Russia-Ukraine conflict: Proof of MH17 tragedy’s real culprits grows - Reuter

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/07/17/russia-ukraine-conflict-proof-of-mh17-tragedys-real-culprits-grows/?utm_source=Facebook

Russia-Ukraine conflict: Proof of MH17 tragedy’s real culprits grows
By James Miller July 17, 2015
Tags: BUK | FLIGHT MH17 | MISSILE | RUSSIA | UKRAINE
A pro-Russian separatist holds a stuffed toy found at the crash site of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, near the settlement of Grabovo in the Donetsk region
A pro-Russian separatist holds a stuffed toy found at the crash site of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, near the settlement of Grabovo in the Donetsk region, July 18, 2014. REUTERS/Maxim Zmeyev

One year ago, Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 was shot out of the sky over the war zone in eastern Ukraine, and one year later we are closer than ever to proving who is ultimately responsible for this tragic act.

I have been compiling and analyzing information gathered over the last 12 months by field reporters and bloggers, statements from the Russian and Ukrainian governments, and the investigations launched by various government and non-government agencies, including the official inquiries of the Dutch Safety Board. The goal is to find and address similarities and discrepancies, and to use new information to verify or debunk parts of the narrative put forth by either the Ukrainian or Russian governments.

One theme struck me — just how well eyewitness testimony, the investigations of many journalists, videos and pictures uploaded by citizens of Ukraine, and even the intelligence assessments of the Ukrainian and Western governments all dovetail together with, ironically, the initial statements of the Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine to form a more complete and largely-harmonious picture of what happened that day.

For instance, within minutes of the aircraft being shot down there were already videos, pictures, and social media reports of the burning wreckage. But at this point, no one knew that a civilian airliner was missing. Instead, the assumption was that the Russian-backed separatists had shot down another Ukrainian military aircraft, one of many destroyed in the weeks leading up to the downing of the civilian airliner. Even the separatists themselves took to social media networks, using accounts which they have never renounced and which they continue to use, to take credit for the destruction of yet another Ukrainian “bird.”

Within hours of the crash, as the world learned that a civilian aircraft, not a military one, had been shot down, the separatists worked to hide their previous statements while citizens of eastern Ukraine and journalists who were positioned in the area furiously uploaded pictures, videos, and eyewitness reports — pieces of a puzzle which clearly indicate that those initial statements by the leaders of the Russian-backed fighters were accurate, the pro-Russian separatists were indeed responsible for the shooting down of a civilian airliner.

The supporting evidence for this claim is overwhelming. Arms experts quickly realized that the anti-aircraft missiles which the Russian-backed fighters were known to possess were not capable of hitting an aircraft at MH17’s altitude. But with the fighting in eastern Ukraine building to a crescendo, the area was crawling with war correspondents, and journalists for the Associated Press witnessed the prime suspect in this disaster, an advanced Buk anti-aircraft missile which had not previously been documented in this conflict.

Pictures and videos showing the Buk in various locations in near the crash zone were also uploaded by citizen journalists, as experts such as myself worked to confirm the locations shown in the citizen reports.

Eyewitnesses overheard in videos and interviewed by journalists talked about a missile which was fired somewhere south of the town of Snezhnoye which hit the aircraft. A photographer in the area, not far from where the Buk was believed to have been launched, photographed a smoke trail ascending into the sky. Citizen bloggers were able to determine where the picture was taken by comparing the topography in the picture with satellite photos and geotagged pictures. Journalists then traveled to these various locations, interviewed residents, confirmed the location of pictures, and were able to piece together a convincing timetable for where the Buk had traveled before, during, and after MH17 was shot down.

Now, sources from the official Dutch Safety Board have told CNN that their official report, slated to be released in October, will say that MH17 was destroyed by “a Buk missile — a Russian surface-to-air missile — that was used, launched from a village in Russian rebel controlled territory.”

The broader question, though, is whether the Russian government is ultimately responsible for this tragedy. As my full report points out, there is evidence that the Buk traveled from Russia before MH17 was shot down, and there is even better evidence that it returned to Russia after MH17 was shot down. The report also links to evidence that the same Buk which shot down MH17 was documented in a Russian military convoy on the Russian side of the border before it was spotted in the area of MH17’s crash site.

But while stories about anti-aircraft missiles and Russian conspiracy theories have received plenty of attention, forgotten in some analysis of MH17 is the wider context. In the two months that led up to MH17, the fledgling Ukrainian government, perhaps confident that it had a public mandate and did not face a counter-revolution, was doubling-down on its efforts to reunify the country. The Russian-backed fighters were rapidly losing territory to the Ukrainian military throughout late May, June, and early July. It was during this period that a large influx of new weapons reached eastern Ukraine, weapons which had no clear point of origin and many which had not been seen on Ukraine’s battlefields.

The Buk was just one of these weapons, though perhaps the most significant, and its presence in Ukraine that day was part of a wider pattern of expanded Russian military involvement in the Donbass.

Could Hitler come to power today? - Economist

http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2013/06/german-fiction?fsrc=scn/fb/te/pe/ed/CouldHitlerComeToPowerToday

Could Hitler come to power today?
Jun 25th 2013, 18:25 BY B.C. | MUNICH

COULD Adolf Hitler come to power today? Timur Vermes poses this question in his debut novel “He’s Back” (“Er Ist Wieder Da”). Told in the first person, the plot sees Hitler randomly wake up from a 66-year sleep in 2011 Berlin. There is no explanation for how or why this has happened, but that is hardly the point. Hitler begins to muddle his way through this new Germany, and people can’t help but notice his unusual appearance, his uncanny likeness to the late Führer. Assuming no one would guilelessly decide to look like Hitler, many start to assume he is engaged in some kind of comedic performance art. Sure enough, Hitler begins to develop a following, appears on television, appeals to youth on YouTube and becomes a media star. Eventually he dabbles in politics—with a fervent campaign against dog muck on the streets, for example—and continues his professional advance. “He gets quite far,” says Mr Vermes at a bookstore in Munich's Marienplatz. “You have somebody with no means, no money, he looks like Hitler, he is Hitler. You tend to underestimate him, like he was underestimated back in 1920.”

Mr Vermes has clearly struck a chord: the book has been a bestseller in Germany since its release in late 2012, and it is being translated into 32 languages, with an English-language version due next year. The film rights have been sold.

The book’s fans and critics often point to the same thing: the way in which it humanises Hitler. “People try to see Hitler as a monster. The monster is just an easy explanation for us not to feel guilty,” says Mr Vermes. “The more powerful he is the less chance we had to resist. That is why we want to keep this monster.” By confronting readers with Hitler’s charisma, the author highlights the role that public popularity played in Hitler’s rise to power.

One chapter sees Hitler make an appearance on a comedy show with an ethnically Turkish host. Told from Hitler’s perspective, an encounter with a female stagehand is a fine example of the kind of awkward social interactions that populate the text. The stagehand’s informality clearly shocks the resurrected German leader: 

“‘You’ve been on television before, Mr Hitler?’ she asked after a while. I noted that first names were no longer on the agenda. She had presumably been awed by my Führer ’s aura.‘Several times,’ I said, ‘but all rather a long time ago.’‘Oh,’ she said, ‘anything I might have seen you in?’‘I suspect not,’ I said. ‘It was here in Berlin, at the Olympic Stadium...’‘Were you the warm-up man for a headlining-act?’‘Was I what?’ I asked her, but she had stopped listening.”
Amusing as this may be, the book’s satire has a serious point. “At first it was just fun, but while writing it I realised there is something more in it,” says Mr Vermes. “It’s his side. We have his logic, his explanations. With this you can bring the reader to almost agree with him. You can see how it is to be seduced, to follow, how easy it was to connect with him. You are the only one who can say ‘no’.”


Mr Vermes, a 46-year-old born of a Hungarian father and German mother, formerly worked as a journalist in what he describes as “the yellow press”. It was there that he honed his skills for provoking readers. “In those tabloids you have to attract the buyer every new day,” he says. His idea for a Hitler book came about when he came across a copy of Hitler’s little known “Second Book”, written after “Mein Kampf” in 1928. Mr Vermes was inspired to write a third book by Hitler, and set about studying the man’s speeches and writings to better reproduce the Führer’s voice.

Despite the book’s provocative premise, Mr Vermes figured “He’s Back” would find a niche audience. He was mistaken. It has sold at least 600,000 copies in print and another 200,000 or so in ebook downloads and audio books.

Yet any attempt to delve into the psychology of the Third Reich comes with controversy. A review in the Munich-based Süddeutsche Zeitung called Mr Vermes “politically naïve” and alleged that his readers may not be fully in on his joke. “Most of the people who have negative reactions haven’t even read the book. That is my experience,” said Christoph Stempl, a manager at the Hugendubel bookstore on Munich’s Marienplatz.

Stacked in the front window of most German booksellers, the book’s stylish cover draws the eyes in. It features a white background overlaid with a slicked black hairdo, its title written to resemble Hitler’s boxy moustache. The price is €19.33, the year the Führer became chancellor 80 years ago. Mr Vermes is facing calls for a sequel, something he finds highly unlikely. “I already thought about sending him to America, but then it is like the movie ‘Terminator 2’ or something. It gives you nothing new to think about.”


Read more at http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2013/06/german-fiction#vblSK1CTzABB8jq9.99

Planetary Nebula - JKHC

• Planetary Nebula - What is it ? What is its significance to life on earth ? We are all stardust !
• 
  
• A nebula is also known as a planetary nebula which is an exploded star at the end of its life when all its original hydrogen is fused under the nuclear fusion process until the whole star core becomes iron ( at which point no further nuclear fusion can proceed ). With the loss of the powerful outward force of nuclear fusion the core catastrophically collapses under the inward gravitational force of its entire iron core resulting in a huge and bright explosion called a supernova. It can shine as bright as a whole galaxy. A special type of supernova known as type 1a always produces a standard brightness which makes it a standard candle for measuring absolute distances in the universe. Thus, a supernova is very useful to astronomers. In my pet astronomy project - Galaxy Zoo - there is now a new sub-project of supernova hunt to look for more supernovae. Everyone can volunteer to help online.
• 
  
  Joseph K. H. Cheng All visible nebulae are within our own Milky Way galaxy as exploded stars in other galaxies are too dim to be seen. The next closest galaxy is the Small Magellanic Cloud ( SMC ) , a small irregular galaxy some 170,000 light years away. The next nearest spiral galaxy is the Andromeda galaxy some 2.5 million light years away.
• 
  
  Joseph K. H. Cheng How small and insignificant are we in our universe ? Yet each and everyone has his or her own talents and purpose in the grand design of the universe only if we care to find out for ourselves !
• 
  
• We are all stardust - http://jkhcforum.blogspot.com.au/2010/11/thoughts-to-you-from-yours-truly-48.html
  
  Astronomy is a really inspirational and humbling subject for everyone especially the politicians as it will keep their inflated ego at a manageable level.
  
  http://jkhcforum.blogspot.com.au/2010/11/prose-staring-at-stars-poetry-prose-3.html

Staring at the Stars ( 看星星 )

More stars than sand to be gazed upon they are really spectacular and cool.
繁星多越恆河沙數，燦爛而有性格，更可任人觀賞。

In my life time they have given me endless comfort and showed me the eternal truth.
在我一生中，它們給予我無限安慰和為我展示了永恆的真理。

Start staring at the stars to learn your life story, too.
你們也不防試試看星，或許也可以如我一般獲得些人生的啟示。

Start staring at them especially when you feel blue.
正當你感覺繁亂之際，這也正好是開始觀星的適當時候。

So, let us start what we must do from here and now until you know what to do.
那麼就讓我們開始做我們必須做的事， 直到我們學會怎樣做為止。

When you are born stare at the stars. Their mystical omnipresence will symbolize you.
當你誕生時，請看着星星。它們神秘地無處不在，正像徵着你生命的存在。

When you are young stare at the stars. Their illusive twinkling will mesmerize you.
當你仍年輕的時候，請看看繁星，它們虛幻的閃爍， 令你切底地着了迷。

When you are lost stare at the stars. Their lasting brightness will guide you.
當你感到迷失和落魄的時候，請看看星空， 它們的永恆光芒會指引你的路途。

When you are successful stare at the stars. Their profound grandeur will humble you.
當你成功之際，更要看看星星，因為它們的偉大壯觀，使你感覺謙卑。

When you are angry stare at the stars. Their soothing tranquility will clam you.
當你忿怒時，也得看看繁星，它們有着令人心情舒緩的寧靜， 會使你悄悄地安靜下來。

When you are down stare at the stars. Their glamorous beauty will lift you.
當你心情沮喪的時候，請看看星星，它們的優美和燦爛，令你情緒提昇。

When you are happy stare at the stars. Their constant wonders will excite you.
當你快樂時， 也應舉頭看星，它們有着經常性的奇妙， 會令你更加興奮。

When you are wavering stare at the stars. Their great steadfastness will inspire you.
當你舉棋不定時，你需要看看星星，它們的永固不移，會給予你深刻的啟發。

When you are tired stare at the stars. Their endless energy will revitalize you.
當你疲倦之際，你也得仰首觀星，因它們無盡的能量，能使你活力得予重振。

When you are in love stare at the stars. Their unfathomable eternity will reassure you.
當你沐浴愛河時， 你可以舉頭看星， 它們無法量度的永恆存在，令你得到愛的保證。

When you are old stare at the stars. Their everlasting myths will provide dreams for you.
當你年老的時候，你更加要看看星星，它們的不死傳說，令你可以繼續造你的長生夢。

When you are dead stare at the stars, too, for they will all be around you !
當你不幸死去，希望你仍能看着所有陪伴在你左右的繁星，因為這樣的話，你已經身處天堂了！

For all the above reasons, I love astronomy dearly and would gladly introduce it to all of you.
由於以上諸因，我浩愛天文學，更十分樂意將它推薦給各位仁兄仁姐，予以分享, 奇景共賞。

JKHC.
鄭冠合


Planetary 

6 Common Grammatical Errors and How to Correct Them - Entrepreneur.com

http://time.com/3964902/grammar-errors-correction/

6 Common Grammatical Errors and How to Correct Them
Jonathan Long / Entrepreneur.com July 21, 2015   

Do not underestimate the power of incorrect grammar


Proper grammar seems to be a thing of the past — why stress about tiny technicalities, right? Wrong.

You should be a grammar stickler for many reasons. Do you want to risk turning off potential clients, employers and connections because of grammatical mistakes?

Many people are so concerned with what they are saying in an email or text message that they completely forget to pay attention to how they are saying it. If you chose to turn grammar mode off when you are communicating with friends, that is one thing, but there is absolutely no reason to send a professional communication that contains errors.

Here are six grammatical errors that are so simple, yet such common offenders. Make sure you aren’t making them.

1. Your/You’re

This is probably the most common mistake I see on social media, in text messages and in emails. This one is real simple — if you are trying to say “you are” then “you’re” is correct. If you are talking about something that belongs to you, such as “your car” then you use “your.”

2. Too/To/Two

Many people confuse these and don’t even realize they are doing it. It’s real easy — “two” is a number, “too” is an adverb that means “also,” and “to” is a preposition used to express motion, direction, limit of movement, contact, a point of limit in time, purpose, intention and destination — to name a few.

For example:

“I would like to become an entrepreneur.”

“I too would like to become an entrepreneur.”

3. There/Their/They’re

What should have been squared away in third grade continues to haunt grammar police on a daily basis. The there/their/they’re mistake is common — but it’s really simple to avoid.

Use “they’re” when you are trying to say “they are.”

“Their” should be used when you are indicating possession.

Finally, “there” needs to be used when referring to a location.

Example: “They’re going to love working there. Their company culture is amazing!”

4. You/U

This one is really just pure laziness rather than a grammatical mistake. Texting has completely ruined grammar and you/u is a perfect example. I understand that “u” is perfectly acceptable if you are texting a friend and are in a rush — but it’s not acceptable in a professional email.

Here is an excerpt of an email I received last week from a C-level executive who is in charge of a company that does business worth several hundreds of millions of dollars every year:

… that would be gr8! Talk to u soon!
He managed to nail two text slangs back to back like a champ. Again, if it was a text message, fine — but a professional email is no place for this. This email is actually what sparked me to write this article, so thank you grammatically challenged C-level executive.

5. Then/Than

When you are talking about time you use “then” and when you are making a comparison you use “than.” It really shouldn’t be that difficult to distinguish what one to use:

“We are going to grab a quick bite to eat and then head back to the office.”

“This new software update is much better than the previous version.”

6. It’s/Its

This one confuses a lot of people, mainly due to the apostrophe, which typically symbolizes possession. Use “it’s” when you are trying to say “it is” and use “its” when you are looking for the possessive form of “it.”

“I looked at its owners manual to get the correct settings.”

“It’s a beautiful day outside.”

This article originally appeared on Entrepreneur.com

The making of Modiano - Nobel Prize winner in literature - TIME

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e830ad1a-45c0-11e5-af2f-4d6e0e5eda22.html

August 21, 2015 4:16 pm
The making of Modiano
Tobias Grey


The Nobel laureate’s newly translated works take us back to the beginning of his project to grapple with the dark years of Nazi rule
French novelist Patrick Modiano in Paris in 1969©Sophie Bassouls/Sygma/Corbis
French novelist Patrick Modiano in Paris in 1969
Pedigree, by Patrick Modiano, translated by Mark Polizzotti, MacLehose Press, RRP£14.99/Yale University Press, RRP$25, 144 pages
The Occupation Trilogy: La Place de l’Étoile; The Night Watch; Ring Roads, by Patrick Modiano, translated by Caroline Hillier, Patricia Wolf and Frank Wynne, Bloomsbury, RRP£18.99/$18, 352 pages
So You Don’t Get Lost in the Neighbourhood, by Patrick Modiano, translated by Euan Cameron, MacLehose Press, RRP£14.99/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, RRP$24 160 pages
In his unflinching coming-of-age memoir, Pedigree (2004), Patrick Modiano recalls how at 13 he was first confronted with images of the Nazi extermination camps. Modiano — who was born on the outskirts of Paris in July 1945 — had accompanied his Jewish businessman father, Albert, to a cinema where they watched a documentary on the Nuremberg trials. The experience would leave an indelible impression on the future novelist, as would his father’s silence on the subject of the Holocaust. “Something changed for me that day,” he wrote. “And what did my father think? We never talked about it, not even as we left the cinema.”

The question of what Modiano’s evasive father did in occupied Paris during the war is one that has haunted the winner of last year’s Nobel Prize in Literature. Eventually he discovered that his father avoided wearing the obligatory yellow badge for Jews, did not register himself as one of them, and narrowly escaped deportation when “someone” intervened in his favour after he was arrested in 1943. But had Albert simply been a black marketeer who lived off his wits, as appears to have been his official line? Or was he, more tragically, what the French call a collabo — a willing collaborator with the enemy?
Before Modiano won the Nobel Prize, this most singular writer, noted for his elliptical plots and regretful tone of voice, had barely caused a ripple in the English-speaking world. Only eight of his 30 novels had been translated into English and most of those had fallen out of print. But since the award, publishers in Britain and the US have been falling over themselves to have their own Modiano moment.
Last year, Yale University Press rushed into print Suspended Sentences, a standalone book comprising a trio of newly translated novellas — After­image (1993), Suspended Sentences (1988) and Flowers of Ruin (1991). This month sees the UK publication of Bloomsbury’s Occupation Trilogy, a retrospective grouping devised by his Spanish publisher that constitutes translations of Modiano’s first three novels, originally published in France between 1968 and 1972. And in September, MacLehose Press will publish the first English-language translations of Pedigree and his most recent novel So You Don’t Get Lost in the Neighbourhood, which came out in France last year; they are to be published in the US by Yale and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. In January, MacLehose will also bring out new translations of Modiano’s 2007 novel In the Café of Lost Youth and The Black Notebook (2012).

Modiano has spoken about being a product of “the dunghill of the Occupation”. His mother, Louisa Colpeyn — a Flemish-speaking Belgian actress who spent the war years in Paris working for the German-controlled French film production company Continental — died earlier this year. In Pedigree he describes her as having been “a pretty girl with an arid heart” whose encounter with his father was a “rash” one. “Periods of great turbulence often lead to rash encounters, with the result that I’ve never felt like a legitimate son, much less an heir,” Modiano writes.
His fictions are most often meditations on identity and contain auto­biographical elements — notably the names of streets where the author has lived or places he used to frequent. The 1978 Prix Goncourt-winning Missing Person, about an amnesiac detective investigating his own past, is just such a novel. Though he rarely invokes the Holocaust directly, its horrific violence — both physical and moral — seethes beneath the surface.
Modiano became famous in France at the end of the 1960s for being one of the country’s first novelists to dare to write about the underbelly of the Occupation and, in particular, about the French Gestapo. His novels, with domestic sales often in excess of 100,000 copies, receive the attention of the top French critics, who invariably describe his elegant, pared-down prose in terms of “la petite musique de Modiano”.
He is not much of a joiner and has turned down several requests by the Académie Française to become an immortel. For a long time Modiano lied about his age, telling interviewers that he was born in 1947 (the year his brother Rudy was born). His French biographer Denis Cosnard has suggested this was a way for Modiano to both pay homage to his brother, who died from leukaemia aged 10, and to distance himself from the war. At the beginning of his novel Ring Roads, Modiano quotes one of his favourite poets, Arthur Rimbaud: “If only I had a past at some other point in French history! But no, nothing.”
Ring Roads forms the third part of the Occupation Trilogy, which, along with The Night Watch (Modiano’s second novel), had already been translated into English in the early 1970s. Both have been subsequently revised for the new edition. The real discovery, though, is the first English-language translation of Modiano’s controversial debut, La Place de l’Étoile, originally published in 1968 when the author was only 22.

No doubt it took the imprimatur of Modiano winning the Nobel Prize to finally reveal La Place to English-language readers in all its youthful and frenetic glory. The novel’s protagonist is the wretchedly-named Raphäel Schlemilovitch — from the Yiddish tradition meaning son of a schlemiel (one who is bereft of luck). The luckless Raphäel is both Jewish collabo and anti-Semite to boot. In a tour-de-force of inventive pastiche, Modiano appropriates the chiselled, curt sentences and polemical style of collaborationist writers such as Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Lucien Rebatet and the journalist Robert Brasillach (all of whose books he had discovered in his father’s library) to depict a wartime France awash in corruption, complacency and concupiscence.
It was the work of an angry young man who wanted to torpedo the Gaullist myth of France as a country full of resistance fighters. It was also a son’s revenge. “In my first book I wanted to reply to all those people whose insults hurt me on account of my father,” writes Modiano in Dora Bruder (1997) — his peerless book about his investigation into the disappearance of a Jewish teenager during the war. “And [I wanted] to do it on the battlefield of French prose by once and for all reducing them to silence.”
Modiano’s vocation as a writer has always been about keeping memory alive, however much others might be keen to move on and forget. There remain some in Paris who would prefer for the Occupation, often referred to as les années noires, to be less visibly integrated into the city’s architecture. Last year outrage ensued when it was discovered that after some building work a plaque at 93, Rue Lauriston, commemorating the lives of tortured Resistance members, had not been replaced.
Though he rarely invokes the Holocaust directly, its horrific violence — both physical and moral — seethes beneath the surface of his novels
The business that rented the address — where the French Gestapo had its headquarters between 1941 and 1944 — argued that retaining the plaque would confront their clients with a bitter reminder of the past. The news surely didn’t escape Modiano’s attention. His father once had an office at nearby Rue Lord Byron and the author spent a great deal of time exploring the environs of the 16th arrondissement.
The Night Watch, published in 1969, features characters who are very closely based on Pierre Bonny and Henri Lafont, leading figures in the French Gestapo whose gang was known as “La Bande de la Rue Lauriston”. Into their midst Modiano introduces a rootless young man. He is not evil per se but far too easily influenced by those with more experience than himself: “Not enough moral fibre to be a hero. Too dispassionate and distracted to be a real villain. On the other hand, I was malleable, I had a fondness for action, and I was plainly good-natured.”
The novel’s protagonist is remarkably similar to the one Modiano and Louis Malle came up with in their screenplay for the Bafta-award winning film Lacombe, Lucien (1974). Both eschew a focus on ideology to show a young man being shaped by the environment in which he finds himself. In Lacombe, Lucien, this means presenting a thrill-seeking lout who, after being turned down by the French Resistance as a potential recruit, soon finds himself presented with the opportunity of enrolling with the enemy.
Some influential French film critics such as Serge Daney attacked Modiano and Malle for the blankness of their protagonist and a general lack of psychological insight. But it is precisely the passivity of these characters that explains their corruptibility. The world they enter into, to borrow Modiano’s words, is one of “flashy foreigners, abortionists, swindlers, hack journalists, shyster lawyers and crooked accountants”, not to mention “a whole battalion of women of easy virtue, erotic dancers, morphine addicts”. Ring Roads, which was published three years after The Night Watch, navigated similarly murky waters in its story of a young Jew who goes in search of his collaborationist father.

It is a world the novelist still contemplates today but in a far more restrained key. As a study in contrasts it is fascinating to read Modiano’s most recent novel, last year’s So You Don’t Get Lost in the Neighbourhood alongside La Place de l’Étoile. There is still plenty of moral unpleasantness at play but the focus has narrowed and the intrigue has grown less haphazard.
The story begins when a reclusive but eminently sane writer, Jean Daragane, is contacted by a stranger, who says he has found the author’s address book and wants to return it to him in person. From this slender premise Modiano weaves a complex tale which switches between past and present. The Occupation is never mentioned but Daragane’s fallible memories are of a peripatetic upbringing straight after the war and the wayward individuals he encountered while his parents were absent.
Some French critics have suggested that So You Don’t Get Lost is Modiano’s most autobiographical novel yet. In his beautifully wrought Nobel lecture, he hinted as much by evoking his upbringing and how it shaped his future as a writer. Modiano recounted how he often found himself away from his parents, staying with their friends, about whom he knew nothing. (His mother was often touring in theatrical productions and his father’s fruitless business-dealings frequently took him abroad.)
At the time Modiano didn’t think much of it but later he tried — in vain — to find out more about the people on whom his parents had foisted him. Such early efforts to resolve enigmas beyond his grasp persuaded Modiano, he said in the Nobel lecture, to turn to fiction — “as if writing and the imagination could help me finally tie up all those loose ends”.
Tobias Grey is a critic based in Paris

What I Learned From Going On More Than 100 Job Interviews in 8 Months - TIME

http://time.com/4000800/100-job-interviews-lessons/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+timeblogs%2Fcurious_capitalist+%28TIME%3A+Business%29

Brittney Oliver / Levo League @levoleague Aug. 18, 2015   

Be specific and adamant about what you’re looking for in a job

“I am a warrior with a warrior spirit!” This is the phrase I repeated to myself over and over again after I heard my pastor say it one Sunday morning. I quickly rushed home so I could jot it down and hang it up on my wall. Those seven words helped me stay encouraged through 8 months of unemployment—yes, that’s 243 frustrating, resume-writing, tear-filled days. And in that period, I went on more than 100 interviews, from the traditional, in-person sit-down to nerve wracking phone calls and dozens of video chats. There is so much that I learned about myself and the job search during that time that has made me a wiser woman and a more confident job candidate. I hope you’re never in my shoes, but if you are, keep these six things in mind:

1. Don’t give up on finding the perfect fit.

When looking to begin a career, you should not only be a good fit for the company, but it should be a good fit for you, too. When I graduated from college all I wanted was to live in New York City and work in consumer PR full-time. I didn’t have a specific firm that I wanted to work for, but I knew that I wanted an opportunity to get my feet wet. Companies are looking for candidates that they feel will adapt well with their teams and their corporate culture. There were times I would pretend to be a good fit for a team out of desperation, when I knew in my heart that the job or the company wasn’t right. Don’t do this. Be specific about what you’re looking for in a job—and consider asking for an informational interview before you send in an official application somewhere. Either way, decide it’s a fit before applying for the gig.

2. Avoid the job board black hole by doing your research.

Most job postings will take you down the road of an online application. Indeed, MediaBistro, LinkedIn, and other job boards are great tools that I used during my job hunt. However, I also went the extra mile to land my interviews by finding a contact at the companies where I applied. LinkedIn is a great way to connect with current employees to inquire about a position. If you use Craigslist as a job tool, make sure you look up the company before you interview. One time, I was asked to come to Atlanta for an interview, but after thorough research on Glassdoor, the company turned out to be a call center and not a marketing firm. I saved myself time and money on a flight by doing preliminary research first.

3. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

As I watched my classmates land exciting jobs, I grew more and more embarrassed to still be unemployed. I was tight-lipped about my job search challenges, but then I remembered a line from one of my favorite movies: “Closed mouths don’t get fed.” And its true. Your professional and personal relationships can greatly improve your job search. My mentors, alumni network and my colleagues helped me refine my pitch and sent along listings. They also offered to look over my resume, set up meetings with hiring managers, and even gave me mock interviews.


4. Life is so much more than a Valencia filter.

We have to remember not to live life through a Valencia filter—you know, that perfectly smooth photo effect on Instagram. We have to trust the process and be mindful that our journey is uniquely ours to take. My social media feeds began to affect me negatively during my job search. Although I was ecstatic to read job announcements from my colleagues, I was wondering when I would get to share mynew job status. I decided to take a break from social media to focus on me. Take breaks from your social media accounts to help you stay positive. Start off slow with a weekend hiatus and then progress to a week of newsfeed-free living. Like me, you’ll probably notice how much more you’re able to accomplish (and how much less bummed you feel) by taking a break.

5. When you open your mind, you open your world.

In the midst of my search slump, I began to see people turn their degrees and internships into transferrable skills that helped them land jobs outside of their fields. I decided to do the very same thing. I had tunnel vision when I started my job hunt and that was to land a PR job in New York City. I was not interested in anything else or living anywhere else. Once I realized that art and psychology majors were getting the PR jobs that I interviewed for, I decided to open myself up to other opportunities. From there I started applying to jobs all over the United States and in different industries. Be open when job-hunting, you never know where new doors will lead and you may just discover hidden talents.

6. Stay positive by finding a “pump you up” anthem.

Keeping a positive mind can change your circumstances. Christina Aguilera’s “Fighter” was my theme song during my job hunt. Even though it took me a while to find a job, it made me “a little bit stronger” and “a little wiser” each time I had an interview. I learned to train my mind to think positive by taking negative thoughts and turning them into hopeful statements. Instead of saying “I had a horrible interview,” try saying “I did the best I could during that interview.” Instead of saying “I’m a complete failure for not landing the job,” think, “ I may not have landed this job—but I have what it takes to get the next one.”

Once I opened my mind, I reached out to a relative that worked at the number one hospital in New York City. Equipped with the lessons I learned and utilizing her connections, I was able to get a job as an office assistant. After that short stint, I finally reached my goal and got a full time job in public relations. Be resilient and keep working towards your dreams, when the timing is right everything you wished for will happen for you.

This article originally appeared on Levo.com

A look inside the crazy five-tier caste system of Kim Jong-un's North Korea -TIME

A look inside the crazy five-tier caste system of Kim Jong-un's North Korea

JOSEPH K. H. CHENG·SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2015

According to http://NKNews.org/ and based on a source who used to work for the North Korean police force, the five castes from the elite down are:

http://i100.independent.co.uk/artic...

Special

Nucleus

Basic

Complex

Hostile

The system, known as songbun, was put in place by the founder of present-day Communist North Korea, Kim Il-sung (Kim Jong-un's grandfather), and is based on what happened during the 1950-1953 Korean War and the Japanese colonial period before that.

Your status is determined on the paternal side, and by how previous generations of your family acted during the war and occupation.

So the descendants of war heroes and generals would find themselves in the Special class. But deserters or people whose grandparents were subservient to the Japanese would be in the lower categories Complex and Hostile.

By 1967, the report says, the system completely determined where people were allowed to live, work, and what education their children received.

There are very few Specials, who form the elite of society, and it is thought that the Kim family are exempt from the class system altogether.

Nucleus, the second tier, is the largest caste. You have to be born as a Special or Nucleus - and lower than these classes there is severe and systemic discrimination.

Basics can work their way up into becoming Nuclei, but for Complex and Hostile citizens that is virtually impossible.

It's possible to raise your songbun either by hard work or by joining the Communist party as an official, and by being "awarded with an audience", or speaking with the Supreme Leader for more than 20 minutes (or taking a picture with him).

It was previously thought that there were only three social classes. The Complex classification was only added to the system in the 2000s and Special was also previously unknown.

So, the Higgs boson might not have been discovered after all - TIME

http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/so-the-higgs-boson-might-not-have-been-discovered-after-all--xyFJiupwwe


by Matthew Champion in tech

A year after Peter Higgs and Francois Englert were handed the Nobel Prize for their work in helping discover the Higgs Boson, a group of scientists have claimed the so-called God particle may not have been found after all.

A team of Danish researchers said that while particle physicists at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) Large Hadron Collider definitely found something, it could have been another particle entirely.

“The current data is not precise enough to determine exactly what the particle is,” said Mads Toudal Frandsen of the University of Southern Denmark’s Centre for Cosmology and Particle Physics Phenomenology, publishing the team’s findings in the Physical Review D journal.

“It could be a number of other known particles.”

Rather than the Higgs boson - the building block in the Standard Model of the fundamental forces of physics and the creation of the universe - the Danish-based team believe that another theoretical particle called the techni-higgs could have been discovered.

Techni-higgs is not elementary but made up of techni-quarks, which in turn could form in some combinations dark matter, which makes up most of the matter in the universe but that the Higgs boson cannot explain.

The Large Hadron Collider was shut down for maintenance in early 2013 and will not start smashing protons together again until next year.

Origin-of-Life Story May Have Found Its Missing Link - Live Science

http://www.livescience.com/51106-origin-of-life-chemistry-found.html?cmpid=514629_20150726_47452336&adbid=1097727456921955&adbpl=fb&adbpr=123862014308509

Origin-of-Life Story May Have Found Its Missing Link
by Jesse Emspak, Live Science Contributor | June 06, 2015 10:47am ET

How did life on Earth begin? It's been one of modern biology's greatest mysteries: How did the chemical soup that existed on the early Earth lead to the complex molecules needed to create living, breathing organisms? Now, researchers say they've found the missing link.

Between 4.6 billion and 4.0 billion years ago, there was probably no life on Earth. The planet's surface was at first molten and even as it cooled, it was getting pulverized by asteroids and comets. All that existed were simple chemicals. But about 3.8 billion years ago, the bombardment stopped, and life arose. Most scientists think the "last universal common ancestor" — the creature from which everything on the planet descends — appeared about 3.6 billion years ago.

But exactly how that creature arose has long puzzled scientists. For instance, how did the chemistry of simple carbon-based molecules lead to the information storage of ribonucleic acid, or RNA? The RNA molecule must store information to code for proteins. (Proteins in biology do more than build muscle — they also regulate a host of processes in the body.)


The new research — which involves two studies, one led by Charles Carter and one led by Richard Wolfenden, both of the University of North Carolina — suggests a way for RNA to control the production of proteins by working with simple amino acids that does not require the more complex enzymes that exist today. [7 Theories on the Origin of Life on Earth]

Missing RNA link

This link would bridge this gap in knowledge between the primordial chemical soup and the complex molecules needed to build life. Current theories say life on Earth started in an "RNA world," in which the RNA molecule guided the formation of life, only later taking a backseat to DNA, which could more efficiently achieve the same end result. Like DNA, RNA is a helix-shaped molecule that can store or pass on information. (DNA is a double-stranded helix, whereas RNA is single-stranded.) Many scientists think the first RNA molecules existed in a primordial chemical soup — probably pools of water on the surface of Earth billions of years ago. [Photo Timeline: How the Earth Formed]

The idea was that the very first RNA molecules formed from collections of three chemicals: a sugar (called a ribose); a phosphate group, which is a phosphorus atom connected to oxygen atoms; and a base, which is a ring-shaped molecule of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen atoms. RNA also needed nucleotides, made of phosphates and sugars.

The question: How did the nucleotides come together within the soupy chemicals to make RNA? John Sutherland, a chemist at the University of Cambridge in England, published a study in May in the journal Nature Chemistry that showed that a cyanide-based chemistry could make two of the four nucleotides in RNA and many amino acids.

That still left questions, though. There wasn't a good mechanism for putting nucleotides together to make RNA. Nor did there seem to be a natural way for amino acids to string together and form proteins. Today, adenosine triphosphate (ATP) does the job of linking amino acids into proteins, activated by an enzyme called aminoacyl tRNA synthetase. But there's no reason to assume there were any such chemicals around billions of years ago.

Also, proteins have to be shaped a certain way in order to function properly. That means RNA has to be able to guide their formation — it has to "code" for them, like a computer running a program to do a task.

Carter noted that it wasn't until the past decade or two that scientists were able to duplicate the chemistry that makes RNA build proteins in the lab. "Basically, the only way to get RNA was to evolve humans first," he said. "It doesn't do it on its own."

Perfect sizes

In one of the new studies, Carter looked at the way a molecule called "transfer RNA," or tRNA, reacts with different amino acids.

They found that one end of the tRNA could help sort amino acids according to their shape and size, while the other end could link up with amino acids of a certain polarity. In that way, this tRNA molecule could dictate how amino acids come together to make proteins, as well as determine the final protein shape. That's similar to what the ATP enzyme does today, activating the process that strings together amino acids to form proteins.

Carter told Live Science that the ability to discriminate according to size and shape makes a kind of "code" for proteins called peptides, which help to preserve the helix shape of RNA.

"It's an intermediate step in the development of genetic coding," he said.

In the other study, Wolfenden and colleagues tested the way proteins fold in response to temperature, since life somehow arose from a proverbial boiling pot of chemicals on early Earth. They looked at life's building blocks, amino acids, and how they distribute in water and oil — a quality called hydrophobicity. They found that the amino acids' relationships were consistent even at high temperatures — the shape, size and polarity of the amino acids are what mattered when they strung together to form proteins, which have particular structures. 

"What we're asking here is, 'Would the rules of folding have been different?'" Wolfenden said. At higher temperatures, some chemical relationships change because there is more thermal energy. But that wasn't the case here.

By showing that it's possible for tRNA to discriminate between molecules, and that the links can work without "help," Carter thinks he's found a way for the information storage of chemical structures like tRNA to have arisen — a crucial piece of passing on genetic traits. Combined with the work on amino acids and temperature, it offers insight into how early life might have evolved.

This work still doesn't answer the ultimate question of how life began, but it does show a mechanism for the appearance of the genetic codes that pass on inherited traits, which got evolution rolling.

The two studies are published in the June 1 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.