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ISA Interchange

Welcome to the official blog of the International Society of Automation (ISA).

This blog covers numerous topics on industrial automation such as operations & management, continuous & batch processing, connectivity, manufacturing & machine control, and Industry 4.0.

The material and information contained on this website is for general information purposes only. ISA blog posts may be authored by ISA staff and guest authors from the automation community. Views and opinions expressed by a guest author are solely their own, and do not necessarily represent those of ISA. Posts made by guest authors have been subject to peer review.

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Electromechanical vs Digital: Time to Make the Switch?

This post was written by Wil Chin, vice president of marketing and business development at United Electric Controls, and Rick Frauton, a senior product marketing manager at United Electric Controls.

A typical process plant might have anywhere from 100 to 1,000 mechanical switches installed, performing functions ranging from controlling hard alarms, permissive and interlock circuits, blowers, and fans to emergency shutdown.

Some of these switches, however, may be nearing the end of their useful lives or taking up operating space that might be filled by more productive contributors to plant control, process efficiency, and safety. Here are eight criteria to consider when determining whether it is time to upgrade switching assets.

Operational visibility

Electromechanical switches are a low-cost alternative for process and safety applications, but are essentially blind. Unless tested on a regular basis, there is no way to determine when problems exist, and given their age and number of moving parts, there could be many. Sensors crack, pistons stick, and microswitch contacts wear out without warning. The only way to diagnose such problems is to remove the switch from service for bench testing, which leaves the control or safety function unprotected. Some plant operators tried to add visibility by integrating gauges into the design, but these can add unnecessary leak paths.

Newer digital switch designs incorporate liquid crystal displays (LCDs), presenting local process variable measurements and integrated internal diagnostics, monitoring the health of the device. The addition of LCDs and device diagnostics increases uptime and improves overall plant safety. At a glance, operators can see what is happening. Upgrading to these smart switches reduces the number of installed components and fittings, resulting in more dependable process monitoring. The comprehensive diagnostic coverage of safety-integrity-level- (SIL) certified digital switches can identify 98.8 percent of all the potential failures of the device. This allows maintenance to reduce or completely forgo routine inspection rounds that can leave devices inoperable due to human error, and it reduces cost.

Mechanical switches require delicate adjustments to achieve desired set points. Deadband adjustments are either limited or nonexistent in mechanical designs. Adjustability varies significantly, depending on the control’s design, making these adjustments across different switch models and vendors difficult and cumbersome. Even after careful adjustment, set point and deadband settings are prone to drift due to ambient and process temperature changes.

Maintaining instruments requires removal from service and bench calibration, often without installation and instruction documentation. Tracking down such documentation from the manufacturer can be frustrating and time consuming, and the whole process is subject to human error. Premature failure has been linked to mishandling by inexperienced technicians. Today’s generation of electronic switches offers digital adjustability, which can reduce setup and programming time to seconds. A local keypad and LCD provide a user interface for programming switch set points instantly and easily, without a calibrated pressure source or having to remove the instrument from the process.

Deadband and set point are now 100 percent adjustable, allowing these digital switches to provide precise on-off control in a number of applications where mechanical switches would not be suitable. High cycle rates are not an issue for digital switches that have no moving parts. With the increased reliability and easy adjustability, operators are no longer required to stock redundant devices in case one fails in the field. Users now have the flexibility of programming one switch to match many different process requirements.

Industrial process plants are pushing pressure and temperature limits to new boundaries in an effort to stay competitive in a global market. Many of the systems designed 20 years ago were not intended to run at the current process extremes, and it is only a matter of time before some of their systems fail. In response to this reality, manufacturers are implementing safety instrumented systems (SISs) to protect the process, people, and environment.

A SIS includes sensors that detect changes in process variables that indicate potential danger, computational logic solvers (including safety programmable logic controllers [PLCs] and trip alarm/amplifiers that interpret the level of the danger), and switches that activate valves, blowers, and other elements that must be run in proper sequence to mitigate any disaster. A modern SIS requires a switching functionality that matches the required system performance level while also being fault tolerant. These must be evaluated by third-party agencies to verify the level of safety integrity.

These new SIS implementations do not deploy mechanical switches due to the lack of proven-in-use data and valid failure modes and effects diagnostics analysis data. One cost-effective alternative is a hybrid transmitter that integrates the functionality of a switch, a transmitter, and a logic solver in one unit. The switch portion provides a direct digital output (relay output) to a final element, which instantly brings a process to a safe state in a critically abnormal situation. And the analog transmitter signal can be used for trending to determine the health of the device and the process. A hybrid transmitter-switch can be certified as an integrated unit, eliminating any reliability issues introduced by connecting independent transmitters, logic solvers, and switches on site.

Mechanical switches are also used in critical control applications such as compressors and turbines. These applications may not have safety requirements, but SIL reliability is still valuable for maintaining uptime. Depending on the scope and complexity of the application, the hybrid transmitter-switches mentioned above could also be a valuable upgrade in these situations. Because the sensing, logic solving, and switching functionality are integrated into one pretested unit, they deliver the higher reliability required and are less susceptible to human error.

Protection in hazardous environments

Many critical control applications are in tough environments that include high levels of mechanical shock, vibration, heat, and pressure. Vibration, for example, is one of the leading causes of electromechanical switch failure. Most mechanical switch designs have a plunger to activate a microswitch.

High shock and vibration conditions can cause fluctuation in the plunger position, which can lead to false trips. New solid-state, digital switches have no moving parts. They can be mounted directly to the equipment or process without adverse effects from vibration. Industry-leading turbine manufacturers and end users operating large compressors in petrochemical plants have better reliability and fewer false trips with digital switches compared to the old mechanical switch designs.

Power utilization

Most pressure switches sold over the past 80 years were designed to operate without electric power. They did this by incorporating a sensor that measures pressure by placing force on a plunger that actuates a microswitch. In areas where shock and vibration are limited and ambient temperatures remain constant, mechanical switches are a simple method of monitoring process pressures and temperatures.

During their initial installation—plant wiring did not include provisions to power field instruments because it was not required—two wires connected to a distributed control system, PLC, or annunciator panel were all that was needed to provide an on-off signal. Modern digital switching technology can now use the same two wires by using a small amount of leakage current obtained from a host device, such as a PLC. This allows electronic switches to be drop-in replacements for the old mechanical switches, providing a cost-effective upgrade path.

Response time

Without question, electromechanical switches are faster than process transmitters in their response time to a process upset. Transmitters must perform numerous conversions, computations, compensations, and other tasks to get an accurate signal. Even today’s high-speed processors cannot match the instantaneous reactions from a mechanical device, which can exceed 5 milliseconds, compared with the fastest process transmitters, which have typically ranged between 300–500 milliseconds. Adding a digital protocol such as HART only exacerbates this issue.

New transmitters are getting faster, however, and could be fast enough for most applications. Transmitters designed for safety functions, for example, can be faster than 250 milliseconds. Newer hybrid transmitter-switches can react in 100 milliseconds or less. If your application requires fast response, such as in positive displacement pumps and turbine trip for over-speed protection, consider hybrid transmitter-switches over process transmitters.

To meet the higher performance demands of modern process plants, some manufacturers routinely replace mechanical switches with process transmitters. They do so because of perceived advantages such as access to solid-state digital electronics, programmability, elimination of moving parts, self-diagnostics, digital display, no drift, and set-and-forget capabilities. Process transmitters do not provide the switching function directly, however.

The PLC must be programmed to interpret the transmitter’s analog signal to provide the switching function. In addition to requiring additional PLC programming and new analog I/O to replace the discrete I/O, replacing the mechanical switches with conventional process transmitters can get expensive. The average process transmitter, for example, can cost more than $2000. So for a hypothetical process plant with 100 to 1000 switches installed, upgrading all switches to conventional transmitters could cost up to $1.5 million.
More importantly, the designing, planning, purchasing, rewiring, and reprogramming necessary when upgrading to transmitters can take more time than a routine shutdown turnaround would allow. Subsequently, old legacy systems remain in place beyond their useful lives, leaving plants vulnerable to accidents. Such investment may be warranted if some of the smart capabilities of the new transmitters are required.

However, if the intention is to replace mechanical switches with the latest in process and safety monitoring, an $800 hybrid transmitter—in which the sensing device, logic solver, and relay are factory integrated into a single, safety-certified chassis—would be much more economical and better suited for the task. In addition to the lower price, hybrid transmitters require no wiring or programming or control logic changes at the PLC and use the same two wires from the old mechanical switch, reducing the amount of downtime required for switch replacement.

Switch strategy

Where wiring, speed of response, and cost are primary drivers for a plant upgrade, mechanical switches may still be a good solution. Mechanical switch technology has improved as a response to some of the issues outlined in this article. Piston, Belleville washer, and bellows designs have been optimized for the needs of high-vibration applications. And do not forget that mechanical switches still perform their function even when power is completely lost.

For example, a diesel pump removing damaging flood waters from an overflowing canal is expected to continue running after the lights go out. Mechanical switches employed to monitor functions such as lubrication oil pressure and temperature can still provide emergency shut down protection for the pump without power. But if you are looking for greater visibility, adjustability, safety, uptime, and integration, it is time to switch mechanical switches for digital switches. In doing so, one consideration is whether you need SIL reliability for safety or critical control applications.
Another is whether you need the diagnostic and other capabilities of a smart transmitter, requiring complex I/O connections and PLC programming, or whether you just need basic switching functionality. If diagnostics and multiple outputs are essential, you may want to deploy a smart transmitter running HART, FOUNDATION Fieldbus, or other smart protocol and pay the freight. If, however, you only want the transmitter for simple safety or critical control sensing and switching, you can save thousands of dollars by implementing a SIL 2 approved hybrid transmitter, which functions as a sensor, a logic solver, and a switch for the final element. In the end, you may conclude that your mechanical switches are just fine as they are.
But advances in switching might warrant another look. It requires thinking about switches and industrial switching in a different way, but it could pay off in cost savings, performance, and safety functionality.

About the Author
Wil Chin is vice president of marketing and business development at United Electric Controls in Watertown, Mass. Prior to that he was a research director for the ARC Advisory Group, covering asset performance management, condition monitoring, plant asset management, field devices, control valves, communication protocols, and wireless technology. He has also held technical and marketing positions at Krohne and Foxboro (now part of Schneider Electric). He has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Northeastern University and a master’s degree in business administration from Bryant College.

Connect with Wil

About the Author
Rick Frauton is senior product marketing manager at United Electric Controls, where he is responsible for the One Series safety transmitter product line. Previously he held technical marketing positions at Polaroid Corporation. He has an associate’s degree in electromechanical technology/electromechanical engineering technology from North Shore Community College and a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Northeastern University.

Connect with Rick

A version of this article also was published at InTech magazine

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Manage Line Separators in IntelliJ IDEA 12.1 Like a Boss

As we mentioned before the latest release of IntelliJ IDEA comes with better management for line separators.

The information about the line separators type used in the currently opened file is available now in the status bar.

Not a big surprise that it is possible to change the type of line endings for the current file via this control.

You can also perform a bulk change. Just select a target file or a directory in the project view and choose new separator via Main Menu → File → Line Separator.

Please feel free to share your feedback on this feature on our discussion forum or submit bug reports to the issue tracker.

Develop with Pleasure!

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text:
We blossom and flourish

We blossom and flourish
As leaves on a tree
And wither and perish
But naught changeth Thee.

What is it about this (half-)verse that so resonates? It won’t be the religion, I don’t do religion and it only comes in at the end. It will be in part that it’s been there in my awareness since schooldays, and all those gruesome assemblies where we stood up while masters came in, sat down, stood up, prayed, sat down, were talked at, stood up, sang, (or muttered, in my case), sat down, were lectured at, stood up, prayed, sat down, stood up, masters went out. Fifteen minutes a day, every schoolday for five years. But you wouldn’t think that would engender much affection, though there is something about this hymn being musically so simple, even I could sing it. (I was never a singer: quietly removed from school choir at age seven.) I sing it occasionally now, early in the morning on the beach, when I’m sure nobody is in earshot.

No, it must be the language. The words are all basic, old words of English. No prefixes, suffixes, long words, imports. The four verbs: blossom, flourish, wither, perish: four ancient words of English for four fundamental processes of life. The sentence structure: subject and intransitive verb, four times over: as basic as it gets, connected by and, the simplest conjunction. One simile, again, of unanswerable directness.   The plain, pure rhythm; the plain, pure rhyme.

Thank you, Walter Smith. For when I use language, this is a model for how I want to use it.

14 thoughts on “We blossom and flourish”

  1. Beautiful, so beautiful, yet again Adam.

    I’ve just returned from a cognitive science event at SFU, where we celebrated our CogSci Manager whose loss in a restructuring we concurrently morned. The passion that was expressed for the manager (Shamina Senaratne) and our cognitive science program verged on religious experience, so touched were we by Shamina’s work and personhood and by what cognitive science stands for (e.g., its pluralism). But it wasn’t religious either. This all goes to show that religion doesn’t own spirituality. Humanity does. For humanists like myself anyway. And humanists can be spiritual. We can discover, kindle, and nourish spirituality. Spirituality, to me, is a kind of awe. And you’ve illustrated here, Adam, that we can turn our gaze on spiritual experience itself and be in awe of the awe we feel when our friend, our brother in humanity, shares pictures such as you shared this morning, shared words that you shared above –words of wisdom, and wise words about words of wisdom–, and share the journey we are all on, which we are sharing remotely, separately, but together, on this blog.

    For others who are reading I will note that I met Adam at “COGS” (the school of cognitive science) of Sussex University. I have in my hands a paper Adam wrote for the 1991 COGS students conference (“The Fourth White House Papers”) . The paper is “When can we predict the senses a word has from its semantic Class?” (A proposal for an empirical study). Adam, you wrote in the summary of that paper “For much of the vocabulary of English, the norm is for words and their meanings to defy neat classification”. And so does our affect , our awe, and that hymn, I think.

  2. within seconds, i was singing the hymn in my head as well… yes, musical and linguistic simplicity is part of its memorableness…
    there is also a magical power in many human voices singing the same song… weaving, fieldworking, around campfires, at parties, in concerts (pop or proms), etc etc? :)

  3. It would appear that the Thee at the end of this verse is the Christian god. Which I (as a devout agnostic) would say diminishes it. However, even we agnostics believe in some kind of eternal verity. It is just that we see it as human, not divine. On the beach at crack of dawn I might be tempted to sing this (from The Incredible String band) on Adam’s behalf:
    May the long time sun shine on you
    All love surround you
    And the pure light within you
    Guide your way on

  4. Hi,
    John picked one of my all-time favourite songs but I think the last line is ‘Guide you all the way on’ – a great wish for anyone. Thanks Adam for the link to the original lyrics which made me realise that the hymn from my childhood had been changed with the last two verses chopped and put together. As far as I remember the hymn ended ‘Tis only the splendour of light hideth Thee.’ I wonder why certain lines were edited out? Perhaps the lines referring to the heart were too personal? It’s a shame as I quite like the balancing of ‘veil’ and ‘vile’. I came back to faith later in life (very unfashionably) and so the reference to ‘fountains of goodness and love’ is precious to me. Charles Wesley has to be my favourite hymn writer.

  5. On John’s point, it is certainly a hymn (first line is Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise), but there is nothing distinctively Christian in it – at least, not in the versions that turn up in the hymn books now. Rather the sentiment is pantheistic (“To all life Thou givest, to both great and small/ In all life Thou livest, the true life of all”), and the characteristics that it attributes to God are ones that would be recognised by Jews and Moslems just as much as Christians (and quite possibly by Buddhists and Hindus too). It’s a favourite at religious occasions that are trying not to embarrass anyone (and none the worse for that).

    But Adam, I wonder if you underrate the importance of the tune in keeping the words lodged in your memory. I find it almost impossible to recite the words without singing them; the words and tune are simply inseparable. The characteristics you identify in the language – simple, basic, pure – are just as true of the tune, and they reinforce each other. Would you remember the words if you had not sung them?

    1. That inseparability (did I just coin that word ?) of the lyric and the music certainly applies to the song from The Incredible String Band. I can hear the music in my head as I type this. The title of the song is A Very Cellular Song and I have it on an LP compilation that seems not to have resurfaced on CD. I don’t know about digital sources of music, I could barely cope with how small a CD is compared to an LP. My first source of music I have not heard but may not want to buy is YouTube.

      1. I am not at all familiar with this song but I am with the thoughts. But your blog reminds me of my own story. It took me years to throw off the shackles of the Catholic indoctrination I grew up with. I went through a crisis of realisation that the spirit world is everywhere. I found Jung’s psychology something of my new home as it gave me a structure to understand my experience. The experience of my own unconscious, partly through my dreams (during sleep), was enlightening. I believe the divine is within each one of us. Jesus was a person who had a strong realisation of that. Probably Mohammed, Buddha etc also had that realisation. That brings a certain surreal-ness (is there such a word?), awe, wonder and ……… Communion?

        1. Did you see the clip on YouTube of Stephen Fry’s recent (1 February) interview by Gay Byrne on Irish television, where Stephen articulates his reasons for atheism? And Russell Brand’s response? Two articulations of serious philosophies. Never thought I would identify more with Russell than with Stephen, but I did!!

  6. Hi Adam – your poem resonated with me, especially the points about the simplicity of the language and the staunch Anglo-Saxonness of the vocab. Just last week I was teaching stylistics analysis to students through the hymn Morning Has Broken, written in 1931 by the children’s author Eleanor Farjeon (not Cat Stevens). Very beautiful hymn, in spite of the religiosity. My students were worried about having to write 2500 words about a poem in their next assignment. I managed to write 2500 just about the first 4 lines of the Morning Has Broken, and I hadn’t even got started. It’s very complex actually, and yet very simple, and very Anglo-Saxon (though a few foreign words creep in).
    Best, James

  7. Hi Adam. I’m enjoying all your posts but this one spoke to me particularly strongly.
    Those assemblies (and in my case, long sessions at church every Sunday as well) were tedious, true, but one thing they left us with was a store of wonderful language.
    All the very best

  8. Ladies and Gentlemen, I crave your indulgence
    Verse has become a presence on Adam’s blog
    Through songs rather than poems

    Numerous references to the approach of summer and Adam’s own reference to his semi-retired lifestyle called to mind this, from Shakespeare, doubtless set to music by many but memorably for me by Donovan :

    Who doth ambition shun
    And loves to live i’ the sun,
    Seeking the food he eats
    And pleased with what he gets—
    Come hither, come hither, come hither!
    Here shall he see
    No enemy
    But winter and rough weather.

    In the play another character sings another verse to negate the above sentiments, but I won’t go there

    Even throwaway pop can carry the message :

    Don’t it make you feel good to be alive
    When the sun’s beating down and there’s no more nine-to-five

    This is from Jacki Whitren, in farewell to her mother when she went to Australia to live with Jaki’s brother :

    Lord please give her a day
    When she can wake up and feel the sun shining on her
    Oh Lord please give her a day
    When she can wake up and feel the breeze blowing her bad dreams away

    It’s rather poignant because it paraphrases a song their mother used to sing to them when she thought they were asleep

    There’s no fool like an old fool, and I’m certainly old, but not ashamed to admit that a telling lyric sensitively set to music can reduce me to tears. On a recent Private Passions our first woman high court judge selected the final scene from The Marriage of Figaro. Luckily the ‘phone rang before I had time to start blubbering.

    Sometimes the perfect performance can take a fine song up where we belong :

    Sometimes you don’t need words :

  9. Alfred Schnittke said in 1988 “I have no sense of the fatal inevitability of evil, even in the most terrible situation. There is no such thing, because in a human being there is always manifest an essence that is good and never changes.”

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Take Me There: Amangiri Resort, Utah

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Living in the desert makes me appreciate the desert and desert lifestyle even more.Â  Rugged nature, harsh soil, sparse vegetation, and stunning landscapes carved by the wind, sun, and water, make the desert lifestyle quite unique.

Probably thatâ€™s one of the reasons why I fell in love with Amangiri resort at the Canyon Point in Utah.Â  Its striking location is honored by the bold yet responsive design that both honors and celebrates the magic and mystery of southern Utahâ€™s majestic cliffs and rock formations.

The Amangiri Resort and Spa, located on a spectacular 600+ acre site, is a unique collaboration between three well-established architects: Marwan Al-Sayed, Wendell Burnette and Rick Joy.

The concrete has been subtly tinted with pink, ocher, and light yellow, among the dominant hues in the surrounding cliffs, to soften its profile.Â  The architects deftly used the geometry, often slanting walls toward each other to provide â€œslot canyonâ€ views of the desert and mesa.Â  When they could they also used the setting to great advantage, for example, curving the pool around a muscular bullnose outcrop of rock.

The resort has 34 suites with various views and characteristics, a lounge, several swimming pools, spa, fitness center, and a central pavilion that contains a library, art gallery, and private/public dining areas, amongst other functions.

To capture the desert landscape, strong simple geometries backdrop the rough textured rock, at times taking on the role of spectator while at others integrating seamlessly into it, allowing the natural contours to inform the nature of the man-made construct.Â  Wallpaper named Amangiri resort as the Best Retreat at Design Awards 2010.

The juxtaposition between the pristine raw surfaces and organic red earth form a symbiotic relationship: the building is meant to frame the plateaus through varied apertures, while the landscape acts as a host for the sculptural structure, each of which compliments the other quite balanced.Â  Exposed materials such as wood, water, light and concrete, poured with local aggregate to match the neutral orange hues, ground the vernacular into the site and help to capture the unique desert features.

Large openings offer a slice of the immediate exterior with retractable screens to extend panoramic views.Â  Exterior courtyards on the different steppes introduce the guests in a more intimate way to the terrain, communicating with the interior so that the outdoor experience is perhaps more important than the indoor.

Amangiri, which means â€œpeaceful mountain,â€ is a resort that puts you right in the middle of this ancient splendor while offering a contemporary take on luxury in its accommodation, service, and food.

The resort sits in a cliff-curve and the rooms look out across a sea of sand billows to Stud Horse Mesa and, in the distance, the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, a distance of some 50-80 million years, geologically speaking.

Just take me there.

amangiri from steelblue on Vimeo.

Photos: Aman Resorts, Joe Fletcher.

One Comment

  1. What an amazing place! The finished on the walls are fantastic and the outdoor areas look so beautiful – I just want to go for a swim int hat pool! Yes, Take Me There!

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« Settlement in Marketing Information Masters v. California State University - a follow-up interview with Jonathan Pink on copyright and sovereign immunity | Main | Important news on pre-1972 sound recordings »

Identifying Government Works
The Google Book Settlement Agreement is one more example that the federal government should clearly and unambigously mark and give notice about the copyright status of the information it produces, sponsors and disseminates. Government has neglected its responsibility in this matter. The consequence is that the time and cost burden of doing an after-the-fact copyright analysis is passed to all users -- both government and citizens. Rather than knowing for certain and uneqivocably what is a "work of the U.S. Government", the best a user can do is make a "presumed" determination or guess. The margin for error is high even for those who know copyright law and government acquisition regulations.

Unlike public domain works, works of the U.S. Government are excluded from copyright protection at the time of creation and are not dependent on dates or term algorithms.

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Don't you find these kinds of comments [politicians'] disconcerting? There are no poor people in either house as the poor have no resources for the required campaigns to garner votes. Just an observation.

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The Ghosts of Weimar: Is Weimar Germany a warning from history?

The ghosts of Weimar: is Weimar Germany a warning from history?

The ghosts of Weimar are back. Woken up by the rise of populist right-wing parties across Europe and beyond, they warn of danger for democracy. The historical reference point evoked by these warnings is the collapse of the Weimar Republic followed by the Nazi dictatorship. The connection between now and then seems indisputably obvious: democracy died in 1933, and it is under attack again today.

But history does not repeat itself.

Referring to the warnings of Weimar is a shorthand often used to conjure up images of marching Nazis rather than presenting sober analysis between the past and the present. This—sometimes morbid—fascination with the final years of the republic might work effectively in films. But it neither enhances our understanding of current right-wing movements nor that of the complexities of Germany in the 1930s.

In fact, comparisons between the Weimar Republic and today reveal striking differences. In 1918, the world emerged from the most devastating war experienced up to that point. New political systems were introduced, and many of them—including Germany’s— were radically different from those before. Trust in these democratic experiments had to be gained, without an available track record of past achievements. This is fundamentally different to today when noisy minorities use established democratic rights to express their dislike of certain policies.

The end of the Weimar Republic also has little in common with today. Unlike current heads of states, governments of the early 1930s had limited power to mitigate against the impact of economic and financial crisis as exemplified in the disastrous consequences of the Great Depression. Furthermore, the importance of the agrarian sector, which functioned as a springboard for Nazi integration into rural communities from 1928 to 1933, has no match nowadays.

“If we want to learn from the past, we need to stop treating Weimar as a historical blueprint for the present.”

If we want to learn from the past, we need to stop treating Weimar as a historical blueprint for the present. Like other periods, the Weimar Republic should be understood within the specific constellations of its time and without letting the knowledge of hindsight cloud our judgement. Rather than serving as an over-cited model of political failure, the history of Weimar strongly reminds us of the importance of individual agency.

Alleged shortcomings of the Weimar Constitution, for example emergency decrees issued by the Reich President, only became problematic when they were used to dismantle the democratic system. This eventually happened under the anti-republican president Paul von Hindenburg. The first Reich President of the republic, the Social Democrat Friedrich Ebert, used the same decrees to guarantee the survival of democracy when it faced political extremism in the early 1920s.

Even in January 1933, weeks and indeed days before Hitler’s appointment as chancellor, Germany’s future could still have taken another turn if those who made political decisions had acted differently. Throughout its existence, Weimar democracy was shaped and moulded by its contemporaries. Some were enthusiastic supporters of the republic, others vehemently against it, and many were in between these two poles. The collapse of Germany’s democracy and the success of the Nazis were neither built into the political system nor ingrained into German society.

There is one important aspect of the rise of the Nazis, though, that is worth remembering today. Successful anti-democratic forces do not enter societies from the outside, but from within. They are not external but embedded in the localised structures that offer them platforms to share their views and convince others.

The first strongholds of the National Socialists were small towns and rural villages. Here they integrated themselves into local communities, joining sharp shooting associations as well as pub outings. Here, they normalised their presence long before the economic difficulties of the Wall Street crash hit. Gaining first the ear and then the support of influential local figures allowed the Nazis to express their ideas in places across the country.

Weimar’s ghosts can go back to sleep again. Donald Trump is no Hitler, the German right-wing AfD (Alternative für Deutschland) not the new Nazi Party, and, unlike in interwar Europe, societies in Europe and the US overwhelmingly support parliamentary democracy. Democratic systems act, sometimes imperfectly, against extremist tendencies, and in most cases they can rely on the support of the courts, the media, and civic society.

The history of Weimar does not produce a user-friendly guide to avoidable mistakes for the present. But it helps us to understand how and why contemporaries acted as they did, and which perceptions shaped their decisions. Studying the Weimar Republic reminds us to recognise the power of agency, and this serves us well beyond the past.

Featured image: By Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1972-026-11 / Sennecke, Robert / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de.

Recent Comments

  1. Barry Atkinson

    The differences in political systems-

    Under Communism (and others)
    Man exploits Man
    Under democracy the opposite is true

    Kudos to where I first read this which I can’t recall.

    The Treaty of Versaile, the wresting away of German territories, the French take over of the Ruhr for a period and the later embargoes on Germany and Japan guaranteed WWll. Churchill and Roosevelt pined for an economy relieving war. And nothing could I incense more than the closing down of Masonic ‘Temples’ in Germany.

  2. John Batt

    There is no consideration here of the spectre of the Bolshevik revolution which hung over Eastern and Central Europe at the time, and the ‘internal’ threat in Germany from the Rotfrontkampferbund, particularly up to 1931.

Comments are closed.


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James Moore

James Moore runs Independent Music Promotions (www.independentmusicpromotions.com), a DIY music PR company working exclusively with "music with depth" worldwide. He is the author of the "Your Band Is A Virus" book series.

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Guest Post, Mark Lewandowski: Bikini Clad Bad Ass

Mark Lewendowski holding a panda cub.Moments after leaving the theater, my wife Katie checked Facebook and found out Carrie Fisher had died earlier in the day.

The adrenaline pumping through me after experiencing Rogue One dried up immediately.  The news wasn’t unexpected, but as all good movies do, the newest Star Wars film had kept reality at bay for nearly two and half hours.  Granted, Rogue One isn’t the most uplifting of the Star Wars entries.  Pretty much all the good guys are killed off.  But, it ends in the way I had hoped:  Princess Leia, one of cinema’s all-time great bad asses, accepting the plans to the Death Star, the very same plans she will feed into R2-D2’s databanks in the original Star Wars.

Since hearing of Carrie Fisher’s passing, I’ve spent a lot of time in my memory, hearkening back to my first meeting with Princess Leia.  I was twelve in 1977.  I saw Star Wars at the drive-in with my family, the sound squeaking through those tin speakers you had to hang from a partially closed window.  (The cheapest lap top produces a cleaner sound today.)  Like so many others in 1977, I instantly crushed on Princess Leia, but I can’t say it was sexual.  Maybe I was too young yet.  I just couldn’t remember seeing another female character like her on the screen (big or small) before.  She wasn’t cheesy like Wonder Woman or Barbarella, and didn’t look at all like Racquel Welch in One Million Years B.C., nor did she resemble the femme fatales of every James Bond flick.  Unlike Samantha in Bewitched, or Jeanie in I Dream of Jeanie, Princess Leia didn’t give up any special powers just to please the men in her life.  In my 12 year old eyes, she was completely unique.

At the beginning of Star Wars, and just moments after the end of Rogue One, Princess Leia slips the Death Star plans to R2-D2 and instructs him/it/whatever to find Obi-
Wan Kenobi.  She then turns and accepts capture at the hands of Darth Vader, stooge of the Imperial Emperor, who tortures her in an attempt to find out the location of the rebel base.  Even after seeing her home planet obliterated, she doesn’t give an inch, sacrificing herself for the cause.

Once in her holding cell, George Lucas sets up Leia as the classic damsel-in-distress; that’s certainly how Luke Skywalker and Han Solo see her.  However, Lucas subverts the archetype.  Once Luke frees her from her cell, Leia grabs a blaster, holding her own against advancing Stormtroopers.  With their only apparent path out of the prison cut off, it is Leia who engineers their escape via the giant trash compactor.

Later, as the Millennium Falcon zooms away from the Death Star, Han Solo quips, “Not a bad bit of rescuing, uh?  You know, sometimes I even amaze myself.”

“That doesn’t sound too hard,” Leia jabs back.

Only Leia knows the rescue was too easy, and that a homing beacon was likely planted in the ship.  Her own “escape” will lead the Imperial Forces to the rebel base she kept hidden under torture.  The future of the rebellion rests entirely on her hope that the plans R2 has hidden in his databanks will prove useful.  In Joseph Campbell’s analysis of a typical Hero’s Journey, the protagonist initially shows reluctance to accept his task.  Han Solo shows his reluctance throughout the film.  Even Luke must be pushed by Ben Kenobi to leave the “ordinary world” of his home planet.  Leia?  Never.  Of this triumvirate of heroes at the heart of Star Wars, she is the strongest, the most steadfast of them all.

. . .

Some years ago Hallmark released a Christmas ornament of Princess Leia dressed in the infamous bikini from The Return of the Jedi.  My eight-year old nephew had recently discovered Star Wars, so I bought it for him.  His mother wasn’t amused.  Like so many others, she views Leia’s get up as some kind of sexual exploitation.  Is it?  I’m not sure if I see it that way, and when I gave my nephew the ornament, I wasn’t playing the clichéd role of the perverted uncle.  Even now, when I rewatch The Return of the Jedi, I don’t see a sexed up, exploitative version of Princess Leia; I just see another manifestation of her heroic strength.

At the end of The Empire Strikes Back, Han Solo is frozen in carbonite.  At the beginning of the third movie, he’s nothing more than a wall decoration for the mobster, Jabba the Hut. Leia enters Jabba the Hut’s fortress disguised as a bounty hunter, with Chewbacca as bait.  We realize Leia is part of an elaborate ruse, along with the droids, Luke and Lando Calrissian, to free Han Solo.  Arguably, Leia has the most dangerous task.  She ends up playing chicken with Jabba the Hut when she activates a thermal detonator to illustrate her ferocity.  If Jabba doesn’t give in, she’d blow herself up, as well has everyone else in the room.  While the ruse works initially, Leia is ultimately discovered.  Jabba dresses her in that bikini (giving new meaning to the concept of going “undercover”), and chains her up, replacing another bikini clad female who had earlier been fed to the planet Tatooine’s twisted version of a Bumble, which lives in a cave below the throne room.

Luke Skywalker eventually arrives to save the day, but once again, Leia doesn’t play the role of damsel-in-distress.  With the boys messing about with light sabers and laser blasters out in the desert, Leia steps up and wraps the chain around Jabba’s enormous neck, choking him to death with the very thing that had tethered them together.  It’s the very last time we see Leia in a bikini.

Leia ends up doing all kinds of other cool things in The Return of the Jedi, like killing off a lot of Stormtroopers and zipping around the forest on a hovercycle.  (It’s a shame she’s never allowed to train as a Jedi Knight, but she does achieve the rank of General.  That’s not too shabby.)  Without Leia’s heroics in the original Star Wars trilogy, we might never have become acquainted with Daisy Ridley’s Rey, or Felicity Jones’ Jyn Erso, let alone Buffy Summers, or Xena the Warrior Princess, or River Tam, or any number of past, present and future female heroes.

Thank you, Carrie Fisher

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iPhone 13 Vs iPhone 12 Pro – The Battle Royale

iPhone 14 vs iPhone 12 Pro Comparison

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It’s that time of the year again!

Time for the battle between iPhone 13 vs. iPhone 12 Pro!

Apple has unveiled iPhone 13, and everyone is rushing to see what it’s like and how it is better than iPhone 12? Is it worth spending those extra $100 on the new iPhone?

Well, you don’t have to spend those extra bucks just yet!

We have rounded up the key features of both the iPhones and pointed out the main differences for you, so you can compare them both and decide whether you should continue using your iPhone 12 Pro or go for the latest iPhone 13.

By the way, iPhone 12 is still available for sale on the market! So if you’re contemplating making a shift from Android to iOS, you’ll undoubtedly know which iPhone to spend your money on this year.

iPhone 13 Vs. iPhone 12 Pro Comparison

iPhone 12 was launched in October 2020, and almost a year down the lane, many people were still making up their minds and saving up to get their hands on it.

But what’s this?

In late September 2021, Apple released the new and improved iPhone 13! Those who were bent on buying an iPhone 12 now have one more option to think about!

So, iPhone 13 vs. iPhone 12 Pro – Which one is it going to be?

Let’s have a look.

SpecsiPhone 13 iPhone 12 Pro
Weight240 g189 g
Dimensions5.8 x 2.8 x 0.3 inches5.78 x 2.82 x 0.29 inches
Display6.1 inches6.1 inches
Resolution2532 x 11702532 x 1170
Camera12 MP12 MP
Memory6 GB RAM4 GB RAM
ProcessorA15 Bionic chipA14 Bionic chip
Battery4373 mAh2815 mAh

1. Display

The display of iPhone 13 and iPhone 12 Pro is almost the same:

  • They both have a 6.1-inch display.

So, what’s the difference?

For starters:

  • The brightness of the iPhone 13 has been increased by 28% to 800 nits from the 625 nits in iPhone 12.
  • Other than this, the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max come with ProMotion displays, enabling them to adjust their refresh rate to 120 Hz to keep up with your screen activity. iPhone 13, iPhone 12 mini, and iPhone 12; however, have a refresh rate limited to 60 Hz.

Well, that’s something to ponder on!

2. Design

iPhone 13 design

Again, the design of the iPhone 13 and iPhone 12 Pro is also quite similar:

  • They have a ceramic shield front and back
  • The frame is made of stainless steel
  • When it comes to iPhone 13 vs. iPhone 12 Pro size, the dimensions are also the same.
  • The overall design of both iPhones is stylish and compact.

However, there’s one visible difference – The notch!

The notch on the iPhone 13 is 20% smaller than that on the iPhone 12 Pro. Also, iPhone 13 models weigh a tad bit more than the previous version, mainly due to the increased battery size.

So, if you ask me, that’s not really something that impacts your decision!

3. Colours

iPhone 13 colors

Who doesn’t like an iPhone in stunning colors?

While iPhone 12 Pro is available in 6 colors, black, white, blue, green, red, and a recently added purple shade, iPhone 13 has equally amazing colors.

The previous colors, midnight (black), starlight (white), blue and red, are still there, with the addition of pink and sierra blue, which adds to the aluminum shades of gold and silver.

So, whether you go for an iPhone 12 Pro or the brand new iPhone 13, there are plenty of bright new colors to choose from.

4. Camera

iPhone 12 pro white  color

Even though the display and design of the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 13 might not have much of a difference, the cameras are poles apart!

At first glance, it might appear that the cameras are the same due to the number of lenses, but when you take pictures, a visible difference can be seen. You see, Apple has upgraded the hardware this time.

And by hardware, I mean:

  • It has included a sensor-shift optical image stabilization system in the camera setup of the iPhone 13, which is an upgrade to the standard optical image stabilization in the iPhone 12 Pro.
  • The specs of both the front and rear cameras of iPhone 13 and iPhone 12 Pro are the same, i.e., 12 MP.

  • iPhone 13 has a telephoto lens that enables a 3x optical zoom which is 0.5x more than iPhone 12. This means you can capture brighter and sharper images as close as 2 cm, even in low-light areas.
  • Also, the night mode feature is available in all iPhone13 models, including Mini, Pro, and Pro Max. Previously, only the Pro Max versions had this feature.

So, if photography is your thing, iPhone 13 should be your choice in 2021.

5. Battery and Charging

iPhone battery and charging

As far as battery life is concerned, Apple has announced that the battery of the iPhone 13 is bigger than that of the iPhone 12 Pro.

  • iPhone 12 Pro has a 2815 mAh battery, while iPhone 13’s battery goes up to a whopping 4373 mAh.

Given these numbers, Apple claims that:

  • The iPhone 13 Mini and iPhone 13 Pro last 1.5 hours more than their predecessor
  • While iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro Max push it to 2.5 hours more.

So, if a long-lasting battery is your preference, iPhone 13 is the way to go!

Now coming to the chargers, both models come without adapters. The only thing included is a 20W USB-C cable that can charge up to 50% in 30 minutes. However, if you’re looking for a fast yet affordable charger, you can check out the wide range of wall chargers by Syncwire.

6. Software and Performance

software and performance

Another difference between the iPhone 13 and iPhone 12 Pro is that of the processor.

All iPhone 12 models (iPhone 12 Mini, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max) are powered by the A14 Bionic chip processor, which delivers quite a smooth performance as compared to other smartphones.

But that’s so last year!

Say hello to the A15 Bionic chip processor that powers iPhone 13!

If you were swept away by the flawless performance of the A14, imagine how powerful the upgrade is going to be!

7. Pricing

The iPhone 12 pricing starts at $699, depending on the model and capacity you choose. iPhone 13, on the other hand, starts at $799.

The iPhone 13, priced at $100 more than the iPhone 12, is justified, given the upgrades in the camera, software, battery, etc.

The features of both the iPhone 13 and iPhone 12 are not much different from each other; however, let’s have a look at the pros and cons of both devices to see if we can reach a conclusion.

Pros and Cons of iPhone 12 Pro

– Sleek and stylish design with a premium finish.– The box doesn’t include a charger or headphones.
– Bright OLED display.– Low screen refresh rate.
– Impeccable audio quality.– The battery life is less than iPhone 11.
– It runs on iOS 14.– Base storage is a mere 64GB.
– Supports MagSafe fast charging.
– The camera results are outstanding.

Pros and Cons of iPhone 13

– It comes in gorgeous colors.

– The design is the same as the iPhone 12.

– The 1200 nits brightness is a game-changer.– Users have reported an uncomfortable grip.
– It supports 4K video recording with Dolby vision and stereo sound.– A charging adapter is not included in the box, and you have to buy it separately.
– The 15W MagSafe and 7.5W Qi magnetic fast wireless charging lasts for more than 12 hours.– The lightning cable included has a slow charging speed.
– It has a dual 5G sim support.– The refresh rate is lower than the rivals.
– The Super Retina XDR OLED display and HDR 10 support result in a crisp and clear display.– It lacks secondary storage.
– Can survive 6m water depth.
– Unparalleled image and video quality.

Final Verdict

So, in the iPhone 13 vs. iPhone 12 Pro showdown, who’s the winner?

While the differences between the two models are primarily technical, with no visible difference in appearance, we would still recommend the iPhone 13 over iPhone 12 Pro.

Our reasons are pretty clear:

  • iPhone 13 has a better processor as compared to iPhone 12 Pro.
  • The camera upgrades make the picture quality impeccable.
  • It has long-lasting battery life.
  • The display is brighter and refreshes faster than the iPhone 12 Pro.

So, if you want to receive good value for your money, getting an iPhone 13 would be the smarter choice.

And, with so many features that enhance your iPhone experience, spending an extra $100 is worth it!

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Ryan Hughes

Product Marketing Executive at Syrris

About Ryan Hughes

Ryan joined Syrris in 2016, bringing with him extensive experience in B2C and B2B marketing. As Product Marketing Executive, Ryan is responsible for the inbound and outbound global marketing of the Syrris brand. Acting as the link between the Products, Sales, and Marketing teams, Ryan collaborates with various team members to help raise brand and product awareness and to help educate our audience on various topics, including flow chemistry, batch chemistry, reaction calorimetry, and process scale-up.

Since joining Syrris, Ryan has moved the brand away from product-focused marketing to more educational, thought leadership marketing. Some of the results of that change include this Syrris chemistry blog (launched in April 2018); a series of educational webinars covering topics such as flow chemistry, reaction calorimetry, and chemistry automation; and a new social media presence focusing on providing our audience with articles, blogs, and videos relevant to the industries our products are used in.

Want to speak with Ryan about Syrris marketing, collaborating with us, or to suggest ideas for future blog topics and webinars? Use the contact form to get in touch today.

Discover blog posts written by Ryan (and other authors) on various chemistry topics and applications

Electrochemistry made easy with continuous flow chemistry techniques

Electrochemistry made easy with continuous flow chemistry techniques

Over the past 5 years or so the development of continuous flow electrochemical cells has made selective syntheses with high reactant-to-product conversions possible. These devices offer an easy access to electrochemical techniques which is driving its current re-assessment as a viable, attractive synthetic method. Discover more in this blog post.

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Last Week on toonpool.com : New Year’s Edition

This is the first “Last Week on toonpool.com” in 2011 as well as the last one for 2010. I that everyone who celebrated New Year’s Eve had a good time and that everyone else wasn’t too annoyed by all the fuss.

Álvaro Cabral is from Porto Alegre, Brazil. His avatar has a Dürer-esque quality to it that I like very much. He did a similar thing in this portrait of architect Oscar Niemeyer. Some of his caricatures are standard fare – they’re not bad at all, but, well, I am looking at caricatures of Pope Benedict XVI. on a daily basis. Others, however, display interesting ways of distortion and composition (this caricature of adipose Brazilian singer Ed Motta), stunning plasticity (this one of football player Dunga) and nice little details (the shadow that turns the portrait of Hugo Chavez into a flying bust).

Jacek Piotrowski, Jaski for short, is based in Luzern, Switzerland. Most of his works are caption-based cartoons with nice, lightly sketched lines. Some of them form a series of cartoons on marketing and management (e.g. this one, this one, and this one). The soul-patched, pony-tailed main character alone gives me the creeps. Other cartoons by Jaski feature suicidal parrots, are hard to understand because they use Swiss dialect, or defy comprehensibility altogether despite their English caption (I like the driven expression in the chicken’s eyes, though).

Cartoons of Interest

Puns and absurd personifications is all I need in a toon. This one is on time zones.

Heck, I don't even need puns. Just give me ass rockets. 36 people died in this incident.

This one falls into the 'personification' group. I love how Death seems rather sheepish.

The war winter of 2010/2011. Great design and an un- comfortable reminder

Garrincha's other New Year's cartoon has the gag, this one has the colors. Enjoy.

A leftover Christmas cartoon. Or a post-Christmas cartoon. You decide.

Personal Favorite

I just had to pick a New Year's cartoon. This one is by Til Mette. The metaphor doesn't really work for all events that are unique, processural or follow a non-anual pattern. But, boy, is this true for society's little annual rituals. It won't be long and I will be writing about Easter cartoons, the summer slump in cartooning, Halloween cartoons, Christmas Cartoons, and - worst of all - New Year's cartoons AGAIN.

Paul Hellmich

© toonpool.com

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Book Store Portrait Competition

Portrait Competition

October 29th, 2012
Jakob Hinrichs adaptiert Arthur Schnitzlers Traumnovelle von 1926 erstmals als Graphic Novel und erzählt sie in tiefgreifenden, fantastischen Bildern neu.

“Traumnovelle” – Graphic Novel

October 14th, 2012
Letter from

Letter from Amman (Jordan)

October 4th, 2012

Letter from California

August 15th, 2012


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Blog Video: "Giving Thanks" By: Alistair Begg

Video: "Giving Thanks" By: Alistair Begg

Many view gratitude as an admirable and important quality. The Apostle Paul, however, had much more to say regarding thankfulness, and in his letter to the church in Ephesus, he directed believers to give thanks “always and for everything.” Alistair Begg helps us to understand that for the Christian, thankfulness is rooted in who God is and what He has done. As we trust in God’s fatherly, providential care, we can respond with thanksgiving through all circumstances and for all things.

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Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.


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Never Lose Your How To Set Up A Minecraft Server Again

You may also try Alto's Odyssey ($5), the studio's observe-up game, in addition to Alto's Odyssey: The Misplaced Metropolis, on Apple Arcade. Guild Wars 2 rose in rank, Raptr says, but misplaced playtime in November vs. Every of hypixel sport modes are distinctive, and the way in which the server is Formed aka level development makes folks want to play. They even have monumental potential for the research of how folks work together, and the way societies operate and evolve. The very first thing you need to do is download the Minecraft server that suits your wants. Having the chance to earn cash from your Minecraft server. Also the fixed addition of new gamemodes make the server really feel recent and new to most players. After joining the server, it will likely be free to play along with over 100,000 different on-line gamers. An account will be capable to play Hypixel totally free. When enjoying Minecraft on the console, the split display characteristic is a great way for youths to sport together offline, without needing servers (or having to play for Realms). It's pretty meta and slightly funny to be taking part in a game inside of a digital actuality recreation, but it is not a nasty method to view issues should you want a break from the full VR expertise.

There's little to no hand-holding in the sport, which works wonderfully to push people towards discovering and experimenting with things independently. A lot of people on the web are good, however by limiting your server to individuals you’ve met, you won’t have any surprises with who your kids are encountering. The instruments made with Tinker’s Assemble are upgradeable, customizable and modular, so it's possible you'll start out with a easy pic axe however flip it into something fully completely different after just a few tweaks. 2. Begin Web-hosting By Your Devoted Server. Install the game on your laptop by following on-display instructions and begin playing the demo version. 1. Put together your laptop. 3. Check your pc if the community card (ethernet card) is functioning correctly. 4. Get Xwcb . With this provider, you’ll get between 8 to 20 players slots, with full customizations. Had around 91 million energetic gamers month-to-month. After expenses, we imagine Hypixel earns about $5 Million per year. We all know that about half of Hypixel’s revenue goes straight back into working the server, which suggests an $11 Million earnings per year, earlier than expenses. 3. Add a half slab to the bottom.

4. Add a sign to a block near the half slab. Add a half slab to the ground. 5. Add water above the half slab, hop in, stand nonetheless and Enjoy. If you plan on installing many mods or large modpacks, you may have so as to add even more RAM to your server to prevent lag. Upload modpacks, plugins, and different custom .jar recordsdata. OptiFine is completely different from different mods in the way you install it, but it isn't too complicated. Then you definately execute and configure it, and verify the firewall settings. If you don’t want to get in-depth of all these tech stuff and all you want is to get pleasure from enjoying the Minecraft with your friends online then buy a dedicated or shared internet hosting and host your Minecraft recreation there, head over to this publish the place we discussed and evaluate high 10 minecraft server hosts. There's a lot of information accessible on-line on how to set up a Minecraft server should you ever get stuck.

We created some downloadable directions to get you began hosting your own Minecraft server to your pupil. It was truly created for the only objective of giving free server hosting to Minecraft players. As a result of how widespread Java vulnerabilities similar to these are, security researchers have created instruments to easily exploit them. Although the WGLNA Gold League Qualifying rounds occurred all through the month, play time was at its peak during Thanksgiving weekend, attributable to XP multipliers and holiday offers on premium goods. The hardware to construct a separate machine to run your server shall be a one time price as nicely. Do devoted servers value money? There are several methods to generate income with a dedicated server. How a lot does Hypixel make a 12 months? How much is it to rent a Minecraft server? 1. You'll be able to see how much reminiscence the server is using within the Stats panel. Usually speaking, if you will be using it in a few hours, go away it on. If you’re not planning on utilizing it until the subsequent day, you may put it in ‘sleep’ or ‘hibernate’ mode.


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Log Home Recuperation – Discover Specifics About Log Cabin Packages

Take notice, sometimes is actually more cost-effective to demolish and reconstruct some log cabin rather than employing a firewood home refurbishment company to correct your home. In the event that you've got any kind of concerns, you must do a little research of your personal. Begin by making full use of the web, making phone calls and evaluate the total expense of expense.

Setting up a log cabin is no compact task and needs a great deal of preparation before you are able to truly start off. For the do-it-yourselfer, creating a log cabin is among the most enjoyable tasks one could carry out. You can derive virtually all your unprocessed trash from your natural environment on your own, development requires extremely little industrial devices, and the effect will be a property that can be used as well as maintained for a long period when taken care of. Nevertheless, because of the complexity from the task you might wish to be aware of beginning with your kit.

Journal home kits come in two main designs the system kit, that contains pre-cut records of activity for the wall surfaces, windows, entry doors and possibly some roofing resources; as well as the full kits with subflooring, surfaces, interior surfaces, all required roofing products, and so on. Numerous variations can be found on this pair of basic sorts, based on what the company you pay for from supplies, hence be sure to know what exactly materials consist of your set up. The benefit of using a log cabin package will be that all those things are prefabricated. There are stock options floor plans and outside available, hence the range of choices to make through new development will not be therefore overpowering. Fees are another main advantage. Nevertheless any diary property would probably initially be more expensive than a typical stick-built property or home, building out of a set is the most economical choice. Sign homes really are a sound ecological option; they can be energy-efficient, capable of endure unpleasant climates even though some are even earthquake as well as flames proof.

Since you're investing in a log cabin kit that are prefabricated floor strategy does not mean you can not make a few design adjustments. There are a few things could carry out in order to boost the feel and look of your property according to how you live. Remember https://theeducationlife.com/logarithm-rules/ are made with design structure in order to ensure that you're pleased with your new house as well as the external walls. Despite the fact that, your household layout can even be altered, once again it all would depend on of your standard of living, for instance, you can actually change the does such as floorboards surfaces, hand rails, countertops and also cabinets, natural stone surrounds and door and window lean can set your home apart from the stock program.

By finding a log house restoration business the process might take a longer as opposed to reconstructing and using a log cabin kits. The difference could take several weeks or years depending on the laborers as well as contractor. When you are still unsure, it would be far better to look around and do a price matching. When doing so , make sure you put the cost of labor, something a lot more people forget.


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Tag Archives: unusual jewellery

All I want for Christmas is ….

Nude Jewellery is an independent London jewellers who stock a wide and varied range of contemporary jewellery. They are running a competition for bloggers to write a post, selecting a piece of jewellery as their Christmas pick from their website.

They have designer jewellery handmade by leading local, national and international designers, unusual jewellery and bespoke jewellery so plenty for me to browse around. There are some amazing items. I am really spoilt for choice, but I’ve finally decided that my Christmas Pick is this beautiful necklace.

Fleur - Garnet Silver Pendant

I was really attracted to this beautiful Fleur – Garnet Silver Pendant. Absolutely stunning in my opinion. I’m sure I would get some great compliments wearing something like this unusual beautiful piece.

The pendant with flowers surrounding red tear shape garnet gemstone centre has a 22mm height and 11mm width and is on a 16-18 inch silver chain. It has been designed and created in the UK.

Have a look around their website at the lovely handmade jewellery. What would you pick?

This post is my entry into the Nude Christmas Pick Blogger Competition.


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Tag Archives: autumn

5 Fall Farm Experiences You Won’t Want to Miss

Getting Here

208 South Great Road, Lincoln, MA

By Train: We’re a short walk from the Lincoln MBTA train station on the Fitchburg line. Follow the town trails from the station to the farm, and stop for pizza or a coffee on your way back! Take advantage of the $10 weekend MBTA pass for a weekend beyond-your-backyard adventure.

By Bike/Walking Trail: Lincoln boasts a fabulous network of walking and biking trails that run through the town’s beautiful sights and vistas, connecting greenways and natural areas. What’s better–Drumlin Farm is conveniently located along the paths on Lincoln and Codman Road. Get your steps in for the day by walking in, or park your bike at our bike rack.

By Car: Take advantage of the 4 newly installed electric vehicle charging stations in the parking lot. Charge your car while exploring the property and return to a full battery at the end of the visit.

1. Exploring by Hayride

There’s no better way to cover the trails and explore the farm loop than by sitting on a hay bale, traveling by tractor hayride. With the sun shining down and the crisp autumn air around you, this fall-classic is a nostalgic thrill you can’t find everywhere. Grab your tickets at admissions, hop aboard outside of the Red Barn, and enjoy! Hayrides run on Saturday and Sunday until Thanksgiving weekend.

2. Shopping the Farmstand

Crisp leafy greens, squashes and gourds, and a variety of seasonal fall-favorites can be found at the farmstand by admissions. Drumlin Farm-raised meats, yarn made from our sheep’s fleece, honey from hives on site, and eggs from our chickens can also be purchased. Take a little farm home with you by making delicious fall recipes using local, sustainable ingredients!

3. Witnessing the Changing Season

What makes a wildlife sanctuary unique from other outdoor trails you might visit? Our property is managed with wildlife and habitat health in mind, which makes trail explorations teem with natural encounters. Watch and listen for migrating fall birds in the meadows and forests and catch glimpses of scampering critters beefing up before the winter. Perhaps you’ll see our resident family of wild turkeys that roam the property, or take a walk up the drumlin–one of the highest point in the greater Boston area–where you can take in a beautiful vista and see the outline of Mount Wachusett, over 30 miles away, on a clear day.

4. Visiting Native Wildlife & Livestock

Meet the animals that make up our New England landscapes and history! Sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, and cows teach visitors about the ins and outs of farming and our historic connection to these important animals. Bird Hill (hosting owls, hawks, pheasants, and more) and the New England Wildlife Exhibit (with rabbits, snakes, foxes, and more) feature our animal ambassadors that teach us about native animals and their role in creating healthy ecosystems in Massachusetts.

5. Dropping-in for Interactive Activities

You could meet a raptor, mammal, or reptile; see a pony grooming demonstration; feel real pelts and furs; and more at our drop-in activities, included with the price of admission. Teacher Naturalists stationed around the farm engage visitors in hands-on learning opportunities to answer all your farm and nature questions and introduce you to a side of nature you may not have seen. Drop-in activities take place at 10:00 am, 11:30 am, and 2:30 pm on weekends.

Bonus: Tales of the Night, Our Spookiest Farm Festivity

If you want a classic fall experience, there’s really nothing quite like a spooky adventure through the farm and a haunted hayride. If you’re free Friday or Saturday, October 25 and 26, plan a night at our annual special event, Tales of the Night. Travel through candle-lit paths and jack-o-lanterns, meet animals and story book characters, and try some witches brew and ghoulish treats! Tickets sell out for this popular event, so early registration is recommended.


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Blog Week 11 (16.08.-20.08.)

Published: 08/22/2021

What did I do this week?

During this week I worked on left features, adapting the pyqtgraph-backend to tests and fixing remaining bugs. I also wrapped up GSoC by writing a final report. There you can also find instructions on how to test the new backend. I opened a WIP-PR for my mentors to review my work on the new backend. There are still things to do left, which I listed in this issue. And finally I completed the final GSoC-Evaluation.

Where did I get stuck?

At the beginning of the week I really got stuck with implementing fake clicks for pyqtgraph, which are then used by several tests. I had to try a lot and consulted my mentors often until I luckily finally could get it to work never the less.

Thank you!

Since this was my last official week of Google Summer of Code, I will no longer blog here. But you can still reach me via if you got questions or ideas regarding the new pyqtgraph-backend or other related topics. It was a great experience for me to work on such a project full time before I start my clinical elective next year. I hope that the new backend facilitates the step of data-preprocessing of MEG/EEG-Data for the MNE-Python-Users. Thank you to the pyqtgraph-developers who with their package facilitated accomplishing my project-goals a lot. And a lot of thanks to my mentors, who were always in reach and provided help and feedback wherever they could.

So long, see you on GitHub:)


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The 3 New Rules of Customer Engagement [Infographic]

T-Mobile does it. Caterpillar does it. Ford does it. All of these companies have recognized the need for better customer engagement, and all of them are changing the way they think about their marketing, sales and customer service strategies.

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So you’ve got great products and a great marketing message. But are you delighting your audience with remarkable brand experiences? Are you contributing to at least a few of the 2.4 billion brand-related conversations happening among consumers daily? To engage customers today, Marketers must be delightful, innovative and personal.

Your sales team is the best in the business. But in the age of the hyper-informed consumer, your buyer’s decision-making process may be 70 percent over by the time she contacts a sales rep. In order to stay relevant to customers, sales organizations must increase their understanding of their customers’ unique challenges, connect with them earlier, and help shape their vision of your company.

“This is Customer service, how may I help you?” does not qualify as good customer service anymore. 71 percent of customers don’t think companies are taking any action to keep their business. Know who your customer is and what he or she wants before “hello.” Add value to every interaction, empower your reps to become customer service ninjas, and watch your customers become brand promoters before your very eyes.

Check out the infographic below to find out more about how and why the rules of customer engagement have changed for Marketing, Sales, and Service.

Ready to start engaging customers like never before? Find out how customer engagement solutions from SAP can help.

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How PD-1 abrogates the anti-tumor immune response

PD-1 inhibition (Figure 1) has quickly become a front-line therapy for non-small cell lung cancer and melanoma. Moreover, PD-1 and PD-L1 inhibitors are being tested in combination with other checkpoint inhibitors, targeted therapies, cancer vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, and other modalities. But, how does PD-1 blunt the anti-tumor immune response? Continue reading


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IOE Blog

Expert opinion from IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society

Housing wealth, not bursaries, explains much of private school participation for those without high income

Blog Editor, IOE Digital8 February 2021

Jake Anders and Golo Henseke.

Although less than a tenth of children in Britain attend private schools, who goes matters to all of us. This is because of the considerable labour market advantages that have persistently been associated with attending a private school, including recruitment into the upper echelons of power in British business, politics, administration and media. As a result, in recent work published in Education Economics we looked into who send their children to private schools. In brief, despite all the talk about bursaries, public benefits and attempts at widening participation, who goes to private school remains as closely tied to family income and wealth as it did at the end of the 1990s. This casts doubt on accounts of real progress in opening up the sector to a more diverse student body.

In the paper we demonstrate quite how concentrated private school attendance is among the highest levels of household income (see image). The proportion of children attending private school is close to zero across the vast majority of the income distribution, and doesn’t rise above 10% of the cohort except among those with the top 5% of incomes. Only half of those in the top 1% send their kids to private school.

Income concentration of private school participation, 1997-2018.

On one level this is unsurprising. Sending your child to a private school costs a lot of money: in 2018 average annual fees were £14,280 for day schools and £33,684 for boarding schools. Not many people have (more…)


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Check In Time #6-some tips that helped me survive the semester

2:02am, Singapore. I’ve been meaning to post something here to wrap up the year– just that in my last post it didn’t seem like the best time to do so as it was really early on in the month. I was thinking of going to sleep after wrapping up work for today, but I know if I do so I would further procrastinate on this, and then it sorta defeats the purpose of this post anyways.

So before I begin!! Advanced Happy New Year to everyone, and idealistic as it may sound, may 2021 be a better year for all of us. This has been repeated many times but I’ll just emphasize it again: it’s a tough job being a student and trying to balance our academics and social life amiss a pandemic, especially considering the fact that many have commitments outside of being a student that can be physically and mentally draining. So I just wanted to say that I’m proud of all of us!

With the year coming to a close, I would like to share with everyone some key takeaways I had from this semester off the top of my head. For the record, I’m far from a model student myself, but I hope this may be useful to a future first year that may need it!

(Context: I’m studying Bachelor of Arts, so most of my assignments are in the form of an essay or report of some sort)

  1. It’s okay to procrastinate! (within limits)

Yes, you read that right. I think I brought up this idea in one of my earlier posts as well. What I have learnt is that I’m typically most productive in the evenings, and I think it’s because that’s when the sense of urgency kicks in (usually between 8pm to 2am). There’s also a sense of calmness and peace that I feel when doing work in the evenings– towards the later part, when my entire family is asleep, and the only sounds that can be heard are the whirring fan and my typing. Even though I sometimes have morning tutorials, I don’t mind sleeping late, waking up early and taking a nap midday. On the contrary, it helps my concentration better!

After learning that about myself, I try to schedule all the tasks that need the most brain power (lecture notes and recordings,  writing out drafts for essays are some examples) in the evenings. That way, I leave things of lesser priority (organizing emails, arranging notes, clubs and activities commitments, and others outside of school such as household chores) in the day, and can afford to get through them at a slower pace (while squeezing in time to watch Tiktok and living the life of a sloth…)

I mean… so long as the work gets done at the end of the day, that’s what matters to me 🙂 Which brings me to my next point.

2. Don’t plan more than five tasks per day (or whatever number you prefer) (excluding submissions period)

What I have learnt about myself is: on overenthusiastic days, I try to do beyond my to-do list and in the end produce quantity over quality (which… rarely happens to be honest). On under-enthusiastic days, ticking off the first task is hard. In which case, I try and remind myself the consequences that I will face later down the line– one of which, a grumpy 4am Charlene.

So I set for myself the golden rule: whatever happens, just finish this list of 5 tasks. That’s it. When they are done, how they are done, it doesn’t matter: they have to be done with quality. Of course, the number varies from time to time, but I try to stick to a constant number.

And that really helped for me.

3. My two best friends this semester? Google Drive, and Typo notebooks.

I have never been an organized person. Before university, all my documents were a mess, and it was really difficult for me to find copies of things. Looking back, I think that had a negative impact on my learning. This semester, I forced myself to clear my computer regularly, and organize files using Google Drive into one big folder per module, and then subfolders for various things. My hard work paid off when I realized it got so much easier for me to find things, and I could make use of features like the comments feature to make notes for various things.

When taking notes for lectures, I feel that physically taking down notes for me really helped me remember things better (and it also gave me the freedom to make random doodles on the side of the page… hehehe). I particularly like Typo’s notebooks (when they are on discount), as the cover pages are really aesthetic and the layout of the pages are really spacious. Alongside with colored sticky tabs, post-its and colored pens (different color for each module), can’t explain why but it gives me an odd sense of satisfaction when reading them.

4. Zoom tutorials can be a lifesaver! (if you are shy like me)

Yes, Zoom tutorials are definitely not the norm pre-pandemic. I miss the face to face interactions with people in class, and maybe getting to know a few people better in the process.

But Zoom tutorials to me have opened up a world of opportunities as well. Not just the fact that I can roll out of bed 10minutes before class starts, but that it really helps in class participation for a shy person like myself.

Sometimes I want to say something in class, but I’m unsure and not sure how to speak up. As I have the freedom to turn off my camera, I can just unmute myself and say whatever I want with less inhibition that my facial expression will give it away. Should I need more time to think through things, the chat function is always there to help.

That being said, I want to work on my confidence next semester! As interacting with people face to face (eventually) and presenting my viewpoints in a large group is something I need to get used to.

5. Don’t harbor any expectations.

As I progressed through the semester, I naturally had higher expectations of some modules as compared to others. Usually a combination of previous results, familiarity with the subject matter, amongst other factors. But that made me realize that I imposed much unnecessary stress on myself when there was absolutely no need to, and the modules that I didn’t expect as highly from turned out to be just as good an experience. Maybe even better, given the lesser additional stress.

As cliche as it sounds, I tell myself (often unsuccessfully, I admit) that so long as I have given my best, that’s enough. It’s good to aim high, but sometimes it makes you lose sight of what’s important.

It’s 3:25am as I end this post. Before I end, I just want to end off by saying that it has been a great pleasure blogging here, and I hope my posts have brought a little sunshine 🙂 It has been inspiring for me as well to read the works of the many other bloggers here too–thank you for sharing little snippets of your experience as well.

Here’s to a better next semester! :))

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