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CEA Mini Jumping Challenge & Support Show

Yesterday [Nov 2], the Bermuda Equestrian Federation [BEF] hosted the Bermuda round of the 2024 Caribbean Equestrian Association’s ‘Mini’ Jumping Challenge, along with the BEF Support Show, at the National Equestrian Centre. A spokesperson said, “On Saturday, 2nd November, the Bermuda Equestrian Federation hosted the Bermuda round of the 2024 Caribbean Equestrian Association’s ‘Mini’ Jumping […]




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Column: The Hidden Challenges Of Stroke

[Column written by Dr Kimberley Watkins] Stroke, a leading cause of long-term disability, often brings with it a host of hidden challenges that are not immediately apparent to the casual observer. While physical impairments such as paralysis may be noticeable, there are many invisible disabilities that stroke survivors may face, making their journey to recovery […]




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Health Council Seeks Community Engagement

The Bermuda Health Council is “expanding its engagement with the community as part of a commitment to support solutions for better population health.” A spokesperson said, “The Bermuda Health Council believes that the health system should be shaped by the lived experiences of those who rely on the system every day. While data from studies […]




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Flight Diverts Due To Situation With Passenger

[Updated with video] An airline diverted to Bermuda this afternoon [Aug 20] as there was an issue with a passenger, with unofficial reports indicating that the passenger caused some form of disruption, with the police saying the passenger “appeared to be having mental health challenges.” JetBlue Flight #661 left JFK Airport in New York and […]




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Bermuda Golf Links Society Strengthens Ties

The Bermuda Golf Links Society is “forging relationships that build on the love for the game of golf around the world.” A spokesperson said, “Two years ago we set about building a bridge between the United Kingdom and Bermuda through our golfing relationships. It’s not a speedy process and it takes belief and work – […]




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Golf: 2024 BGA Team Challenge Winners

The Bermuda Golf Association hosted their 2024 BGA Team Challenge title event at the Tucker’s Point Club. The team Fantastic Fore of Angela Cook, Elaine Gaugain, Sarah Murphy-Christopher and Sue Maisonneuve claimed the title. Their Net Stableford total of 91 was 2 points clear of team GHIN & Tonics of Paddy Graham, Richard Fulton, David […]




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Bengals Defeat Antonio Pierce’s Raiders

Antonio Pierce’s Las Vegas Raiders were defeated 41-24 by the Cincinnati Bengals in the National Football League [NFL] yesterday [November 3]. Pierce, the son of Bermudian Cleo Burrows, was appointed as head coach of the Raiders in January. The Raiders, who have won two and lost seven of their nine games this season, are away […]




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Sebastian Coe To Speak At Triangle Challenge

Lord Sebastian Coe, President of World Athletics, will be the honorary guest speaker for the Chubb Bermuda Triangle Challenge on January 17-19, 2025. A spokesperson said, “The Chubb Bermuda Triangle Challenge [CBTC] is pleased to announce that the President of the World Athletics, Lord Sebastian Coe CH, KBE, has agreed to be the honorary guest […]




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Photos: Video Game Design Challenge Winners

Bermuda Island Games hosted its 3rd Annual Video Game Design Challenge, where participants showcased their creativity and entrepreneurial skills by designing video games. A spokesperson said, “Bermuda Island Games held their annual Video Game Design Challenge over the weekend, to see which group could come up with the best video game idea. “The theme this […]




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Minister: Strategies To Strengthen Workforce

Minister of Economy and Labour Jason Hayward addressed members of Sandys Rotary Club and “shared information on Bermuda’s job market in 2024 and the Government’s strategies to strengthen the workforce.” A spokesperson said, “Minister Hayward spoke about the following: Challenges of an Aging Population: Bermuda’s shrinking working-age population presents challenges, including labour shortages, pressure on […]




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Govt & Unions Engage In Training Sessions

Minister of the Cabinet Office Crystal Caesar “welcomed chairs, union partners, and technical officers to a training session on interest-based bargaining.” A government spokesperson said, “Representatives from the Bermuda Industrial Union [BIU], Bermuda Public Services Union [BPSU], Prison Officers Association [POA], Fire Services Association [FSA], Bermuda Police Association [BPA], and Bermuda Union of Teachers [BUT], […]




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Reaction Engines Goes Into Bankruptcy, Taking the Hypersonic SABRE Engine With it

Rarely does something get developed which is a real game changer in space exploration. One example is the Skylon reusable single-stage-to-orbit spaceplane. Powered by the hypersonic SABRE engine it operates like a jet engine at low altitude and more like a conventional rocket at high altitude. Sadly, ‘Reaction Engines’ the company that designs the engines …

The post Reaction Engines Goes Into Bankruptcy, Taking the Hypersonic SABRE Engine With it appeared first on Universe Today.




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A Spider Stellar Engine Could Move Binary Stars Halfway Across a Galaxy

Eventually, every stellar civilization will have to migrate to a different star. The habitable zone around all stars changes as they age. If long-lived technological civilizations are even plausible in our Universe, migration will be necessary, eventually. Could Extraterrestrial Intelligences (ETIs) use stars themselves as stellar engines in their migrations? In broad terms, a stellar …

The post A Spider Stellar Engine Could Move Binary Stars Halfway Across a Galaxy appeared first on Universe Today.




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Passengers Transferred After Driver Arrested

A 59-year-old minibus driver was arrested and passengers were transferred to another vehicle, with the incident going viral on social media as passengers posted images. A police spokesperson said, “Around 8:50 a.m. on Monday, August 5th, 2024 police officers had cause to stop a minibus driven by a 59-year-old male, on Middle Road Southampton. “Upon being […]




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‘Passenger Discharged A Firearm At Police’

[Updated] “Officers observed two males riding a motorcycle in a southerly direction along Khyber Pass, when the passenger discharged a firearm at police” and “officers began pursuit which eventually lead to shots being fired,” the police said today. A police spokesperson said, “Shortly after 12am on Saturday 24th of August 2024 police were responding to […]




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Antifa and Black Lives Matter are the Democratic Party’s blackshirts and brownshirts to strengthen and protect our totalitarian fascist state

Democratic politicians don't fear the mob. Notice that? Why? Because they don't need to. They control the mob. The mob operates with their permission. These are their foot soldiers. This is their militia. Continue reading




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¡Tengo muchos años! T_T

Hello team!

I turned 45! It happens every year (not the same age, but the same feeling, of time marching forward, with me along with it) so no big surprise. This weekend was the Great Race, also every year, but I unsubscribed from their e-mail list at some point months ago because they seem to operate this list under the misconception that subscribers want to think about Great Race 24/7 all year round. I thought: It should be easy to just remember when the Great Race is, as it always falls on the weekend near my birthday, and I do not need a list constantly mailing me reminders. Easy. But then I forgot about the Great Race, so I didn't run it.

I did take the day off for my birthday despite this being the busy time of year at work, which was worth it: I made some good progress on some projects that had been backed up in my anxiety-brain for some time. Of course they are confidential, but here is a graphic of some significant progress:


Minusweeper


I forgot to mention this one when I did it, but did you know that you can "buy" a Unicode codepoint, by making a donation to the Unicode consortium? So of course I bought ASCII 0x37, which is the digit 7.

True story: I did a lot of film photography when I was younger, and although I do miss film, I'll admit that the saddest thing I feel about its obsolescence is actually that those little black plastic film canisters are no longer all over the place to be repurposed to hold little objects. I found them very satisfying and useful! Fortunately now that I'm old I found another similar ubiquitous shape, which is these orange prescription medicine bottles. I've been using those for a while to "organize" small parts like screws (e.g. when I take something apart that I might want to put back together, I put the screws in the medicine bottle and label it) but then they just roll around in the drawer of crap. So this:


RxBox, Unpopulated

RxBox, Populated


A very simple part, of course, but what could be more satisfying than 3d printing your own holder for canisters for fasteners that goes in a drawer in a cabinet?

And speaking of satisfying, I finally finished Chippy (regular difficulty) which was really quite hard. Several of the last bosses I had to practice over several evenings before I beat them! It was a good and creative game, though. I'm mid-way through Solar Ash, which is good (but it's no Hyper Light Drifter IMO!) and just started playing Satisfactory, since they finally put out a 1.0 version of that. It's quite well done, but I'm not sure if I actually like it (seems a bit heavy on the cookie crafting; in fact I'm letting it craft in the background as I write this). I am getting a kick out of allowing thinking about my messy design as the "saddest factory," a joke which I'm sure occurs to everyone, but that's Game Design!




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Austin Distance Challenge!

The famous Distance Challenge fridge magnets
It's been a few months, but I finally have some time to sit down and blog my having completed the Austin Distance Challenge (long course), sponsored by the Austin Runners Club.  I'd done most of the events before, but decided to do the challenge itself (six races, culminating in the Austin Marathon), because I wanted to put more structure into my training for the marathon. I'd done several in the 90s, but this was my second of the century and I wanted to do better than my last one (2013).

The first race was the Run Free Texas 80s 8k (for those who don't think in metric, that's about five miles) up in Cedar Park.  Naturally enough, there were a couple of DeLoreans, each outfitted with a flux capacitor.  Time travel being what it is, they were obviously the same car but from different time periods. :-).  The course was through residential neighborhoods and parks and had some rolling hills -- nice for a beginning of the season race.

Back to the Future!
The second race of the Challenge was the Run for the Water Ten Miler.  The course was along Lady Bird Lake and up through Tarrytown and then back downtown, There were some great hills on this course and let me know I needed more hill work...And, ironically enough, it was raining. :-)
Rain and hills
Race three was the Decker Challenge, a half marathon in early December with a course around Decker Lake.  It's notorious for hills and really bad weather.  (The last time I ran it, it was in the 40s and pouring rain).  If anything, last year, it was a bit too warm.  The hills were pretty brutal, though. 
My face when attacking the hills
But Santa was there!
After that, we had a month break until the Rogue Distance Festival 30k (about 18.6 miles) in early January.  This one was fairly cold and probably my least favorite of the events.  It was up in Cedar Park again and ran through residential neighborhoods which was fine.  There was an issue with marking the course, though, so most of us got off track, which meant the mile markers were out of order so it was impossible to figure out a pace. (I think at some point, we were going in circles -- and ended up going about a mile farther than we should've.).  Still, it was my longest run before the marathon and I was kind of glad it happened that way. 
Yay!  I'm done! :-)
With four events done, it was all downhill from there.  Literally.  The 3M Half Marathon starts up in the Great Hills area and runs a straight line down to downtown. It also has a swag bag filled with useful (and not so useful) 3M products.:-)
Leo checks out the swag bag
This one also started out pretty cold and way too early :-). 

Before dawn, in the warm car before the cold race.
I really enjoyed this one, though, and it was a nice preview of many of the neighborhoods on the marathon route.
Finisher!
The piece de resistance, of course, was the Austin Marathon in mid-February.  I like the course, but the first time I ran the Austin Marathon, it was all downhill, starting up north and snaking its way downtown.  Now, there's a good bit of uphill until around mile 18.  I still like the course, though, and it's not like the hills from the Decker Challenge or the Run for the Water races.

I was pretty happy with my time -- my second fastest of the century!  I did it in under 4 hours, which had been my goal.  Next year, I'll work more on speed, but this time, I just wanted to not have my quads seize up in the last two miles :-).

Running through UT campus
Made it! Best time of the century!
Anyway, thanks to everyone involved in putting on the races and the challenge itself: organizers, volunteers, emergency personnel, and all the rest!  You keep Austin running!




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Austin Distance Challenge 2016-17

 
This past year, I signed up for the Austin Distance Challenge again, because it was intrinsically fun, but also to ensure that I would get enough running in for the Austin Marathon. The Distance Challenge, sponsored by the Austin Runners Club, involved five races: The Run Free 8k, the Run for the Water 10 miler, the Decker Challenge half marathon, the 3M Half Marathon, and the Austin Marathon.

The Run Free 8K is out in Cedar Park, a considerable distance from downtown.  It leaves from one of the high school football stadiums and winds through residential neighborhoods before returning to the starting line. It's a nice start to the fall training season.


The first piece of the puzzle
Run for the Water goes through downtown and along the lakefront. It's one of the prettiest routes in the challenge and much of it is along routes I train on.

Starting line on Cesar Chavez
The drum group at the finish line
A friend got this shot of me at the starting line.
After that came the Decker Challenge -- a hilly route just east of Austin in Decker, and notorious for terrible weather.  This year, it wasn't bad --- a bit misty with a steady drizzle. By the finish line, my glasses were so fogged up I had to take them off to see anything at all. Which made it difficult to see things like potholes...

Glasses fogging up as I climb the hills
Blindly crossing the finish line

 Not on the Challenge, but still an Austin staple was the Turkey Trot!  One of the more fun races, it usually features a good number of costumes and a large helping of whimsy.



After the holidays, the next race was the 3M Half Marathon. It's almost the exact opposite to the Decker Challenge, because it's all downhill. It starts up in the Great Hills area and winds its way downtown. This year it was a particularly fast run because there was an incredible wind out of the north. Several folks, including myself, were nearly blown over as we ran past the UT football stadium.

A selfie at the starting line
the 3M photographer got a shot of me taking my selfie
After the finish in sight of the Capitol

And the last race was the Austin Marathon!

But. About three weeks before the race, in the middle of the night, I slipped and came down on the edge of my entertainment console and tile floors. Result? A nice set of bruised ribs and a strangely linear scar on my right side.

By race day, I could still feel it a bit but had gone on short runs with only minor discomfort, so I decided to go for it.  The first half went pretty well, but the second was less pleasant.  But I'm still glad I did it...

Looking all chipper and optimistic before the race starts
Vulcan salute for the photographer
Gritting it out with a hundred yards to go
Finished!

So my time for the marathon ended up being a personal worst, although I did make it under five hours :-).

Anyway, thanks to all the organizers, volunteers, emergency personnel, and everyone else involved in putting on these races! You keep Austin running!

Next up? The Capital of Texas Triathlon! Hopefully there won't be rain...




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shiny gengar

Today on Married To The Sea: shiny gengar


This RSS feed is brought to you by Drew and Natalie's podcast Garbage Brain University. Our new series Everything Is Real explores the world of cryptids, aliens, quantum physics, the occult, and more. If you use this RSS feed, please consider supporting us by becoming a patron. Patronage includes membership to our private Discord server and other bonus material non-patrons never see!






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The Queen of England Wore a Bright Green Outfit So, Naturally, the Internet Treated It Like a Green Screen

Queen Elizabeth wore a neon green outfit to her 90th birthday party. What could go wrong? Oh right, the internet...




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Bengal - Game of Gods

Exclusive offer from Giveaway of the Day and ToomkyGames! No third-party advertising and browser add-ons! Travel across the Indian continent with a tiger in this exciting puzzle adventure. The friendly large cat will throw the balls wherever you point, so aim carefully. Group together three or more balls of the same color to make them disappear from the chain. Creative powerups will help you navigate each of the levels, which get more challenging as you progress.

  • Original powerups;
  • Unlimited play;
  • Clever game mechanics.




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Re-Appearing Dark Fleet Vessel Underlines Zombie Ship Challenge




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Trump Plans To Strengthen Crypto Policy With Dedicated Advisor And Presidential Council | Bitcoinist.com

President-elect Donald Trump is poised to reshape the US government’s approach to crypto, actively seeking candidates with industry-friendly views for key regulatory positions. According to the Washington Post, as part of his strategy to establish the United States as the “crypto capital of the…




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UK engineering firm Smiths upgrades annual revenue growth outlook

UK's Smiths Group on Wednesday upgraded its annual organic revenue growth outlook after the engineering firm posted a 15.8% rise in first-quarter revenue. The company now expects full-year organic revenue growth of 5%-7%, up from the original 4%-6% guidance. (Reporting by Shanima A and Chandini…




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Are Search Engine Optimization Services Beneficial?

SEO services are very indispensable in internet marketing. They are a great boon to web promotion. Provision of quality SEO services require the brilliant minds, availability of intricate technology and more astute marketers all ready to enable you get popular with your online business. There are numerous visitors who utilize search engines to get various […]




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Tips on Getting the Most from Search Engine Submission and SEO Services

Search engine submission refers to the process through which a webmaster directly submits a website to the search engines. Most people look at this process as a way through which they can increase the rankings of their site. However, other people do not take the concept of search engine submission seriously for a few simple […]




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Engineering the Correct SEO Strategy for Today’s Market

With the internet changing everyday staying on top of new trends and changes surrounding SEO should be a top priority of any professional SEO Company. Within the last year or more the SEO industry has changed immensely. Some of these changes include the Panda and Penguin filters and the recent changes of the exact match […]




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ENGAGE SECONDARY SUB ROUTINE




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Empathy in Action: Techniques to Strengthen Relationships and Well-being

Empathy is one of those quiet superpowers that can reshape our lives for the better. It isn’t flashy, but it has an impact everywhere—from our closest relationships to the way we interact at work, and even how we perceive our broader society. For example, consider a parent who takes the time to understand their child’s ... Read more

The post Empathy in Action: Techniques to Strengthen Relationships and Well-being appeared first on LifeHack.




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Mastering Rapport: Overcoming Challenges in Digital and In-Person Communication

Rapport is something we all seek, even if we don’t think about it every day. It’s that sense of connection, of feeling understood, and of moving smoothly with others in sync. Whether in our professional lives or at home, rapport matters—and it matters a lot more than we might realize. In today’s fast-paced, digital world, ... Read more

The post Mastering Rapport: Overcoming Challenges in Digital and In-Person Communication appeared first on LifeHack.




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Home not Housing. Engaging with wellbeing outcomes

Home not Housing was one of five Scottish Universities Insight Institute programmes on Wellbeing. A set of ideas workshops explored the concept of ‘home’ from the perspectives of various academic disciplines – housing, planning, social work, healthcare – in order to develop a common vocabulary that will better inform policies relating to house-building, home-working, home-care and general place liveability. This blog records the discussions and findings of the workshops.




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F&S zijn normaal heel streng (NRC, wo, 14-08-24)




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F&S vinden het doodeng (NRC, wo, 21-08-24)




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Five Extremely Long English Words Causing a Civil War Among Linguists

By Jesse Published: November 12th, 2024




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Walmart Revenge

What's between aggressively keying a car and passively doing nothing? Passive aggressive cart block.




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Google’s AI Tool Big Sleep Finds Zero-Day Vulnerability in SQLite Database Engine

Google said it discovered a zero-day vulnerability in the SQLite open-source database engine using its large language model (LLM) assisted framework called Big Sleep (formerly Project Naptime). The tech giant described the development as the "first real-world vulnerability" uncovered using the artificial intelligence (AI) agent. "We believe this is the first public example of an AI agent finding




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New GootLoader Campaign Targets Users Searching for Bengal Cat Laws in Australia

In an unusually specific campaign, users searching about the legality of Bengal Cats in Australia are being targeted with the GootLoader malware. "In this case, we found the GootLoader actors using search results for information about a particular cat and a particular geography being used to deliver the payload: 'Are Bengal Cats legal in Australia?,'" Sophos researchers Trang Tang, Hikaru Koike,




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Oct 15 NYC DevOps Meetup: "Introduction to Site Reliability Engineering" by Nathen Harvey

This month's nycdevops meetup speaker is Nathen Harvey of Google, who will give a talk titled "Introduction to Site Reliability Engineering".

The talk starts at 5pm sharp! (NY is in US/Eastern)

Please RSVP! See you there!

https://www.meetup.com/nycdevops/events/272956481/

(This is a virtual meetup. Everyone around the world is invited!)




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Hear Tom on The Software Engineering Daily Podcast

https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2021/07/22/stack-overflow-for-teams-a-centralized-knowledge-sharing-and-collaboration-platform-with-tom-limoncelli/

If you've ever googled a CS or programming question, you likely found an answer (or many) on Stack Overflow. Founded in 2008 and named after a common computing error, Stack Overflow empowers the world to develop technology through collective knowledge. More than 100 million people visit Stack Overflow every month making it one of the 50 most-visited websites in the world. Stack Overflow's products include its market-leading knowledge sharing and collaboration platform, Stack Overflow for Teams, in addition to Stack Overflow Reach & Relevance, which is focused on advertising.

Stack Overflow for Teams is a knowledge sharing and collaboration solution that developers and managers already know and trust. It's for companies who need to increase productivity, decrease cycle times, accelerate time to market, and protect institutional knowledge. In this episode we talk with Tom Limoncelli, a manager at Stack Overflow, author, and tech advocate.

Listen to the podcast by clicking here!




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McCarter Theatre's 'Arts & Ideas' is attracting extraordinary artists to engage with faculty and students

Events this fall include a sold-out conversation with Icelandic-Chinese recording artist Laufey.




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Election 2024: How Princeton's Vote100 encourages students to register, vote and be more civically engaged

Voting registration rates among Princeton undergraduate and graduate students have more than doubled largely thanks to the program.




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My Quilt for 2017 La Conner Quilt Museum Challenge

To be honest with you, the past two months (Oct. and Nov.) have been miserable for me because of the election campaign and results. Now, finally, the cloak of despair, the fog of depression, is lifting a little.

One evening, as I noticed the challenge kit from the La Conner Quilt Museum on top of my quilting to-do pile, a flicker of an idea passed through my brain. Then, as I awoke the next morning, the flicker became a small flame, which in turn lead me to accept an invitation to spend an afternoon quilting with some friends, which (in order to have something to work on) got me rooting through my fabric stash.

Now, quilters, beaders, and artists of all types, will recognize the phenomenon caused by physically touching your materials, supplies, and tools. Suddenly your wearisome thoughts of the election (or whatever else got you down) are gone! You fondle your stuff lovingly, and with great anticipation, you make the first cuts, fanning the flame, turning it into a nice warm fire. Ah, saved from the chilly fog, at last!

My journey out of the fog began with this vintage block from a quilt that someone, somewhere, started long ago, but never finished. It, along with many others, was donated to the La Conner Quilt Museum. The Curator, Kathleen Kok, not knowing what she would do with all the vintage blocks donated over the years, just kept them in a corner waiting for an idea to form. And form it did!

Every year the Museum has a challenge as a fundraiser, showcasing the entries at the annual Quilt Festival. For 2017, the challenge theme is "Time" and the material provided in the kit is one of the vintage blocks from their collection. The block above is the one I picked. It is just so cheerful... how could I resist? Hand pieced, it wasn't perfectly sewn, but still I fell instantly in love with it. Mine for a $10 contribution!

Of course, it was just the block. In the photo above, I have already layered it with backing and batting, and then hand quilted it.

My idea is two-fold. (1) Since the "time" theme can be portrayed by a transition from these early fabrics to modern fabrics, I decided to repeat the block using Kaffe Fassett fabric scraps left over from my shimmer quilt. (2) Feeling powerless in the face of impending doom after the election, I had to find some ways to assert my beliefs, and this quilt was to be one of them. I've long been concerned about the ever-increasing world population, about all the small, yet constant ways overpopulation is damaging and destroying the natural systems of the planet. So the title will be: Under the Quilts, Time Flies, and Population GROWS. My idea is to illustrate this concept using both color and beads. You'll see.

First though, a few words about making the modern block. At first I tried to make a pattern for the "flower/star" by tracing one of the triangles from the back side. I hand-stitched the required 16 pieces together FOUR different times, varying the seam allowances each time, trying to get it to lie down flat. Obviously, I did not correctly copy the original, because when I finally sewed it so it was nice and flat, it was also too small. Grrr.

A smart quilt friend (thanks Tori) suggested I trace a section from the right side of the block and add 1/4 inch seam allowances all around. Good idea, but there were small differences between the sections... which one to trace? Trying to answer that question, looking at the block, I finally saw how the pattern was derived! (Light bulb!!!)

It's two overlapping squares of the same size, one on point and one not. All it took was to measure the sides of the squares on the original block (which averaged 8.5 inches), cut them out of paper, fold the diagonals and sides, put a pin through the centers to join them, rotate the top one until the folds lined up, tape the two together, and draw along the fold lines. Voila! Now, all I had to do was cut out one of the half-points, add my quarter-inch seam allowances, and there was the perfect pattern for my new block. The rest went quite quickly, and below you can see the quilted result. (Note: I added quarter-inch seam allowances to each of the pattern pieces shown above to get the final cutting pattern.)


You might be wondering why I've layered and quilted these blocks. How will they be joined to form the quilt? The answer is they won't be joined! Instead, they will be bound as separate little quilts (each 11 inches square), and then appliqued to a separate "background quilt."

Here is how they look with the binding.


Notice that the over-all color of the modern block is darker. This matches my concern about over-population of the planet. Time flies, and the population GROWS, making the world a darker place for me, as many species become stressed and obsolete, as the desert lands grow and the forests shrink, as potable water becomes polluted and scarce, as crowded people war with each other. You know. If you watch the documentaries and contribute to various environmental causes, you know. Darker.

Thus, the quilt also becomes darker as the eye travels from top to bottom. Here is how it looks with the two blocks on the background quilt, the transitioning colors from light to dark, representing about 70 years in time passing (estimating the date of the fabrics in the vintage block at approximately 1946). This is an extremely tiny period of world history, but one in which world population sky-rocketed from 2.3 billion to 7.4 billion.

You can probably see the little heart beads, but if you click to enlarge the photo, you'll see them more clearly. The pair at the top represents a couple. They dive under the quilt, have some fun, and produce four lovely children (between the two blocks). These four pair up, dive under the quilt, resulting in 16 children. Under the quilts, time flies, and the population GROWS. That's m' story, and I'm sticking to it.

Now, here's a question for you loyal readers who have come so far with me on this thing.  The quilt looks really pretty the way it is. But originally, I had planned to do more beading on it.  I planned to bead several vines circling the outer border of the quilt (not the binding). Across the top of the quilt, the vines would be light green, with many green leaves, bright-colored flowers, and some critter beads/charms (bees, birds, bears, fish). As the vines trailed down the sides, they would become darker, until at the bottom they would be beaded with dark brown, black, and darkest greens, with no critters, and only a few dark flowers. The visual message (I hope) would be, "this is what happens when we overpopulate the world." What do you think... leave it like it is now or bead the borders?

Global Population Information

Think of it this way. Every single month increasing world population adds another Los Angeles AND another Chicago to the planet. That's 24 gigantic cities worth of people added EVERY year; more than 240 giant cities every 10 years. Imagine how many cities full of people will be added in your life time. Crunch the numbers and see what you think.

Evidence of heavy population demand on resources is all around us. Global aquifers are being pumped 3.5 times faster than rainfall can naturally recharge them. Eventually they will run dry, perhaps as soon as 75 years. Topsoil is being lost 10-40 times faster than it is formed.  Feeding all 7+ billion of us is increasingly difficult, impossible actually.

There is no technology solution to accommodate the increasing demand of uncontrolled global population growth. The only solution is voluntary one child per couple for a couple of generations, on a Global participation level. If all countries followed the lead of countries with the lowest birth rates (Taiwan, Spain, Portugal, South Korea, and Poland), we could reach a more sustainable Global population of 3 billion by 2100!

Please, talk about this with your child-bearing-aged kids, grand kids, students, etc. We teach environmentally sound practices in most schools, write books and make documentary films about issues like clean water, over-fishing, fracking, etc. But rarely does the topic center on overpopulation. Be proactive. Make it happen.

If you are willing to read (or listen to an audio book) to learn more about Global population, Count Down is an excellent read.

Here is a link to the previous bead embroidery pieces (and poems) I've made concerning population growth.Thank you for reading all the way to the end, and for anything you can do to help people understand what we need to do.







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Hisashi Kobayashi, former Princeton engineering dean and data storage pioneer, dies at 84

Hisashi Kobayashi, whose steady leadership as dean guided Princeton's School of Engineering and Applied Science through a rapid expansion of programs and facilities in the late 1980s and early 1990s, died on March 9. He was 84.




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Global Existential Challenges: Designing Mechanisms for Addressing Political Polarization in Voter Behavior

Simon A. Levin, James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University Samuel S. Wang, Professor of Neuroscience, Princeton University Discussant: Keena Lipsitz, Associate Professor of Political Science at Queens College, City University of New York





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The Evolution of Engagement Rings: A Journey from Traditional to Modern Choices

Engagement rings, symbols of love and commitment, have journeyed through time, evolving in design, material, and meaning. This evolution reflects changing fashion trends and deeper shifts in social norms, economic conditions, and technological advancements. From the ancient times when rings were simple iron bands to the present day when they embody intricate designs and diverse ... Read more

The post The Evolution of Engagement Rings: A Journey from Traditional to Modern Choices appeared first on Star Two.




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Guide to Buying a Lab Grown Diamond Engagement Ring

The decision to purchase an engagement ring is a momentous occasion in one’s life, and with the growing popularity of lab grown diamonds, individuals now have an alternative to traditional mined diamonds. Lab grown diamonds offer a stunning option for those seeking a beautiful symbol of commitment. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore key ... Read more

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