Elayne struggled to open the latch on an arm of her chair and darted after them, almost colliding with Nynaeve at the ladder. The ship still rocked, if not as violently as before. Uncertain whether they were sinking, she pushed Nynaeve ahead of her, prodding her to climb faster.
On the deck the crew dashed about, checking the rigging or peering over the side to inspect the hull, shouting about earthquakes. The same shouts were rising from the dockmen, too, but Elayne knew better, despite the tumbled things on the piers and the ships yet pitching at their moorings.
She stared toward the Stone. The huge fortress was still, except for masses of startled birds swirling about and that pale banner waving, almost lazily, in an isolated breeze. No sign that anything had ever touched the mountainous mass. That had been Rand, though. She was sure of it.
She turned to find Nynaeve looking at her, and for a long moment their eyes met. “A fine pickling, if he’s damaged the ship,” Elayne said finally. “How are we supposed to get to Tanchico if he goes tossing all the ships about?” Light, he has to be all right. I can do nothing if he isn’t. He is all right. He is.
Nynaeve touched her arm reassuringly. “No doubt that second letter of yours touched a nerve. Men always overreact when they let their emotions go; it’s the price for holding them in the way they do. He may be the Dragon Reborn, but he must learn, man to woman, that—What are they doing here?”
“They” were two men standing amid the bustling Sea Folk on the deck. One was Thom Merrilin, in his gleeman’s cloak, with leather-cased harp and flute on his back and a bundle lying at his feet beside a battered wooden box with a lock. The other was a lean handsome Tairen in his middle years, a hard dark man wearing a flat conical straw hat and one of those commoner’s coats that fit snugly to the waist, then flared like a short skirt. A notched sword-breaker hung at a belt worn over his coat, and he leaned on a pale staff of nobbly, jointed wood exactly his own height and no thicker than his thumb. A square tied parcel dangled by a loop from his shoulder. Elayne knew him: his name was Juilin Sandar.
It was obvious the two men were strangers despite standing almost side by side; they held themselves with stiff reticence. Their attentions were directed the same way, though, split between following the Sailmistress’s progress toward the stern deck and peering at Elayne and Nynaeve, plainly uncertain and masking it behind a brisk show of confidence. Thom grinned and stroked his long white mustaches and nodded every time he looked up at the two of them; Sandar made solemn, self-assured bows.
“He is not damaged,” Coine said, climbing the ladder. “I can sail within the hour, if it pleases you. Well within, if a Tairen pilot can be found. I will sail without him, if not, though it means never returning to Tear.” She followed their gaze to the two men. “They ask passage, the gleeman to Tanchico, and the thief catcher to wherever you travel. I cannot refuse them, and yet . . . ” Her dark eyes came back to Elayne and Nynaeve. “I will do so, if you ask it.” Reluctance to break custom battled in her voice with . . . Desire to help them? To serve the Coramoor? “The thief catcher is a good man, even considering that he is shorebound. No offense to you, under the Light. The gleeman I do not know, yet a gleeman can enliven a voyage and lighten tired hours.”
“You know Master Sandar?” Nynaeve said.
“Twice he has found those who pilfered from us, and found them quickly. Another shoreman would have taken longer so he might ask more for the work. It is obvious that you know him, as well. Do you wish me to refuse passage?” Her reluctance was still there.
“Let us see why they are here first,” Nynaeve said in a flat voice that did not bode well for either man.
“Perhaps I should do the talking,” Elayne suggested, gently but firmly. “That way, you can watch to see if they are hiding anything.” She did not say that that way Nynaeve’s temper would not get the better of her, but the wry smile the other woman gave her said she had heard it anyway.
“Very well, Elayne. I will watch them. Perhaps you might study how I keep calm. You know how you are when you become overwrought.”
Elayne had to laugh.
The two men straightened as she and Nynaeve approached. Around them the crew bustled, swarming into the rigging, hauling ropes, lashing some things down and unlashing others, to orders relayed from the Sailmistress. They moved around the four shorepeople with barely a glance.
Elayne frowned at Thom Merrilin thoughtfully. She was sure she had never seen the gleeman before his appearance in the Stone, yet even then she had been struck by something familiar about him. Not that that was likely. Gleemen were village performers, in the main; her mother had certainly never had one at the palace in Caemlyn. The only gleemen Elayne could remember seeing had been in the villages near her mother’s country estates, and this white-haired hawk of a man had surely never been there.
She decided to speak to the thief-catcher first. He insisted on that, she remembered; what was a thief-taker elsewhere was a thief-catcher in Tear, and the distinction seemed important to him.
“Master Sandar,” she said gravely. “You may not remember us. I am Elayne Trakand, and this is my friend, Nynaeve al’Meara. I understand that you wish to travel to the same destination as we. Might I ask why? The last time we saw you, you had not served us very well.”
The man did not blink at the suggestion he might not remember them. His eyes flickered across their hands, noting the absence of rings. Those dark eyes noted everything, and recorded it indelibly. “I do remember, Mistress Trakand, and well. But, if you will forgive me, the last time I served you was in the company of Mat Cauthon, when we pulled you both out of the water before the silverpike could get you.”
Nynaeve harrumphed, but not loudly. It had been a cell, not the water, and the Black Ajah, not silverpike. Nynaeve in particular did not like being reminded that they had needed help that time. Of course, they would not have been in that cell without Juilin Sandar. No, that was not entirely fair. True, but not completely fair.
“That is all very well,” Elayne said briskly, “but you still haven’t said why you want to go to Tanchico.”
He drew a deep breath and eyed Nynaeve warily. Elayne was not sure that she liked him being more careful of the other woman than of her. “I was rousted out of my house no more than half an hour gone,” he said carefully, “by a man you know, I think. A tall, stone faced man calling himself Lan.” Nynaeve’s eyebrows rose slightly. “He came on behalf of another man you know. A . . . shepherd, I was told. I was given a great quantity of gold and told to accompany you. Both of you. I was told that if you do not return safely from this journey . . . Shall we just say it would be better to drown myself than come back? Lan was emphatic, and the . . . shepherd no less so in his message. The Sailmistress tells me I cannot have passage unless you agree. I am not without certain skills that can be useful.” The staff whirled in his hands, a whistling blur, and was still. His fingers touched the sword-breaker on his hip, like a short sword but unsharpened, its slots meant to catch a blade.
“Men will find ways to get ’round what you tell them to do,” Nynaeve murmured, sounding not unpleased.
Elayne only frowned vexedly. Rand had sent him? He must not have read the second letter before he did. Burn him! Why does he leap about so? No time to send another letter, and it would probably only confuse him more if I did.  Burn him!
“And you, Master Merrilin?” Nynaeve said. “Did the shepherd send a gleeman after us, too? Or the other man? To keep us amused with your juggling and fire eating, perhaps.”
Thom had been scrutinizing Sandar closely, but he shifted his attentions smoothly and made an elegant bow, only spoiling it with a too-elaborate flourish of that patch-covered cloak. “Not the shepherd, Mistress al’Meara. A lady of our mutual acquaintance asked—asked—me to accompany you. The lady who found you and the shepherd in Emond’s Field.”
“Why?” Nynaeve said suspiciously.
“I, too, have useful skills,” Thom told her with a glance at the thief-catcher. “Other than juggling, that is. And I have been to Tanchico several times. I know the city well. I can tell you where to find a good inn, and what districts are dangerous in daylight as well as after dark, and who must be bribed so the Civil Watch does not take too close an interest in your doings. They are keen on watching outlanders. I can help you with a good many things.”
That familiarity tickled at Elayne’s mind again. Before she realized what she was doing, she reached up and tugged at one of his long white mustaches. He gave a start, and she clapped both hands to her mouth, flushing crimson. “Forgive me. I . . . I seemed to remember doing that before. I mean . . . I am sorry.” Light, why did I do that? He must think me an imbecile.
“I . . . would remember,” he said, very stiffly.
She hoped he was not affronted. It was hard to tell from his expression. Men could be offended when they should be amused, and amused when they should be offended. If they were going to be traveling together . . . That was the first time she realized that she had decided they could come. “Nynaeve?” she said.
The other woman understood the unspoken question, of course. She studied the two men thoroughly, then nodded. “They may come. As long as they agree to do as they are told. I’ll not have some wool-brained man going his own way and endangering us.”
“As you command, Mistress al’Meara,” Sandar said immediately, with a bow, but Thom said, “A gleeman is a free soul, Nynaeve, but I can promise I will not endanger you. Far from it.”
“As you are told,” Nynaeve said pointedly. “Your word on it, or you will watch this ship sail from the dock.”
“The Atha’an Miere do not refuse passage to anyone, Nynaeve.”
“Do you think not? Was the thief-taker”—Sandar winced—“the only one told he needed our permission? As you are told, Master Merrilin.”
 “My word on it, Mistress al’Meara.”
“Very well then,” Nynaeve said in a bracing voice. “It is settled. You two find the Sailmistress now, and tell her I said to find the pair of you a cubbyhole somewhere if she can, out of our way. Off with you, now. Quickly.”
Sandar bowed again and left; Thom quivered visibly before joining him, stiff-backed.
“Are you not being too hard on them?” Elayne said as soon as they were out of earshot. That was not far, with all the hurly-burly on deck. “We do have to travel together, after all. ‘Smooth words make smooth companions.’ ”
“Best to begin as we mean to go on. Elayne, Thom Merrilin knows very well we are not full Aes Sedai.” She lowered her voice and glanced around as she said it. None of the crew was even looking at them, except for the Sailmistress, back near the sterndeck where she was listening to the tall gleeman and the thief-catcher. “Men talk—they always do—so Sandar will know it soon enough, as well. They’d present no trouble to Aes Sedai, but two Accepted . . . ? Given half a chance, they would both be doing things they thought for the best no matter what we said. I do not mean to give them even that half chance.”
“Perhaps you are right. Do you think they know why we are going to Tanchico?”
Nynaeve sniffed. “No, or they’d not be so sanguine, I think. And I would rather not tell them until we must.” She gave Elayne a meaningful look; there was no need for her to say she would not have told the Sailmistress, either, had it been left to her. “Here is a saying for you.  She would have said the other woman was behaving like Moiraine, but Nynaeve would not appreciate the comparison.
“Can we? Juilin Sandar betrayed us once before. Yes, yes, I know no man could have avoided it, but there it is just the same. And Liandrin and the others know his face. We will have to put him in different clothes. Perhaps make him let his hair grow longer. Perhaps a mustache, like that thing infesting the gleeman’s face. It might do.”
“And Thom Merrilin?” Elayne asked. “I think we can trust him. I don’t know why, but I do.”
“He admitted being sent by Moiraine,” Nynaeve said wearily. “What has he not admitted, though? What did she tell him that he hasn’t told us? Is he meant to help us, or something else? Moiraine plays her own game so often, I trust her this much more than I do Liandrin.” She held her thumb and forefinger half an inch apart. “She will use us—you and me both—use us up, if it helps Rand. Or rather, if it helps whatever she has planned for Rand. She would leash him for a lapdog if she could.”
“Moiraine knows what has to be done, Nynaeve.” For once she was reluctant to admit that. What Moiraine knew had to be done might well speed Rand on his way toward Tarmon Gai’don that much faster. On his way toward death, perhaps. Rand balanced against the world. It was silly—foolish and childish—that those scales should tremble so evenly for her. Yet she did not dare make them swing, even in her mind, because she was not sure which way she would send them. “She knows it better than he does,” she said, making her voice firm. “Better than we.”
“Perhaps.” Nynaeve sighed. “But I do not have to like it.”
Ropes were cast off at the bow, where triangular sails suddenly broke out, and Wavedancer heeled away from the dock. More sails appeared, great white squares and triangles, the sternlines were cast off, and the ship curled out into the river in a great arc through the anchored ships awaiting their turn at the docks, a smooth curve that ended heading south, downriver. The Sea Folk handled their ship as a master horseman would a fine steed. That peculiar spoked wheel worked the rudder, somehow, as one of the bare-chested crewmen turned it. A man, Elayne was relieved to see. Sailmistress and Windfinder stood to one side of the wheel, Coine issuing occasional orders, sometimes after a murmured consultation with her sister. Toram watched for a time, with a face that might have been carved from a deck plank, then stalked below.
There was a Tairen on the sterndeck, a plump, dejected looking man in a dull yellow coat with puffy gray sleeves, rubbing his hands nervously. He had been hustled aboard just as the gangway was being hauled up, a pilot who was supposed to guide Wavedancer downriver; according to Tairen law, no ship could pass through the Fingers of the Dragon without a Tairen pilot aboard. His dejection certainly came from doing nothing, for if he gave any directions, the Sea Folk paid them no heed.
Muttering about seeing what their cabin was like, Nynaeve went downstairs—below—but Elayne was enjoying the breeze across the deck and the feel of starting out. To travel, to see places she had not seen before, was a joy in itself. She had never expected to, not like this. The Daughter Heir of Andor might make a few state visits, and she would make more once she succeeded to the throne, but they would be bounded about with ceremony and propriety. Not like this at all. Barefoot Sea Folk and a ship headed to sea.
The riverbank slid by quite quickly as the sun climbed, an occasional cluster of huddled stone farmhouses and barns, bleak and lonely, appearing and vanishing behind. No villages, though. Tear would not allow the smallest village on the river between the city and the sea, for even the tiniest might one day become competition for the capital. The High Lords controlled the size of villages and towns throughout the country with a buildings tax that grew heavier the more buildings there were. Elayne was sure they would never have allowed Godan to thrive, on the Bay of Remara, if not for the supposed necessity of a strong presence overlooking Mayene. In a way it was a relief to be leaving such foolish people behind. If only she did not have to leave one foolish man behind as well.
The number of fishing boats, most small and all surrounded by clouds of hopeful gulls and fisher birds, increased the farther south Wavedancer went, especially once the vessel entered the maze of waterways called the Fingers of the Dragon. Often the birds overhead and the long poles that held the nets were all that was visible besides plains of reeds and knifegrass rippling in the breezes, dotted with low islands where odd, twisted trees grew with spidery tangles of roots exposed to the air. Many boats worked right in the reeds, though not with nets. Once Elayne saw some of them close to clear water, men and women dropping hooked lines into the watery growth and pulling up wriggling, dark-striped fish as long as a man’s arm.
The Tairen pilot began to pace anxiously once they were in the delta, with the sun overhead, turning up his nose at an offered bowl of thick spicy fish stew and bread. Elayne ate hers hungrily, wiping her pottery bowl with the last scrap of bread, though she shared his unease. Passages broad and narrow ran in every direction. Some ended abruptly, in plain sight, against a wall of reeds. There was no way to tell which of the others might not vanish just as suddenly around the next bend. Coine did not slow Wavedancer, regardless, or hesitate at choosing a way. Obviously she knew the channels to take, or the Windfinder did, but the pilot still muttered to himself as if he expected to run aground any moment.
It was late afternoon when the river mouth suddenly appeared ahead, and the endless stretch of the Sea of Storms beyond. The Sea Folk did something with the sails, and the ship shuddered softly to a dead halt. It was only then that Elayne noticed a large rowboat skittering like a many legged waterbug out from an island where a few forlorn stone buildings stood around the base of a tall narrow tower where men stood small at the top beneath the banner of Tear, three white crescents on a field of red and gold. The pilot took the purse Coine proffered without a word and scrambled down a rope ladder to the boat. As soon as he was aboard, the sails were swung about again, and Wavedancer breasted the first rollers of open sea, rising slightly, slicing through. Sea Folk scampered through the rigging, setting more sails, as the ship sped south and west, away from the land.
When the last thin strip of land dropped below the horizon, the Sea Folk women doffed their blouses. All of them, even the Sailmistress and the Windfinder. Elayne did not know where to look. All those women walking about half dressed and completely unconcerned by the men all around them. Juilin Sandar seemed to be having as hard a time as she was, alternating between staring at the women wide eyed and staring at his feet until he finally all but ran below. Elayne would not let herself be routed that way. She opted for staring over the side at the sea, instead.
Different customs, she reminded herself. As long they don’t expect me to do the same. The very thought nearly made her laugh hysterically. Somehow, the Black Ajah was easier to contemplate than that. Different customs. Light!
The sky grew purple, with a dull golden sun on the horizon. Scores of dolphins escorted the vessel, rolling and arching alongside, and farther out some sort of sparkling silver blue fish rose above the surface in schools, gliding on outstretched fins a span across for fifty paces or more before plunging back into the swelling gray green water. Elayne watched in amazement for a dozen flights before they did not appear again.
But the dolphins, great sleek shapes, were wondrous enough, a guard of honor taking Wavedancer back where he belonged. Those she recognized from descriptions in books; it was said if they found you drowning, they would push you to shore. She was not sure she believed it, but it was a pretty story. She followed them along the side of the ship, to the bow, where they frolicked in the bow wave, rolling on their sides to look up at her without losing an inch.
She was almost in the narrowest point of the bow before she realized Thom Merrilin was there before her, smiling down at the dolphins a bit sadly, his cloak catching the wind like the cloud of sails above. He had rid himself of his belongings. He did seem familiar; truly he did. “Are you not happy, Master Merrilin?”
He glanced at her sideways. “Please, call me Thom, my Lady.”
“Thom, then. But not my Lady. I am only Mistress Trakand here.”
“As you say, Mistress Trakand,” he said with a hint of a smile.
“How can you look at these dolphins and be unhappy, Thom?”
“They are free,” he murmured, in such a tone that she was not sure he was answering her. “They have no decisions to make, no prices to pay. Not a worry in the world, except finding fish to eat. And sharks, I suppose. And lionfish. And likely a hundred more things I don’t know. Perhaps it is not such an enviable life at that.”
“Do you envy them?” He did not answer, but that was the wrong question anyway. She needed to make him smile again. No, laugh. For some reason she was sure if she could make him laugh, she would remember where she had seen him before. She chose another topic, one that should be nearer his heart. “Do you mean to compose the epic of Rand, Thom?” Epics were for bards, not gleemen, but there could be no harm in a little flattery. “The epic of the Dragon Reborn. Loial means to write a book, you know.”
“Perhaps I will, Mistress Trakand. Perhaps. But neither my composing nor the Ogier’s book will make much difference in the long run. Our stories will not survive, in the long run. When the next Age comes—” He grimaced, and tugged one of his mustaches. “Come to think of it, that may be no more than a year or two off. How is the end of an Age marked? It cannot always be a cataclysm on the order of the Breaking. But then, if the Prophecies are to be believed, this one will be. That is the trouble with prophecy. The original is always in the Old Tongue, and maybe High Chant as well: if you don’t know what a thing means beforehand, there’s no way to puzzle it out. Does it mean what it says, or is it a flowery way of saying something entirely different?”
“You were talking of your epic,” she said, trying to guide him back, but he shook his shaggy white head.
“I was talking of change. My epic, if I compose it—and Loial’s book—will be no more than seed, if we are both lucky. Those who know the truth will die, and their grandchildren’s grandchildren will remember something different. And their grandchildren’s grandchildren something else again. Two dozen generations, and you may be the hero of it, not Rand.”
“Me?” she laughed.
“Or maybe Mat, or Lan. Or even myself.” He grinned at her, warming his weathered face. “Thom Merrilin. Not a gleeman—but what? Who can say? Not eating fire, but breathing it. Hurling it about like an Aes Sedai.” He flourished his cloak. “Thom Merrilin, the mysterious hero, toppling mountains and raising up kings.” The grin became a rich belly laugh. “Rand al’Thor may be lucky if the next Age remembers his name correctly.”
She was right; it was not just a feeling. That face, that mirth-filled laugh; she did remember them. But from where? She had to keep him talking. “Does it always happen that way? I do not think anyone doubts, say, that Artur Hawkwing conquered an empire. The whole world, or near enough.”
“Hawkwing, young Mistress? He made an empire, all right, but do you think he did everything the books and stories and epics say he did? The way they say he did it? Killed the hundred best men of an opposing army, one by one? The two armies just stood there while one of the generals—a king—fought a hundred duels?”
“The books say he did.”
“There isn’t time between sunrise and sunset for one man to fight a hundred duels, girl.”
She almost stopped him short—girl? She was Daughter Heir of Andor, not girl—but he had the bit in his teeth. “And that is only a thousand years back.  Did Mosk and Merk really fight with spears of fire, and were they even giants? Was Elsbet really queen of the whole world, and was Anla really her sister? Was Anla truly the Wise Counselor, or was it someone else? As well ask what sort of animal ivory comes from, or what kind of plant grows silk. Unless that comes from an animal, too.”
“I do not know about those other questions,” Elayne said a bit stiffly; being called girl still rankled, “but you could ask the Sea Folk about ivory and silk.”
He laughed again—as she had hoped, though it still did no more than drive home the certainty that she knew him—but instead of calling her foolish, as she half expected and was prepared for, he said, “Practical and to the point, just like your mother. Both feet on the earth and few flights of fancy.”
She lifted her chin a little, made her face cooler. She might be passing herself off as simple Mistress Trakand, but this was something else. He was an amiable old man, and she did want to reason out the puzzle of him, but he was a gleeman after all, and he should not speak of a queen in such familiar tones. Oddly, infuriatingly, he appeared amused. Amused!
“The Atha’an Miere do not know, either,” he said. “They see no more of the lands beyond the Aiel Waste than a few miles around the handful of harbors where they are permitted to land. Those places are walled high, and the walls guarded so they cannot even climb up to see what is on the other side. If one of their ships makes landfall anywhere else—or any ship not theirs; only the Sea Folk are allowed to come there—that ship and its crew are never seen again. And that is almost as much as I can tell you after more years of asking than I like to think of. The Atha’an Miere keep their secrets, but I do not believe they know much to keep here. From what I have been able to learn, the Cairhienin were treated the same, when they still had the right to travel the Silk Path across the Waste. Cairhienin traders never saw anything but one walled town, and those who wandered from it vanished.”
Elayne found herself studying him much as she had the dolphins. What kind of man was this? Twice now he might have laughed at her—he had been amused just then, as much as she hated to admit it—but instead he talked to her as seriously as . . . Well, as father to daughter. “You might find a few answers on this ship, Thom. They were bound east until we convinced the Sailmistress to take us to Tanchico. To Shara, the Cargomaster said, east of Mayene; that must mean beyond the Waste.”
He stared at her for a moment. “Shara, you say? I have never heard any such name before. Is Shara city or nation or both? Perhaps I will learn a little more.”
What did I say? she wondered. I said something to make him think. Light! I told him we convinced Coine to change her plans. It could not make any difference, but she scolded herself severely. A careless word to this nice old man might do no harm, but the same might kill her in Tanchico, and Nynaeve, too, not to mention the thief-catcher and Thom himself. If he was such a nice old man. “Thom, why did you come with us? Just because Moiraine asked?”
His shoulders shook; she realized he was laughing at himself. “As to that, who can say? Aes Sedai asking favors are not easily resisted. Perhaps it was the prospect of your pleasant company for the voyage. Or perhaps I decided Rand is old enough to look after himself for a while.”
He laughed out loud, and she had to laugh with him. The idea of this white-haired old fellow looking after Rand. The feeling that she could trust him came back, stronger than ever, as he looked at her. Not because he could laugh at himself, or not only that. She could not have given a reason beyond the fact that, looking up into those blue eyes, she could not make herself believe this man would ever do anything to harm her.
The urge to pull one of his mustaches again was almost overwhelming, but she schooled her hands to stillness. She was not a child, after all. A child. She opened her mouth—and suddenly everything went out of her head.
“Please excuse me, Thom,” she said hurriedly. “I must . . . Excuse me.” She started toward the stern quickly, not waiting for a reply. He probably thought the ship’s motion had upset her stomach. Wavedancer was pitching more rapidly, moving faster through the great sea swells as the wind freshened.
Two men stood at the wheel on the sterndeck, the muscle of both needed to hold the vessel on course, The Sailmistress was not on deck, but the Windfinder was, standing at the rail beyond the wheelmen, bare to the waist like the men, studying the sky where billowing clouds rolled more fiercely than the ocean. For once it was not Jorin’s state of dress—or undress—that bothered Elayne. The glow of a woman embracing saidar surrounded her, clearly visible despite the lurid light. That was what she had felt, what had drawn her. A woman channeling.
Elayne stopped short of the sterndeck to study what she was doing. The flows of Air and Water the Windfinder handled were cable-thick, yet her weaving was intricate, almost delicate, and it reached as far as the eye could see across the waters, a web drawn across the sky. The wind rose higher, higher; the wheelmen strained, and Wavedancer flew through the sea. The weaving stopped, the glow of saidar vanished, and Jorin slumped at the rail, leaning on her hands.
Elayne climbed the ladder quietly, yet the Sea Folk woman spoke in a soft voice without turning her head as soon as she was near enough to hear. “In the middle as I worked, I thought that you were watching me. I could not stop then; there might have been a storm even Wavedancer could not survive. The Sea of Storms is well named; it will throw up bad winds enough without my help. I meant not to do this at all, but Coine said we must go quickly. For you, and for the Coramoor.” She raised her eyes to peer at the sky. “This wind will hold until morning, if it pleases the Light.”
“This is why the Sea Folk do not carry Aes Sedai?” Elayne said, taking a place beside her at the rail. “So the Tower won’t learn Windfinders can channel. That is why it was your decision to let us aboard, not your sister’s. Jorin, the Tower will not try to stop you. There is no law in the Tower to stop any woman channeling, even if she is not Aes Sedai.”
“Your White Tower will interfere. It will try to reach onto our ships, where we are free of the land and landsmen. It will try to tie us to itself, binding us away from the sea.” She sighed heavily. “The wave that has passed cannot be called back.”
Elayne wished she could tell her it was not so, but the Tower did seek out women and girls who could learn to channel, both to bolster the numbers of Aes Sedai, dwindling now compared to what they once had been, and because of the danger of learning unguided. In truth, a woman who could be taught to touch the True Source usually found herself in the Tower whatever she wanted, at least until she was trained enough not to kill herself or others by accident.
After a moment Jorin went on. “It is not all of us. Only some. We send a few girls to Tar Valon so Aes Sedai will not come looking among us. No ship will carry Aes Sedai whose Windfinder can weave the winds. When you first named yourselves, I thought you must know me, but you did not speak, and you asked passage, and I hoped perhaps you were not Aes Sedai despite your rings. A foolish hope. I could feel the strength of you both. And now the White Tower will know.”
“I cannot promise to keep your secret, but I will do what I can.” The woman deserved more. “Jorin, I swear by the honor of House Trakand of Andor that I will do my best to keep your secret from any who would harm you or your people, and that if I must reveal it to anyone, I will do all in my ability to protect your people from interference. House Trakand is not without influence, even in the Tower.” And I will make mother use it, if need be. Somehow.
“If it pleases the Light,” Jorin said fatalistically, “all will be well. All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of thing will be well, if it pleases the Light.”
“There was a damane on that Seanchan ship, wasn’t there?” The Windfinder gave her a quizzical look. “One of the captive women who can channel.”
“You see deeply for one so young. That is why I first thought you might not be Aes Sedai, because you are so young; I have daughters older than you, I think. I did not know she was a captive; that makes me wish we could have saved her. Wavedancer outran the Seanchan vessel easily at first—we had heard of the Seanchan and their vessels with ribbed sails, that they demanded strange oaths and punished those who would not give them—but then the—damane?—broke two of his masts, and they boarded him with swords. I managed to start fires on the Seanchan vessel—weaving Fire is difficult for me beyond lighting a lamp, but it pleased the Light to make it enough—and Toram led the crew to fight the Seanchan back to their own decks. We cut loose the boarding hooks, and their ship drifted away, burning. They were too occupied with trying to save him to bother us as we limped away. I regretted seeing him burn and sink, then; he was a fine ship, I think, for heavy seas. Now I regret it because we might have saved the woman, the damane. Even if she damaged him, perhaps she would not have, free. The Light illumine her soul, and the waters take her peacefully.”
Telling the story had saddened her. She needed to be distracted. “Jorin, why do the Atha’an Miere call ships ‘he’? Everyone else I’ve ever met calls them ‘she.’ I don’t suppose it makes any difference, but why?”
“The men will give you a different answer,” the Windfinder said, smiling, “speaking of strength and grandness and the like as men will, but this is the truth.  She rubbed the rail fondly, as if stroking something alive, something that could feel her caress.  He will fight to keep you alive even after the sea has long since given him his own deathstroke.
Elayne hoped Rand was not as fickle as that. Then why does he hop about, glad to see me go one minute and sending Juilin Sandar after me the next? She told herself to stop thinking about him. He was a long way away. There was nothing to be done about him now.
She glanced over her shoulder toward the bow. Thom was gone. She was sure she had found the key to his puzzle, just before she had felt the Windfinder channeling. Something to do with his smile. It was gone, whatever it was. Well, she meant to find it again before they reached Tanchico, if she had to sit on him. But he would still be there in the morning. “Jorin, how long before we reach Tanchico? I have been told rakers are the fastest ships in the world, but how fast?”
“To Tanchico? To serve the Coramoor, we will not stop at any port between. Perhaps ten days, if I can weave the winds well enough, if it pleases the Light that I find the proper currents. Perhaps as few as seven or eight, with the grace of the Light.”
“Ten days?” Elayne gasped. “It cannot be possible.” She had seen maps, after all.
The other woman’s smile was half pride, half indulgence. “As you yourself said, the fastest ships in the world. The next quickest take half again as long over any stretch, and most more than twice as long. Coasting craft that hug the shore and anchor in the shallows each night . . . ” She sniffed contemptuously “ . . . require ten times as much.”
“Jorin, would you teach me to do what you were just doing?”
The Windfinder stared, her dark eyes wide and shining in the fading light. “Teach you? But you are Aes Sedai.”
“Jorin, I have never woven a flow half as thick as those you were handling. And the scope of it! I am astounded, Jorin.”
The Windfinder stared a moment more, no longer in amazement, but as if trying to fix Elayne’s face in her mind. Finally she kissed the fingers of her right hand and pressed them to Elayne’s lips. “If it pleases the Light, we both shall learn.”


Welcome to our page Towan.us! In case you do not know what Towan.us is; This is a gaming website providing you with a Tower Defence game we created on our own! It offers you a lot of cool features as well as a great community to share your stats and improvements with! So do not hesitate to create an account and to try your best being the best gamer on Towan.us! We wish you a lot of fun and are happy to welcome you! Your team Towan.us


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Novel 3-D manufacturing builds complex, bio-like materials
Washington State University researchers have developed a unique, 3-D manufacturing method that for the first time rapidly creates and precisely controls a material’s architecture from the nanoscale to centimeters – with results that closely mimic the intricate architecture of natural materials like wood and bone. They report on their work in the journal Science Advances (http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/3/e1601986) and have filed for a patent. The work has many high-tech engineering applications. “This is a groundbreaking advance in the 3-D architecturing of materials at nano- to macroscales with applications in batteries, lightweight ultrastrong materials, catalytic converters, supercapacitors and biological scaffolds,” said Rahul Panat, associate professor in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, who led the research. “This technique can fill a lot of critical gaps for the realization of these technologies.” The WSU research team used a 3-D printing method to create foglike microdroplets that contain nanoparticles of silver and to deposit them at specific locations. As the liquid in the fog evaporated, the nanoparticles remained, creating delicate structures. The tiny structures, which look similar to Tinkertoy constructions, are porous, have an extremely large surface area and are very strong. Silver was used because it is easy to work with. However, Panat said, the method can be extended to any other material that can be crushed into nanoparticles – and almost all materials can be. The researchers created several intricate and beautiful structures, including microscaffolds that contain solid truss members like a bridge, spirals, electronic connections that resemble accordion bellows or doughnut-shaped pillars. The manufacturing method itself is similar to a rare, natural process in which tiny fog droplets that contain sulfur evaporate over the hot western Africa deserts and give rise to crystalline flower-like structures called “desert roses.” Because it uses 3-D printing technology, the new method is highly efficient, creates minimal waste and allows for fast and large-scale manufacturing. The researchers would like to use such nanoscale and porous metal structures for a number of industrial applications; for instance, the team is developing finely detailed, porous anodes and cathodes for batteries rather than the solid structures that are now used. This advance could transform the industry by significantly increasing battery speed and capacity and allowing the use of new and higher energy materials. Graduate students Mohammad Sadeq Saleh and Chunshan Hu worked with Panat on the project. The research is in keeping with WSU’s Grand Challenges initiative stimulating research to address some of society’s most complex issues. It is particularly relevant to the challenge of “Smart Systems” and its theme of foundational and emergent materials.
Ilian Damianov


NAME: ERIC RICE
TITLE: Chaos Creator
BIO: Eric has been involved in the startup scene for over 20+ years. He’s been labeled an entrepreneur and an executive but at his core he is the definition of business development. Eric uses his vast experience and creativity to help clients develop and execute content and interactive campaigns that drive results.
NAME: TODD HICKMAN
TITLE: Chaos Coordinator
BIO: Before joining 25 Ventures Todd was an investment banker, an investor and startup consultant. Throughout his career he has been building teams, including a 6k person team inside B of A. Todd utilizes his team building background to create teams and design internal operations for our clients.
NAME: BLAKE GILLETTE
TITLE: Chaos Designer
BIO: A mover, shaker, and one-man party. Before joining 25 Ventures, having a background in digital marketing and design, Blake lead marketing teams at Red Bull and Business Rockstars where he created and executed countless digital campaigns. Blake uses his experience and talents to help clients maintain a fresh appearance to the younger audiences.


SceneJS
- optimization - view frustum culling
culling objects that fall outside the view frustum
culling engine runs in multiple web workers
read more in
this tutorial


Loading user organisation...
My organisation (as administrator)
Loading teachings...
Teachings of my organisation
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[teachings]="organisationTeachings" [canUpdate]="organisation.isActive" >
0)">
No teachings found for my organisation.
Other teachings
0"
[teachings]="otherTeachings" >
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No
others teachings found.


Integers (numbers without a period or exponent notation) are accurate up to 15 digits:
Floating point arithmetic is not always 100% accurate.
But it helps to multiply and divide:


Tame Impala to perform at All Points East
The festival takes place in May.
Tame Impala will perform at next year’s All Points East festival.
Australian instrumentalist Kevin Parker – who is joined on stage by members of psychedelic rock band Pond for live performances – will take to the stage at the event in London’s Victoria Park in May.
It will be Tame Impala’s only UK show in 2020.
The artist is unveiling new album The Slow Rush on Valentine’s Day and the All Points East show will be the first time fans in the UK can hear the new songs live.
Other acts on the bill include Caribou, Glass Animals, Whitney and Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever.
The festival runs from May 22 to 31. For information visit www.allpointseastfestival.com.


config["horizon"] = 40
config["num_workers"] = 0 // local only
config["train_batch_size"] = 512
config["num_sgd_iter"] = 10
num_iterations = 30
for _ in framework_iterator(config, frameworks="torch"):
// W/ Curiosity.
for _ in range(num_iterations):
result = trainer.train()
print(result)
if result["episode_reward_mean"] >= 0.001:
print("Learnt something!")
learnt = True
break
trainer.stop()
self.assertTrue(learnt)
// // W/o Curiosity. Expect to learn nothing.


01. Authentication
A quick guide to authenticating your app with the Moltin API.
All you need is your Public Key and this will give access to GET methods as well as selected PUT & POST methods (eg. cart)
Code
A quick guide to authenticating your app with the Moltin API.
All you need is your Public Key and this will give access to GET methods as well as selected PUT & POST methods (eg. cart)


Ghent University (UGent) was founded on October 9, 1817 in the city hall of Ghent, Belgium. Many activities were organized in 2017 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the UGent. On this occasion, we have designed a prime number dedicated to Ghent University.
The prime number only contains the digits 1 and 8 — 9000 in total, as a reference to the postal code of Ghent, Belgium — but if you look carefully you'll also notice a single occurrence of the digit 2 in the prime number (marked in yellow in the figure above).
The input describes a rectangular image that has at least three rows and at least three columns. The image is constructed using three different characters: two of these characters each occur at least twice in the image and the other character occurs just once in the image.
The first line of input contains the two characters that each occur at least twice in the image. This is followed by lines that represent the rows of the image. Each row contains the same number of characters (corresponding to the number of columns of the image).
A line containing the text
character 's' only occurs at row r and column c
with the character that occurs just once in the image filling up the placeholder s. The index of the row (resp. column) where this character occurs in the image must replace the placeholder r (resp. c). Rows are indexed from top to bottom, and columns are indexed from left to right, starting at 1 in both cases.
In the sample input below, the character that occurs just once has been marked in yellow.
Input:
.8
...........................................
...........................................
....................88.....................
.................88888888..................
...............888888888888................
............888888......888888.............
.........888888............888888..........
......888888..................888888.......
....888888......................888888.....
....888............................888.....
...........................................
......888888888888888888888888888888.......
........88888888888888888888888888.........
...........................................
...........................................
........88..88..88..88..88..88..88.........
........88..88..88..88..88..88..88.........
........88..88..88..88..88..88..88.........
........88..88..88..88..88..88..88.........
........88..88..88..88..88..88..88.........
........88..88..88..88..88..82..88.........
........88..88..88..88..88..88..88.........
........88..88..88..88..88..88..88.........
........88..88..88..88..88..88..88.........
........88..88..88..88..88..88..88.........
........88..88..88..88..88..88..88.........
........88..88..88..88..88..88..88.........
...........................................
...........................................
......888888888888888888888888888888.......
......888888888888888888888888888888.......
...........................................
....8888888888888888888888888888888888.....
....8888888888888888888888888888888888.....
...........................................
...........................................
Output:
character '2' only occurs at row 21 and column 30
The design of the Ghent University prime number has been inspired by this video published by Numberphile.
The video features a startling wall hanging in the Senior Combination Room at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Junior research fellow James McKee devised a 1350-digit prime number whose image forms a likeness of the college's coat of arms. The number of digits is significant, as it's the year that Bishop William Bateman founded the college.
It turns out that finding such "prime" images is easier than one might think. In the video description, McKee explains:
Most of the digits of $$p$$ were fixed so that i) the top two thirds made the desired pattern and ii) the bottom third ensured that $$p - 1$$ had a nice large (composite) factor $$F$$ with the factorisation of $$F$$ known. Numbers of this shape can easily be checked for primality. A small number of digits (you can see which!) were looped over until $$p$$ was found that was prime.
This inspired Cambridge math student Jack Hodkinson to publish his own prime number, this one presenting an image of Corpus Christi College and including his initials and date of birth.
To design the Ghent University prime number, we started from the logo that was used to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Ghent University.
This logo has then been converted into an ASCII image containing 9000 digits (as a reference to the postal code of the city of Ghent, Belgium), split over 75 rows containing 120 ones and eights each. We selected Bimini as a font to represent the prime number, because it gave good contract between the "heavy" eights (representing the blue pixels) and the "light" ones (representing the white pixels). Luckily, the bottom right pixel was white, because the prime number we had in mind could impossibly be even.
We then wrote a Python program to convert this initial number — which showed the pattern we had in mind, but wasn't a prime number yet — into a prime number. To do so, the program systematically iterated over all eights in the initial number, replaced the eight by another digit (not 1 or 8), and checked if the resulting number was prime. To quickly check if a 9000-digit number is prime, we used the Miller-Rabin primality test. This algorithm is always correct in saying that a given number is not prime, but it can only state with (very) high probability that a given number is prime. To finally check that a candidate prime number was indeed prime, we used Dario Alpern's fantastic tool to give ourselves absolute certainty.
How were we so confident that this would work? Well, the prime number theorem tells us that there are approximately $$\frac{n}{\log{n}}$$ primes less than $$n$$. So there are approximately \[ \frac{10^{9000}}{\log{10^{9000}}} - \frac{10^{8999}}{\log{10^{8999}}} \approx 4.34 \times 10^{8995} \] 9000-digit primes. So, approximately one in every 21.000 9000-digit numbers is prime. Of course, we haven't calculated these estimates at the back of an envelope, as we also had Python to the rescue here (the module Decimal provides support for fast correctly-rounded decimal floating point arithmetic).
>>> from decimal import Decimal >>> n = Decimal(10 ** 9000) >>> m = Decimal(10 ** 8999) >>> estimate = lambda x : x / x.ln() >>> primes_with_9000_digits = estimate(n) - estimate(m) >>> primes_with_9000_digits Decimal('4.342891196471751863968210190E+8995') >>> numbers_with_9000_digits = 9 * m >>> numbers_with_9000_digits / primes_with_9000_digits Decimal('20723.52171132395093158056936')
The even numbers were left out of consideration in advance, reducing half of the search space. We could also skip the digits 0, 3, 6 and 9 as replacements for one of the eights, since the combination with 7660 ones and 1339 eights would always result in a multiple of three. This only left us with the digits 2, 4, 5 and 7 that needed to be considered as replacements for one of the eights.
Searching our prime number would definitely not be as time consuming as looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. But if you take into account that it takes a couple of minutes to figure out if a 9000-digit number is prime, it could have easily taken us more than a month to find our prime number. Luckily, we also had the Ghent University supercomputer at our disposal (thanks to the collaboration with the Flemish Supercomputer Centre) to check many numbers at the same time. In the end, the 2942nd number checked turned out to be prime, so that our rudimentary prediction from above even proved to be a slight overestimation.


3rd party cookies: seperate from the domain you are visiting and mostly found in a banner ad. allows for potential tracking of your browsing history (advertisers use this to give you relevant ads) so if you visit multiple pages/domains with the same ad network attached it will send this info back to the advertisers and they will connect the dots between your browsing to create a profile for you to more "accurately" market to you


Welcome the to BruhBox Server platform. The server source code has been moved to<EMAIL_ADDRESS>The live site is at https://bruhboxchat.icxnelly.repl.co/room[0] made by icx(Nels2)


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@ApiAudience.Framework @ApiStability.Experimental @Inheritance.Sealed public interface KijiSecurityManager
KijiSecurityManager manages access control for a Kiji instance.
The current version of Kiji security (security-0.1) is instance-level only. Users can have READ, WRITE, and/or GRANT access on a Kiji instance.
| Nested Class Summary | |
|---|---|
static class |
KijiSecurityManager.Factory
Factory for creating KijiSecurityManagers. |
static class |
KijiSecurityManager.Installer
Installer used for installing Kiji security on a Kiji instance. |
| Method Summary | |
|---|---|
void |
applyPermissionsToNewTable(KijiURI tableURI)
Applies the correct permissions to a newly-created table in the instance managed by this KijiSecurityManager. |
void |
checkCurrentGrantAccess()
Checks whether the current user has grant access, throwing a KijiAccessException if it doesn't. |
KijiPermissions |
getPermissions(KijiUser user)
Gets the permissions for a user on this Kiji instance, as stored in the system table. |
void |
grant(KijiUser user,
KijiPermissions.Action action)
Grants a user permissions to perform an action. |
void |
grantAll(KijiUser user)
Grants a user permissions to perform all actions. |
void |
grantInstanceCreator(KijiUser user)
Adds the creator of this instance as the initial user with GRANT access on this instance. |
Set<KijiUser> |
listAllUsers()
Lists all users with any permissions on this instance. |
void |
lock()
Locks the Kiji instance managed by this. |
void |
reapplyInstancePermissions()
Reapplies permissions stored in the Kiji system table to this instance, including all tables in the instance. |
void |
revoke(KijiUser user,
KijiPermissions.Action action)
Revokes permissions from a user to perform an action. |
void |
revokeAll(KijiUser user)
Revokes permissions to all actions on this instance for a user. |
void |
unlock()
Unlocks the Kiji instance managed by this. |
| Methods inherited from interface java.io.Closeable |
|---|
close |
| Method Detail |
|---|
void lock() throws IOException
This locks instances across all instances of KijiSecurityManager in all processes.
IOException
- on I/O error.void unlock() throws IOException
IOException
- on I/O error.void grant(KijiUser user, KijiPermissions.Action action) throws IOException
user
- to grant permission to.action
- to grant permission to perform.
IOException
- on I/O error.void grantAll(KijiUser user) throws IOException
user
- to grant all permissions to.
IOException
- on I/O error.void revoke(KijiUser user, KijiPermissions.Action action) throws IOException
user
- to revoke permission from.action
- to revoke permission to perform.
IOException
- on I/O error.void revokeAll(KijiUser user) throws IOException
user
- to revoke all permissions from.
IOException
- on I/O error.void reapplyInstancePermissions() throws IOException
IOException
- on I/O error.void applyPermissionsToNewTable(KijiURI tableURI) throws IOException
Callers of this method should lock the Kiji instance using #lock first, and unlock after using #unlock.
tableURI
- of the table that was just created. Must be a URI specifying a table in the
instance managed by this KijiSecurityManager.
IOException
- on I/O error.void grantInstanceCreator(KijiUser user) throws IOException
Throws a KijiAccessException
if there are already grantors.
user
- to give GRANT access.
IOException
- on I/O error.KijiPermissions getPermissions(KijiUser user) throws IOException
user
- whose permissions to get.
IOException
- If there is an I/O error.Set<KijiUser> listAllUsers() throws IOException
IOException
- on I/O error.void checkCurrentGrantAccess() throws IOException
IOException
- on I/O error.
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Creating pages
In addition to writing posts, you might also want to add static pages (content that isn’t date-based) to your Jekyll site. By taking advantage of the way Jekyll copies files and directories, this is easy to do.
Homepage
Just about every web server configuration you come across will look for an HTML
file called index.html
(by convention) in the site’s root folder and display
that as the homepage. Unless the web server you’re using is configured to look
for some different filename as the default, this file will turn into the
homepage of your Jekyll-generated site.
ProTip™: Use layouts on your homepage
Any HTML file on your site can use layouts and/or includes, even the homepage. Common content, like headers and footers, make excellent candidates for extraction into a layout.
Where additional pages live
Where you put HTML or Markdown files for pages depends on how you want the pages to work. There are two main ways of creating pages:
- Place named HTML or Markdown files for each page in your site’s root folder.
- Place pages inside folders and subfolders named whatever you want.
Both methods work fine (and can be used in conjunction with each other),
with the only real difference being the resulting URLs. By default, pages retain the same folder structure in _site
as they do in the source directory.
Named HTML files
The simplest way of adding a page is just to add an HTML file in the root directory with a suitable name for the page you want to create. For a site with a homepage, an about page, and a contact page, here’s what the root directory and associated URLs might look like:
.
|-- _config.yml
|-- _includes/
|-- _layouts/
|-- _posts/
|-- _site/
|-- about.html # => http://example.com/about.html
|-- index.html # => http://example.com/
|-- other.md # => http://example.com/other.html
└── contact.html # => http://example.com/contact.html
If you have a lot of pages, you can organize those pages into subfolders. The same subfolders that are used to group your pages in our project’s source will exist in the _site
folder when your site builds.
Flattening pages from subfolders into the root directory
If you have pages organized into subfolders in your source folder and want to flatten them in the root folder on build, you must add the permalink property directly in your page’s front matter like this:
---
title: My page
permalink: mypageurl.html
---
Named folders containing index HTML files
If you don’t want file extensions (.html
) to appear in your page URLs (file extensions are the default), you can choose a permalink style that has a trailing slash instead of a file extension.
Note if you want to view your site offline without the Jekyll preview server, your browser will need the file extension to display the page, and all assets will need to be relative links that function without the server baseurl.


In my last few posts I’ve been talking about how I’m using Apple’s productivity apps–Notes, Reminders and Calendar to name a few–and ways I think they could improve. This post is another idea for how to put them together for a bird’s eye view of the day ahead: a sort of Good Morning feature in iOS.
In iOS 10, Apple introduced the Bedtime feature, to help us wind down our day early enough for us to get a good night’s sleep before our alarm. What I’d like to see next is a more assisted way to start my day once I’ve woken up, after that alarm.
A good Good Morning sequence would tie the information together in a simple way, like a weather complication or a more condensed form of grouped notifications for things like new messages (email, SMS etc). I don’t use News or Music, but those could probably be included in a tasteful way too.
There are a lot of partial solutions to what I’d like, but nothing really ties it all together in a good UX. Let’s look at them for some inspiration and to see what we can improve.
I thought maybe what I want already exists in iOS via Siri. I’m not a Siri power user, so I assume there’s a lot it can do that I don’t know about. I tried a few queries–here they are with a description of responses I got:
What am I doing today? (What’s today’s schedule look like? What’s today looking like?) Calendar events scheduled for today, with calendar colors so you know where its coming from if you have 15 calendars like I do.
What reminders do I have? Some subset of reminders, none of which are set for a specific day/time in my case, ungrouped but color-coded. It’s a little tough to tell them apart as I have 10 different lists in Reminders, not including “Scheduled”.
What’s on my TODO list? Just the items from the last list in my Reminders app, as opposed to the Scheduled list, which I expected.
There’s an “Up Next” widget from Calendar app, which shows the very next non “All Day” event from any calendar–it’s a nice top widget to have, and a good step towards what I’m looking for. There’s another “Calendar” widget that has a nice event display, but apparently only sticks to the current day; it’s empty in my late-night screenshot:
Worse, the Mail and Calendar widgets can’t disappear despite being empty, but might in a more dynamically generated UI like a Good Morning widget.
The original inspiration for this post is the lock screen you see when first using your phone after waking up from a Bedtime alarm, if you also have Do Not Disturb scheduled. Note that this is different than the Bedtime Option to enable Do Not Disturb.
I originally discovered this by accident. It’s not obvious enough to set it up explicitly, doesn’t really do a lot, and isn’t retrievable once dismissed. Moreover, I don’t think jumping right into phone usage when I wake up is the healthiest thing–I’d prefer to do this on my own time.
Again, an area where I’m not a power user. But just flipping through the gallery, I saw there’s a “Morning Routine” section. There’s a “Brush Teeth” timer, for instance. I’m sure people have come up with more sophisticated shortcut flows that probably accomplish a lot of what I want.
In the end, I don’t want to fiddle a lot with it. For this specialized yet ubiquitous use case, I think it makes sense for iOS to take the reins and use all the information I’ve already programmed into the aforementioned apps.
Primarily I’d like to have a new Today widget, with condensed and expanded versions. Another way to access would be Siri, so you could see everything at any point in time. This would probably be the way I’d prefer to use it, as I’ve slowly been increasing my usage of Siri.
Things can get noisy quickly. I’d want options to constrain Good Morning entries to messages from communication to specified Contacts entries/groups, or specific Reminders lists or Calendar… you know… calendars. This way, all those helpful automated emails won’t spike your numbers and leave you with a long list of things to do.
Weekly/Monthly/Yearly outlooks: am I going to need a babysitter this week? Who’s birthdays are teeing up this month? What New Year’s resolutions am I working on? These might be easier to answer with a little structured data and UI similar to the Good Morning widget, which is really a Daily outlook.
That Daily outlook could be more than Good Morning–it could be Tonight, or really just the next 8-12 hours in front of you. Here’s hoping something like this is coming up next in iOS 13 🤞🏻
🙏🏻 Enjoy the post? Please help support more like it by buying me a cup of coffee!.
💡 Suggestions, questions, comments? Please submit a PR!.


{% extends "global/Page.html" %} {% load otree %} {% block title %} END {% endblock %} {% block content %}
Thank you for your participation in this experiment. If you have provided your email on the consent form, you have been entered into a draw to win a cash prize. You may close the page now.
{% formfields %} {% endblock %}


--- layout: post title: "Using random numbers to estimate Pi" permalink: /using-random-numbers-to-estimate-pi/index.html category: post ---
I'm a big fan of Monte Carlo methods. There is something neat about performing a complex integration or simulation fueled by an engine running on random numbers.
In this post, I'm going to talk about a canonical example used to demonstrate Monte Carlo integration: estimating the area of the unit circle via hit-or-miss Monte Carlo sampling. Indeed, this toy example is so ubiquitous that it is the focus of the Wikipedia Monte Carlo integration page (I was even asked to describe this problem during my Masters defence).
Here we go:
The unit circle follows the equation $x^2 + y^2 = 1$, and the area of the full circle can be determined from the integral of a quadrent (multiplied by 4 to account for all four quadrents). The area is then expressed as the definite integral,
$A_{\mathrm{circle}} = 4\int_{0}^{1} \sqrt{1-x^2}dx$.
Well, sometimes we just don't feel like doing textbook trigonometric substitutions. In this case we're essentially going to brute force the solution using so-call 'hit-or-miss' Monte Carlo. The procedure is as follows:
The following function uses Python's standard pseudo-random number generator to complete steps 1-3:
import random
def generate_points(n):
'''
Generate n (x,y) points
Return lists of points that fall inside and outside of the unit circle
'''
hits = []
misses = []
for point in range(n):
x,y = (random.random(), random.random())
hits.append((x,y)) if x*x + y*y <= 1. else misses.append((x,y))
return hits, misses
#here, we'll generate n=1000 x-y points
hits, misses = generate_points(1000)
It is also informative to visualize both the hits and misses. This should hopefully provide a fuller picture of what is going on:
%matplotlib inline
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
def plot_points(hits,misses):
'''
Plot a unit circle, and the points falling inside and outside
'''
def plot_sets(points,c):
plt.plot([x[0] for x in points],[y[1] for y in points],marker='.',lw=0,c=c)
fig = plt.figure(figsize=(7,7))
plot_sets(hits,'b')
plot_sets(misses,'r')
circle=plt.Circle((0,0),1,color='b', alpha=0.4)
fig.gca().add_artist(circle)
plt.show()
plot_points(hits,misses)
Finally, we can summarize the result, estimate the area, and compare tne result to the known value ($\pi$),
from tabulate import tabulate
import math
def estimate(hits,misses):
'''
Estimate the area of the unit circle
'''
return 4.*float(len(hits))/float(len(hits)+len(misses))
def summary(hits,misses):
print
print tabulate([["Number of points inside the circle", len(hits)],
["Number of points outside the circle", len(misses)],
["Estimate of circle area (4*h/(h+m))", estimate(hits,misses)],
["Percent different from pi", round((estimate(hits,misses) - math.pi)/math.pi*100.,1) ]],
tablefmt="plain")
summary(hits,misses)
With 1000 samples, we get an estimate that is within a couple percent.
It should be pointed out that Monte Carlo integration isn't very fast. In fact, this method converges as $1/\sqrt{n}$, which is to say, if you want a 10% increase in the precision, you need to add 100x more samples. This scaling relationship between the precision of the estimate, and the number of samples is shown here: (where the green line is $\sim1/\sqrt{n}$)
import numpy as np
ns = []
stdevs = []
sqrts = []
for n in [10,25,50,100,250,500,1000,2500,5000,10000]:
samples = []
for sample in range(100):
hits, misses = generate_points(n)
samples.append((estimate(hits,misses)-math.pi)/math.pi)
ns.append(n)
stdevs.append(np.std(samples))
sqrts.append(0.5/math.sqrt(n))
plt.loglog(ns,stdevs,'o',ns,sqrts,'-')
plt.xlabel("Number of points, n")
plt.ylabel("Precision of estimate")
plt.show()
The $1/\sqrt{n}$ scaling isn't that attractive for 1-D integrations like above (the trapezoid rule, for example, goes as $\sim1/n^2$). However the power of the Monte Carlo method is that the scaling relation holds for higher dimensions, where methods like the trapezoid rule fall down. This is great, as we can still fairly efficiently perform integrations for problems with very large dimensionality.
Many fields use Monte Carlo methods to simulate physical processes. In particle physics (which is what I'm most familar with), for example, the trajectories of particles are simulated, along with their interactions with materials and other particles, to estimate likely outcomes for experiments. An simulation package used extensively by particle (and medical) physicists is GEANT4.
While GEANT4 is a large and very powerful software package, I'm going to use it here in a somewhat silly way to perform the same hit-or-miss integration of the area of a circle. Essentially, I'm going to simulate an electron being shot at a circular target, where the origin point of the electron is uniformly distributed in an encompassing square (just like above). Then, in the same way, we can count the number of electrons that hit the target, and estimate just how close to $\pi$ we can get!
A note: GEANT4 can be finicky to install. Here I took advantage of a Docker container put together by Simon Biggs, which removed most of the installation hassle and also took advantage of the Python bindings and runs inside an IPython notebook. How cool is that. I've modified Simon's example to my own devious ends:
from Geant4 import *
First off, we'll create the world volume and a thin cylinder target. That will be it for the simulation geometry -- we don't actually want anything to get in the way of the electrons (not even simulated air), because any scattering will cause perturbations in the electron trajectories or even cause the emission of secondary particles.
class MyDetectorConstruction(G4VUserDetectorConstruction):
def __init__(self):
G4VUserDetectorConstruction.__init__(self)
self.solid = {}
self.logical = {}
self.physical = {}
#root volumn
self.create_world()
#target
self.create_target()
def create_world(self):
material = gNistManager.FindOrBuildMaterial("G4_Galactic")
self.solid ['world'] = G4Box("world", 4000/2., 4000/2., 4000/2.)
self.logical['world'] = G4LogicalVolume(self.solid['world'],
material,
"world")
self.physical['world'] = G4PVPlacement(G4Transform3D(),
self.logical['world'],
"world", None, False, 0)
visual = G4VisAttributes()
visual.SetVisibility(False)
self.logical['world'].SetVisAttributes(visual)
def create_target(self):
translation = G4ThreeVector(0,0,0)
material = gNistManager.FindOrBuildMaterial("G4_Si")
visual = G4VisAttributes(G4Color(1.,1.,1.,0.1))
mother = self.physical["world"]
self.solid["target"] = G4Tubs("target", 0., 1000, 0.0001/2., 0., 2*pi)
self.logical["target"] = G4LogicalVolume(self.solid["target"],
material,
"target")
self.physical["target"] = G4PVPlacement(None, translation,
"target",
self.logical["target"],
mother, False, 0)
self.logical["target"].SetVisAttributes(visual)
def Construct(self): # return the world volume
return self.physical['world']
Here, we define the primary particle emission, which in our case is the electrons. We'll shoot those electrons in the direction $-1\vec{z}$, with energies of 6MeV (which shouldn't really matter in our case). Each iteration, a random starting position is choosen for the electron in GeneratePrimaries
.
class MyPrimaryGeneratorAction(G4VUserPrimaryGeneratorAction):
def __init__(self):
G4VUserPrimaryGeneratorAction.__init__(self)
particle_table = G4ParticleTable.GetParticleTable()
electron = particle_table.FindParticle(G4String("e-"))
beam = G4ParticleGun()
beam.SetParticleEnergy(6*MeV)
beam.SetParticleMomentumDirection(G4ThreeVector(0,0,-1))
beam.SetParticleDefinition(electron)
beam.SetParticlePosition(G4ThreeVector(0,0,2000))
self.particleGun = beam
def GeneratePrimaries(self, event):
self.particleGun.SetParticlePosition(
G4ThreeVector(2*(random.random()-0.5)*1000,
2*(random.random()-0.5)*1000,
2000))
self.particleGun.GeneratePrimaryVertex(event)
Here is the sneaky bit. For every step of the simulation, we'll check if the primary electron is inside of the target volume. If yes, we'll increment a hit counter. Please note that this isn't actually a good GEANT4 practice: usually, if you want to check if a particle has traveled through a volume, you'll define a SensitiveDetector
, and it'll take care of figuring out if any particles hit that volume. However, since we're already doing naughty things, we'll take this shortcut.
class MySteppingAction(G4UserSteppingAction):
def __init__(self):
G4UserSteppingAction.__init__(self)
self.cnt = 0 #hit counter
def UserSteppingAction(self, step):
track = step.GetTrack()
if track.GetVolume().GetName() == 'target' and track.GetParentID() == 0: #check if the primary electron hit the target
self.cnt = self.cnt+1
Here, we register our user-defined functions with the GEANT4 run manager. We'll use a default Physics List -- event though it defines a lot more processes than we'll actually utilize, it is easier to use a pre-defined list than add all of the processes one-by-one.
gRunManager.SetUserInitialization(FTFP_BERT()) #physics list
detector = MyDetectorConstruction()
primary_generator_action = MyPrimaryGeneratorAction()
stepping_action = MySteppingAction()
gRunManager.SetUserInitialization(detector)
gRunManager.SetUserAction(primary_generator_action)
gRunManager.SetUserAction(stepping_action)
gRunManager.Initialize()
The following GEANT4 macro file will define the visualization and define the number of electrons ($n=20000$) used in the simulation:
%%file linac-example/macros/dawn.mac
/vis/open DAWNFILE
/vis/scene/create
/vis/scene/add/volume
/vis/scene/add/trajectories
/vis/scene/endOfEventAction accumulate 2000
/vis/scene/add/hits
/vis/sceneHandler/attach
/vis/viewer/set/targetPoint 0.0 0.0 0.0 mm
/vis/viewer/set/viewpointThetaPhi 0.2 1
/vis/viewer/zoom 1.3
/tracking/verbose 0
/run/beamOn 20000
Finally, we'll execute the macro, which will generate an output file with all of the electron trajectory information that we can then visualize.
gUImanager.ExecuteMacroFile('linac-example/macros/dawn.mac')
!mv g4_00.prim images/world.prim
!dawn -d images/world.prim
!convert images/world.eps images/world.png
from IPython.display import Image
Image("images/world.png")
Just like the first section, we see points both inside and outside of the target circle. We can then access the stepping_action
hit counter, which recorded the number of electrons that passed through the target volume:
stepping_action.cnt
With a couple extra lines, we can reuse the summary code from above to make the circle area estimate and percent error:
G4_n = 20000
G4_hits = range(15642)
G4_misses = range(G4_n - len(G4_hits))
summary(G4_hits,G4_misses)
Not so bad, for a fairly inappropriate use of the GEANT4 framework. Note that, while we could add more electrons to our samples, using this method we won't end up getting a better estimate of $\pi$. This is mainly because the simulation volume used by GEANT4 isn't actually a circle. You can see in the above figure that it is acutally a regular polygon with n=22 or so. Therefore, adding more samples will actually give us a more precise estimate of the area of that polygon, but a biased estimate of $\pi$ (which is a not-bad example of the difference between accuracy and precision).
I've also hand-waved over a bunch of assumptions about the simulation: like if the electron trajectories are actually expected to be straight lines in this medium (I didn't actually check if G4_Galactic
has a mean-free-path), also, I made the target volume very thin to hopefully avoid any scattering or secondary generation within the target itself, but when using a default physics list, you could possible end up with some hadronic interaction or large angle scattering that could double-count some electrons in the target. But ultimately, doing something unusal, even if a bit hand-wavy, is the fun part.


PushButton API Reference - r958 (ZaaBot build #215)
All Packages
|
All Classes
|
Index
|
Frames
No Frames
Class PointAnimator
Properties
|
Methods
|
Events
Package
com.pblabs.animation
Class
public class PointAnimator
Inheritance
PointAnimator
Animator
flash.events.EventDispatcher
Animator subclass for animating the flash.geom.Point class.
Public Properties
Hide Inherited Public Properties
Show Inherited Public Properties
Property
Defined by
animationType
:
AnimatorType
The type of playback to use for the animation.
Animator
currentValue
: *
The current value of the animation.
Animator
duration
: Number
The time it should take to animate from the start value to the target value.
Animator
elapsed
: Number
The amount of time that has passed since the animation started.
Animator
isAnimating
: Boolean
Whether or not the animation is currently playing.
Animator
repeatCount
: int
The remaining number of times the animation will be repeated.
Animator
startValue
: *
The value the animation should start at.
Animator
targetValue
: *
The value to animate to.
Animator
totalRepeatCount
: int
The total number of times to repeat the animation.
Animator
Public Methods
Hide Inherited Public Methods
Show Inherited Public Methods
Method
Defined by
animate
(elapsed:Number):void
This should be called every frame to perform the animation.
Animator
finish
():void
Set the current value to the target value instantly.
Animator
play
():void
Starts playback.
Animator
reset
():void
Resets the animation to all the values it had before it started playing.
Animator
reverse
():void
Reverses the animation, effectively setting the start value to the target value and the target value to the start value.
Animator
start
(startValue:*, targetValue:Number, duration:
AnimatorType
, type:int, repeatCount:* = 0):void
Starts the animation.
Animator
stop
():void
Stops playback.
Animator
Protected Methods
Method
Defined by
interpolate
(start:*, end:Number, time:*):*
PointAnimator
Events
Hide Inherited Events
Show Inherited Events
Event
Summary
Defined by
ANIMATION_FINISHED_EVENT
This event is dispatched by an Animator when the animation completely finishes.
Animator
ANIMATION_REPEATED_EVENT
This event is dispatched by an Animator when the animation has finished one iteration and is repeating.
Animator
ANIMATION_RESUMED_EVENT
This event is dispatched by an Animator when the animation is resumed after being manually stopped.
Animator
ANIMATION_STARTED_EVENT
This event is dispatched by an Animator when the animation first starts.
Animator
ANIMATION_STOPPED_EVENT
This event is dispatched by an Animator when the animation is manually stopped.
Animator
Method detail
interpolate
()
method
protected override function interpolate(start:*, end:Number, time:*):*
Parameters
start
:*
end
:Number
time
:*
Returns
*
http://pushbuttonengine.com/


You can download Grayscale for free on the preview page at Start Bootstrap.
Visit our galleryGrayscale is a free Bootstrap 3 theme created by Start Bootstrap. It can be yours right now, simply download the template on the preview page. The theme is open source, and you can use it for any purpose, personal or commercial.
This theme features stock photos by Gratisography along with a custom Google Maps skin courtesy of Snazzy Maps.
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C++ Framework for visualization and algorithmic analyzation of ecg (electrocardiography) signals.
Highly customable, hardware accelerated realtime visualization of ecg signals in sweep charts in C++ via OpenGL
https://github.com/Biehrer/ecg-analyzer


Welcome to my page, thanks a lot for your interest !
I'm Sven, I'm a french coder and you will find here some of my side-projects. As you may notice, many of these demos and projects are about real-time 3D programming, which is currently my main area of interest.
Feel free to get back at me if you want to talk about one of your / mine / our project !


WITNESS LIST Judicial Affairs Committee April 16, 1997-2:00P HB 2007 For: Jerry Frank Jones (R/E, Prob. & Trust Sec.) Judge Guy Herman (Stat'y Prob. Judges) HB 2922 For: Hon. Charles Bacarisse (Harris Co. Dist. Clerk) Sandra Hachem (Harris Co. Clerk) HB 3060 For: Jdg Watt Murrah (Cty Ct Jdg/Medina Cty) Rep. Tracy King (self) HB 3333 For: Jerry Frank Jones (Tx. Academy Prob. Attys) On: Judge Guy Herman (Stat'y Prob. Judges) HB 3537 For: Judge Stella Ortiz Kyle (self) Rep. Ruth McClendon (self) HB 3537 Committee Substitute (by Thompson) For: Rep. Ruth McClendon (self) HB 3556 For: Rep. Juan Hinojosa (self) HB 3556 Committee Substitute (by Thompson) For: Rep. Juan Hinojosa (self) HB 3558 For: Judge Lawrence Naiser (Wharton Co. Judge) Rep. Robby Cook (self) HB 3560 Committee Substitute (by Thompson) For: Hon. Josephine Miller (San Patricio Co. Judge) Judge Guy Herman (self) The Hon. Jim Huff (Live Oak County Judge) On: August Boto (Dist. & Co. Attys Ass'n) HB 3565 For: Judge James Klager (self) Against: Owen Hanna (self/Nueces Chief Acct) The Hon. Ernest Briones (Nueces County Clerk) The Hon. Joy Streater (self/Comal Co. Clerk) Registering, but not testifying: For: Judge Hector de Pena,Jr (self) Judge Mariseca Saldana (self) The Hon. Oscar Soliz (Nueces Co. Dist. Clerk) On: Jerry Benedict (Ofc of Court Admn)


Class DiagnosticsManager
Diagnostics manager. Used to query diagnostics and debug data like draw calls count, FPS, ect.
Namespace: BonEngineSharp.Managers
Assembly: BonEngineSharp.dll
Syntax
public class DiagnosticsManager : IManager
Constructors
DiagnosticsManager()
Declaration
public DiagnosticsManager()
Properties
FpsCount
Get FPS count.
Declaration
public int FpsCount { get; }
Property Value
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| System.Int32 |
Id
Get manager id.
Declaration
public override string Id { get; }
Property Value
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| System.String |
Overrides
Methods
GetCounter(DiagnosticsCounters)
Get counter value.
Declaration
public long GetCounter(DiagnosticsCounters counter)
Parameters
| Type | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| DiagnosticsCounters | counter | Counter id to get. |
Returns
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| System.Int64 | Counter value. |
GetCounter(Int32)
Get counter value.
Declaration
public long GetCounter(int counter)
Parameters
| Type | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| System.Int32 | counter | Counter id to get. |
Returns
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| System.Int64 | Counter value. |
IncreaseCounter(DiagnosticsCounters, Int32)
Increase counter.
Declaration
public void IncreaseCounter(DiagnosticsCounters counter, int amount = 1)
Parameters
| Type | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| DiagnosticsCounters | counter | Counter id to increase. |
| System.Int32 | amount | How much to increase counter. |
IncreaseCounter(Int32, Int32)
Increase counter.
Declaration
public void IncreaseCounter(int counter, int amount = 1)
Parameters
| Type | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| System.Int32 | counter | Counter id to increase. |
| System.Int32 | amount | How much to increase counter. |
ResetCounter(DiagnosticsCounters)
Reset a counter.
Declaration
public void ResetCounter(DiagnosticsCounters counter)
Parameters
| Type | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| DiagnosticsCounters | counter | Counter id to reset. |
ResetCounter(Int32)
Reset a counter.
Declaration
public void ResetCounter(int counter)
Parameters
| Type | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| System.Int32 | counter | Counter id to reset. |


HMRC4J Sample Application
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Say Hello User
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Provides User their own OS
Clean, Simple and Adaptive UI.
"Brain" to tune the OS.
Bag of new features and build-in apps
Resource Preload Manager, a feature that will boost the performance of the device by prealocating resources ahead of time.
A flexible, mobile device management module for 3rd party companies to help them focus on developing quality products and services.
The Brain of our operating system will monitor entire system resources and tune the operating system to make it more flexible.
A software solution that gives the end user the power of creating their own operating system.


ZULU (director/writer: Cy Endfield; screenwriter: from an article by John Prebble; cinematographer: Stephen Dade; editor: John Jympson; cast: Stanley Baker (Lieutenant John Chad), James Booth (Private Henry Hook), Jack Hawkins (Reverend Otto Witt), Ulla Jacobsson (Margareta Witt ), Michael Caine (Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead), Nigel Green ( Colour Sergeant Fred Bourne), Ivor Emmanuel (Private Owen), Paul Daneman (Sergeant Robert Maxfield), Glynn Edwards (Cpl. William Allen), David Kernan (Private Fred Hitch), Patrick Magee (Surgeon Reynolds), 1964-UK)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Cy Endfield (Try and Get Me!), the overlooked blacklisted American director who emigrated to England in the 1950s, has created a no-nonsense epic masterpiece, one that is historically accurate, about a heroic battle in British history. It is visually the best of such films made, a classic study in heroism and in military planning, that stays with the men in battle as they fight for survival and doesn't go off into the politics of why they are there.
Richard Burton is the narrator who describes on that infamous day in January 22, 1897, how 4,000 Zulus in Natal, South Africa, attacked a British regiment for no apparent reason and killed all 1,500 men. What followed was another attack on 105 British troops, a company of mostly Welshmen, stationed nearby at Rorke's Drift. The ensuing battle that lasted all day and night is told from the British viewpoint.
"Zulu" opens with Swedish missionaries, Reverend Otto Witt (Hawkins) and his daughter Margareta (Ulla), at a mass wedding of warriors, as the guests of a Zulu chieftain, who is a parishioner of Witt's church. A Zulu messenger arrives to tell of the massacre of British troops and the taking of their rifles. The Witts flee in their carriage to warn the men stationed at the Rorke's Drift outpost of the impending danger, urging them to flee in the name of a peaceful God.
Lieutenant John Chad (Baker) is an engineer from the decimated regiment who has been assigned to build a bridge at Rorke's Drift, and thereby misses getting killed.The aristocratic company commander at Rorke's Drift, Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead (Caine-his first major role in a film), returns from hunting, when news of the impending attack reaches the camp. Chad, by a matter of a few months seniority, assumes rank and takes charge of the operation, to the chagrin of Bromhead who comes from a long line of British officers who are used to positions of command. Chad, after consulting with a knowledgeable Boer adviser who knows the war methods of the Zulus, decides not to flee to the hills as Bromhead wanted, but forms a barricade to ward off the frontal attack. As he understands it, the Zulus will try to lure them out in their initial attack and then will attack them from their vulnerable sides. The aim will be to hold the outside perimeter at all times and reinforce any side that is being attacked.
The side dramas that develop, at first, center around the annoying missionary figure and his self-righteous daughter, as they try to stop the men from fighting. He becomes such a disruptive influence, getting all the black levee soldiers from the company to flee in the name of God, that he has to be locked up.  Chad puts him and his daughter in their carriage and sends them away from here, ironically saying that his parishioners won't kill them.
The other side story centers around a thief who had to join the army or go would have gone to jail, the rogue Henry Hook (James Booth), who is a lighthearted malingerer, not giving one darn about soldiering. He is in the hospital with a number of other men who are not fit for battle duty due to wounds or sickness, but are not malingerers like Hook. Hook will in battle emerge from his selfish ways and prove to be a brave soldier.
Endfield shows the wide differences of opinion held by the men about why they are fighting: the duty bound Colour Sergeant Fred Bourne (Nigel Green) says he is prepared to do whatever it takes and is pictured as a tower of strength; a Welshman who enjoys singing, Private Owen (Ivor Emmanuel), wonders what he is doing here; the mass of soldiers are frightened young men, who wonder why it is them who must fight; and, the dedicated surgeon (Magee) who works selflessly to tend to the wounded, just does what he has to do.
The Zulus are first heard coming as the ground shakes and it feels like a train is chugging along, which presented a magnificent sight to behold as they first appear on the hilltops and go through their ritual war dance and chants. The Zulus sent their first wave out to get killed, just so they can count the enemies firepower. They will then attack in wave after wave, as the film becomes a masterfully done re-creation of battle scene after battle scene. The tension is constantly being built up and the men show how they handle themselves in battle, even when exhausted and feeling that their situation might be hopeless.
The battle scenes were memorable, the acting was first-class, the director correctly offers no explanation for the WHY of the battle as the action itself seems to explain the absurdity of their situation. The professional soldiers say, "We fight because we are here, there is no one else who will fight for us." It is difficult to get it out of one's mind the power of the Zulu attack scenes and the courage shown by the badly outnumbered men to hold fast and fight. What is hinted at here, is the insanity of colonialism and of the missionaries who came to Africa to force their culture down the natives' throats. The film offers no explanation about the racial nature of the conflict, as it is played mostly as a story of a courage on both sides. The film does not display a racist attitude.
By the film's final battle the Zulu warriors return to the hilltops and salute the British soldiers as fellow warriors, before they return to their villages acknowledging defeat, with most of their men killed. As a result of this battle, eleven men, the highest number of men since Britain's most prestigious military medal, the Victoria Crosses, were first given out, receive that honor. Burton announces that there have been 1,344 such medal given out overall.
Chad and Bromhead worked well together despite their class differences, with Chad showing a natural ability to think fast and act without indecision. There is a certain fascination about this movie that makes it a moving experience, especially in watching the Zulus perform under Endfield's direction. The Zulus never even saw a movie before and it wasn't until Endfield showed them a Gene Autry oater that they knew what he was talking about and were able to go along with his directing. Zulu is presented in such a tough-minded and matter-of-fact way, that it is hard to argue against the way it was filmed. It was also an interesting bit of casting by the co-producers Endfield and Baker, of having the Cockney Caine play a stuffy upper class Englishman. But it worked; Caine was just splendid, it is still one of his finest hours in film.
REVIEWED ON 5/20/99 GRADE: A
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
<EMAIL_ADDRESS>© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
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Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order Is One Big Video Game Smoothie, And It’s Delicious
by Paul TamayoStar Wars: Jedi Fallen Order from Respawn Entertainment is a wild blend of Prince of Persia, Uncharted, Dark Souls, and Metroid, and it fits so perfectly inside of the Star Wars universe. It feels both familiar and inventive all at once.
Check out the video below to see the game in action and what I think so far. Our review should be up next week too, so stay tuned!


For this week's exploration of what Ruby has to offer us, I discuss enumerable methods, and more specifically Enumerable#group_by. I was not too familiar what enumerable was referencing until I started learning more and more about Ruby. The Enumerable mixin (as it is described on ruby docs) are a group of methods used to search and sort for "collection classes." The simplest of collection classes are ranges, arrays, and hashes, but a collection class can basically be described as a class where the method #each can be used to iterate through it.
Enumerable#group_by is a method that can take a collection and return a hash based on the results of a code block
Let's take an example where we are trying to sort an array of names by the length of each entry
We are iterating through our array, cohort_arr. We call each entry object 'name' and are grouping by the name.length. The result is a hash where the keys are the results of name.length, and the values are the names, themselves.
Another example, if we wanted to sort by first letter of each name.
name[0] is what returns the first letter of the each object, and you can see in our resulting hash that we were able to group by the first letter of each name.
Both of these were fairly simple examples of what you can do with the group_by method, and I am sure that you can get more creative so it can be a more powerful tool. If you have any questions about it, feel free to tweet me @benmorimoto


Vehicle reservations
Start Date
End Date
Cars
Motocycles
Price
Start Destination
End Destination
Rent-a-car
Hotel reservations
Arrival Date
Departure Date
2 bed rooms
3 bed rooms
4 bed rooms
Price
Hotel
Flight reservations
Departure Date
Arrival Date
From
To
Price
Airline


Drinks and food
{{item.title}}
Clothes and shoes
{{item.title}}
Beer and whiskey
{{item.title}}
Basket
{{item.title}}
Check
Submit


Can a cleric build benefit from monk levels?
 Just one level: wis bonus to ac Cleave access to tumble and discipline for that level If using Kama; will get monk attack progression.
More levels add things like: Speed Immunities Free IKD (monk6) etc


--- layout: post title: Thumbnails categories: [] tags: serviceapi webdrawer dotnet-sdk status: publish type: post published: true meta: structured_content: '{"oembed":{},"overlay":true}' ---
This post pulls together techniques discussed in previous posts to examine how to auto generate thumbnails for images, store them as rendtitions, expose them via the ServiceAPI and display them in WebDrawer.
Warning: ServiceAPI plugin feature featured in this post requires HPRM 8.1.1 or later.
Code available here:
Some related posts to get started:


Mall Melee: Chaos breaks out among 200 kids at Queens Center mall
by WABCELMHURST, Queens (WABC) -- Police responded to the Queens Center mall on Friday after a fight between hundreds of kids.
Schools in the area had a half day of classes, and Eyewitness News has learned of rumors spread on Snapchat that there was going to be a large fight at the mall.
Approximately 200 kids gathered at the shopping center, but no fight ever happened.
Then, for an unknown reason, someone began throwing fake cash over a railing from an upper level, and a melee ensued as the teens scrambled to grab what they thought was real money.
Authorities were called to the scene around 1 p.m. for crowd control and quickly cleared the area.
The mall was not closed, but police encouraged the public to stay away from the scene while they assessed the situation.
It does appear there were several fights outside the mall once the teens were evacuated, though it's not clear if that was related.
It was not yet clear if there were any injuries, but at least one person was taken into custody.
No one under 18 was allowed to reenter the mall.
A spokesperson from the mall released the following statement:
"We are disappointed by the actions of the teens in our community today and remain committed to providing a safe, enjoyable community destination for everyone."


Hello, my name is Jasper Yu and I am a self-taught programmer and an ex-poker player. Although I loved my previous job as a professional poker player, I did not feel like I was making an impact and studied programming to find new opportunities. I love the problem solving aspect of coding and love seeing my projects come together. Please check out some of the projects I have done!
A group music listening application where people can hang out, listen to music, and chill. This application features real time chatrooms, nofitications, and music playtime where users can invite friends or stangers to their room and share the music they love.
View ProjectI was inspired to create Toonflix as I love animation and by a book about web design called Don't Make Me Think by Steven Krug. It influenced how I laid out my page to always think about whether the order or design is intuitive. My goal with this website was to make sure my audience does not 'have to think'.
View ProjectA chatroom application simmilar to Discord where users can create multiple chatrooms, update their profile, add friends, create group events, and talk in real time
View Project


Which data sets would you like to compare?
Left side:
Early Music Show Composers
Early Music Show Works
SLICKMEM Authors
SLICKMEM Composers
SLICKMEM Works
etree artists
linkedbrainz artists
Right side:
Early Music Show Composers
Early Music Show Works
SLICKMEM Authors
SLICKMEM Composers
SLICKMEM Works
etree artists
linkedbrainz artists


Sound velocity profile locations collected by the U.S. Geological Survey in Moultonborough Bay, Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire in 2005 (Geographic, WGS 84, Esri point shapefile, 2005-004-FA_SVP.SHP)
In freshwater bodies of New Hampshire, the most problematic aquatic invasive plant species is Myriophyllum heterophyllum or variable leaf water-milfoil. Once established, variable leaf water-milfoi...