text:
The consciousness of Fortunata28
For impassioned readers and rereaders of Fortunata y Jacinta Fortunata is the woman who of all women is most profoundly known. We know her from within and we know her at length, from physical and spiritual birth to physical death and spiritual resurrection. That is to say, we know her in a way we can never know women of flesh and blood: our mothers, our sisters, or our wives. Yet it would not be easy to explain to a reader of -say- Madame Bovary what it is that we know about Fortunata, to tell him, as he could tell us about Emma, just what she is like. In so saying, I do not refer to the self-evident difficulties of determining character or of reducing on-going life to static resumé. Far more than others of her fictional peers -an Emma Bovary, a Becky Sharpe, a Gina Sanseverina, or a Celestina- Fortunata's way of being herself seems to evade the categories we habitually reserve for comprehension of the inhabitants of novels. It is not that she is more complex, vague, or contradictory than the other ladies mentioned. Instead in the very naiveté, and passionate forthrightness which we come to know so well there is an element of mystery. Her changes, feelings, preoccupations, and decisions are powerful and direct, yet when we ask the question, «Why?» or «Why at this point?» the answer is never self-evident.
In part this is due to the fact that Galdós, like Dostoievsky, much prefers presentation to explanation. In the manuscript he systematically deletes the rudimentary comments on happening and character which earlier versions had contained. But to an even greater extent it is the result of Galdós' unusual angle of creative vision. He sees Fortunata in a way quite different from the way he sees the characters who surround her. How is she presented? To find out we may follow the urgent instructions of Virginia Woolf to novel readers: «All alone we must climb on the novelist's shoulders and gaze through his eyes until we, too, understand in what order he ranges the large common objects upon which novelists are fated to gaze...»29
Upon so doing, as Montesinos observes, we realize that neither Galdós nor we really see Fortunata at all. As against her rival, Jacinta, whose taste for clothes («el polisón» and the «pardessus color de pasa»,) whose expressively mobile face, and even intimate parts of the body remain well fixed in our memory, Galdós cunningly juxtaposes a Fortunata of whose overpowering beauty we are given no particularized image. On the occasion of her first direct description when she and Juanito Santa Cruz, her seducer and beloved, meet on the stairs, the three adjectives of the sentence, «... juanito vio algo que de pronto le impresionó: una mujer bonita, joven, alta...», are utterly non-committal. The contrast between this succinct introduction and the depths of intimacy which the novel has in store for us could not be greater or more purposeful.
Immediately afterwards a process of verbal metamorphosis sets in which transforms Fortunata's typical manipulation of her «mantón de Manila» into the self-preening and ruffling up of a bird. At the very moment of her novelistic birth, her physical presence which other novelists might well have tried to make us visualize is converted into sheer force, into a primitive exhibition of vitality which captivates us just as it captivates the «señorito» who stands there staring. In fact, it has captivated so many readers that this scene has become a deservedly famous emblem of the novel as a —56→ whole, comparable to Don Quijote and the windmill or Robinson Crusoe and the footprint.
In a different way the same effect is achieved in the next description when Fortunata, at the beginning of Part II, becomes conscious of herself while looking at her own mirror image. She attempts to put the beauty she sees there into words, but at that linguistically underprivileged beginning of her existence she can do little more than exclaim («¡Vaya un pelito que Dios me ha dado!») or take refuge in commonplaces («Tengo los dientes como pedacitos de leche cuajada.»). Again words have been used more to conceal than to reveal; again we are given an impression of a marvellous presence, a presence to be sensed or at best glimpsed briefly (abundant black hair, firm flesh, etc.) but never to be examined closely and possessed in memory.
Why? One answer -and a true one- would be that Galdós here (as he can be observed doing elsewhere) has applied instinctively the narrative practice of Homer as analyzed by Lessing in the Laocoon: «Let us recall the passage where Helen steps into the assembly of the Elders of the Trojan people. The venerable old men looked on her and one said to the other: 'Small blame is it that the Trojans and wellgreaved Achaians should for such a woman long time suffer hardships; Marvellously like is she to the immortal goddesses to look upon.' What can convey a more vivid idea of Beauty than to have frigid age confessing her well worth the war that has cost so much blood and so many tears? What Homer could not describe in its component parts, he makes us feel in its working.»30 So Fortunata too is all the more splendid when seen through the impression she makes on Juanito and on herself.
But there is more to it than this. Between these two moments of transformed and transient description, Fortunata -as Sherman Eoff notes- disappears in a way which suggests the deeper intention of Galdós' reluctance to paint her portrait.31 As we learn in passing later on, after the death of Juanito's child, she sinks into a sexual underworld where she undergoes the sordid adventures which Naturalists naturally reserve for innocent lower class girls who have been seduced and abandoned. But unlike her precursor, Isidora Rufete in La desheredada, these experiences do not touch her or affect her. This topical part of her biography is tangential both to the story as a whole and to the integrity of her existence. What does matter is that in spite of her physical disappearance in Part I, she nevertheless maintains her post of honor at the center of the novel. As the protagonist she continues to be present in the remorseful and lascivious memory of Juanito and in the apprehensive and curious imagination of Jacinta, his new young bourgeois wife. Fortunata is not only the underlying subject of their cloying honeymoon dialogue (no matter what they pretend to be talking about) but, even more, she is the stranded incorporeal inhabitant, the uninvited guest, of their consciousness of each other. In this sense she constitutes, precisely because she is not described from without, the real reality of Part I.
If this sounds paradoxical in such a documentary narrative it is because Galdós meant it to. The long Naturalistic beginning of Fortunata y Jacinta may seem to certain readers (particularly foreign students to whom it has been assigned in class) out of proportion. The endless «pormenores», the world of clothes and food and shelter, the background of urban scenery, types, and historical events are «constructed» (as my late teacher, Augusto Centeno, used to term it) with infinitely patient expertise. «Con elementos que había reunido de antemano me puse a escribir...» -Galdós —57→ tells us in his Memorias32- and he did not intend to abbreviate them. But we should not be fooled; all this external realism is not there just because Madrid was like that. Instead it functions as a solid external point of departure for the basic inward movement of the novel. And even at the very moment of its display, in the very midst of all the picturesque particularities of urban life we find performing -as if on a classical stage- a figure of the mind which is larger and more real than «realism».
The point I am trying to make is simple and probably self-evident to the present audience. Galdós, following an experimental path that began with El amigo Manso (in apparent reaction against the Naturalism he had played with in La desheredada) has now decided to undertake what might be called a major Cervantine offensive against Emile Zola. Heredity and urban environment are no longer to be allowed to determine individual lives and to distort or shrink their consciousness. Rather, there is to be a return to don Quijote's open ended quest for values. Which is why Fortunata is virtually invisible; she is not just a conscious protagonist but a paladin of consciousness itself at war with «race, milieu, et moment» and, in ultimate victory, the assessor of their impotence.
The innovation was so great and the use of such a standard Naturalistic victim as Fortunata as the vessel of redemption so startling, that Galdós prepared the way with all possible caution. On the one hand, he built a verbal Madrid as solid as Balzac's Paris, and, on the other, he separeted his heroine from her wretched biography and amplified her as a creature of the consciousness of the newly married couple. The unsuspecting reader at the end of Part I is now ready to know her in terms of her extraordinary attraction for and presence in a whole gallery of other minds: Maxi, doña Lupe, Mauricia, Feijoo, Segismundo Ballester. The return to a novel of consciousness from a novel of forces and things could only be attempted slowly and indirectly.
The physical reappearance of Fortunata at the beginning of Part II, thus, constitutes a continuation and amplification of the dialectic of consciousness and world which began in Part I. Galdós now uses multiple juxtaposition of individual consciousnesses: the Fortunata who exists for those who know her and, at the same time, they as they reside in her mind. From these contrasts there emerges a Cervantinc novel of interlaced perspectives, that is to say, a novel of mutually involved consciousnesses, some narrowed by vice or social constraint, others exalted and on fire with idealism, and still others twisted by reason or insanity and all grouped around that of Fortunata. She is the magnetic pole for them all, precisely because of her freedom, of her potentiality for either damnation and salvation. She is the epic heroine of the faculty -not reason, but self-awareness- which makes us different from other living creatures.
It is for this reason, I think, that Galdós chooses not to paint Fortunata's enchanting portrait in words and why, in spite of our intimacy with her, we -like many of those who live with her in Galdós' pages- remain in awe of her mystery. Other novelists present their characters in much the same way that we meet people in life: as a more or less fixed initial image which we gradually get to know by an habitual process of continuing observation and deduction. But in the case of Fortunata we are disconcerted to find the familiar technique turned inside out. We enter her mind directly; we know all; and the more we reside there, the more marvellous the experience becomes. Fortunata is nothing less than what we might be, if we were true (today the word would be «authentic») -not distorted, self-serving, overtrained, —58→ cowardly, and generally desensitized. Or to say it more conventionally, Fortunata transcends the dichotomies of flesh and spirit («naturalismo espiritual»), of intellect and life, which we have been taught to accept and even to defend as if our very existence depended on them- when they actually cut it in two. As a result she has a characterlessness, a dangerous naiveté, a seemingly limitless freedom to grow larger, a transparency of experimental intake and a capacity for passion which make her into a kind of ultimate novelistic heroine. Her relationship to the Spanish people is not as a representative (the whole comprehensible in the part) like earlier Galdosian personages, but rather that of Huck Finn to the American people. By that I mean that the sort of interpretation which would explain the novel as an allegory of the salvation of decadent Restoration Spain by the uncorrupted «pueblo» in the person of Fortunata if not untrue, is grievously foreshortened. Fortunata, like Huck, more importantly is a touchstone, a living particular consciousness which reveals to the reader what he has become and perhaps what he still could aspire to be.
Until this point what I have done is to elaborate upon Sherman Eoff's notion of the «Deification of Conscious Process» with differing emphases. What remains is to examine further how Galdós as an artist of the novel, as a ceaseless experimenter with structure and style, provides a new literary organism for his changed intention. Another method would have been to go outside the novel and to examine the concepts of consciousness available to Galdós: that of the psychology of the time («mecánica espiritual») and above all that of the Krausistas who believed that the reform of consciousness would bring Utopia, a kind of «greening» of Spain that was gently mocked by Galdós in the figure of Maximo Manso. However, I am unprepared for such an intellectual venture, almost as unprepared as the Spanish word, «conciencia», which combines without distinction ethical conscience and self-consciousness, alongside awareness and awareness of being aware. On the other hand, Galdós, himself, in his voyage inwards into Fortunata's «conciencia» does not attempt (or want) to disentangle such alien distinctions. «La idea blanca», the host which speaks to Fortunata in her own language and gives her good advice, clearly corresponds to the scriptural sense of conscience first used by Saint Paul, a feeling of consciousness shared (con-scientia) with some external moral entity, whether society or God. Self-consciousness, too, appears in her constant preoccupation with how she will appear to Jacinta: «... le asaltaba la idea de que su lenguaje no sería bastante fino». As for awareness and awareness of being aware the most rudimentary of those moments when Fortunata watches herself in the act of experiencing has just been mentioned. She looks at herself in the mirror and takes the first step in her long climb upwards from initial unawareness, a climb which is at the same time a gradual inner self-enlargement.
The two metaphors for the development of consciousness just employed -climb and enlargement, the one primarily temporal and the other primarily spatial- will help us comprehend the form and style of the novel. If we speak, as we have spoken, about consciousness as inside and the world as outside, we naturally think of the former as if it were an inner space, the boundless inner space of Hamlet's nutshell: «Una idea pasaba por su cerebro como pasa un pájaro fugaz por la inmensidad del cielo.» It is because of this that our memory of the personages of Galdós' later novels like those of Dostoievsky, Joyce, and Virginia Woolf seem so much larger than life. Fortunata begins with a tiny bubble of consciousness which rises from the mirror image of herself, but soon -by the time she leaves Las Micaelas (the religious institution devoted to the reform of errant young women where she is sequestered by —59→ the relatives of her future husband, Maxi)- it has been blown up to a metaphorical «size» larger than that achieved by most of us. The change -Galdós makes clear- is not due to an avid sensibility of the sort possessed by Rousseau's alter egos or even to an abnormally keen intelligence but rather to transparency. To educate her is a task of the greatest difficulty for Maxi, and, as far as we can tell, even at the end she still doesn't care who Columbus was or to spell correctly. What has happened is something very different from learning from experience or «Bildung». As the earlier comparison with Huck Finn suggested, all that she has met has become a part of her without distortion, honestly, as it was, without over-estimation or under-estimation. It is in this that Fortunata excells.
The contrast between Fortunata as novelistic heroine and Maxi as novelistic hero is in this sense both striking and intentional. The latter who has an exalted sense of the interior space of his consciousness seems to us ever more diminished as we go on reading. He has been cut off from the world as it is by his wretched body -«una cucaracha», «una ave flaca»- and by the end he has shrunken to autonomous and purely intellectual self-sufficiency. His very lucidity as well as his earlier paranoia are the conditions of experiential incapacity. Thus, Galdós' constant and unrelentingly cruel description of him from without- as against his treatment of his wife.
These remarks should not be taken to mean that Galdós in his movement inward abandons the techniques of Naturalistic and, at the end, melodramatic external story telling. It is obvious that he does not. What happens is that as the characters press ever more closely in upon an ever more «incited» Fortunata (to use Castro's word for Don Quijote) and their mutual presence in each other's minds becomes more and more intense, the more we become aware that all that is meaningful in the novel is what is going on in her consciousness. Hence the sense of a size not limited by the feet and inches of a physique.
At the same time, Madrid, which loomed so large and so powerful at the beginning, is gradually reduced both by a process of acceleration (its inhabitants move in and out of the pages faster and faster) and by caricature. For example, the technique used in La desheredada of comparing groups of human beings to animal collectivities (the Pez family of politicians and bureaucrats) is further developed. Oysters, molluscs, rats, and above all birds are utilized. Like the chickens in the «tienda de aves» at the beginning and doña Desdémona's aviary at the end (the framing images), the population of Madrid is seen as a flock of caged birds, twittering away incessantly through their «picos de oro» giving birth to «canarios de alcoba», and storing up deposits of «guano» meaning money. As Fortunata expands from within, Madrid diminishes from without, a city best described by the verse from Calderón, appropriately cited by Segismundo Ballester: «La inquieta república de las aves».
From time to time, of course, Galdós returns to his initial comparison of Fortunata to a wild and errant bird (in intentional contrast to all the others), but, as those who witness her death observe unanimously, she ends as a creature still winged but by definition transcending outwardness and size itself: an angel. As such she is a creature of pure spirit (or consciousness) and of absolute meaning. Or to say the same thing in a more general way, the theme of Fortunata y Jacinta is the theme of all great novels ever since the Quijote: the creation of significance out of insignificance, or, as Lukacs tells us, a search for values which in apparent failure nevertheless suceeds. Hence, Fortunata's carnal death and angelic resurrection in the consciousnesscs of —60→ those she leaves behind. Inside her, they -and we- find a place of redemption for all the stale topics, anecdotes, miseries, deceptions, perversions, and debased values of society. Hence too, an inner structure conceived of as continuing dialectic of inwardness and outwardness, expansion and contraction. There are, of course, many other valid ways of conceiving of and presenting the structure of the novel -successive triangles of human relationship, the antitheses of plot, spheres of activity, etc.- but this I think is the innermost structural core in that it expresses the deepest theme of significance in victorious war with gigantic insignificance, meaning ranged against the national bent for pompous triviality, inflated mediocrity, and empty show which led Galdós to refer to the «Restauración» as «los años bobos».
However, the spatial image of consciousness is manifestly incomplete; inner time must also be accounted for. In so doing, I must confess that I have found it both unrewarding and misleading to try to bind Fortunata's temporal development to a rigid scheme of the sort proposed by mystics and philosophers. Eoff is correct when he points out that there is evidence of an Hegelian sequence (the last part of the Phenomenology of the Mind) to Fortunata's «climb» from initial unconsciousness. But, after years of thinking about the problem, I have come to the conclusion that specific parallels are alluded to ironically by Galdós, in order to illustrate or underline certain marked steps upwards. One example of several occurs at the end of the chapter entitled «Naturalismo espiritual». As we remember, Fortunata senses that «la simpatía misteriosa que la había inspirado Mauricia se pasaba a Guillermina», after which there occurs a synthesis in her mind of the two antithetical beings. This is expressed in words by her confusion of their names, «Doña Mauricia, digo Guillermina la dura». It is I think licit and suggestive to interpret this as an intentional reference to transition from the subjective to the objective spirit. This means -stated with startling over-simplification- that from now on Fortunata, instead of being concerned with her own impulses and passion, will be, in Hegelian terms, concerned to create an autonomous outer «institution», the new family (based not on social mores but on life) of «la pícara idea». When she announces her idea, «Esposa que no tiene hijos no es tal esposa», Galdós again expresses tacitly her synthesis of Mauricia, the subjective anarchist, and Guillermina, the apostle of ready-made society. «Es idea mía, prosiguió con la inspiración de un apóstol y la audacia criminal de un anarquista». Out of passion is to come a new authentic self-willed society. Nevertheless, this novelistic play with the concepts of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis should not be understood with allegorical rigidity. Instead Hegel, mentioned only once slyly (p. 307), is used the way Cervantes uses Cide Hamete; as a means of allusion and evasion -not as a solution to the mysteries of consciousness. Galdós seems to have realized that given changes in Fortunata may be susceptible to Hegelian interpretation and he enjoys playing with it. Yet he does not pattern her pilgrim's progress in terms of a philosophical system. After all it is not Fortunata but Maxi who -in a final flourish of Galdosian irony -ends up living «en la pura idea». The point is that Hegelian consciousness is ultimately intellectual while Fortunata's is axiological -a vessel not of ideas but of undistorted perception and value judgement.
Fortunata's climb, which is really what Castro would term the irregular fluttering upward of «incitación» and Madariaga, a sequence of repressions and explosions, can only be known ex post facto by the reader or by her companions. As far as she is concerned, the temporality of her consciousness operates within the immediacies of instant, hour, and day. As such it makes itself manifest not in structure but in —61→ narrative style. On several occasions I have had cited one of those remarks of my teacher, Américo Castro, which plunge to the heart of problems to which others merely lay siege. It has to do with time and the novel: «The novel does not consist in telling what happens to a person, but instead of how that person feels himself existing in a happening».33 That is to say, great novelistic characters are not just swept along from adventure to adventure (each temporally isolated from the next according to Simmel and Ortega)34 but instead feel a communion of their inner «durée» (how it feels to exist) in external time (the happening), the time that passes in rivers, orbits, tides, and clocks. Unlike the spatial image based on dichotomy, temporal consciousness unites what is inside and what is outside. The river scenes in Huck Finn or the ride through the forest of Fontainebleau in L'Education sentimentale are well known examples.
The first instance of such experiential communion in Fortunata y Jacinta occurs when the socially incarcerated Fortunata observes the view of the Guadarrama from «Las Micaelas por dentro» gradually becoming «englouti» as the wall of a church under construction rises day after day. Her own sense of vital repression, the institutional damming up of her flow of internal time, becomes one with the temporality of the scene: the fleeting clouds, the implacable growth of the wall, etc. As we read and supplement her experience with our imagination we come to know exactly how it felt to exist within the happening. However, since I have commented elsewhere on this passage,35 let me read instead one of the last records of a similar experience- again based on a tacit use of water imagery. Like Don Quijote, Fortunata has come full circle and has returned to a room above the Plaza Mayor to wait for the birth of her second child. She is gazing out of the window:
Una mañana al levantarse, vio que había caído durante la noche una gran nevada. El espectáculo que ofrecía la plaza era precioso: los techos enteramente blancos; todas las líneas horizontales de la arquitectura y el herraje de los balcones, perfilados con durísimas líneas de nieve; los árboles ostentando cuajarones que parecían de algodón, y el rey Felipe III, con pelliza de armiño y gorro de dormir. Después de arreglarse volvió a mirar la plaza, entretenida en ver como se deshacía el mágico encanto de la nieve, como se abrían surcos en la blancura de los techos, como se sacudían los pinos de su desusada vestimenta, como, en fin, en el cuerpo del rey y en el del caballo se desleían los copos y chorreaba la humedad por el bronce abajo. El suelo, a la mañana tan duro y albo, era ya al mediodía charca cenagosa, en la cual chapoteaban los barrenderos y mangueros municipales, disolviendo la nieve con los chorros de agua y revolviéndola con el fango para echarlo todo a la alcantarilla. Divertido era este espectáculo sobre todo cuando restallaban los airosos surtidores de las mangas de riego y los chicos se lanzaban a la faena armados con tremendas escobas. Miraba esto Fortunata cuando de repente...36
As we read we become increasingly aware of the rapprochement of exterior with interior time. Fortunata's view of the metamorphosis worked by the snowstorm (a sight which she probably had never seen before) and of its gradual disappearance at the hands of the sun and of the street cleaners is combined both to the candor of her idle amusement and to an underlying melancholy. Instead of a damming up (as from the window of Las Micaelas) there is here a draining away, an inevitable dissolving of beauty. The whole tone of the final phase of her life is represented with a clarity that is at once visual and emotional.—62→
In such scenes Fortunata is the antithesis of her precursor, Isidora Rufete. It is not just that the former, Fortunata, is not determined and not ruined by her initial ignominy but, what is far more important, that she demonstrates a quality of sheer aliveness, of wide open «durée», that is utterly lacking in the latter. Isidora, revealed through Naturalistic «erlebte Rede» that at times approaches the autonomy of a solitary stream of consciousness, could never have achieved a merger of self and scene into full temporal experience. She is not free to do so. Her self-awareness is determined and enclosed, and her inner time is an anguished succession of unrelated instants, frustrated whims, and fleeting images. As incited as Fortunata, she is nevertheless imprisoned and so cut off. In the above passage, on the other hand, «erlebte Rede» (in French «dialogue indirecte libre», meaning the invasion of narrative by the character's private language and preoccupied point of view) gives way to a description of experience as it was and is, complete unto itself.
Let me try to explain in different terms: unlike the insomniac, Isidora, whose consciousness is invaded by the ticking of the clock and the striking of the hours, Fortunata is not subject to the succession of instants, to the relentless movement forward of the homogeneous time that is out there. Instead of submission to a stream of consciousness, a duration of consciousness takes over, joins the morning, and author and character, rather than impinging on each other, merge in the words of description. And so may we, if we know how to accept the priceless gift we have been given. The melting of the snow in the Plaza Mayor is like nothing so much as the thunderstorm over Jackson's Island: the sheer immediate truth of conscious life. By way of necessary qualification I should add that, of course, there are examples of Fortunata's «erlebte Rede» invading the narrative -but, contrasted to those of Isidora, they are decelerated by a «tiempo interior» which, according to Ricardo Gullón, is «excepcionalmente lento».37 Also Galdós' failure, noted by Montesinos, to give Fortunata a way of speaking that is markedly personal (probably for the same reason he fails to describe her) may be a factor in his deemphasis of this technique.
At this point, let us leave Fortunata's consciousness, as such, in predefined temporal and spatial isolation, and instead try to see (in the words of Luis Vives) «how it works» in relation to what it is not: the consciousnesses of others and the unconsciousness which lies beneath it. To begin at the beginning, I think it is her incomparable vitality, openness, and purity of consciousness, the absolute lack of distortion of her mental mirror or «tabula rasa», that makes her so attractive to the other inhabitants of the novel. A Juanito Santa Cruz, who loved Fortunata least of all, might have been temporarily enchanted with the beauty Galdós hides from us and with what he considers to be the captivatingly primitive vitality of her actions and reactions. But the others, Maxi, Feijoo, doña Lupe, think of her as conscious raw material, the sheer potentiality of freshly quarried stone from «la cantera del pueblo», which each proposes to shape in his own image. However, both interpretations, both the primitive Fortunata and the potential Fortunata, are inadequate. They correspond to the warped vision of interpreters who cannot bring themselves to admit her possession of qualities which they themselves lack: truth and freedom. Which is to say simply, the ability her consciousness shares with those of Stendhal's infinitely more sophisticated heroes: the ability to look, to see what is there, and to react spontaneously. The others may think they want to shape, educate, and assist Fortunata, but we come to sense an underlying desire to destroy her. Angels in their midst are at once irresistible and intolerable.—63→
Luckily Fortunata is impossible to educate. But not because she is as unintelligent as Montesinos makes her out to be. Rather it is because of strong inner directedness, her built -in «incitación», which keeps her from paying attention to things that don't matter to her. Her consciousness is not the passive marble which the others imagine it to be; it is made of metaphorical steel and its powerful magnetic properties are beyond their comprehension. That is to say, in addition to being an inner space and an open duration, in relation to others it generates uncontrollable forces of «simpatía» and «antipatía». Primary among these are the love for Juanito, the repugnance felt for Maxi, and the powerful ambivalence of feeling for Jacinta. But even more interesting is the apparently inexplicable attraction to Mauricia la Dura which -as we saw earlier- is just as inexplicably transferred to Guillermina.
What are we to make of these determining forces at the very center of freedom? The most illuminating answer is to be found in the literary tradition behind Galdós. Centuries before, another great artist of consciousness called Fernando de Rojas had meditated creatively on the inner magnetism which impelled his speakers into an unrelenting search for each other's company. «Amistad», «solaz», «deleyte», and most prized and intimate of all, «gozo», are the only antidotes to the solitude of the human condition, the isolation of one consciousness from another. In so creating, Rojas went on to discover something else upon which Galdós was to elaborate on to a far greater extent. He discovered that Sempronie who despised Calisto had nonetheless taken into himself the latter's image: «Aquí está -he says to his beloved Elicia- quien me causó algún tiempo andar hecho otro Calisto dando alboradas, saltando paredes..., etcétera». This is true to such an extent that Sempronio is even infected by his master's passion for Melibea. As Celestina shrewdly observes: «Calla bobo! Altérasete la complexión. Yo lo veo en ti que querrías más estar al sabor que al olor de este negocio». Rojas was thus the first to comprehend the phenomenon of consciousness that today is called «projection» by followers of Freud.
After Rojas, Cervantes, both in the literary emulation of Amadis by Don Quijote and in the human «Quijotismo» of Sancho, continued the tradition and presented Galdós with a fully developed novel of consciousness in this as in other aspects. And Galdós, just as much -or as little- a precursor of 20th century psychology as either of his two predecessors, centers his study of Fortunata on her «projection» of all three women, Mauricia, Guillermina, and, most important of all, Jacinta. From the moment of their first encounter in the Micaelas (as Galdós remarks, «se le quedó aquella simpática imagen vivamente estampada en la memoria») until Fortunata's last comprehensible words («yo también mona del cielo») Jacinta exists within her as a part of her consciousness in a fashion which transcends our usual notions of jealousy and imitation. As for Guillermina, Galdós is even more explicit: «Sentíala dentro como si la hubiera tragado, cual si la hubiera tomado en comunión». This is the only form of determinism which really interests Galdós. Instead of being a gross impingement on consciousness by society, history, or heredity, it is an operation from within.
Having dared to mention Galdós' contemporary, Freud, I realize that I cannot bring these fragmentary remarks to their conclusion without referring briefly to the recurrent encounter of Fortunata's consciousness (and Jacinta's too for that matter) with that other region of the self which looms so large today: the unconsciousness. In this his technique resembles that of his treatment of spoken language. Galdós was a —64→ master creator of a universe of speech, precisely because he knew how to keep his readers aware of the frontiers of that universe: silence, noise, defective foreign, infantile, and ignorant pronunciations, passion with its cries and growls, drunkenness with its mumbling. And so too in the same way, as has often been noticed, he keeps us aware of his programmatic attention to consciousness by probing in dreams and moments of symbolic recognition what is going on beneath the surface -on the other side of the frontier.
Many of these may seem elementary to the latter-day amateur psychoanalysts which Freud has made of us all, but for that very reason we may admire all the more Galdós' extraordinary prescience in exploring what was at that time -at least in Spain- a virtually intact nether kingdom. The first example I have noted occurs during the honeymoon when Jacinta is suddenly and inexplicably reminded of her rival by a fish monger: «Fue cosa repentina, provocada por no sé qué, por esas misteriosas iniciativas de la memoria que no sabemos de donde salen. Se acuerda uno de las cosas contra toda lógica, y a veces el encadenamiento de las ideas es una extravagancia y una ridiculez. ¿Quién creería que Jacinta se acordó de Fortunata al oír pregonar las bocas de la Isla?» Then, skipping perforce Jacinta's dream of motherhood after being put to sleep by Wagner, we find a similar instantaneous revelation of the unconsciousness of Fortunata. She and Maxi are seated contentedly at the dining table of their first apartment when suddenly her mood changes: «De estos cambiazos había sentido ella muchos; pero ninguno como el de aquel momento, el momento en que metió la cuchara dentro del arroz para servir a su futuro esposo. No sabría ella decir cómo fue ni cómo vino aquel sentimiento a su alma ocupándola toda; no supo más sino que le miró y sintió una antipatía tan horrible hacia el pobre muchacho, que hubo de violentarse para disimularla».38
In contrast to novels of our own times dealing with the same problems, Fortunata y Jacinta is chastely reticent about what is really going on. Even by the standards of the 1880's Galdós is surprisingly reserved. I do not refer now to his failure to depict or even to refer indirectly to sexual intercourse (which would have been out of the question) but rather to the absence of the sensual recollections and libidinal longings which fill the pages of La Regenta. In a sense, I think, this self-imposed restraint operates in the same way alexandrine rhythm does on the passion of Racinian characters. It augments -particularly when accompanied and accentuated by such unexplained and apparently inexplicable references as the one just read- the force of the drives with which these consciousnesses must cope.
The maximum example of juxtaposition of underlying erotic compulsion to conscious decision is the dream which results in «la pícara idea». As is typical of climactic moments in the biographies of Galdosian protagonists, the stuff of the dream is a walk through the streets of Madrid. But unlike the representational and implicitly allegorical «paseos» of Isidora at the end of part I of La desheredada or of Clara in La Fontana, its symbols are wholly oniric and would have delighted Freud. All of you will remember the «tubos» («llaves de bronce, grifos, y multitud de cosas para llevar y traer agua») which come back to her mind when she once again rejoins Juanito: «Soñé que te vi... la tienda de tubos, muchos tubos». In addition, there is a street vendor who sells «los lápices más fuertes del mundo (como que da con ellos tremendos picotazos en la madera (sin que se les rompa el puto)» and the sensation she shares with Saint Teresa that she is transfixed by a dart. Even the «id» itself -probably —65→ this is farfetched- appears as an «enano, un monstruo vestido con balandrán rojo y turbante, alimaña de transición que se ha quedado a la mitad del camino darwinista por donde los orangutanes vinieron a ser hombres».39
This ambulatory dream is placed in structural counterpoint to the daylight but still dream-like descent of Jacinta in Part I into the social Hell of the fourth estate. Fortunata's Hell, on the other hand, is that of the unconscious, a Hell which she, like all the rest of us, as we now know, carries within herself. If Jacinta encounters a lie, the false «Pituso», Fortunata encounters again the underlying truth of her own passion and emerges with a consciousness at once purged and enlarged. She is now capable of founding her new institution, «la pícara idea».
It is natural to wonder to what extent Galdós, himself, was aware of the sexual significance of these symbols. My own answer, based on his use of emphasis and repetition, would be that he knew exactly what he was about. Unlike Montalvo when he described the green sword of Amadis and the flowery hoop of Oriana, Galdós is ostensibly concerned with the workings of the unconsciousness. At the same time, however, given the lack of an evident literary tradition, we can only assume that these dreams and recognitions were copied. As we know, Galdós had at his disposal an immense amount of observed human raw material -so that it is probable that the above dream is a revision of a real one that had been told to him, perhaps by the mysterious model for Fortunata to whom Berkowitz alludes.40 Fortunata's consciousness is a great artistic creation, but her unconsciousness must have been taken from life. Otherwise we should have to claim not just that he was a precursor of Freud but that he invented independently major portions of contemporary psychoanalytical theory.
In hasty conclusion let us now return to the earlier comparison of Fortunata with Isidora Rufete. The latter -we suggested- is a precursor of the former, just as her seducer, Joaquinito Pez, is a precursor of Juanito Santa Cruz. Nevertheless, in spite of their parallel Naturalistic lives, they are antithetical to each other. Isidora's consciousness is chronically ill, a consciousness that could only have been cured if it had been caught early enough by those «verdaderos médicos» called «maestros de escuela». In Fortunata's case, however, Galdós set out to explore a completely healthy consciousness, impervious to education, immune to society, without ambition, resistant to history -a consciousness which, in spite of passionate excess and gross errors of judgement, grows, flourishes, exercises freedom, creates values, and radiates truth. Placed against it in well calculated counterpoint is another consciousness, that of Maximiliano Rubin, condemned to the isolation first of clinical insanity and afterwards to the affirmation of self-sufficient reason which is the greatest sickness of all. It is licit to interpret this latter-day «loco-cuerdo» as Galdós' final attack on Quijotismo -before going over to the other side- as Casalduero, has shown us. But we should not for that reason force Fortunata into the role of a triumphant Sancho. She is anything but a figure of good sense, humor, or practicality. She too is a creature of unreason, mission, and incitation, but, unlike her husband, she has been blessed and saved with a consciousness which integrates truth with life, vitality with significance.


Bloomington Jefferson fans , disguised miscreants self-described as the "Jefferson Militia" were in full force for the 1981 state tournament at the St. Paul Civic Center. Minneapolis Star Tribune photo curated from the Minnesota History Center by Kyle Oen of Vintage Minnesota Hockey
Editor's note: One in a series of state tournament-related stories and excerpts from Tourney Time. Read the book for more about Bloomington Jefferson's emergence as a state superpower.
Thirty-nine years ago this month, toilet paper was in such large supply that Minnesota high school hockey tournament fans tossed entire rolls in celebration of goals scored.
Don’t squeeze the Charmin? Pfft. They’d sail the Charmin across sections of the St. Paul Civic Center, off unsuspecting fans and even onto the ice. Quite a different manner of live streaming a sporting event.
Teenage kicks also fueled the Jefferson Militia, a band of Bloomington miscreants who took to masking their identities. They added color and comic relief for a school new to the state hockey tournament scene. Jefferson made its debut in 1980 and was crowned champion one season later.
What follows is a mix of what Wayne Wangstad reported in the March 13, 1981 edition of the St. Paul Pioneer Press with the memories of militia member Tom McEnery.
A day after Bloomington Jefferson began its state title run by ousting defending champion Grand Rapids in the quarterfinals, Wangstad wrote about the “... 30 or so Jefferson students whose faces were camouflaged with black, brown and green grease paint. They were clad in military surplus dungarees, shiny helmets and berets. Some of their eyes were veiled by sunglasses, and a couple sported long -- but unlit -- cigars that made them look like rejects from Castro’s Irregulars.”
McEnery said, “I don’t know that any of us would’ve gotten the reference to Castro back then! What a bunch of knuckleheads.”
Wangstad spoke to a militia member who agreed to be interviewed under the condition of anonymity.
“Four of our friends got kicked out of a game against St. Louis Park, and the Jefferson principal said if he ever saw those four again at any of the hockey games he’d suspend them from school. So were wore masks and disguised ourselves with grease paint so they couldn’t identify us.”
McEnery expanded on the account.
“As I recall, we were at a game late in the season and a few guys were hassling some kid from the opposing team in the penalty box,” he said. “A peanut may have been thrown. They got the boot from that game and the principal indeed threatened to suspend them if he saw them at a hockey game again.
As I recall, we were at a game late in the season and a few guys were hassling some kid from the opposing team in the penalty box. A peanut may have been thrown. They got the boot from that game and the principal indeed threatened to suspend them if he saw them at a hockey game again.
- Jefferson Militia member Tom McEnery
“I don’t know who had the idea to disguise ourselves so our pals would get into the game and I don’t know how military fatigues were selected. We did have some fun trips to downtown Minneapolis where there was a large army surplus store. Once we saw full face gas masks for sale we probably knew we had a viable shot at being loud fans and still incognito! The face paint, mirrored sunglasses and cigars all just popped up as ideas along the way, I suppose. As I look back, I wonder how hard the principal actually tried to identify his four bad actors.
“I recall the games of that year being very fun and the dressing up part isn’t actually what I recall most fondly.”
Unprompted, McEnery provided more gold about a fan’s view of the state tournament almost four decades ago.
“There were no tiers and there were classic “neighborhood” rivalries (suburb vs. city, “The Cities” vs. “The Range,” suburb vs. suburb, big vs. small, everyone vs. Edina).”
McEnery continued, “I also recall the team was made up of friends of ours. This was before the days of specializing in a high school sport. Even as the best players progressed onto the varsity level, I recall we all played pick-up park hockey together on weekends, even though I never played organized hockey in high school. There were great athletes to be sure, but you could also be an OK athlete and still play together outside the high school teams.”
That feeling of camaraderie fueled passionate support.
“Those were our buddies on the hockey team making a run at state and we all enjoyed the ride. While the whole army dress up thing gave us fans our perceived 15 minutes of fame, I mostly remember how fun the actual hockey was and how happy I was for my friends on that team.”
McEnery added one more great insight.
“I got married in 1989. My wife, from Wisconsin, had never been to the high school hockey tournament and I had not been back since my senior year. I described to her what a raucous scene it was. I wanted to take her so she could experience what it was like to be at a game where everyone is going nuts.
“So, we went to a session and this time, instead of being in the student section, we were just regular attendees. I don’t even recall who was playing, but it wasn’t raucous at all. It was rather sedate, in my opinion, and I commented to my wife that it was a much crazier experience back when I was in high school. And then I looked over at the student section and saw a couple hundred kids all dressed up, screaming and yelling and waving their signs. It was a “pocket of raucous” and I’m sure to those kids, it felt like the whole stadium was going nuts. Ah, perspective …”
Tag(s): Tourney Time


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And then i discovered that falling awake by alice oswald has won the poetry section of the costa book awards and figured that was a good enough reason to start with that collection falling awake isnt an easy poetry collection to read its premise i. Alice oswalds award winning and highly acclaimed volume memorial wryly ingenious said the new york times book review portrays fallen soldiers from homers iliad falling awake expands on that imagery defining life as a slowly falling weight where beings fight against their inevitable end oswald reimagines classical figures . The whole challenge of poetry alice oswald once wrote is to keep language open so that what we dont yet know can pass through it her new collection falling awake is proof of this full of poems that are somehow both spare and spacious it is held together by her vision that language ought to . To order a copy of falling awake by alice oswald jonathan cape 10 for 820 go to bookshoptheguardiancom or call 0330 333 6846 free uk pp over 10 online orders only phone orders min . Alice oswald radio 4s poet in residence discusses her collection falling awake which won the costa poetry prize 2016 falling awake explores two of alice oswalds recurring preoccupations
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Displaying items by tag: SK Telecom
South Korea’s SK Telecom announced the successful demonstration of essential technologies for 5G network communications in a real-world setting, accelerating its research and development efforts to roll out 5G services earlier than expected.
SK Telecom announced that it used an in-building 5G relay repeater operating in both 28 GHz and 3.5 GHz spectrums in the 5G trial network at the company’s Bundang office, a result of the company’s joint development with local vendors.
The in-building 5G relay repeater helps deliver seamless network connections in an indoor environment by transferring wireless signals to radio shadow areas.
The company was able to deliver speeds of up to 4Gbps using the in-building relay repeater SK Telecom jointly developed with HFR which operated in 28 GHz band. In the 28 GHz band, radio waves are more likely to move in straight lines, being blocked more sharply by obstacles with shorter radio coverage. Frequency particularly suffers more loss inside a building, where areas are divided by walls.
Ensuring the quality of indoor service is the key to 5G service rollout, which uses ultra-high frequencies. With the success of delivering gigabit speeds using the in-building relay repeater, SK Telecom is in the process of accelerating development of 5G service that customers can enjoy even in an indoor environment.
The company has also worked with SK Telesys to develop an in-building relay repeater, which can deliver 5G radio signals in 3.5 GHz using the existing mobile communications infrastructure installed inside buildings.
Since the station uses the existing antennas for 2G, 3G and LTE services, the company can reduce time to build indoor networks for 5G service by only installing the 3.5 GHz band relay repeater.
With the success of the demonstration, SK Telecom was able to develop its capabilities for 5G relay for both indoor and outdoor settings. In August, the company deployed a relay repeater in its 5G trial network near Gangnam Station in Seoul to successfully expand radio coverage in the densely populated urban area.
On the same day, SK Telecom demonstrated a 360-degree virtual reality (VR) video call using a tablet-sized device on the 5G network connecting between T.um at SK Telecom’s headquarter in Seoul, and an area near Cheonggyecheon, a stream flowing through the central district of Seoul, in collaboration with Samsung Electronics. A user was able to enjoy a 360-degree VR video call real-time even while moving in the area surrounded by high-rise buildings.
The demonstration was performed in the central business district, a perfect place to test 5G communications service as it is surrounded by high-rise buildings generating dense data blocked by many obstacles. Both companies employed the advanced technologies, including beamforming, optimal base-station positioning and network virtualization, to build a stable 5G trial network.
With the success of the demonstration on a tablet-sized 5G device, SK Telecom accelerated its research in the field of network connections to ensure the seamless operation of devices on the 5G network. The telecom giant also expects that the demonstration will add momentum to its effort to create novel services running on the 5G network that will deliver new experiences to its customers.
“The success of 5G wireless communications in the real-world environment will give us momentum to accelerate our effort to roll out 5G services earlier than expected,” said Park Jin-hyo, Senior Vice President and Head of Network Technology R&D Center at SK Telecom. “We, at SK Telecom, will continue to develop our capabilities to rollout 5G networks in order to offer differentiated services to our customers.”
SK Telecom announced the introduction of a new Wi-Fi technology that can deliver speed as fast as 5G technology. For the first time in South Korea, the technology successfully demonstrated speeds of up to 4.8Gbps at SK Telecom’s Bundang Center.
The technology was built on the IEEE 802.11ax standard, delivering speeds of up to 4.8Gbps, which is nearly four times faster than the existing gigabit Wi-Fi service — 1.3Gbps, 802.11ac — currently prevailing among smartphones. The technology uses four antennas to transmit data and uses 160 MHz bandwidth, twice wider than the gigabit Wi-Fi service, and operates in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz spectrums.
Once the technology is commercially implemented, SK Telecom believes it will play a tremendous role in delivering sufficient wireless access in any dense traffic scenarios. It features the OFDMA, Multi-user MIMO as well as the Dynamic Sensitivity Control (DSC) technology that are designed to improve the efficiency of the network.
Given the 802.11ax chipsets already released in the market by global makers, the next generation Wi-Fi service is expected to be commercially available for smartphones next year. Smartphones equipped with the chipset theoretically deliver a speed of up to 1.2Gbps in 80 MHz with two antennas.
SK Telecom is planning to deploy access points for the next generation Wi-Fi next year particularly in high traffic density areas. Users with the new chipset-based smartphones will benefit from the new technology.
At present, a testbed has been constructed within the T Open Lab, the company’s R&D Center at Bundang to test the performance of the new technology in various deployment scenarios including high traffic density. It is also working on upgrading the access points to the commercially deployable level by the end of this year.
Since 2014, SK Telecom has taken part in the nation’s IEEE 802.11ax standard research group, led by the Ministry of Science and ICT, along with small and mid-sized companies. Its participation has resulted in many new technologies applied to the global standards with relevant patents obtained.
“By introducing the technology for the next generation Wi-Fi that can deliver as fast as 5G technology, we at SK Telecom have successfully laid foundation to offer better mobile services,” said Park Jin-hyo, Senior Vice President and Head of Network Technology R&D Center at SK Telecom.
Park added, “We are thrilled to work on the preparation of commercializing the technology and continue to innovate our capabilities to provide differentiated services to our customers.”
India’s largest telecom services provider, Bharti Airtel, announced a strategic partnership with South Korean telecom provider SK Telecom, under which the Indian comapny will leverage SK Telekom’s expertise to build the “most advanced telecom network in India”.
“SK Telecom is delighted to announce a strategic partnership with Bharti Airtel, a global leading mobile operator,” said Park Jung-ho, the President and CEO of SK Telecom. “SK Telecom will work closely with Bharti to achieve new network innovations so as to deliver a greater value to Bharti’s customers.”
The partnership will work across several areas, according to the two companies, including developing bespoke software to dramatically improve network experience, leveraging advanced digital tools including machine learning, big data, and building customized tools to improve network planning based on every customer’s device experience.
The capacity to identify, monitor and deliver improvements to the network experience on an individual device basis will be a first in India, helped by SK Telecom’s global leadership in this area.
The two companies will also collaborate on an on-going basis to evolve standards for 5G, network functions virtualization (NFV), software-defined networking (SDN) and Internet of Things (IoT), and jointly work towards building an enabling ecosystem for the introduction of these technologies in the Indian context.
“We are extremely delighted to announce this partnership with the world’s leading operator when it comes to technology understanding and expertise. This partnership will bring a dramatically improved experience to Airtel customers in India by leveraging the expertise of a company that has built one of the best mobile broadband networks in the world,” Said Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Airtel.
“Strong partnerships have been a hallmark of Airtel’s growth journey and we are proud to have always looked ahead to bring the latest technology to India,” he added. “With SK Telecom’s clear and undisputed leadership in technology, this is one partnership that will decisively change the game in India and put the country at par with the most advanced broadband nations in the world.”
SK Telecom announced that its mobile navigation app ‘T Map’ is now powered by its artificial intelligence (AI) platform NUGU, named ‘T Map X NUGU’. The AI-based navigation service allows drivers to use their voice to enjoy the existing navigation features as well as other useful features offered by NUGU.
T Map was launched by SK Telecom in 2002, and is the leading mobile navigation service in South Korea. In July 2016, the company opened T Map to subscribers of all mobile carriers free of charge. As of August 2017, T Map has around 10.14 million monthly active users, taking up about 68 percent of the South Korean mobile navigation market.
T Map X NUGU significantly enhances the safety for drivers, according to SK Telecom, by allowing them to easily set and change destinations without ever having to take their eyes off the road or hands off the wheel. Moreover, users can ask the voice assistant to find the closest or cheapest gas station and begin providing route guidance to the selected destination. It will also show and guide the driver to the nearest parking lot.
While driving, users can request real-time traffic information, including accidents on roads, and adjust the voice guidance volume through voice commands. Upon arriving at their destination, users can also tell it to end the service/close the app. Users can choose one of two wake words: Aria or Tinker Bell.
T Map integrated with NUGU enhances drivers’ in-car experience by offering useful infotainment services such as news briefing, weather report, sports scores and daily horoscope, SK Telecom claims. Users can also listen to music (Melon) and manage their personal schedules (Google Calendar) by installing the NUGU app.
SK Telecom plans to add more features to T Map X NUGU by November 2017. For instance, when there is an incoming call, drivers will be able to use voice commands to either receive the phone call, or send a text message that states the estimated time of arrival or simply says “I am driving now.”
T Map X NUGU has achieved a 96 percent success rate in voice recognition despite diverse sources of noise, including car engine sounds, wind and people’s conversations. Moreover, with the integration of NUGU into T Map, SK Telecom expects to dramatically improve the performance of the voice-based AI engine via machine learning, which will lead to the creation of new and innovative services.
“Integrated with NUGU, T Map now holds the power to significantly improve driving safety by minimizing driver distractions, while also enhancing customers’ driving pleasure and in-car experience,” said Lee Sang-ho, Executive Vice President and Head of AI Business Division. “With the aim to provide a differentiated level of experience to users, we will continue to expand the use of our AI platform NUGU to more areas of our customers’ lives.”
South Korean telecom provider SK Telecom and Nokia have successfully reduced latency between handset and base station to 2 milliseconds over SK Telecom’s network, the company announced on September 4.
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) states that technologies designed for 5G need to deliver a peak rate of up to 20Gbps under ultra-low latency of 1 millisecond. Therefore, with the successful demonstration, SK Telecom moves closer to realizing 5G.
The latency between the handset and base station in the existing LTE environment is around 25 milliseconds, according to SK Telecom. While the round-trip latency of 25 milliseconds can support two-way communication services like remote learning, it is not low enough to seamlessly provide services that require real-time transmission of data such as autonomous driving and telemedicine.
Against this backdrop, the newly developed 2 millisecond latency technology is expected to facilitate the development of diverse real-time services – e.g. autonomous driving, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) services – which will become widespread in the 5G era.
For instance, with a latency of 25 milliseconds, upon sending a stop signal to a self-driving vehicle running at 150 kilometers per hour, the vehicle travels about one meter further before it actually begins to decelerate. However, with the 2 millisecond latency technology, the vehicle moves only 8 centimeters before it begins to slow down, which will significantly enhance the overall safety in autonomous driving.
Moreover, the low latency communication technology can support services that require real-time monitoring of remote sites and control of equipment such as disaster relief robot, and will also contribute to the growth of next-generation media services like 360° VR.
SK Telecom and Nokia dramatically reduced the latency between LTE handset and base station by applying Uplink Pre-Scheduling, a technology that enables the handset to immediately transmit data to the base station, and short Transmission Time Interval (TTI), a technology that reduces data transmission time between base station and handset to about 1/7. The companies will continue to work together to reflect the short TTI technology to the 3GPP global standards.
“Low latency technology is essential in realizing 5G services such as autonomous driving, artificial intelligence and virtual reality services,” said Park Jin-hyo, Senior Vice President and Head of Network Technology R&D Center of SK Telecom. “We will continue to improve our low latency technologies to achieve 5G evolution, while applying the latest technologies to our LTE networks to further enhance customer experience.”
SK Telecom, South Korea’s largest telecommunications provider, announced that it has successfully developed a 5G repeater, a means of boosting 5G signals, and applied it to its 5G trial network deployed near Gangnam Station in Seoul.
The 5G repeater is designed to improve signals in blanket/shadow areas by amplifying 5G radio signals. With the deployment of the 5G repeater, 5G networks will be able to provide a dense coverage by eliminating shadow areas.
The 5G repeater – built with SK Telecom’s independently developed 5G relay technology – is expected to resolve the issue of 5G coverage limitations caused by the propagation characteristics of radio signals at super-high/above-6GHz frequency bands.
Moreover, the Gangnam area in Seoul is one of the most difficult places to plan/build a network due to the presence of a large number of radio wave obstacles and high-density data traffic. SK Telecom’s successful deployment of the 5G repeater carries a significant meaning as it will now be able to build 5G networks in other traffic-concentrated downtown areas with greater ease.
“SK Telecom is moving closer to launching a commercial 5G network by applying key 5G technologies to our 5G trial network in Gangnam, an area with the highest data traffic,” said Park Jin-hyo, Senior Vice President and Head of Network Technology R&D Center of SK Telecom.
South Korea’s SK Telecom reported revenue of KRW 4.346 trillion for Q2 2017 and operating income of KRW 423.3 billion and net income of KRW 620.5 billion. Compared to the same period last year, the revenue and operating income for the second quarter increased by 1.8% and 3.9%, respectively, owing to the improved performance of its subsidiaries including SK Broadband and SK Planet.
SK Telecom’s net income grew 113.2% year-on-year (YoY) due to factors including increased equity method gain from SK Hynix, the operator’s semiconductor business. Meanwhile, the operating income on a non-consolidated basis dropped 3.3% YoY to KRW 462.3 billion affected by increased marketing expenses and expanded depreciation costs from the 2.6 GHz frequency band it acquired last year.
Despite revenue-decreasing factors, including the increased number of subscribers who choose contract-based mobile fee discounts, the non-consolidated revenue edged up slightly compared to the same period last year to KRW 3.110 trillion backed by the growth of mobile data usage per user and increased sales from new business areas including IoT solutions.
SK Telecom’s consolidated subsidiaries have posted improved results in the second quarter of 2017. SK Broadband’s revenue increased by 1.9% YoY to KRW 730.1 billion as the number of its UHD set-top box subscribers surpassed 1.5 million and more customers purchased paid content. SK Broadband also reported a record-high quarterly operating income of KRW 31.6 billion in the second quarter of 2017.
Moreover, for the second quarter, SK Planet posted sales of KRW 274.0 billion, up 5.4% from the same period last year backed by the growth of its e-commerce platform, 11st. In addition, through efficient management of marketing expenses, including the provision of customized coupons, SK Planet has reduced its operating loss by KRW 35.1 billion compared to the same period last year. SK Hynix contributed to the growth of the consolidated net income by posting best-ever financial results.
Based on its unmatched position as the nation’s top mobile telecommunications company, SK Telecom is “determined to evolve into a global leading ICT company by promoting media and IoT business areas,” it said.
To this end, the company plans to connect its artificial intelligence (AI) platform to other services, including mobile telecommunications, media, commerce and T Map (mobile navigation service), to secure differentiated big data, with which it can develop/provide customized products and services.
Moreover, SK Telecom is securing competitiveness in 5G as a means to strengthen its network infrastructure. In June 2017, it successfully demonstrated 5G communications using the 3.5GHz band for the first time in Korea. The company also plans to develop mutually beneficial business models with diverse partners. In particular, under the strategic partnership with SM Entertainment, SK Telecom are to create new and innovative business models by combining its ICT with SM’s strength in content business.
“Despite the challenges in the mobile telecommunications market, SK Telecom posted improved results due to the strengthened performance of its main subsidiaries,” said Ryu Young-sang, CFO of SK Telecom. “SK Telecom will become a global leading ICT company by achieving meaningful growth in media and IoT, while maintaining leadership in the mobile network operations business.”
SK Telecom CTO, Alex Jinsung Choi, has claimed that whilst AI (Artificial Intelligence) will undoubtedly play a critical role in enhancing 5G networks – the technology itself still has a long way to go. SK Telecom’s CTO was speaking ahead of a VR and AR summit at Mobile World Congress Shanghai. (MWCS 2017)
According to Choi, AI will become a natural part of a consumers daily life, but did expresses his fears that it still has a considerable way to go before it’s in a position to be commercially deployed on a large scale. However, he did concede that he feels that AI technology does have the capabilities to ‘transform our lives’ by realizing things beyond our imaginations.
Choi said, “Although AI is being talked about a lot recently, it still has a long way to go. However, it is clear the pace of AI development and advancement will be accelerated thanks to the rapid development of related software and hardware technologies. As a result, AI will be used in many more areas to become a natural part of our daily lives.”
The consumer applications of AI continue to dominate the discussion at ICT industry exhibitions and tradeshows. However, Choi believes that AI represents great potential for mobile operators to utilize the technology to enhance the performance of forthcoming 5G networks.
He said, “Mobile networks have grown in complexity as they evolved from 2G to 3G, then to 4G. In the era of 5G the networks will become even more complex due to the use of diverse mobile technologies and massive cells. Also, the number of services, applications and devices it must support will grow explosively. AI will play a crucial role in operating these 5G networks in a stable and efficient manner.
South Korea’s SK Telecom announced that – through collaborations with Samsung Electronics and Nokia – it has successfully demonstrated 5G communications using the 3.5GHz band for the first time in South Korea.
SK Telecom joined hands with Samsung Electronics to develop a 3.5GHz 5G end-to-end network comprised of 5G virtualized core, virtualized RAN, Distributed Unit (baseband unit and radio unit) and test device, based on the 3GPP 5G New Radio (5G NR) standards elements established to date. 3GPP has agreed upon key physical component technologies i.e. numerology, frame structure, channel coding, etc, of the air interface.
Based on this 3GPP NR specification, the two companies’ 5G NR system is built with a subcarrier spacing of 60 kHz, Transmit Time Interval (TTI) length of 0.25ms to reduce latency, sub frame structure that simultaneously supports downlink data and uplink feedback, and Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) channel coding for high-speed data communications. The two companies successfully completed the 5G end-to-end network trial using the 3.5GHz spectrum at Samsung Electronics’ R&D Center located in Suwon, Korea.
Moreover, SK Telecom has also worked with Nokia to co-develop 5G base station equipment and test devices for the 3.5GHz spectrum and successfully realized Gbps-level throughput during a field trial held near its Bundang Office Building through the application of carrier aggregation techniques to expand bandwidth. The two companies also measured link quality (BLER) depending on the distance between a moving vehicle and base station, thereby securing important data for designing optimal 5G commercial networks in the 3.5GHz band.
Going forward, with the aim to secure key 5G technologies for early commercialization of 5G networks in the 3.5GHz band, SK Telecom will continue to work with Samsung Electronics and Nokia to further enhance transmission speeds, expand coverage and improve communication stability while on the move.
Through successful trials of 3.5GHz 5G networks, SK Telecom has secured all essential technologies to deploy 5G networks using above-6GHz and below-6GHz frequencies. 28GHz, a potential above-6GHz frequency in Korea, can support several tens of Gbps through the use of a wide bandwidth of more than several hundreds of MHz. On the other hand, 3.5GHz, one of the below-6GHz frequencies, can provide a stable coverage in wider areas.
SK Telecom plans to roll out its 5G networks by leveraging the respective strength of these frequencies. It will deploy commercial 5G networks using 28GHz in downtown areas where data traffic is most concentrated, while covering wide areas with 3.5GHz 5G networks or a combination of 3.5GHz and 28GHz 5G networks.
“With the successful demonstration of 5G communications using the 3.5GHz spectrum, SK Telecom has secured all key technologies for building commercial 5G networks using 3.5GHz and 28GHz frequency bands,” said Park Jin-hyo, Senior Vice President and Head of Network R&D Center of SK Telecom. “We will maintain our leadership in 5G by enhancing our technologies for both above-6GHz and below-6GHz frequencies, while playing an active role in the standardization and commercialization of 5G technologies.”
“We achieved another milestone today, taking 5G into the sub-6GHz spectrum for use cases and applications requiring wider area network coverage. The below 6GHz spectrum has been identified by the industry as ideal for enabling 5G services such as autonomous/connected car that require a wider area network,” said Park Dong-soo, Executive Vice President and Head of Global Sales & Marketing Team in Networks Business, Samsung Electronics. “Today’s trial with SK Telecom serves as a significant development in our collaborative efforts to accelerate 5G commercialization.”
Andrew Cope, head of Nokia Korea, said: “We are pleased to collaborate with SK Telecom on their journey towards 5G deployment. The 5G technology will enable a number of use cases such as critical machine-type communications, Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality. This demonstration on 3.5GHz band is a crucial step in the development of 5G ecosystem as it will enable increased data speeds and comprehensive coverage. Nokia is committed in future technology advancement and our partnership with SK Telecom will accelerate the development of the global 5G ecosystem.”
SK Telecom successfully showcased its AR·VR platform - 'T Real VR Studio' at Google I/O 2017, held in Mountain View, California from May 17 to 19.'T Real VR Studio' is an integrated AR VR service platform utilized in multiple VR platforms including Daydream, Google's VR platform. SK Telecom has interlocked 'T real', its AR VR service platform, with Google Daydream to provide opportunities for all to easily create, share, and play the virtual content.
The highlighted functions of 'T Real VR Studio' include: VR content creation in a mobile environment, Voxel-based 3D model creation and editing, multi-user content creation and, VR virtual camera playback and recording.
SK Telecom explained that the most distinctive feature of 'T Real VR Studio' is the easy accessibility to VR content creation. 'T Real VR Studio' provides voxel-based modeling functions optimized for mobile VR controllers, building a simplified content creating environment that does not require professional knowledge. The created content is uploaded to the cloud and automatically converted to specialized 3D format (obj or Unity Scene format), and later can be modified and reloaded by professional tools such as 3D Max or Unity.
As VR content creation requires high level of technical expertise, it was originally limited to professional designers and developers, and was passively consumed by users. Now, with 'T Real VR Studio,' all users including amateurs can create and share VR content in an easy and flexible manner.
In addition, 'T Real VR Studio' works together with Tango, Google's AR platform/device. VR content created in 'T Real VR Studio' can be utilized as AR content when played in Tango. It can also be extended to other VR platforms such as Gear VR, Oculus, and HTC Vive.
SK Telecom sees great potential of VR technology and believes that inexhaustible VR content will potentially appear in various application areas such as gaming, education, construction, and marketing with the advent of 'T Real VR Studio'.
For example, the platform may help to create a block game for children which they can play at home, or an architectural simulation program to design a new city and forecast diverse situations by arranging various buildings and facilities. Furthermore, it can even design program that helps to make better design plan by reorganizing internal and external structure of the machine parts materialized in 3D.
"To popularize VR, it is essential to enrich the VR content used in educational and industrial fields in addition to consumption-based content for gaming and entertainment', says Alex Jinsung Choi, CTO of SK Telecom. "As 'T Real VR Studio' allows concurrent multi-user access to produce and modify VR content, we at SK Telecom are expecting an innovative change in the VR environment, leading to a 5G era that enables ultra-high speed and ultra-low latency transmission of massive data", he added.
SK Telecom has been involved in AR·VR technology development since 2010. The company released an AR platform 'T-AR' in 2014, and extended to 'T Real' as total AR/VR platform in 2016. Regarding T real, the company is providing Soft Development Kit (SDK) to developers at no charge. SK Telecom is also actively cooperating with partners such as Leap Motion and Inuitive in developing manipulation technology for virtual content, such as gesture recognition and tracking based on 3D depth sensor. As part of the AR·VR projects, SK Telecom has demonstrated 'T-AR for Project Tango' in collaboration with Tango, Google's AR platform, at Google I/O 2015.


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Specialist Clinics of Australia use the most advanced skin examination and treatment methods available to assist with the detection and early diagnosis of melanoma and other skin cancers. Our experts provide thorough examinations to track and monitor your skin.
In the case of cancer the sooner a skin cancer can be identified, the sooner it can be treated. By identifying a serious case of skin cancer early enough potential surgery, scarring from surgery and most importantly a life threatening situation could be avoided.
The specific type of cancer and its location determine the treatment method, which might involve cryotherapy, radiation therapy, chemotherapy or surgery.
There is a variety of skin cancer types, however the three main types of skin cancers are:
1) Basal cell carcinoma (BCC)
2) Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC)
3) Malignant melanoma
The most dangerous of these is the malignant melanoma, which is predominantly caused by the sun’s UVA radiation.
Australia has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world. In fact, two out of three Australians are diagnosed with skin cancer by the age of 70. So it's vital a number of precautionary methods are adopted daily, to reduce the risk. These measures include: Decreasing indoor tanning and midday sun exposure, wearing sunscreen daily on exposed areas, using shading methods when exposed to the sun and avoiding the use of tobacco products.
Everyone's skin changes over time, if you notice something unusual don't delay, book your skin cancer checkup today and get peace of mind about the health of your skin.Book A Consultation
Highly experienced professionals & attentive administration staff to provide a safe & caring environment
Comprehensive & advanced range of laser, ultrasound & skincare technology, with continuous research & development
Effective, results-focussed, treatments tailored perfectly to your needs with exceptional pre & post care
Outstanding track record giving you premium cosmetic medical & skincare services with competitive prices since 2000
I've been coming to Rejuvenation Clinics in Sydney for about ten years. I come a few times a year and in all that time they have been awesome. The team in kind, helpful and highly professional - I've only ever had positive experiences. They're always happy to answer questions, fit me in for appointments at short notice and I've always had great results with the treatment provided and the products I've purchased. They're never pushy - they give you the options and then leave you to decide what suits you. I really value the way they treat their customers - with respect and care. I'd highly recommend Rejuvenation Clinics to my friends, family and anyone looking to get the treatments and products they provide. Many thanks
The staff are excellent. They called me immediately regarding my online enquiry and the receptionist is just so sweet and helpful. Dr Maryam is incredibly nice, gentle and careful. It is unbelievable how painless she did the procedure. I only felt 1.5/10 pain even after the numbing cream wore off. She did not overdo my lips and I just loved it. It did cause some bruising but it didn’t made me uncomfortable and gone after about 2/3 days. I would definitely recommend them. Very professional staff!
Alisha is fabulous! She is really friendly, chatty and very knowledgeable about the products and procedures. I am glad she is looking after me and my skin ;-). 5 Stars for her!
Pragmatic sensible advice and approach
Professional experience and explanation of procedures being undertaken

domain: medical


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|Elements||Chain Lift Hill|
90 ft tall Loop
144 ft long Tunnel
|Arrangement:||5 cars per train. Riders are arranged 2 across in 2 rows for a total of 20 riders per train.|
|Former names||Revolution ( to )|
La Revolución ( to )
Great American Revolution ( to )
At opening, the Great American Revolution used lap bar only restraints. In 1992, over the shoulder restraints were added. For the 2016 season, the ride was repainted, the station redone and lap bar only restraints returned.
For the 2016 & 2017 seasons, optional VR Goggles can be worn while riding the New Revolution.

domain: design


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Happy Friday! Not only are we wrapping up another week, but I’m also sharing our 7th and final style formula. I’ll wait until next week to tie this series up with a bow. Now that I’ve taken each formula one by one, I have a few thoughts I’d like to share about the whole process of selecting and following a style formula. But for today let’s just check out the final formula, Color Me Beautiful!
Seven Simple Style Formulas
We’re in the middle of a style series I’ve titled Oh So Pulled Together. More than any other question, I’m frequently asked to share tips for creating stylish outfits. So I created this little style series to really hone in on how to put together outfits that make you feel and look Oh So Pulled Together. You can check out all the post in this series here.
Within the series I’m sharing 7 simple style formulas. So far we’ve looked at:
- Style Formula #1: Top This!
- Style Formula #2: One & Done!
- Style Formula #3: Shoes On, Show Off!
- Style Formula #4: Layer It On!
- Style Formula #5: Bottoms Up!
- Style Formula #6: Accessorize to Maximize
Color Me Beautiful!
The final style formula revolves around wearing a noticeable color that suits you well, one that tells your story accurately and works well with your coloring. The key to this final style formula is similar to the secrets that make all the other formulas work, too. Keep it simple! Have you noticed this theme throughout our series?
While this formula is all about color, there are actually multiple ways you could work it. You could…
- go monochromatic, wearing one color in multiple tones head to toe.
- cross over the color wheel, pairing colors such as red and green, blue and orange or purple and yellow, that match up easily.
- be a good neighbor and wear colors that are right next to each other on the color wheel, such as purple and magenta, red and orange or blue and aquamarine.
But the primary goal is simply to let the color captivate. You can find more tips for working with colors to create interesting outfits in this previous post in our series: Using Color to Create Cohesive Outfits. But for this final style formula, the main thing to remember is just to wear a color you love and enjoy.
Working this formula can absolutely be as simple as topping your favorite jeans with a pretty, colorful sweater. Yes, you can wear a bold singular color like the trending grass green I’m wearing. Or you can wear a rainbow of colors. But the abiding principle is the same: let the color work its magic. Refrain from adding too many other things for the eyes to have to take in.
I love the outfit I’m sharing here for its simplicity and ease on the eyes. Even though I’m wearing a vibrant green, this outfit is still easy on the eyes simply because I kept my accessories minimal and my only other color is a basic denim blue. Trust me, I had to practice a little self-discipline to keep from adding something “more.” But I love the way this outfit turned out.
Let’s look at the pieces of my outfit, in case you’re interested in any of them.
Of course, the star of the show is this soft 35% wool, 35% superfine alpaca, 30% recycled polyester sweater. Yes, the color is actually called grass green, and that’s exactly what it looks like. You may have noticed that green is really trending right now. And the good news is all greens are hot right now. I just happen to love, love, love this particular shade of green. So fun and happy! And the minute I saw it I clicked through and put it in my cart. But it also comes in sand beige, Pacific pink and black.
The sweater is expertly cut for a loose, relaxed fit that’s still pulled together. It features soft relaxed balloon sleeves and a slightly cropped length, so it’s perfect to wear with mid to high-rise pants. Those of you who don’t like to tuck your tops in but still want to create those pleasing proportions? This is the kind of top you need to look for!
I’m wearing my favorite skinny jeans in a dark rinse wash. You could absolutely wear black jeans and black shoes or booties with this pretty green sweater. But, speaking of color choices, I love pairing blue and green. This combination is ultra easy on the eyes because the two colors are close together on the color wheel. (To refamiliarize yourself with the color wheel, see the post Using Color to Create Cohesive Outfits.) I wear my true to size 8 in these skinny jeans. And don’t let the name of the jeans fool you, by the way. They feel and wear like skinny jeans, not leggings.
I chose to wear my blue suede buckle mules because I wanted to wear something that didn’t detract at all from the blue and green combination I had going. These mules stay on my feet so well that I forget I have them on. They also come in a pretty Parisian clay and they fit true to size. If you’d prefer a classic flat, however, I can suggest these pretty Francesca driving moccasins in indigo blue.
Sale Alert: Talbots is having their Fall Style Event with 30% off your entire purchase. My jeans and mules are from Talbots, but you can find my other favorites here. PLUS today only, you can save $50 on every $200 spent, and these offers are stackable. Discounts appear in your shopping cart.
Like I said, I intentionally kept my accessories very pared down, allowing the color of my sweater to capture the limelight. But I also chose accessories that I believe are very elegant and classic. I’m wearing my brushed gold teardrop earrings (I went with large earrings since I didn’t wear a necklace). They’re very lightweight, by the way, and also available in rhodium (silver). And don’t you just love this gold tone coin stretch bracelet I recently ordered from Chico’s? They just have the best jewelry. Coin jewelry is really trending, so a bracelet like this is a very safe and elegant way to participate in a trend and add a modern touch to your outfit.
Because my shoes are blue suede and I didn’t have a belt to worry about, I was free to carry just about any neutral shade handbag of my choosing. But I love the way this mid brown hobo bag pairs with this look. Unfortunately this particular shade is no longer available in this hobo bag. (This snake embossed bag in a similar color is 25% off right now, however.) But isn’t this similar Rebecca Minkoff suede bag stunning? And here’s a more economical option.
I really like the way this outfit turned out. Looking at the photos, I don’t think it would have hurt to add along pendant necklace. But really I kind of like it the way it is, too. What do you think?
What’s your favorite color to wear when you’re letting that color steal the show? I’ll be sharing next week more about the trending colors for fall. Hint: you’ll see this outfit again!
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Blessed for My Day
Jesus invites us to join Him in sharing the good news of salvation with the world. We can see it as a chore or a delight, the choice is ours. Sometimes I think we lose sight of the mystery and wonder of this calling because we do not always get to see the full process. One person sows, another reaps. But we are all laborers in the most glorious and eternally significant field imaginable.
What are you doing to participate in the harvest? You know, ever little act of grace and love counts. Whether you’re praying for a lost family member, sharing God’s grace with a cranky neighbor, telling the story of salvation to a grandchild or mentoring a young woman, you can play a part in the most amazing story ever told.
“Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” ~ John 4:35-38

domain: artistic


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1 Minute Read
Government spending is out of control, isn’t it? It’s so bad that our federal government would have to cut spending by 27% to balance the budget. That’s insane!
The fact is that government can get out of debt the same way you get out of debt. You quit borrowing money. You quit spending. You balance the budget. But to do all of that, you’ll have to make some sacrifices.
Local experts you can trust.Find an ELP
When it comes to government, and when it comes to everyone wanting to get their piece of the pie, no one wants to make the sacrifices. So the spending continues, and our country keeps going deeper in debt.
If you’ve listened to The Dave Ramsey Show in recent years, you know government spending is an issue that gets Dave fired up. That was never more obvious than in one of Dave’s passionate rants during a recent show.
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Dave has plenty to say on this subject. Hold on for the ride.
Would you be willing and able to endure the pain of massive spending cuts?

domain: finance


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An artist's depiction of the twin spacecraft that comprise NASA's Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission. During the GRAIL mission's science phase, spacecraft (Ebb and Flow) transmit...› View Image
An artist’s depiction of the twin spacecraft (Ebb and Flow) that comprise NASA’s Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Ca...
This image of the far side of the lunar surface, with Earth in the background, was taken by the MoonKAM system onboard the Ebb spacecraft as part of the first image set taken from lunar orbit from Mar...› View Image
This image of the lunar surface was taken by the MoonKAM system onboard the Ebb spacecraft on March 15, 2012. The 42.3-mile-wide (68-kilometer-wide) crater in the middle of the image (with the smaller...› View Image
Using a precision formation-flying technique, the twin GRAIL spacecraft will map the moon's gravity field.
The mission also will answer longstanding questions about Earth's moon, includin...
Artist concept of GRAIL mission.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA's GRAIL twin spacecraft await launch atop a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/United Launch Alliance, Th...
These images show the various stages of pre-launch preparations of NASA's twin GRAIL spacecraft at Space Launch Complex 17B on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Image credit: N...
At Astrotech Space Operation's payload processing facility in Titusville, Fla., NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory-A (GRAIL-A) lunar probe is lifted from its workstand and across the clea...› View Image
Using a precision formation-flying technique, the twin GRAIL spacecraft will map the moon's gravity field, as depicted in this artist's rendering. Radio signals traveling between the two spacecraft pr...› View Image
NASA's lunar twins arrive at Cape Canaveral, Fla. The two GRAIL spacecraft (GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B) made the trip from the Denver area to the Shuttle Landing Strip at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla. on Ma...› View Image
In the photo, taken April 29, 2011, technicians install lifting brackets prior to hoisting the 200-kilogram (440-pound) GRAIL-A spacecraft out of vacuum chamber after testing. Along with its twin GRAI...› View Image
Engineers conduct checks on one of NASA's GRAIL spacecraft in the Space Support Building at Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver.
Image credit: NASA/JPL/LockheedMartin

domain: geography


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Combining a love for film with a trip overseas is a great way to indulge in your passion for flicks and a love for travel at the same time. There are loads of famous filming locations across the planet you can enjoy. But for those feeling a little more adventurous and looking to travel a little further afield, we caught up with Travelbag.co.uk to find out which far flung filming locations you could enjoy.
New Zealand – Lord of the Rings
The iconic Lord of the Rings trilogy broke a whole host of records. And, if you’re prepared to travel across the world, you can visit Middle Earth itself. Well, you can visit the Waikato Town of Matamata, which is where the village of Hobbiton was created. The village has been rebuilt since the filming wrapped up and is now a permanent tourist attraction.
Wellington, New Zealand, is home to a number of filming locations. Here you can visit the locations used to create the Gardens of Isengard (Harcourt Park) and Mount Victoria, whose forested areas became the woods of Hobbiton.
In fact, there are several other parts of New Zealand that played home to iconic Lord of the Rings scenes too so you could travel around the country and see as many of the filming locations as you like!
Muang Boran, Thailand – The Hangover II
The Ancient City of Muang Boran in Thailand is home to the monastery that featured as the Ching Mei Temple in the Hangover II.
And once you’ve finished spotting recognizable bits from the movie, you should definitely make the most of a walk around this absolutely stunning beautiful city to enjoy the sights and take some photographs. This is well worth a visit while in Thailand.
There are many other parts of Thailand that featured in the film too, including parts of Bangkok and Phulay Bay Resort in Krabi.
Winnetka, Illinois – The House from Home Alone
It seems fitting as we approach December to pay a little homage to one of the greatest Christmas movies of all time, Home Alone. The iconic house from the film is in Winnetka, Illinois.
The address, 671 Lincoln Avenue, is popular with fans of the films looking to get a photo of this famous house.
And, once you’ve got your photo, you’re only 21 miles from Chicago so why not head for the Windy City itself and enjoy the sights there too.
Movies filmed in Chicago include High Fidelity, The Dark Knight and Road to Perdition.
If you think you’re pretty hot on movie knowledge, filming locations and geography related movie trivia, you can put it to the test with Travelbag’s “Where in the World: The Movie Edition,” Quiz.


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Custom Medallions aren’t only for pirates, but they can still be pretty awesome.
The world of Medallions is vast. Now more then ever custom medals design is branching out with great techniques, such as splash minting. This technique helps in creating scenes that look almost real and even seem to show movement. Special dies are used that allow the excess metal to splash out in a sideways direction when the coin is struck. Once this is done, the excess metal left behind by the strike is shaved off, leaving a relief that is elegant, striking and memorable. You can imagine the endless possibilities with a technique like this!
Custom Medallions, also benefit greatly from adding marks to the rim. Ridges, lines, numbers, mottos, serial number and special messages can be added to a custom piece. Many forget about the available space on the side of medallions, but it’s actually a perfect place to add the detail that ties the entire design together. Many have begun to get creative in what the add to this. On items such as Geo Coins, serial numbers can add trackability to a coin so its journey can be tracked.
The above are just some of the options available to a client when looking for a specially made medallion. Of course, there is a starting point and for this type of piece a customer chooses from over ten different plating styles for a classically finished medallion, or add enamel color fill (hard or soft) to add zest and contrast to your design. We also offer the ability to combine several different plating styles on one order of medals (allowing you to order, for example, 50 gold, 50 silver, and 50 copper). This is an affordable solution for those who need to acknowledge three or more levels of achievement.
As a starting point, this gives people an idea of what can be done with a medallion, but the options are many and our website offers hundreds of samples and suggestions for the best design to fit a customer’s needs. Also and aways, our designers are available for a free design consultation!

domain: hobby