Project Euler is a collection of interesting computational problems intended to be solved with computer programs. Most of the problems challenge your skills in algorithm design rather than your knowledge of mathematics.

Thanks to short concrete problems and number-only solutions you don’t have to thinker with IDEs, GUI designers, programming libraries and frameworks, so Project Euler is an excellent tool for learning a new programming language or improving your core programming skills.

Why use Scala

Although all general-purpose programming languages are Turing-complete and thus suitable for Project Euler, each language has its own philosophy and set of tools. In spite of programming language “holy wars”, the truth is that different tasks demand different tools.

Since Scala is a multi-paradigm programming language, it allows programmers to efficiently express a wide range of common programming patterns. Most Project Euler problems imply advanced transformation of numeric or symbolic data and Scala’s functional programming features are the perfect tool for that purpose (moreover, unlike pure functional languages, being a hybrid language, Scala provides object-oriented capabilities when modeling or simulation is required).

So, what does Scala have to offer for Project Euler? Here is the list of most valuable features:

scripting,

type-inference,

first-class functions,

tail call optimization,

lazy evaluation,

excellent collection library,

sequence comprehensions.

On the top of everything else, Scala brings enjoyment to your coding. According to The Right Tool Scala is ranked high in the following categories:

Thus Scala is the right tool for those who want to mingle the useful with the pleasant.

Sample solutions

This section contains solutions to the first 33 problems. You may use them either to size up how well Scala plays in Project Euler, or to compare your own solutions with the samples.

Keep in mind, that the purpose of these solutions is to demonstrate Scala in the first place, so the problems are just a “canvas” to show the elegance and expressiveness of the language. Many times I intentionally preferred a direct and concise solution (if it performs reasonably fast) to a “math-savvy” one.

All the code is available as a GitHub repository.

See also:

Problem 1

Add all the natural numbers below one thousand that are multiples of 3 or 5.*

val r = (1 until 1000).view.filter(n => n % 3 == 0 || n % 5 == 0).sum assert(r == 233168) // 7 ms

Problem 2

Find the sum of all the even-valued terms in the Fibonacci sequence which do not exceed four million.*

lazy val fs: Stream[Int] = 0 #:: fs.scanLeft(1)(_ + _) val r = fs.view.takeWhile(_ <= 4000000).filter(_ % 2 == 0).sum assert(r == 4613732) // 1 ms

Problem 3

Find the largest prime factor of a composite number.*

def factors(n: Long): List[Long] = (2 to math.sqrt(n).toInt) .find(n % _ == 0).fold(List(n))(i => i.toLong :: factors(n / i)) val r = factors(600851475143L).last assert(r == 6857) // 1 ms

Problem 4

Find the largest palindrome made from the product of two 3-digit numbers.*

val r = (100 to 999).view .flatMap(i => (i to 999).map(_ * i)) .filter(n => n.toString == n.toString.reverse) .max assert(r == 906609) // 102 ms

Problem 5

What is the smallest number divisible by each of the numbers 1 to 20?*

val r = Range(20, Int.MaxValue) .find(n => Range(2, 21).forall(n % _ == 0)).get assert(r == 232792560) // 23 s

Problem 6

What is the difference between the sum of the squares and the square of the sums?*

val numbers = 1 to 100 def square(n: Int) = n * n val r = square(numbers.sum) - numbers.map(square).sum assert(r == 25164150) // 1 ms

Problem 7

Find the 10001st prime.*

lazy val ps: Stream[Int] = 2 #:: Stream.from(3).filter(i => ps.takeWhile(j => j * j <= i).forall(i % _ > 0)) val r = ps(10000) assert(r == 104743) // 24 ms

Problem 8

Discover the largest product of five consecutive digits in the 1000-digit number.*

val s = """<raw input data>""" val r = s.filter(_.isDigit).map(_.asDigit) .sliding(5).map(_.product).max assert(r == 40824) // 33 ms

Problem 9

Find the only Pythagorean triplet, { a , b , c }, for which a + b + c = 1000.*

val limit = (1 to 1000).find(n => n + math.sqrt(n) >= 1000).get val rs = for (b <- 2 until limit; a <- 1 until b; c = 1000 - a - b if a * a + b * b == c * c) yield a * b * c val r = rs.head assert(r == 31875000) // 32 ms

Problem 10

Calculate the sum of all the primes below two million.*

lazy val ps: Stream[Int] = 2 #:: Stream.from(3).filter(i => ps.takeWhile(j => j * j <= i).forall(i % _ > 0)) val r = ps.view.takeWhile(_ < 2000000).foldLeft(0L)(_ + _) assert(r == 142913828922L) // 1 s

Problem 11

What is the greatest product of four numbers on the same straight line in the 20 by 20 grid?*

val s = """<raw input data>""" val ns = s.split("\\s+").map(_.toInt) def m(i: Int, p: Int, c: Int): Int = if (c > 0) ns(i) * m(i + p, p, c - 1) else 1 def ms(xs: Seq[Int], ys: Seq[Int], p: Int) = ys.flatMap(y => xs.map(x => m(20 * y + x, p, 4))) val ps = ms(0 to 19, 0 to 15, 20) ++ ms(0 to 15, 0 to 19, 1) ++ ms(0 to 15, 0 to 15, 21) ++ ms(3 to 19, 0 to 15, 19) val r = ps.max assert(r == 70600674) // 4 ms

Problem 12

What is the value of the first triangle number to have over five hundred divisors?*

lazy val ts: Stream[Int] = 0 #:: ts.zipWithIndex.map(p => p._1 + p._2 + 1) def p(t: Int) = Range(1, Int.MaxValue) .takeWhile(n => n * n <= t) .foldLeft(0)((s, n) => if (t % n == 0) s + 2 else s) val r = ts.find(p(_) > 500).get assert(r == 76576500) // 1 s

Problem 13

Find the first ten digits of the sum of one-hundred 50-digit numbers.*

val s = """<raw input data>""" val r = s.split("\\s+").map(_.take(11).toLong).sum .toString.take(10).toLong assert(r == 5537376230L) // 2 ms

Problem 14

Find the longest sequence using a starting number under one million.*

def from(n: Long, c: Int = 0): Int = if (n == 1) c + 1 else from(if (n % 2 == 0) n / 2 else 3 * n + 1, c + 1) val r = (1 until 1000000).view.map(n => (n, from(n))) .reduceLeft((a, b) => if (a._2 > b._2) a else b)._1 assert(r == 837799) // 1 s

Problem 15

Starting in the top left corner in a 20 by 20 grid, how many routes are there to the bottom right corner?*

def f(row: Seq[Long], c: Int): Long = if (c == 0) row.last else f(row.scan(0L)(_ + _), c - 1) def r(n: Int) = f(Seq.fill(n + 1)(1L), n) assert(r(20) == 137846528820L) // 1 ms

Problem 16

What is the sum of the digits of the number 21000?*

val r = BigInt(2).pow(1000).toString.view.map(_.asDigit).sum assert(r == 1366) // 1 ms

Problem 17

How many letters would be needed to write all the numbers in words from 1 to 1000?*

val units = Array(0, 3, 3, 5, 4, 4, 3, 5, 5, 4, 3, 6, 6, 8, 8, 7, 7, 9, 8, 8) val tens = Array(0, 0, 6, 6, 5, 5, 5, 7, 6, 6) lazy val name: Int => Int = { case n if n < 20 => units(n) case n if n < 100 => tens(n / 10) + (if (n % 10 > 0) units(n % 10) else 0) case n if n < 1000 => name(n / 100) + 7 + (if (n % 100 > 0) 3 + name(n % 100) else 0) case 1000 => 11 } val r = (1 to 1000).map(name).sum assert(r == 21124) // 1 ms

Problem 18

Find the maximum sum traveling from the top of the triangle to the base.*

val s = """<raw input data>""" val grid = s.trim.split("

").map(_.split("\\s+").map(_.toInt)) def f(rows: Array[Array[Int]], bottom: Seq[Int]): Int = { val ms = bottom.zip(bottom.tail).map(p => p._1 max p._2) val ss = rows.last.zip(ms).map(p => p._1 + p._2) if (ss.length == 1) ss.head else f(rows.init, ss) } val r = f(grid.init, grid.last) assert(r == 1074) // 2 ms

Problem 19

How many Sundays fell on the first of the month during the twentieth century?*

val lengths = Array(31, 0, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31) val ls = for (y <- 1900 to 2000; m <- 1 to 12) yield if (m == 2) if (y % 4 == 0 && (y % 100 != 0 || y % 400 == 0)) 29 else 28 else lengths(m - 1) val fs = ls.scanLeft(1)((ws, l) => (ws + l) % 7) val r = fs.slice(12, 1212).count(_ == 0) assert(r == 171) // 2 ms

Problem 20

Find the sum of digits in 100!*

def f(n: BigInt): BigInt = if (n < 2) 1 else n * f(n - 1) val r = f(100).toString.view.map(_.asDigit).sum assert(r == 648) // 1 ms

Problem 21

Evaluate the sum of all amicable pairs under 10000.*

val ds = (0 until 10000).view .map(n => (1 to (n / 2)).filter(n % _ == 0).sum) val as = ds.zipWithIndex.collect { case (n, i) if n < 10000 && ds(n) != n && ds(n) == i => i } val r = as.sum assert(r == 31626) // 658 ms

Problem 22

What is the total of all the name scores in the file of first names?*

val r = io.Source.fromFile("names.txt").mkString.split(",") .map(_.init.tail).sorted.map(_.map(_ - 64).sum) .zipWithIndex.map(p => p._1 * (p._2 + 1)).sum assert(r == 871198282) // 38 ms

Problem 23

Find the sum of all the positive integers which cannot be written as the sum of two abundant numbers.*

val as = (0 to 28123).map(n => (1 to (n / 2)).filter(n % _ == 0).sum) .zipWithIndex.filter(p => p._1 > p._2).map(_._2) val exc = as.view.flatMap { a => as.takeWhile(_ <= (28123 - a)).map(_ + a) } val r = (1 to 28123 diff exc).sum assert(r == 4179871) // 5 s

Problem 24

What is the millionth lexicographic permutation of the digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9?*

def ps(s: String): Iterator[String] = if (s.length == 1) Iterator(s) else s.toIterator.flatMap(c => ps(s.filterNot(_ == c)).map(_ + c)) val r = ps("0123456789").drop(999999).next().toLong assert(r == 2783915460L) // 712 ms

Problem 25

What is the first term in the Fibonacci sequence to contain 1000 digits?*

lazy val fs: Stream[BigInt] = 0 #:: fs.scanLeft(BigInt(1))(_ + _) val r = fs.view.takeWhile(_.toString.length < 1000).length assert(r == 4782) // 468 ms

Problem 26

Find the value of d < 1000 for which 1/ d contains the longest recurring cycle.*

val ps = (2 until 1000).map(i => (1 to 2000) .find(BigInt(10).modPow(_, i) == 1)) val r = 2 + ps.indexOf(Some(ps.flatten.max)) assert(r == 983) // 2 s

Problem 27

Find a quadratic formula that produces the maximum number of primes for consecutive values of n .*

lazy val ps: Stream[Int] = 2 #:: Stream.from(3).filter(i => ps.takeWhile(j => j * j <= i).forall(i % _ > 0)) def isPrime(n: Int) = ps.view.takeWhile(_ <= n).contains(n) val ns = (-999 until 1000).flatMap { a => (-999 until 1000).map(b => (a, b, (0 to 1000).view .takeWhile(n => isPrime(n * n + a * n + b)).length)) } val t = ns.reduceLeft((a, b) => if (a._3 > b._3) a else b) val r = t._1 * t._2 assert(r == -59231) // 6 s

Problem 28

What is the sum of both diagonals in a 1001 by 1001 spiral?*

def cs(n: Int, p: Int): Stream[Int] = (n * 4 + p * 10) #:: cs(n + p * 4, p + 2) val r = 1 + cs(1, 2).take(500).sum assert(r == 669171001) // 1 ms

Problem 29

How many distinct terms are in the sequence generated by a b for 2 ≤ a ≤ 100 and

2 ≤ b ≤ 100?*

val r = (2 to 100).flatMap(a => (2 to 100) .map(b => BigInt(a).pow(b))).distinct.length assert(r == 9183) // 17 ms

Problem 30

Find the sum of all the numbers that can be written as the sum of fifth powers of their digits.*

def max(d: Int) = math.pow(10, d).toInt - 1 def sum(n: Int) = n.toString.map(_.asDigit) .map(math.pow(_, 5).toInt).sum val limit = Stream.from(1).find(d => max(d) > sum(max(d))).get val r = (2 to max(limit)).view.filter(n => n == sum(n)).sum assert(r == 443839) // 2 s

Problem 31

Investigating combinations of English currency denominations.*

def f(ms: List[Int], n: Int): Int = ms match { case h :: t => if (h > n) 0 else if (n == h) 1 else f(ms, n - h) + f(t, n) case _ => 0 } val r = f(List(1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200), 200) assert(r == 73682) // 15 ms

Problem 32

Find the sum of all numbers that can be written as pandigital products.*

val ms = for { a <- 2 to 10000; b <- 2 to 10000 / a m = a * b; s = a.toString + b + m if s.length == 9 && (1 to 9).mkString.forall(s.contains(_)) } yield m val r = ms.distinct.sum assert(r == 45228) // 73 ms

Problem 33

Discover all the fractions with an unorthodox cancelling method.*

val rs = for (i <- 1 to 9; j <- (i + 1) to 9; k <- 1 to 9 if k * (9 * i + j) == 10 * i * j) yield (10 * i + j, 10 * j + k) val p = rs.reduceLeft((n, d) => (n._1 * d._1, n._2 * d._2)) def gcd(n: Int, d: Int): Int = if (d == 0) n else gcd(d, n % d) val r = p._2 / gcd(p._1, p._2) assert(r == 100) // 5 ms

Tags: problem, Programming, project euler, puzzle, scala, solution


As tensions rise in the Old City of Jerusalem, hundreds of people gathered on Delmar Boulevard in University City Sunday evening to show their support — some for Palestinians and others for the Israeli government.

The Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) organized the march to protest new Israeli security measures at prayer sites in Jerusalem. Metal detectors and security cameras were installed after the mosque was temporarily closed on July 14, when three Palestinian civilians and two Israeli officers were killed in clashes nearby.

At the St. Louis area march, protesters demanded freedom for Muslims to worship without harassment and extra security measures when entering the Jerusalem compound that houses Al-Aqsa Mosque. The compound is an area also referred to by Jews as the Temple Mount.

However, for many St. Louisans the gathering was about more than the installation of new metal detectors at the holy site in Jerusalem.

CAIR intern and member of the Palestine Solidarity Committee Neveen Ayesh, a Muslim, is Palestinian-American and spoke to the St. Louis-area crowd about the ongoing conflict.

“It’s what’s going to come after the metal detectors and what’s going to come with the metal detectors,” she said. “It’s just another way to put [Palestinians] on a leash and try to control them.”

Marchers carried signs and chanted “free free Al-Aqsa” and “end the siege on Aqsa now.” In a show of international solidarity, people waved flags from the United States, Palestine, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Jordan.

Sunday’s march was attended by many Muslims, members of the Palestinian-American community, and activists from local social justice organizations including the St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee, Jewish Voice for Peace and Progressive Youth Association.

There was also a counter demonstration in support of Israel’s new security measures. Attendees held Israeli flags and signs advocating for Israel’s right to defend itself.

The pro-Palestinian marchers and pro-Israeli demonstrators didn’t cross paths, but Jewish-Israeli Boaz Steiner took it upon himself to walk amongst the pro-Palestinian protesters.

Steiner is an advocate for Israel’s new security measures and said he thinks it’s more useful to speak directly to pro-Palestinians instead of standing at the pro-Israeli demonstration.

“I am a person who lived there and understand the situation on the ground truly,” he said. “Other religious sites around the world have security measures, why can’t Israel?”

But Jewish-American Michael Berg disagrees. As a member of the Jewish Voice for Peace and St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee, he’s participated in many demonstrations calling for equal rights for Palestinian citizens. He also gave a speech at the rally.

“The rate of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian inhabitants of the Old City and east Jerusalem is accelerating,” he said. “We’ll continue to be out, fight and advocate until there’s justice,” he said.

After the march, pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered for evening prayers in the parking lot behind Cicero’s on Delmar Boulevard. The imam who lead the prayer recited specific prayers advocating for the end of Israel’s occupation of east Jerusalem.

Many participants also signed a petition organized by CAIR to bring awareness of the military occupation of Palestinian territories to St. Louis-area government officials.

“We’re telling them to speak out and say no and to stop funding [Israel’s military occupation],” Neveen Ayesh said. “We are going to continue to raise awareness, near or far. This is something sacred to our hearts.”


IS seeks to isolate Turkish border crossing

The Islamic State [IS] attacked a YPG-controlled town in Al-Hasakah province on Tuesday, as it seeks to isolate the nearby border crossing with Turkey, a Kurdish citizen journalist told Syria Direct on Wednesday.

IS “aims to control Tel Khanzir and close the door on YPG” forces holed up in the border crossing of Ras al-Ain, said Roman Yusef, the Al-Hasakah-based activist.

Tel Khanzir is located on the highway between the joint YPG and rebel-controlled town of Tel Abyad and the YPG-controlled border crossing of Ras al-Ain.

By winning control Tel Khanzir, IS hopes to cut off the supply line between Tel Abyad and Ras al-Ain, which IS has attacked for the past month.

The YPG staved off the assault on Tel Khanzir, killing and injuring an undisclosed number of IS members in the fighting, said Khalid Iskef, a Syria-based correspondent for the Lebanese pro-regime news channel Al-Mayadeen.

YPG forces, aided by the regime, have been battling IS for control of key parts of Al-Hasakah province for the past month.

YPG clashes with IS in four villages southeast of Kobani

YPG forces are battling Islamic State (IS) fighters for control of four villages in the southeast Kobani countryside.

“Clashes between YPG and IS remain ongoing as of now in the villages of Aqbash, Ahmadia, Mamad Khan and al-Jarn al-Aswad, 35 kilometers south of Kobani,” Mustafa al-Abdi, senior correspondent with the Iraqi Kurdish Arta FM radio station based in Kobani told Syria Direct on Wednesday.

“This comes after YPG forces clashed with IS in the southeast Kobani countryside on Tuesday, with the help of coalition air strikes that targeted IS positions on the front line,” al-Abdi added. The YPG captured five villages from the Islamic State on Tuesday after fighting that reportedly led to the deaths of 43 IS fighters.

The offensive is part of a new YPG military campaign that began Monday under the rubric “Revenge for the Martyrs of Hasakah,” reported pro-Kurdish Adar Press. Last Friday, unknown assailants launched car bomb attacks on Kurdish Nowruz celebrations in Al-Hasakah city that killed at least 45 people.

YPG forces captures 27 IS corpses and large stockpiles of weapons and ammunition in the aftermath of the fighting, reported the pro-Kurdish ANHA news outlet on Tuesday.

YPG fighters seize weapons cache from IS on Tuesday. Photo courtesy @pyd_rojava.

As rebels close in, Idlib regime company defects to opposition

A contingent of regime forces fearing a rebel assault on its position in the southeastern Idlib countryside defected to the opposition on Tuesday.

The regime contingent–reportedly consisting of five officers and 45 soldiers–defected as its distracted leadership was fortifying Ma’amal al-Qarmeed, a brick factory turned regime military base 7.5km southeast of Idlib city, for an expected rebel attack, reported the pro-opposition news site All4Syria on Tuesday.

The defecting regime officers and soldiers joined the newly minted Operation Room for the Liberation of Idlib, also known as Jaish al-Fatah, a rebel coalition including the Islamist groups Jabhat a-Nusra and Ahrar a-Sham. Jaish al-Fatah announced its formation this Tuesday, reported the pro-opposition Orient News on Tuesday, the same day it launched a offensive to take regime-controlled Idlib city.

The campaign to capture Idlib is particularly significant to Nusra, which reportedly wants the city as part of its plan to eventually carve out an al-Qaeda emirate in northern Syria.

Nusra may have contributed up to 3,000 men to the fight, in addition to US-manufactured TOW anti-tank missiles, likely looted from the US-backed, now-dissolved Harakat Hazm last month.

For more from Syria Direct, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.


Most of us like reading stories about ancient times and fantasize that our ancestors’ lives were easy and romantic, but were they really? 24-year-old Russian man Pavel Sapozhnikov decided to see what his ancestors’ lives were really like by spending 6 months living in 10th-century conditions.“The idea is to see if a modern man can survive alone in an early medieval environment, what impact this kind of lifestyle will have on his psychological state” says Alexey Ovcharenko, who is the driving force behind the “Alone in the Past” project.For six months – until March 22 – Pavel will live in a medieval farm without electricity, running water, Internet access and other modern comforts. The autumn and winter seasons were chosen on purpose – scientists want to explore the everyday challenges faced by medieval people during the toughest time of the year.If given the chance, would you be brave enough to live alone in the past?


2009 Paris-Roubaix runner up ready for Sunday after Sanremo and Flanders disappointment

Filippo Pozzato (Lampre-Merida) is taking aim at the third and final big target of his spring campaign, as he hopes to go one better than his 2009 second place in Sunday’s Paris-Roubaix. The 31-year-old Italian was active, but unsuccessful in Milano-Sanremo on March 17th, but less visible in last Sunday’s Ronde van Vlaanderen but, as the blue-fuchsia team’s Classics captain, he expects more in l’Enfer du Nord.

“Paris-Roubaix is a very demanding and selecting race, the group of the pretenders is even more limited than at the Ronde van Vlaanderen,” Pozzato explained. “I focused the early part of the season to three targets: Milano-Sanremo, the Ronde van Vlaanderen and Paris-Roubaix. I’ve got one last chance to be a protagonist, after not having hit the targets in the first two appointments.

“Of course, I’ll need to be more competitive than past Sunday, because Paris-Roubaix must be approached with energy and a clear mind.”

After such taking such a dominant victory in Sunday’s Ronde, there will be one rider that Pozzato - and the rest of the peloton - will be watching across the fearsome cobbles of northern France.

“[Fabian] Cancellara will have all eyes on him,” Pozzato confirmed. “He is the logical favourite.”

Friday will see Pozzato reconnoitre most of the cobbled sectors, starting from sector 19 [of 27 - ed] between Haveluy à Wallers and riding all the way to section 4 at Le Carrefour de l'Arbre. The Italian team will be riding a new Rida frame from bike sponsor Merida, which has been specifically designed for tough, cobbled races like Paris-Roubaix.

Lampre-Merida team for Paris-Roubaix

Massimo Graziato, Elia Favilli, Andrea Palini, Alessandro Petacchi, Filippo Pozzato, Maximiliano Richeze, Davide Viganò and Luca Wackermann


Firearms of Japan were introduced in the 13th century by the Chinese, but saw little use. Portuguese firearms were introduced in 1543,[1] and intense development followed, with strong local manufacture during the period of conflicts of the late 16th century.

Teppo [ edit ]

Due to its proximity with China, Japan had long been familiar with gunpowder weaponry. Firearms seem to have first appeared in Japan around 1270, as primitive metal tubes invented in China and called teppō (鉄砲 lit. "iron cannon") seem to have been introduced in Japan as well.[2]

These weapons were very basic, as they had no trigger or sights, and could not bear comparison with the more advanced European weapons which were introduced in Japan more than 250 years later.[2]

Tanegashima (matchlock) [ edit ]

The first documented introduction of the matchlock which became known as the tanegashima was through the Portuguese in 1543.[1] The tanegashima seems to have been based on snap matchlocks that were produced in the armory of Malacca in Portuguese Malacca, which was captured by the Portuguese in 1511.[3] The name tanegashima came from the island where a Chinese junk with Portuguese adventurers on board was driven to anchor by a storm. The lord of the Japanese island Tanegashima Tokitaka (1528–1579) purchased two matchlock muskets from the Portuguese and put a swordsmith to work in copying the matchlock barrel and firing mechanism. Within a few years the use of the tanegashima in battle forever changed the way war was fought in Japan.[4] From 1560, firearms were used in large battles in Japan.[5] In his memoirs published in 1614, the Portuguese adventurer turned author Fernão Mendes Pinto placed himself in that first landing party, although this claim has been roundly discredited and in fact contradicts his claims to be simultaneously in Burma at the time. However, Pinto does appear to have visited Tanegashima soon thereafter.[6]

History [ edit ]

Sengoku Period [ edit ]

Ashigaru (foot soldiers) using matchlocks (tanegashima) from behind shields (tate). (foot soldiers) using matchlocks () from behind shields ().

Japan was at war during the Sengoku Period between 1467 and 1600, as feudal lords vied for supremacy.[7] Matchlock guns were used extensively and had a decisive role in warfare. In 1549, Oda Nobunaga ordered 500 matchlocks to be made for his armies. The benefits of firearms were still relatively questionable however compared to other weapons. At the time, guns were still rather primitive and cumbersome. According to one estimate in 16th century Japan, an archer could fire 15 arrows in the time a gunner would take to load, charge, and shoot a firearm.[8] Effective range also was only 80 to 100 meters, and at that distance, a bullet could easily bounce off armour. Furthermore, matchlocks were vulnerable to humid or rainy conditions as the powder would become damp.[8] However, firearms could be manned effectively by farmers or non-samurai low-ranking soldiers.[9]

The Japanese soon worked on various techniques to improve the effectiveness of their guns. They developed serial firing technique to create a continuous rain of bullets on the enemy.[10] They also developed bigger calibers to increase lethal power.[10] Protective boxes in lacquerware were invented to be able to fire matchlocks in the rain,[11] as well as systems to accurately fire weapons at night by keeping fixed angles thanks to measured strings.[12]

As a result, in the year 1567, Takeda Shingen announced that "Hereafter, the guns will be the most important arms. Therefore, decrease the number of spears per unit, and have your most capable men carry guns".[13] At the Battle of Nagashino in 1575, 3,000 arquebusiers helped win the battle, firing by volleys of 1,000 at a time, and concealed across a river and breastwork to effectively stop enemy infantry and cavalry charges while being protected.[14]

In the year 1584 Ikeda Sen led a troop of 200 women armed with firearms at the Battle of Komaki and Nagakute and in 1600 at the Battle of Sekigahara, rare example of Teppō unit, or musketeer unit consisting only of women.[15]

Japan became so enthusiastic about the new weapons that it possibly overtook every European country in absolute numbers produced.[9] Japan also used the guns in the Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592, in which about a quarter of the invasion force of 160,000 were gunners.[16] They were extremely successful at first and managed to capture Seoul just 18 days after their landing at Busan.[17]

Edo Period [ edit ]

The internal war in Japan was won by Tokugawa Ieyasu, who established the Tokugawa shogunate, a powerful entity that would maintain peace and prosperity in Japan for the following 250 years. From the mid-17th century, Japan decided to close itself to interaction with the West through its policy of Sakoku. Guns were used less frequently because the Edo Period did not have many large-scale conflicts in which a gun would be of use. Oftentimes the sword was simply the more practical weapon in the average small-scale Edo Period conflicts, nevertheless there were gunsmiths in Japan producing guns through the Edo Period.

It should also be noted that isolation did not decrease the production of guns in Japan—on the contrary, there is evidence of around 200 gunsmiths in Japan by the end of the Edo Period. But the social life of firearms had changed: as the historian David L. Howell has argued, for many in Japanese society, the gun had become less a weapon than a farm implement for scaring off animals.[18]

Late Edo Period [ edit ]

Japanese percussion pistol, 19th century, possibly converted from a matchlock.

A few Japanese started to study and experiment with recent Western firearms from the beginning of the 19th century especially as a means to repel the visits of foreign ships, such as the incursion by British frigate HMS Phaeton in 1808.[19] Through the process of rangaku (the studying of Western science through the Dutch), airguns were developed by Kunitomo Ikkansai c. 1820–1830. From 1828, experiments were made with flintlock mechanisms.[19]

The Nagasaki samurai Takashima Shūhan (高島秋帆) started to import flintlock guns from the Netherlands known as "Gewehr" from the 1840s.[20] He made the first modern Western military demonstration for the Tokugawa shogunate, in Tokumarugahara (north of Edo) on 27 June 1841.

With the arrival of Commodore Perry in 1854 and the inescapable opening of the country to trade, rapid efforts were made at reequipping Japan with modern fireams. Old matchlock weapons were recovered and converted to flintlock mechanisms.[21]

Boshin War [ edit ]

The mounting civil war in Japan and the opposition of various feudal lords against the Bakufu during the Late Tokugawa shogunate led to serious rearming until the 1867 Boshin War. At the same time, technological progress was extremely fast in the West, with the introduction of the rifle, breech-loading and even repeating firearms, so that Japanese armies were equipped with composite technologies, with weapons imported from countries as varied as France, Germany, the Netherlands, Britain and the United States, and coexisting with traditional Tanegashima guns.[22]

During the Boshin War, most shogunate vassal troops used Gewehr smoothbore guns. These guns were rather ancient and had limited capabilities, with an effective lethal range of about 50 meters, and a firing rate of about two rounds per minute. Much more effective Minié rifles were also used by the armies directly under the command of the shōgun, the Bakufu troops. The Daimyō of Nagaoka, an ally of the shōgun, possessed two Gatling guns and several thousand modern rifles. The shogunate is known to have placed an order for 30,000 modern Dreyse needle guns in 1866.[citation needed] In 1867, orders were placed for 40,000 state-of-the-art French Chassepot rifles, a part of which reached Edo by year's end.[22] Antiquated Tanegashima matchlock guns are also known to have been used by the Bakufu however.[23]

Imperial troops mainly used Minié rifles, which were much more accurate, lethal, and had a much longer range than the smoothbore Gewehr guns, although, being also muzzle-loading, they were similarly limited to two shots per minute. Improved breech-loading mechanisms, such as the Snider, developing a rate of about ten shots a minute, are known to have been used by troops of the Tosa Domain against the shogunate's Shōgitai, at the Battle of Ueno in July 1868. In the second half of the conflict, in the northeast theater, Tosa Province troops are known to have used American-made Spencer repeating rifles.[23] American-made handguns were also popular, such as the 1863 Smith & Wesson Army No 2, which was imported to Japan by the Scottish trader Thomas Blake Glover and used by the Satsuma forces.[23]

Modern period [ edit ]

The Arisaka rifle family. List goes top to bottom: 1. Arisaka Type 30 2. Arisaka Type 38 3. Arisaka Type 38 carbine 4. Arisaka Type 44 carbine 5. Arisaka Type "I" model. The Type "I" was produced by Italy for Japan and was basically an Arisaka with a Carcano action 6. Arisaka Type 99 (Earlier Model) 7. Arisaka Type 99 (Later Model)

For some time after the Meiji Restoration, Japan continued to use imported weapons. The newly created Imperial Japanese Army used firearms intensively against more traditional samurai rebellious forces during the Satsuma rebellion in 1877, with an average of 320,000 rounds of ammunition fired daily during the conflict.[24] After the Satsuma rebellion, Japan relied extensively on the French Chassepot.[25]

Japan finally developed its own model, the Murata rifle, derived from the French Fusil Gras mle 1874.[25] This was Japan's first locally made service rifle, and was used from 1880 to 1898. An industrial infrastructure, such as the Koishikawa arsenal had to be established to produce such new weapons.

Later, Japan developed the very successful bolt action Arisaka series rifles, which was the Japanese service rifle until the end of World War II.[26] Japan produced relatively few submachine guns during World War II, the most numerous model was the Type 100 submachine gun of which 24,000–27,000 were produced, compared, for example, with the British Sten of which millions were produced. During the war, the Japanese worked on a copy of the American semi-automatic M1 Garand (the Type 5 rifle) but only a few hundred were made before the end of the war and it did not enter service.

After the end of the war, the dissolution of the Imperial Japanese Army, and the establishment of the Japan Self-Defense Forces in 1947, Japan relied on M1 Garand rifles provided by the United States. In the mid-1950s however, Japan's Defense Agency started to develop battle rifles of its own, such as the Howa Type 64[27] and assault rifles like the Howa Type 89 which has been gradually replacing the former.[28]

See also [ edit ]

References [ edit ]


Recently, my colleagues and I published research in Mayo Clinic Proceedings that examined dietary data from almost 50 years of nutrition studies. What we found was astounding; these data were physiologically implausible and incompatible with survival. In other words, the diets from these studies could not support human life if consumed on a daily basis. The reason for this is simple; the memory-based data collection methods (M-BMs) used by nutrition researchers are unscientific because they rely on both the truthfulness of the study participant and the accuracy of his or her memory. Stated more simply, these methods collect nothing more than uncorroborated anecdotal estimates of food and beverage consumption.

Importantly, vast amounts of taxpayer dollars are directed away from rigorous scientific investigations and squandered every year on the collection of uncorroborated anecdotes via M-BMs. Approximately 80% of the data in the USDA’s National Evidence Library consists of uncorroborated anecdotes as well as 100% of the dietary data from every major epidemiologic study over the past 50 years (e.g., Nurses’ Health Study, Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, REGARDS project, and EPIC study). In other words, most of what nutrition researchers call “scientific evidence” is in reality a vast collection of nearly baseless anecdotes. Nevertheless, despite a century of unequivocal evidence that human memory and recall are woefully inadequate for actual scientific data collection, the data from these methods are used to create public health policy.

To date, no researchers have published data that challenge or attempt to refute our findings and conclusions. The reason for this fact is simple: our science is strong and our findings irrefutable. Nevertheless, this has not stopped government-funded researchers and officials from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from demonstrating an unscientific intolerance to criticism by using rhetoric and fallacious ad hominems in defense of their pseudoscientific methods. While these attacks do nothing to advance the science of nutrition, the fact that taxpayer-funded NIH officials and researchers are attacking and attempting to bully and censor legitimate scientists serving the public suggests that publicly-funded science is in grave jeopardy.

In September of 2015, prior to the publication of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, I was invited by President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology to present our research on implausible dietary data. The presentation was short and simple: the dietary data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, “What We Eat In America” study (NHANES /WWEIA) are incompatible with the survival and therefore cannot be used to inform public policy. Nevertheless, the administration proved impervious to contrary evidence and presented the implausible NHANES/WWEIA data as scientific evidence of the “Current Eating Patterns in the United States” in the recently published 2015 Guidelines. This official presentation is patently false and fraudulent. It should be obvious that dietary data that cannot support human life are not an accurate description of the “Current Eating Patterns” of Americans.

In response to the misrepresentation of the NHANES/WWEIA data, we recently published evidence on the willful manipulation and doctoring of data by government-funded researchers to support current dietary dogma. Yet perhaps the most egregious example of scientific fraud and misconduct in the Guidelines is the use of these implausible dietary data to create fear and uncertainty in American citizens. In chapter 2, the section entitled, "Underconsumed Nutrients and Nutrients of Public Health Concern," states that vitamins A, C, D, E, and iron are under-consumed. This statement is directly contradicted and refuted by the Government’s own objective data (i.e., serum biomarkers). For example, at the time of the last CDC Biochemical analysis, less than 1% of Americans were at risk for deficiencies in vitamins A and E, and 80% of Americans were not at risk for deficiencies in any of the minerals and vitamins measured (including vitamins C, D, and iron). It should be obvious that Americans could not be under-consuming vitamins A, C, D, E, and iron while at the same time maintaining healthy serum levels of these same vitamins and minerals. As such, the Guidelines present alarmist, subjective, implausible dietary data as scientific fact while ignoring the objective, rigorous, and obvious data that Americans are exceptionally well fed.

The Executive Branch of our Federal government and the government-funded nutrition community have been aware of the empirical refutation and misrepresentation of dietary data for decades, yet this evidence is ignored. Stated more simply, government officials knew the dietary data used to create the Guidelines were patently false but published them as fact.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans direct our attention and research resources towards unscientific and specious “nutrients of concern” and dietary dogma while distracting us away from the actual causes of obesity, diabetes and chronic non-communicable diseases. It is well-established that 80% of Americans are not at risk for any dietary deficiencies, yet more than 95% of Americans do not meet the minimum physical activity guidelines. Because of this simple fact, with each passing generation our children become better fed but less fit, less healthy, and fatter.

Until we replace the unscientific fiction of “we are what we eat” and the uneducated government-funded rhetoric that ‘food is our foe’ with rigorous scientific facts, many American children will live shorter, less fit and less healthy lives than their parents. Given this reality, it is our hope that in the meantime, the fatal conceit and lack of epistemic humility of the researcher-politicians in our Federal Government are constrained by the dictum “Primum non nocere” (First, do no harm). Retracting the fraudulent 2015 Guidelines will be a good start.


NEW DELHI: Highlighting benefits of the just- announced Crop Insurance Scheme, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said awareness about it should be spread across the country so that at least 50 per cent of the farmers join it within two years.In his monthly radio programme 'Mann Ki Baat', he also pitched for continued efforts to popularise Khadi and awarness to save girl child, mentioned about the recently launched 'Start-Up India' programme and talked about the upcoming International Fleet Review to be held in Visakhapatnam.Modi said he needs the "maximum help" from people about spreading awareness regarding the Pradhan Mantri Crop Insurance Scheme which was launched earlier this month."In our country, a lot is said in the name of farmers. I don't want to get involved in that debate. But farmers face a major crisis. In natural calamity, their entire effort goes waste. His one year goes waste. To give him security, only one thing comes to mind and that is crop insurance," he said in this year's first edition of the monthly radio programme."In (the New Year) 2016, the central government has given a big gift to the farmers -- Pradhan Mantri Crop Insurance Scheme. This scheme has been brought not for the purpose that it should be praised or the Prime Minister should be hailed," he said.The Prime Minister said that for so many years, there has been a talk regarding crop insurance but "not more than 20-25 per cent" of the country's farmers had been been able to benefit from such schemes."Can we take a pledge that we should connect at least 50 per cent of the farmers to this scheme in two years? I need this help from you. Because if a farmer joins the scheme, he will get huge help during a natural calamity," he said.Modi said this time, the scheme has got "wide acceptability because it has been made quite extensive and easy and involves use of technology. Not only this. If something happens to the crop within 15 days after harvest, even then help is assured."Usage of technology will ensure speedy assessment and disbursement of compensation, he said."The biggest thing is that the rate of premium has been kept so low which nobody would have imagined. The rate of premium for Kharif crop has been kept 2 per cent while for Rabi crop it is one-and-a-half per cent."Now tell me, if any farmer is deprived of the benefits of this scheme, will he not suffer loss? I want the awareness about this scheme to spread," he said.


Update 3: code for the demo video is here.

Update 2: In which I actually post working code.

Update: Eep! This post was featured on the Raspberry Pi blog today. Thanks, Liz!

And now for something completely different:

… a clock that isn’t human readable. You’ll need a QR code reader to be able to tell the time.

This, however, is not the prime purpose of the exercise. I was looking for an excuse to try some direct hardware projects with the GPIO, and I remembered I had a couple of Nokia-style surplus LCDs lying about that could be pressed into service. These LCDs aren’t great: 84×48 pixels, 3V3 logic, driven by SPI via an 8-pin header which includes PWM-controllable LED backlighting. They are cheap, and available almost everywhere: DealExtreme ($5.36), SparkFun ($9.95), Adafruit ($10 – but includes a level shifter, which you really need if you’re using a 5V logic Arduino), Solarbotics ($10) and Creatron (about $12; but you can walk right in and buy one). Despite being quite difficult to use, helpful people have written drivers to make these behave like tiny dot-addressable screens.

I’d been following the discussion on the Raspberry Pi forum about driving the Nokia LCD from a Raspberry Pi. Only when user bgreat posted some compact code that was supposed to run really fast did I dig out the LCD board and jumper wires. Building on bgreat’s nokiaSPI.py class and a few other bits of code, here’s what I built to make this singularly pointless clock:

#!/usr/bin/python # -*- coding: utf-8 -*- # qrclock - The Quite Rubbish Clock for Raspberry Pi - scruss, 2013-01-19 import time # need to use git://github.com/mozillazg/python-qrcode.git import qrcode from PIL import Image import ImageOps # uses bgreat's SPI code; see # raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=9814&p=262274&hilit=nokia#p261925 import nokiaSPI noki = nokiaSPI.NokiaSPI() # create display device qr = qrcode.QRCode(version=1, # V.1 QR Code: 21x21 px error_correction=qrcode.constants.ERROR_CORRECT_M, box_size=2, border=1) bg = Image.new('1', (84, 48)) # blank (black) image background while 1: qr.clear() newbg = bg.copy() # copy blank background s = time.strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S') qr.add_data(s) # make QR Code of YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS qr.make() qrim = qr.make_image() # convert qrcode object to PIL image qrim = qrim.convert('L') # make greyscale qrim = ImageOps.invert(qrim) # invert colours: B->W and W->B qrim = qrim.convert('1') # convert back to 1-bit newbg.paste(qrim, (18, 0)) # paste QR Code into blank background noki.show_image(newbg) # display code on LCD time.sleep(0.4) # pause before next display

(Convenient archive of all the source: qrclock2.zip, really including bgreat’s nokiaSPI class this time …)

To get all this working on your Raspberry Pi, there’s a fair amount of configuration. The best references are bgreat’s own comments in the thread, but I’ve tried to include everything here.

Enabling the SPI kernel module

As root, edit the kernel module blacklist file:

sudo vi /etc/modprobe.d/raspi-blacklist.conf

Comment out the spi-bcm2708 line so it looks like this:

#blacklist spi-bcm2708

Save the file so that the module will load on future reboots. To enable the module now, enter:

sudo modprobe spi-bcm2708

Now, if you run the lsmod command, you should see something like:

Module Size Used by spi_bcm2708 4421 0

Installing the WiringPi, SPI and other required packages

WiringPi by Gordon is one of the neater Raspberry Pi-specific modules, as it allows relatively easy access to the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO pins. For Raspbian, there are a few other imaging libraries and package management tools you’ll need to install here:

sudo apt-get install python-imaging python-imaging-tk python-pip python-dev git sudo pip install spidev sudo pip install wiringpi

Installing the Python QR code library

Finding a library that provided all the right functions was the hardest part here. I ended up using mozillazg‘s fork of lincolnloop‘s python-qrcode module. mozillazg’s fork lets you use most of the lovely PIL methods, while the original hides most of them. Since I had to do some image compositing and colour remapping to make the image appear correct on the Nokia screen, the new fork was very helpful.

To install it:

git clone git://github.com/mozillazg/python-qrcode.git cd python-qrcode/ sudo python ./setup.py install

The tiny 84×48 resolution of the Nokia screen doesn’t give you many options for sizing QR codes. For the time display of the clock, a 21×21 module Version 1 code with two pixels per module and one module margin just fits into 48 pixels. Using a medium level of error correction, you can fit the 19-character message (such as “2013-01-19 18:56:59”) into this tiny screen with a very good chance of it being read by any QR code reader.

(In the video, there’s a much larger QR code that’s a link to this blog post. That’s a Version 7 code [45×45 modules] at one pixel per module and no margin. This doesn’t meet Denso Wave’s readability guidelines, but the Nokia screen has large blank margins which seem to help. It won’t read on every phone, but you’re here at this link now, so you don’t need it …)

Wiring it all up

(Do I really need to say that you’ll be messing around with the inner delicate bits of your Raspberry Pi here, and if you do something wrong, you could end up with a dead Raspberry Pi? No? Okay. Just make sure you take some static precautions and you really should have the thing shut down and powered off.)

You’ll need 8 female-female jumper wires, and also some kind of pin header soldered in (I used right-angled ones). Note that the thick border of the LCD is the top of the screen. These boards are made who-knows-where by who-knows-whom, and there’s a huge variety of labels and layouts on the pins. My one appears to be yet another variant, and is labelled:

VCC GND SCE RST D/C DNK(MOSI) SCLK LED

This is how I wired it (from comments in bgreat’s code and the GPIO reference):

LCD Pin Function Pi GPIO Pin # Pi Pin Name ============= ============= =============== ============= 1 VCC Vcc 1 3.3 V 2 GND Ground 25 GND 3 SCE Chip Enable 24 GPIO08 SPI0_CE0_N 4 RST Reset 11 GPIO17 5 D/C Data/Command 15 GPIO22 6 DNK(MOSI) Data In 19 GPIO10 SPI0_MOSI 7 SCLK Serial Clock 23 GPIO11 SPI0_SCLK 8 LED Backlight 12 GPIO18 PWM0

Wire it up, and fire up the program:

sudo ./qrclock.py

Yes, code that accesses GPIO needs to be run as root. Pesky, but helps you avoid running code that accidentally scrams the nuclear power station you’re controlling from your Raspberry Pi …

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Update 3: code for the demo video is here. Update 2: In which I actually post working code. Update: Eep! This post was featured on the Raspberry Pi blog today....


A federal bankruptcy judge approved Thursday a Chapter 11 reorganization plan that will allow AT&T and DirecTV to purchase Comcast SportsNet Houston and relaunch it in November as Root Sports Houston.

There was no immediate indication, in the wake of Judge Marvin Isgur’s ruling, when the new network will launch with expanded carriage on DirecTV and AT&T U-verse in addition to Comcast.

However, CSN Houston has posted a broadcast schedule through Nov. 9, so the new network is not likely to launch until after that period.

Judge Isgur’s ruling does not mean that the case is concluded. Comcast, in fact, filed notice of appeal late Thursday night, alleging the judge erred on six grounds in his decision.

The appeal likely will be assigned to U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes.

In its appeal, Comcast says Judge Isgur erred in six areas:

— In confirming the reorganization plan.

— In not allowing Comcast’s secured claim to be accepted for payment over time under section 1111(b) of the bankruptcy code.

— In ruling that the plan met the requirements of section 1129(b) of the bankruptcy code in that it “does not discriminate unfairly, and is fair and equitable, with respect to each class of claims or interests that is impaired under, and has not accepted, the plan.”

— In ruling that the plan had been approved by a valid class of creditors that will not receive full payment of claims.

— In ruling that the plan did not discriminate against a class of creditors that included Comcast entities.

— In holding that the plan legally exculpates or provides protection against liability for the Astros, Rockets, DirecTV, AT&T and members of the CSN Houston but not against Comcast.

Judge Isgur, meanwhile, will preside over another hearing at 2 p.m. Friday as the parties continue to thrash through logistical issues involved in the transition from CSN Houston to Root Sports Houston.

“Everybody can lose a lot of money if you don’t reach an agreement,” the judge said. “There’s a lot at stake.”

Officials with the Rockets and Astros, who supported the reorganization plan, said they were pleased with the judge’s ruling.

“On behalf of Leslie Alexander and our organization and, more than anything, our fans, we are very appreciative of Judge Isgur’s ruling and look forward to getting our games on as quickly as possible,” said Rockets CEO Tad Brown.

“We want to stay focused to make sure that we get the network on the air to the entire market as quickly as possible. There are logistics involved. We’ve got to get with the Root Sports folks, but there is a clear path. We appreciate the judge for that path and it’s a great day for Rockets fans, Astros fans and sports fans in Houston.”

“It’s a great day for the fans,” said Astros general counsel Giles Kibbe. “We will have broad coverage on AT&T, DirecTV and Comcast, and this will put us in position where we can continue implementing our plans with the teams.

“It’s been very costly to the teams, but we’re looking forward. We have broad coverage and media rights fees that will enable us to compete. We’re not looking back. We’re looking forward. It’s been long and hard, but it’s a positive day.”

A spokesman for Comcast, which opposed the reorganization plan, said, “We are disappointed with the judge’s decision and intend to file an appeal.” DirecTV and AT&T, which will acquire the network for $5,000 and will invest $50 million, had no comment.

CSN Houston launched in the fall of 2012 but was never available across most Houston-area TV households. Comcast put the network into bankruptcy in September 2013 when the Astros threatened to retake their broadcast rights because the network could not pay rights fees.


President Donald Trump makes his way to board Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C, on Feb. 24. Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

President Donald Trump is getting ready to mark his 100 days in office as the least popular commander in chief of the modern era at this point in their presidency. But among his supporters, 96 percent of those who voted for Trump said they would do it all over again if the election were held today, and only 2 percent say they regret supporting him, according to the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll. In contrast, 85 percent of Americans who voted for Hillary Clinton said they’d vote for her if the election were held today. That’s not because Clinton voters would support Trump, but rather because they say they’d be more willing to back a third-party candidate or not vote at all.

The poll makes clear what numerous surveys have already pointed out: Trump has not enjoyed the typical 100-day honeymoon period. Overall, only 42 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s performance as president, and 53 percent disapprove. The number is worse in the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that puts Trump’s overall job-approval rating at 40 percent, 4 points lower than it was in February. That is in sharp contrast to the average 69 percent approval for past presidents at or near the 100-day mark. President Barack Obama, for example, had a 69-26 percent approval rating near his 100 days in office.

More than half of Americans don’t think Trump has accomplished much in his first 100 days. Forty-five percent of Americans flat out say that Trump’s presidency is off to a poor start while 19 percent say it’s been “only a fair start.” That compares to the 35 percent who say the president’s first 100 days have been “good” or “great,” according to the NBC/WSJ poll.

That doesn’t mean it’s all doom and gloom for the president. The Post/ABC poll also finds some surprisingly positive evaluations of the commander in chief’s performance on certain issues. More than half of Americans—53 percent—say Trump is a strong leader, including 25 percent of Democrats. Plus 73 percent of Americans approve of the way he has been pressuring companies to keep jobs in the country. A plurality—46 percent—also approve of the way he has been handling North Korea. The president also gets high marks for his recent military actions in Syria, which 62 percent of Americans say they support, according to the NBC/WSJ poll.

Still, despite these few bright spots, the polls point to mostly bad news for the president, as 56 percent say he doesn’t have the judgment to serve effectively as president, and 58 percent doubt his honesty and trustworthiness. The public also seems to have noticed Trump’s penchant for changing his mind, with 55 percent saying he doesn’t follow a consistent set of principles.

Democrats should be cautious about getting too gleeful about Trump’s numbers though, as 67 percent say the Democratic Party is out of touch with the concerns of most Americans, according to the Post/ABC survey. Both Trump and the Republican Party have better scores in that regard with 58 percent and 62 percent, respectively.

*This post has been updated to include additional information from the Washington Post/ABC News poll.


The Fraud Among Us, or Within Us?

It happens uncomfortably often. A successful person, who seemingly has achieved great things and earned respect and admiration, is exposed as a fraud. From Bernie Madoff to the imprisoned real estate developer who built the outsized, now foreclosed home in my neighborhood, I am reminded that people are not always what they seem.

Fraud disturbs me most when it happens close to my professional home. A decade ago, a social psychologist was forced to resign her position at the University of Texas and retract four articles. Now, it has happened again. Diederik Stapel, a productive and frequently honored social psychologist and self researcher, has resigned his position at Tilburg University after admitting to fabricating data in his research.

The most recent instance has been called “sad,” “shocking,” and “incomprehensible.” Cases of outright fraud in science are distressing for a lot of reasons. They damage the careers of students and collaborators, and raise doubts about nonretracted papers by the same author. Most important, they damage public trust in science and in scientists. In this case, trust in social psychologists and the work we do is undermined. Appropriately, then, SPSP has accepted Stapel’s resignation from the society, and asked him to step down from his various responsibilities.

Beyond these very real consequences, I find the psychology of these cases deeply disturbing. I try to put myself in the shoes of someone exposed as a fraud, and think about what it must feel like to be them. What would it feel like to receive respect, admiration, job offers, and even honors and awards, knowing that they are based on falsehoods? Honest, authentic human connections would seem impossible, if I knew I was not the person that my peers, students, and colleagues thought I was. How isolating would that be, how lonely? How present would fear of exposure be in daily life? And how humiliating and downright frightening would it be to be exposed and lose everything—job, career, status, respect? Just thinking about it, I feel ill. It’s inexplicable to me that someone with obvious intelligence, ambition, and talent would risk everything by falsifying data.

Explaining the Inexplicable

Perhaps these cases seem inexplicable because we find out about them at the end, when the fraud has been exposed. By that time, bad choices leading to minor transgressions have escalated into outright career-killing fraud, likely in ways that were never intended. Bernie Madoff surely didn’t begin his Ponzi scheme planning to steal $50 billion. Social psychologists probably don’t begin down the path to scientific misconduct by inventing a study’s worth of data from whole cloth, while foreseeing that this would eventually cause their entire program of research to be doubted. These cases surely began as small missteps, smoothing over uncooperative results of one form or another. Cases of fraud are more understandable when we think about how they begin and escalate, not how they end.

Stanley Milgram’s studies of obedience to authority provide insight into why people do things that are so counter to our norms and understanding of human nature that they seem either inexplicable, or the result of some form of pathology (Milgram, 1963). Usually, people interpret Milgram’s studies as revealing how obedient most of us are to authority or as evidence that the situation determines behavior. Another lesson of these experiments, however, may be more relevant to understanding cases of fraud: how easy it is to take the first small step on the slippery slope of violating our own norms and values, and how difficult it is to stop once the downward slide gains momentum (Modigliani & Rochat, 1995).

In Milgram’s studies, the research subjects were placed in the role of “teacher;” they were to administer electric shock to another subject, the “learner” (actually a confederate of Milgram), each time the learner gave an incorrect answer, using a “shock generator” consisting of 30 switches, the first labeled “15 volts, slight shock,” and increasing by 15 volt increments to “420 volts, danger: severe shock, and finally, “450 volts, XXX.” The teacher was to increase the shock by 15 volts each time the learner was wrong, or did not answer. When these roles were explained, the learner revealed that he had a heart condition.1

This experiment is famous because of where it ended; of the 40 subjects in the original version of the study, 26, or 65%, administered shock up to the final switch on the shock generator, well past the point at which the “learner” complained of heart pain and then stopped responding altogether. The lesson of the study seemed to be that people would violate their own moral codes and administer potentially deadly shock to an ill victim, merely on the say-so of an authority figure.

But this experiment may be more important for where it begins. All participants—100%–began by giving only a “slight shock” of 15 volts in response to the learner’s first incorrect answer. With the experimenter’s assurances that the shock might be painful but was not dangerous, what could be the harm of giving 15 volts?

The harm is that once people have given 15 volts of shock, they have no compelling reason to resist giving a tiny increase of another 15 volts. After all, they have implicitly conceded that 15 volts of shock is minor. And once they have given 30 volts of shock, why not 45? Each time participants administered shock—at first just a “slight” amount, then stronger shocks–that level of shock became the new “normal.” Consciously or unconsciously, teachers justified their behavior to themselves each time they pulled the switch, and each justification made pulling the next switch easier. It is much harder to see that giving shock is wrong and that one has the power to simply stop after one has already given shocks that increased from 15 to 300 or more volts. Thus did participants slide down the slippery slope toward administering potentially fatal shock (Modigliani & Rochat, 1995).2

Imagine what would have happened if Milgram had asked the teachers to begin by administering 450 volts of shock, marked XXX, beyond “danger: severe shock,” at the first wrong answer by the learner. To my knowledge, this variation of the Milgram studies has never been conducted. I suspect that “obedience,” in this scenario, would drop dramatically, perhaps even to 0.

For understanding fraud, the useful lesson of the Milgram studies is the significance of that first tiny step down the slippery slope, however “slight” a violation it may be. Each minor transgression, whether dropping an inconvenient data point or failing to give credit where it is due, creates a threat to self-image—“Am I that sort of person?” To avoid the discomfort, people rationalize and justify until their behavior feels comfortable and right, making the next transgression seem not only easier, but perhaps even morally right.

To be fair, we are all flawed, nonperfect human beings. Although the well-being of our science and our society, require that fraud be punished severely, merely focusing on the perpetrator may divert our attention from the fraud within us all. Although we don’t all fabricate data or run Ponzi schemes, if we look closely at our lives, surely all of us can find places where we took that first step, and perhaps several, down one slippery slope or another. Perhaps we transgressed in some minor way–snapped at our children, or borrowed a few words from someone without attribution. Perhaps we refused a request for some service or another because we wanted to focus on advancing our own careers. Because people are human, if we look for things we’ve done that violate, even just a tiny bit, our own moral values, surely we will find them.

Surely there are ways we are not who our colleagues think we are—we are less brilliant, witty, selfless, or helpful than we lead them to think. We already know what it feels like to be a fraud, be cause in little, nearly imperceptible ways, our desire to be well-regarded leads us to conceal our mistakes, weaknesses, and foibles from others. Perhaps, while enforcing the standards of our profession, we can still have compassion for those who transgress, knowing that it is in our nature as human beings to try to get others to see us in a positive light.

This analysis shifts the focus from “them” to “us,” and shifts the question away from, “How could they do it?” to “Why do we start in the first place?” and “How can we stop?”

Why do we start?

All of these transgressions, minor or major, may have started with a little fear of our egos. Milgram’s studies do not address the issue of why his participants administered the first 15 volts of shock. 100% of participants in his first study took this first step, so the data offer no clues as to why people might draw the line and not even take the first step. Through the lens of my own research, I suspect that something in this situation triggers egoistic concerns for participants; some fear or little anxiety was triggered. It wasn’t fear of losing their $4.50 payment for participating; Milgram assured subjects that the money was theirs to keep, no matter what. Instead, it was likely some fear of what noncompliance would mean about them (I wasted my time coming here; I’m not helpful; I’m the trouble-maker; I’m the one who screwed up science), or fear of being judged negatively by the experimenter. In some small, perhaps imperceptible way, noncompliance represented a threat to subjects’ self-image or public image.

In the same way, the first small step down the slippery slope of fraud probably starts out of some sort of egoistic fear or anxiety—fear of losing someone else’s admiration and respect, fear of letting others down, fear of being seen as a loser, fear of being a failure, or fear of not getting the job, the grant, or the award one covets.

How can we stop?

The difficult question then becomes, how can we stop the slide? Again, Milgram’s study is instructive. A meta-analysis of data from eight of Milgram’s obedience experiments showed that defiance of the experimenter was most likely at 150 volts, when the learner first requested to be released from the study (Packer, 2008). Although not conclusive, this finding suggests that, for defiant participants, at some point concern for the well-being of the learner took priority over concerns for self-image or public image that prevented defiance of the experimenter.

And this might be the most important lesson. Cultivating concern for the rights and well-being of others, making it a daily practice, committing to act on it—these things may help us stop our slide down that slippery slope. In the case of the 15 volt steps toward scientific misconduct, thinking about the consequences for our students, colleagues, loved ones, our institution, our discipline, or science itself might help us stop our own little slides, when they inevitably happen.

In this regard, we should all feel gratitude toward, and admiration for, those people who took the risk to stop something unacceptable when they saw it. Surely, they experienced egoistic fears—Will they believe me? What will happen to me? Will my own reputation be tarnished? But they acted for the common good in spite of those fears, and I, for one, thank them.

Footnote

1. For more information about the Milgram study see: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/50th-anniversary-of-stanley-milgrams-obedience-experiments.html)

2. I thank Marc-Andre Olivier for pointing out to me this powerful aspect of Milgram’s obedience paradigm.

Reference

Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371-378.

Modigliani, A., & Rochat, F. (1995). The role of interaction sequences and the timing of resistance in shaping obedience and defiance to authority. Journal of Social Issues, 51, 107-123.

Packer, D. J. (2008). Identifying systematic disobedience in Milgram’s obedience experiments: A meta-analytic review. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3, 301-304.

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A video purportedly showing three British schoolgirls moments before they were smuggled by an alleged foreign spy from Turkey into Syria - where they joined the Islamic State (Isis) terror group - has emerged.

Three girls, said to be runaway London teenagers Shamima Begum, Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase, are seen in the shaky footage as they unload their baggage from a taxi and enter another vehicle in what appears to be Turkey's southern city of Gaziantep.

They are helped by two men, one of whom is filming the operations with a mobile device. The man asks the girls their names and then helps them into another vehicle, saying it will take them across the border within one hour.

Speaking in English, he tells the girls not to forget anything, including their passports. "It's nice!" he is heard saying in the clip obtained by broadcaster A Haber.

He then wishes them good luck, adding he will not personally accompany them to the border as he will return to Sanlıurfa a Turkish about 50km north of the Syrian city of Kobani.

The smuggler was arrested earlier in March by Turkish authorities who claimed he was an intelligence officer working for an anti-IS coalition member state.

In a separate video also published by A Haber, the suspect is seen living a courthouse in Turkey flanked by plain clothed security agents.

"It turned out to be someone who worked in the intelligence services of a country in the coalition," Turkey Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said announcing the arrest.

The minister did not reveal the nationality of the agent but said they did not work for the US or any EU state. Turkish media claimed he was a Syrian national working for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), named as Mohammed al Rashid.

Canadian government sources denied the man was employed by CSIS or any other federal agency.

However, Reuters quoted a European security source familiar with the case as saying the suspect had ties to the CSIS.

A spokesperson for Canada's Public Safety Minister, Steven Blaney, told The Toronto Star: "We are aware of these reports. We do not comment on operational matters of national security."

Begum, 15, Sultana, 16, and 15-year-old Abase flew from London's Gatwick Airport to Istanbul on 17 February. CCTV images appeared to show the teenagers boarding a bus to Gaziantep, a notorious port of entrance for foreign fighters travelling to Syria. They are now believed to be living in IS's de facto capital, Raqqa.

The Turkish government has been criticised by its Nato allies for allegedly not doing enough to prevent would-be-jihadists from crossing its long and porous border with Syria. In turn, Ankara claimed Western states have failed to provide it with enough intelligence on suspect travellers.

Thousands of Westerners have travelled to IS-held territories via Turkey, swelling the terror group ranks over the past two years.


Aston Martin says Adrian Newey's new road car will be quicker than a Formula One car around some of the world's fastest race circuits.

The new car, codenamed the AM-RB 001, is being built as part of a new collaboration between Red Bull and Aston Martin, with under 100 examples expected to reach production in late 2018. Newey has been given a clean slate to design the car and is incorporating ground-effects and a mid-engined layout to create unprecedented levels of performance in a road car.

Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer said the target is to make a car capable of lapping Silverstone quicker than an F1 car.

"As we sit here today, the raison d'etre that we've given the team is to be faster than an F1 car around Silverstone - or indeed any other F1 track," Palmer said. "I am sure there are other cars that can go in straight lines quicker than this, but we don't make drag cars, we make cars you can use. That is the raison d'etre we use."

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says the potential performance of the AM-RB 001 will underline how much quicker Formula One cars could be with different regulations.

"I think it showed with unrestricted aerodynamics what is possible," he said. "I think that F1 has got scope to move the lap times considerably quicker. There is a step coming for 2017, we personally would like it to go further but we seem to be a lone voice in that. But F1 should be the ultimate.

"Taking unrestricted aerodynamics, this car will be seriously, seriously quick. And the initial indications we have had from it have generated more downforce than any car that we have ever produced."

Concrete details of the car remain slim, with the engine, tyres and expected performance figures yet to be released.

"We're not going to talk about tyre suppliers or anyone at the moment, but we are well down the line with talking to all of our suppliers," Aston Martin designer Marek Reichman said. "For anyone involved this is a very exciting programme to have your name as a supplier on this car. I don't know if you played Top Trumps when you were a kid, but this will be the Top Trump for everything."


Always Trying to Escape When I was a student at MIT I was interested only in science; I was no good at anything else. But at MIT there was a rule: You have to take some humanities courses to get more "culture." Besides the English classes required were two electives, so I looked through the list, and right away I found astronomy--as a humanities course! So that year I escaped with astronomy. Then next year I looked further down the list, past French literature and courses like that, and found philosophy. It was the closest thing to science I could find.

Before I tell you what happened in philosophy, let me tell you about the English class. We had to write a number of themes. For instance, Mill had written something on liberty, and we had to criticize it. But instead of addressing myself to political liberty, as Mill did, I wrote about liberty in social occasions--the problem of having to fake and lie in order to be polite, and does this perpetual game of faking in social situations lead to the "destruction of the moral fiber of society." An interesting question, but not the one we were supposed to discuss.

Another essay we had to criticize was by Huxley, "On a Piece of Chalk," in which he describes how an ordinary piece of chalk he is holding is the remains from animal bones, and the forces inside the earth lifted it up so that it became part of the White Cliffs, and then it was quarried and is now used to conve ideas through writing on the blackboard.

But again, instead of criticizing the essay assigned to us, I wrote a parody called, "On a Piece of Dust," about how dust makes the colors of the sunset and precipitates the rain, and so on. I was always a faker, always trying to escape.

But when we had to write a theme on Goethe's Faust, it was hopeless! The work was too long to make a parody of it or to invent something else. I was storming back and forth in the fraternity saying, "I can't do it. I'm just not gonna do it. I ain't gonna do it!"

One of my fraternity brothers said, "OK, Feynman, you're not gonna do it. But the professor will think you didn't do it because you don't want to do the work. You oughta write a theme on something--same number of words--and hand it in with a note saying that you just couldn't understand the Faust, you haven't got the heart for it, and that it's impossible for you to write a theme on it."

So I did that. I wrote a long theme, "On the Limitations of Reason." I had thought about scientific techniques for solving problems, and how there are certain limitations: moral values cannot be decided by scientific methods, yak, yak, yak, and so on.

Then another fraternity brother offered some more advice. "Feynman," he said, "it ain't gonna work, handing in a theme that's got nothing to do with Faust. What you oughta do is work that thing you wrote into the Faust."

"Ridiculous!" I said.

But the other fraternity guys think it's a good idea.

"All right, all right!" I say, protesting. "I'll try."

So I added half a page to what 1 had already written, and said that Mephistopheles represents reason, and Faust represents the spirit, and Goethe is trying to show the limitations of reason. I stirred it up, cranked it all in, and handed in my theme.

The professor had us each come in individually to discuss our theme. I went in expecting the worst.

He said, "The introductory material is fine, but the Faust material is a bit too brief. Otherwise, it's very good-- B + ." I escaped again!

Now to the philosophy class. The course was taught by an old bearded professor named Robinson, who always mumbled. I would go to the class, and he would mumble along, and I couldn't understand a thing. The other people in the class seemed to understand him better, but they didn't seem to pay any attention. I happened to have a small drill, about one-sixteenth-inch, and to pass the time in that class, I would twist it between my fingers and drill holes in the sole of my shoe, week after week.

Finally one day at the end of the class, Professor Robinson went "wugga mugga mugga wugga wugga . . . and everybody got excited! They were all talking to each other and discussing, so I figured he'd said something interesting, thank God! I wondered what it was?

I asked somebody, and they said, "We have to write a theme, and hand it in in four weeks."

"A theme on what?"

"On what he's been talking about all year."

I was stuck. The only thing that I had heard during that entire term that I could remember was a moment when there came this upwelling, "muggawuggastreamofconsciousnessmugga wugga," and phoom!--it sank back into chaos.

This "stream of consciousness" reminded me of a problem my father had given to me many years before. He said, "Suppose some Martians were to come down to earth, and Martians never slept, but instead were perpetually active. Suppose they didn't have this crazy phenomenon that we have, called sleep. So they ask you the question: 'How does it feel to go to sleep? What happens when you go to sleep? Do your thoughts suddenly stop, or do they move less aanndd lleeessss rraaaaapppppiidddddllllllllyyyyyyyyyyy yyy? How does the mind actually turn off?"

I got interested. Now I had to answer this question: How does the stream of consciousness end, when you go to sleep?

So every afternoon for the next four weeks I would work on my theme, I would pull down the shades in my room, turn off the lights, and go to sleep. And I'd watch what happened, when I went to sleep.

Then at night, I'd go to sleep again, so I had two times each day when I could make observations--it was very good!

At first I noticed a lot of subsidiary things that had little to do with falling asleep. I noticed, for instance, that I did a lot of thinking by speaking to myself internally. I could also imagine things visually.

Then, when I was getting tired, I noticed that I could think of two things at once. I discovered this when I was talking internally to myself about something, and while I was doing this, I was idly imagining two ropes connected to the end of my bed, going through some pulleys, and winding around a turning cylinder, slowly lifting the bed. I wasn't aware that I was imagining these ropes until I began to worry that one rope would catch on the other rope, and they wouldn't wind up smoothly. But I said, internally, "Oh, the tension will take care of that," and this interrupted the first thought I was having, and made me aware that I was thinking of two things at once.

I also noticed that as you go to sleep the ideas continue, but they become less and less logically interconnected. You don't notice that they're not logically connected until you ask yourself, "What made me think of that?" and you try to work your way back, and often you can't remember what the hell did make you think of that!

So you get every illusion of logical connection, but the actual fact is that the thoughts become more and more cockeyed until they're completely disjointed, and beyond that, you fall asleep.

After four weeks of sleeping all the time, I wrote my theme, and explained the observations I had made. At the end of the theme I pointed out that all of these observations were made while I was watching myself fall asleep, and I don't really know what it's like to fall asleep when I'm not watching myself. I concluded the theme with a little verse I made up, which pointed out this problem of introspection:

I wonder why. I wonder why.

I wonder why I wonder.

I wonder why I wonder why

I wonder why I wonder!

We hand in our themes, and the next time our class meets, the professor reads one of them: "Mum bum wugga mum bum . . ." I can't tell what the guy wrote.

He reads another theme: "Mugga wugga mum bum wugga wugga. . ." I don't know what that guy wrote either, but at the end of it, he goes:

Uh wugga wuh. Uh wugga wuh

Uh wugga wugga wugga.

I wugga wuh uh wugga wuh

Uh wugga wugga wugga.

"Aha!" I say. "That's my theme!" I honestly didn't recognize it until the end.

After I had written the theme I continued to be curious, and I kept practicing this watching myself as I went to sleep. One night, while I was having a dream, I realized I was observing myself in the dream. I had gotten all the way down into the sleep itself!

In the first part of the dream I'm on top of a train and we're approaching a tunnel. I get scared, pull myself down, and we go into the tunnel--whoosh! I say to myself, "So you can get the feeling of fear, and you can hear the sound change when you go into the tunnel."

I also noticed that I could see colors. Some people had said that you dream in black and white, but no, I was dreaming in color.

By this time I was inside one of the train cars, and I can feel the train lurching about. I say to myself, "So you can get kinesthetic feelings in a dream." I walk with some difficulty down to the end of the car, and I see a big window, like a store window. Behind it there are-not mannequins, but three live girls in bathing suits, and they look pretty good!

I continue walking into the next car, hanging onto the straps overhead as I go, when I say to myself, "Hey! It would be interesting to get excited--sexually--so I think I'll go back into the other car." I discovered that I could turn around, and walk back through the train--I could control the direction of my dream. I get back to the car with the special window, and I see three old guys playing violins--but they turned back into girls! So I could modify the direction of my dream, but not perfectly.

Well, I began to get excited, intellectually as well as sexually, saying things like, "Wow! It's working!" and I woke up.

I made some other observations while dreaming. Apart from always asking myself, "Am I really dreaming in color?" I wondered, "How accurately do you see something?"

The next time I had a dream, there was a girl lying in tall grass, and she had red hair. I tried to see if I could see each hair. You know how there's a little area of color just where the sun is reflecting--the diffraction effect, I could see that! I could see each hair as sharp as you want: perfect vision!

Another time I had a dream in which a thumbtack was stuck in a doorframe. I see the tack, run my fingers down the doorframe, and I feel the tack. So the "seeing department" and the "feeling department" of the brain seem to be connected. Then I say to myself, Could it be that they don't have to be connected? I look at the doorframe again, and there's no thumbtack. I run my finger down the doorframe, and I feel the tack!

Another time I'm dreaming and I hear "knock-knock; knock-knock." Something was happening in the dream that made this knocking fit, but not perfectly--it seemed sort of foreign. I thought: "Absolutely guaranteed that this knocking is coming from outside my dream, and I've invented this part of the dream to fit with it. I've got to wake up and find out what the hell it is."

The knocking is still going, I wake up, and . . . Dead silence. There was nothing. So it wasn't connected to the outside.

Other people have told me that they have incorporated external noises into their dreams, but when I had this experience, carefully "watching from below," and sure the noise was coming from outside the dream, it wasn't.

During the time of making observations in my dreams, the process of waking up was a rather fearful one. As you're beginning to wake up there's a moment when you feel rigid and tied down, or underneath many layers of cotton batting. It's hard to explain, but there's a moment when you get the feeling you can't get out; you're not sure you can wake up. So I would have to tell myself--after I was awake--that that's ridiculous. There's no disease I know of where a person falls asleep naturally and can't wake up. You can always wake up. And after talking to myself many times like that, I became less and less afraid, and in fact I found the process of waking up rather thrilling--something like a roller coaster: After a while you're not so scared, and you begin to enjoy it a little bit.

You might like to know how this process of observing my dreams stopped (which it has for the most part; it's happened just a few times since). I'm dreaming one night as usual, making observations, and I see on the wall in front of me a pennant. I answer for the twenty-fifth time, "Yes, I'm dreaming in color," and then I realize that I've been sleeping with the back of my head against a brass rod. I put my hand behind my head and I feel that the back of my head is soft. I think, "Aha! That's why I've been able to make all these observations in my dreams: the brass rod has disturbed my visual cortex. All I have to do is sleep with a brass rod under my head, and I can make these observations any time I want. So I think I'll stop making observations on this one, and go into deeper sleep."

When I woke up later, there was no brass rod, nor was the back of my head soft. Somehow I had become tired of making these observations, and my brain had invented some false reasons as to why I shouldn't do it any more.

As a result of these observations I began to get a little theory. One of the reasons that I liked to look at dreams was that I was curious as to how you can see an image, of a person, for example, when your eyes are closed, and nothing's coming in. You say it might be random, irregular nerve discharges, but you can't get the nerves to discharge in exactly the same delicate patterns when you are sleeping as when you are awake, looking at something. Well then, how could I "see" in color, and in better detail, when I was asleep?

I decided there must be an "interpretation department." When you are actually looking at something--a man, a lamp, or a wall--you don't just see blotches of color. Something tells you what it is; it has to be interpreted. When you're dreaming, this interpretation department is still operating, but it's all slopped up. It's telling you that you're seeing a human hair in the greatest detail, when it isn't true. It's interpreting the random junk entering the brain as a clear image.

One other thing about dreams. I had a friend named Deutsch, whose wife was from a family of psychoanalysts in Vienna. One evening, during a long discussion about dreams, he told me that dreams have significance: there are symbols in dreams that can be interpreted psychoanalytically. I didn't believe most of this stuff, but that night I had an interesting dream: We're playing a game on a billiard table with three balls--a white ball, a green ball, and a gray ball--and the name of the game is "titsies." There was something about trying to get the balls into the pocket: the white ball and the green ball are easy to sink into the pocket, but the gray one, I can't get to it.

I wake up, and the dream is very easy to interpret: the name of the game gives it away, of course-them's girls! The white ball was easy to figure out, because I was going out, sneakily, with a married woman who worked at the time as a cashier in a cafeteria and wore a white uniform. The green one was also easy, because I had gone out about two nights before to a drive-in movie with a girl in a green dress. But the gray one-what the hell was the gray one? I knew it had to be somebody; I felt it. It's like when you're trying to remember a name, and it's on the tip of your tongue, hut you can't get it.

It took me half a day before I remembered that I had said goodbye to a girl I liked very much, who had gone to Italy about two or three months before. She was a very nice girl, and I had decided that when she came back I was going to see her again. I don't know if she wore a gray suit, but it was perfectly clear, as soon as I thought of her, that she was the gray one.

I went back to my friend Deutsch, and I told him he must be right--there is something to analyzing dreams. But when he heard about my interesting dream, he said, "No, that one was too perfect--too cut and dried. Usually you have to do a bit more analysis."


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Hundreds of tourists were evacuated from the Eiffel Tower tonight - as armed police and soldiers searched tourists in central Paris.

The whole area around the popular tourist attraction was cordoned off and the popular tourist hotspot placed on lockdown.

At 9pm tonight the situation was declared a "false alarm" and the vicinity began to return to normal.

Initially there was confusion and the reason for the evacuation was not immediately clear - with unconfirmed reports of a "suspicious package" having been found.

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French outlet BFMTV reported that security services spotted an abandoned piece of luggage.

Eyewitnesses described a large police presence at the scene - with many cops spotted carrying assault rifles.

Visitors were warned away from the site of France's most popular landmark - with Twitter users reporting the military had been deployed "all over" the place.

Police allowed people into the ground floor restaurant - but nobody else was allowed to venture any further - according to one report.

People were reported to be acting calmly - with "no state of panic" - and responding well to the show of force.

The French nation is on a knife-edge after suffering a number of Islamic State terrorist attacks in the last 18 months - including the attacks in Paris last November, the attack in Nice last month and the murder of a French priest in Normandy last week.

According to BMFTV the evacuation was undertaken as a precautionary measure in the wake of these attacks.


Sometimes it happens on rough days that a glimmer peaks through.

I received a handwritten letter via snail mail (address on sidebar) from a young Jesuit… I know, I know….

Here is some of it:

Thank you for your vocation, your bold witness to the truth and beauty of the Church’s teaching, and your blog. I’ve been in [JESUIT SCHOOL] for my theological studies for the past three years and found your blog encouraging and grounding to say the least. Please pray for me and the twelve other men being ordained with me. For the greater part we are a solid JPII/Benedict group and I have a lot of hope for the good things we might do to do right by our Founder’s great vision.

That’s what I’m talking about!

There are a lot of younger Jesuits who want the real deal. They need support.

Papa Ganganelli! Pray for them!

Dear readers, pray for them.


The Mendenhall Order marked a decision to change the fundamental standards of length and mass of the United States from the customary standards based on those of England to metric standards (Mendenhall 1922). It was issued on April 5, 1893, by Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, with the approval of the United States Secretary of the Treasury, John Griffin Carlisle. The order was issued as the Survey's Bulletin No. 26 - Fundamental Standards of Length and Mass.

Standards before the order [ edit ]

In October 1834, the United Kingdom Houses of Parliament were destroyed in a fire, and the British standards of length and mass were also destroyed. "When the new imperial standards to replace them were completed in 1855, two copies of the yard and one copy of the avoirdupois pound were presented to the United States" (Barbrow & Judson 1976, 9). These were superior to the yard then in use, so one of them was adopted as the United States national standard yard. These yards were taken to England and re-compared with the imperial yard in 1876 and 1888. The pound provided by the United Kingdom agreed with the United States mint pound, which remained the national standard according to Barbrow and Judson. Hockert (2015) claims the UK pound replaced the mint pound.

These were the fundamental standards for customary length and mass measurements in the United States, but the Office of Weights and Measures had other standards for metric measurements.

Official recognition of the metric system [ edit ]

The Metric Act of 1866 was passed by Congress and allowed, but did not require, the use of the metric system. Included in the law was a table of conversion factors between the traditional and metric units. The U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey Office of Weights and Measures had on hand a number of metric standards, and selected the iron “Committee Meter” and the platinum "Arago Kilogram" to be the national standards for metric measurement; the standard yard and pound previously mentioned continued to be the standards for customary measurements. (Barbrow & Judson 1976, 10).

A series of conferences in France between 1870 and 1875 led to the signing of the Metre Convention and to the permanent establishment of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, abbreviated BIPM after the French name. The BIPM made meter and kilogram standards for all the countries that signed the treaty; the two meters and two kilograms allocated to the United States arrived in 1890, and were adopted as national standards (Barbrow & Judson 1976, 16).

Reasons for the change [ edit ]

The imperial standard yard of 1855 was found to be unstable and shortening by measurable amounts (Barbrow & Judson 1976, 16). Also, the mint pound was found to be “likewise unfit for use.” For several years before the Mendenhall order was actually issued, the Office of Weights and Measures was “practically forced” to use the metric standards because of their superior stability, and because they were better designed for carrying out precision comparisons. The Office found that the conversion tables in the 1866 law were satisfactory and used them to derive customary length and mass from the metric standards. The conversions were 1 yard = 3600⁄ 3937 meter and 1 pound = 0.4535924277 kilogram. The Mendenhall order amounted to a formal announcement of a change that had already occurred (Mendenhall 1922).

Refinement of the conversions [ edit ]

The definitions of 1893 remained unchanged for 66 years, but increasing precision in measurements gradually made the differences in the standards in use in English-speaking countries important. By the international yard and pound agreement of July 1, 1959, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States agreed that 1 yard = 0.9144 meter and that 1 avoirdupois pound = 0.45359237 kilogram (but see U.S. survey foot in the foot) (Barbrow & Judson 1976, 20).

Standards versus systems [ edit ]

Mendenhall ordered that the standards used for the most accurate length and mass comparison change from certain yard and pound objects to certain meter and kilogram objects, but did not require anyone outside of the Office of Weights and Measures to change from the customary units to the metric system.

See also [ edit ]


South Carolina General Assembly

120th Session, 2013-2014

Download This Bill in Microsoft Word format

Indicates Matter Stricken

Indicates New Matter

H. 4923

STATUS INFORMATION

General Bill

Sponsors: Rep. Nanney

Document Path: l:\council\bills\dka\3161cm14.docx

Introduced in the House on March 12, 2014

Currently residing in the House Committee on Education and Public Works

Summary: Bicycles

HISTORY OF LEGISLATIVE ACTIONS

Date Body Action Description with journal page number ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3/12/2014 House Introduced and read first time (House Journal-page 13) 3/12/2014 House Referred to Committee on Education and Public Works (House Journal-page 13)

View the latest legislative information at the website

VERSIONS OF THIS BILL

3/12/2014

(Text matches printed bills. Document has been reformatted to meet World Wide Web specifications.)

A BILL

TO AMEND THE CODE OF LAWS OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1976, BY ADDING SECTION 56-1-1715 SO AS TO REQUIRE THE OWNER OF A BICYCLE TO OBTAIN A PERMIT FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF MOTOR VEHICLES AND LIABILITY INSURANCE AS IS REQUIRED OF MOTOR VEHICLES BEFORE OPERATING A BICYCLE ALONG A HIGHWAY WHOSE MAXIMUM SPEED LIMIT IS AT LEAST THIRTY-FIVE MILES AN HOUR; AND BY ADDING SECTION 56-3-115 SO AS TO PROVIDE THAT NOTWITHSTANDING ANY OTHER PROVISION OF LAW, FOR THE PURPOSES OF REGISTRATION AND THE REQUIRED LIMITS OF LIABILITY INSURANCE, A MOPED IS A MOTOR VEHICLE.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina:

SECTION 1. Article 9, Chapter 1, Title 56 of the 1976 Code is amended by adding:

"Section 56-1-1715. (A) Notwithstanding another provision of law, the owner of a bicycle who is at least fifteen years old shall obtain a bicycle permit from the Department of Motor Vehicles upon payment of a fee of five dollars and maintain liability insurance on the bicycle as is required of an owner of a motor vehicle as provided in Chapter 77, Title 38, before operating the bicycle along a highway whose maximum speed limit is at least thirty-five miles an hour.

(B) Before the department issues a bicycle permit, the applicant must pass successfully all parts of a bicycle safety written examination that is developed by the department. The examination shall include a test of the applicant's eyesight, as pertains to the operation of a bicycle, a test of his ability to read and understand highway signs regulating, warning, and directing traffic and his knowledge of the traffic laws of this State. This permit must be in the applicant's immediate possession when the bicycle is operated along a highway whose maximum speed limit is at least thirty-five miles an hour. A person who is less than fifteen years old may not operate a bicycle along a highway whose maximum speed limit is at least thirty-five miles an hour."

SECTION 2. Article 3, Chapter 3, Title 56 of the 1976 Code is amended by adding:

"Section 56-3-115. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, for the purposes of registration and the required limits of liability insurance, a moped is a motor vehicle."

SECTION 3. This act takes effect upon approval by the Governor.

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This web page was last updated on March 18, 2014 at 10:13 AM