance of storytelling and how to make it purposeful at the BIF Summit?

I will never forget meeting with my friend, mentor, and design icon Richard Saul Wurman (RSW) to get his advice prior to our first summit 13 years ago.  As an innovation junkie, it doesn’t get any better than having RSW as a mentor. He founded TED for heaven’s sake.  I went to the meeting prepared with an approach that I had worked on for weeks.  As a scientist and MBA, of course, I had a matrix, with speakers organized by theme.  RSW heard me out and could only shake his head saying, Saul, you have a lot to learn about how to create an emotional connection with an audience.  He patiently told me to throw away the matrix.  He said it was as simple as inviting people to a dinner party.  Ask speakers that you want to have dinner with to share a personal story that you are selfishly interested in and invite others to listen in.  RSW has been a storyteller at most of the BIF Summits over the years and I’m psyched that my friend will share the story of his latest book, Understanding Understanding at #BIF2017.  

“The best way to promote a new or different belief is not with facts, but with a story.” — @DaveGray, BIF Storyteller

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I love RSW for his advice.  That is exactly what we do.  No PowerPoint presentations, no matrix, just stories.  One glorious story after another in no particular order, from storytellers (not speakers) sharing personal and raw insights about what innovation means to them.  After about four stories back to back with no boring Q&A to break the rhythm we take a long break where all of the storytellers and participants can interact, connect, and share their own innovation stories and experiences.  No breakouts, flip charts, or prescriptive assignments.  It is up to the 500+ participants to decide what is compelling and which connections are most interesting and valuable. The most interesting collaborations every year come from enabling ‘random collisions of unusual suspects’ who find value in the gray area between their interests and disciplines. We call is making a RCUS!

Every year one of my favorite things to do is connect with each of the storytellers to discuss the upcoming summit and their stories.  I am almost through these calls for our upcoming summit, #BIF2017, on September 13-14.  Talk about a kid in a candy store.  To talk with each of these innovators is inspiring and a great joy.  Check out the #BIF2017 storytellers and you will see what I mean.  These innovators are asked to give speeches all of the time.  Many of them have written books and do speaking tours.  They all have PowerPoint presentations in the drawer and a stock speech they can give in their sleep, which they are not allowed to use at a BIF summit.  I always find our storyteller’s reactions interesting when they discuss preparations for sharing a story versus giving a speech.  They all say that it is far more interesting and challenging to tell a story than to give a speech.  Regardless of their fame on the speaking circuit, there is always trepidation in their voices when we discuss their stories.  Every storyteller over the years has said that they are excited to hear the stories from the other storytellers and will be glad when they are done sharing their own. That is why they take the gig.  It is a refreshing break from the grind of the speaking circuit.  Storytelling is harder but more personally rewarding.

The storytellers catalyze a reaction over the two days of the summit. Participants engage in colliding with the stories and each other to figure out what is relevant and meaningful to them. We don’t tell participants what their takeaways should be or prescribe what’s important. It’s up to the audience to decide what to share with their networks and what insights to act upon. Inspiration is personal and it’s up to participants to decide where it comes from, who to connect with, and how to emerge with a renewed sense of purpose. When our networks come together in random, unusual ways, that’s where the real magic happens.

Here is my story that I shared at BIF about being a first generation immigrant, being picked last and importance of earning the right to be picked. This was a scary and very emotional story for me to share.

How can storytelling shape the future and change the world?

Our BIF mantra is “Connect, Inspire, Transform”. It’s time to up the ante on Transform. Together we will catalyze something bigger than any of us separately. We can make reinvention safer and easier to manage. The connections we make and reinforce at #BIF2017 will provide the basis for us to collaborate and take action throughout the year, exploring and testing next practices, new business models and transformed social systems. Together, we need the courage to try more stuff, to leverage the power of storytelling, to shift perspectives to catalyze something bigger than ourselves.

“It’s time to go from tweaks to transformation. It’s time to make our self-organized networks more purposeful.  It’s up to us to become powerful storytellers to co-create the important societal changes we want to see in the world. A good story can change the world.” — Saul Kaplan

I agree with Kaplan, stories can change the world. Today’s business leaders must practice the art of storytelling in order to lead meaningful and long lasting business transformation. Here are 10 amazing BIF stories that are a must watch:

Whitney Johnson, Disrupt Yourself

Deb Mills-Scofield, Love and the Network in an I-Thou World

Kare Anderson, The Glue That Hold Others Together

Liza Donnelly, LIVE-Drawing What She Sees In The World

Irwin Kula, Religion As Tech Applying Innovation Theory to Making ‘Good People’

Angela Blanchard, Emerging After The Storm

Alex Osterwalder, What We Shape We Can Change

Dave Gray, Drawing Reality, Picturing A Future

John Hagel, How The Power of Narratives Fuels Movements

Walt Mossberg, A Watchdog For This Tech Revolution

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.” — Gilda Radner

[Entire post — click on the title link to read it at HuffPost.]

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Note from the Editor:

I’m attending the #BIF2017 Summit for the third year in a row, on September 13-14, 2017, in Providence, Rhode Island, because it’s such a great event, different than all other conferences, with its emphasis on experiential learning, dynamic storytellers from all industries and disciplines, and the unparalleled opportunities for RCUS — “Random Collisions with Unusual Suspects.” In addition to the inspiring storytellers, it’s a great opportunity to connect on a deeper level with the other Summit participants, across disciplines. I have always experienced deep personal growth and new insights as a result of attending the #BIF Summits, and have connected with new, dynamic people. Some of these connections have even resulted in the start of new projects, and new visions for making a difference in our world! 

But you should know that #BIF2017 is ALMOST SOLD OUT — it’s only two weeks away! So if you want to come join us this year you MUST register ASAP, at: http://www.businessinnovationfactory.com/summit/register?hsCtaTracking=cbf3c7e5-b316-41b0-bbe8-7bc9a81869b7%7C37ffe64a-0bff-41bd-918a-c3a999569f57

If you’re in the Providence, R.I. or Boston, Mass. area, and are unable to attend the entire Summit, come get a taste of #BIF and join us for a FREE #Innobeer at the Trinity Pub in Providence, on the evening of September 12th — here’s how to register for that event: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bif2017-innobeer-tickets-36201616008

We’ll look forward to meeting you at #Innobeer and/or #BIF2017! 

 — Cathryn Hrudicka, Founder/CEO/Chief Imagination Officer, Creative Sage™, and Co-Founder, Women Who Innovate

[drivenscene]

        The Chattanooga-built 2018 Volkswagen Atlas arrives with a full slate of available driver assistance and technology features, a massive interior and a choice of two powertrains.

The 2018 Volkswagen Atlas, unveiled on the Santa Monica Pier at the end of historic Route 66, launches a new chapter in the company’s American history. Built in Tennessee, the seven-passenger Atlas offers class-competitive levels of technology and spaciousness combined with hallmark Volkswagen driving dynamics and attention to detail, all at a price designed to draw customers’ attention in the family SUV segment.

“This is the biggest and boldest Volkswagen we have ever built in the United States, delivering the distinctive design and craftsmanship we’re known for, now with room for seven, ” said Hinrich J. Woebcken, CEO of the North America Region, Volkswagen. “The Atlas marks a brand new journey for Volkswagen to enter into the heart of the American market.”

Engineered from Volkswagen’s award-winning Modular Transverse Matrix (MQB) architecture, the Atlas draws on the latest Volkswagen design DNA to create a bold new look in the SUV segment. At 198.3 inches long, 77.9 inches wide, and 69.6 inches high, Atlas is larger than any other Volkswagen on sale in the U.S., yet it retains classic proportions and clean lines that create a sense of timelessness and precision. Up front, standard LED headlights and LED Daytime Running Lights combine for a unique visual signature, with optional LED taillights to complete the look.

Inside, the Atlas makes maximum use of its dimensions to offer space for seven adults and their luggage. The third-row can be easily reached by an innovative folding seat solution, one that works even with child seats installed in the second row. Simple, driver-centric displays enhance the feeling behind the wheel rather than distracting from it; while the available Volkswagen Digital Cockpit allows drivers to reconfigure how they view vehicle information.

The available Volkswagen Car-Net® system provides a full suite of connected vehicle services, including standard App-Connect technology that offers integration with the three major smartphone platforms—Apple CarPlay™, Android Auto™ and MirrorLink®. The vehicle also features an available Fender® Premium Audio System that is the most sophisticated yet seen in a Volkswagen, with 12 channels, a 480-watt amplifier and 12 speakers.

The Atlas offers available driver assistance features that had been previously been reserved for premium SUVs, at an affordable level. These include: Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC); Forward Collision Warning and Autonomous Emergency Braking (Front Assist); Blind Spot Monitor with Rear Traffic Alert; Lane Departure Warning (Lane Assist), which actively helps the driver steer the car back into its lane; and Parking Steering Assistant (Park Assist).

Also, the Atlas is the only vehicle in its class to offer the Automatic Post-Collision Braking System. This builds on the premise that a collision is rarely a single, instantaneous action, but rather a series of events that follow the initial impact—the most significant of which can cause additional collisions. The Automatic Post-Collision Braking System addresses this by applying the brakes when a primary collision is detected by the airbag sensors, thus helping reduce residual kinetic energy and, in turn, the chance of additional damage.

The Atlas arrives with a choice of two powertrains: the 2.0-liter turbocharged and direct-injection TSI® four cylinder with 235 horsepower or the available 3.6-liter VR6 engine with 276 horsepower. Either engine routes power through an eight-speed transmission to help maximize engine efficiency, and the Atlas can be configured either as front-wheel-drive or with available 4Motion all-wheel-drive in VR6 trims. The 4Motion system has a Driving Mode Selection feature that allows the driver to select specific parameters based on driving conditions. EPA fuel economy estimates will be released ahead of the launch in the Spring of 2017.

The Atlas is built alongside the Passat at the Volkswagen Chattanooga assembly plant, the result of an additional $900 million investment by Volkswagen in the facility. The Chattanooga plant is the only automotive manufacturing facility in the world to receive Platinum certification by the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) program.

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(source: Volkswagen)

Volkswagen Atlas : 2018 The Chattanooga-built 2018 Volkswagen Atlas arrives with a full slate of available driver assistance and technology features, a massive interior and a choice of two powertrains.