Dillon
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"He's probably a circus freak!"
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Post by Dillon on Jun 5, 2015 22:16:57 GMT
SOME WEATHER TERMS EXPLAINED June 5, 2015If you ever thought it was difficult to tell the difference between “partly cloudy” and “mostly sunny,” you’re not alone. Established by the National Weather Service (NWS) according to a loose set of rules, the criteria used to describe different elements of your forecast can be pretty vague. Sky conditions are classified according to how much “opaque cloud coverage” (OCC) is expected that day. While the NWS has apparently not defined “opaque clouds,” they are presumed to be those that can’t be seen through, or more technically, those that are “opaque to terrestrial radiation.”
To qualify as “Sunny,” there can be no more than 25% OCC. “Clear,” on the other hand is sometimes used as synonym for “Sunny,” but is only applied when there is no more than 5% OCC. “Mostly Clear,” which is also a synonym for “Sunny,” is used when there is between 6% and 25% OCC. “Mostly Sunny” and “Partly Cloudy” are apparently interchangeable, and apply when the OCC is between 26% and 50%.”Partly Sunny” and “Mostly Cloudy” can also be synonyms, when the OCC is between 51% and 69%, although “Mostly Cloudy” can be applied for OCC up to 87%. At an OCC of 88% and above, the sky is considered “Cloudy” or “Overcast.”
Note that when there is a “high probability” of precipitation (60% or more), many weather folks skip the sky condition forecast, since it may be inferred to be “Cloudy.” When forecasting the chance of precipitation, the NWS considers the likelihood that there will be at least 0.01 inches of precipitation at one place in the forecast area within (usually) a 12-hour period (called the probability of precipitation or POP).
Words used in the forecast, such as “chance of rain” and “likely,” as well as “isolated” and “scattered,” are considered either “expressions of uncertainty” or “qualifiers” (the last two denote that the entire area will not be affected), and they are tied to ranges of POPs. So, when the probability of precipitation (POP) is between 60% and 70%, the “uncertainty” is low and so the forecast may often include the word “likely,” while when the POP is only 20%, the “uncertainty” is higher, so the phrase “slight chance,” may be used. “Isolated” is used when the POP is between 10% and 29%, while “scattered” is used when the POP is between 30% and 59%. “Occasional,” “intermittent,” and “periods of,” denote a POP of greater than 79%, but also that the precipitation will be “on and off.”
When the forecast temperature is given in a range, it has a particular meaning, as well. For example, “near 40″ means the temperature is expected to be anywhere from 38ºF to 42ºF, “lower 40s” denotes anywhere from 40ºF to 44ºF, “mid 40s” from 43ºF to 47ºF and “upper 40s” from 46ºF to 49ºF. Wind terms are tied to specific ranges too, all related to “sustained wind speed” (SWS), and they can overlap. “Sustained wind” is defined as the average of observed wind speeds over a two-minute period. | |
“High,” “strong” and “damaging” winds are those expected to have SWS of at least 40 miles per hour (mph). “Very windy” denotes when SWS is between 30 and 40 mph, and “windy” between anywhere from 20 to 35 mph. When the SWS is between 15 and 25 mph, “breezy” is used when the weather is mild, and “brisk” or “blustery” are used when it is cold. “Calm” and “light” are used to denote SWS of 5 mph or less. Wind chill incorporates considerations of how much heat a human body will lose to the environment on a cold or windy day. Calculations are estimated at weather conditions at 5 feet above ground level (said to be the typical height of a human face), and begin when SWS reach 3 mph. The NWS provides a chart that shows wind chill for any temperature between 40F and -45F with winds between 5 mph and 60 mph, and it reveals that even a slight wind, with cold temperatures, can have a big effect on wind chill. For example, at 0F with only calm winds of 5 mph, the wind chill is -11F. Likewise, even when temperatures are relatively mild, say at 35F, if the winds are high, say 60 mph, it can make it feel about half the temperature it really is (17F). On the other hand, the heat index reflects the fact that when the humidity reaches a certain point, the perspiration on your skin can’t evaporate, you can’t cool down so easily, and so the apparent temperature feels hotter than it actually is. On that note, the NWS provides a heat index chart as well, which shows temperatures between 80F and 110F and relative humidity (RH) between 40% and 100%. Just as with wind chill, slight changes in a single variable can have a dramatic effect, and when both are high, the heat index becomes dangerous to human health. For example, at 90F and 40% RH, the heat index is only 91F, but if it’s soupy outside, say 95% RH, then the heat index shoots up to 127F.
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Dillon
Retired Staff
MOTM Sept '15; SOTY '15 Winner; BA Donator
"He's probably a circus freak!"
Join Date: Mar 13, 2015 20:08:37 GMT
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Last Online: Apr 23, 2024 22:51:34 GMT
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Post by Dillon on Jun 14, 2015 22:45:50 GMT
THE SECRET SOCIETY OF JOURNALISTS KNOWN AS THE ORDER OF THE OCCULT HAND June 8, 2015A running joke, a conspiracy, a challenge, a raspberry to authority and (at least formerly) an exclusive club, the members of the Order of the Occult Hand are those journalists who have successfully snuck the meaningless phrase “occult hand” past their editors and into published newspaper articles.
How did this all start? According to two of its founding fathers, Joseph Flanders and R.C. Smith, in the fall of 1965, a group of Charlotte News reporters, while purportedly enjoying a few alcoholic beverages, began to critique a recent piece written by their colleague, the aforementioned Joseph Flanders. Into a “complicated story of evil-doing,” Flanders had placed the phrase “It was as if an occult hand had reached down from above and moved the players like pawns upon some giant chessboard.”
One of the contingent supposedly teased, “Now that is what I call prose.”
From that point on “The Order of the Occult Hand” was formed and Flanders’ colleagues became committed to secreting the phrase into their work. According to founding father R.C. Smith, “virtually all succeeded.” And as they moved on to other papers, word spread, and the Order grew. | |
One of the Order’s early evangelists was Jay Sharbutt, who had picked up the “occult hand” while in Boston and joined the Order in 1978 (when he put it in an article published by the Associated Press). Not long after, he moved to The Los Angeles Times, and in 1983 Sharbutt told several Times reporters about it. These Los Angeles Times reporters were among the most successful with getting the phrase into their publication, putting it into stories in 1983, 1985, 1989 and 1994, as well as eight times between 1996 and 1998. In 1999, it was even placed into a story of President Clinton’s impeachment. The “occult hand” has also appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe (9 times between 1987 and 2000) and The Washington Times (4 times between 1996 and 1998). At least four of its manifestations in The Boston Globe came from M.R. “Monty” Montgomery. As a master of the Order, Monty seamlessly placed the phrase with sentences like “If a president of Harvard ever intervenes in something like a promotion or a course outline, it is well disguised, the work of an occult hand.” So how do we know about this “secret” society today? Information about the Order had been published at various times over the years, including by former president of the American Journalism Review and dean of the University of Maryland’s journalism school, Reese Cleghorn (who had learned of the Order while working in Boston in the 1970s). Cleghorn wrote two columns about it, and as a result, he received letters from Joseph Flanders and R.C. Smith detailing the Order’s origins (as relayed above). In more recent years, the Order has become less popular, although the “occult hand” continues to pop-up occasionally, including in weather coverage (Mark Lane of the Daytona Beach News-Journal 2006), entertainment editorials (Don Kaplan of the New York Daily News 2013), political stories (Chase Purdy in The Roanoke Times 2013), and even student sports reporting (Michael Cheiken for the University of Chicago’s Chicago Maroon 2014). On the other hand, many former Order members have moved on to other challenges. Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Greenberg, Order member six times over, wrote in 2006 that because of the exposé on the topic and “the lazy types who threw the magic phrase into their copy so artlessly [that it] . . . gave the whole conspiracy away,” he was giving up on the “occult hand,” in lieu of a new phrase. With the criteria that it had to be “bad enough to be spotted by the cognoscenti but likely to get past the casual copyreader,” Greenberg and other Order members considered (and presumably rejected) phrases such as “like a soft, warm weird breeze blowing aimlessly through the palms,” and “hanging over the scene like a shroud.” They eventually settled on a phrase currently unknown to the public, and as of 2006, there were supposedly 11 “certified members” into the new secret Order.
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Dillon
Retired Staff
MOTM Sept '15; SOTY '15 Winner; BA Donator
"He's probably a circus freak!"
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Post by Dillon on Jun 14, 2015 22:46:42 GMT
A VIOLINIST AND THE DEVIL June 9, 2015At the height of his fame and fortune, Niccolò Paganini, arguably the greatest violinist ever to live, was both the toast, and the bane, of Europe. Considered by most a musical genius, by some a musical god and by others, the Devil’s minion, Paganini’s virtuosity, appearance and bearing had some believing his skill could only come after he had made a pact with the Devil.
The Devil’s Violinist was born on October 27, 1782, in Genoa, Italy. It is said that Paganini’s mother had her heart set on him becoming a famous violinist, and from this, a rumor later arose that she had made a deal with the Devil, trading her son’s soul for the chance to be the greatest in history.
Whatever the case, Paganini began training on the mandolin at age 5 and the violin by age 7, both under the instruction of his father. He played his first public performance at age 11, in Genoa, and by age 13 he was sent to study with famous violinist and teacher Alessandro Rolla. Yet when he arrived, Rolla reportedly decided Paganini’s skills were such that there was nothing he could teach him. Instead, he referred him to his own teacher, Ferdinando Paer. Again, because of his abilities, he was after a short period passed off to Paer’s teacher, Gasparo Ghiretti.
Two years later, at the age of 15, Paganini began playing solo tours, but within a year had a breakdown and succumbed to alcoholism. (Besides supposedly being in league with the Devil, throughout his lifetime he was known as a heavy gambler, drinker, and shameless womanizer.) He recovered and after a stint as the court violinist for Princess Elisa Baciocchi (Napoleon’s sister), he once again toured Europe.
Unparalleled as a performer in his era, Paganini was one of the first major violinist to choose to publicly perform various works without sheet music, going strictly on memorizing the works. Freed from standing in front of sheets of music, Paganini flailed about the stage, contorting his body as he danced his exceptionally long and thin fingers across the instrument, earning him the nickname “Rubber Man.”
This has all today caused many to speculate he may have dually suffered from Marfan’s Syndrome (accounting for his physique and long fingers capable of playing three octaves in a hand span) and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (accounting for his supposed extreme flexibility). He is also reported to have been able to play at the lighting speed of 12 notes per second.
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Paganini’s genius, however, wasn’t limited to performance and traditional violinist skills. He also helped popularize certain techniques common today, including bouncing the bow on the strings as well as plucking the strings with his left hand. He even purposely sometimes mis-tuned the strings when it made a particular piece easier to play. He also heavily experimented with using harmonics in his music, as can be heard here. Paganini, himself, presented a striking figure. He was tall and remarkably thin, with hollow cheeks, very long fingers, pale skin, “flaming eyes” and “thin lips that held a sardonic smile.” He also often dressed in all black for performances. Together with his virtuosity, and the fact that the violin had long been considered the “Devil’s instrument,” by the time one half-crazed fan at a concert in Vienna claimed he saw the Devil helping Paganini play, the other patrons only had to look at him to be convinced. After this, reports of Paganini doppelgangers, either sitting with his audiences or hovering by his side during a performance (sometimes with the addition of horns, hooves, tail and red clothes) became common. By one dubious report, the Devil even once caused lightning to strike the free end of Paganini’s bow during a performance. Paganini had always been sickly, suffering from a variety of ailments throughout his life including syphilis in 1822 which was treated with mercury, causing other health issues. In 1834, he was also diagnosed with tuberculosis, though recovered. However, by later 1834, at the age of 54, he had lost the stamina to play and retired from public performance. In increasingly poor health, Paganini primarily spent his last years teaching, including for a brief period instructing famed Polish violinist Apollinaire de Kontski. Paganini ultimately died in Nice, France on May 27, 1840. His death only fanned the flames of his supposed pact with the Devil. You see, shortly before his death, Paganini turned away a priest who had come to perform the last rites. His refusal is reportedly because he felt he wasn’t about to die and the whole thing was premature, though of course the rumor-mill had other ideas for the reasoning behind his refusal. He died approximately a week after this without ever receiving last rites. This, combined with his long-rumored association with the Devil, resulted in the local church refusing to bury his body on consecrated ground, despite Paganini being a member of the Order of the Golden Spur, having been granted that honor by Pope Leo XII in 1827. Whatever the rumors said, after four years, Pope Gregory XVI allowed his body to initially be transported to Genoa and it was ultimately laid to rest in La Villetta Cemetery in Parma, Italy, some 200 or so kilometers from his birth place of Genoa, where it remains to this day.
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Dillon
Retired Staff
MOTM Sept '15; SOTY '15 Winner; BA Donator
"He's probably a circus freak!"
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Post by Dillon on Jun 14, 2015 22:47:35 GMT
THE LEGENDARY TOILETS OF SINGAPORE AND THE FLUSHING LAW June 10, 2015Over the years the city of Singapore has been described by many as one of the cleanest on Earth with roads and toilets being “clean enough to eat off“, which is perhaps to be expected from a city where it’s illegal not to flush a public toilet.
The reason why toilets in Singapore are so insanely clean can be traced back to the work of Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first and arguably most popular prime minister. Kuan Yew rose to power in 1959 and continued to serve as Singapore’s leader for 31 years until he decided to step down in 1990. When Singapore became an independent nation in 1965, Kuan Yew is noted as being instrumental to the the small city-state being able to so quickly transform itself from being a “poor port from the bottom rungs of the third world” to being one of the most profitable and prosperous economies on the planet.
Kuan Yew accomplished this through a series of reforms aimed at making the country an overall nicer place to live including:
- Enacting legislation to make prosecuting corrupt officials easier as well as “relentlessly pursuing” corruption wherever he encountered it.
- Paying civil servants decent wages to ensure the jobs would be tempting to Singapore’s best and brightest and giving them bonuses based on how well the Singapore’s economy does on a yearly basis.
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- Inviting foreign corporations to set up shop in his country to create reliable employment for his citizens and foster international relations.
- Establishing the Housing and Development Board to help house residents without homes into newly built apartments. Further, unlike most nation’s public housing, Singapore’s is quite nice, places people actually want to live.
- Drafting legislation to plant tress and clean up the cities waterways and rivers which were notably filthy. Kuan Yew was so serious about making Singapore cleaner, he famously promised that if his dream wasn’t a reality by 1986 and he was still in charge, that he’d personally hunt down whomever was responsible for the failure and shoot them. Because he wasn’t playing around.
- Creating the Water Planning Unit, which was tasked with helping the country become less dependent on water from Malaysia, which was threatening to cut off their water supply after Singapore gained independence. This initiative, like so many others he enacted, was a resounding success, with Time magazine later calling Singapore “the global paragon of water conservation.” In fact, their system is so efficient that they even can, and do, process non-potable waste-water into high-purity drinking water.
[/i] [/ul] By far Kuan Yew’s most infamous policies though were his incredibly strict rules in regards to public cleanliness, most if not all of which carry hefty fines if you’re caught breaking them. For example, not flushing a public toilet is considered a crime in Singapore and if you’re caught flouting it, you will be given an on the spot fine of about 150 dollars, more if you’re a repeat offender. Likewise, littering carries an equally heavy fine of about 300 dollars or more, depending on the size of the item. Smaller items like candy wrappers usually incur a lesser fine, whilst things like soda cans can net you a trip to court and even a caning if you’re caught. Kuan Yew’s biggest bugbear, however, was chewing gum; he hated it with such a passion that since the 1990s, gum has been outright banned in the country. This was later (partially) repealed in 2004 and gum is now okay to be brought into the country in small quantities and dentists are allowed to prescribe it for certain medical conditions. While this may seem a tad extreme, Kuan Yew’s annoyance with gum chewing wasn’t without precedent. You see, prior to the ban in 1992, the government was spending upwards of 150,000 dollars a year to clean it up and vandals were using it to disrupt the sensors on the country’s newly built subway trains, stopping their doors from shutting and in the process causing huge delays. After the ban, cases of such gum littering plummeted and the associated costs of cleaning it up dropped to negligible levels. If you’re wondering how exactly Singapore enforces these dozens of laws, it’s mostly accomplished using hundreds of undercover police officers who have the power to issue on the spot fines to anyone seen flouting them. Officers are known to check toilets after they’ve been used and even install security cameras if they receive multiple complaints on a particular toilet, to catch offenders in the act. Perhaps our favourite Singapore cleanliness fact is that many of Singapore’s elevators have “Urine Detection Devices” which will lock the doors of an elevator and summon the police to your location to arrest you if it detects that you’re relieving yourself in one. All of this may seem excessive, but the results really speak for themselves; today, Singapore is largely considered one of the world’s leading economies and the city itself is one of the most industrious, safe, clean, nicest to live and richest on Earth. In fact, Singapore is currently enjoying 16 consecutive years on the top spot of the “world’s most livable cities“, and is also generally considered the world’s best city for businesses. Not bad for a place that was up until about 50 years ago or so described as a “ swampy land mass“.
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Dillon
Retired Staff
MOTM Sept '15; SOTY '15 Winner; BA Donator
"He's probably a circus freak!"
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Post by Dillon on Jun 14, 2015 22:48:27 GMT
THE TRUTH ABOUT KENNEDY AND THE JELLY-FILLED DOUGHNUT June 12, 2015Myth: John F. Kennedy blundered in one of his most famous speeches, saying in German “I am a jelly-filled doughnut” instead of what he meant (in the figurative sense) “I am a person from Berlin”.
As German professor Reinhold Aman stated about this:“Ich bin ein Berliner means ‘I am a Berliner’ or ‘a male person/native of Berlin’ and absolutely nothing else! … No intelligent native speaker of German tittered in Berlin when J.F.K. spoke, just as no native speaker of German, or one who does know this language, would titter if someone said, ‘Ich bin ein Wiener’, or Hamburger or Frankfurter.” Yet another linguist, Jürgen Eichhoff, in his paper covering the misconception stated, “‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ is not only correct, but the one and only correct way of expressing in German what the President intended to say.”
The fact that this is a myth shouldn’t be a surprise to many because if “Ich bin ein Berliner” had been interpreted, “I am a jelly-filled doughnut”, it likely would have been major comedic news at the time. The reality was, though, that the first known record of anyone interpreting it as such wasn’t until 1983, in the novel Berlin Game, 20 years after the speech was made: | A Berliner Doughnut |
‘Ich bin ein Berliner,’ I said. It was a joke. A Berliner is a doughnut. The day after President Kennedy made his famous proclamation, Berlin cartoonists had a field day with talking doughnuts. In a review of the book, the New York Times decided to take this statement as true, even though the book is a fictional novel and no such cartoonists’ works from that time seem to actually exist. Since then, this common misconception has made its rounds through various major news organizations, including CNN, the BBC, and Time Magazine, among many others. You’ll even occasionally hear native English speaking German language instructors spread this myth, but you won’t hear a native German speaker interpreting the statement as such. The misconception primary stems from Kennedy’s use of the indefinite article “ein”, rather than saying just “Ich bin Berliner”, as well as the fact that a “Berliner” is also known, mainly in far western parts of Western Germany at the time, as the name of a certain type of pastry created in Berlin around the 16th century. Of course, a Berliner is also someone who is from or lives in Berlin. Those from Berlin more commonly called that type of pastry a Berliner Pfannkuchen (“Berlin pancake”) or just Pfannkuchen. Besides the fact that the person who translated that line for Kennedy, Robert Lochner, grew up in Berlin and was the one time Chief U.S. German interpreter in Western Germany, Kennedy also practiced the speech several times beforehand, including in front of other native German speakers, such as Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt, who saw no problem with the wording because his use of “ein” is actually correct in this context. Had he said “Ich bin Berliner”, he would have been saying he was literally a citizen of Berlin, which isn’t true at all, nor the sentiment he was trying to express (more or less, “I was not born here and do not live here, but I am one of you.”) Because he was speaking metaphorically, adding the indefinite article “ein”, “Ich bin ein Berliner” made that explicit. So to be doubly clear, including or excluding the “ein” here is the difference between “I am (literally) from Berlin” vs. “I am (like someone) from Berlin.” Now because he was speaking figuratively, it is possible to interpret his “Ich bin ein Berliner” as “I am a jelly-filled doughnut”; the problem of course is context, which is always important in interpreting language. In this famous speech, he used that “Ich bin ein Berliner” statement twice, as follows: Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was ‘civis Romanus sum’ [‘I am a Roman citizen’]. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is “Ich bin ein Berliner!”… All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words “Ich bin ein Berliner!” (full text of the speech here) In neither case was he speaking of food and given he was a human being and the explicit reference he was making, nobody interpreted him as saying “I am a jelly-filled doughnut”, just as no one would interpret a person saying “I am a New Yorker” as meaning they are a magazine, burrito, or a town car. The speech itself was meant to show support for the people of Berlin after the construction of the Berlin Wall and with the threat the USSR posed to them. And contrary to what you’ll read in that original New York Times editorial covering this supposed gaff, no one laughed when he said it. Rather, some 400,000+ people strong cheered. You can watch the full speech below and see for yourself:
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thyarchery
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Post by thyarchery on Jun 15, 2015 23:40:23 GMT
^I had never heard that. Anyways,his previous reference to the famous Roman sentence leaves little room to misinterpretation in my opinion. That being said, I just cannot miss this opportunity to point out what a great politician and speaker he was. So much that they needed a bullet to defeat him.Another thing that has also stranded out to me is that at least a very large part of the crowd seemed to understand him perfectly. It's widely known that the Germans have always been a very learned people, even during their darkest times, but it's still striking to me. I can't imagine something similar in my own country now.
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