- Egypt’s pyramids were getting old and boring, so news that
at least
35 small pyramids, along with graves, have been discovered clustered closely
together at a site called Sedeinga in Sudan is an exciting development. The
cluster has been steadily unearthed over the past four years and the research
team that found them has expressed surprise at how densely the pyramids are
concentrated. In one fruitful research session, the international team
discovered 13 pyramids packed into roughly 5,381 square feet. The pyramids are
believed to date back around 2,000 years to a time when a kingdom named Kush
flourished in Sudan and no, stoners, not that kind of kush. Kush shared a
border with Egypt and, later on, the Roman Empire and lead researcher Vincent
Francigny, a research associate with the American Museum of Natural History in
New York, believes the pyramids illustrate the influence of Egyptian culture on
the Kush kingdom. "The density of the pyramids is huge," Francigny
said. "Because it lasted for hundreds of years they built more, more, more
pyramids and after centuries they started to fill all the spaces that were
still available in the necropolis." None of the pyramids are huge and the
largest in the grouping are about 22 feet wide at their bases, while the smallest
was only 30 inches long and it was likely constructed for the burial of a child.
Researchers believe pyramid building continued for centuries at Sedeinga. None
of the pyramids have their tops attached and over time, the site’s proximity to
a camel caravan route likely resulted in damage to the monuments. Francigny
explained that the tops would have been decorated with a capstone depicting
either a bird or a lotus flower on top of a solar orb. Construction stopped, he
added, when the Kush people ran out of room. "They reached a point where
it was so filled with people and graves that they had to reuse the oldest
one," Francigny said. He and Claude Rilly wrote in their research findings
that the pyramid design on one structure they found resembles a French formal
garden………
- The referee has counted the 1, 2, 3 and the opponent’s
hand has been raised in victory. Wrestling as an Olympic sport has officially
been defeated after International Olympic Committee leaders dropped it from the Olympic program on Tuesday in a surprise
decision that deletes one of the oldest Olympic sports from the 2020 Games.
Wrestling was on the cutting board along with modern pentathlon, which was the
odds-on favorite for termination. Instead, the e IOC executive board decided remove
wrestling instead from its list of 25 "core sports." The decision
came after a review of the 26 sports on the current Olympic program. By
eliminating wrestling, the IOC can now add a new sport to the program later
this year. Wrestling was a surprise elimination because it dates back to the
inaugural modern Olympics in Athens in 1896. The sport combines freestyle and
Greco-Roman events – or it did before it went the way of baseball and softball
at the Summer Games. "This is a process of renewing and renovating the
program for the Olympics," IOC spokesman Mark Adams said. "In the
view of the executive board, this was the best program for the Olympic Games in
2020. It's not a case of what's wrong with wrestling, it is what's right with
the 25 core sports." That is some high-grade bureaucratic bullsh*t right
there, saying nothing is “wrong with” wrestling, but rather that there is
something “right” with the 25 sports that weren’t cut. Adams confirmed that the
decision was made by secret ballot over several rounds, with members voting
each time on which sport should not be included in the core group. As with
every decision made by the IOC, there is a strong chance that bribes and
corruption were involved even if no proof or allegations have been brought to light.
Wrestling was the loser in a final group that also included modern pentathlon,
taekwondo and field hockey. The board theoretically used a report by the IOC
program commission report that analyzed 39 criteria, including television
ratings, ticket sales, anti-doping policy and global participation and
popularity, although well-placed bribes are an unofficial entry on that list.
Nearly 350 wrestlers competed in 11 medal events in freestyle and seven in
Greco-Roman at last year's London Olympics and those wrestlers will have the
distinction of being the last ones to wrestle at the Olympics………
- While movies here in the United States explore important
topics such as a fictional, demonic “mother” invented by two lost children to
protect them or a portly female identity thief being chased down and battling a
man whose identity she stole, it’s nice to know that directors in other corners
of the world are tackling some less-weighty subject matter. Iranian director
Jafar Panahi is one such filmmaker and he is aiming for big laughs with a new
film that defies a ban on filmmaking and reflects his frustration at being
unable to work officially in his native country. “Closed Curtain” debuted at
the Berlin film festival today and it is a collaboration because Panahi and his
fellow Iranian filmmaker and longtime friend, Kamboziya Partovi. Panahi, a
dissident who has won awards at several major film festivals in the past, was sentenced
to house arrest and a 20-year ban on filmmaking in 2010 after being convicted
of "making propaganda" against Iran's ruling system. His new project
is one of 19 films competing for the top Golden Bear award in Berlin. It was filmed
entirely inside an isolated seaside villa and to ensure the safety of the
project, most of the filming was done with the curtains drawn. It is a
compelling project for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that
its two directors are also its lead actors. Partovi portrays an increasingly
paranoid man trapped in the house as police search the area and Panahi playing
himself as the director of that story. Scenes with the curtains open were
"shot at the very end so we didn't get into trouble," Partovi
explained. According to festival officials, Panahi is no longer under house
arrest but is still banned from making films. The German government says it
requested permission from Iran to allow Panahi to travel to Berlin for the
premiere but received no response. "It's very difficult not to work ...
you become depressed," Partovi said, speaking through an interpreter.
"For him, it became very difficult just to sit around at home." Even
while under house arrest, Panahi was able to make "This Is Not A Film," a 2011 documentary that he
filmed in his Tehran apartment, where he was under house arrest………
- Men, do you want all of the bonus points of serenading
your lady this Valentine’s Day without the actual humiliation of having to sing
or stage your very own flash mob? If you live in or around Burlington, Vt.,
then you have a nice alternative to having to channel your inner Al Green or
Usher. For the low, low price of $50 (much lower than that of your dignity,
mind you), you can purchase a singing Valentine from the sweater vest-wearing,
bearded, middle-aged songsters of the Green
Mountain Chorus. That payment will get the love of your life a visit at your
home, her workplace or school or a public place you drag her to by the
always-cool members of a barbershop quartet….but wait, there’s more. In
addition to the serenade, your woman will receive a box of Lake Champlain
Chocolates and a card. "Although most men dread Valentine's Day, they
shouldn't. We've been doing this for more than 15 years now, and we continue to
get feedback that this was the most memorable Valentine's gift ever," said
Neil Schell, president of the chorus. "We're also told it is a real
bargain compared with more traditional gifts like roses or dinner. “Not only
could this gesture earn you bonus points/a tongue-lashing once you get home or
usher these singing losers from it, but the money you pay will provide support
to two local non-profits, the Committee on Temporary
Shelter
Serving Vermont and the Green Mountain Chorus. According to the
chorus, $5 from every Singing Valentine will go to help support COTS' shelters
and services. Act now, as Valentine’s Day is Thursday and a gem of a gift like
this one is sure to sell out quickly…….
- Every now and then, science accomplishes something
meaningful and important. This is not one of those times. Sure, it sounds cool
that scientists have been able to construct a new computer system that attempts to
translate protolanguages, the ancient "parent" tongues from which
modern languages evolved, but is there really a serious demand for such a
system? It bears a strong resemblance to a souped-up version of Rosetta Stone
and can quickly reconstruct the languages of yore from today's vocabularies
with 85 percent accuracy. The system was developed by Alexandre Bouchard-Côté,
statistics professor at the University of British Columbia, who believes it can
outperform human linguists who painstakingly reconstruct protolanguages from
the words people - know and use today. With the exception of Latin, the source
of the Romance language family, and a few other scattered protolanguages,
records of such languages are extremely difficult to find, leaving linguists to
analyze these ancient tongues to analyze modern speech and attempt to derive
their parent languages from the process. One common technique is grouping words
with similar meanings and using these groups to study changes in pronunciation.
“We’re hopeful our tool will revolutionize historical linguistics much the same
way that statistical analysis and computer power revolutionized the study of
evolutionary biology,” Bouchard-Côté said. “And while our system won’t replace
the nuanced work of skilled linguists, it could prove valuable by enabling them
to increase the number of modern languages they use as the basis for their
reconstructions.” He worked with researchers at the University of California to
develop the system, which analyzes sound-changes at basic phonetic unit level
so it can operate at a much greater scale than previous computer systems. Bouchard-Côté
and his colleagues reconstructed a set of protolanguages from a database of
more than 142,000 word forms from 637 Austronesian languages and clearly, the
world is a better place because of it……….
No comments:
Post a Comment