20160229 - !!!

20160228 - nobel literature 2006

Orhan Pamuk

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2006 was awarded to Orhan Pamuk "who in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures".


Ferit Orhan Pamuk (generally known simply as Orhan Pamuk; born 7 June 1952) is a Turkish novelist, screenwriter, academic and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. One of Turkey's most prominent novelists^, his work has sold over thirteen million books in sixty-three languages^, making him the country's best-selling writer.
Pamuk is the author of novels including The White Castle, The Black Book, The New Life, My Name Is Red, Snow and The Museum of Innocence. He is the Robert Yik-Fong Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where he teaches writing and comparative literature.
Born in Istanbul, Pamuk is the first Turkish Nobel laureate. He is also the recipient of numerous other literary awards. My Name Is Red won the 2002 Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger, 2002 Premio Grinzane Cavour and 2003 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
The European Writers' Parliament came about as a result of a joint proposal by Pamuk and José Saramago. In 2005, the ultra-nationalist lawyer Kemal Kerinçsiz sued Pamuk over his statement regarding the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire.His intention, according to Pamuk himself, had been to highlight issues relating to freedom of speech in the country of his birth. The court initially rejected to hear the case, but in 2011 Pamuk was ordered to pay 6,000 liras in total compensation for having insulted the plaintiffs' honor.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orhan_Pamuk

20160227 - nobel literature 2007

Doris Lessing

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2007 was awarded to Doris Lessing "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny".


Doris May Lessing CH (née Tayler; 22 October 1919 – 17 November 2013) was a British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer. Her novels include The Grass is Singing (1950), the sequence of five novels collectively called Children of Violence (1952–69), The Golden Notebook (1962), The Good Terrorist (1985), and five novels collectively known as Canopus in Argos: Archives (1979–1983).
Lessing was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature. In awarding the prize, the Swedish Academy described her as "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny". Lessing was the eleventh woman and the oldest person ever to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.
In 2001, Lessing was awarded the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime's achievement in British literature. In 2008, The Times ranked her fifth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Lessing

20160226 - nobel literature 2008

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2008 was awarded to Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization".



Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio (born 13 April 1940), usually identified as J. M. G. Le Clézio, is a French-Mauritian writer and professor. The author of over forty works, he was awarded the 1963 Prix Renaudot for his novel Le Procès-Verbal, as well as the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature for his life's work, as an "author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization".

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._G._Le_Cl%C3%A9zio

20160225 - nobel literature 2009

Herta Müller

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2009 was awarded to Herta Müller "who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed".



Herta Müller (born 17 August 1953) is a Romanian-born German novelist, poet, essayist and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Nițchidorf, Timiș County in Romania, her native language is German. Since the early 1990s she has been internationally established, and her works have been translated into more than twenty languages.
Müller is noted for her works depicting the effects of violence, cruelty and terror, usually in the setting of Communist Romania under the repressive Nicolae Ceaușescu regime which she has experienced herself. Many of her works are told from the viewpoint of the German minority in Romania and are also a depiction of the modern history of the Germans in the Banat, and Transylvania. Her much acclaimed 2009 novel The Hunger Angel (Atemschaukel) portrays the deportation of Romania's German minority to Stalinist Soviet Gulags during the Soviet occupation of Romania for use as German forced labor.
Müller has received more than twenty awards to date, including the Kleist Prize (1994), the Aristeion Prize (1995), the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (1998) and the Franz Werfel Human Rights Award (2009). On 8 October 2009, the Swedish Academy announced that she had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, describing her as a woman "who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed".

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herta_M%C3%BCller

20160224 - nobel literature 2010

Mario Vargas Llosa

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2010 was awarded to Mario Vargas Llosa "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat".



Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquis of Vargas Llosa ( born March 28, 1936) is a Peruvian writer, politician, journalist, essayist, college professor, and recipient of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature. Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading writers of his generation. Some critics consider him to have had a larger international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the Latin American Boom. Upon announcing the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy said it had been given to Vargas Llosa "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat".
Vargas Llosa rose to fame in the 1960s with novels such as The Time of the Hero (La ciudad y los perros, literally The City and the Dogs, 1963/1966), The Green House (La casa verde, 1965/1968), and the monumental Conversation in the Cathedral (Conversación en la catedral, 1969/1975). He writes prolifically across an array of literary genres, including literary criticism and journalism. His novels include comedies, murder mysteries, historical novels, and political thrillers. Several, such as Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (1973/1978) and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977/1982), have been adapted as feature films.
Many of Vargas Llosa's works are influenced by the writer's perception of Peruvian society and his own experiences as a native Peruvian. Increasingly- however- he has expanded his range, and tackled themes that arise from other parts of the world. In his essays, Vargas Llosa has made many criticisms of nationalism in different parts of the world. Another change over the course of his career has been a shift from a style and approach associated with literary modernism, to a sometimes playful postmodernism.
Like many Latin American writers, Vargas Llosa has been politically active throughout his career; over the course of his life, he has gradually moved from the political left towards liberalism. While he initially supported the Cuban revolutionary government of Fidel Castro, Vargas Llosa later became disenchanted with his policies. He ran for the Peruvian presidency in 1990 with the center-right Frente Democrático coalition, advocating classical liberal reforms, but lost the election to Alberto Fujimori. He is the person who, in 1990, "coined the phrase that circled the globe", declaring on Mexican television, "Mexico is the perfect dictatorship", a statement which became an adage during the following decade.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Vargas_Llosa

20160223 - nobel literature 2011

Tomas Tranströmer

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2011 was awarded to Tomas Tranströmer "because, through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality".


Tomas Gösta Tranströmer (15 April 1931 – 26 March 2015) was a Swedish poet, psychologist and translator. His poems captured the long Swedish winters, the rhythm of the seasons and the palpable, atmospheric beauty of nature. Tranströmer's work is also characterized by a sense of mystery and wonder underlying the routine of everyday life, a quality which often gives his poems a religious dimension. He has been described as a Christian poet.
Tranströmer is acclaimed as one of the most important Scandinavian writers since the Second World War. Critics praised his poetry for its accessibility, even in translation. His poetry has been translated into over 60 languages. He was the recipient of the 1990 Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomas_Transtr%C3%B6mer

20160222 - nobel literature 2012

Mo Yan

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2012 was awarded to Mo Yan "who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary".



Guan Moye ( born 17 February 1955), better known by the pen name Mo Yan, is a Chinese novelist and short story writer. Donald Morrison of U.S. news magazine TIME referred to him as "one of the most famous, oft-banned and widely pirated of all Chinese writers", and Jim Leach called him the Chinese answer to Franz Kafka or Joseph Heller.
He is best known to Western readers for his 1987 novel Red Sorghum Clan, of which the Red Sorghum and Sorghum Wine volumes were later adapted for the film Red Sorghum. In 2012, Mo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his work as a writer "who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary".

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mo_Yan

20160221 - nobel literature 2013

Alice Munro

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2013 is awarded to the Canadian author Alice Munro
“master of the contemporary short story”.




Alice Ann Munro ; born 10 July 1931) is a Canadian short story writer and Nobel Prize winner. Munro's work has been described as having revolutionized the architecture of short stories, especially in its tendency to move forward and backward in time. Her stories have been said to "embed more than announce, reveal more than parade."
Munro's fiction is most often set in her native Huron County in southwestern Ontario. Her stories explore human complexities in an uncomplicated prose style. Munro's writing has established her as "one of our greatest contemporary writers of fiction," or, as Cynthia Ozick put it, "our Chekhov." Munro is the recipient of many literary accolades, including the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature for her work as "master of the contemporary short story", and the 2009 Man Booker International Prize for her lifetime body of work. She is also a three-time winner of Canada's Governor General's Award for fiction and was the recipient of the Writers' Trust of Canada's 1996 Marian Engel Award, as well as the 2004 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize for Runaway.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Munro

20160220 - nobel literature 2014

Patrick Modiano

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2014 is awarded to the French author Patrick Modiano
“for the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation”.




Jean Patrick Modiano; born 30 July 1945) is a French novelist and recipient of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature. He previously won the 2012 Austrian State Prize for European Literature, the 2010 Prix mondial Cino Del Duca from the Institut de France for lifetime achievement, the 1978 Prix Goncourt for Rue des boutiques obscures, and the 1972 Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française for Les Boulevards de ceinture. His works have been translated into more than 30 languages and have been celebrated in and around France, but most of his novels had not been translated into English before he was awarded the Nobel Prize.

Early and personal life

Jean Patrick Modiano was born in Boulogne-Billancourt, a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France, on July 30, 1945. His father, Albert Modiano (1912–77, born in Paris), was of Italian Jewish origin; on his paternal side he was descended from a Sephardic family of Thessaloniki, Greece. His mother, Louisa Colpijn (1918-2015), was a Belgian (Flemish) actress also known as Louisa Colpeyn. Modiano's parents met in occupied Paris during World War II and began their relationship semi-clandestinely (they separated shortly after Patrick's birth). His father had refused to wear the Yellow badge and did not turn himself in when Paris Jews were rounded up for deportation to Nazi concentration camps He was picked up in February 1942, and narrowly missed being deported, after an intervention from a friend.During the war years Albert did business on the black market, hanging around with the Carlingue, the French Gestapo auxiliaries Its leaders were recruited from the underworld. Albert Modiano never clearly spoke of this period to his son before his death in 1977


 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Modiano

20160219 - nobel literature 2015

Svetlana Alexievich

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2015 was awarded to Svetlana Alexievich "for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time".

Background

Born in the west Ukrainian town of Stanislaviv (since 1962 Ivano-Frankivsk) to a Belarusian father and a Ukrainian mother, Svetlana Alexievich grew up in Belarus. After finishing school she worked as a reporter in several local newspapers before graduating from Belarusian State University (1972) and becoming a correspondent for the literary magazine Neman in Minsk (1976).
During her career in journalism, Alexievich specialised in crafting narratives based on witness testimonies. In the process, she wrote oral histories of several dramatic events in Soviet history: the Second World War, the Afghan War, the fall of the Soviet Union, and the Chernobyl disaster. After political persecution by the Lukashenko administration, she left Belarus in 2000.^[10] The International Cities of Refuge Network offered her sanctuary and during the following decade she lived in Paris, Gothenburg and Berlin. In 2011, Alexievich moved back to Minsk.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svetlana_Alexievich

20160218 - smoking

Why Is Smoking Bad For You?

Smoking is responsible for several diseases, such as cancer, long-term (chronic) respiratory diseases, and heart disease, as well as premature death. Over 480,000 people in the USA and 100,000 in the UK die because of smoking each year. According the US CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), $92 billion are lost each year from lost productivity resulting from smoking-related deaths.
Of the more than 2.4 million deaths in the USA annually, over 480,000 are caused by smoking.
Smoking is the largest cause of preventable death in the world. Recent studies have found that smokers can undermine the health of non-smokers in some environments.
In an article published online in Medical News Today on 30 May 2013, we presented data demonstrating that, on average, smokers die ten years sooner than non-smokers.

Smoking causes cancer

Lung cancer is one of the most common causes of cancer deaths in the world. According to the American Lung Association, 90% of male lung cancer patients develop their disease because of smoking. In addition, male smokers are 23 times more likely to develop lung cancer than those who have never smoked. Female smokers are 13 times more likely to develop lung cancer than those who have never smoked.

 http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/10566.php
 https://quitsmokingcommunity.org/why-is-smoking-bad-for-you/

20160217 - warnings

 

How graphic warnings on cigarette packets influence smokers' brains

Do graphic warning labels on cigarette packets really help smokers consider the health risks? Yes, according to the results of a new study, which found that such images prompt activity in areas of the brain associated with decision-making, emotion and memory.


Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the US, responsible for killing more than 480,000 Americans every year.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), smoking increases the risk of coronary heart disease and stroke by two to four times and raises the risk of lung cancer by around 25 times.
Statistics like these emphasize the need for strategies to reduce smoking rates, and one such strategy has been the introduction of graphic warning labels (GWLs) to cigarette packaging.

 http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/306717.php

20160216 - air pollution/obesity

Exposure to air pollution increases risk of obesity

If findings of rat study are verified in humans, urgent action needed

Date:

February 19, 2016

Source:

Duke University

Summary:

Laboratory rats who breathed Beijing's highly polluted air gained weight and experienced cardio-respiratory and metabolic dysfunctions. A study found pollution-breathing pregnant rats had heavier lungs and livers and increased tissue inflammation. These rats had higher LDL cholesterol; higher triglycerides; higher total cholesterol and more insulin resistance, a precursor of Type 2 diabetes. 

 

 

 https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160219111219.htm

20160215 - almere

Almere is one of The Netherlands's youngest and fastest growing cities. Built on the reclaimed polder landscape this city has continuously experimented with new and different ways of living. This has resulted in a diverse selection of housing typologies and often remarkable architecture.

The city centre has been developed according to the masterplan of OMA and showcases buildings by numerous international architects Our will give you an insight into the development of this unique city and its surroundings.


 http://www.architecturetours.nl/Almere-architectural-tour

20160214 - zwolle

Zwolle is a municipality and the capital city of the province of Overijssel, Netherlands. It has a population around 125,000.

History

Archaeological findings indicate that the area surrounding Zwolle has been inhabited for a long time. A woodhenge that was found in the Zwolle-Zuid suburb in 1993 was dated to the Bronze Age period.During the Roman era, the area was inhabited by Salian Franks.
The modern city was founded around 800 A.D. by Frisian merchants and troops of Charlemagne. The name Zwolle is derived from the word Suolle, which means "hill" (cf. the English cognate verb "to swell"). This refers to an incline in the landscape between the four rivers surrounding the city, IJssel, Vecht, Aa and Zwarte Water. The hill was the only piece of land that would remain dry during the frequent floodings of the rivers. Zwolle was established on that incline.
A document mentions the existence of a parish church dedicated to St Michael. That church, the Grote or Sint Michaëlskerk (big or Saint Michael Church), was renovated in the first half of the 15th century and exists to this day. The church contains a richly carved pulpit, the work of Adam Straes van Weilborch (about 1620), some good carving and an exquisite organ (1721).

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwolle

20160213 - snowdrop

Galanthus (snowdrop; Greek gála "milk", ánthos "flower") is a small genus of about 20 species of bulbous perennial herbaceous plants in the family Amaryllidaceae. Most flower in winter, before the vernal equinox (20 or 21 March in the Northern Hemisphere), but certain species flower in early spring and late autumn.
Snowdrops are sometimes confused with the two related genera within Galantheae, snowflakes Leucojum and Acis.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galanthus

20160212 - spring flowers

Plant	Region
Anemone ranunculoides	Continental Europe Mediterranean
Anemone nemorosa	Europe
Bluet (Houstonia caerulea)	Eastern North America
Bloodroot	Eastern North America
Chionodoxa	Europe Mediterranean
Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara)	Europe Asia North America South America
Dutch Crocus (ornamental)
Dewberry	Northern Hemisphere
Dog's Mercury	Europe
Early Star-of-Bethlehem	Europe Mediterranean
Eastern Redbud	Eastern North America
Ghostflower	Southwestern United States (especially Southern California) Northwestern Mexico
Harbringer of Spring (Erigenia bulbosa)	North America
Helianthemum apenninum	Europe
Hyacinth (ornamental)
Iris (ornamental)
Lasthenia conjugens	San Francisco Bay Area

20160211 - gravitational waves

In physics, gravitational waves are ripples in the curvature of spacetime which propagate as waves, travelling outward from the source. Predicted in 1916 by Albert Einstein on the basis of his theory of general relativity, gravitational waves transport energy as gravitational radiation. The existence of gravitational waves is a possible consequence of the Lorentz invariance of general relativity since it brings the concept of a finite speed of propagation of the physical interactions with it. By contrast, gravitational waves cannot exist in the Newtonian theory of gravitation, which postulates that physical interactions propagate at infinite speed.
Before the direct detection of gravitational waves, there was indirect evidence for their existence. For example, measurements of the Hulse–Taylor binary system suggested that gravitational waves are more than a hypothetical concept. Potential sources of detectable gravitational waves include binary star systems composed of white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes. Various gravitational-wave observatories (detectors) are under construction or in operation, such as Advanced LIGO which began observations in September 2015.
On February 11, 2016, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration teams announced that they had directly detected gravitational waves from a pair of black holes merging using the Advanced LIGO detectors.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_wave

20160210 - andy capp

20160209 - andy capp

Andy Capp is a British comic strip created by cartoonist Reg Smythe (1917–1998), seen in The Daily Mirror and The Sunday Mirror newspapers since 5 August 1957. Originally a single-panel cartoon, it was later expanded to four panels.
The strip is syndicated internationally by Creators Syndicate. The character is also licensed as the mascot for a line of snack foods (Andy Capp's fries) and a defunct chain of miniature golf courses in Brevard County, Florida. The character is also a popular mascot since the 1980s for the North Carolina Outerbanks convenience store chain Brew-Thru.


 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Capp

20160208 - windmills - 5

The Future of Wind Power

Wind energy is a clean, renewable way of generating electricity. In the future, provided costs are reined in, the primary focus will be offshore development. 

Cost and Intermittence

The pros and cons of wind power are still the subject of heated debate. There are two main arguments against wind power:

• It is more expensive to produce wind-sourced electricity than electricity from conventional sources, such as nuclear and thermal energy. This means that wind power needs to be subsidized, mainly in the form of preferential feed-in tariffs.
• Wind power is intermittent because winds are unpredictable and uncontrollable. This may result in large swings in output and even shutdowns. However, grid operators are used to dealing with the problem of intermittence, which is also an issue with other sources of energy, like solar. It is estimated that a large-scale grid can integrate a wind energy penetration rate of 20% without experiencing major technical problems.

Other solutions are also being developed to address the problem of interrupted power supply. One answer is to set up interconnected groups of wind turbines over extended areas in order to leverage their combined energy and ensure a guaranteed minimum amount of power. Research is also being carried out on ways to store large quantities of surplus electricity, particularly through the use of batteries.

A Fast-Growing Industry

Despite these difficulties, wind power is rapidly developing in practically every part of the world, with growth rates ranging from 10 to 40% per year. Although the pace of growth slackened in 2013, installed global capacity reached an impressive 318 GW, for an increase of 200 GW in five years¹.
The European Union is particularly well positioned, thanks to its assertive policy of developing renewable energies. In 2013, wind power accounted for 117 GW of installed capacity in the E.U., meeting 8% of its electricity demand.² The industry continues to grow despite a decrease in 2013.

 http://www.planete-energies.com/en/medias/close/future-wind-power

20160207 - windmills - 4

How Does a Windmill Work?

Winds are produced due to uneven heating of the atmosphere by the sun, the rotation of the earth and the irregularities of the earth’s surface. Wind flow patterns differ from place to place and are modified by bodies of water, vegetation, and differences in terrain. This next section explains briefly but accurately how windmills work. Sourcing more extensive information, readers will learn that understanding technical processes initiated in wind turbines will be easy to follow because the manner in which windmills work follows a simple process. Here we continue to rely on layman’s terms.

• A number of different options were tried when modern wind turbines were first built. Today, the universal mechanizing principle is to operate the turbine by using just three blades placed around a rotor which is connected to a shaft. Note that number of variations have been tried, two blade and even one blade. But, three blades works the best.
• As its name states, the windmill’s only source of energy is derived from the wind. The wind turns the blades which spins a shaft, in turn, prompt a generator to produce electricity. These blades are connected to a generator, sometimes through a gearbox and sometimes directly. In both the cases, the generator converts the mechanical energy into electrical energy. Interestingly, most modern turbines turn in a clockwise direction. Depending on wind speed, most modern turbines can operate at speeds from as little as four meters per second to as much as 15 mps.
• Quite a number of green energy advocates and NGO’s describe the wind-generator process more succinctly by correlating it closely with the environmental sustainability initiatives.
• Once the turbine’s blades turns a shaft located inside of a box placed on top of the turbine, gearbox mode is propelled and more speed rotation is given off. A transformer within the turbine then converts electricity into a voltage suitable for distribution to a national grid.

Main Purpose of Modern Wind Turbine

By now, most readers will know that modern windmills (turbines) primary purpose is to produce electricity from wind with as little impact on the environment as possible. These next few notes simply highlight this sustainable initiative. The minimal impact on the environment is, however, controversial. We’ll mention this briefly too.

• Whether located in rural or urban sectors, it is often people on the lowest level of the socio-economic scale that are faced with looking at these hegemonic structures every day. Also, nature lovers continue to voice legitimate concerns on how these turbines impact migratory patterns of bird species.

• Already mentioned, the basic function of a wind turbine is to utilize the power generated from wind and convert it into usable (renewable) energy. On a smaller scale, home users can install their own turbine and produce their own power at little or no cost.
• As renewable energy, it can be reproduced continuously until there is enough power to feed its designated locations. It is also promoted as a clean source of energy and while not yet widely used, it is ideal for the world’s least developed nations as an affordable source of producing electricity.
• Most importantly, the turbine contributes greatly to reduce fossil fuel consumption. It goes without saying that the more countries that use them, the greater the reduction in fossil fuel use because it has been proven to be a reliable driver of energy.

 http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/how-windmills-work.php

20160206 - windmills - 3

Vertical windmills

Due to a lack of evidence, debate occurs among historians as to whether or not Middle Eastern horizontal windmills triggered the original development of European windmills.In northwestern Europe, the horizontal-axis or vertical windmill (so called due to the plane of the movement of its sails) is believed to date from the last quarter of the twelfth century in the triangle of northern France, eastern England and Flanders

The earliest certain reference to a windmill in Europe (assumed to have been of the vertical type) dates from 1185, in the former village of Weedley in Yorkshire which was located at the southern tip of the Wold overlooking the Humber estuary. A number of earlier, but less certainly dated, twelfth-century European sources referring to windmills have also been found.These earliest mills were used to grind cereals

Sails

Common sails consist of a lattice framework on which a sailcloth is spread. The miller can adjust the amount of cloth spread according to the amount of wind available and power needed. In medieval mills, the sailcloth was wound in and out of a ladder type arrangement of sails. Postmedieval mill sails had a lattice framework over which the sailcloth was spread, while in colder climates, the cloth was replaced by wooden slats, which were easier to handle in freezing conditions. The jib sail is commonly found in Mediterranean countries, and consists of a simple triangle of cloth wound round a spar.

In all cases, the mill needs to be stopped to adjust the sails. Inventions in Great Britain in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries led to sails that automatically adjust to the wind speed without the need for the miller to intervene, culminating in patent sails invented by William Cubitt in 1807. In these sails, the cloth is replaced by a mechanism of connected shutters.

In France, Pierre-Théophile Berton invented a system consisting of longitudinal wooden slats connected by a mechanism that lets the miller open them while the mill is turning. In the twentieth century, increased knowledge of aerodynamics from the development of the airplane led to further improvements in efficiency by German engineer Bilau and several Dutch millwrights.

The majority of windmills have four sails. Multiple-sailed mills, with five, six or eight sails, were built in Great Britain (especially in and around the counties of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire), Germany, and less commonly elsewhere. Earlier multiple-sailed mills are found in Spain, Portugal, Greece, parts of Romania, Bulgaria, and Russia. A mill with an even number of sails has the advantage of being able to run with a damaged sail and the one opposite removed without resulting in an unbalanced millIn the Netherlands the stationary position of the sails, i.e. when the mill is not working, has long been used to give signals. A slight tilt of the sails before the main building signals joy, while a tilt after the building signals mourning. Across the Netherlands, windmills were placed in mourning position in honor of the Dutch victims of the 2014 Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 shootdown

Machinery

Gears inside a windmill convey power from the rotary motion of the sails to a mechanical device. The sails are carried on the horizontal windshaft. Windshafts can be wholly made of wood, or wood with a cast iron poll end (where the sails are mounted) or entirely of cast iron. The brake wheel is fitted onto the windshaft between the front and rear bearing. It has the brake around the outside of the rim and teeth in the side of the rim which drive the horizontal gearwheel called wallower on the top end of the vertical upright shaft. In grist mills, the great spur wheel, lower down the upright shaft, drives one or more stone nuts on the shafts driving each millstone. Post mills sometimes have a head and/or tail wheel driving the stone nuts directly, instead of the spur gear arrangement. Additional gear wheels drive a sack hoist or other machinery. The machinery differs if the windmill is used for other applications than milling grain. A drainage mill uses another set of gear wheels on the bottom end of the upright shaft to drive a scoop wheel or Archimedes' screw. Sawmills use a crankshaft to provide a reciprocating motion to the saws. Windmills have been used to power many other industrial processes, including papermills, threshing mills, and to process oil seeds, wool, paints and stone products.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windmill

20160205 - windmills - 2

The types of windmills

Anyone reading, speaking, or writing about windmills is almost sure to think of the famous story of the Knight of the Rueful Countenance, Don Quixote de la Mancha, on his Rozinante. The sedate country squire who, having lost his head after reading a great many romances of chivalry, proclaims himself a knight errant and induces a poor peasant, Sancho Panza, to leave his wife and children and, seated on a donkey, accompany the knight as his shield-bearer on his odd expeditions.
They set out together and in the plain find a large number of windmills, which our knight takes for uncouth giants and accordingly has to fight. Lance in rest, he rushes at them, with the consequence that the turning sails cause him and his jade to roll over the plain. These mills had a cylindrical stone body, covered with a conical roof; they had four wooden stocks with frames on both sides.
The windmills of the type still to be found to-day in the regions of the Mediterranean, with five, six, or more primitive sails consisting of bars rigged with jib sails, in comparison with the Dutch windmills are also only humble wind machines.
But we will confine ourselves to the Dutch windmills, which are characteristic of the country and whose perfection and gracefulness are not surpassed by any other type, in any part of the world.
During our excursions through Holland, by train, by car, by bicycle, on foot, or - better still - in a wherry or a sailing-boat (for Holland is still most beautiful of all when seen from the water!), we shall see windmills, and in some places even very many of them together. They still exist indeed. It is true that they are no longer as numerous as they used to be, but close on one thousand of them are left. That the mills are still there is largely due to those who about 1920 took the initiative in fighting against the neglect of the windmills and the rage for demolition which assailed them from every side at that time. Owners who did not replace their windmills by mechanical pumping stations were considered old-fashioned, those who spoke in favour of windmills were called idealists not amenable to reason; neither the importance nor the value of the windmills in their technical, cultural, or artistic aspects were recognized any longer.
In 1926, under the leadership of Dr. P.G. van Tienhoven, a Dutchman of stature, the champions of the preservation of windmills in Holland published a pamphlet by which they opened the eyes of many people and solicited their membership of De Hollandsche Molen (Dutch Windmill Society), set up in 1923.


 http://www.let.rug.nl/polders/boekje/types.htm

20160204 - windmills - 1

Windmills in Holland and their Role 

in Dutch History

Together with cheese, wooden shoes and tulips, the windmill is one of the things Holland is most famous for. Tourists flock from all over the world to catch a glimpse of the windmills in Holland. But the windmill is not just a pleasure to the eye in our typical, flat landscape.
The windmills in Holland played a crucial role in the development of our country. Windmills were used in various ways throughout the history of Holland. They were used to create land, build ships and produce flower, oil and even mustard!

History of the windmills in Holland

Until the year 1400 AD, living conditions in Holland were far from ideal. The country consisted of wetlands, swamps and marshes separated from the sea by a belt of dunes. Villages were often destroyed by ravaging floods. In 1421, in a particular bad flood, over 70 villages were washed away and thousands of people drowned


Enter the windmill. After sea defenses were put up and dams were build to disconnect the water from the sea, windmills were used to drain the many lakes, swamps and wetlands. This drastically increased living conditions. Over the years, numerous windmills were built as they became larger and their water-lifting capacity increased.
In the 16th century, due to adjustments to the structure of the windmill, it became possible to use them for several other purposes, such as for the production of oil, paper and to saw timber.
Saw mills played an important role in the shipbuilding industry, enabling the construction of massive fleets. With these ships, Holland was able to reach a very dominant position in world trade during the 17th century, the Dutch Golden Age.
 The amount of windmills in Holland reached a peak in the 19th century, with an estimated 9000 working windmills, performing all sorts of industrial functions. Towards the end of the century a lot of mills were fitted with newly invented diesel engines and electric engines.

 http://thetravelingdutchman.com/the-windmill-and-its-important-role-in-dutch-history/

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20160202 - new words

How new words are born

Andy Bodle

As dictionary publishers never tire of reminding us, our language is growing. Not content with the million or so words they already have at their disposal, English speakers are adding new ones at the rate of around 1,000 a year. Recent dictionary debutants include blog, grok, crowdfunding, hackathon, airball, e-marketing, sudoku, twerk and Brexit.
But these represent just a sliver of the tip of the iceberg. According to Global Language Monitor, around 5,400 new words are created every year (Oxford Dictionaries Online, evidently using different criteria, reckon 1.8bn). It’s only the 1,000 or so deemed to be in sufficiently widespread use that make it into print. Who invents these words, and how? What rules govern their formation? And what determines whether they catch on?
Shakespeare is often held up as a master neologist, because at least 500 words (including bump, cranny, fitful, lacklustre and pedant) first appear in his works – but we have no way of knowing whether he personally invented them or was just transcribing things he’d picked up elsewhere.

 http://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2016/feb/04/english-neologisms-new-words