#Aurora Almendral

[biglisbonnews]

The world "population bomb" might not go off after all When the global population passed the 8 billion mark on Nov. 15 last year, demographers had a peak in sight: 10.4 billion, around the year 2080. Read more... https://qz.com/the-world-population-bomb-might-not-go-off-after-all-1850268119

[wazafam]

By BY AURORA ALMENDRAL from Magazine in the New York Times-https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/24/magazine/cargo-ships-emissions.html?partner=IFTTT Cargo vessels belch almost as much carbon into the air each year as the entire continent of South America. Modern sails could have a surprising impact. Can Massive Cargo Ships Use Wind to Go Green? New York Times

[npr]

The 12 Days Of Quirky Christmas Foods Around The Globe

Wherever people celebrate Christmas around the world, they feast. It may be as simple as a bowl of porridge, but food rituals to mark the day as separate and special from all other days are practically universal. So often eating the food associated with this holy day helps families pause for a moment to remember who they are, and where they came from. But of course, Christmastime feasting looks far different in America than it does in, say, Ethiopia. So, in 2014, The Salt took a cue from the famed carol "The Twelve Days Of Christmas," and explored 12 ways of Christmas foods from around the globe.

A 40-Day Vegan Fast, Then, At Last, A January Christmas Feast

Photo: Gregory Warner/NPR

A Punch Line In The U.S., Christmas Fruitcake Is Big In Calcutta

Photo: Sandip Roy for NPR

Guyanese Christmas Gives A Whole New Meaning To Slow Food

Photo: Courtesy of Cynthia Nelson Photography

For Australian Christmas, Everything's Overturned But The Pudding

Photo: Edward Shaw/iStockphoto

In Slovakia, Christmas Dinner Starts In The Bathtub

Photo: Filip Singer/EPA/Corbis

A History Lesson On The Philippines, Stuffed In A Christmas Chicken

Photo: Aurora Almendral for NPR

For Norwegian-Americans, Christmas Cheer Is Wrapped Up In Lefse

Photo: Deena Prichep for NPR

Antarctic Holiday: A Christmas Feast In The Loneliest Spot On Earth

Photo: Courtesy of Gavin Francis

Pride And Prejudice: For Latinos, Tamales Can Taste Of Both

Photo: iStockphoto

Tourtiere: A French-Canadian Twist On Christmas Pie

Photo: martiapunts/iStockphoto

A Holy Land Christmas Porridge Honors A Damsel In Distress

Photo: Daniella Cheslow for NPR

Japan's Beloved Christmas Cake Isn't About Christmas At All

Photo: Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images 

[javierpenadea]

"Six months in, seafarers on ships around the world still have no way home." by BY AURORA ALMENDRAL via NYT Business https://ift.tt/33eiHqi

[shadowybouquetnacho1233]

Six months in, seafarers on ships around the world still have no way home.

By BY AURORA ALMENDRAL Published: September 9, 2020 at 03:53AM from NYT Business https://ift.tt/33eiHqi via Funny Dog Video 2020

[breakingbuzz]

Six months in, seafarers on ships around the world still have no way home.

By BY AURORA ALMENDRAL Published: September 9, 2020 at 11:53AM from NYT Business https://ift.tt/33eiHqi via

[socialboxworldnews]

"On Pandemic’s Front Lines, Nurses From Half a World Away" by BY AURORA ALMENDRAL via NYT World https://ift.tt/34PDZeh

[izayoi1242]

In Slum at Epicenter of Duterte’s Drug Crackdown, Fear and Love Coexist

By BY AURORA ALMENDRAL AND HANNAH REYES MORALES At the height of President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-crime campaign, as many as five people a night were killed in Market Three, a Manila slum whose residents rely only on each other. Published: April 2, 2020 at 04:00PM from NYT World https://ift.tt/2UBmE5m via IFTTT

[biglisbonnews]

The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet It’s no secret that climate change discourse is shrouded in obfuscation, disinformation, greenwashing and lies, both outright and of omission. But a recent leak of a draft of the IPCC report released on March 20 has been particularly enlightening when it comes to just how much how delegations negotiate, watered down,…Read more... https://qz.com/ipcc-report-on-climate-change-meat-industry-1850261179

[gyrlversion]

Founder of 8chan wishes he could uncreate forum popular with white supremacists

MANILA, Philippines — Fredrick Brennan has little affection for 8chan, the fringe internet message board he started in 2013.

After operating for years in the shadows of the internet, the website has gained notoriety for its incubation of extremists views and hate speech — culminating in its use by three accused mass shooters in the U.S. and New Zealand, who are suspected of killing a total of 74 people this year.

“There is no way I can go back and uncreate 8chan,” Brennan, 25, told NBC News on Tuesday from his home in the Philippines. “If I could, I would, but there is no way to do that. So the main way I have dealt with the guilt is to go on the offensive.”

Moments before the mass shooting in a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, on Saturday morning, the gunman appeared to have unveiled his plans in an anti-Hispanic, anti-immigrant rant on 8chan.

Angel Gonzalez prays next to a makeshift memorial outside Walmart, near the scene of a mass shooting, in El Paso, Texas on August 5, 2019.Mario Tama / Getty Images

Earlier this year, Brenton Tarrant, accused of killing 51 people inside two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March, and John Earnest, who allegedly killed one person inside a synagogue near San Diego in April, also posted white nationalist, far-right sentiments on 8chan before the shootings.

Brennan no longer has control of 8chan, which has been run by Jim Watkins, a U.S. Army veteran, out of the Philippines since 2015, but said he now feels that he must speak out about what it has become.

After Watkins acquired 8chan in 2015, he convinced Brennan to move to the Philippines to continue running the site. Brennan stopped working for the site in 2016 and the two have had no contact since 2018.

Brennan said that although there were times he felt guilty about having created 8chan, he previously couldn’t give a straight answer when asked if he regretted creating the website.

Now that “the bodies are continuing to pile up,” he said he is doing everything he can to stop how 8chan is being run.

“I have pretty much pulled out all the stops,” Brennan said, explaining that he has been doing a lot of interviews to highlight what, in his view, is gross mismanagement of the platform.

Brennan started 8chan for what he calls ideological, free-speech reasons, but its no-holds-barred approach quickly attracted a fringe user base, becoming a platform of choice for violent extremists and mass shooters.

He blames Watkins, the new owner, and the site’s administrators for “giving constant nods and winks to the radical, neo-Nazi part of their user base” and for enjoying the platform’s infamy.

As an example, he said hours after the El Paso shooting, the administrators kept a tagline that said, “Embrace infamy” on the site’s front page.

“It’s kind of like they are telling their users, ‘Hey, if you want to do something good for us, go shoot up a school, because that will make us more infamous,'” he said.

8chan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Brennan said he is convinced there are “commonsense” measures that the administrators are, in his opinion, refusing to take to make the platform less radical, like making it clear to their users that the so-called manifestos that shooters post won’t be tolerated.

In the wake of the El Paso shooting, a handful of companies that provide crucial internet services announced that they will not work with 8chan because, as one of the services’ executives put it, it has become “a cesspool of hate.” As a result, the site experienced intermittent outages Monday and has been having limited functionality.

Asked what if 8chan were to come back and continue in the same form it was before the El Paso shooting, Brennan said he is sure of the outcome.

“There would be another shooting, absolutely,” he said. “Because nothing has changed.”

Aurora Almendral reported from Manila. Yuliya Talmazan reported from London.

Yuliya Talmazan

Yuliya Talmazan is a London-based journalist.

The post Founder of 8chan wishes he could uncreate forum popular with white supremacists appeared first on Gyrlversion.

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[ilchruthach]

stone circles masterpost

The Chronology of Stone Circles:

With approximately 1,000 stone circles in the British Isles, there is no question that the islands were host to a peopple for whom the circular shape it was the homeland of the stone-circle builders for thousands of years. In Britain, the stone-circle building phase was preceded by a short period of  'Henge' building. However, there are also stone-circles outside the British Isles, and some are considerably older....

No stone-circles appear to have been built in N. Europe after 1,500 BC (2)

The classification of stone circles.

The plain stone-circle (one which is circular), is not as common as might be first expected. There are now several classifications of 'circles', such as:

Oval, Ellipse, Egg-Type I, Egg-Type II, Recumbent, Henge, Henge (1A), Henge (1B), Henge (1C), Henge (II), Henge (IIB), Circle-Henge, Ring-Cairn, Kerb-Cairn, Flattened Circle A, Flattened Circle B, Flattened Circle C, Flattened Circle D, Timber, Concentric, Sub-circular, Four-poster, Axial... (Enough... enough...)

The very fact that so many of these categories are determined by the shape of the 'circle', and that circles are classified according to their shape confirms the suspicions of Prof. Alexander Thom, who first proposed the existence of a 'megalithic yard' and thereby, that there is an underlying geometry that determined the shape of many of the more significant European stone-circles.

(More about the Megalithic Yard)

  The Purpose of Stone Circles:

Stone-circle development occurred around the ancient world for thousands of years, and there are several different types of circle, with several showing changes in use and design over time. Many stone circles have been shown to have strong associations with both geometry and astronomy, and in several examples, the specific location of the circle can be shown to have been more important than the availability of stone.

Even more remarkable than the stones themselves is our ignorance over their original purpose. Geoffrey of Monmouth, in 1135 wrote that the builders of Stonehenge originated in the 'remotest confines of Africa' and that the stones were 'transported by giants', while Fergusson attempted to tackle the subject in 1880, concluding that they were originally constructed as 'holding pens', 'meeting places', or 'memorials of great battles'.

The evolution of the stone circle reveals much about their probable purposes. It has long been suspected that henges were designed in order to create an artificial horizon line, and in Scotland, recumbent circles have been shown to have had an intimate lunar association (see below). It is now reasonably accepted that most circles included astronomical orientations and alignments, and geometry, with the obvious inclusion of rituals of death (i.e. at Xaghra circle, Malta and Stonehenge, England). The discovery of specific astronomical purposes behind the stone circles (see below), is far removed from the earlier ideas of Fergusson (although we are still a long way from understanding them).

Stone-circle Facts:

Excavations under the Xaghra stone circle on Gozo, Malta have revealed the presence of a second Hypogeum, which was built from huge slabs of stone and has so far revealed the presence of over 70 bodies.

(Click here for more about the Xaghra circle and the Hypogeum II)

  Stone Circles and Astronomy:

               Although it is not possible to say that all stone circles were built with an astronomical consideration...            It is clear that many share an intimate association with both astronomy and landscape.

A connection to both lunar and solar observations has been recognised in the design of several prominent stone-circles such as Callanish, Stonehenge, Almendres, Newgrange and the numerous RSC's (recumbent stone circles) of Scotland, which are identified with lunar observation.

There are only two latitudes in which the Moon's maximum declination is the same as the latitude, meaning that at its maximum elongation it goes through the zenith (directly overhead). These two latitudes are 38.33˚ N (Almendres), and 51° 10' N (Stonehenge).

As well as being associated to Stonehenge, Almendres has a secondary lunar connection with another two significant monuments in Portugal, which are the Zambujeiro passage-mound and the 'cromeleque' da Xarez (The reconstructed 'cromeleque' da Xarez is in-fact a quadrangle). The three sites form a 50km alignment which has been suggested to be related to the spring moon (110°).

(Click here for more on this subject)

The connection between stone circles and astronomy is not however, so clean-cut. A visit to almost any circle is all one needs to realise that although certain stones were selected to demonstrate a preference for orientation (with portal stones or through a gradation in height), the stones of most circles were placed evenly apart around the circumference, having a symbolic placement rather than a functional one. The choice of stone over wood added to the selection and transport of specific types of stones over long distances also demonstrates the importance of stone itself to the circle builders.

Nabta, Egypt:

Because of Nabta's proximity to the Tropic of Cancer, the noon sun is at its zenith about three weeks before and three weeks after the summer solstice, preventing upright objects from casting shadows.

The Nabta stone-circle is the only megalithic construction of its kind in all Egypt. It is positioned exactly on the Tropic of Cancer.

The people at Nabta built an observatory — a 12-foot (4-meter) circle of huge slabs of stone, with four pairs of taller stones aligned opposite each other. Two pair provided a "window" on the solstice sunrise, while the other two aligned on an almost-perfect north-south axis. Nabta's calendar circle was used at least 6,000 years ago, and probably earlier

Nabtans erected several other megaliths in the area - dark stones up to 3m above the desert landscape, scattered across a square mile. Some of the megaliths formed north-south and east-west sightlines, like a giant stone compass, and probably remained visible when the summer inundation filled the Nabta basin.

"We see two kinds of astronomy here — solstice alignments and cardinal alignments," says J. McKim Malville, a professor of astronomy at the University of Colorado at Boulder and a member of the team that confirmed the alignments in a paper published earlier this year.

"The astronomical nature of the site was clear while we were there," says Malville. "These alignments are so simple and straightforward, there's no doubt about them."

(More about Nabta)

Castlerigg, England:

The Stone circle at Castle Rigg, Cumbria was one of the most successful that Alexander Thom came across in terms of combining astronomical sight-lines with the geometric construction of the stone circle itself. Thom himself pointed out the remarkable difficulties in trying to find a site where the skyline yielded the exact right properties to match the astronomic requirements and geometry of the circle itself. Although the geometric connections with the landscape are not immediately visible today, it has become clear that the builders were endeavouring to express, control or 'come to terms with something'. In addition, J. Glover made some interesting comments regarding Castle Rigg, namely that the specific placement of certain stones enhanced the shadow-effects caused by the sun at specific times of the year. As the circle was built onto a gentle slope, the largest stone creates a shadow nearly a half-mile long at sunset on midsummer's day.

(More about Castlerigg)

  The Geometry of Stone-circles:

Burl makes note of the 'mistaken coincidence' about the number of stones in the British stone-circles. He says of it:

'From Brodgar, where there was once 60 stones, to the Stripple stones with a probable thirty, the builders may have counted in multiples of six. Stennes had twelve. The inner and outer rings at Balfarg have been computed at twenty-four and twelve respectively. Twenty-four has been suggested for Cairnpappel, thirty-six for Arbor Low, and the same number for the devils quoits'. (3)

In contrast to Burl's suggestion that such geometry was purely coincidental, Prof. Alexander Thom radically suggested that geometry was deliberately employed in the design of certain prehistoric sites (such as at Avebury).

He surveyed hundreds of European megaliths and concluded that fundamental mathematic principles, based upon a common unit of measurement (which he called themegalithic yard), had been applied in the design of certain sites. As the megalithic tradition in Europe can be traced back to at least 4,000 BC, if not earlier still, his work is still not accepted by most archaeologists, although such a strong presence of geometry should not be ignored, as is clearly suggests that the design of many sacred sites seems to have been based on a sophisticated philosophy of sacred science such as was taught centuries later by the Pythagorean school.  As Professor Thom observes in his book Megalithic Sites in Britain (1967):

“It is remarkable that one thousand years before the earliest mathematicians of classical Greece, people in these islands not only had a practical knowledge of geometry and were capable of setting out elaborate geometrical designs but could also set out ellipses based on the Pythagorean triangles.”

John Michell showed in the 1970's that the several stone circles of South-Western England shared a geometric relationship to each other.

(European Stone 'Quadrangles' and their Latitudes)

(Geometric Alignments)

Stone circle facts:

The circumference of the Stonehenge sarsen-stone-circle (100ft), is the same as that of the flattened top of Silbury hill.

The same measurement is also exactly one 'quarter aurora', a standard unit of Egyptian area measurement.

(More about the Geometry of Giza)

  Recumbent Stone Circles (RSC's)

Scotland is home to hundreds of 'Recumbent' stone circles. These circles are usually fairly small, the largest being (Innesmill (B5/1 at 110 ft diameter). Recumbent circles in the Grampians of Scotland have been shown to have a primary association with the observation of the extreme setting points on the lunar cycle. They are defined by a prominent 'recumbent' stone, positioned horizontally, so that the moon sets behind it at both extremes of its cycle, and upon which stones cup-marks are often found.

It is an interesting fact that the only recumbent circles found outside of Scotland, are in the Ross-Carbery area of Ireland, which places them too far south to make them any use as lunar observatories, and have in fact been shown to be solar in their orientation. Cope (4), makes note of the Drombeg RSC, where the sun has been observed setting at midwinter (solstice), directly into a notch in the landscape behind the recumbent stone.

Recumbent Stone Circles are one of the most definite proofs we have that Neolithic people were not only aware of the 18.6 year lunar cycle, but that they followed it closely. They demonstrate that the lunar cycle was considered an important part of the social complex in North-eastern Scotland c. 3,000 BC - 1,500 BC.

(More about Recumbent Stone Circles)

  Triple Circles:

England is home to examples of numerous double circles, as well as several 'Triple-circles' such as 'The Hurlers', Merrivale,Stanton Drew, Avebury, Thornborough and Grey Wethers, to name but a few. Their exact purpose is still only to be guessed at, but a geometric and/or astronomic association is predicted . (More to follow soon...)

The Hurlers has been suggested by astronomers to have been aligned to Orions belt at the time of building (Circa 1500 BC).

The theme of triple-aligned circles is also common to Henges, such as the Priddy circles, and Thornborough.

(More about Triple Stone-circles and Orion)

  Stone Quadrangles:

There are a handful of megalithic structures in Europe which whilst retaining an essential geometric design - are not circles. Remarkably, they also incorporate a relationship between their dimensions and the latitudes upon which they were built.

[whatstheweather]

For Filipino Seafarers, a Lonely Life Celebrated in Song

By Aurora Almendral and Jes Aznar The Philippines for decades has supplied the largest share of labor on the world’s cargo ships. Filipino culture is brought aboard, from food to song and sports. Published: November 30, 2019 at 04:00AM from NYT World https://ift.tt/2DxbMfy via IFTTT

[javierpenadea]

"Trapped by Pandemic, Ships’ Crews Fight Exhaustion and Despair" by BY AURORA ALMENDRAL via NYT Business https://ift.tt/3iejP3s

[shadowybouquetnacho1233]

Trapped by Pandemic, Ships’ Crews Fight Exhaustion and Despair

By BY AURORA ALMENDRAL When borders closed, seafarers on ships around the world suddenly had no way home. Half a year later, there’s no solution in sight. Published: September 9, 2020 at 12:28AM from NYT Business https://ift.tt/3iejP3s via Funny Dog Video 2020

[breakingbuzz]

Trapped by Pandemic, Ships’ Crews Fight Exhaustion and Despair

By BY AURORA ALMENDRAL When borders closed, seafarers on ships around the world suddenly had no way home. Half a year later, there’s no solution in sight. Published: September 9, 2020 at 08:28AM from NYT Business https://ift.tt/3iejP3s via

[socialboxworldnews]

"In Slum at Epicenter of Duterte’s Drug Crackdown, Fear and Love Coexist" by BY AURORA ALMENDRAL AND HANNAH REYES MORALES via NYT World https://ift.tt/2UBmE5m