Amor Towles - (born 1964) is an American novelist. He is best known for his bestselling novels Rules of Civility (2011), A Gentleman in Moscow (2016), and The Lincoln Highway (2021). Towles was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated from Yale College and received an M.A. in English from Stanford University, where he was a Scowcroft Fellow. When Towles was 10 years old, he threw a bottle with a message into the Atlantic Ocean. Several weeks later, he received a letter from Harrison Salisbury, who was then the managing editor of The New York Times. Towles and Salisbury corresponded for many years afterward. When Towles was a young man, he credited Peter Matthiessen, renowned nature writer, novelist, and one of the founders of The Paris Review, as the primary inspiration for writing novels. Towles' first novel, Rules of Civility, was successful beyond his expectations, so much so that proceeds from the book afforded him the luxury of retirement from investment banking and the opportunity to pursue writing full time. His second novel, A Gentleman in Moscow, which was on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list for 59 weeks, was a finalist for the 2016 Kirkus Prize for Fiction. It was also longlisted for the 2018 International Dublin Literary Award. A television series based on the novel and starring Ewan McGregor is scheduled to begin production in late 2022. Towles' third novel, The Lincoln Highway, was published on October 5, 2021. It was chosen by Amazon as the best book of 2021. As of May 15, 2022, it had been on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list for 30 weeks.

Comment: I've read his last two books and really enjoyed them. Especially A Gentleman in Moscow.

Uranometria (is a star atlas produced by Johann Bayer. It was published in Augsburg in 1603 by Christoph Mang (Christophorus Mangus) under the full title Uranometria: omnium asterismorum continens schemata, nova methodo delineata, aereis laminis expressa. This translates to "Uranometria, containing charts of all the constellations, drawn by a new method and engraved on copper plates". The word "Uranometria" derives from Urania, muse of the heavens and "uranos" (oυραν?ς) the Greek word for sky / heavens. A literal translation of "Uranometria" is "Measuring the Heavens" (to be compared with "Geometry"—"Geometria" in Greek, literally translated to "Measuring the Earth"). It was the first atlas to cover the entire celestial sphere. Uranometria contained 51 star charts, engraved on copper plates by Alexander Mair (c. 1562–1617). The first 48 charts illustrate each of the 48 Ptolemaic constellations. The 49th chart introduces 12 new constellations in the deep southern sky, which was unknown to Ptolemy. The final two charts are planispheres labeled "Synopsis coeli superioris borea" and "Synopsis coeli inferioris austrina", or (roughly), "Overview of the northern hemisphere" and "Overview of the southern hemisphere". Each plate includes a grid for accurately determining the position of each star to fractions of a degree. The positions used by Bayer to create the Uranometria were taken from the expanded 1,005-star catalog of Tycho Brahe. Brahe's expanded list had circulated in manuscript since 1598 and was available in graphic form on the celestial globes of Petrus Plancius, Hondius, and Willem Blaeu. It was first published in tabular form in Johannes Kepler's Rudolphine Tables of 1627. Uranometria introduced the convention of labelling stars by Greek and Latin letters, known as Bayer designations, a system still in use today)

The Northern Hemisphere page from Johann Bayer's 1661 edition of Uranometria - the first atlas to have star charts covering the entire celestial sphere...............................

FYI: from my Final Frontier topic folder

________________________

Violet can be any of a genus (Viola of the family Violaceae, the violet family) of chiefly herbs with alternate stipulate leaves and showy flowers in spring and often cleistogamous flowers in summer.

Violet can be any of a group of colors of reddish-blue hue, low lightness, and medium saturation.

Violet can also be a girl's name.

Peanut character Violet - 

Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew (literally Wilderness Temple of the Great Glass Pagoda), also known as the Temple of a Million Bottles, is a Buddhist temple in Khun Han district of Sisaket province, Thailand. The temple is made of over 1.5 million empty Heineken bottles and Chang beer bottles. Collection of the bottles began in 1984; it took two years to build the main temple. Thereafter, the monks continued to expand the site, and by 2009 some 20 buildings had been similarly constructed. According to the China Daily, "The Thai Buddhist temple has found an environmentally friendly way to utilize discarded bottles to reach nirvana." The main temple has a concrete core, with collected bottles used as construction materials. Two types of bottles are used; green Heineken bottles and brown Chang bottles. After the local monks began to collect them in 1984 for use as a building material, the local government sent additional bottles. In addition to the bottles themselves, the bottle caps are used to create mosaics. As of 2009 there were a total of 20 buildings constructed in this fashion; in addition to the temple there were a crematorium, a series of prayer rooms, the local water tower, bathrooms for the use of tourists as well as several raised bungalows which are used as housing for the monks. The main temple took two years to construct, but as the materials were still available the site is continually expanded. By 2009 there were more than 1.5 million bottles in use in the construction works at the temple site, leading to Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew also being known as the "Temple of a Million Bottles." In 2015, it was named one of the ten leading examples of sustainable architecture by travel website When on Earth. Parenthetically, 50 years ago the Heineken company looked into changing their bottles so that they could be used as building blocks, a construction material. While nothing came of that, the monks found a way)

FYI: From my Architecture topic folder

Xochimilco - is a borough (demarcación territorial) of Mexico City. The borough is centered on the formerly independent city of Xochimilco, which was established on what was the southern shore of Lake Xochimilco in the precolonial period. Today, the borough consists of the 18 barrios, or neighborhoods, of this city along with 14 pueblos, or villages, that surround it, covering an area of 125 km2 (48 sq mi). The borough is in the southeastern part of the city and has an identity that is separate from the historic center of Mexico City, due to its historic separation from that city during most of its history.

Xochimilco is best known for its canals, which are left from what was an extensive lake and canal system that connected most of the settlements of the Valley of Mexico. These canals, along with artificial islands called chinampas, attract tourists and other city residents to ride on colorful gondola-like boats called trajineras around the 170 km (110 mi) of canals. This canal and chinampa system, as a vestige of the area's precolonial past, has made Xochimilco a World Heritage Site. In 1950, Paramahansa Yogananda, in his Autobiography of a Yogi, wrote that if there were a scenic beauty contest, Xochimilco would get the first prize.

 View of part of the main plaza of the center of Xochimilco

Year of the Rabbit (2023 is a year of the Water Rabbit, starting from January 22nd, 2023 (Chinese New Year), and ending on February 9th, 2024 (Chinese New Year's Eve). The sign of Rabbit is a symbol of longevity, peace, and prosperity in Chinese culture. 2023 is predicted to be a year of hope. People born in a year of the Rabbit are called "Rabbits" and are believed to be vigilant, witty, quick-minded, and ingenious)

In Chinese five element theory, each zodiac sign is associated with one of the five elements: Gold (Metal), Wood, Water, Fire, or Earth. For example, a Water Rabbit comes once in a 60-year cycle...........................

Calling it a night...............................

The Zookeeper's Wife - is a non-fiction book written by the poet and naturalist Diane Ackerman. Drawing on the diary of Antonina Zabinska, unpublished in English (though published in Polish in 1968), it recounts the true story of how Antonina and her husband, Jan Zabinski, director of the Warsaw Zoo, saved the lives of 300 Jews who had been imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto following the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. The book was first published in 2007 by W. W. Norton. 

The Zookeeper's Wife - is a 2017 American war drama film directed by Niki Caro, written by Angela Workman and based on Diane Ackerman's non-fiction book of the same name. The film tells the true story of how Jan and Antonina Zabinski rescued hundreds of Polish Jews from the Germans by hiding them in their Warsaw zoo during World War II. It stars Jessica Chastain, Johan Heldenbergh, Daniel Brühl and Michael McElhatton. 

The film had its world premiere on 8 March 2017 in Warsaw, Poland, the location of the story, followed by its US premiere at the Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose, California, on 12 March 2017. The film was released in the United States on 31 March 2017, by Focus Features, and by Universal Pictures International in the United Kingdom on 21 April 2017. It received mixed reviews from critics but a positive response from audiences and grossed $26 million worldwide.

YouTube

The Zookeeper's Wife Official Trailer 1 (2017) - Jessica Chastain Movie

Starring: Jessica Chastain, Daniel Brühl, Johan HeldenberghThe Zookeeper's Wife Official Trailer 1 (2017) - Jessica Chastain MovieThe Zookeeper's Wife tells ...

Comment: I read the book but didn't see the movie.

24 hours ...

Anne of Green Gables - is a 1908 novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery (published as L. M. Montgomery). Written for all ages, it has been considered a classic children's novel since the mid-20th century. Set in the late 19th century, the novel recounts the adventures of 11-year-old orphan girl Anne Shirley sent by mistake to two middle-aged siblings, Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, who had originally intended to adopt a boy to help them on their farm in the fictional town of Avonlea in Prince Edward Island, Canada. The novel recounts how Anne makes her way through life with the Cuthberts, in school, and within the town. Since its publication, Anne of Green Gables has been translated into at least 36 languages and has sold more than 50 million copies, making it one of the best-selling books worldwide. It was the first of many novels; Montgomery wrote numerous sequels, and since her death another sequel has been published, as well as an authorized prequel titled Before Green Gables. This prequel was written in 2008 by Budge Wilson to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the book series. The original book is taught to students around the world.

Round 4…………….
Butterfly Effect (In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state. The term is closely associated with the work of mathematician and meteorologist Edward Norton Lorenz. He noted that the butterfly effect is derived from the metaphorical example of the details of a tornado (the exact time of formation, the exact path taken) being influenced by minor perturbations such as a distant butterfly flapping its wings several weeks earlier. Lorenz originally used a seagull causing a storm but was persuaded to make it more poetic with the use of butterfly and tornado by 1972. He discovered the effect when he observed runs of his weather model with initial condition data that were rounded in a seemingly inconsequential manner. He noted that the weather model would fail to reproduce the results of runs with the unrounded initial condition data. A very small change in initial conditions had created a significantly different outcome. The idea that small causes may have large effects in weather was earlier acknowledged by French mathematician and engineer Henri Poincaré. American mathematician and philosopher Norbert Wiener also contributed to this theory. Lorenz's work placed the concept of instability of the Earth's atmosphere onto a quantitative base and linked the concept of instability to the properties of large classes of dynamic systems which are undergoing nonlinear dynamics and deterministic chaos. The butterfly effect concept has since been used outside the context of weather science as a broad term for any situation where a small change is supposed to be the cause of larger consequences)

also a good movie......................

Calling it a night...............................

Clarence House - For nearly two centuries, Clarence House has been home to senior members of the British royal family. Nowadays, the house is known as one of the London homes of King Charles and Camilla, Queen Consort, but the residence has a fascinating history of its own and has undergone many a reinvention over the years. It was built between 1825 and 1827. The residence was designed by John Nash next to St. James's Palace as a home for King George III's son—then Prince William Henry, Duke of Clarence, soon to be King William IV—in the 19th century. The three-story stuccoed mansion was luxurious, to be sure, but far less resplendent than Nash's work on Buckingham Palace.

Clarence House has been home to several royals and their families. King William IV would continue living in Clarence House even after ascending the throne. After his death in 1837, his sister Princess Augusta moved in, until her death just three years later. In 1841, Queen Victoria's mother, the Duchess of Kent, settled into the royal residence; she'd call it home until passing away in the 1860s. A few years after that, Victoria's second son, Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, moved in. Like some before him, Alfred renovated parts of the house. Then, in 1901, Queen Victoria's third son and his wife, Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn and Louise, Duchess of Connaught, moved in after ordering some redecorations of their own. Following the Duke's death in 1942, amid World War II, Clarence House was made available to the War Organization of the British Red Cross and Order of St. John of Jerusalem.

The house's next royal resident would be Queen Elizabeth herself, then still a Princess, and her husband Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. The couple moved in after their marriage in 1947, and had the building modernized with more up-to-date electrical, heat, and hot water systems. However, with some wartime rationing and restrictions still in place, the renovations were modest—as were the aesthetic updates, overseen by Philip.

Today, it remains King Charles and Camilla, Queen Consort's primary home. The royal couple moved into Clarence House in 2003, and Prince Harry had a room in the house. It was Harry's official residence from 2002 until 2012. In his memoir Spare, Harry writes Camilla turned his bedroom into a dressing room when he moved out. "I tried not to care. But especially the first time I saw it, I cared," he wrote. 

Until Charles's accession to the throne in September 2022, Clarence House held the offices for Camilla and Charles's Royal Household. Although they have multiple homes in Great Britain, and Buckingham Palace is now their official residence, Clarence House is the real home base—Camilla even hosted Christmas festivities there in December 2022. Over the years, they added their own touches to the building, some with the help of interior designer Robert Kime. "The major change has been in The Dining Room which has the unusual and striking bronze coving to the ceiling," Jones said. "The other thing that always strikes you when you are inside the house is how much the garden is present—many of the rooms look out into the garden and there is a sense of it almost like an extra room to the house."

Clarence House, circa 1890

The Morning Room, 1894

YouTube

A Tour Of Clarence House

In today's episode I take you on a mini tour of Clarence House - the official London residence of Prince Charles and The Duchess of Cornwall.All images court...