How Modern Scenario Planning Developed
The story of modern scenario planning has been told many times but here is a brief sketch of its history. An account from 1999, when the use of scenarios had been evolving for almost 30 years in corporations, and had also been adopted by government and international organisations, has the following introduction:
“While all companies learn, the crucial element is to be able to learn fast enough to sustain a competitive advantage. This is becoming increasingly important in today’s fast-changing world. Unfortunately, teaching is a very ineffective way to communicate information. Sometimes changing or suspending corporate rules can accelerate learning. A very effective learning tool, which can be described as a form of game playing, is developing ‘what if’ scenarios and planning responses to them.”1
International organisations, government institutions and multiple other associations don’t have commercial competitors but it is still advantageous for the communities they serve to be able to act in an informed fashion. It will assist the music sector project to have a well-defined idea based on extensive preparation to identify issues. Our answer is scenario planning.
A workbook by Michigan State University professor Richard Bawden2 provides another useful reference by an Australian-born academic who is still actively developing these ideas in the United States.
The United States military first used scenarios after World War II for strategic planning — think-tanks such as the RAND Corporation used scenario-type thinking and simulated war games of military strategy for decades.
In business, Royal Dutch Shell’s experience began in 1971 with what was to become the first widely documented and recognised success story of modern scenarios. Pierre Wack, recognised as one of the great teachers of scenario planning, introduced Shell to scenarios. The price of oil rapidly became the main item on the agenda. Wack convinced Shell’s management that hiring more forecasters to extrapolate existing realities in a straight line had become pointless, indeed extremely risky in the new world of societal, geopolitical and economic discontinuities that emerged in many different areas from the late 1960s. The only way to stability, Wack argued, was to accept uncertainty, and organisations would have to be systematically open to heresy.
According to a later chief planner at Shell, Kees van der Heijden, two goals were defined. One was to create ‘a critical mass of intent’ concerning possible upheavals in an industry, and develop scenarios to provide a way of experiencing upheavals before they actually occur — thus preparing managers to react quickly if and when real events arise. The second goal was to spur extensive debate to prepare a context for future planning.3
Shell gained a famous advantage when envisaging in one of its first scenarios that the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries in the Middle East would take radical action and proclaim an oil embargo — which as everyone knows actually happened in 1973. This action by the OPEC cartel caused a strong rise in oil prices and a decline in demand for oil after steady annual growth of 6-7% since the 1940s. Shell acted as promptly as possible on the implications of its scenario story to cut its planned volume of production, but the other oil refiners apparently needed two years to discover that anything had happened and then required another five or six years to work out the real impact of the oil crisis. So the world oil market became badly oversupplied through the rest of the 1970s.4
Moya Mason notes, remarkably in view of the current Music Trust project:
“The scenario process involves great amounts of research, both broad searches that facilitates educating the planner, and narrow focuses needed for a specific scenario. Each scenario requires specific research, although there are some constant subjects that need to be studied at all times such as science and technology, and music (italics added). Peter Schwartz [another former chief planner at Shell who is also mentioned in Global Risk Factors and Music in Australia] says that music is a window onto the freedom in the future. (So pay attention to the music!)”
It is even more remarkable that not one of the scenarios we discuss in Global Risk Factors and Music in Australia pays any attention to the arts, let alone music — whether as an inspiration for scenario planning or as a subject for such planning.
The History Parallel
Historians have debated for at least two centuries whether their role is to describe events as if there were no underlying causes or effects — as if history was divinely ordered, or governed by ‘reason’ as the Age of Reason in the late 18th and early 19thcenturies would have it, the class struggle (Karl Marx), or any other deterministic ‘law’. Logically, deterministic historical models do not allow ‘what if’ or imagined (‘counterfactual’) alternatives to be offered.
In a 90-page essay prefacing nine ‘what if’ cases ranging across ‘What if there had been no American revolution?’, ‘Germany had invaded Britain in 1940’, and ‘John F. Kennedy had not been assassinated’, British historian Niall Ferguson5 concludes based on chaos theory that it is legitimate to pose counterfactual historical alternatives if these are plausible so that mere chance is replaced by probabilities.6 “The counterfactual scenarios we therefore need to construct are not mere fantasy: they are simulations based on calculations about the relative probability of plausible outcomes in a chaotic world (hence ‘virtual history’).” (p 85)
“Under these circumstances, the search for universal laws of history is futile. The most historians can do is to make tentative statements about causation with reference to plausible counterfactuals, constructed on the base of judgements about probability.” (p 89)
“At any given moment in history there are real alternatives. … How can we ‘explain what happened and why’ if we only look at what happened and never consider the alternatives … It is only if we place ourselves before the alternatives of the past …, only if we live for a moment, as the men of the time lived, in its still fluid context and among its still unresolved problems, if we see those problems coming upon us, … that we can draw useful lessons from history.” British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper7)
What If Britain had Stood Aside in 1914?
I am writing this article in the centenary year of the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 — in fact only a few days before the 100th anniversary of the final departure on 1 November 1914 from Albany, Western Australia of the first Anzacs who fought at Gallipoli from 25 April 1915. World War I will be on the centenary radar for the next four years. It is an appropriate example to choose as one of the bloodiest and most influential events in the 20th century, quite apart from offering a good illustration of virtual history.8
The author Hector Hugh Munro (who used the pen name Saki) in 1913 told how the protagonist of one of his stories returned from ‘darkest Asia’ to find a vanquished Britain ‘incorporated into the Hohenzollern Empire … as a Reichsland, a sort of Alsace-Lorraine washed by the North Sea instead of the Rhine’, with Berlin-style cafés in ‘Regentstrasse’ and on-the-spot fines for walking on the grass in Hyde Park. (p 229)
The historian Basil Liddell Hart argued in 1942, during the thick of World War II, that Germany could have been defeated in World War I without embroiling Britain in the prolonged continental campaign if the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) had been sent to Belgium in 1914 rather than France, or if more troops had been made available for the Dardanelles invasion in 1915.9 J. M. Hobson has offered the view that a bigger continental commitment before 1914 could have deterred the Germans from attacking France in the first place.10
Niall Ferguson argues that there “remains a third possibility, which has been all but ignored by historians: that of British non-intervention.” Prime Minister H. H. Asquith and Foreign Secretary Edward Grey, both in office until 1916, emphasised that Britain had not been obliged to intervene by any kind of contractual obligation. (p 236)
Ferguson asks: Was war between Britain and Germany inevitable in 1914? British politicians including David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill saw a ‘dangerous disease’ at work and used the metaphor of a typhoon beyond the control of the statesmen. Of more importance, however, was the argument that Britain “could not, for its own safety and independence, allow France to be crushed as a result of aggressive action by Germany.”11
Between the closing years of the 19th century and 1914, there was a widely held view that the German Reich intended to make some kind of challenge to British power, so British historians should not ridicule Saki for being a scaremonger and propagandist for the conscription campaign.
Despite this, Niall Ferguson was uneasy about the notion of a preordained war between Britain and Germany, if only because at the time Virtual History was written “eighty years on, the cost of war looms so much larger than its benefits.” If all the sacrifices of the ‘Great War’ were supposed to prevent German hegemony in Europe, this achievement was short-lived. Only twenty years after the war, a far more serious German threat to Britain, and indeed the world, emerged. “It is therefore tempting to ask whether the four years of slaughter in the trenches were indeed as futile as they seemed to the poet Wilfred Owen and others.” (pp 234-235)
The neglect of the ‘counterfactual’ case for neutrality reflects the persuasiveness of postwar apologies from Asquith, Grey and other leaders who admitted that Britain had actually had a choice to stay out but had chosen to enter the war not to be discredited for having played an inglorious part. “While it seems undeniable that a continental war between Austria, Germany, Russia and France was bound to break out in 1914, there was in truth nothing inevitable about the British decision to enter that war. Only by attempting to understand what would have happened had Britain stood aside can we be sure the right decision was made.” (p 237)
Anglo-German cooperation was actually quite widespread around the turn of the 20th century. There were numerous overseas areas where German and British interests potentially coincided. In 1898 and 1900 Joseph Chamberlain argued for such cooperation against Russia in China. There was serious though inconclusive discussion of an Anglo-German-Japanese “triplice” in 1901, and other examples of cooperation between Britain and Germany. Ferguson says, “It is simply untrue to say that the fundamental priorities of policy of each country were mutually exclusive.” (p 239)
The approaches between Germany and Britain did, however, wane in the years that followed, mainly because Britain came to see Germany as less of a threat because of its own superior naval power. The German chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg proposed a deal to accept British naval supremacy in return for continental neutrality, but it was rejected by Grey because Britain could have the former without giving way on the latter. (p 252)
The crucial issue in the counterfactual history was Germany’s war aims in 1914. It was alleged after the war that these aims were the annexation of French, Belgian and possibly Russian territory, but Churchill had already demonstrated the weakness of Germany’s position before the war. Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg’s view then was that war would strengthen the political left and weaken the Reich internally. “No war in Europe can bring us much,” he said. (p 259)
In Niall Ferguson’s counterfactual history, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) that actually started the British commitment was not sent into Europe, and four years of confrontation and devastation for Britain, its allies and foes were averted because the European war finished years earlier, without Britain being involved.
The dispatch of the BEF in 1914, then, was not a foregone conclusion. The counterfactual history is a war without the BEF. “If the BEF had never been sent, there is no question that the Germans would have won the war.” (p 276)
What then? The Germans would have overwhelmed the French defence quickly, and any British intervention that could be imagined would have been very different. The BEF “would have been rendered obsolete by the French defeat; had it been sent, a Dunkirk-type evacuation would probably have been necessary.” (p 277)
Niall Ferguson sums up his counterfactual history (pp 278-279):
“A fresh assessment of Germany’s pre-war war aims reveals that, had Britain stood aside — even for a matter of weeks — continental Europe would have been transformed into something not unlike the European Union we know today — but without the massive contraction in British overseas power entailed by the fighting of two world wars. Perhaps too the complete collapse of Russia into the horrors of civil war and Bolshevism might have been averted: though there would still have been formidable problems of rural and urban unrest, a properly constitutional monarchy (following Nicholas II’s abdication) or a parliamentary republic would have stood more chance of success after a shorter war. And there certainly would not have been that great incursion of American financial and military power into European affairs which effectively marked the end of British financial predominance in the world. True, there might still have been fascism in Europe in the 1920s; but it would have been in France rather than Germany that radical nationalists would have sounded most persuasive. It may even be that, in the absence of a world war’s stresses and strains, the inflations and deflations of the early 1920s and early 1930s would have not been so severe. With the Kaiser triumphant, Hitler could have lived out his life as a failed artist and a fulfilled soldier in a German-dominated Central Europe about which he could have found little to complain.”
“By fighting Germany in 1914, Asquith, Grey and their colleagues helped ensure that, when Germany did finally achieve predominance on the continent, Britain was no longer strong enough to provide a check to it.” (p 280)
An Afterword on Counterfactual History
I remember from my student days in the 1950s reading textbooks by the ‘American Keynes’, Harvard Economics Professor Alvin Hansen (1887-1975), including his 1941 book Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles. He assumed as a matter of course what appeared to be a widely held view that the United States would stay out of World War II. The raid on Pearl Harbor happened at the end of 1941, a few months after the book was published, and prompted America to declare war the following day. Why did Japan attack, and was its action inevitable? Would it have done so if it had expected correctly that American domestic support for non-interventionism, which had been strong, would disappear virtually overnight? Now there is stuff for another counterfactual history, as dramatic as the ‘what if’ story about Britain staying out of the European war in 1914!
Not all the counterfactual history examples in Virtual History were seen to change the world as much as Ferguson’s World War I scenario, or the likely consequences if America had not been provoked to enter World War II. American historian Diane Kunz in her ‘Camelot Continued: What if John F. Kennedy had lived?’12 argues that by the time Kennedy would have stood down after his two terms and Nixon gaining office in 1968, his presidency would have been less than shining. There would have been no early withdrawal from Vietnam and no ‘great society’, as under Lyndon Johnson’s actual presidency. Kennedy’s personal inclination according to this story was to be a foreign policy president: his lack of success in realising a domestic agenda made it indispensable for him to succeed internationally. Kunz concludes (p 391): “The former Communist world has lost its idols. It is now time for Americans to relinquish one of theirs.”
As all good virtual histories and all good scenarios, this is plausible. Plausibility is everything for both subjects — without plausibility, no credibility. But in virtual history and scenarios for the future, other possible versions could be written. Kennedy might have developed, or been influenced by external events to develop, concerns similar to those that drove Johnson. Bill Clinton turned the tide to favour his own administration in his second term (with possible longer-term consequences for his wife Hillary’s presidential ambitions). Barack Obama may still have time to do likewise, though the political tide keeps running against his administration as I write.
Chaos Theory and the Natural and Social Sciences
Niall Ferguson, in Virtual History, argues that the new science of chaos theory marks the end of scientific determinism.
“A great many … philosophers of history who have argued in this [20th] century about whether history was a ‘science’ seem not to have grasped that their notion of science was an out-of-date relic of the nineteenth century. What is more, if they had paid closer attention to what their scientific colleagues were actually doing, they would have been surprised — perhaps even pleased — to find that they were asking the wrong question.” (p 72)
Indeed, Niall Ferguson finds that many modern developments in the natural sciences have been fundamentally historical in character in that they have been concerned with changes over time. Chaos theory demonstrates that the natural world is unpredictable enough to make the task of accurate prediction virtually impossible. The same applies to the social sciences: ”For economists, chaos theory helps to explain why predictions and forecasts based on the linear equations which are the basis for most economic models are so often wrong.” (p 78) Ferguson refers to an article by John Kay, ‘Cracks in the Crystal Ball’, first appearing in the Financial Times, 29 September 1995. It starts as follows:
”It is a conventional joke that economic forecasters always disagree, and that there are as many different opinions about the future of the economy as there are economists. The truth is quite the opposite. Economic forecasters do not speak with discordant voices; they all say more or less the same thing at the same time. And what they say is almost always wrong. The differences between forecasts are trivial relative to the differences between all forecasts and what happens.”
Two comments follow on John Kay’s article, and one linking forecasting to scenario planning:
- Writing in the 1990s which were generally growth years, he also found that the consensus forecasts fell short of the actual outcome. I could place a reasonable bet (not further explored) that current consensus forecasts, six or seven years after the Global Financial Crisis, tend to be optimistic, unless economists as a group have been gripped by a feeling that the economy has entered a fundamental new phase, which I doubt.
- I spent the 1960s as an economic forecaster, covering mainly short-term forecasts of the Australian economy and its building and motor vehicle sectors, 12 to 18 months ahead. In retrospect, the decade was exceptional for its stability and predictability, so my forecasts were reasonably accurate. But that didn’t last. Social upheavals piled up in the late 1960s, followed by events starting with the 1973 oil crisis. By that time I had (fortunately) left formal statistical forecasting behind to develop other professional skills.
- Even today, formal Australian scenarios have been misused to produce forecasts of particular indicators such as employment of music professionals relative to gardeners and greenkeepers and other “arts and recreation occupations”. See Global Risk Factors and Music in Australia, commenting on the 2012 scenarios by the Australian Workforce and Productivity Agency (AWPA). It might make sense to produce such derived forecasts to fit alternative scenarios dealing with an interconnected entity like the music sector (and maybe even the arts as a whole), but it is difficult to see the connection between the employment of musicians and other largely unrelated “arts and recreation” occupations.
How Chaos is Changing Perceptions
Modern chaos theory started to emerge in the early 1960s, as a wide range of different sciences ran into unexpected and puzzling snags: sciences including astronomy, biology, chemistry, climate, ecology, economics, health, physics — not to mention the mathematics which underlies the theory. Weather forecasting was the first area that was found to defy “the Newtonian promise that the world unfolded along a deterministic path, rule-bound like the planets, predictable like eclipses and tides.”13 The stumbling block was nonlinearity — while linear systems are mathematically solvable, that is not the case when more complex behaviour enter the system. Linear systems can be captured with a straight line on a graph, nonlinear systems cannot. Here is a simple example:
”Without friction, a simple linear equation expresses the amount of energy you need to accelerate a hockey puck [disc]. With friction the relationship gets complicated, because the amount of energy changes depending on how fast the puck is already moving. Nonlinearity means that the act of playing the game has a way of changing the rules. You cannot assign a constant importance to friction, because its importance depends on speed. Speed, in turn, depends on friction. That twisted changeability makes nonlinearity hard to calculate, but it also creates rich kinds of behaviour that never occur in linear systems.” (Gleick 2008, p 35)
A whole new terminology has been introduced to deal with the impact of nonlinearity, including “fractal geometry”, “strange attractors”, “self-similarity”, “bifurcations”, “intermittencies” and “periodicities” — not to mention “smooth noodle maps”.14 The central concept binding them together is fractals, which Wikipedia defines as a natural phenomenon or a mathematical set that exhibits a repeating pattern that displays at every scale — arguably chaos’s most striking feature.15
Scientists gradually came to realise that the textbooks were wrong in showing only solvable, linear systems, or relatively rare nonlinear systems which could be subjected to linear approximations or some other uncertain backdoor approach. “Nonlinear systems with real chaos were rarely taught and rarely learned. When people stumbled across such things — and people did — all their training argued for dismissing them as aberrations. Only a few were able to remember that the solvable, orderly, linear systems were the aberrations. Only a few, that is, understood how nonlinear nature is in its soul. [Italian Nobel Prize winning physicist] Enrico Fermi once exclaimed, “It does not say in the Bible that all laws of nature are expressible linearly!”16
As a result, a new generation of scientists has come along, armed with a more robust set of assumptions about how nature works. They know that a complex dynamical system can get freaky — causing one mathematician described as ‘revelling in chaos’ to remark: “The freaky stuff is turning out to be the mathematics of the natural world.” (p 395)
Different aspects of chaos have been taken up by modern management theorists on one hand, and postmodern literacy theorists on the other. (p 395) Chaos is getting closer to becoming universally used and accepted.
The so-called butterfly effect in chaos theory has become almost a pop cliché: the image of a butterfly flapping its wings in, say, Beijing, causing a tornado in, say, Texas a week later — sensitive dependence on small differences in initial conditions to quote Wikipedia. The butterfly effect conjures up an image of predictability giving way to pure randomness, but the ‘chaos pioneers’ saw more than randomness embedded in their models. They saw, to quote one of them (the research meteorologist and mathematician Edward Lorenz credited with being first to recognise chaos in 1961 and the father of the illustration to the right), a fine geometrical structure, ‘an order masquerading as randomness’. (p 32)
The butterfly effect has its place in folklore:
For want of a nail, the shoe was lost;
For want of a shoe, the horse was lost;
For want of a horse, the rider was lost;
For want of a rider, the battle was lost;
For want of a battle, the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.17
In conclusion, chaos theory is here to stay. “In the heady early days, researchers described chaos as the century’s third revolution in the physical sciences, after relativity and quantum mechanics. What has become clear now is that chaos is inextricable from relativity and quantum mechanics. There is only one physics.” (p 399).
It is tempting to add that so many other sciences have become involved that the influence of chaos and nonlinearity goes way beyond physics, not only into other sciences as Gleick’s book demonstrates but — at least potentially — into the way we look at culture and the arts and other vital parts of modern society as well.
Chaos, History and Scenarios
Reversing the sequence of the narrative, chaos is intimately linked to nonlinearity, which implies non-predictability. All or most sciences and many commercial activities have benefited from the insights that chaos theory has supplied over the past 50 years. What about music and the other arts? There seems to be no way to put these into a mechanistic straitjacket. They are inherently nonlinear by their very nature.
My discovery of virtual or counterfactual history came from browsing a bookshop in Santa Monica, California, in August 2014. I was aware of chaos from the paper version of James Gleick’s book from 1987. One of the books I bought was Virtual History with Niall Ferguson’s essay demonstrating that it was legitimate to speculate what if such and such hadn’t happened, as in the World War I and Kennedy examples quoted from the book. Ferguson dismissed the tradition that history should be treated as if it was determined, precluding any ‘what if?’ question. His justification was based on chaos theory: “Chaos … means unpredictable outcomes even when successive events are causally linked.” (p 79) His only general condition was that the counterfactual histories should be plausible.
Turning to scenarios versus history, the common factor is again that the stories must be plausible. In Virtual History, past events are remodelled to come up with a counterfactual past history (only one alternative is offered though there seems no logical reason why more could not be included, as in scenario planning). In contrast to virtual history, which sets one alternative course from a past set of circumstances, scenarios take their origin in the present and compare three or four plausible and equally likely futures. Defining these futures provides a basis for planning to avoid the worst ones to achieve the better ones, given the societal, technological, ecological, economic and political realities postulated in each of the scenarios.
New or refreshed insights like these, and the combination of chaos, history and scenario theory in promoting these insights, should serve to make the Music Trust scenario-planning project even more suitable in creating plausible and realistic futures for the Australian music sector, across the spectrum from favourable to less so. Of course, the draft scenarios (as in all scenario planning) will still need feedback from members of the sector but they would be drafted at a more advanced level than if the research summarised in this article hadn’t been done.
Articles in This Series
- Putting Numbers on Our Cultural Assets: Not Yet Possible (27.3.2014)
- How to Explore the Cultural Future (7.4.2014)
- Cultural and Creative Activity in Australia (15.4.2014)
- Global Risk Factors and Music in Australia (17.10.2014)
- Scenarios, Virtual History, and Chaos (20.10.2014)
- Ideas from Other Global Scenarios (8.12.2014)
- Four Global Scenarios Set the Stage (18.12.2014)
- Music Sector Structure for Scenarios (28.2.2015)
- Valuing the Invaluable (5.3.2015)
- Some Big Possible Positives – Or? (20.6.2015)
- A First Set of Music Sector Scenarios (23.6.2015)
- Global Leadership Challenges: A Missing Link in the Scenario Planning (31.10.2015)
- Present and Future Changes and Their Role in the Scenarios (20.12.2015)
- Complex Adaptive Systems and Music (9.1.2016)
Hans Hoegh-Guldberg. Entered on Knowledge Base 20 October 2014.
- Moya K. Mason, Scenarios, The Art of Storytelling, 1999.↩
- Richard Bawden, Learning from the Future: Of Systems, Scenarios and Strategies, Michigan State University, written in about 2001. Before his appointment as a Visiting Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University in 1999, Richard Bawden AM was a professor at the University of Western Sydney. He is also a foundation director of Global Business Network Australia. GBN remains the best-known international scenario-planning firm↩
- Moya Mason, 1999.↩
- Kees van der Heijden, Scenarios, the Art of Strategic Conversation, John Wiley & Sons 1996, p 3.↩
- Niall Ferguson (ed.), ‘Towards a “chaotic” theory of the past’, Virtual History, Basic Books, New York 1999, 1-90. Original edition published by Picador, London 1997. The page references following are from the American edition.↩
- Chaos theory is discussed in the final sections and is an essential part of how the issues gained relevance for history and scenario research.↩
- History and Imagination: Essays in Honour of H.R. Trevor-Roper edited by Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Valerie Pearl and Blair Worden, Duckworth, 1981, pp 363 ff.↩
- Niall Ferguson, ‘The Kaiser’s European Union: What if Britain had stood aside in August 1914?’, Chapter 4 of Virtual History, pp 228-280.↩
- B. H. Liddell Hart, The British Way in Warfare, London 1942.↩
- Journal of European Economic History 1993, pp 461-507.↩
- Winston Churchill, The World Crisis, 1911-1918, London 1922.↩
- Virtual History, pp 368-391.↩
- James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science, Iconic EBooks 2011, p 22 (downloaded from iBooks). I recommend this authoritative, up-to-date and clear account of chaos theory, which was concluded in 2008 as an update of the original book version, published in 1987. It gives a fascinating 480-page picture of the scientific ‘heroes’ who encountered and tackled seemingly intractable issues. — The page references refer to the portrait-format presentation in the digital version (it can also be read in landscape format on a tablet computer such as iPad).↩
- The term refers to the surface pattern of a human brain but all the references are to an album released in 1990 under the same name by American new wave band Devo which contains the line “snake through the chaos with a smooth noodle map“.↩
- The realisation that chaos theory is important for scenario planning is not new but its central role took years to emerge. Kees van der Heijden wrote in 1996 (pp 34-35): “Lately chaos theory has impressed on the world the view that many phenomena taking place in nature are unpredictable not just because we lack the analytical knowledge and capacity, but are unpredictable in principle. This is related to complexity and non-linear characteristics of systems, which can be shown to result in behaviour which is intrinsically unknowable in its detail. Terms such as “the butterfly effect” (a flutter of the butterfly’s wings here causing a storm on another continent next week) are stock in trade.”↩
- Gleick 2008, p 86. Fermi made his remark long before chaos theory emerged — he died aged only 53 in 1954.↩
- Gleick 2008, p 34. The rhyme is said to refer to the death of Richard III of England at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, but the Wikipedia entry on “for want of a nail” shows that a rather similar earlier version exists. Shakespeare probably strengthened the reference to Richard by having him shout, A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse! after he was unhorsed in the battle (Richard III, Act V, Scene 4).↩


In A Nutshell
In the 1930s, a visionary astronomer named Fritz Zwicky was the first to recognize cosmic rays, dark matter, dwarf galaxies, gravitational lenses, neutron stars, and supernovas. He also had eccentric ideas about colonizing other planets by using nuclear bombs to change their sizes and orbits. However, his colleagues abruptly dismissed most of his theories regardless of whether they made sense or not. Although Zwicky remained friendly with his school’s administrative staff and students, he publicly lashed out at colleagues, which some say cost him his place in history. Zwicky’s daughter, Barbarina, is on a one-woman mission to change what she feels is an unfair perception of her father.
The Whole Bushel
In the 1930s, a visionary astronomer named Fritz Zwicky was the first to recognize cosmic rays, dark matter, dwarf galaxies, gravitational lenses, neutron stars, and supernovas. Probably, his work would have earned just about anyone else worldwide fame and honors from his peers.
Like so many great scientists, he was clearly a man ahead of his time. Although some of his ideas were accepted, his colleagues abruptly dismissed most of his theories regardless of whether they made sense or not. For example, astronomers agreed with his ideas about supernovas, but they thought neutron stars and gravitational lenses were nonsense. However, many of Zwicky’s pioneering theories, including those on neutron stars, were later confirmed by other scientists. It wasn’t until 1967 that astronomers discovered pulsars, which are spinning neutron stars. In 1979, after Zwicky’s death, scientists located the first gravitational lenses.
Although Zwicky went against the theoretical norm in science for his time, he was also regarded as overbearing and abrasive by some of his colleagues. “Astronomers are spherical bastards,” he supposedly said. “No matter how you look at them, they are just bastards.” He lambasted his fellow astronomers, some by name, in an introduction to his published catalog of bright compact galaxies. He accused fellow scientists of stealing his ideas and hiding their mistakes. Supposedly, he even called one associate, Walter Baade, “the Nazi” during World War II.
Jesse Greenstein, former head of the Astronomy Department at Caltech, is on record as saying, “I disliked him as a human being. He was vain and very self-centered. Zwicky had an enormous facility to produce radical new ideas, some of which proved to be correct, but a lot of us wish he had not been so rough in the process.”
Although Zwicky publicly lashed out at colleagues, which some say cost him his place in history, he remained friendly with his school’s administrative staff and students. So it’s unclear if his rancor for his colleagues occurred because they were competitors, because he was frustrated by what he perceived as their unfair treatment and lack of vision, or both.
Like most people who blaze new ground in big ways, he had his share of clunker ideas. For example, he believed we should colonize other planets by using nuclear bombs to change their sizes and orbits. He also wanted to turn the Sun into a giant spaceship through nuclear fusion reactions that would pull Earth along with it. Sounds crazy. Then again, if the future repeats the past, it’s possible the rest of us just haven’t caught up with his thinking. But he did insist that if America didn’t implement some of his wilder ideas, the Russians would. Obviously, that never happened. As brilliant as he was, he made mistakes, too.
Zwicky’s daughter, Barbarina, is on a one-woman mission to change what she feels is an unfair perception of her father. She also wants him to be given his rightful place in scientific history. Some of the quotes attributed to Zwicky about “spherical bastards” and “the Nazi” were printed in Richard Preston’s book, First Light, after Zwicky’s death. Barbarina calls Preston’s description of her father a “vile, slanderous, vicious attack.” She wanted to pursue Preston legally, but found she had no rights to do so. There were several other books that angered her with these types of descriptions. She believes colleagues at Caltech stayed away from Zwicky because they were ashamed, envious, and in awe of him.
Barbarina intends to pass down her crusade against her father’s detractors to her son. But as time goes on, the personality issues are being forgotten in favor of Zwicky’s scientific achievements. Unfortunately, they weren’t always appreciated when he was alive.
Show Me The Proof
Featured photo via Wikipedia
American Museum of Natural History: Fritz Zwicky’s Extraordinary Vision
io9.com: The Astronomer Who Wanted to Rearrange the Solar System, Using Nukes
Discover: The Father of Dark Matter Still Gets No Respect
New Mexico Museum of Space History: Fritz Zwicky
Daytona Beach Morning Journal: He Offers A Look At Future


How to Make a Lead in Minecraft – In Minecraft, the ones who have mobility are called mobs. They are consisting of animals, monsters, and zombies.
There are some categories on mobs, for example, passive mobs, utility mobs, and tameable mobs. Furthermore, there is an instrument that is made especially for utility and passive mobs.
The name is lead or leash. In this chance, we will get to know how to make a lead in minecraft.
How to Make a Lead in Minecraft: A Lead to the Leash
As the name suggests, lead is mainly used for leading or assisting the movement of utility mobs and passive mobs. Passive mobs are the ones who give us lesser amount of pain.
See Also : How to Make a Trident in Minecraft
On the contrary, utility mobs acts as a shield to protect us from the hostile ones. The degree of lead’s rarity is considered low, so it can be accessed easily. Then, it is one of various renewable items in Minecraft.
How We Can Access the Lead?
There are two ways to access the lead. The first way is surely by gathering some appropriate materials and turns them into the lead. The second way is you can do chest looping
The Lead’s Working Process
The Minecraft lead can reach the 10 blocks at max so it’s quite a stretchy element in Minecraft. Then, you can stick or attach the lead to some other items, like fences and ships.
What You Need to Create a Lead?
It takes two to tango! That’s true! These two materials can make an excellent lead at the end of the day. Okay, now, let our hands and computer do their job. At first, you need to have these items with you:
- 4 pieces of string
- One slimeball
Let’s Jump Into the Steps Right Away!
Let’s get our limbs and screen work for finishing the maze on how to make a lead in Minecraft.
See Also : How to Make a Minecraft Server with Hamachi
Step 1: Each and every Minecraft tools’ crafting process must be started by opening the 3×3 grid of crafting.
Step 2: Carry those materials into the 3×3 grid of crafting. For this lead recipe, we will utilize 5 boxes out of 9 boxes.
You may begin the process by inputting the slimeball to the second row, to be exact, in the middle square.
After that, put the first two strings in the first grid row. Next, carefully place the third string next to the slimeball.
See Also : How to Make Charcoal in Minecraft
Then, the last thing that you must do is putting the fourth string in the 9th box or the last grid row.
Step 3: Add your lead to your own Inventory
Other Recipes of Lead That You Shouldn’t Miss
Besides just a solid lead, you can be imaginative with your lead. You may add more ingredients, like lapis lazuli, helium, latex, and colorful ink to create a colorful balloon.
However, if you prefer a simpler balloon, you can just insert latex, helium, and black ink to have it.
I hope that this article is helpful in solving how to make a lead in Minecraft.


IN THIS CHAPTER
Why user accounts?
Creating and managing user accounts
Using user accounts
Recovering forgotten passwords
User account control secrets
Managing credentials and online IDs
Every person who uses your computer is called a user, and each user should have his or her own user account on the computer. Giving each person a user account is a lot like giving each person his or her own separate PC, but a lot cheaper. Each user can personalize the desktop and other settings. Each person can have his or her own separate collection of pictures, music, videos, and other files. Each user can also set up his or her own separate e-mail account.
User accounts allow parents to create and enforce parental controls in Windows 8.1. This is a great tool for parents who can't always monitor when and how children use the computer. Parental controls allow you to control and monitor children's computer use 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even when you're not around to do it yourself.
User accounts also add a level of security to your computer. Many security breaches occur not because of a problem with the computer or Windows, but because the user is in an account that grants malware (bad software) permission to do its evil deeds. Of course, people don't realize that they're granting permission because the program doesn't ask for permission. It gets its permission automatically from the type of user account you're currently logged into. ...


The Attic black-figure neck amphora, ‘Dionysus and The Maenads’, was created and signed by the Amasis Painter in 540-535 BCE. It depicts a mythological, mundane snapshot of Dionysus and two of his female followers, The Maenads, who are shown to be in the middle of offering the god a hare and a fawn. The vase now finds it home in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris and is deemed a paragon of Archaic vase painting with its palmette compositions, mythological depictions and use of the Black figure.
· Neck amphora: A vase shape where the neck joins with the body of the vase at a sharp angle. Its use was for storage.
· Dionysus: One of the Twelve Olympians who was the god of wine and fertility.
· The Maenads: Female worshippers of Dionysus.
· Geometric period: Time of Greek history during 900-700 BCE.
· Archaic period: Time of Greek history during 699-480 BCE.
· Black-Figure Technique: Figures were illustrated by using a black pigmented clay with intricate details incised into the clay using a sharp instrument.
· Exekias: Greek vase painter who worked between 545-530 BCE.
The Black-Figure Technique
It was in Corinth in 700 BCE that Black-Figure painting was born. The movement into naturalism and the portrayal of everyday life with the use of mythological figures also began to dominate the art scene, particularly in the Archaic era (699 – 480 BCE). Alongside the clay application and firing to the vase, the more intricate details were incised by using a sharp tool to create features such as hair, drapery designs and decoration. The fine incisions in Dionysus’ hair would have been created through the use of a needle, whereas his garments and the panther skin dresses of The Maenads, which was cleverly used by The Amasis Painter as a homage to Dionysus’ symbol, the panther, would have been delineated through the black clay pigment. The Amasis Painter also incorporated the fundaments of the Black Figure period upon his vases: the use of the black pigment contrasted to the white to show the difference between men and women (Dionysus is illustrated in Black Figure, whereas The Maenads in white); almond/oval-shaped eyes for women and profile facing figures (all three figures). The Black Figure technique would soon be replaced by the Red Figure technique in the late 6th century, but it was The Amasis Painter who was and still is revered for being a master at utilising the Black Figure technique.
The Amasis Painter attempts to show movement within his vase through the bent arm and raised feet of the Maenads to imitate the frivolous nature of Dionysus and his cult. The movement of The Maenads is contrasted by the stillness of Dionysus’ garment, which reignites Dionysus’ ascendancy as a deity through the movement convulsing onto him – not him moving towards his followers. The Maenads were believed to be possessed by Dionysus and were labelled throughout antiquity as the raving ones. They would use the wine of Dionysus to induce a frenzied state and spend their time indulging in dancing, intercourse and ecstasy. The connection between the Maenads of their arms around one another’s shoulders and their interlocking figures indicates an amicable and respectable aurora between the followers and deity: they feel as if they can behave in an eased manner in front of Dionysus. Albeit the depiction of movement is not revolutionary in style and in some cases static (Dionysus reaching out for his offering for example), it still encapsulates an essence of closeness between the god and his followers through the cordial closeness in the three figures.
There is an attempt at portraying naturalistic anatomy, but it can be seen as perplexing when trying to distinguish the figures from one another. The Maenads are registered as a conjoined figure instead of two individual women, it is puzzling to work out whose arm belongs to the correct woman at first glance, which therefore makes it seem that the two are a whole entity instead of separate. The different patterns on their dresses do help to differentiate them from one another, however, the Amasis painter lacks to create humanised space between them. Dionysus’ stature indicates his strength, however, it is the ‘lesser’ parts of his anatomy that are unnatural. For example, his fingers are exceptionally elongated which creates more of a cartoon feel than a natural one. These inconsistencies in anatomy simply can be credited towards the movement from the Geometric era of art into the Archaic, where artists, the Amasis Painter and Exekias in particular, began to experiment with naturalism over idealism in their works. Whilst it isn’t the most flawless delineation of the human body, it paved the way for the next generation of artists to work on.
Symmetry and Cohesion
Mertens observation of how “The Amasis Painter is recognizable by his preference for symmetry, precision and clarity, and expressiveness through mastery of his medium and composition” does indeed prove correct due to the examples portrayed upon the amphora. When talking about aesthetics, the vase is pleasing: the decoration is based upon symmetry and repetition and there is a ‘W’ shaped symmetrical pattern with the hare being centre to the composition. What is most cohesive about the vase is the recognition of the ornamental borders of lotuses, palmettes and tendril décor which takes its inspiration from the Geometric era. The mixture of the figures with the patterns and borders does indeed bring the vase to life: it is not a mundane vase where you lose attention quickly, it elicits a bacchanal scene which moulds itself into the tales of the myths.
Overall, the Amasis Painter’s amphora, Dionysus and The Maenads is a key example of Archaic vase artistry and does indeed allow the Amasis Painter to be credited, dutifully, for his skill and craftsmanship when creating such winsome vessels. The painter certainly snapshotted the mythological scenes upon his vase in an attempt of anthropomorphising Gods for the benefit of the mortals to make them feel closer to the Gods. The closeness and affection demonstrated between Dionysus and The Maenads helps both contemporary and modern viewers to recognise the relationship between the cult and the deity and gives a clear representation of how important it was to follow religious practices and to respect the polytheistic nature of society. Without a doubt, this amphora is truly one of the more intriguing pieces of material culture in Greek art and the work of the Amasis painter helped the next generation to elaborate and expand upon the foundations himself, and the other Archaic artists, created.
Joan R. Mertens, The Amasis Painter and His World, 168; R. M. Cook, Greek Painted Pottery, 3rd ed. (London: Routledge, 1997), 83.
Theoi.com, n.d. K12.28 DIONYSUS & MAENADS AMASIS PAINTER. [image] Available at: <https://www.theoi.com/Gallery/K12.28.html> [Accessed 17 January 2021].
Academus Education is an online learning platform providing free Classics Education to students through summer schools, articles and digital think tanks. If you wish to support us, please buy us a coffee on our ko-fi page.


Tobacco Prevention Resources for Providers
The 2014 Surgeon General's Report: The Health Consequences of Smoking marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark 1964 report, the first federal government report linking smoking with specific diseases.
American Lung Association
The American Lung Association website provides a summary of state ranking and grading on tobacco prevention and control, how to take action, and spread the word.
Best Practices for Comprehensive Tobacco Control Programs
CDC's Best Practices for Comprehensive Tobacco Control Programs—2014 is an evidence-based guide to help states plan and establish effective tobacco control programs to prevent and reduce tobacco use.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides a website that focuses on youth tobacco prevention that consists of educational materials, fact sheets, campaigns and multimedia tools.
Department of Housing and Urban Development
HUD and federal partners developed smoke free tool kits for public housing agency management and residents. HUD published “Change is in the Air” Action Guide.
National Native Network
National Native Network is a public health resource that serves to decrease commercial tobacco use and cancer health disparities among members of American Indian and Alaska Native Tribes across North America.


Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless, tasteless poisonous gas. Symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning are dizziness, nausea, headaches, and in more severe exposures can lead to convulsions, respiratory arrest, and ultimately death.
Carbon monoxide poisoning is the most common cause of injury and death due to poisoning worldwide.The CDC reports, “Each year, more than 500 Americans die from unintentional carbon monoxide poisoning. Poisoning is typically more common during the winter months due to increased use of gas furnaces, gas or kerosene space heaters, and kitchen stoves during the winter months, which if faulty or used without adequate ventilation, may produce high levels of carbon monoxide.
People may have different carbon monoxide tolerance levels. Exposures at 100 ppm or greater is considered dangerous. In the United States, the OSHA limits long-term workplace exposure levels to less than 50 ppm averaged over an 8-hour period. If an upper limit of 100 ppm is reached, employees are to be removed from the confined space .
Carbon monoxide is produced, among other ways, as a by-product of the incomplete combustion process of fuel gases, such as natural gas, propane, and butane. Fuel gas appliances, including water heaters, gas furnaces and boilers, use fuel gases as the heating source.
Prevailing mechanical and gas codes and the manufacturer’s installation instructions govern the installation of gas appliances and the associated venting. Deviations from these guidelines can lead to excessive carbon monoxide levels and carbon monoxide poisoning.


Wanca (from Proto Uralic *wanča ‘root’) is a collection of links to web pages written in various Uralic languages. The pages have been found using the automated system developed in the SUKI project. At the moment, Wanca consists of 57 491 links to 919 sites containing pages written in 36 of the smaller Uralic languages.
You can browse the link collection through the languages and language groups or by the list of top-domains. See instructions for how to use Wanca. Native speakers and scholars are invited to create a personal account and help us verify the language labels given to the pages by our automatic language identifier. The verified links will be used for new crawls and to further improve our language identifier. After signing up you can apply for expert rights by sending us a message through our contact form.
In the SUKI project we are promoting the smaller Uralic languages and we do not intentionally collect links to pages written in Hungarian, Finnish or Estonian. Wanca is the result of the Language Programme of the Kone Foundation for small Finno-Ugric languages.
* The site is still under construction. When initially identifying the language of the links we found, we did not want to miss any potential texts written in small Uralic languages. Therefore, the site contains many links that turned out not to contain the target languages. We are re-identifying the links with a stricter filter, but with automatical language identification it is not possible to identify the language of all web pages correctly so we need the help of those who know these languages. We also wanted to get feedback on both the site and the links and, therefore, opened the site for public use already at this stage. A list of the recent updates made to Wanca can be found here.


Modernisation and Dependency Theory Essay Sample
- Word count: 2217
- Category: development
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Modernisation and Dependency Theory Essay Sample
The aim of this essay is to compare and contrast the modernization and dependency theories. It then attempts to determine which theory explains what is going wrong in developing countries. The essay begins by defining theory. Secondly, it defines the modernization and dependency theories and their examples that attempt to offer an explanation on what is going wrong in developing countries. A conclusion is finally drawn to summarize the comparisons and contrast between the two theories. Theory refers to a set of logical propositions that explain a given phenomenon. It is a set of organized ideas that offer logical explanations of the interrelationships among different variables, (Oxford dictionary, 2000). Development theories are, therefore, a set of logical propositions that explain how development occurred in history and how it should occur. Development theories particularly aim to reduce and eliminate oppression and poverty for example, in order to improve human conditions. Modernization is a process of change towards higher levels of development or civilization towards those of the western and European nations or the north countries.
Modernism entails a style and movement in art, architecture and literature popular in the mid 20th century in which modern ideas, methods and materials were used rather than traditional ones, (Ibid). It involves the association of economic growth and development with progress and civilization. Growth is perceived to be a natural process which can be facilitated by rational utilization of inputs and available resources. Dependency refers to a country or an area that is controlled by another country, (Opt. cit). It is a situation where a certain group of countries have their economies conditioned by another group of countries. It implies reliance upon developed countries’ local and international economic policy to stimulate growth. Overtime, developed countries’ education systems, attitudes, manner of dress and consumption patterns are adopted by developing countries. Development is considered to be imitative in the sense that poor countries gradually assume qualities and characteristics of developed countries.
The modernization became significantly popular in the 1950’s and 1960’s. It arose from Western Europe’s experience of economic history. It was boosted by the emergence of capitalism and the advancement of the industrial revolution. In 1960, an economic historian called W. Rostow devised five evolutionary stages in which a society passes through to attain economic development. They are called the linear stages model of economic development. Rostow states that economics provides the initial thrust of modernization. The stages are namely: * Traditional society; where production is limited by insufficiently developed economic techniques because of simple technology. Agriculture is the dominant form of production and the central organizing social elements are clan or extended family relationships. * Pre-conditions for take-off; where agriculture is the leading sector of production, hence, influencing growth in other sectors of production. That is, agro productivity increases and supports non-agricultural sectors.
Improvement then follows in transportation and other social facilities. * Take off stage; here there is expansion of modern industry yielding profits that can be reinvested in new plans and ventures. The demand for factory workers increases, raw materials such as copper are processed to boost further industrial growth and, GDP per capita is usually 5-10 percent. Zambia for example, is undergoing this stage. Between 1880 and 1920, America’s industry rose from 25 percent to 33 percent in national economic contribution while agriculture trickled down from 51 percent to 26 percent, (Davidson W.J. et al, 1994: 661). * Drive to maturity; where economic growth is sustained. Modern technology is extended throughout the expanding economy. National incomes of 10-20 percent are invested leading to output greater than population growth. Colonialism and exploitation of underdeveloped nations contributed to the acquisition of 10-20 percent national incomes. Sophisticated technology broadens the economy.
* Age of high mass consumption; this stage is prevalent in the world’s most advanced economies like the US and Europe. Advanced economic sectors are dominated by consumer durables and service provision. The north nations attained this stage in the 1950s. The modernization theory suggests that all other countries can acquire modernity based on the idea of growth and expansion of capitalism and industrialism. Proponents argue that for a country to be considered modern, it has to undergo an evolutionary advance in science and technology which in turn leads to increased standards of living. The theory advocates; mass-media as means to disseminate modern ideas, encouragement of utilization of domestic resources, Western investment in factories, expertise and equipment. These therefore, trickle down development from a macro to a micro level. The United States of America experienced modernization in the 19th century after the civil war through industrialization.
It involved industrial transformations in trade, industry, transport and communication. For example, railroads were introduced in 1882 and, from 1880 to 1914; steel production skyrocketed because of rich resources, cheap labor and aggressive management, (Davidson W.J. et al, 1994: 653). In the early 19th century, inventions were trial and error but they later became orderly and systematic. In 1876, a scientist called Edison Thomas Alvin introduced electricity and his first scientific laboratory. In 1898 there were nearly 3000 power stations in America. Electricity ran trolley cars, subways, and factory machinery. It therefore, revolutionized industry, (Ibid). Larger ships with larger engines were invented and American exports tripled in 1870 to 1900. Investors in these initiatives were internal. Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876. Telephones modernized offices and eased business transactions. Industrialization helps rationalize economics, increases wealth, and increases productivity.
This leads to urban explosion and growth of cities. Mass media soared in 1889. Other sectors of production such as timber and steel, education and art bloomed in 1901 in America. In1927, Henry Ford invented the Model T cars. Cars contributed to social mobility, (Opt. cit). Political structures were more organized and, rights and freedoms were implemented. In the modernization theory, economic progress and civilization advance from traditional society, where ascription, particularism and collectivism are dominant, to a modern society, where achievement, universalism and individualism are characteristic. In a traditional society, there is superstition and ascription of events to causality of mythical phenomenon. Societal organization is based on kinship and monarchy, tools and weapons are primitive, animals are used for farming and transportation, communication relies on marathon, drums and smoke, there is limited social mobility and, wealth is determined by material possession.
In a modern society, there is no dominance of tradition, social mobility is largely determined by hard work and achievements, technology is sophisticated, wealth is determined by both material and monetary terms, people are innovative and entrepreneurs. Communities are considerably industrialized. The modernization theory has its shortfalls in that it dictates Western and European theories as recommended values. It devalues tradition such as clans and polygamy. It ignores the differences that grow between countries. It assumes unlimited resources of national expansion. It does not consider the global impact of factors such as trends of trade on third world nations should there be macroeconomic market failure. This freezes third world economies as they rely on global trade policies. Modernization also ignores negative environmental externalities such as global warming. Developed nations such as the US and China largely contribute to global warming and pollution of the seas and oceans.
The theory also considers poverty in third world nations to be internally induced. Dependency developed early into an important theoretical concern within the larger context of expanding revolutionary movements in the 1960s and 1970s, across Africa and Latin America for example. It was a way to understand class conflict and to aid in the formulation of strategies to restructure developing nations, (Hogan M.J. and Peterson T.G, 1991: 101). These formulations are the replacement of capitalism with socialism which led to revolutions. The dependency theory also serves to explain imperialism in a broader context in economic, political and socio-cultural perspectives. Marxism proposes that economics are the key determinants of political, social and cultural forms, (Ibid). The dependency theory emerged as an explanation of development and underdevelopment. Underdevelopment is seen as a function of the expansion of capitalism, not as a natural state through which economic systems evolve.
According to Theotonio dos Santos in 1970 (quoted by Hogan and Peterson, 1991: 102), dependency is a situation in which the economy of certain countries is conditioned by the development and expansion of another economy to which the former is subjected. The dependency theory establishes the relationship between development and underdevelopment. For example, Britain as a metropolis flourished at the expense of Zambia, the periphery. The improvement of underdeveloped nations is a function of the prosperity of the developed nations, (Opt. cit.). Imperialism is a guarantee that whatever development occurs in the underdeveloped nations is dependent upon and complementary to the developed nation’s needs, that is, the latter influences economic growth in the former as a function of its own economic interests. Subordination of underdeveloped countries results from internal structures that operate on behalf of developed countries’ interests.
The principle of imperialism rather overlooks the importance of internal social and cultural factors as sources of underdevelopment. The structure of foreign trade in the dependency paradigm – historically, exports of raw materials and import of manufactured products- arrests economic growth, skews income distribution, and fosters private investments, trade negotiations, and credit transactions- instruments of developed countries’ policy that act to preserve the internal balance of social forces favoring their interests. In 1987, the World Bank reported that many developing countries are still dependent on earnings from primary production, (WBAR, 1987: 45). The dependency theory also implies dependent social classes and dependent military organization. Dependency limits the options available for change as underdeveloped countries are technologically dependent, culturally dependent, capital dependent, ideological dependent , and industrial dependent. According to Kenneth Kaunda (quoted by Legum C., 1966: 208), he clearly stated that Zambia needed foreign money, foreign capital for investment.
To give more jobs to the Zambian people; to bring more know-how, so that members of trade unions could learn how to function and perform. Dependency limits possibilities for change and autonomous developments in the periphery are associated with the metropolis. Dependency formulations emphasis on international relations as foreign aid, foreign investment, and trade relations, that is, the metropolis influences the periphery. Dependency theory concludes that underdevelopment is an externally induced condition. The World Commission on Environment and Development (quoted by Warren M.D. et al, 1989: 162), states that poverty grows as poor countries export growing amounts of scarce resources. Dependent countries lack the capacity to sustain independent development because their economic structures are dependent ones.
Dependant industrialization involves multinational corporations raising capital from local resources, hence, integrating local capitalists into dominant economies. Developing countries’ outflow of income attracts foreign loans. The receipt of foreign loans results in greater domination of national decision-making autonomy, that is, borrowers are obliged to concede to lenders as a condition of the loan. Policies are then explained to and approved by lenders; the local economy then invariably opens to foreign capital, (Hogan and Peterson, 1991: 107). Zambia’s macroeconomic situation steadily deteriorated after the mineral boom that took place in the first ten years of independence (1965-1975). This was manifested in high variable rates of inflation, chronic budget deficits and deterioration in balance of trade with its trading partners. The high debt level can be attributed to increased borrowing and failure by Zambia to attain total debt cancellation, (ZHDR, 2003: 21). Zambia’s debt situation is unsustainable and is a heavy burden on present and future generations as it poses serious constraints to sustainable economic growth. International development agencies such as the World Bank, seek to upgrade the standards of living in the less industrialized nations of Africa, Asia, Latin America, Oceania and the Caribbean.
They help poorer nations make more efficient use of their resources due to their technological disadvantage, (Warren M.D. et al, 1989: 162). The World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the United Nations proposed aid to underdeveloped nations in 1958 through several debates with developed nations, (Lloyd T, 1968: 145). Deforestation, desertification and droughts are endemic on underdeveloped nations; these natural factors retard the local people’s well-being. Underdeveloped nations are hence integrated within the global market. Developing countries’ marketable goods are unskilled labor and raw materials such as petroleum, copper, gold, sugar, coffee, rubber and cotton. They are some of the most demanded products. The development finance policies mobilize natural resources not for development but for the interests of foreign manufacturers.
According to McMaster C. (1974: 79), economic slowdowns in developing countries reflect dependence on agriculture affected by adverse weather resulting to poor quality and low quantity production. To conclude, since the industrial revolution, those who live by ‘tradition’ have been looked upon by many ‘modernists’ as backward, lazy and stupid. Not all indigenous knowledge is applicable to development concerns. This perception has endured through the industrial society and its agencies for international development. The lack of initiative to modernize in developing nations can be attributed to the following; the adoption of inappropriate policies and false inappropriate advice from Eurocentric experts from developed countries, increasing differences between the rich and poor countries, and poor resource allocation. According to Zuma (quoted by Maharaj B. et al, 2010: 118), it is hard to remove exchange controls on domestic corporations in order to engage capital flight. Black capitalists focus primarily on promoting small businesses without affecting domestic industrialization.


Fourteen years ago this month, the first hacking scheme to be reported in mainstream newspapers appeared. This was the infamous “I Love You” hack, an email message with the subject line “ILOVEYOU” and the attachment “LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.txt.vbs”. In May of 2000, this hack affected tens of millions of computers and caused untold damage.
Since then, hacks such as I Love You, which are called Phishing, are routinely reported. IT departments regularly send out messages warning users not to open suspicious emails or click on attachments if they are unsure. Nevertheless, the number of successful phishing hacks continues to grow.
The Globe and Mail published articles highlighting this problem. In one article, officials at Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) were concerned that the department was subjected to an organized cyber-spying campaign in 2011. The article suggests that the hackers, who are suspected to be the Chinese backed “People’s Liberation Army”, gained access to the IRB’s computers through a phishing email sent to an Immigration adjudicator in Vancouver.
Although it has been said many times, if you are the least bit unsure of the validity of an email, don’t open it, and seek assistance immediately.


There are a variety of open-source deep learning frameworks to choose from including Keras, TensorFlow, Caffe2, and MXNet among others. At ODSC West in 2018, Stephanie Kim, a developer at Algorithmia, gave a great talk introducing the deep learning framework PyTorch. Primarily developed by Facebook, PyTorch enables a suite of machine learning functions in Python that offer some considerable advantages over libraries like TensorFlow.
[Related Article: Using RAPIDS with PyTorch]
PyTorch can be used for a variety of functions from building neural networks to decision trees due to the variety of extensible libraries including Scikit-Learn, making it easy to get onboard. Previous versions of PyTorch did not enable rapid deployment of models with a variety of environments, but since March 2018, PyTorch added a Caffe2 backend, substantially streamlining the deployment process. Importantly, the platform has gained substantial popularity and established community support that can be integral in solving usage problems.
A key feature of Pytorch is its use of dynamic computational graphs. Computation graphs (e.g. below) state the order of computations defined by the model structure in a neural network for example. The backpropagation process uses the chain rule to follow the order of computations and determine the best weight and bias values.
Dynamic computational graphs employed by PyTorch allow flexibility in the order of computations by creating a new dynamic computation graph for each iteration of an epoch. This allows models to change structure through training which can be advantageous for recurrent neural networks, for example. PyTorch then employs reverse automatic differentiation, working backwards through the computational graph to calculate derivatives. Some libraries like TensorFlow support only static computational graphs, so model structure stays the same for each epoch. While TensorFlow is less flexible through batch iterations, each node is independent from each other, so it can allow for parallel computation. One can then distribute the computational workload to improve efficiency and employ both CPUs and GPUs simultaneously. Regarding GPU usage, PyTorch enables users to specify its use at various stages of the development process such as embedding on CPU, but computing the neural network on GPU, saving GPU cost.
The imperative programming in PyTorch results in the code running exactly how the developer wrote it. Imperative programming allows developers to debug quickly because each line can be run sequentially, and will have a specific error message. Additionally, developers can set breakpoints or print computation as they go. In contrast, TensorFlow employs symbolic programming where a model is compiled into a function, and then called at the end. While symbolic programming does not allow each line to be run sequentially, it is more computationally efficient than imperative programming.
While there are many tools out there for deep learning, Stephanie Kim illustrated some key advantages of using PyTorch. PyTorch specifically offers natural support for recurrent neural networks that generally run faster in the platform due to the ability to include variable inputs and dynamic computational graphs. Another key advantage is the ease of deployment through the Caffe2 backend. While there seems to be no perfect library, PyTorch offers a competitive package for machine learning in Python.


Saturday, November 29, 2008
A glimpse of the early church
“Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus. They risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them.” (Romans 16:3-4)
Priscilla and Aquila are mentioned six times in the New Testament (Acts 18:2, Acts 18:18, Acts 18:26, Romans 16:2, 1 Corinthians 16:19, 2 Timothy 4:19). Aquila was a Jew from Pontus who had settled in Rome, but was forced to leave the city, along with Priscilla, because Claudius expelled the Jews from there (Acts 18:2). Aquila was a tentmaker like Paul. In fact, this is likely how they came to know each other, when Paul had to work in Corinth to support himself during his missionary work. When Paul left Corinth to go to Ephesus, Priscilla and Aquila went with him. However, when Paul moved on, they stayed at Ephesus, and that was where God used them to explain the gospel to Apollos (Acts 18:24-26).
“Greet my dear friend Epenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in the province of Asia.” (Romans 16:5b)
Note that Epenetus was Paul’s “dear friend” and “was the first convert to Christ in the province of Asia.” Since Paul had evangelized Asia, it is likely that Paul had led Epenetus to Christ. This would explain their close relationship.
“Greet Mary, who worked very hard for you.” (Romans 16:6)
The ‘Mary’ mentioned here is likely a different Mary than the various other Marys mentioned in the New Testament. Since Paul tells the Romans that Mary “worked very hard for you,” Mary must have been from Rome. It could have very possibly been Priscilla and Aquila that told Paul about Mary when they came to Corinth about the time that Paul first arrived there.
“Greet Andronicus and Junias, my relatives who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.” (Romans 16:7)
Calling Andronicus and Junias his relatives could mean that they were members of his own extended family, but it probably only means that they were Jews. They became Christians before Paul did, so they must have been believers from the very earliest days of the church in Jerusalem.
“Greet Ampliatus, whom I love in the Lord.” (Romans 16:8)
Ampliatus was a common slave name. In Domatilla, the earliest of the Christian catacombs, there is an elaborate tomb with the word “Ampliatus” on it. Free men had more than one name, so this single name seems to imply that it was the tomb of a slave. However, since it is elaborate, it seems to be the tomb of an important person in the church, and in the Roman church, there were no distinctions based upon whether a person was a slave or free. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)
“Salute Apelles approved in Christ. Salute them which are of Aristobulus' household. Salute Herodion my kinsman. Greet them that be of the household of Narcissus, which are in the Lord.” (Romans 16:10-11)
Paul speaks only of the households of Aristobulus and Narcissus, implying that he did not know them personally. In Rome, the word ‘household’ not only described a man’s immediate family, but also included his household domestics or slaves as well. In Rome, there had lived a man named Aristobulus, who had been the grandson of the Jewish king Herod the Great. When he died, his slaves would have fallen under the ownership of the Emperor and would have been known as “the household of Aristobulus.” So, Paul’s greeting may have been to those Jewish slaves who belonged to this household, but who had become Christians and were members of the Roman church. This is especially likely because the name Herodion derives from Herod, so Herodion may have been one of the leading slaves of this household. Narcissus might possibly be the same person as a wealthy freedman by the same name, who had been prominent under Claudius, but had been put to death by Nero when he took the throne.


Boredom is the mind's rest, that moment of indecision.
Too often we hear, " If you're bored I'll give you something to do", and we all know what that means! That something is usually in the form of chores or distasteful tasks.
It's OK to be bored. It's OK not to know what to do next. Our minds need the TIME to rest and think to decide on our next move. Children need that time too.
Next time someone is bored:
- Ask them, "What do you feel like doing?" giving them time to think, all the while remaining silent, but ready to listen wholeheartedly to what they have to say.
- Ask about their recent projects and playthings, perhaps they want to continue on but have forgotten.
- "Strew". . . put things out in sight that might catch their eye or get them interested or spark a new thought.
- Start your own activity nearby and they might decide to join in or it may inspire an idea.
- Change it up. Life, that is. Do things in a different way. Change the room around. Eat meals in a new spot. Try new foods. Take different routes to the same places.
-Bundle up and go outside, even for 10 minutes. Breathing the cold air invigorates and refreshes. Explore and discover and find something to bring inside.
-Watch movies, mostly musicals, and set it up like a movie theater with popcorn and drinks.
-Make tents with blankets, sheets, tablecloths held together with clothespins. Bring in flashlights and books and playthings.
- Blow up balloons and bat them around the room with your hands. Make a line with masking tape as a boundary line to hit back and forth.
-Make a rice box ( or beans, lentils ,etc) and add clear containers , measuring cups, spoons, funnels.
- Have tea parties, with real tea using fancy adult tea cups and foods that you have prepared together.
- Have a picnic on the floor. Think summer and spread a blanket.
- Have treasure hunts throughout the house. Children LOVE to find things.
- Modeling with beeswax or playclay.
Whatever you do, do it TOGETHER. Sometimes boredom means they want and need your undivided time .
Stay tuned for more easy and fun activities for winter in the house.


According to tradition, the city of Rome was founded on April 21, 753 BC, by twin brothers, Romulus and Remus, whose father was Mars, the god of war. But the two argued about which hill to build on; and, when Romulus began building his city wall, Remus ridiculed his work by jumping over the wall. Romulus responded by killing him - thus determining which one Rome would be named after! In time, Rome would become the greatest city in the world, the capital of the greatest empire the world had ever yet known.
To that same city, some 8 centuries later, came two men, Peter and Paul, brothers not by blood, but by their common faith in Jesus Christ, who had called them to be apostles. The Christian community they found in Rome was small, socially and politically insignificant - an easy target when the Emperor needed scapegoats to blame for a destructive fire. Among those martyred in that 1st Roman persecution of the Church were the apostles Peter and Paul.
One story recounts how Peter started to flee but returned to Rome and embraced his martyrdom after meeting Jesus on the road. “Lord, where are you going,” Peter asked. “I am going to Rome to be crucified again,” Jesus responded.
If the Christians of Rome required encouragement and confidence to persevere in their new faith, what more powerful reinforcement could they have had than the witness offered by the martyrdom of those two illustrious apostles, who were the Church’s link back to the Risen Lord himself! - Peter, crucified on the Vatican Hill, and Paul, beheaded on the Ostian Way.
At the west end of the south aisle, over the simple but impressive altar dedicated to St. Paul, is Robert Reid’s evocative painting depicting St. Paul kneeling calmly and confidently awaiting his imminent martyrdom. Above and below the picture are the famous words we just heard from St. Paul’s 2nd Letter to Timothy: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course. I have kept the faith!” [2 Timothy 4:7]
Inspired by Saint Paul’s evangelical energy and apostolic zeal, on July 7, 1858, Father Isaac Hecker and three other priests founded the “Society of Missionary Priests of St. Paul the Apostle,” known ever since as “The Paulist Fathers.” Three days later, the Archbishop of New York assigned them the care of a new parish on Manhattan’s west side – placed, like the Paulists themselves, under the patronage of St. Paul the Apostle. For over 150 years, the Paulist Fathers have ministered here in this parish, the life and mission of both Paulists and parish intimately tied together. And for most of these years the spiritual center of both Paulists and parish has been this big beautiful church, opened in 1885.
Nowadays, worshippers entering through the main door of this great church, leave the modern secular city and its empire behind by passing under a monumental modern portrayal of what we commonly call Paul’s conversion. That great event transformed Paul from an enemy into a disciple of Jesus and an apostle on equal footing with the others to whom the Risen Lord had earlier appeared. From then on Paul would exemplify – as all of us who pass through that door are being challenged to exemplify - what it means to be truly converted to Christ, his witness in the world, an apostle sent to make disciples of all without exception. That mission is also the theme of the beautiful early 20th-century floor mosaic at the church’s entrance, recalling Paul’s preaching outreach to pagan society and culture in 1st-century Athens.
Isaac Hecker wanted the architecture of this church to focus attention on the high altar – as indeed everything in the life and mission of the Church must be focused on leading us and the world we live in to Christ.
Above the high altar within Stanford White’ golden dome is a verse from the Divine Office for the feast of Saint Paul’s Conversion: “You are a vessel of election, holy apostle Paul,” the response to which, “Preacher of Truth in the whole world,” is in turn inscribed in another mosaic on the church floor at the foot of the sanctuary steps.
Communicants coming to the altar rail used to see that mosaic, designed to highlight the symbols of Saint Paul’s apostleship – the book open to Saint Paul’s words, To me, the very least of all the holy ones, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the inscrutable riches of Christ [Ephesians 3:8] and the sword, the symbol of Paul’s martyrdom.
Which brings us back to where we started. The old Rome of Romulus – proud, powerful, pagan Rome, based on the murder of one brother by another – was, for all its accomplishments and authentic grandeur, a human state like any other, a warring conqueror conquered in turn by other warring conquerors. The new Christian Rome of Peter and Paul conquered that old Rome, but in a new way. Proud, powerful, pagan Rome, founded on the murder of one brother by another, was in turn conquered by the faith that empowered Peter and Paul as brothers-in-Christ to evangelize an empire and die together as witnesses to a new way of life.
As we celebrate this great feast recalling the mission and martyrdom of the Apostles Peter and Paul, here in this Paulist “Mother Church,” let us in turn – as Saint Augustine once recommended on this feast – “embrace what they believed, their life, their labors, their sufferings, their preaching, and their confession of faith” [Sermon 295, 8].
Homily for the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Church of Saint Paul the Apostle, New York, June 30, 2013.


ESR – Self help with kinesiology
This very simple technique is also very powerful and it’s something that you can easily learn to do for yourself and others. Quite simply, the points in the picture below are gently held, either with the whole hand (easier than exactly locating the points) or with two fingers on each point.
For your own personal use you can hold these points while focusing of any situation that you are finding stressful. Call the situation to mind, think of how it makes you feel, any colours, smells or sounds associated with the issue. Remember to breathe while you are holding the points. You could also put an essential oil on your fingertips for greater relaxation.
You could now imagine how you would like the situation to be. Continue holding the points until you lose focus on the issue.
Now revisit the original stressful situation and see how it feels. Has it changed? Has the emotional charge reduced?
I once did ESR for my small niece when she fell off a swing. I held the points (whole hand over the forehead) and said to her “what happened”, she gave me a blubbery, incoherent answer. I continued to hold the points saying “what happened” a few times, then she took a deep breath, calmed down and went back to playing. The stress of the incident had been released. It is great to use with stressed children.
The points we are working with here are Gall Bladder 14. This is a neuro vascular point for many muscles in the body, including muscles that relate to the Central, Stomach and Bladder meridians.


6th grade made brochures to tempt us to go to Egypt! Tell them what you think!
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Last week 5th grade started their unit on Atoms, Molecules, and Elements. Our classroom scientists are working in groups to research a topic. This week they will present their posters and information to the class!
Eduardo and Michaela working on Chemical Changes
Emma and Hugo working on Expansion and Contraction
James, Sophia, and Malia working on Chemical Reactions
Conner and Sofia working on Vaporizing and Condensing
Tori and Dylan working on Changes in Size & Shape
Gina and Jared working on Sublimation and Deposition
Arland and Alyssa working on Melting and Freezing


In the course of a lengthy lecture in The Da Vinci Code, given by the historian Teabing and the “symbologist” Langdon to the befuddled detective Sophie, the supposed truth about Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper is revealed.
Viewing a reproduction of the painting, Sophie — prodded by the two scholars — realizes the person seated to the right of Jesus is a woman. She believes she sees feminine hair and hands “and the hint of a bosom. It was, without a doubt ... female. ‘That’s a woman!’” (page 243). Teabing explains that this “glaring discrepancy” is missed because viewers have such a powerful preconception about the painting that the truth it depicts is overlooked.
In other words, only certain special people, with a sort of gnosis (secret knowledge), can see “the truth” about the work.
Novelist Dan Brown has explained
in interviews that he was first exposed to this “fact” while attending an art
Brown’s instructor taught that there is no chalice depicted in the painting, but the “Holy Grail” is actually seated next to Jesus: the person of Mary Magdalene. Brown’s story about his art class may be true, but there is little doubt where most of his “insights” into the painting came from: The Templar Revelation, written by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, especially the first chapter, “The Secret Code of Leonardo Da Vinci.”
Interviewed by ABC in November 2003, Brown repeated his character’s assertion that people see what they are told to see: “Our preconceived notions of this scene are so powerful that our mind blocks out the incongruity and overrides our eyes.” The person to Jesus’ right, Brown insisted, is “clearly a woman,” echoing his novel: “It was, without a doubt ... female” (see page 243). How ironic that Brown insists that we see what we are told to see — and then tells us what to see!
Unfortunately for Brown, virtually
no art historians or scholars agree with him. Leo Steinberg, widely acclaimed
as one of
In fact, these three have distinctive qualities: Peter’s intense movement forward and wielding of the knife (prefiguring his use of it in the Garden later that evening), Judas recoiling and grasping the bag of money (he was the treasurer for the group), and John’s youthful appearance and contemplative pose.
There is also physical evidence of
who was who in the painting. A parish
The grouping of John, Judas and Peter is purposeful.
The group [of three] at Christ’s right, John, Judas and Peter”, Steinberg points out, “clusters the three who are destined for roles in the Passion.”
Judas betrays Jesus, Peter denies Jesus, and John — “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7, 20) — was the only apostle to stand at Jesus’ cross (John 19:26-7).
Steinberg notes there are also “significant pairs” in the painting, including Peter and John, and Jesus and John. Peter and John are often companions (cf. Luke 22:8), personify “the active and contemplative life” and are “shown putting their heads together.”
Hearing Jesus’ prophecy of impending betrayal, Peter lunges forward in amazement and anger. John is the quiet, reflective contemplative who internalizes the distressing news, his hands folded in a prayerful manner appropriate to the coming death of Jesus. These two true apostles frame Judas, the traitor, who personifies greedy disloyalty. Although there is a large space between Jesus and John, their mirrored images indicate that they are, Steinberg explains, “soul mates ... matched in outline, in (original) hue of garment and tilt of head.”
Viewing the reproduction, Sophie sees “flowing red hair, delicate folded hands, and the hint of a bosom” (page 243). The figure is undoubtedly effeminate, as Leonardo depicted the youthful John in the early-16th century Florentine style. This approach can be seen in other paintings of the period, including Leonardo’s own Saint John the Baptist, which depicts a young man who is effeminate in appearance and also has flowing hair and delicate hands.
Leonardo’s sketches or writings never suggest that the figure to the right of Christ is Mary Magdalene. But they contain evidence that it is the Apostle John. In a sketch for the painting, Leonardo depicts John leaning over, with his face down and with Christ resting an arm on John’s back. Always looking for new ways to depict character and interrelationships, Leonardo opted to show the Apostle John as a mirror image of Christ and to dramatically isolate Christ against the open window behind him.
What about the chalice?
The absence of a large chalice boldly identified as the Holy Grail is important only if we assume that’s what the scene should include. But why should we assume that Leonardo would depict Jesus’ cup any differently than that used by the apostles? In fact, an examination of the painting reveals that each of the figures, including Jesus, has a cup and a piece of bread before them; Jesus’ cup is next to his left hand, his right hand raised over the bread.
Who to believe: a novelist relying on conspiracy theories or 500 years of scholarship? The answer should be as obvious as the real identity of the person seated to the right of Christ in The Last Supper.
Carl E. Olson is the co-author, with Sandra Miesel, of The Da Vinci Hoax: Exposing the Errors in The Da Vinci Code (http://www.davincihoax.com), published by Ignatius Press. He is the editor of IgnatiusInsight.com.