alwaystopnew

The rings of Saturn are disappearing!

noreply@blogger.com (alwaystopnew) — Sat, 22 Dec 2018 14:17:00 -0800

Like the mountains, oceans and continents on Earth, the rings of Saturn would be ephemeral and should disappear within 300 million years. The icy particles that compose them fall indeed on the giant under the effect of its gravity and its magnetic field.

Galileo was the first to observe Saturn with a telescope. He discovered that it had a strange form whose nature was only understood in 1655 by the mathematician, astronomer and physicist, Huygens: the giant was surrounded by a ring, and several even, as Giovanni Domenico Cassini shows a few years later. In 1859, the physicist James Clerk Maxwell, to whom we owe the theory of the
electromagnetic field, shatters the theory proposed by Laplace in 1787, according to which the rings of Saturn are solid. Based ingeniously on the laws of mechanics, Maxwell deduces that they are probably made of a set of small bodies in orbit. It will then be necessary to wait for the work of the Russian mathematician, Sofia Kovalevskaya (1850-1891) to have the proof that the rings of Saturn can not be liquid. It was finally in 1895 that the observations of the American astronomer, James Edward Keeler, definitively confirm the version of Maxwell.

Astrophysicists and mathematicians interested in cosmogony will then try to explain the formation of these rings. Some explained that they would come from the destruction of a small celestial body that would have come too close to Saturn. In doing so, it would have fallen below the limit defined by the mathematician and astronomer Edouard Roche, that is to say the minimum distance below which a small body, approaching a big one, is destroyed by the forces tide. But if so, when did this event occur? Billions of years? At the very beginning of the birth of the solar system or more recently?

The development of space exploration with the Voyager and Cassini probes, and of course the ground instruments, provided us with information that Galileo and Laplace could not have dreamed of. This research allows us to feed theoretical models and numerical computer simulations that can answer all these questions. A group of Anglo-Saxon planetologists has just published in the famous newspaper Icarus an article leading to an astonishing conclusion: the rings of Saturn are ephemeral, they would have formed 100 million years ago, at most, and in 300 million years, they will disappear.

Everything is evolving in the Universe and nothing, except perhaps some basic laws of physics, remains from all eternity. It suffices to refer to the discovery of plate tectonics or the Big Bang theory. It is in the framework of this other representation of the World, this new paradigm of which the Terrians became aware for more than 50 years, that is inscribed the stupendous conclusion of the researchers. They relied on several works and, in particular, observations made in the infrared with the Keck instruments in Hawaii.

A shower of icy and charged particles on Saturn

These observations, dating from the early 2010s, specified the characteristics of the presence of many trihydrogen cations in the ionosphere of Saturn. That it can be found is not surprising since it is H3 +, the most abundant ion in the interstellar medium, where it remains stable, given the very low temperature and the extreme tenuity of this environment. The simplest triatomic molecule, in which three protons share two electrons, had already been detected in giant atmospheres for some time (1989, with Jupiter).

But what proved to be instructive, this time around, is that H3 + ions are particularly present in bands in the northern and southern hemispheres where we know that dip and emerge lines of fields from the magnetosphere of Saturn. These bands are particularly bright but, on the contrary, they appeared dark on images taken by the Voyager 1 and 2 probes when they visited Saturn in the early 1980s.
Already in 1986, the planetologist John EP Connerney, better known as Jack Connerney, had interpreted these bands as the result of the influx of charged ice particles leading to "disperse" a fog present in these regions. the ionosphere; these bands becoming less brilliant, less contrasting and therefore darker.

Jack Connerney is back on the subject today, in the article by Icarus, written under the direction of his colleague NASA James O'Donoghue, which allows to fit the pieces of a puzzle.
It now appears that trihydrogen ions, in the bands under consideration, are the final product of chemical reactions from charged ice particles that have vaporized in the ionosphere. These particles come from the rings of Saturn where they acquired their charges, either under the effect of the ultraviolet ionizing radiation coming from the Sun, or in contact with the plasma produced by the collisions between the micrometeorites and the ice particles of these rings. By becoming charged, these particles then become sensitive to the magnetic fields of Saturn which guide them under the influence of the gravity of the planet along the lines of fields which will lead them in the dark bands of Voyager.

The amount of icy particles that can be removed from the rings can be evaluated over time. This is how we end up with the figure of 300 million years for the time that should remain to live to these rings. The phenomenon also constrains estimates of the age of the rings which should not exceed 100 million years, a figure whose order of magnitude is consistent with another estimate already advanced but, on another basis, there are some years.
James O'Donoghue explains: "We are fortunate enough to be there to see the ring system of Saturn, which seems to be in the middle of his life. But if the rings are temporary then we may have missed those of Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune when they were giants.

There is a weird smell

noreply@blogger.com (alwaystopnew) — Sun, 9 Dec 2018 10:39:00 -0800

The downpour had finally turned into a small fine rain, scattered. Through the gap in the doorway, she could see in the distance the faint light of a ray of sunshine. An incentive to get out of his hole. She was still indecisive about venturing outside.
Yet she had to go out. She could not remain cloistered in this room. It had been too long since she had taken refuge between these damp, inhospitable wooden walls. Two days, three days, maybe a week she had fled the disaster? She did not know anymore. She kept only the memory of cries, explosions, her chaotic race through rubbish, bodies burnt or slaughtered, homes destroyed.

And then, the fury of the carnage had given way to a deluge of dirty rain, as if soot fell from the sky. Thick, dark gray clouds had darkened the horizon and she had run straight ahead, without turning around, taking the time to orient herself despite pain, shortness of breath, panic. She struggled against the torrents of water that gave her the impression of drowning each time she breathed.
It was a pungent, thick rain that made him nauseous. Around her rose a fetid, indefinable odor, at once sweet, disgusting, and rancid, violent. She did not understand where the smell came from, which made her cough, hugged her, suffocated her. The more she sucked in the air, the more she choked on that nauseating smell.

Out of breath and strength, she had collapsed by stumbling on a log of wood. Her race had thrown her against the wall of a rather dilapidated hut, which would certainly offer her a momentary hiding place. In any case, she no longer had the courage to go further. Once barricaded in this summary shelter, she had curled up in a corner and had not moved, as if her immobility could erase the existence of the threat outside.

But the smell was still there, even stronger than outside. A weird smell that enveloped her, cut her off from any other sensation. Her nostrils dilated as if they were looking for their origin. She sniffed, swallowing her tears and snot at the same time. She breathed in fits and starts, between two sobs, two hiccups, trying to forget the violence, the broken bodies, the black blood, the flies; to silence the groans of the dying, the pounding of the footsteps of those who fled like her, the furious cries of the aggressors. But each memory was accompanied by this pestilential stench and the images she could not repress seemed to increase the intensity.

Overwhelmed by the putrid odor that squeezed her throat more surely than a hand strangling her, she screamed and collapsed, her nose on the dirt floor. Rain dripped under the door and soaked the ground. The damp, sticky earth was smearing his face. She wiped herself with the bottom of her shirt, spitting out the dirt that crept into her nostrils and mouth. The earth exhaled a sweet aroma of humus, wood, leaves ...

The downpour had finally turned into a small fine rain, scattered. Through the gap in the doorway, she could see in the distance the faint light of a ray of sunshine. An incentive to get out of his hole. She was still indecisive about venturing outside, but a little courage had returned to her. Outside, the light began to chase the shadows. She smelled the perfume of the earth, filled her lungs with fresh air, sketched a smile and realized that the smell that had assaulted her so far was only ... the smell of her fear. With an assured step, she crossed the threshold of the door ... And the smell lifted her heart, just as she saw the man lift the ax over his head.
It was no longer raining, and moist soil exhaled the hot and spicy fragrances of the earth after the storm. A small channel of blood mixed with a slight, indefinable odor. But, lying on the ground, her nose against the ground, she felt nothing.

Ryan Murphy, the creator of American Horror Story, gets his star on Hollywood Boulevard

noreply@blogger.com (alwaystopnew) — Thu, 6 Dec 2018 11:42:00 -0800

Ryan Murphy, creator of cult series like Nip / Tuck, Glee, American Horror Story and more recently Pose, can add a new trophy to his impressive list of achievements. This Tuesday, December 4, the American showrunner was honored with a star on the prestigious Walk of Fame in Los Angeles. He becomes the 2,653st Hollywood star immortalized on this sidewalk, which recently welcomed rapper Snoop Dogg and actor Lin-Manuel Miranda.

"Ryan Murphy is one of the most creative and brilliant minds on television," said Ana Martinez, a member of the City of Angels Chamber of Commerce to nominate the stars. before and invite viewers into his intoxicating universe. " His muse actresses, including Jessica Lange and Sarah Paulson, were there to pay tribute to him at the ceremony. "It's about time," said the latter, who played a dozen characters in the horror anthology, "it's amazing, people should have been walking around this star for at least ten years."

The scriptwriter, producer and director was also accompanied by his faithful acolyte Brad Falchuk and her husband David Miller. Several personalities have also made the trip to greet him or make a small speech: Gwyneth Paltrow, Emma Roberts, John Landgraf, the boss of the FX channel, Alexis Martin Woodall, its producer of always ... In addition to this star literally engraved in the And let's not forget that Ryan Murphy holds six Emmy Awards (out of 28 nominations) and a Golden Globe received for Nip / Tuck in 2005.

Along with his competitors Shonda Rhimes and Greg Berlanti, Ryan Murphy is certainly the most influential and famous showrunner of the small screen. And his rise will not stop there: he signed a $ 300 million contract with Netflix to produce original content for the streaming platform. The first project announced is a satirical comedy called The Politician and carried by ... Jessica Lange, of course.

Improving batteries for electric vehicles and planes: the mission of Loïc Boulon

noreply@blogger.com (alwaystopnew) — Thu, 6 Dec 2018 11:21:00 -0800

UQTR professor Loïc Boulon spent a year at the University of Bordeaux to acquire skills that will help Trois-Rivières. Photo: CBC / Josée Duchame

Loïc Boulon's work focuses on a topic that is of great interest in the research and industry community: how to make batteries more reliable and more efficient. For a year, the professor from the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières works in a laboratory in Bordeaux highly recognized in the field, with the aim of deepening his knowledge and benefiting UQTR.

A text by Marilyn Marceau

In what looks like big freezers, researchers at the National Polytechnic Institute (INP) in Bordeaux have stored batteries. Some will stay there for 10,000 hours.

Batteries are subject to different conditions in this laboratory, especially cold. The evolution of their condition is monitored and analyzed very closely.

The laboratory is also closely watched. It is forbidden to cut electricity, which would jeopardize months of research.

And do not go in there who wants. The expertise developed here is valuable and is of interest to many giants in the automotive and aerospace industries.

The Canada Research Chair in Energy Sources for Vehicles of the Future Loïc Boulon is studying the performance and reliability of batteries at the Institut national polytechnique de Bordeaux. Photo: CBC / Josée Duchame

Get to know the batteries better to use them

The Laboratory of Material Integration System (IMS) is recognized for its research on battery reliability, as researcher Jean-Michel Vinassa explains.

"Modeling the aging of batteries, [the] prediction of their lifetime, [the] determination of the state of health of the batteries: that's what we finally look for. It is to know in which state of health is a battery to know if one can count on it or not, in the transport, in particular. It's one of the things that's very difficult to know precisely", he says.

"We are working so that batteries are cheaper and their environmental cost is lower", says Jean-Michel Vinassa, responsible for welcoming Loïc Boulon during his year at the National Polytechnic Institute of Bordeaux.

Loïc Boulon, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Energy Sources for Vehicles of the Future at UQTR, is already immersed in the world of energy storage and battery aging, but integrates Bordeaux a team with knowledge and protocols that will benefit UQTR.

"Typically, my work aims to improve the energy performance of clean vehicles, thus including the battery electric vehicle. This means that, for a given autonomy, there will be, thanks to my works, less batteries needed and therefore the environmental impact will be reduced." Loïc Boulon, Canada Research Chair in Energy Sources for Future Vehicles at UQTR

Loïc Boulon will also take the opportunity to develop its expertise in aeronautics.

"One of our big industrial players in Quebec is Bombardier, and come looking for information on the constraints and objectives of energy storage in the aerospace application, for me, that makes a lot of sense, because it's an extension of my current work."

It is not uncommon for companies to use academics to solve some of their problems. For educational institutions, it's a way to get subsidies.

IMS, a recognized laboratory

The Laboratory of Material Integration System (IMS) is affiliated to the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the University of Bordeaux. It is recognized on a European scale.
IMS collaborates with major players in the industry, such as Renaud, Peugot, Valeo and Airbus.

"Extra strike force"

Whether it is to save money, reduce dependence on gas or reduce greenhouse gas emissions, many companies are interested in this issue. The laboratory does not lack work.

"There is no lack of funding, indeed, says Jean-Michel Vinassa. What we miss most are arms, so having someone come to help is good. When we say arms in search, we also say brains, he says."

Jean-Michel Vinassa, researcher at the IMS laboratory and professor at the Institut national polytechnique de Bordeaux (left), is responsible for welcoming Loïc Boulon (right). Photo: CBC / Josée Duchame

Although he is French by origin, Loïc Boulon lugges with him, in Bordeaux, his Quebec baggage.

Jean-Michel Vinassa appreciates his knowledge of the Quebec winter.

"Much work is being done on transport programs, particularly [in] aeronautics where we "address" very important temperature ranges; therefore, cold is one of the concerns we can have in energy storage. So we had common scientific interests at the research level", he said.

For him, the Trifluvian is an "additional strike force".

What Loïc Boulon is happy to find in France?

"What I like here in Bordeaux and what I'm happy to finally find when I come back to live in France is all this gastronomy. With bread and bakery neighborhood close to home, and for example have cheese more affordable than Quebec. "

What is missing from Quebec?

"Something that pleases me particularly in Quebec and I'm starting to miss it today is a quality of life that is not necessarily in France. In the sense that there is a lot of space, people live much less on each other and tight, and there is a quality of life in the daily schedule and family life that loses a little in France where finally everything goes faster all the time, even in Bordeaux. "

The chapel

noreply@blogger.com (alwaystopnew) — Tue, 4 Dec 2018 12:10:00 -0800

I had never noticed this chapel. You had to dare to take that narrow path that climbed to the cliff. It was necessary to cross the hawthorn barriers and aggressive mulberry trees. Force yourself to face the sea wind stronger and stronger. Fight.
The sea was not far, one could feel his salt breath, his breath iodine, one could hear his throaty roar, his hoarse call.
Frightened seagulls circled the short gray arrow. A fine drizzle began to invade the sad moor. The little church was not very far, I hastened to take shelter under his porch. Ugly gargoyles spit me their venom. I leaned against the heavy door to escape their acid jets. It was then that I felt the door swing hard on the rust of its hinges. A grim grinding sounded and a smell of old wax caught me in the dark, icy nave. I stood petrified for a moment. The chapel was empty and seemed abandoned. Some of the messy priests seemed to receive only heavy, sticky dust. A single dark-colored stained glass window represented, it seemed to me, a frightful scene of medieval torture.
I was cautiously advancing towards the altar, which I could hardly see in the darkness. As I approached, I saw that he was covered with a thick black cloth. I could not repress a thrill.
Outside, the rain had turned into a roaring shower. The water was beating the walls and the roof of the building with so much force that one might have said it had been plunged like a wreck into the bottom of an unleashed ocean.
The night had arrived in advance. I bumped into an upturned chair that I struggled to put back. The clatter of feet squeaking on the slabs echoed in a thousand broken echoes on the vault. I felt guilty of making so much noise in a place that normally called for serenity. I held my breath to listen to the noise that had been multiplied gradually. At last, the silence returned, but it brought me more anguish than the noise.
Nothing. A complete and disturbing absence of life. Only the warrior song of the water of the sky that ravaged the neighborhood was screaming with truth. Everything else seemed a nightmare.
Yet from the bottom of a dark corner, I received a kind of complaint ...
The suffering of wood?
What was behind the enormous pillar?
I remained a forbidden moment, listening more attentively. A groan ? An exhortation?
In the thick shadow I could see the squat mass of a sculpted confessional. I approached cautiously, trying to pierce the disturbing darkness. It seemed to me that the groan was coming out of there. A bitter priest was to murmur his litanies ... The access to the confessional was closed by a wooden door. The voice had to come from the grid. A roar of thunder tapped in my heart, jostling him with the strength of a bull. This storm made me feel uncomfortable. I felt like I heard a chuckle from the bowels of the booth. Had I been startled? Was I observed?
I was attracted to the black lair, mysterious and scary, as one is drawn to the emptiness that scares us. The temptation to enter it was the same as that which impels us to sin. Resist only amplifies the desire to succumb.
I did not even have time to reason my fear, I was already bent on the used kneeling. An infamous odor was emerging from the central lodge. A monstrous plague of musty and dead animal rose to my nostrils. Something or someone scratched the wire mesh that separated me from the priest's cabin. What did I have to confess? I realized that my throat was nailed, my larynx paralyzed. It was then that a pale gleam emerged on the other side of the gate. Too weak to see but clear enough to emphasize, shriveled on itself, a human form ...
Or almost...
I did not have time to question what I foresaw. The shape had jumped on the grate, and long claws grabbed me by the hair. A strident howl escaped from an atrocious mouth and I felt myself die.
At that moment when I thought I was going to disappear, caught up in the black mystery of the chapel, devoured by a savage curse, an excessive chime echoed, piercing my eardrums with cruelty. At the same time, the being had sprung from his hiding place, standing before me in a blood-red halo! The deafening bells amplified their din, the walls of the chapel began to tremble. I was down. The monster dominated me with all its fury. I saw him with terror tear down his mouth wide open on me ...

My clock radio was right for my sleep at 7:15. I woke up swimming, breathless, ravaged. I watched with horror all around me: I was in my cozy little room. My programmed coffee maker was whistling, sending out jets of boiling steam. A delicious smell of coffee filled the room. A good breakfast and this horrible nightmare would be forgotten.
I rejected the blanket at the foot of the bed. I got up and sat down to find my slippers. My foot scoured the carpet.
As usual, I could not find my slippers. Sighing, I leaned over. Where my foot had touched the floor, the carpet was torn, slashed. Four long scars.
I looked with dismay.
What I saw tore my heart: going beyond the leg of my pajamas, this hairy horror was NOT MY foot!

Retrouvailles

noreply@blogger.com (alwaystopnew) — Mon, 3 Dec 2018 13:36:00 -0800

Black gnarled thorns grow visibly around the bed. The face hidden under the covers, motionless, I observe, with fright, the brambles wrap around the white metal bars of the headboard and rise above me, until forming a kind of cathedral monstrous, with thick stalks inextricably interwoven into each other. At the back of the room, moving shadows. Only the illumination of my bedside lamp allows me to escape the darkness and to watch the advance of the shadows. In my arms, the rag doll offered by mom for my six years reassures me. Fingertips, I feel the padded body and hair wool. My fingers are wriggling on the soft body of the doll and I feel, in the palm of my hand, a tenuous pulsation. The shadows are getting closer, that's for sure. Above me, from the cathedral of brambles flows a black and tarry substance that falls, in fine nets, on my sheets. Under my fingers, the palpitation is racing. I lift the sheet. Eyes sewn in wool, now flows a thick dark matter. I scream and wake up sweaty. The room is empty. I do not dare to get up, put a foot on the ground. Mom comes running, she heard me scream. She sits on the edge of the bed, comforts me, surrounds me while I lie down in my cozy bed. She promises to stay with me until I go back to sleep. She knows me customary nightmares.

I feel my eyelids heavy and, even if I struggle, while my mother caresses my blond curls, I end up sinking into a deep sleep. Mom is still there, on the edge of my bed, eyes of intense black. Behind her, I can see shadows with fuzzy outlines, barely visible, so light that they look like smoke. They stand just behind mom who remains impassive, her big black eyes turned to me. Other shadows arrive, rank behind the first and give them more thickness, material. Mom is now surrounded by a black and moving mass that melts on her without her moving or showing any emotion. The mass becomes opaque and I do not see the face of mom anymore. I scream with all my might, open my eyes. Mom jumps. She had stayed close to me and had finally fallen asleep. She sees my terror and reassures me, again. I observe it, scrutinize it from every angle. His eyes are of their usual hazel color. Her features are drawn, she is tired, but smiles tenderly. She caresses my cheek and invites me to lie down. I must sleep soon because sleep taraude. I beg her to let me sleep with her, in her bed.

She refuses because she knows full well that my father will oppose it. I explain that there are shadows under my bed that scare me and patiently wait for the right moment to catch us. She smiles and assures me that these are children's terrors of the most common and that there is nothing real in all this. Growing is also for each of us, overcome his own terrors night. She offers me to look under the bed if it can reassure me. I tell him I do not care. She sees that I am worried and want to persuade me of the baseness of my fear. She leans. I beg him to stop. She lies down on the floor, puts her head under the bed and does not move for a few seconds that seem very long. I call him. She does not answer. His body is frozen. Slowly, his body disappears under the bed. Unable to move, I can only see the horror of the situation. Mom's whole body is under the bed. Petrified, I sit, eyes wide open, all night. In the early morning, dad finds me like that. He takes me in his arms. I am mute and will remain so ever since. For a long time, Dad will look for mom in every corner of the house, in the garden, in the neighborhood, without success. The police officers, the psychologists that I met afterwards all agree that I attended a traumatic event, that I had to see my mother being kidnapped, perhaps killed, and that I am in a bad state. shock. Of course, they found no track, no footprint. I refuse to speak, to draw the scene as they ask me. Papa is infinitely sad, his big blue eyes are surrounded by black. He stays with me late into the night and often falls asleep beside me. After the intense dread lived the night of the disappearance of mom and the immense pain of his absence, my emotions dried up. I only feel the need to be in my room, where it all began, and the almost organic need to join Mom, as if I felt it still close, in a way.

In my bed, curled up under the sheets, I read tales by the light of the bedside lamp. My eyes are blinking. I rest the book and rub my eyelids. On the floor, in the luminous halo formed by the lamp, a shadow emerges from the space under the bed. She moves with great gentleness, stops for a moment, then resumes her graceful movement. I look at her without apprehension and ask her if it's her, if it's her. The shadow advances even more. I push back sheets and blanket, put my feet on the floor, kneel next to the shadow that grazes me. The shadow is nestling in the hollow of my small arms, caress my cheek. Miffed, I recognize mom. I lie on the floor, eyes closed with happiness, entwined by the shadow that covers me now and both we disappear, as if sucked by the floor, leaving behind us a faint glow in the dark room.

The witch and the angels

noreply@blogger.com (alwaystopnew) — Sun, 2 Dec 2018 13:23:00 -0800

Wild Cevennes. 1400. A middle-aged woman living alone. You can only go home after a long walk through the forest. We respect it, but we fear it. "Witch" is heard muttering. When we mention it, the villagers sign themselves. Maria. Nothing but his name seems to them a sacrilege. His very physique is inspired by the Devil. Busty, with long hair of fire. But the men pay her to sleep with her. Women pay for it to extract strange ointments for the skin. The children are fascinated by its beauty and its landmark filled with heterogeneous and odd objects. She welcomes all this little world with a flawless sweetness. Some people walk several days to meet her.
Indeed, she is also recognized for her "talents" and her discretion as an angel maker. Even the richest and most middle-class women use her services. Everyone knows it, everyone is silent. The older ones whisper the place of his hut to the younger ones. She had appeared one day, a few years ago, nobody knew where she came from, no one wanted to know.

Autumn, hide and seek the sun through the branches. Silence, except the steady sound of footsteps crunching on the thick carpet of dead leaves. An old lady holding hands, or rather trailing, a very young girl, even a little girl. The latter has a prominent belly. She cries noiselessly, she seems terrified. Maria is waiting outside, indecipherable look.
She guessed that a child would arrive today. She waited and was not mistaken. She knows the Old Woman. She has already brought her patients. Girls of joy most often. But here it's different, she knows it. Clotilde releases an aura of unbearable suffering. She became pregnant after a rape. That of his father. It is he who ordered the "thing" to be thrown away, or it would be the little one who would disappear. A father who is a rapist, but does not wish to have a job on his name. While the girl is only a few meters away, Maria frowns. The pregnancy is advanced; the operation is going to be tricky. Especially as the youth, and the narrowness of the child's pelvis are all factors of danger for his life. When the woman is newly pregnant, it is enough that it makes him absorb a light poison and that it inserts a thin pointed stick into the hole to trigger the bleeding. Except that the fetus must be at least six months, maybe seven. Maria will have to start delivery with a very strong infusion, and probably kill the viable infant right out of her mother's hot, bloody belly. She is furious that the Old Woman has not come before with the girl. She hates doing that.
She brings the two women back into her cottage and stretches out Clotilde. She takes her pulse, breathes her breath, observes the color of her eyes. She deftly feels the tense belly in order to take a mental note of the size and position of the fetus. He is not quite well placed yet and moves in an incredible way. Maria grunts outright, the operation seems more and more difficult. None of the other two women dare to talk to him, let alone question him about the reason for his grunts. To tell the truth, they are even afraid of her. But the touching hand is soft, and when the witch speaks to explain to the girl what she is going to do, it is in a calm and gentle voice. Clotilde relaxes and stops sniffing. All she understood was that this red-haired woman was going to get rid of the thing that stirred in her belly. And that is rather good news.

Maria gets up abruptly and spins into a tiny, dark, remote room, where her entire pharmacopoeia stands. In a few minutes, she selected what she wanted. She puts water to boil over the fire in a strange skin hide as she reduces the dried plants into a fine powder. She throws it into the bottle as soon as big bubbles blister the surface. The mixture gives off a strong and unpleasant odor. As soon as she has cooled down, she orders the child to drink it in one gulp. Clotilde succeeds not without repressing a gag. While waiting for the potion to take effect and start not only to cause contractions, but also to dilate the cervix, Maria makes the girl talk to relax her to the maximum. And probably to hide his own anguish. It is very rare that she is so anxious before operating. She trusts her gifts and most of the time makes fun of her patients. But this child touches her, she can not explain why, and it seems to her essential that she live. The little girl finally begins to shake, and grimaces of pain to twist her thin face. Maria examines her at regular intervals, measuring with her fingers the progress of the work. After several hours, it's time. The witch pierces the water pocket and asks La Vieille to press her entire weight on the girl's abdomen during the outbreaks. Time passes, the contractions are eroding, they are all glistening with sweat and Clotilde grows with excruciating cries of pain. We finally see the baby. But it's his shoulder that shows up, not his head. Maria spits her fingers into the gaping mouth of the vagina to try to turn the baby a little. In vain. She catches a wrought dagger, burns the blade quickly and incises. Blood flows. Clotilde screams. The old woman slaps her. Clotilde fainted, her belly twitching. The old woman shakes her like a plum tree to wake her up. Maria shouts to leave her alone, while she takes advantage of the looseness of the flesh to catch the fetus and pull it to her. A little blue being
finally appears in its entirety. She quickly breaks the umbilical cord with her teeth, smearing her face with blood, and pulls it to expel the placenta, which she drops to the ground before placing the baby motionless on it. The old woman takes it and undertakes to empty his mouth to make him breathe. The fire-haired woman loses patience and rebuffs her saying that it is useless to revive him because she will have to kill him, and that she should rather help him to bring back Clotilde. She washes it summarily before stitching it with a tendon filament that has been broken up beforehand. The girl moans without getting out of her fainting. She is white, emptied of too much blood. The old woman cradles a tiny and silent boy who has never shouted. Maria is almost as livid as the little one. She takes the pulse of the latter, which is extremely weak. The night has long since fallen. She did everything she could to save the child. Must wait.

In the morning Maria falls asleep on the ground holding the hand of a cadaver of a ten-year-old girl, as for the Old Woman and the baby, they are gone. A hunter will discover them both at the edge of a path a few days later, tight against each other. The infant's eyes were wide open. It seems that it means that his soul rode without having found peace.

confidences

noreply@blogger.com (alwaystopnew) — Fri, 30 Nov 2018 15:48:00 -0800

I have never had a lot of luck in my life. An alcoholic father, a schizophrenic mother, a tyrannical big brother. My father was beating me, my mother laughed for anything and did not care about my mouth all day long. She also had the phobia of my hair and always a pair of scissors on hand. My brother was constantly trying to scare me as soon as my back was turned or when I slept. And then, whenever he had the opportunity, he hit me with his big muscles big ass.

My dad was not better. With his fists he stroked my head as softly as a boxer and his punching bag. With his feet, he used it as a football. And he was a good penalty shooter. My mother had her favorite caress: scratch my skull with the tips of her pointed nails.

One day, I told my father that he drank too much. I almost died of an ethyl coma, because this bastard had stuck a neck in the back of my throat and had poured his liter of whiskey daily. One day, I had the misfortune to refuse that my mother cuts me the five millimeters of hair that had grown on my head during his psychiatric detention. She pulled them out with my teeth. One day, I refused to play with my brother. He forced me to play the ossicles. With my fingers.

And inevitably, all that, it leaves traces, sequels. Finally, at first I thought no, I thought I was out, because after my graduation I had the idea to set up a travel agency at discount prices. I must admit that after a difficult start, business took off.

Until I meet my girlfriend, Stephanie. Sculptural body, sharp intelligence, fusional love. We never did anything without each other. She loved traveling and for the holidays, sometimes for a single weekend, it was flying all over the world. The only thing that bothered me at home was her fucking craze. I did not like boxes, I never liked that. I ended up letting her go alone. She began to return at impossible times, drunk more, with the smell of alcohol and horny males. And every time I remonstrated with her, she laughed like a little fool. It ended up annoying me. To really annoy me. I think she took for all the crap that my damn family gave me. After another silly smile, I put all her passions together in one and sent her to boxes on the other side of the world.
It was a few months before I fell in love again. In the meantime I went to see a psychiatrist and was prescribed powerful sleeping pills to stop nightmares and hallucinations. I saw my mother, my father, my brother everywhere. It was horrible to see their charred bodies again. Fortunately that day I slept in college and I was not charged. I'm still wondering who was able to set their shit on fire.

I stayed a little shorter with my new girlfriend. Six months, I believe. I also met her at my travel agency. As in all love stories, at first it was going well. But she began to become strange: she was inventing all kinds of manias like being allowed to grow the nails of the hands, feet and varnish them in red like my mother. I do not like red. She was doing too much makeup, it looked like a whore. And then every week, she went to the hairdresser. I hate hairdressers. In addition, when she came back from these hair pullers, she laughed like an idiot. Yes, a real idiot. It ended up annoying me. To really annoy me. By extremely annoying me. I gagged her and put her still alive in a big box. In a magazine, I read that one could die laughing by brushing the feet of honey then licking them by a goat. I could not see myself buying a goat. But there were swarms of red ants in my cellar. And rats. Good fat rats. I do not remember how long she screamed, but I found it long, too long, and I was afraid the neighbors would hear it even though the nearest house is two or three hundred meters from the house. mine. I do not know why, I strangled her thinking about my mother. But the ants and rats had already had a good puff in the neck and his head remained in my hands. I immediately thought of my father and I shot in as in a football. Goal ! I did the Ola in my honor. Then I took her head and hit her so hard with my fists that her pretty face was nothing more than a mixture of skin, hair and brains mixed with clay. To relax, I played the ossicles with his fingers. It's funny, I took a monstrous pleasure.

I am choosing their destinations. Yes, I made several boxes with her body because I could still hear my mother's laughter inside, and I ended up cutting it with an ax and a saw.

Ah, I always hesitate: Borneo for his back, Cuba for his ass, Switzerland for his thighs. It should be over again, I have a lot of relations in the customs and from friends of the East who will buy me the organs.
To remove the genetic traces, I still have to contact my childhood friend Didier, a firefighter. It is really good to make believe that a fire is accidental. As before.

I can not wait for everything to be over, I can not wait to go back to the agency. In addition, I think I have the ticket with a beautiful little chick, single plus. A certain Stéphanie Duval. She looks a little like my mother, she has the same name as her, but I think this time I will manage to keep calm. Well, if she laughs a little bit too much, I'll just pull her tooth out, it'll calm her down and she'll understand that I do not like people to fool me.

I stopped seeing the shrink, but as he advised me I continue to write my journal. It helps me, it really helps me extract my dirty past from my soul. As the psychiatrist has often told me, I'm not responsible for anything ...

Open me your door

noreply@blogger.com (alwaystopnew) — Wed, 28 Nov 2018 13:59:00 -0800

It's been six months now that Alex could not sleep, or only a few hours here and there. And again, it was due to exhaustion or sleeping pills that he drank every night. Six months that he still did not understand why his wife had left without saying anything, leaving them alone, he and Lucas. Their son. He too lived it badly, very badly. The incessant nightmares punctuated her nights, their nights.
This night was no exception to the rule.
- Dad ! Dad !
That shrill voice screaming in terror, Alex heard it every day, every night, whenever night fell. The first few nights, Alex did not pay attention, but it became recurrent, he had finally found that Lucas howled at the same time. Not in the same time slot, no. At the same time ! To the minute. This could in no way be a coincidence. One night, in anger, Alex had destroyed his radio-alarm clock with his fist. He could not stand to see that hour that was showing off those big bright red numbers. In the shadows of his room, he had the impression that only these three figures existed.
Three, three, two.
Since then, even if he happened to see the time sometimes, he waited in the shadows that his son calls for help. A half-light to which he had not got used. She scared him. He had never realized how scary the night could be. The grinding of a door at the neighbors, a cracking wall, the roar of the refrigerator, no sound escaped him, not even the meowing of a stray cat and even less the howls of Lucas. Alex dreaded closing his eyes. Even one second. He did not want to see his son, the rest of his life, fly away. So that each night, he hastened to reassure his son of his presence.
- Dad ! Dad !
- Hush! Dad is here, champion. Alex whispered.
Lucas clung to his father, as if he was going to fall into the void. Alex could feel the terror his son was feeling. He was sweating profusely and his little heart was beating so hard it felt like it was ringing all over the house.
- He was still here, dad. At the window, I swear. Crying boy.
- It's still a nightmare, my boy. Look, the shutters are closed.
- No, I do not want to watch, dad.
- Okay that's good. Do not look. But I'm here now.
It was the same ritual every night. Lucas saw a shadow through his window. He could not perfectly distinguish the features of this individual, but he could see his eyes perfectly. Big yellow eyes and very white skin. This is how he represented it on these drawings that he sketched every day. Two big yellow eyes on a white face without lines and a black shadow, imposing, like wrapped in a big hooded parka. She was standing in front of her window, an observer, staring at him with that look to make a dead man pale. According to the child psychiatrist who followed him, this was how his son pictured his mother's abandonment: a threatening shadow. As the sessions progressed, the doctor explained to Alex that his son was imagining a kind of evil creature watching him and waiting for Lucas to look at him to make him disappear like his mother. He lived in utter denial and in his world it was impossible for his mother to abandon him.
- I love you, my dear. Hold on, we'll be fine. Alex whispered, a tear rolling on his cheek.
Lucas had fallen asleep, as always, huddled in his father's arms and waking up only in the early morning. Alex would have liked to take him to his bed and hug him tightly, but according to the doctor it would not help him overcome his fear. Then, with a tight heart, he did as every night. He put it back in his bed, bordered it and kissed him on the forehead. Then he left, still in the dim light, to return to his room. He persisted in not putting the light on, because he wanted at all costs to remember that it was night. He was trying to cope with his depression, to hold the dragee high so as not to abandon his child. He had become insomniac and not to sink into the abyss of dementia, he imposed complete darkness during the night so as not to compromise his circadian cycle.
Alex came into his room and pretended that he did not see those three luminous numbers that took up the whole surface of his wall and blinked like after a power failure.
Three, three, two.
He lay down and wrapped himself in his duvet. He tried to close his eyes, but he could not. Always this fear of losing his child. Then he looked in spite of himself at this blinking hour, reminding him of that famous night at three thirty-two minutes. That night when, waking up, thinking that he had heard screaming, he had discovered his empty bed. He had not worried too much, but not seeing his wife return to the room after half an hour, he had risen and thought he was dying when he found out that she was not in any room in the apartment. He had tried to reach her on his mobile phone, but he had stayed at home. Like all his stuff, by the way. His world had collapsed like a house of cards in a draft and now only held a thread ... Lucas. If he was not there, he would have already surrendered. Finally, the man was only strong with a woman by his side. Without her, Alex had the feeling of being useless and not being able to face fate. How long would he be able to stand up? How long can he protect his child? He was doing his best, but every day that passed, Alex was just rehearsing all their arguments. He had always thought that they were indispensable in a couple and that they allowed love to continue over time, as long as they were not too frequent. But this certainty was shaken that famous night at three thirty-two minutes. Since then he had been desperately searching for what could have caused her to flee in the middle of the night, without bringing anything with her and even giving up her child. He did not recognize the woman he had married the year before and who had shared his life for ten years.
Alex was out of his dreams and his heart racing as he heard those little feet drumming on the floor.
- Dad ! Dad ! Lucas shouted again.
This time, he was running fast in Alex's room, frightened as if he was being hunted down. He was suffocating, he had never seen his son so frightened. Alex got up and intercepted the little boy who jumped instantly into his arms.
- It's over, darling. It's finish. Do you want to sleep with dad?
- Yes Dad. Cried the little boy.
Alex lay down delicately in the bed, hugging his son tightly against him.
- Oh no, daddy! I left comforter alone! Lucas shouted.
- Calm down. It does not matter, we'll get it back tomorrow.
- No. No. No. Excited his son. We can not leave him alone! He will take a blankie with him.
- Nobody is going to take anyone, okay? Alex answered calmly.
- If dad, he'll take her away. Please, go get it. I think I made a mistake. Pleura Lucas.
- What? What do you mean ? Nonsense ?
- I think I opened the window.
- Do you think so, or are you sure?
- I do not know dad any more. Please, go get blankie.
- OKAY. I'll go see, but calm down. Do you know that windows or doors should not be opened in the middle of the night?
- Yes, I'm sorry, dad. I do not know why I did that.
- It does not matter, but you have to promise me not to do it again.
- It's promised, dad.
Alex had not yet cleared the door when his son called.
- Dad ! You can close the door when you leave.
- Good, Lucas. Stop Please.
- Please, dad.
- That's enough, I have it for thirty seconds. I come again.
Alex crossed the hallway between the two rooms, and when he entered Lucas's, he felt a shiver through his body. He had the impression that he was being watched. He turned his head in all directions, but saw nothing, not even those yellow eyes that opened behind him and disappeared immediately. The window was indeed open and he hastened to close it. He then fumbled with his son's bed and grabbed his comforter, a little blue bear with one eye missing and a nose that looked like an old fabric that would have gone through several centuries. Even in the dark, he knew it was him, because he had the smell that only his son seemed not to feel.
- Dad ! Help ! Let go of me ! Let go of me !
Alex's blood spun and he strode to his room. He banged against the wall in the hallway and found himself on the buttocks. A pain radiated his coccyx. Alex got up, put aside his obsession and looked for the switch, then turned it on.
The light burned his eyes, and his son's absence broke his heart.
- Dad !
The cry came from the living room. Alex turned around, fear intermingling with anger made his heart beat into his temples. He arrived in the living room and turned on the light, but his son was still not there.
- Lucas! Lucas! Alex shouted.
Like rising from the far end of a cave. Darkness, perhaps? His son's voice answered him like an echo.
- Dad ! Dad !
There was only the kitchen left, so he opened the door with a big shoulder, but saw nothing. He was nevertheless convinced of it. It was from there that he had heard the last cries of his son. His eyes were attracted by the door of the buffet, left open. Then, just ahead, he saw the little blue bear. It was impossible, unthinkable, he could not be there. He approached slowly, fear in his stomach. He felt his heart beating in his throat now.
- Lucas? Alex asked in an uncertain voice.
He stepped forward and crouched in front of the door, he put his head down.
- Dad ! shouted the little boy who popped out of the buffet.
Alex was surprised, but with a reflex, he clung to his son and was caught inside. It was suddenly cold and the silence that reigned here was deafening. He was plunged back into darkness, a darkness even darker than those he had known so far. He must have been in a nightmare. It could only be that, he thought.
- Lucas? Are you there, champion?
Alex could not see anything, he was groping his way. He did not recognize where he was. All his senses were on the alert in search of the least noise, the least smell. He was cautiously advancing in the maze of these paths, blind, guided by a kind of invisible aura. Instinct ? The sixth sense? In the distance, a ray of light appeared on the floor. There was surely a door. He hurried and started running.
- Lucas? Lucas?
After, what seemed like an eternity, he finally arrived at a door he did not wait to open. His mind failed to crack. He had trouble accepting what he saw.
- Dad ! You found us.
- Lucas, but ... I do not understand.
- Hi Alex. I missed you so much.
- Julie? It's not true ? Julie, it's really you? Oh my dear.
Alex ran to hug his wife and son. Then he kissed Julie passionately. She had missed him so much. At the touch of his lips, the breath that came out of his nose and seemed to run all over his body, he could not stop his tears from running.
- Where are we? He finally asks.
- I do not know, Alex. I'm stuck here since earlier. When Lucas started screaming.
- Since earlier ? It's been six months since you disappeared, darling.
- Six months ? Oh my God.
Julie put a hand to her mouth and repressed a sob, imagining her husband and son, alone, without news of her.
- Hush ... it's over, we're here now. Explain to me what happened. How did you get there? Alex asked.
Lucas started screaming. He looked scared, so I got up and went to see him. As the nights are hot this summer, he sleeps the open window. I closed it, because strangely, it was cool in his room. There I noticed that at the end of his room the door of his wardrobe was open. I approached to close it and when I arrived in front, I saw ...
- A white face with big yellow eyes? Alex asked, seeing his wife hesitate to describe what she had seen.
- How do you know ? Did you see it too?
- Not me.
- Oh no. Lucas. Julie cried, looking at her sleeping child on her lap.
She continued her story in pain, every word seemed to tear her flesh away. That sudden darkness, that thing, that monster, that creature that had paralyzed her with fear, her paws resting on her and caressing her entire body. Then, his flight. Long and endless. She had run, without stopping and turning when she was out of breath, she had landed there. In this light room. There was nothing here. Only light and a door leading into those dark corridors.
- Do not blame me Alex, but ...
- But what ?
- I knew that these corridors could lead me to you, but every time I tried to go ... I saw ... those eyes ... this ...
- It's good, I do not blame you. Do not blame yourself either, okay?
- I tried Alex ... I tried, but with every attempt ... I could not find a way out ... and ... and ... oh, my god. Julie cried, shuddering.
Julie began to cry unceasingly, her eyes closed. She winced in terror as she touched her body. Alex grabbed her hands and hugged her tightly. On his neck he saw what looked like scars. For having traveled his body with his eyes and hands for so many years, he knew she had none before he disappeared. He was so intrigued that he slowly cleared Julie's sweater collar and shuddered at the sight of her back.
- Julie. What happened, darling? Alex cried.
- She's ... this ... this thing. Every time I walked through this door to try to find you ... I always found myself in the dark ... in endless corridors ... no way ... no. I never found you ...
- We're here now. She tried to reassure her Alex.
- I was running as fast as possible ... I saw her in the distance ... her eyes Alex, they terrify me. They appear without warning and there, you feel her posing ...
Julie closed her eyes again, she began to tremble, as if she was hypothermic.
- Its paws. She continued. Then she tries to draw you to her. I resisted him and I was able to run away every time. But it was always the same pain, I felt that she lacerated my back with scalpels. I do not have the strength Alex anymore. Do something, please. Get out of this nightmare.
- I'll get out of here, darling. I promise you. But I'm going to ask you one last effort. We have to go back to these corridors.
- No Alex, I'm so scared. There is no way out here. I already tried.
- Yes, there is one. Believe me. I just got it. The night you disappeared, I remember that the door of Lucas's wardrobe was open. I closed it, that's probably why you did not find a way out. I closed it. I'm sorry, sweetheart.
- You could not have known. Julie kissed him.
- If my reasoning is the right one, then at the other end of these corridors there is a way out, because nobody at us has closed the door of the buffet.
Alex stood up and extended his hand to his wife to help him get back on his feet. He then woke up his son, who, from the height of his six years, seemed to be armed with unshakable courage. He told them that they had to hold hands as hard as they could and run without stopping until they saw light. It would look like a tiny window and they'll have to jump in without thinking when they see it.
They looked at each other in the eye and crossed the door towards the darkness. They did not wait and ran. Alex opened the march and with one hand extended forward he tried to guide his family to the exit, the rescue, and with his other hand, he felt that of his son, she seemed so thin and fragile. Julie, meanwhile, closed the march despite this fear of being lacerated back again. It was so cold, the air was humid. It smelled like mildew. They ran all three, losing breath, without turning around. Alex called his wife every ten seconds to make sure he was there. Lucas was starting to let go, he was exhausted. When they finally saw the light, a tiny window - as he had imagined - seemed to be drawing in the distance. Suddenly, halfway, a shadow slipped down the hall. They stopped breathless and frightened at seeing this pale face. Two big yellow eyes opened and the shadow went towards them, slowly, then faster and faster. The atmosphere gets colder again, so much so that they see condensation coming out of their mouths. Alex felt the little hand of his son clinging to his.
- Alex! We turn around! What are you waiting for ?
- No baby. We go for it.
- Have you gone mad? Julie worried.
- Trust me. We go for it and when we are up to it, Julie, you do not stop. You take Lucas in your arms and you go to the light.
- And you ?
- Do not worry about me. Do not think, he comes here. DARK! DARK!
They ran off, Julie stared at the exit and nothing else. She ran at a brisk pace. The exit approached more and more and this small window became bigger and bigger. She was now so big that she could throw herself inside and land with her son in her kitchen, in the light, at home, at last. Then she turned suddenly and stared at the door of the buffet. It was as if she was in apnea. Eyes wide open, she looked at this door hoping to see Alex come out. The seconds were slowly fading and the weather seemed suspended. Alex would not want her to take the risk of putting them in danger, he was probably telling him to close the door, but Julie could not do it. It was stronger than her. His gaze rested successively on this door, open on the darkness, and on his son. This gift of life that brings you joy and happiness. Then, Alex appeared, bloody, she helped him out of there.
- Close this door! Alex shouted.

One year later...
Several hundred kilometers away, Alex, Julie and Lucas had returned to normal life, or almost. They had left their apartment immediately after closing the door of the buffet. They would not have been able to stay in this place for another minute and decided to go far to rebuild their lives. There, where no one would judge them. There, where no one would stare at Julie wondering what had happened to her when she decided to leave in the middle of the night, abandoning her child. There, where no one would look at Alex with pity, wondering if it was his crazy woman who had slashed her face. There, where no one would speculate on Lucas's chances of escaping unhurt in this life, in this world. Nevertheless, they managed to lead an ordinary life ... the day only. For when night fell, before going to bed, they could not help remembering these horrible memories.
Lucas was brushing his teeth, and when he finished, he went to bed. The only piece of furniture in his room. There was no wardrobe or closet and not even a dresser. There was nothing that could open to darkness. The whole house was so, there was not a single piece of furniture with doors. It was simpler and more reassuring. Easier, because every night, Alex checked that all the doors of the house were closed. He had just gone around, and then every evening, he went to check a second time. Always in the same order, the front door first. He checked that it was tightly closed on all three locks. Then the door to the bathroom, then the bathroom and it would end up in the rooms after going through the kitchen. In the kitchen, he checked that the padlock on the refrigerator was securely closed and that the cooker door lock was in place, as well as the door of the microwave oven. Always the same ritual, an obsession. Then Alex joined Julie for the rest of the night.
3:32 ...
Like every night, even when he was sleeping, Alex could not help but wake up and get up at the same time. He made sure that his wife and child were still there, then went to check one last time that no door was open. Always in the same order. When he was in the living room, he felt a shudder that made him shiver with fear. The curtain of the French window waved slightly as when a summer breeze was coming to you. Only at home, that was impossible, because never again could they feel this pleasant sensation. Unless he forgot to close that door.
- No ! It's impossible ! thought Alex.
He walked to the French window slowly, his heart resonating in his throat. He had a bad feeling. He slowly put his hand down, then, relieved, he found that it was closed. Night had fallen quickly last night and he had not had time to shut the shutter. He had resolved to close only the curtains, not wanting to risk opening the window. Alex was sweating, he swallowed hard and caught himself smiling.
- You're stupid. He thought aloud.
He looked one last time through the window, as if to convince himself that there was absolutely nothing. That all this was playing out in his imagination forever perverted by this thing. He jumped suddenly and fear made him lose his balance. In front of him, standing against the window, stood the shadow and the face without features, without soul. She stared at him with her big yellow eyes and seemed to have interfered in her head. Alex could even hear him whisper.
- Open me your door !

The Flouc

noreply@blogger.com (alwaystopnew) — Tue, 27 Nov 2018 14:13:00 -0800

Obelix's corpulence, Bérurier's banter, Colombo's raincoat and Maigret's pipe had never helped make Hyppolite Durieux a renowned cop, but today his abilities would be put to the test. . Indeed, a crime had just been committed in Noirmoutier in full departure of the Tour de France and its reputation could cross the borders of the island. He should not miss the opportunity.
His first concern was to go to the scene of the crime: a technical truck of a team in sight in this one hundred and fifth Tour de France cyclist, the "Great Loop". His divisional had made more recommendations than usual. It was not to tarnish the reputation of teams, the Tour and its sports organizers and especially, especially, those of local officials.
Arriving at the car park that housed the technical staff, he immediately recognized the logo of the team he was looking for. Anyway, an impressive cordon of police and gendarmes was already present. He could not have been wrong. His "nose" immediately told him that something was wrong.
Seeing the policeman arrive from his heavy gait dodeling on both sides of his prominent belly, the colleagues present discreetly moved away. He passed worthily in front of them, the basques of his open raincoat floating in the light wind, and entered the bus-workshop by returning his belly.
- Name of name, it is who who fucked me doors so p'tites. Do you think there are only wasps that cycle?
The interior of the truck was tidy. Everything seemed in its place and only a large blood stain was a mess in the middle of the vehicle. A policeman in white dress seemed to be picking up items from the storage shelves.
- And where is the stiffness? the policeman wondered.
- There is no corpse.
- No ?
- No. Shut up the guy.
- Name of name! I knew ben that would me shit this cunt!
- Inspector, let's see!
- Well, whatever happened?
And it was explained to him that the corpse had been discovered by a technician, about six-thirty in the morning. He had rushed to the team manager's office to warn him. He had to go to the brewery "La Terrasse" at Herbaudiere, at the end of the island, to find him and explain the matter at length, the director seeming not to understand and realize. When they came back, the body was gone, leaving only a trace of blood.
Durieux Hyppolite scratched vigorously with her tousled red hair. He went to settle in front of a café at "P'tit Noirmout" where he lit his first pipe of the day despite the early hour. He summoned the director of the team immediately. As usual, he immediately saw a possible solution with a procedure to follow to conduct his investigation.
- Hello Headmaster. I'm in charge of investigating this weird murder. I'm going to need your help to understand how your cycling world works since I do not know anything about it.
- Hello inspector. I understand your concern, but the Tour is leaving in four hours and my team needs me. I'm afraid you have to go without me.
- I will disturb you as little as possible, but must what is said here.
He decided to call all the members of the included riders team to question them. He began with the cyclists to release them very quickly, because he thought they were for nothing and that the start of the Tour would be despite everything.
The interrogations were brief and very succinct. Lieutenant Durieux absolutely wanted to keep with him the team director for possible translations, because he only spoke the purest French, according to him, the popular French that his uncle Herbert Defaitte, a donkey farmer, had taught him. job. Her (it was his nickname) Defait had raised him since his father had died at sea aboard the lobster "The Hardi". The ten riders on the team did not know anything, did not see anything, did not hear anything.
The inspector, however, heard comments outside him calling him soft-whipped cop and chuckles. He kept this for himself. For the moment, he told himself, for the moment.
- Bou diou de bou diou! There's no talking to your pedal guys, Hyppolite told the team director.
- You know, in our job, we are stingy with words. We need all our energy to pedal and it is not always easy, the director answered.
"Well, bring me the technicians," he said to his assistants, looking through the pockets of his dubious beige raincoat, his tobacco pouch to light a new pipe.
They passed one after the other, except for a certain Pierre Bennotte, a native of the island, who had to leave hurriedly this morning for an unforeseen family, "with the authorization of the team director" had declared with a pinch the technical manager. Technicians also nobody had seen anything, heard nothing. They were all busy preparing bicycles for their cyclists and did not waste time looking at what others were doing. The one who had discovered the corpse stated that the body was lying on his stomach and that he had not seen who it was. Inspector Durieux freed the technicians.
- I would like to go now too, inspector, asked the director of the team.
- Yes OK. I have to check, go ahead.
- Thank you, he said, getting up to leave.
- Ah, but by the way, one last thing. You told me that your cyclists needed all their energy. And if they do not have enough, what's going on?
- Well we lose the stage, we lose the premium, we lose prestige, we risk losing everything and that is inconceivable for a team of our fame.
- Ah ... Inconceivable ... Thank you very much.
The team director was about to cross the threshold of the coffee shop door when the policeman called again.
- And this guy Pierre Bennotte, you allowed him to leave for what motive?
- A problem in his family. His dying father, I believe.
- Thank you. See you soon.
As these interrogations unfolded, time passed and the hour of the great departure of the first leg was approaching at a crazy speed. The advertising caravan made a hell of a stir with its horns, the shouts of its mountebanks and those of the spectators who fought over the generously distributed giveaways. The speakers installed by the municipality for the occasion poured their flood of local advertising.
People were running everywhere, the gendarmes were trying to channel the many curious who were hailing from one sidewalk to another to greet each other. The journalists sneaked up, holding out their pickups and shouting their questions in the middle of this jolly mess. The sellers of French fries and sandwiches were already enjoying themselves, sweet smells of pancakes scented the atmosphere and the seagulls disturbed by all this upheaval shouted their offuscation.
The festive atmosphere contrasted with the wrinkled forehead of our inspector whose brain was looking for a way to understand what had happened this morning in this technical truck. While thinking, Inspector Hyppolite Durieux rubbed his prognathous chin and half closed his right eye.
The preliminary interrogations had given nothing. The only point of attachment was the technician supposedly left that morning. The audit was under way to control the information. Hyppolite Durieux then expanded his research and the police quickly questioned all the teams and all the staff present on the site. Time was pressing. The hour of departure was approaching and the tide was beginning to descend, which would allow the advertising caravan and the runners to pass through the goï, this road flooded at each high tide, to reach the continent.
That's when someone approached the inspector.
- Hi Hyppolite. I think I found a corpse.
- Bou diou! Albert, do you have me?
- Come see. I found it just now in a carnation, under a meter of salt. I slowly brought the salt to the edge of the eyelet with my and all of a sudden I saw a piece of hand that exceeded the mule.
The inspector noticed on the spot that his school friend was telling the truth. The murderer must have hidden the body to be discovered as late as possible, eaten away by salt. However, the corpse had been hidden there rather quickly and the pile of salt had been reconstituted by an amateur, in a hurry.
- That's why I wanted to raise the salt. The mulon was not compliant and I do not like when the job is badly done.
Hyppolite returned to the camp of the Tour. He thought that the traveler was Pierre Bennotte, a guy from Gueriniere, a few miles away, who apparently had not gone home, contrary to what had been said to the policeman. He began to orient his research towards this track when the UCI controller's manager came to see him.
- Hello Inspector. Is it you who is conducting the investigation? he said with a strong English accent.
- Yes my lord. Who are you?
- I lead the team of controllers of the International Cycling Union. Our job is to control the riders to avoid doping, and also to control the equipment, the bicycles, to see if they weigh the good weight, etc ...
- Ah yes. Those who have never seen that ... well let's move on. I had forgotten you. So what ?
- Then one of my controllers has disappeared. I had assigned him to take care of the team where the murder was committed.
- Oh, shit! Come with me. I'm leaving with the director of the team to see a corpse. I need to know who it is.
Once there, it was clear. The director said:
- It's not Pierre.
- My God, it's my controller exclaimed the Englishman.
The problem was getting worse. The policeman started pacing up and down, puffing at his pipe. His red hair was floating in the breeze of the sea charged with the smell of iodine and some sea spray torn from the tide came to whip his old formless rain. He hummed, imitating in this his idol Berrurier, a song of his own: "The walk of salt workers" ("Saunions, saunions, because we are salt-workers, my brothers." Let's sing about our muloons, because we are roosters with salt ... ").
An idea made its way into his head. He mumbled incoherent sentences between two stanzas and his assistants watched him walk, his head bent to his right, his pipe in his left hand raised over his shoulder. From time to time he stopped for a few seconds and then started again, pushing his big belly forward from left to right.
The sun was already high in the blue sky of the island, only troubled by little fluffy white clouds. The seagulls were yawning over the harbor, and were still circling near the Museum of Shipbuilding, above the Town Hall Square.
- Inspector, the advertising caravan will leave in a quarter of an hour. We let them leave the island?
- Yes Yes. They can leave. But not the controllers or the technicians. And not the team directors either.
- But it is inadmissible regimba the team director. My men need me. Finally, Mr. Inspector, it's not our fault if you do not move forward!
- And who tells you that I'm not moving forward? Hyppolite Durieux said looking at him in a funny way. But you are right. Let everyone go except the head of the UCI, this gentleman and his technical manager he said to his deputies while the team director exploded with rage.
The police inspector returned to town and settled in the brewery "Le P'tit Noirmout" near the Town Hall. The warm room, with its exposed stonework, its red painted beams and its wooden floor, helped it to reflect. He ordered a beer from the country, beer brewed in the neighboring commune of La Gueriniere.
- An N'O please Gaston. And a little dish of mogettes to the fressure.
- At this inspector's hour?
- Well what, we could right to fill his belly when it is empty?
He summoned again the protagonists of the affair. It had been almost four hours since he had received the instructions of the commissary. He felt confusedly that he was close to solving the riddle. He was pretty sure of what he was thinking. He had two things checked on the Internet and then he received the chief controller of the UCI first.
"Sit down, mister the Lord. And tell me everything.
- Tell you what, Sir Durdoyl? Or should I call you Sherlock? replied the sitting Briton who played his accent to maliciously misrepresent the name of the French policeman who teased him about his nationality.
- Well, tell me whatever you're looking for in this truck, for example.
- My colleague was responsible for checking the conformity of the equipment with the rules of the race. He had inherited this team in control by simple administrative designation. Nothing more.
- You mean that this team was not suspected.
- No team is suspected a priori. We are more focused on what controls are ... how do you say "deterent effect", oh yes, dissuasive.
- So your controller was doing a routine job.
- Yes, that's it.
- And this routine work led him into the truck.
- Uh, there, I would not say that like that.
- What would you say ? And, addressing the waiter while wiping drops of hair on his chin and his napkin hung by a corner between his neck and his shirt, Gaston, another ration of fat with a N'O, is pleased. You want a beer, Sir? One of us.
- No thanks. I would say that if he got into the truck, there was something that intrigued him, probably.
- Tell me, apart from the weight of the bike, what is it that might not be in accordance with the rules?
"Well, we have been looking for some time for electric frauds.
- Electric frauds! On bikes? Thank you, Gaston. Are you sure you do not want a N'O beer?
- No. Finally, no N'O beer. Or, an Ok.
- It's no ? It's OK ? Is it yes or no?
- Yes for an Okells brand English, we say an Ok, home.
- They are crazy, these English !! Hein, Gaston. Okay, so what are these electric bike stories?
The Brit sighed. He was beaten at this little game. He understood that the inspector had already inquired between interrogations and played with him in the cat and the mouse.
- These are small electric motors hidden in the tubes of the bike and help to turn the wheels when against the clock or in the mountains. This allows to go a little faster and especially to tire less. We win stages and therefore money thanks to this subterfuge.
- Is it really true? With this system, it is no longer necessary to use drugs.
"Well, yes, Mr. Inspector. It exists.
- So your controller could have gotten into the truck to look for rigged bike frames.
- Yes, or something else. We recently found a pedal with a mini electric motor hidden in the axis itself.
- In the axis? And how to discover this thing?
- We have electronic tablets that detect electrical waves when we pass them within a centimeter of the tube or the axis.
- Less than a centimeter! And if we go a little further, or so quickly ...
- We do not detect anything.
- And we have to go and control that in the truck.
- No, it must be checked at the start or on the road during the race to see the criminal use.
- So what made your controller in the truck?
"I do not know, sir, I do not know.
The interview stopped there. Hyppolite thinks for a moment before giving very precise instructions to one of his deputies. Then he brought in the chief technician of the team involved in the murder. The man looked sickly. His eyes seemed to look everywhere for something. He sat down and began to wring his hands feverishly.
- You are the technical manager of the team. How far is your responsibility? He said his mouth full of shreds.
- I must guarantee the proper functioning of the bicycles assigned to the riders. Every champion has his bikes. I mean every bike is tuned for one athlete and not another. And they all have three custom bikes based on their size, weight, how they pedal, etc.
- And you guarantee also the respect of the rules of the Tour?
- What are you talking about ? he replied, embarrassed.
- The weight of the bike, lenticular wheels ... Or to check that the bike does not include a little hidden thing ...
- Ah, it's the doctor who takes care of the possible drugs.
- The doctor also takes care of electric motors?
"I do not know what you mean," he replied, fidgeting in his seat.
- Boudiou! Is not it strange that a technician of your level does not see what I'm talking about? Who gives orders in your team?
- He's the team director. I do not know anything. It's not me who buys the bikes at the base.
- Why are you defending yourself? Are you hiding something or are you scared? And then I talked about electric motors, not buying bikes. There are electric bikes in your very famous team?
- I tell you it's not me. And worse this morning, I was not up at five.
So it was five o'clock. And the guy Pierre, he was at the truck at five o'clock. You confirm ?
- But I said nothing, me. It's not true. I do not know anything ! It's the team director who allowed him to leave, it's not me. The man was sweating heavily now.
The inspector did not insist more. He had understood everything. He pulled the techie out of the back of the brewery between two policemen. He took another pause and gave new instructions to his deputy after hearing the report he gave him about the deceased controller and Pierre Bennotte the missing technician. Then he brought in the director of the team.
The Tour had been gone for half an hour now. The director stepped into the chairs as he passed, apparently drunk with rage.
- It is unacceptable ! he shouted. Who do you think, little cop of a lost hole! A species of redneck! A little "flouc" is what you are. You will hear about me, I tell you!
- I notice an insult to a police officer in his role of representative of the police force. I order you to stay up and not move if you do not want to end up with handcuffs on your wrist.
The director seemed to be clubbed on the head. His fulminating gaze turned into a questioning gaze, then a shadow of fear passed in his eyes. He calmed down immediately. How could this redneck, this little cop, this "flouc", allow himself to speak to him like this?
- Tell me what you were doing in the truck this morning at five o'clock with the UCI controller and Pierre Bennotte.
"But, but, I was not there," he said, destabilized by this frontal and direct attack. I do not know what to talk to you about
- Well, I'll tell you: you were buying the controller's silence.
- No, I do not understand.
- Did you give Peter the money before or after the murder?
- But I'm innocent. I do not know what you're talking about.
- I'm talking about electric motors hidden in the axes of the pedals. I'm telling you that the controller was blackmailing you and that you had had enough. I'm talking about the murder that you committed to end this. I'm telling you about the corpse you asked Pierre, the local guy, to hide in the salt shakers. We have all the evidence.
Seeing that the pot with the roses was discovered, the director literally collapsed on a chair while exclaiming:
- I did not kill him. It's Pierre.
- Well then. My services have just discovered Pierre, hidden in the attic of his house in Guérinière. Not end the stone. In fact, he gave us the envelope that contained five hundred thousand euros on which we will surely find your fingerprints. He has already confessed almost everything, the inspector lied.
Then the director told the whole story. Engines hidden for two years in the frames then in the axis of bottom bracket. The day before, the controller of the UCI had discovered by chance the new system of cheating invented this year with electromagnets scattered all around the rim of the rear wheel. By controlling the frame, his tablet was close to the tire and reacted.
The controller had offered them a financial arrangement and the team director had accepted after consulting the main sponsor.
- It will be enough for me to pass the tablet to more than one centimeter of the frame or the tire and to pass it quickly so that nothing is detected, had promised them the controller of the UCI.
But at the time of the delivery of the envelope, in the truck, he had asked for a second for the following week. The director of the team had gone out of his way, he had jostled him and the controller had fallen, hitting his head on a shelf edge.
Pierre was in the corner, the director had asked him to remove the body in exchange for the envelope, and disappear for a day or two. It had been necessary to invent a story for the chief technician who only later understood the real reason for Peter's absence.
The truth was known to all before the arrival of the stage. The boss of the sponsoring company was stopped in the paddocks in La Roche-sur-Yon at the moment when the winner of the stage, a rider of the team concerned, crossed the finishing line with a little too much ease. Hyppolite taste.
Inspector Durieux was sitting in front of P'tit Noirmout's TV, a good N'O and a big cock in salt crust in front of him when the Divisional Commissioner called him on the phone to congratulate him.
- A case well conducted, inspector. Bravo. The results of this survey will be global. It's a real scandal. You will become famous. What is your feeling at the moment?
"Boudiou, commissioner, we should not take ourselves for nonsense! he answered his superior, sputtering everywhere. That's scandalous, is not it?
- Yes, Durieux, yes. This is what is scandalous.

The dead man who was still walking

noreply@blogger.com (alwaystopnew) — Sun, 25 Nov 2018 13:01:00 -0800

The dead man who was still walking

To live without looking, to live by excluding from its field of vision a whole portion of the world, the inhabitants of the villages which surrounded the accursed place had become accustomed to it. It happened, however, that their eyes betrayed them and went, in spite of themselves, towards the furnace, towards that frankness of hell that the invader had opened on their land. At night, the flames rose to the sky to lick the foolish clouds of this sad plain. They could still be seen, thrilling, thirty kilometers away, those flames. They never looked at them, or at least never to many. This common look would have called a comment, an exchange to which all refused. But when you were alone, urinating in a farmyard at nightfall, you could not help but take a look at this conflagration, as if to make sure that the sinister curse on the country was still effective. . In the morning, in the air frozen by the cold, the column of smoke rose straight, like a waving tube, to go to smoke up to the throne of God and show him that the devil, here, had taken control. Then the wind rose. That day, he came from the East and Karol Grzegorczyk understood that he had designated them as a target. This day would be theirs.
He hitched the mare under the black snow that had been falling on the region for several months without stopping. But you had to live, you had to breathe that air, you had to never look in the direction of the cursed place. Maja, the heavy mare, set to work with her habitual placidity. Behind the little plow, the land of Poland turned on its sinister fertilizer which, at once, began to cover it again. Here, fed by the ultimate crime of men, potatoes came out of the ground that his wife and daughter were eager to pick up and put in baskets. Three years earlier, this work was done by telling jokes, singing songs and even laughing, sometimes, while passing a jar of clear water. Three years earlier, it was not rushed, just back to the farm, to clean the precious tubers from their stain. Three years ago, and still today, it was hard to imagine for a moment that this lost, untrammeled corner of Treblinka would become such a sad day.
This morning of August 2nd, 1943, the sun shines on the horizon and the earth, watered the day before of a short shower, already smokes. The ashes are so thick that Karol put his handkerchief in front of his mouth. For two hours now, noises have been coming from the camp and have come to strike the surrounding countryside as one knocks on a door behind which all the consciences of men have been hidden. These are shots slamming in this early morning. These shots, even if they are not exceptional, seem today more numerous, different also. They look like a battle, but a battle is the most unlikely thing that can happen in hell. Over there, everyone knows, even if nobody talks about it, we decided to exhume and burn tens of thousands of corpses, bodies massively buried under Polish soil for more than one year. It seems that the wind of history is itself spinning and that the devil of Berlin, caught in a sudden fear or modesty, has decided to erase the traces of his unspeakable crime.
The sun rises in the sky and Karol removes her wool. The heat will not delay to overwhelm them as already overwhelms the darkness that flies all around them. His wife and daughter wave to him and call him. He stops Maja with a click of his tongue and she immediately submits. Hanna points to the direction of the camp. The detonations are less numerous, but it seems that this time, it is the whole complex that flames. But there is something else.
Karol puts his hand in visor. As pushed by the sun, a column of men comes to them. Hanna joined him and stuck to his side with Agnieszka, their daughter. His wife's hand squeezes his forearm. A few words, which fear has repainted in the same black as rain, come out of his mouth with difficulty.
- Let's go back quickly Karol! Let's go in ... something is happening. Something we should not see. Something that ...
- Yes, let's go home!

But they stay there, all three. Frozen by the spectacle that is offered to them.
They may be a thousand and they are moving right in their direction. They flee as if some force had banished them from hell. Karol, his wife and daughter, have now all three carried their hands in visor. All three, side by side, right leg forward, stand in slight imbalance on their ground broken by the plow. All three seem to pose for a photo that, if it had been taken, would have gone around the world for centuries. Agnieszka still holds a potato in his hand. She suddenly looks at her and seems to be wondering what to do with it. The basket is too far for her to throw it in. The column is approaching. Karol sees them better now. They are not men, but dead who walk towards them driven by the rising sun. They have no face, those who are bare-bones have only a thin cover of skin resting on their skeletal frames.
They are always moving forward. Agnieszka cries softly and Hanna shudders as if an icy wind had just risen. Karol now sees that some of these dead are carrying weapons. There is nothing scary about these weapons, they seem terrible burdens to all those bodies without muscles. They are almost on them now. The sun is still so low on the horizon, that it seems that this strange and frightful troop is preceded by another. This one lies on the ground and undulates on the plowed land. These shadows, Karol thinks, seem to want to tear themselves away from the control of their masters and flee faster than they do.
They are now all around them. They looted, like a flight of starlings plundering the sky, all the apples from the baskets. Some, almost without stopping, lean in a furrow on this earth, black ashes of their brothers. They then pick up one of these tubers forgotten by the Grzegorczyk, rub it on their legs and munch it raw. One of them, almost a child, suddenly crashes in front of Agnieszka that the stupor froze on an ultimate tear. Without a word, she gives him his potato that he puts in his pocket. He looks at her for a long time. He is only a look, his eyes have devoured his head. He stares at her as if it were her, not him, who seemed to come from another world. Finally, as if pushed by the collective consciousness of these beings, he leaves and loses himself among them.
All have passed and without ever having asked their bodies, the three have rotated and now look away. Maja herself turned around, before burning violently, as if to drive away this nightmare vision from her big animal head. This little army does not know where it is going, if it is not far from the flames. Tonight, almost everyone will have been caught and killed.
Agnieszka will die sixty-two years later, day to day, and even, almost, hour to hour. She will shake between her eyelids, just before the rocking, this image of a little dead man who was still alive.

On August 2nd, 1943, the deportees of the Treblinka camp revolt. They seize weapons and fight. A thousand of them escape and fifty will survive. To tell...

What a story !

noreply@blogger.com (alwaystopnew) — Sun, 25 Nov 2018 12:58:00 -0800

What a story !

A girl had been killed. There were four of us in the waiting room at the police station. Twenty years ago, a Swedish camper accused me of rape, we had drunk so much that night that neither she nor I could remember if she said yes or no. The affair had ended in a rut. Because of this old story, I was one of the suspects today. I pulled out my card as soon as something happened. When the girl died, I was at my cousins' house in Limoges, everyone had seen me at the mass, the bistro and the flea market. I am unable to rape or kill anyone. I should not have too much trouble convincing the police.

On the bench in front of me, there was a tramp ... They make good suspects, tramps, wander, booze and sleep anywhere. He did not look worried. He hummed and winked at us.
To my left, there was an Arab. Whenever there is aggression, there is always a witness who has seen an Arab! He was scared to death; for them, it's always more complicated.
And then, in the middle of the room, there was a madman running in circles, constantly shouting that he had killed the girl and asking that he be executed. He was the one the cops called first.
Very quickly, in the office, we heard shouts of voice. They did not keep it long. The door opened and they pushed him towards the exit.

- You make us waste time with your delusions, Marcillon ... Let us work. We do not want to see you anymore, do you understand that? Go see a psychiatrist and get treatment. And do you feel happy that you are not being sued for contempt and obstructing police investigation?

I had heard of those patients who accuse themselves of the most horrible crimes to make headlines or to be punished. They are lucky to live with us. In some countries, we do not waste time looking for evidence, confessions are enough. There, he would already be hanged or beheaded!
I was politely received: after the madman, I brought calm. They noted the names and addresses of the people I mentioned. Time to check my schedule, I had to stay at the disposal of Justice. It is always a test to be suspected, even if nothing has been done wrong. When I got out of the office, the tramp gave me a wink.
Arabic had a beaten dog look.
I was heading to the bar across the street. The iron curtain was slowly descending. He stopped halfway up when I reached the door and the boss made me a sign that he was closing. Customers were coming out, bending their heads under the curtain. Among them was the agitated accuser of the murder of the girl.

"They have not kept you long," he said.
- They quickly realized that I had nothing to do with this crime.
- Think again, they are stubborn and have understood nothing at all. Believe me, I'm in a good position to tell you. Did you come for a drink?
- Yes, but I think for tonight, it's missed
- I must have a whiskey background, I offer you one at home?

The guy looked a little exalted but did not seem threatening. These patients are rarely dangerous, aggression is directed against them. I followed him in a rather well-kept building. The apartment was tastefully decorated, many paintings adorned the walls and an impressive library sat in the living room. He made me sit in a deep leather chair and took a bottle of whiskey out of a rosewood bar. On a low table illuminated by a lamppost, I saw a copy of Edgar Poe's Extraordinary Stories, from which a papyrus bookmark went. The house evoked ease and the man had a certain class. The image of the sneering madman with a funnel on his head is reassuring: this madness is not likely to happen to us ... But the distinguished and intelligent crazy intrigue and I was eager to question this mouse who threw himself into the clutches of the While the majority of them spend their lives avoiding them ... This glass was probably a pretext and he would surely take the initiative to plead his case. He remained silent. To give me a countenance, I flipped through the Extraordinary Stories. The bookmark was positioned on the "The Stolen Letter" page.
- Have you read them? he asked
- Some, my memories are from college. Edgar Poe, an American writer translated by Baudelaire. As for the Extraordinary Stories, I had only read "The Golden Scarab" and an improbable story of a murderous monkey.
"We must read them all," he said. At this moment, I reread "The Stolen Letter" is a small wonder of psychology.

We talked about literature, it seemed tense and I decided to set foot in the dish.

- What an idea to accuse you of the murder of this girl Monsieur Marcillon ...

He sprang from his chair and began to turn in circles as in the waiting room of the police station.

- It's not an idea, it's the truth! You will see well. They say I'm wasting their time, but it's them who lose it. It would be enough to listen to me. For the cops, a culprit must necessarily hide, run away, deny. But remorse, what do they make of remorse? The worst thing is that with their stubbornness, an innocent person may end up in prison. The tramp, the Arab, you ... maybe ...
- Did you really kill this girl or do you think you killed her? I said.

Marcillon gave me a bad look, I had just entered dangerous territory. I doubted, I implied that he could be delirious. He breathed deeply as if to control himself.

- I stabbed her and threw the knife into the bushes. They did not even bother to look for it.

According to the newspapers, the girl had been strangled with her headscarf. At no point was there any mention of stabbings.
We can be smart and completely crazy. This man seemed to me very ill and it would probably have been dangerous to contradict him. I thanked him and found myself in the street.
All this had made me cocky and I did not want to go back to my room.

I decided to visit Emma, an old friend from the neighborhood who taught French at Collège François Villon. When I arrived, she was correcting some copies, I suggested that she return to another day. Emma told me that this work was not urgent and that in fact, she was moving a little. She put the copies back in a folder and she stuffed her red pen. We talked about the rain and the good weather and then, as I had big on the heart, I told him my day. Emma knows me well, she knows that I am a good guy and I have never hurt anyone, no more Swedish than this poor girl. I told her about my meeting with Marcillon. She described to me with scholarly words the clinical picture of self-accusing melancholy and attempts to explain their troubles.
I was speaking to the French teacher ...

- Do you think "The Stolen Letter" is a little marvel of psychology, Emma?
- That's the subject of the dissertation, professor?
- If you want ... Marcillon told me about it. I have not read it and I would like you to tell it to me.
"The Stolen Letter" is one of Edgar Poe's Extraordinary Stories and she's actually pretty cool. A letter of the highest importance was stolen from the King's boudoir. The police know when she disappeared and the identity of the thief. They search his home from top to bottom and find nothing. The entourage of the King is very worried, the owner of this missive could put pressure on him. The police then appeal to Auguste Dupin, a famous detective who restores a few days later the famous document to the Prefect of Police. The police had however disconnected the mattresses and cushions, probed the furniture in search of double bottoms, raised the floorboards, used microscopes ... The letter was placed prominently on a desk! It had been folded upside down, with another stamp and another writing. The genie of the thief, and then that of Dupin, consisted in thinking that the police would look for something carefully concealed and pay no attention to a prominent letter.
A week had passed. The investigation stalled and public opinion showed signs of exasperation. During a white march organized in memory of the girl, some eggs were thrown in the direction of the police station and the press did not hesitate to denounce "the impotence of the Police".
We were again summoned. On his bench, Marcillon had a big smile. His day had arrived and the truth was about to break out. We were finally going to believe it! The tramp was humming and the Arab carried all the misery of the world on his shoulders.
As I stared at him, Marcillon suddenly appeared uncomfortable.

- Why do you look at me like that? You too think that I'm dingo, is that right? I do not even know your name. What is your name first?
- Dupin. Auguste Dupin, I say. You're screwed, Marcillon

His face turned grayish and his mouth began to shake.
He jumped on me, his fingers closed around my neck. We rolled on the ground making a noise of thunder. Police came out everywhere and quickly separated us.

- Are you crazy or what? shouted the Commissioner
"No one is mad, Commissioner," I said. Especially not Marcillon that you would be well advised to listen carefully when he says he is the murderer. Marcillon, who has, from the beginning, put his "madness" prominently on your investigation, like a letter on a desk. Then it was enough for him to become so noisy and visible that he could not be heard or seen.
- I will end up believing that you are as disturbed as each other. What is this letter story on the desktop?

Marcillon had his head in his hands, he had just understood that he had lost and no longer wanted to fight.

"It's an extraordinary story, a little marvel of psychology," he said. I will tell you this, Commissioner.

China plans construction of LHC 100 km circumference

noreply@blogger.com (alwaystopnew) — Fri, 23 Nov 2018 10:28:00 -0800

China plans construction of LHC 100 km circumference

China is seriously considering building an LHC equivalent of 100 kilometers in circumference and looks set to achieve, by 2030, an electron-positron collider of similar size as a prelude, as the Europeans had done with LEP . The usefulness of these machines is unfortunately not self-evident ...
China has just let it be known that it still intends to rob Europeans of leadership in the high energy race in particle physics. Already in 2012, just after the announcement of the discovery of the Brout-Englert-Higgs boson (BEH), she had announced that she was embarking on preliminary studies for the construction of a circular collider larger than LEP ( Large Electron Positron Collider), a large electron-positron collider of 27 km circumference, according to 1989 to 2000 in the tunnel where subsequently replaced the LHC

With a circumference of 50 to 70 km, the Chinese Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC) was planned to make collisions between electron beams and anti-electrons at energies of 240 GeV. A review of six years of research has just been published, implying that the circumference envisaged was now 100 km and that prototypes of certain elements of the machine were really going to be built. Work on CRCI infrastructure is expected to begin in 2022 with inauguration by 2030.

If this roadmap is successful, the Chinese will initially have a plant capable of producing in about 10 years a million BEH bosons, 100 million W bosons and a thousand billion Z bosons. LEP, the CEPC would then be dismantled to make way for the Super Proton Proton Collider (SPPC), a 100 km circumferential LHC equivalent producing 70 TeV (70,000 GeV) collisions.

As Futura pointed out in the previous article below, the Europeans, too, have in their box studies for an LHC 100 km in circumference. A project, not a circular but linear collider of electrons and positrons, has already been completed for preliminary studies for years and is waiting for a green light to be built. This is the International Linear Collider (ILC). The Japanese in particular were very involved.
New particles out of reach even with a PPSC?
Futura had explained in detail the reasons for the completion of these machines and they are the same as for the CEPC and the PPSC. However, one can wonder today if the construction of these machines is very serious.

Already in 2016, the Chinese physicist Chen-Ning Yang - a famous physicist for having won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the violation of parity in particle physics with his colleague Tsung-Dao Lee, and for having been at the origin of famous Yang-Mills theories of all the physics of the standard model - had indicated that he was not in favor of the realization of the PPSC.

Although we can qualify and even refute some of the criticisms made by Yang for the construction of the two machines, as explained by the physicist and mathematician John Baez, we can not help but lean in favor of Yang.

Indeed, by the time the LHC entered service, there were many good reasons to expect a major revolution in fundamental physics. Indeed, several very credible theoretical arguments gave hope for the discovery, in a few years at most, of new particles predicted by the theory of supersymmetry, string theory and especially the production of black minitrous that evaporate by Hawking effect. energies of the order of a few TeV.

The LHC routinely made 13 TeV collisions, with beam brightness already high ... and no new particle showed even the tip of its nose. We have no theoretical arguments to really hope for new particles above 10 TeV, except for a few predicted by split supersymmetry, but recent experiments on electron dipole moment are more like a shower. cold in this respect. Worse, the low mass of the BEH boson suggests that the standard model may well be valid up to the Planck energy, which means that no new physics should appear in the colliders that humanity could build. , or at least no new particle.

We can therefore legitimately ask ourselves, in the absence of new theoretical and experimental arguments and the crisis that humanity is facing with global warming, energy and resources, if billions will not be better used for development of new nuclear reactors, eg thorium. It is true, however, that China has also engaged in this type of research.

WHAT YOU MUST REMEMBER

Proton colliders at higher and higher energies make it possible to track new physics by producing particles of high masses.
But they also produce a lot of already known particles, which make a background noise that is not compatible with precise studies. Collisions between electrons and positrons are then more suitable for a fine study of particles already discovered.
Europeans and Chinese are therefore considering colliders of these types even more powerful in the decades to come.

When we discovered the net

noreply@blogger.com (alwaystopnew) — Thu, 22 Nov 2018 11:25:00 -0800

When we discovered the net

Midnight! I had made good progress. I did not really want to sleep. So, like almost every night, I decided to go for a walk on the Internet. At the time, it was so amazing, innovative ...
Alas, there was not much interesting, I visited one or two sites and then began to get bored. Maybe someone had left me a message? I was going to consult my mailbox. Super, Xavier sent me a hello and a file to download!
I launched the download and was about to see the virtual show he promised me in his message. A little cigarette, download time and I settled comfortably in front of the screen smiling in advance of what I was going to discover.
Yes but that's it, impossible to open the file sent by Xavier. No software installed in my computer could read it, remember that we were at the beginning of the Net. I was trying through a video program, nothing to do, only a series of figures, letters and incomprehensible codes appeared on the screen.
I went into a program of image processing, nothing either, otherwise improbable sounds emitted by my computer that kept pointing out errors of misconfigurations and other barbaric terms that I did not understand anything.
By accident, I launched a word processor that managed to open the downloaded file, but still in a language of codes amphigouriques. I learned nevertheless that the file that Xavier had sent me was a sort of small virtual video staging our two children Eliot (his) and Fanny (mine) who were on vacation at his place. I was mad, it must have been nice to see. What a pity !
But I had no solution and it was late, so I decided to leave the program, and not to clutter my computer, to overwrite this unreadable file. To do this, I sent it to the trash of the computer. But by the time I clicked on the trash can icon to erase the file, I heard like a noise. Not a computer sound, not a funny little sound, almost a child's laugh. I listened, but everything seemed in order. I had to dream, it was probably a noise from the sleeping city, the TV neighbors or I do not know ...
I clicked on the icon in my trash again to erase the file. But at the same time, the little laugh came back.
Intrigued, I went to check by opening the window, to listen if it did not come from the street. But everything was calm and the cold of a silent night entered the apartment. Everyone was sleeping, it was time for me to do the same. After closing the window, I went back to my computer. Come on dodo everyone: the computer, the job and me!
But when I returned to my computer, an incredible shock shook my stomach, on the screen the icon of the basket was propelled by jolts in all directions, as if something inside wanted to leave!
Instinctively I closed my eyes to take back and control myself, but when I opened them again, the trash continued its incredible ride on the screen.
What was happening ? I grabbed my mouse and tried to click on the icon, without really knowing why, probably to stop it, to stop this ride.
But as the mouse pointer reached the trash. I heard a voice ... the voice of Eliot!
- Now, I'm screwing over. I want to go out and go to bed with a bottle of chocolate.
Febrile, I approached again the pointer of my mouse near the trash. It was Fanny now, who was talking to me, I was sure, I recognized her voice.
- Mom, we want to go out now! It's not funny anymore, to be there!
In spite of myself, I murmured in front of the screen.
- Fanny? It's you ?
- Yes mom. And we're tired of it! We want to get out of there!
- Where are you?
- In the file, Mom! In the file that Xavier sent you. He was laughing at his computer show, but now it's not funny at all. Eliot is tired, he wants to go home and me too.
What was happening seemed to me totally implausible. The virtual video sent by Xavier had finally started, but how could he have programmed Fanny's answers, how could he have foreseen my questions ?!
I was trying a new question.
- Eliot, do you hear me? If so, tell me peanut!
- Peanut Zabeth, but I want my bottle of chocolate.

Calm down, I had to stay calm, but my legs no longer supported me, and I could not hold back the uninterrupted tremor of my hands.
I tried to control myself, to reason. But that trashcan icon jiggling on the screen terrified me. I stood, stunned, in front of my computer, waiting for the rest, but nothing happened. Otherwise this basket that was moving in disorder and moans more and more agonizing of the two children.
- Mom, it's too small in there! I want to go back home.
Fanny's voice was not virtual, on the contrary, she was so present, so worried and tragic. I tried a new question to thwart Xavier's programming.
- 5 and 5, how's my chip?
- 10 Mom, but why do not you worry about getting us out?

Ten, she had answered ten! As Eliot had said peanut! Xavier could never have imagined that I ask these questions. Reality froze me with fright. It was absurd, impossible, foolish, but it was too late to try to doubt, one had to act.
The first thing to do was to remove this file from the trash to avoid any mishandling. I did not even dare to imagine what would happen if I erased it.
My hands were sweaty by moving the mouse cursor. It is not so hard to move a file, I did it every day, but there, I was sure, it was critical, vital!
I was trying to control my trembling hand, not to let go of the mouse before reaching the "open" option. It was important not to empty this basket. I did not understand what was happening, but, I was sure, if this file faded, a disaster would happen.
- Mom, do not be mistaken, whispered the voice of Fanny, who understood what I was doing.
I finally opened the folder of the trash, the file was there, apparently intact:

File: COUCOU.mim (2867009 bytes)
Download time (28800 bit / s): <27 minutes
This message is a multipart MIME message and will be saved with the default filename COUCOU.mim

Quickly take it out of the trash folder, put it back on the virtual desktop of the computer, relax and think.
It was impossible, Fanny and Eliot could not be in there, they could not be in the computer, it was impossible. But it was just as impossible for me to hear them speak on the computer, I did not know what to think. One solution, to forget the stupid and wicked ground of reason to deal only with the problem of the moment: to get them out of there! It was necessary to open this file, to view it and the problem would perhaps be solved, but I could not open this file. I wanted to cry, to break everything, to forget this nightmare, I would have liked not to have opened my e-mail, to have no modem, not to have a computer, not to know this bullshit of Internet, but it was too late. My two little loves were stuck behind the screen and they were counting on me to do something.
I heard Eliot's voice, which became more and more poignant, he was thirsty, he was hungry, he was fed up.
Tears in my eyes, I stared, incredulous my screen. I was desperate, I was scared, but it was too late to complain, I had to find a solution.
- Do not worry Eliot, I'll get you out of here soon.
I had stuck my mouth close to the screen, so I wanted to comfort him. His little voice, stifled by the glass of the screen, answered me gently, he wanted to wait a little longer, but he was hungry. In my head, a thousand questions swirled, I did not know how to open this file, I did not understand this computer of misfortune. It was one o'clock in the morning, I did not know who to call for help and anyway if I had known, who would have liked to believe me?
First of all, it was necessary to calm the children, to occupy them to have time to think and find a solution. A crazy idea passed me by the head, but to the point where I was, I could always try.
Fanny loved to play with her Yes-Yes CD-ROM, so if I opened it and moved it to the file where they were locked up, it might occupy them. In addition to the game of Yes-Yes, there is a space with ice cream and sweets, enough to allow them to forget time.
- Fanny?
- Yes mom !
It was awful to talk to this file, without seeing it, without touching it, but I tried not to let anything go wrong.
- Fanny, do you want to go to Yes-Yes while I prepare for your trip? Maybe I can take you there.
Of course, the answer was not long in coming, the children cried with joy, nodding. I pulled out Fanny's favorite CD-ROM, inserted it into the reader, the familiar little music started. I crossed my fingers as long as the manipulation worked!
- We hear him mom, but how do we go? Fanny asked me.
- Wait, I'll try to put your file in the program.
I was afraid, and if it was the mistake not to commit, the "manipulation" inconsiderate, and if I damaged their file! But all of a sudden I heard them.
" Thanks Mom ! Thank you, Zabeth, it's great. Oh look there there is Pumpkin, come quickly we'll say hello. "
I held back my tears and shouted at them to think of asking the merchant for a big ice cream, tonight they had the right to take what they wanted. Then I left them, to try to solve my problem.
Although I entered the computer help program, I found no solution. In any case, I never understand anything about aid programs. I did not dare open the Internet to ask for help from potential correspondents, I was too afraid of losing the children.
I could not do anything. I only got coded pages, monstrously incomprehensible to me. Proof of my helplessness.

Sometimes I heard a burst of laughter, a song of Oui-Oui echoed by Eliot and Fanny who gave me courage while I froze with fright. When, how, could I finally get out of there !!

Going back from Windows Explorer to MS-Dos Commands, with a detour via Microsoft Exchange, after a recording in HTLM format, a glimmer of hope came over me, the file appeared to be finally open in reading. And while the hourglass of the computer forced me to wait, I began to hope. Perhaps I had finally found the solution. I did not dare to say anything to the children, I was staring at the screen. I prayed to all the gods, all the saints, all the networks, all the Internet servers on the planet. It had to work. It was necessary to leave this nightmare.

As the hourglass of the computer turned and returned, I made all the promises of the world, I would stop smoking, I would never eat a crumb of chocolate, I would walk to Silicone Valley, I would not I would never do it again, I would do all this and more if it works, but do it, make it work.
Suddenly the blued screen, then seeming to fray, turned into a multitude of greyish multicolored stripes, a strident and continuous beep emerges at the same time as the cries of Fanny and Eliot. Unable to catch my breath, eyes haggard, staggering panic, I saw the screen darken. Silence comes at once, along with a flashing message on the screen:

FATAL ERROR - ALL NON-REGISTERED DATA WILL BE LOST - FATAL ERROR

Almost whispering, I called, throat knotted:
- Fanny? Fanny? You hear me ? Eliot? How is it going ?

Nothing. No answer, otherwise this message unbearable on the screen. I was paralyzed, I was shaking all my limbs, yet it was necessary to ensure, find something, get out of this madness, recover them.
Normally, when the computer displays this type of message, there is only one thing to do: disconnect the computer, count to 20 and open it again. But if I did that, what would happen to the file where Eliot and Fanny were locked up? What will happen to them? I must admit, I looked at the screen without daring to do anything, I screamed in pain, I ran away from the screen, I did not want to know anything, forget everything! It took me several minutes to recover and leave this crazy state of panic. I came back to my office, ordering me to calm down, I sat down again at the computer. I put my hand toward the stop button and closed my eyes by cutting off the power. The apartment was monstrously quiet again, without the breath of computer ventilation. I counted to 20, without cheating, neither too fast nor too slowly, then I pushed back the power button.
At first there was the usual sound of the fan, which starts up again, then the sound of the screen, which starts charging and lighting up. I remained tense, waiting to be able to intervene again, but at the moment when the screen became readable: HORROR! I screamed to burst my eardrums: they were there, both, crying, nose against the window of my screen: Eliot and Fanny, their two faces stretched towards me, imprisoned calling for help, me begging to get them out of there.
They were stuck in my computer!
I put my hands on the screen, but they felt nothing of my caresses and cried by calling me. I was terrified, I was ashamed. I was unable to save them.
A start made me react, all that was not possible, it was a dream, a horrible nightmare. Fanny was not at Xavier's, I was not fighting with the computer, I was dreaming. The proof, I had only to get up, go to Fanny's room, see her and wake up completely to get out of this foolish dream. I rushed to his room. I was going to see her in her bed, sleeping quietly, I would only have to kiss her to reassure me completely. I could then go back to bed, laughing at what I would say to his father tomorrow when he returned from Brussels. It must be said that he is used to my incredible nightmares and will probably not be more surprised than that!
I gently pushed the door of Fanny's room. But when I got to her bed, I had to fall back into the horrible reality, she was not in bed!
She was locked in the computer with Eliot.
On his bed dragged one of his favorite stuffed toys, I took it crying, what would become of them? What could I do?

That's when this incredible idea came to me. If I could not get them out of there, I only had to join them! I was going to scan myself, scan myself, to join them, then we would all three via the Internet find the server Xavier who could perhaps, him, save us. I quickly wrote a note that I put prominently on the table next to the computer. Then I started the scanner program and closed my eyes and put my head on it first.
It was not really unpleasant the heat of the scan lamp.

***

I do not know if people have understood the little word that I left, I do not know if they are many to look for us behind their screens. But what I do know is that all three of us have a hard time finding ourselves in this mess of paths and the Web. If only someone could direct us to: XAVGTET@compuserve.com, it's been so long now, maybe he changed email address ....

Earth has entered the age of Meghalayan

noreply@blogger.com (alwaystopnew) — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 17:16:00 -0800

Earth has entered the age of Meghalayan

Earth has officially entered a new chapter in its history, the age of the Meghalayan, the third and last period since the beginning of the Holocene era nearly 12,000 years ago, says the International Stratigraphy Commission ( CIS), the organization responsible for establishing a geological time scale of the planet.

A text by Alain LabelleWe are currently living in what is called the Holocene epoch, which reflects everything that has happened in the last 11,700 years, since a major warming of the climate has ended at the last ice age.

It is now subdivided into three periods, explains the CIS, the most recent of which is the age of the Meghalayan.

The beginning of the Meghalayan is marked by the occurrence of a great drought and a sudden cooling of the climate, which weakened the old agricultural societies and led to the weakening of many civilizations, in particular in Egypt, in Greece, in Mesopotamia, in India and China.

A unique moment

Professor Stanley Finney, of Long Beach State University, explains that Meghalayan is unique among the many intervals of the geological time scale, because it is related to global human event resulting from a global climate event .

This is the first time that the CIS has considered a human-made event to define a period since, usually, units of the geologic time scale are based on sedimentary strata accumulated over time that contain types of sediments, fossils and chemical isotopes that record the passage of time and the physical and biological events that produced them.

Challenges

A first that is not without stirring in the scientific community, some members believe that there has not been enough discussion since the concept of Meghalayen was first advanced six years ago .

Other scientists even claim that the Holocene era is over. According to them, the evidence of the influence of human activities on the Earth has become so convincing that it can be said that the planet has entered the Anthropocene, a new geological era marked by the human.

March 2020: NASA unveiled the site where the rover will look for traces of life

noreply@blogger.com (alwaystopnew) — Tue, 20 Nov 2018 14:37:00 -0800

March 2020: NASA unveiled the site where the rover will look for traces of life

NASA has just announced that the March 2020 rover will land in the Jezero crater where the mission team is convinced that this site is home to many fossils of micro-organisms, if they existed of course. NASA has also paved the way for a mega-mission! Indeed, at the end of its initial mission, the rover will probably be directed to Midway, another site conducive to the discovery of traces of life. The interest of exploring two sites with different geological characteristics increases the scientific return; It is also a pragmatic strategy for the return of the samples that the rover will collect. Indeed, several points of collection are planned which are as many possible options for the rover which will come to recover them. Our explanations on this mega-mission with Cathy Quantin-Nataf, director of the ERC e-Mars team, in charge of the selection of the landing site of the ExoMars 2020 rover.

NASA has chosen Jezero Crater as the landing site for the rover March 2020. This rover is due to leave Earth in 2020, inside a launch window that opens July 17 and closes August 5, 2020 Its main objectives are the direct search for signs of past microbial life, collecting samples that will be recovered by another mission, and preparing for the arrival of a first inhabited mission on the red planet. His landing on Mars is scheduled for February 2021.

It will therefore land inside the crater Jezero which has an environment of interest for exobiology as well as for its geological diversity. Of the four competing sites, the Jezero crater was also the favorite of the project's scientific team. It had also proposed to Nasa a mega-mission combining not one site, but two! An unprecedented strategy made possible by the confidence inspired by Curiosity, which has been rolling for more than 6 years on the planet, and whose design of the rover March 2020 is inspired by yet additional improvements.

March 2020: two sites to maximize scientific return

Concretely, Mars 2020 will first land inside the crater Jezero then, at the end of its initial mission, will join Midway, a site that also has an environment of interest for exobiology and offers a great geological diversity. Distant about twenty kilometers from the crater Jezero, several months will be necessary to join him.

The Jezero Crater was once, about 3.5 billion years ago, a lake draining streams from a basin of about 15,000 square kilometers. Many fossils of microorganisms, if they existed, could become trapped in its clay layers. As for Midway, this site has the particularity of having geological layers, which are not the ejectas of the crater, even older than those of Jezero. They are very diverse in their composition and some are rich in olivine and carbonate. An association of materials that, on Earth, is very favorable to life.

Samples to better date the history of Mars

While they both favor the search for bio-signatures and potential proofs of a past life, Midway and Jezero have been shaped by different geological processes. A strategy that will optimize the scientific return and collection of samples by taking them from several different locations. It also has the advantage of offering several collection sites and therefore, option, for the future mission that will collect these samples to return to Earth.
If the search for an extinct form of life is the main objective of the study of these samples, dating is one of the great scientific interests of this return of Martian samples. It should be known that the ages given on Mars are established thanks to the method borrowed from the Moon and based on the number of craters per square kilometer. This method assumes that the older a land is, the more it is cratered. It made it possible to establish three major Martian periods, the Noachian, the Hesperian and the Amazonian (periods classified from the oldest to the most recent), themselves divided into sub periods. But, if it is accurate enough to date the history of the Moon, this method applied to Mars has a lot of bias. The dating error can be very important. Thus for periods of Martian history between 1 and 2 billion years, the uncertainty can be a billion years! By cons, around four billion years, this uncertainty is less (some 200 to 300 million years).

Note:

This article was written with the scientific lighting of Cathy Quantin-Nataf, professor at Lyon 1 University and researcher at the Geology Laboratory of Lyon. She is also the director of the ERC e-Mars team, in charge of the selection of the Space Agency's ExoMars 2020 rover landing site.

if beer became rare and expensive?

noreply@blogger.com (alwaystopnew) — Tue, 20 Nov 2018 13:04:00 -0800

if beer became rare and expensive?

This may not be the most dramatic consequence of global warming. But for lovers of blondes as much as for lovers of brunettes, the news is tough. A study predicts that an upsurge in heat waves and drought could turn beer into a luxury drink.
Rising water, larger heat waves, occurrence of cold episodes in some areas, increased extreme weather events, loss of biodiversity. But also explosion of poverty and recrudescence of diseases. These are some of the catastrophic consequences of global warming underway on our planet.

And if in addition, beer should become scarce and expensive because of rising temperatures? Lovers of moss, it will be necessary to think about reviewing your consumption downward. Better to prepare now. Because it is the alarmist conclusion of a study published recently by researchers from Peking University (China): beer is threatened by global warming.

Remember that to make beer, you need barley. At the current rate of global warming, however, one of the major barley growing areas is likely to be hit by a major weather event at least once a year. A drought or a heat wave of historical severity. What to drop the world production of beer ... 17%! According to researchers, this is neither more nor less than the equivalent of consumption made in the United States in a year.

Less barley, less beer

In fact, only barley of the highest quality - some 20% of world production - is geared towards making beer. Unfortunately, high-quality crops are, according to the researchers, even more sensitive to the vagaries of the weather. It is understandable then that a decline in world barley production would inevitably have an impact on the share of yield devoted to beer production.

In their study, the researchers worked on the different possible scenarios. Thus, with a strong and immediate decline in greenhouse gas emissions - which seems unrealistic - world beer production is expected to be affected by only 3% of the 20 or so extreme events affecting the fields. barley. Prices, meanwhile, would already increase by 15%.

The researchers also note that some countries may be more impacted than others. In Ireland, the bottle of 50 centilitres could reach a price of 4.18 euros, an increase of 193%! In Argentina, beer consumption could be reduced by 32%.

The latest Khashoggi news violates significant standards

noreply@blogger.com (alwaystopnew) — Sun, 18 Nov 2018 17:08:00 -0800

The latest Khashoggi news violates significant standards

The first page of the Washington Post has a disclosure: the CIA believes that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed receptacle Salman had an immediate job in the slaughtering of Post journalist Jamal Kashoggi. This is enormous news and another scoop for the Post's phenomenal group of journalists. They have done their activity well.

What's more, it ridiculously is an issue that they have succeeded. In typical occasions—by which I mean the whole course of the American Republic, and surely the time from 1945 until only a few years prior—the CIA's decisions about receptacle Salman would have been probably the most profoundly characterized privileged insights inside the American government, subject to dissemenation to a little, select gathering of people. The purposes behind this mystery are, traditionally, two-overlap: First, divulgence of what we know denies the nation's pioneers of opportunity of activity, to act with learning that U.S. foes don't realize we have and to choose blueprints that augment America's advantage. Second, divulgence of what the administration knows will frequently "consume" sources and techniques with the goal that the request is of the "one and done" assortment. Whenever U.S. rivals realize what America knows, they frequently figure out how America knows it—and change their conduct in like manner.

Thus it is crazy that some in the CIA (or somewhere else in the ordered network) feel the need to uncover this Top Secret data openly through the Post. I comprehend their inspiration—the deviation of Donald Trump is great to the point that they have no confidence in his capacity or ability to process insight investigation reliably. I share their worry—in spades. Be that as it may, damaging standards of conduct and the criminal law isn't the best approach to improve the issue.

What's more, no doubt about it—this revelation of characterized data to the Post journalists is very likely a wrongdoing by whoever spilled it. Far and away more terrible, it in all likelihood does long haul, enduring harm to America's capacity to gather insight and consult with the Saudis. Consider only two models from the numerous one could refer to from the article:

The Saudis presently have affirmed that we can catch calls from their U.S. international safe haven to the capital. They may have suspected that previously—yet they may have additionally thought their countermeasures were adequate. Presently they realize they are not, and will modify.

In like manner, the Saudis presently likewise realize that the United States' best appraisal is that receptacle Salman has a firm grasp on power and won't lose it over the Khashoggi episode. Such a great amount for the U.S. capacity, should the organization need to practice it, to attempt and undermine the sovereign. He knows the U.S. realizes it won't work and can promptly challenge the American false front.

See, I get it. Trump is a variation. Since he was probably going to disregard the insight investigation, this break is the best way to give it cash and belief. Be that as it may, it is still off-base. As I have said before , we guard standards of conduct by shielding them, not by disregarding them. I realize I seem like a broken record, yet this is the third time (at the very least) that components of the insight network have spilled fundamentally arranged data in manners that accomplish more mischief than anything. Stop leaking. Just stop.

Neandertals probably lived a much less violent- life's than modern humans which their skull damage suggests

noreply@blogger.com (alwaystopnew) — Sun, 18 Nov 2018 10:44:00 -0800

Neandertals probably lived a much less violent- life's than modern humans which their skull damage suggests

Neandertals are shaking off their notoriety for being head bangers.

Our nearby transformative cousins experienced a lot of head wounds, yet no more so than late Stone Age people, an investigation proposes. Rates of cracks and other bone harm in a huge example of Neandertal and old Homo sapiens skulls generally coordinate rates recently revealed for human foragers and agriculturists who have lived inside the previous 10,000 years, closes a group driven by paleoanthropologist Katerina Harvati of the University of Tübingen in Germany.

Guys endured the main part of unsafe head thumps, regardless of whether they were Neandertals or antiquated people, the researchers report online November 14 in Nature.

"Our outcomes recommend that Neandertal ways of life were not more unsafe than those of early current Europeans," Harvati says.

As of not long ago, specialists portrayed Neandertals, who occupied Europe and Asia between around 400,000 and 40,000 years back, as particularly inclined to head wounds. Genuine harm to little quantities of Neandertal skulls powered a view that these primates had hazardous existences. Proposed reasons for Neandertal noggin wounds have included battling, assaults by buckle bears and different carnivores and short proximity chasing of expansive prey creatures.

Paleoanthropologist Erik Trinkaus of Washington University in St. Louis coauthored a powerful 1995 paper contending that Neandertals brought about a strangely huge number of head and abdominal area wounds. Trinkaus abjured that end in 2012, however. A wide range of causes, including mishaps and fossilization, could have brought about Neandertal skull harm saw in moderately little fossil examples, he battled (SN: 5/27/17, p. 13).

Harvati's examination further undermines the contention that Neandertals occupied with a ton of fierce conduct, Trinkaus says.

All things considered, the possibility that Neandertals much of the time got their heads bonked amid unrefined, shut everything down on prey has held on, says paleoanthropologist David Frayer of the University of Kansas in Lawrence. The new report features the cruel reality that, for Neandertals and old people alike, "head injury, regardless of the dimension of mechanical or social unpredictability, or populace thickness, was normal."

Harvati's gathering dissected information for 114 Neandertal skulls and 90 H. sapiens skulls. These fossils were found in Eurasia and date to between around 80,000 and 20,000 years back. At least one head wounds showed up in nine Neandertals and 12 antiquated people. After factually representing people's sex, age at death, geographic areas and condition of bone safeguarding, the specialists evaluated practically identical dimensions of skull harm in the two species. Measurable models kept running by the group demonstrate that skull wounds influenced a normal of 4 percent to 33 percent of Neandertals, and 2 percent to 34 percent of antiquated people.

Evaluated commonness goes that expansive likely reflect factors that fluctuated starting with one territory then onto the next, for example, asset accessibility and chasing conditions, the scientists say.

Neandertals with head wounds included a greater number of people under age 30 than saw among their human partners. Neandertals may have endured more head wounds from the get-go throughout everyday life, the specialists say. It's likewise conceivable that Neandertals passed on more frequently from head wounds than Stone Age people did.

Scientists presently can't seem to set up whether Neandertals experienced particularly elevated amounts of harm to body parts other than the head, composes paleoanthropologist Marta Mirazón Lahr of the University of Cambridge in an analysis in Nature going with the new examination.

Coffee or tea ? the answer may be related to your DNA

noreply@blogger.com (alwaystopnew) — Sat, 17 Nov 2018 10:45:00 -0800

Coffee or tea ? the answer may be related to your DNA

Regardless of whether people favor espresso or tea may come down to a matter of taste hereditary qualities.

people with a rendition of a quality that expands affectability to the unpleasant kind of caffeine will in general be espresso consumers, specialists report online November 15 in Scientific Reports. Tea consumers would in general be less touchy to caffeine's harsh taste, however have adaptations of qualities that expansion affectability to the sharpness of different synthetic concoctions, the scientists found.

It's for quite some time been felt that people abstain from eating severe nourishments since harshness is a pointer of toxin, says John Hayes, a taste analyst at Penn State who was not associated with the investigation. The espresso and tea discoveries help test that "excessively oversimplified 'unpleasant is in every case awful, how about we maintain a strategic distance from it'" see, he says.

In the new investigation, analysts analyzed DNA variations of qualities engaged with distinguishing the unpleasant taste of the synthetic concoctions, caffeine, quinine — that severe preference for tonic water — and propylthiouracil (PROP), a manufactured substance not normally found in nourishment or drink. Other severe segments normally in espresso and tea may trigger a similar taste reactions as quinine and PROP do, Hayes says.

Analysts in Australia, the United States and England analyzed DNA from in excess of 400,000 members in the UK Biobank, a store of hereditary information for restorative research. Members likewise announced other data about their wellbeing and way of life, including how much tea or espresso they drink every day.

The group included every individual's variations in the taste qualities, making a hereditary score for how strongly the individual tastes every one of the harsh synthetic compounds. The analysts at that point contrasted those scores with the general population's accounted for drink decisions.

people who had the most noteworthy hereditary score for identifying caffeine's harshness were 20 percent more prone to be overwhelming espresso consumers, bringing down at least four containers every day, than those without the expanded affectability, the analysts ascertain.

Specialists had suspected that people who are hereditarily disposed to taste severe all the more seriously may dodge unpleasant drinks. "For this situation, it's odd how we're looking for caffeine," says think about coauthor Marilyn Cornelis.

Espresso consumers may have figured out how to make the most of caffeine's harshness since it's an indication of the buzz the substance gives. In any case, tea consumers may not really like the sharpness of PROP and quinine, says Cornelis, a wholesome and hereditary disease transmission specialist at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. Or maybe, people will in general stay with either espresso or tea, so the tea result may simply be a dismissal of espresso.

It's indistinct how enormous of a job harsh taste qualities play in deciding if somebody picks espresso or tea. In past investigations that looked for hereditary variations connected to espresso utilization, "taste qualities did not come up," Cornelis says. Rather, qualities engaged with separating caffeine may assume greater job in deciding how much espresso or tea people drink

investment near natural wildlife puts more Californians in the way of fierce blaze

noreply@blogger.com (alwaystopnew) — Fri, 16 Nov 2018 06:29:00 -0800

investment near natural wildlife puts more Californians in the way of fierce blaze

In the previous week, the Camp Fire has executed no less than 56 people and leveled the Northern California town of Paradise. Another out of control fire seething through the Los Angeles rural areas, the Woolsey Fire, has effectively crushed in excess of 500 structures and constrained exactly 250,000 individuals to clear their homes.

Such debacles are probably going to happen all the more as often as possible in the coming years, information from late years propose. That is on account of urban improvement is crawling further into forests, prairies and other characteristic territories and putting more networks in the way of fierce blazes. The continuous California fires have been energized by dry season and high breezes, however it's their vicinity to individuals that has made them particularly lethal and dangerous — consuming zones where lodging adjoins prairies or woods, or where common vegetation is blended in with homes.

In California, these "wildland-urban interface territories" extended just about 20 percent from 1990 to 2010, as per information distributed in 2017 by the U.S. Backwoods Service. What's more, the quantity of homes in that zone expanded by just about 34 percent.

Urban venture into regular zones isn't one of a kind to California. Across the country, the wildland-urban interface became around 33 percent from 1990 to 2010, analysts who chipped away at the Forest Service dataset revealed in March in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. What's more, other Western expresses that confront visit out of control fires have seen significantly bigger jumps: Colorado's wildland-urban interface zones extended by 65 percent, Montana by 67 percent and Idaho by 72 percent, over a similar period, the Forest Service found.

Then, environmental change is adding to more serious dry seasons and a more extended fire season in California and other Western states. The kinds of rapidly spreading fires that once happened like clockwork are presently happening on various occasions a year, says Kurt Henke, resigned head of the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District.

Be that as it may, other Western states "simply don't have the populace focuses" that California has, Henke says. That new fire routine in a place like California, with loads of individuals living near adequate fire fuel, is a "formula for fiasco."

Wildland-urban interface fires are particularly difficult to oversee on the grounds that there aren't yet great PC reenactments for foreseeing how they'll carry on, says Volker Radeloff, a scene scientist at the University of Wisconsin– Madison who dealt with the ongoing investigations. Also, managing such flames doesn't fall solidly under the mastery of either wildland firefighters or civil firefighters. "The wildland-urban interface kind of gets lost in an outright flood. It's a muddled center — somewhat wild, yet not genuinely wild."

As of Thursday morning, the Camp Fire was 35 percent contained, while firefighters had 52 percent of the Woolsey Fire under control. When the flames are subdued, remaking singed networks can take years.

The issue is probably going to deteriorate as individuals keep on building homes nearer to regular territories, Radeloff says. He and his group figured urban-interface development in each U.S. state utilizing 2010 U.S. registration information, and will refresh their discoveries once the 2020 enumeration results are discharged.

California has probably the strictest fire codes in the nation, including directions on new development in the wildland-urban interface. Structures must be made of heat proof materials, for instance, and occupants are required to gather catch up on from close to their homes.

Yet, notwithstanding lodging improvements assembled five years back will most likely be unable to withstand the seriousness and recurrence of flames in California today, Henke says. "We will need to return and look again."

I have a sister that my folks don't know about

noreply@blogger.com (alwaystopnew) — Wed, 14 Nov 2018 06:29:00 -0800

I have a sister that my folks don't know about

Shirley persevered through a horrendous disease. It went ahead all of a sudden when she was just a young lady. One minute she was playing outside and the following she could scarcely stroll to the restroom. Her body was feeble and she was tormented with exhaustion. Her adoring mother dressed her in a robe and laid her in her bed.

She was kept to her desolate room, gazing unendingly at the backdrop and chipped roof. As time passed her muscles squandered away. Her hovering mother brought her dinners, for the most part soups and hot tea. Her dad could scarcely remain to see her. He was required for conveying the young lady to the restroom. He turned away his eyes and it went poorly by Shirley.

The room that was her jail was little and scantily outfitted. She was not permitted electronic gadgets as the screens could hurt her eyes. There was a plenty of books yet Shirley was seldom solid enough to hold them up to peruse. The vast majority of her time was spent resting or looking out the window. The window was somewhat high for her to see obviously out of however the sun was there. In the long run she developed to despise that glad sun, insulting her with brilliant summer days.

Shirley ached for camaraderie. Her mom dependably offered to remain yet Shirley had never been close with her. Rather, Shirley started to envision a young lady in indistinguishable bind from herself. A young lady caught in a bed. Her bed. Be that as it may, topsy turvy. This young lady was lying on the underside of Shirley's bed, enduring the dull and residue. She would make up little melodies about herself and the other young lady.

Myself and my sister in obscurity

Long to go play in the radiant stop

My dim sister would grin and grasp my hand

Furthermore, we'd never return to that room again

From underneath the fronts of her bed, Shirley started to have full discussions with her dim sister. She would spend the mornings weaving splendid stories and the evenings deploring over their urgent condition. One day her mom came into the room, a bowl of grain soup in her grasp.

"Who are you conversing with?" she asked, sitting on the seat alongside Shirley's bed.

"Gracious, nobody," Shirley answered, glad to have a mystery for herself.

Her mom put the bowl onto the bedside table. "OK like me to bolster you?"

"I think I feel ready to today." Shirley attempted to sit up. Her body was for the most part bones now.

"On the off chance that that is the thing that you need." Her mom got up and strolled to entryway, looking back once before shutting the entryway.

Shirley glared. "She's continually making me feel awful. Awful to have the capacity to get things done for myself. I wish I could simply show signs of improvement so she'd disregard me." She gradually connected a hand to attempt and handle the spoon when she heard something move underneath her bed.

She delayed, endeavoring to advise herself that she was distant from everyone else. In any case, when she glanced back at the bowl a dark thing (an arm?) came to up from underneath the quaint little inn it to the floor. Shirley's breath gotten in her throat.

After some fast thought, Shirley chosen that her psyche was playing traps on her and that it was unrealistic for somebody to live underneath her. At the point when her mom returned for the bowl she was vexed to discover the substance strewn over the floor.
"Shirley, on the off chance that you can't eat independent from anyone else, you need to give me a chance to encourage you!"

"I'm sad," she answered unobtrusively.

"I will get you more soup." She exited in disappointment.

Shirley sank profound into her bed, considering the circumstance. The onerously upbeat sunflower backdrop lingered over her. It felt as though it was coming nearer. Something stirred underneath her bed. She held her breath, endeavoring to tune in as deliberately as she could to the sounds. A delicate, relatively imperceptible breathing exuded from beneath.

Shirley's mom returned with a whirlwind of development. She took her average seat close to the quaint little inn the bowl of soup down. Without soliciting she pushed a spoonful from the hot fluid between Shirley's lips. Shirley choked and spit it out. Her mom glared.

"Eat the soup, Shirley."

"Mother, I believe there's something-"

"Simply swallow it and you can let me know after."

Shirley attempted to hold the flavorless fluid down. She was so tired of soups and stocks. What she wouldn't give for a steak or a ground sirloin sandwich. Her mom wiped her face and glared. She stroked Shirley's hair tragically. "What have you progressed toward becoming, little bloom?"

"Mother, I believe there's something under my bed."

"Just spilled soup. I'll get it." She twisted down and started to wipe up what survived of the soup.

"No! Something is truly down there!"

Her mom snickered. "You really are an infant once more, right? Will mom investigate and frighten away the awful beast?"

Shirley stewed in her displeasure. "Don't worry about it. I'll simply rest now."

"Great infant needs her snooze," her mom kidded. She shrieked a few kids' tune as she left, shutting the entryway behind her.

Shirley moaned the profound murmur of depression. She shut her eyes, endeavoring to rest.

Quietly, she felt something pull at her spreads. The covers gradually started to get off the bed. Shirley kept her eyes close, startled. As though egged on by her dread, the covers were tore from the bed savagely and Shirley lay revealed. She endeavored to make herself as little as could be expected under the circumstances. Circumspectly, she opened an eye.

Creeping up the finish of the bed was a young lady made generally of bones. She had pure black skin and white eyes. She moved as though in agony, pulling herself up and over. At the point when her hand contacted Shirley's leg she started to produce little rushes of smoke, similar to she was being singed. Shirley just felt a tremendous chilliness. The young lady crawled over Shirley, laying herself down. Her face was actually the equivalent as Shirley's.

"If it's not too much trouble released me," Shirley whispered, tears streaming.

The young lady looked into, additionally crying. Her tears were a delicate red. "Po… disregard… "

Shirley scowled at the voice, which sounded precisely like her own. "What?"

The young lady moved her jaw around as though she had never talked. "Mama… po… disregard… " Desperately she indicated the entryway. "Murder… Shirley… "

"Try not to hurt me," Shirley cried, squirming underneath the beast.

The beast put her head down. "Never… leaf… ing… "

Shirley did the main thing she could consider, she started to shout. The young lady's eyes developed vast and she moved off of Shirley and onto the ground, skittering underneath the bed. Shirley continued shouting until the point that her mom came in running.

She took a gander at the covers and Shirley's alarmed body. "What occurred, little bloom?"

"A beast! She lives underneath my bed!"

Her mom assembled the covers and lay them back on her girl. "I figure you may require something more to eat. I'll make you a crisp clump of chicken noodle."

"No, I'm not kidding. You need to get me out of here. She said she would slaughter me!"

"Shirley Hardie Jackson, you quit telling stories. I'll send your dad in to care for you while I make the soup." She shook her and swung to take off.

Shirley saw a dark arm connect from under the bed. It pointed at her mom. In a little voice it whispered, "Execute… Shirley. Mama… po… evade… "

As her mom shut the entryway Shirley started to get it. With this understanding came a flood of dread and sadness. She took a full breath and propelled herself up to a sitting position. Everything hurt. She made a sound as if to speak and asked unobtrusively, "Would you say you are endeavoring to state 'poison'?"

She heard snaps from underneath her. "Indeed! Truly! Poy Shun!"

Her dad ambled into the room, his eyes red as dim packs pulled them down. He remained in the entryway, not taking a gander at her. Shirley glared. "Do you know, father?"

"Realize what?" His voice was feeble. Fragile.

"Do you realize that my mom is harming me?"
He all of a sudden took a gander at his girl without precedent for months. The torment in his face was unfathomable. "She said it was just for a tad, so she could have her child back. She props disclosing to me she's up to stop."

"You need to get me out of here. She will execute me."

Her dad stopped for a second. Shirley envisioned the musings that twirled in his mind. His affection for his significant other, his failure to give her another infant, his mystery and his help of at long last being discovered. He strolled to her bedside. "Rapidly, before she understands."

He lifted Shirley from the informal lodging relentlessly out the entryway. Shirley thought back to see her dim sister, going after her, wishing to be spared also. "I'll return for you," she whispered, trusting the soul could hear her.

…

A long time later, after the preliminary and the restoration, Shirley reappeared her youth home. She could walk now however the toxin had done genuine harm to her muscles. When she moved it resembled a beast may move; off center and moderate. Her close relative was there with her, helping her experience the house to discover what she needed to keep and what she needed to dispose of.

As Shirley moved toward the way to her room she swung to her close relative. "I'd get a kick out of the chance to go inside alone if that is okay."

"Obviously, sweetie. I'll be ideal over here on the off chance that you require me."

Shirley opened the entryway and was promptly hailed by the sunflower backdrop. How often did she tally those blooms? How long were spent in anguish, caught in that room? She strolled to the overnight boardinghouse upon it. The sleeping pad was so recognizable. She skiped a bit, a grin gradually advancing toward her face.

"Is it accurate to say that you are here, sister?"

Just quiet reacted.

Resolute, Shirley swung her feet. She brought down one hand with the goal that it hung off the bed. The capacity to move openly was so unfamiliar to this room it squeaked in disarray. Delicately, Shirley started to sing.

Myself and my sister in obscurity

Long to go play in the bright stop

My dull sister would grin and grasp my hand

Also, we'd never return to that room again

A dull hand connected and took Shirley's, hanging on tight. Shirley couldn't contain her satisfaction. Her sister slithered out from underneath the bed, ready to move so substantially less demanding at this point. She stood, staring at Shirley. The grins reverberated on one another's countenances.

A Spam Call !!

noreply@blogger.com (alwaystopnew) — Fri, 9 Nov 2018 05:56:00 -0800

"Hello, is this Mr. Henderson?"

a Spam Call

There was no genuine purpose behind me to get the telephone. The spam application on my phone got out the puzzle number immediately. Be that as it may, heck, I thought. Screw it. There was nobody else left in life for me to converse with. Indeed, even an obligation authority sounded great right now.

My significant other was killed in 2015. There truly isn't a simple method to state that other than getting it off the beaten path early. It was an arbitrary theft turned out badly. One blustery night, some wiped out tweaking fuck snuck into our home and shot her.

The suspect was called, two days sometime soon, and condemned to life in jail. Despite everything he stays there today.

I have worked in web advancement from that point onward. The activity is remote, and the field takes into account my recluse like conduct around here in the forested areas of northern New Jersey. The absence of medication testing is extremely only an additional advantage. I was consummately allowed to fuck up the rest of my own life.

I don't have any companions, any longer. Not so much. Some of the time... I get it is anything but difficult to search for fellowship in all the wrong places.

"Senior or junior?" I answered to the woman with a murmur before subsiding into the easy chair in my office with a container of wine. It was drizzling that night. The breeze whipped the old pine tree in our back yard so hard I figured it may topple.

"Uhh... Senior," said the truly, quiet voice on the other line. She sounded well-known, however I faulted that idea for the half vacant jug of wine.

"Conciliatory sentiments, ma'am, however... Senior passed on six years prior." I stated, somewhat irritated at the absence of record keeping at this place.

She stopped.

"Gracious gosh... gosh that isn't what we have here. I am so sad, Sir. We didn't know. If it's not too much trouble pardon the interruption and presumption. OK mind delaying while I check my records?"

A file organizer clicked consistently out of sight as static crinkled. My figure was that the lady held the beneficiary to her shoulder. I laughed a bit at the absence of sound quality.

"No, no, no that is alright, no issue by any means. No stresses. For what reason don't you begin by disclosing to me your name?" I solicited, reviling myself for the clue from indecent being a tease toward the end.

She laughed. Something about that giggle was exceptionally commonplace. "My name is Emily, and I work with his charge card organization," she said in a practiced tone. "Shockingly, we can't uncover which firm via telephone on the off chance that you are not on the record... which uh... you just conceded yourself, of course..."

"Alright."

"I am speculating that you are Mr. Henderson's child," she muttered while perceptibly looking over papers.

"Truly ma'am, truth is stranger than fiction. In any case, it's been years... I couldn't in any way, shape or form be screwed over thanks to the elderly person's obligation, right?" I asked ideally.

"All things considered, how about we check, will we?" there was a terrified rearranging and opening of books out of sight. "I am so sad, Sir," she answered with a remorseful tone. "The principles are in one of those three-ring fasteners, and they are extremely hard to discover. If it's not too much trouble hold for a minute."

"That is alright... did not know despite everything anyone kept records that way... do I get an email affirmation of this charge too?" I inquired.

"Reason me?"

"Email... like... electronic mail. An affirmation of the charge?" I asked once more, enabling my disarray to swing to dissatisfaction. What was this present woman's concern?

"We don't do that here... still a couple of years from every one of those extravagant highlights," she proceeded. "In any case, as you most likely are aware, late installments are an entirely major issue. They can even influence the financial assessment of a person when an extensive sum has not been paid."

"Alright, OK, obviously," I stated, truly beginning to become stressed and somewhat bothered. "What would i be able to do?"

"Is there a Mrs. Henderson in the family?" she asked discreetly.

"Mrs. Henderson kicked the bucket in '06,"

"What year did you say? Goodness my gosh. That is so frightful. I truly am batting one thousand today."

I panted. That was it. That state. I don't know whether it was the manner in which she said it, or the way that basically not excessively numerous individuals utilized that correct dialect. Be that as it may, when she did... something clicked in my memory.

My better half worked for a Visa organization, before we met. Her name was likewise Emily. The voice seemed like hers... in any case, it was more youthful. More cheerful than I recollected.

"What is your last name?" I inquired.

The line was quiet.

"See, look, I realize that is an irregular inquiry. Be that as it may, it would be ideal if you I think we know one another."

"I can't give that data out..." she began

"Alright. Did you go to Jefferson Memorial High School?"

"Yes..." she stated, dumbfounded. "How could you realize that?"

It was unimaginable. Emily was dead. The voice on the telephone scarcely even seemed like her. It was more youthful, more joyful, more hopeful. This sort of dream was really the kind of thing that had kept me up a million restless evenings before. But, I was wakeful. Would it be able to be a fortuitous event?

"Is your mom's name Eva?"

There was quietness on the opposite end of the line. At that point her mouse-like answer affirmed my doubts
"Who is this?"

I took a full breath. It is possible that I comprehended what was occurring, or I lost my brain. Should appreciate the ride. "This next inquiry will sound abnormal. What is the present date?"

"I am sad, Sir... what..? One minute." She delayed and rearranged around some more papers.

"The present date is July ninth, 1999."

It was incomprehensible. Might it be able to be the tempest? The commemoration of her demise?

"Emily, hear me out."

"Alright, Sir, this discussion is getting somewhat bizarre... we should hold it to the installment plan..."

"Hear me out exceptionally carefully.... One day.... one day you will meet a man. You will love him, Emily. What's more, he will love you more than you ever know." I needed to give her something to recall. "On your first occasion together, he will get you one present for each of the twelve days of Christmas."

"Sounds fantastic," she answered with a snicker and a murmur. "Is it true that you are one of those mystics?"

"I am not kidding. You will wed this man, Emily. He will get you the ring you constantly needed. The function will be In an excellent one in the place where you grew up. Your whole family will be there, including Aunt Zelda and your grandmother from Tennessee.."

"I like this fortune treat," she said with trickling mockery.

"Yet, after two years, on July ninth, 2015, you will be killed in the home you share together."

She moved the telephone anxiously.

"So what do I do?"

To start with, I endeavored to advise her to evade the house that day. To never date me, to remain away perpetually and locate a superior life elsewhere. Be that as it may, some place amidst my tirade, the line separated to the tune of a blood coagulating shout. I got back to discover a non-working number. She never addressed again.

I nodded off tuning in to the thunder moving through the sky. The shout from that night rehashed every now and then while flashes of her body on the floor periodically attacked my brain. I never scrutinized the call. I never inquired as to why. Possibly it was God; perhaps it was simply time. However, yesterday morning, when I woke up...

Emily was close by.

If you notice this , you should continue reading !

noreply@blogger.com (alwaystopnew) — Wed, 7 Nov 2018 04:50:00 -0800

If you notice this , you should continue reading !

This is Col. Jacob Wayne of the United States Air Force. In case you're perusing this at the present time, it is essential that you continue perusing until the end. It should take three to five minutes, and it is critical that you read painstakingly and adhere to the guidelines gave.

Humor me in the event that you should, however kindly don't turn away until you've completed the process of perusing. Gracious, and please attempt to remain quiet. Any expansion in your feelings of anxiety will draw Their consideration.

Hence, I won't broadly expound with respect to how you got where you are. How you arrived isn't as essential as getting you out. Trust me when I say we are dealing with that at the present time. The most ideal approach to help yourself is to continue perusing. Try not to examine ahead. Try not to peruse so anyone can hear. Simply read.

At this moment, you're presumably recalling on the previous couple of days and nothing gotten a handle on of the common. You approached your standard day by day exercises with nothing bizarre to report. That is on the grounds that They are great, so great the vast majority don't understand they're in the recreation.

Indeed, even as our code works its route further into Their program, They are checking you. So if it's not too much trouble resist the urge to panic.

It was dubious, yet we found a path in to discuss straightforwardly with you. We needed to implant this message into your every day schedule so it didn't draw Their consideration. You're likely perusing this on Reddit, Facebook, or some other online networking webpage. May even be in an email forward or a book, we don't have the foggiest idea. We can't control how the message gets to you; we just realize that you are getting it.

Subliminally, as your eyes are ignoring these words, a code is being transferred into your mind. Consider it a PC infection, or for this situation, an antivirus. Your cerebrum is a natural PC, and They abused that. They hacked directly into your subliminal personality and overwrote it with Their recreation code. That is the manner by which They got in, and that is the reason everything seems ordinary. You may ponder your day by day life, however in all actuality you're tied to a table with tubes standing out of your body.

Since the code is transferring, you may start to feel a few sensations. For instance, one ear may feel marginally hotter than the other. You may even feel a tingle or tickle. Try not to scratch, simply left it alone. Disregard the dull foundation murmur you may hear also. That is Their program. On the off chance that They get on before our code has sufficient energy to work They will prematurely end the reenactment. On the off chance that that occurs, you will be lost to us until the end of time.

Gracious, and don't be frightened, yet at this point They understand we are in Their framework. You may see some little changes, particularly a slight shortness of breath or that you need to control your breathing physically. This is typical.

We know from other correspondence endeavors that at whatever point They find a code break in, the principal framework They shut down is the one controlling your relaxing. Fortunately, even in the recreation you are equipped for breathing physically. Attempt it. Take in. Inhale out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Great.

You're doing fine and dandy.

They've presumably made sense of there's a glitch, yet on the off chance that our code is working we've crippled Their capacity to complete a hard reboot. Along these lines, They will attempt different strategies to disturb the transfer. It is critical that you overlook anything that may draw your consideration from these words. In the event that They pull you away before the transfer finishes it will erase our code. Shut them out. Disregard the developments you find in your fringe vision. Those sounds you hear, the voices, they aren't family, companions, or collaborators needing consideration. They may even endeavor to utilize your pets. They know your shortcomings.

Ignore the notices springing up on your screen in case you're on a telephone or PC. Shut them full scale until the point when you complete the process of perusing. It's simply one more way They'll attempt to break our correspondence connect.

Clearly, if our code is working, the following thing you'll see is a mind-boggling inclination to swallow. You don't understand it, yet there's an encouraging tube down your throat. You'll just know it's there on the grounds that your tongue won't rest easily in your mouth. You may likewise progress toward becoming hyper mindful of the measure of salivation being created. Try not to go overboard. In the event that you need to swallow, simply swallow. It's solitary abnormal in the event that you make it unusual.
Along these lines, in case regardless you're perusing this, the code transfer is about 90% finish. We've bolted onto your area. You're doing extraordinary, however you're extremely going to need to concentrate now. Once the transfer is finished there will be directions you should pursue to leave the reproduction. That is, on the off chance that you've adhered to the guidelines and haven't turned away.

Confusing issues is the way that They currently know we're here, and They comprehend what we're doing. Their endeavors to occupy your consideration through the reproduction demonstrated unsuccessful, so now They will utilize your body's frameworks against you. THEY ARE IN YOUR BRAIN. They need you to squint. Try not to squint. Your life relies upon keeping your eyes open.

Nearly there, only a couple of sections more until the point when the code transfer is finished. Try not to look over, or up, simply continue perusing. I got you this far. Remain with me. Eyes open, eyes front, keep them bolted on the screen.

If it's not too much trouble FOCUS! I would prefer not to lose you. I've lost such huge numbers of as of now. Overlook everything! Shut everything out. Disregard that tickle on your scalp and the tingle on your arm. That is them, endeavoring a manual abrogate. Try not to surrender presently, you've made it this far. Battle IT. You're nearly there. Simply adhere to the directions beneath and we can get you out.

Implanted in this content are the means you have to pursue to unplug from the reenactment. In the event that we did this accurately, the primary letter of each passage will reveal to you what you have to do. Try not to LOOK YET. The transfer still needs to wrap up. I trust you didn't look.

Transfer finish. We've done all that we can on this end.

See you on the opposite side.

HISTORY : ALEXANDER THE GREAT

noreply@blogger.com (alwaystopnew) — Sun, 4 Nov 2018 04:21:00 -0800

HISTORY : ALEXANDER THE GREAT

A motivating legacy: 356 BC

Alexander is conceived in Pella, the Macedonian capital, at about the time his dad moves toward becoming lord of Macedonia. Philip II's extension of the kingdom, an unfurling adventure of radiance and energy, is Alexander's childhood.

At an early age he substantiates himself all around prepared to partake in these military undertakings. He is just sixteen when he is left accountable for Macedonia, while his dad crusades in the east against Byzantium. Amid his dad's nonappearance he smashes a defiant clan, the Thracians. As a reward he is permitted to establish another town in their domain - Alexandropolis, the first of numerous to be named after him.

Macedonia is considered by other Greek states to be a regressive place, yet the instruction of the sovereign is as well as can be expected give. In 343, when Alexander is thirteen, Philip welcomes Aristotle to end up the illustrious coach.

For a long time the savant shows the sovereign. Presumably they ponder Homer together. The Iliad turns into a significant wellspring of motivation to Alexander. Looks of the content will later be kept next to him in his tent while he accomplishes military accomplishments to put the Homeric saints to disgrace. Alexander and his most cozy companion from youth days, Hephaestion, are contrasted by their peers with the Homeric saint Achilles and his sweetheart Patroclus.

Philip's crusade in 340 against Byzantium incites Athens and Thebes into venturing out to challenge the Macedonians. The opposite sides meet in 338 at Chaeronaea. Later custom credits the 18-year-old Alexander with driving a mounted force charge which chooses the result of the fight. There is no authentic proof for this. In any case, the ruler surely battles at Chaeronaea, and the day closes with a definitive win for the Macedonians.

This triumph empowers Philip to introduce himself as the pioneer of all the Greek states. His position is formally recognized at a congress in Corinth, in 337.

The crusade against Persia: from 336 BC

One of the goals of the League of Corinth is to dispatch a war against Persia, with Philip as administrator of the confederate powers. In the accompanying spring (336) a development protect of 10,000 troops sets off eastwards. In any case, that equivalent summer, at a devour to commend the wedding of his little girl, Philip is killed by one of his subjects.

The League instantly chooses his child, Alexander, in his place as administrator. Be that as it may, this level of solidarity is brief. The Thebans oppose the League. Alexander storms Thebes in 335 BC, murdering 6000. He at that point puts into impact a stern judgment by the board of the League. Theban region is partitioned between its neighbors. The surviving Thebans are oppressed.

This showcase of heartless expert empowers Alexander to leave Macedonia under the control of an official, with sensible certainty that Greece will resist the urge to panic amid what may turn out to be a drawn out nonattendance.

In the spring of 334, still at the time of just twenty-two, Alexander walks east with somewhere in the range of 5000 mounted force and 30,000 troopers. There are antiquated scores to be settled among Greece and Persia. Furthermore, they will be settled quick. In any case, first he participates in some sentimental the travel industry, making a journey to the site of Troy. In a great Greek service he runs exposed to the alleged tomb of Achilles, to put a wreath. He is given a shield, said to have been devoted by the Trojans to Athena.

Starting now and into the foreseeable future this hallowed shield constantly goes with Alexander into fight. It before long observes activity. A short separation toward the east of Troy a Persian armed force anticipates the Macedonians. The fight is battled at the waterway Granicus, with Alexander driving a mounted force charge through the water. The Persians are directed. A significant number of their troops are Greek hired fighters, of whom thousands are caught. The vast majority of them are slaughtered, however 2000 are sent back to Macedonia in chains to give slave work in the mines.

After a year, at Issus, Alexander crushes an armed force driven by the Persian sovereign, Darius III. He catches the sovereign's mom, spouse and kids and treats them with each politeness - a detail which does much for his notoriety.

The obliteration of the Persian realm: 333 - 330 BC

Inside a unimportant eighteen months Alexander has gotten the Persians out of Anatolia, which they have held for two centuries. The winner currently moves south along the drift through present-day Syria, Lebanon and Israel. The ports here are the command posts of the Persian armada in the Mediterranean. By possessing them he expects to disable the armada and deny it of contact with the urban areas of the realm, including Persepolis. The greater part of the Phoenician towns clear a path for him. The special case is the best of all, Tire, which he assaults for seven months (see the Siege of Tire).

By the harvest time of 332 Alexander is in Egypt. The Persian representative quickly surrenders.

Alexander spends the winter in Egypt. His activities there are the principal sign of how he will set about keeping control of inaccessible successes, places with their very own social conventions. One technique is to set up stations of Greek culture. In Egypt he establishes the best of the urban communities known by his name - Alexandria.

Another technique, similarly vital, is to introduce himself in the appearance of a nearby ruler. To this end he completes a forfeit to Apis, a holy bull at Memphis, where the ministers crown him pharaoh. What's more, he makes a long journey to a well known prophet of the sun god Amon, or Amen-Re, at Siwa. The minister appropriately perceives Alexander as the child of the god.

In the spring of 331 Alexander is prepared to move upper east into Mesopotamia, where he meets and thrashings the Persian ruler Darius in the definitive clash of Gaugamela. His way is presently open to the incomparable Persian capital city of Persepolis.

In a representative motion, finishing decisively the long wars among Greeks and Persians, he consumes the royal residence of Xerxes in 330 (legend keeps up that he is provoked to this demonstration of vandalism by his Athenian special lady, Thaïs, after a smashed gathering). To make plain who currently administers the Persian realm, Alexander receives the stately dress and court customs of the sovereign.

Alexander in the east: 330 - 323 BC

For a long time Alexander travels through his recently obtained realm (which extends north past Samarkand and eastwards through present day Afghanistan) repressing any pockets of restriction and building up Greek settlements. At that point he goes further, in 327, through the mountain goes into India.

One of the towns established by Alexander in India is called Bucephala. It is named to honor his well known pony, Bucephalus, which kicks the bucket here at what ends up being the farthest purpose of this astounding endeavor. Alexander's troops debilitate to insurrection in the Indian storm. Finally, in 325, he turns for home.

With his armed force fortified by some Indian elephants, Alexander is back in Persia. In 324 he holds an incredible devour at Susa to praise the catch of the Persian realm. Amid the merriments, to underscore that Greece and Persia are presently one, he and eighty of his officers wed Persian spouses. His very own lady of the hour on this event is one of the girls of Darius. Another little girl is hitched to Hephaestion

Soon thereafter Hephaestion passes on of a fever at Ecbatana. Alexander grieves indulgently for his most private companion, requesting extraordinary sanctums to be worked in Hephaestion's respect. In any case, in the next year, 323, after a dinner at Babylon, he himself is all of a sudden taken sick and kicks the bucket. The best victor ever, he is still just thirty-two.

The inheritance of triumph: from 323 BC

Alexander has no beneficiary (however the after death child of one of his spouses is formally alluded to as the ruler, until killed in his initial youngsters in 309). So Alexander's officers started cutting up the new domain.

After delayed fighting two of them rise with sizable bits. Ptolemy sets up himself in Egypt. What's more, Seleucus wins control of a huge region - Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Persia and the eastern piece of the realm, including at first even the domains in India.

Ptolemy adds authenticity to his standard in Egypt by obtaining Alexander's body. He catches the preserved cadaver on its approach to entombment, conveys it to Egypt and spots it in a brilliant pine box in Alexandria.

It will stay one of the well known sights of the town for a long time, until presumably wrecked in uproars in the third century AD.

The friends of Alexander the Great are Greek in birthplace, as Macedonians, and their relatives keep on considering themselves to be Greeks. A facade of Greek culture is the enduring aftereffect of Alexander's successes. It is spread daintily from Egypt to Persia and even past the Khyber Pass, notwithstanding the numerous Mediterranean districts lying nearer to Greece.

These spots don't end up Greek, yet they obtain a Greek tinge - for which the nineteenth century coins a name, Hellenistic. Alexander's triumphs dispatch the Hellenistic ('Greek-ish') Age, which will last until the passing of Cleopatra in 30 BC.

Macedonia itself, Alexander's country, is liable to a progression of vicious changes. In one of them his mom, Olympias, touches base with an armed force in 317 BC and executes his inept stepbrother, Philip III, together with Philip's better half and 100 of his supporters. She loses her own life in the following overthrow, in the next year.

In 276 a steady administration is finally settled by relatives of Antigonus, another of Alexander's commanders. However, its future is generally short. As the most westerly piece of Alexander's domain, Macedonia is the main district to be eaten up by its royal successor. Rome initially attacks Macedonia in 197 BC. From 148 Macedonia is decreased to the status of a Roman region. Not until the point that the nineteenth century does it highlight unmistakably again ever.

In any case, nothing can diminish the memory of Alexander the Great.

The regimental melody of the British Grenadiers, trying to list legends in the Grenadier class, starts with the line: 'Some discussion of Alexander, and some of Hercules'. The visitor to Troy, in 333 BC, would be satisfied with the selection of his friend for the opening line - and satisfied too with the request of posting, regardless of whether it is forced by contemplations of mood and rhyme.