True sf. The Bizarre Journey of Elmer McCurdy: From Outlaw to Funhouse Attraction

How did a Wild West outlaw end up as a carnival attraction. What is the story behind the real body found in a California funhouse. Can you believe the tale of Elmer McCurdy’s posthumous adventures.

The Life and Death of Elmer McCurdy: Outlaw of the Wild West

Elmer McCurdy’s life was as colorful as his death was strange. Born in 1880 near Bangor, Maine, to an unwed mother, McCurdy’s early years were marked by ostracism due to his illegitimate status. This challenging start would set the stage for a life of adventure and, ultimately, infamy.

By 1910, McCurdy had made his way to Oklahoma, where he found himself struggling with alcoholism and a perpetual lack of funds. It was here that he devised his unique approach to crime. Unlike many outlaws of the era who operated within established gangs, McCurdy preferred to work alone, using a clever strategy to evade capture.

McCurdy’s Criminal Tactics

• Posed as a plumber to gain local knowledge
• Formed temporary alliances with local criminals
• Committed robberies and quickly fled town
• Left accomplices to face law enforcement

This method served McCurdy well for a time, making him a difficult target for law enforcement. However, his luck ran out following a train robbery in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Deputies, aided by scent hounds, tracked McCurdy to a barn where he made his last stand.

The Final Showdown: McCurdy’s Last Moments

On October 7, 1911, Elmer McCurdy found himself cornered in an old barn, surrounded by sheriff’s deputies. Realizing his fate was sealed, McCurdy chose to face death on his own terms. He opened a bottle of stolen whiskey, determined to meet his end as he had lived – intoxicated.

For an hour, gunfire echoed through the Oklahoma air as McCurdy exchanged shots with the deputies. When the shooting from the barn finally ceased, the lawmen cautiously approached. Inside, they found McCurdy’s body, a bullet wound in his chest marking the end of his outlaw career.

Why did McCurdy’s body remain unclaimed?

After McCurdy’s death, his body was taken to a Pawhuska undertaker who embalmed the corpse. The undertaker, expecting relatives to claim the infamous outlaw’s remains, was surprised when no one came forward. This lack of familial interest would set the stage for McCurdy’s bizarre posthumous journey.

The Mummification and Exhibition of Elmer McCurdy

The undertaker’s embalming process, which involved arsenic (a common practice at the time), had an unexpected effect on McCurdy’s remains. Rather than decomposing, his body began to mummify. Seeing an opportunity, the undertaker decided to put McCurdy’s corpse on display.

For five years, McCurdy’s body remained at the funeral home, becoming something of a macabre tourist attraction. Visitors could view the outlaw’s remains for a nickel, which they would place in the corpse’s mouth. This ghoulish exhibit marked the beginning of McCurdy’s long and strange afterlife.

How did McCurdy’s body become a traveling attraction?

In 1916, a man claiming to be McCurdy’s long-lost brother appeared and demanded the body. However, this was a ruse orchestrated by carnival promoters who saw potential profit in exhibiting the mummified outlaw. Thus began McCurdy’s journey through various sideshows and carnivals across America.

From Sideshow to Silver Screen: McCurdy’s Posthumous Career

Over the next six decades, McCurdy’s body traveled extensively, appearing in carnivals, amusement parks, and even in Hollywood productions. His remains were often billed as “The Embalmed Bandit” or “The Thousand-Year-Old Man,” drawing curious onlookers wherever he went.

• Featured in carnivals and sideshows across the country
• Appeared in amusement parks as a curiosity
• Used as a prop in Hollywood productions
• Gradually forgotten as a real human corpse

As time passed, the true identity of the mummified body was forgotten. McCurdy’s remains were treated increasingly like a prop, painted and modified to suit various exhibitions. This treatment would continue until a startling discovery in 1976.

The Shocking Discovery at the Pike Amusement Park

In December 1976, the crew of the television show “The Six Million Dollar Man” was filming at the Pike Amusement Park in Long Beach, California. During preparations for a scene in the park’s “Laff in the Dark” funhouse, a crew member accidentally dislodged what was thought to be a wax mannequin hanging from a gallows.

When the figure’s arm broke off, it revealed human bone and tissue beneath the layers of paint and wax. The horrifying realization dawned – this was no mannequin, but an actual human corpse. The discovery sent shockwaves through the amusement park and beyond, triggering a police investigation and media frenzy.

How was the body identified as Elmer McCurdy?

The Los Angeles coroner’s office took charge of the mysterious corpse. A thorough examination revealed a 1924 penny and ticket stubs in the figure’s mouth, hinting at its sideshow past. Further investigation, including the discovery of a gunshot wound and traces of copper wire used in early 20th-century embalming, led to the identification of the body as that of Elmer McCurdy.

The Final Rest: McCurdy’s Return to Oklahoma

Once identified, efforts were made to give Elmer McCurdy a proper burial. In April 1977, sixty-six years after his death, McCurdy’s remains were finally laid to rest in Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie, Oklahoma. To prevent any future disturbance or exploitation, his casket was buried under two yards of concrete.

The ceremony was attended by representatives from the Boot Hill Museum and the Indian Territory Posse of Westerners, who ensured that McCurdy received a dignified burial befitting an outlaw of the Old West. A simple headstone marks his final resting place, bringing an end to his extraordinary posthumous journey.

What lessons can we learn from Elmer McCurdy’s story?

The tale of Elmer McCurdy serves as a stark reminder of the importance of treating human remains with dignity and respect. It also highlights the sometimes blurred line between entertainment and exploitation, especially in the realm of historical artifacts and human curiosities. McCurdy’s story continues to fascinate, serving as a unique window into American cultural history of the 20th century.

Legacy and Cultural Impact of Elmer McCurdy’s Story

The bizarre journey of Elmer McCurdy from outlaw to funhouse attraction has left an indelible mark on American popular culture. His story has been the subject of numerous books, documentaries, and even inspired fictional works in literature and film.

• Featured in multiple television documentaries
• Inspired episodes of fictional crime shows
• Subject of scholarly articles on ethics and human remains
• Used as a case study in museum studies and preservation

McCurdy’s tale serves as a cautionary one, highlighting the potential consequences of treating human remains as curiosities or entertainment. It has sparked discussions about ethics in the display of human remains and the responsibilities of museums and entertainers in preserving human dignity, even after death.

How has McCurdy’s story influenced modern practices?

The discovery of McCurdy’s body in 1976 led to increased scrutiny of exhibits featuring human remains. Many museums and attractions reviewed their collections, ensuring that any human remains on display were treated with appropriate respect and had proper documentation. The incident also contributed to the development of more stringent guidelines for the acquisition and display of human remains in both educational and entertainment contexts.

Elmer McCurdy in Popular Culture: From Outlaw to Icon

Since the revelation of his extraordinary post-mortem journey, Elmer McCurdy has become something of a folk hero, particularly in Oklahoma and among enthusiasts of Wild West history. His story has been adapted into various forms of media, each putting its own spin on the outlaw’s life and bizarre afterlife.

1. Books detailing McCurdy’s life and posthumous adventures
2. Documentaries exploring the ethical implications of his story
3. Fictional adaptations in television shows and movies
4. Inclusion in museum exhibits about the Wild West and carnival culture

McCurdy’s tale continues to captivate audiences, serving as a unique intersection of true crime, Wild West lore, and the often strange world of early 20th-century entertainment. His story provides a fascinating glimpse into a bygone era while raising timeless questions about ethics, entertainment, and the treatment of the dead.

What aspects of McCurdy’s story resonate most with modern audiences?

The enduring fascination with Elmer McCurdy’s story can be attributed to several factors. The tale combines elements of true crime, which has a perennial appeal, with the romanticism of the Wild West era. Additionally, the bizarre twists in McCurdy’s posthumous journey tap into a human fascination with the macabre and the strange. The ethical questions raised by his treatment after death also resonate with modern concerns about dignity and respect for the deceased.

Preserving History: The Challenges of Authenticating and Protecting Unusual Artifacts

The case of Elmer McCurdy highlights the unique challenges faced by historians, museum curators, and preservationists when dealing with unusual historical artifacts. McCurdy’s body, having passed through numerous hands and been modified over the years, presented a complex authentication problem when it was discovered in 1976.

This case underscores the importance of proper documentation and preservation techniques in maintaining the integrity of historical artifacts. It also raises questions about the responsibilities of those who come into possession of items of potential historical significance.

What steps are taken today to prevent similar incidents?

In the wake of McCurdy’s discovery, many institutions implemented stricter protocols for the acquisition and display of human remains and other sensitive artifacts. These may include:

• Thorough documentation of an item’s provenance
• Regular audits of collections to ensure proper classification
• Ethical guidelines for the display and treatment of human remains
• Collaboration with relevant communities or descendants when appropriate
• Increased emphasis on education and context in exhibits featuring sensitive materials

These measures aim to balance the educational value of historical artifacts with respect for human dignity and cultural sensitivities. The story of Elmer McCurdy serves as a reminder of the importance of these practices in preserving and presenting history responsibly.

TRUE Composite SF 4.0 Goalie Lacrosse Shaft

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The return was handled properly per the TRUE Sports return process as outlined below:

*Handle Limited Warranty Exclusions:

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The warranty date is considered effective from the date of receipt for products sold directly to the end user through an authorized True Temper Sports retailer.

Return of the Product

To replace a broken product, contact True Temper Sports directly, not your True Temper Sports retailer. Please follow the steps below so that they can begin to process your claim.

• Fill out the Warranty Return form online.
• True Temper Sports will evaluate your return authorization request.
• If it meets their policy requirement, True Temper Sports will send you a return authorization number (RA) within 5 business days.
• Once an RA number is issued, all broken products must be received by True Temper Sports within 14 calendar days. Otherwise the RA will expire, the warranty return will be revaluated and a new RA will be issued, if eligible.
• After True Temper Sports has authorized the return, please send your product and RA number via a prepaid, insured, traceable method to ensure a safe and documented delivery.

To initiate your return, please visit truesportslacrosse.com/warranty-returns/

The unbelievable true story of the real body found in a California funhouse

Elmer McCurdy knew the end was nigh.

Trapped in an old barn, surrounded by sheriff’s deputies, he resigned himself to die. He popped open a purloined bottle of whiskey and took a pull. Might as well die as he lived, Elmer thought: stone-cold drunk. 

Gunfire crackled through the Oklahoma air for an hour before deputies realized Elmer had stopped shooting back. They cautiously approached the barn and there, shot through the chest, lay the state’s most wanted outlaw. The Pawhuska undertaker declared him deceased on Oct. 7, 1911, and, after embalming the corpse, waited for relatives to come forward. Elmer was notorious; he figured it wouldn’t take long.

But death had only just begun its long, strange dance with Elmer McCurdy.

—

You will be forgiven for dismissing the story out of hand as too unbelievable to be true. A mannequin found hanging in a California funhouse — forebodingly called “Laff in the Dark” — is jostled too hard. Its arm falls off, revealing bone and human-looking tissue. The horror sets in. This body is no mannequin; it’s a cadaver. 

Life was no picnic for Elmer, and death wasn’t either. By anyone’s best reckoning, Elmer was born in 1880 near Bangor, Maine, to the well-to-do McCurdy family. Elmer’s mother Sadie was unwed, and his father is a mystery lost to time. Ostracized as an illegitimate child, Elmer headed west as soon as he was able. (He had some happy memories, though. The Muskogee Daily Phoenix wrote in 1915 he was known for mooning over a photograph of a young girl and an old man on the front porch of a colonial home. He longingly called them “the good times.”)

Around 1910, Elmer found himself in Oklahoma with a drinking problem and no cash to lubricate it. He developed a clever scheme. Unlike most Wild West scalawags who ran with established gangs, Elmer never ran with the same crew twice. He’d pop into town, take up gainful employment as a plumber and make acquaintances with the neighborhood ne’er-do-wells. After robbing a bank or a train, Elmer would “fold up his tent” and split, leaving his comrades to contend with the local cops. 

An 1887 photograph of Pawhuska, capitol of the Osage Nation, in Oklahoma Territory. The view includes a boardwalk running along a dirt road, a photograph gallery and many other wooden buildings. 

George W. Parsons/Oklahoma Historical Society/Getty Images

He’d been extraordinarily tough to find until that train robbery in Pawhuska. Deputies got to the scene quickly and used scent hounds to track Elmer to the barn where he was killed. His body was preserved with a particularly effective arsenic-based fluid (now banned, for obvious reasons) and the Pawhuska morgue kept the diminutive 5-foot-3 criminal propped up in the parlor for relatives to claim.

But the years passed and no one came. Although Elmer’s skin turned the color and texture of saddle leather, his features remained remarkably lifelike. Sometimes traveling carnival workers offered the undertaker cash for the notorious bandit — mummies of all sorts were popular sideshow attractions at the time — but the man held out for Elmer’s family to find him. The Daily Phoenix wrote four years after Elmer’s death that “many people have come from a distance to see this curiosity.” It was free to look and, if you were daring, touch. One enterprising merchant sold postcards of Elmer’s corpse with the caption, “The Only Dead One in Pawhuska.”

In 1916, two men from California knocked on the undertaker’s door. They told him they had come to collect their brother; it was the last wish of their parents that they be reunited with their son. No doubt relieved to be rid of Elmer, the undertaker helped the men pack up the coffin and ready it for shipment to San Francisco. Finally, he’d seen the back of Elmer McCurdy.

But this was not to be. A few months later, word got back to the Osage Hills that Elmer was busy touring the nation. His latest stop was a carnival in West Texas, where people paid a few cents to see the mummy. The “brothers” were nothing but hucksters. 

Here, things get a little muddy (and over-reliant on the memories of several generations of old carnies). A March 1921 story in the Pomona Progress records Elmer’s visit to town as part of the Al G. Barnes Circus. “He lived a hard life and died a hard death,” the paper wrote. “Now he is tougher than ever.”

Ten years later, Elmer had settled down: The Los Angeles Times included him in a roundup of fun things to see and do in the downtown area. Curiosity seekers could pay 10 cents to visit Elmer in his “ornate coffin. ” According to Dan Sonney, the son of a traveling entertainer, his father had purchased Elmer around that time from another carny. Sonney said they covered the body in wax, put him in a coffin and added him to their “villains” display of wax dummies. By World War II, freak shows fell out of favor and Sonney put Elmer into storage in their LA warehouse.

Elmer McCurdy, the Oklahoma outlaw, embalmed in his coffin. The photo credit written along the side indicates this was taken in Pawhuska, where he was killed in 1911.

Archive photo

It seems Elmer mostly collected dust for two decades, save for a cameo in 1967’s “She Freak.” The movie, produced by Sonney’s film company, is awful exploitation shlock, more carnival B-roll than actual filmmaking, and Elmer’s gaunt visage is briefly shown in a psychedelic montage of faces. It’s by far the most undignified thing to happen to him, in life or death.

By Sonney’s recollection, he sold the corpse the next year to Spoony Singh, founder of the famed Hollywood Wax Museum. It’s not clear if his new owners knew exactly how corporeal their purchase had once been, especially considering Elmer was covered in several layers of wax by then. At the wax museum, Elmer took up residence among the dummies, but perhaps there was something just a little … wrong about him. He was shifted to another, cheaper wax museum, which went under in the 1970s. In lieu of unpaid rent, the museum sold off its collection. Elmer ended up at The Pike in Long Beach. 

There, his naked body was covered in red fluorescent paint that glowed in the dark and hung from a rope inside the Laff in the Dark funhouse. It’s impossible to guess how many people brushed up against his legs in the gloom, but their childhood nightmares took human shape in December 1976.

The crew of the popular “Six Million Dollar Man” TV show was setting up for a shoot at The Pike when a tech hit the hanging man just a little too hard. The arm of the mannequin — or so he thought — fell to the ground. No matter, the tech grabbed some glue and went to fix the dummy. But upon closer inspection, he realized the arm had a very realistic-looking bone sticking out of it. The volume and length of the man’s screams were not recorded, but at some point he was able to call the police. One investigator quipped to the press the whole situation was “too much like Vincent Price time.” 

Elmer was packed up once more and sent to the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office. They were less pleased with all the jokes and shenanigans, as they had the very real task of identifying this mystery body. Everyone agreed it looked ancient, and there was early speculation that perhaps it was a Central or South American mummy. Alarmingly, Los Angeles police told the media this wouldn’t be the first time they’d encountered that.

As detectives tracked down leads from carnival workers and museum owners, the coroner performed an autopsy. Inside Elmer’s chest was the copper jacket of the bullet that killed him. It had stopped being manufactured long ago and that, combined with the embalming technique, led the coroner to think this body was from the early 20th century.

Within the week, detectives tracking down the body’s provenance determined he was likely Wild West robber Elmer McCurdy. Photos were matched against images in the University of Oklahoma archive, and they were confident they had their man. For the second time in Elmer’s afterlife, museum and sideshow owners asked the coroner if they could buy his corpse. “You can’t just paint it red and use it for laughs,” a peeved spokesman said.

The coroner’s office held onto Elmer until April 1977 when, satisfied no living relatives were coming forward, they agreed to release his body to the Oklahoma chief medical examiner. Elmer then took a plane ride. It wasn’t particularly scenic, though, as the baggage handlers at LAX put him in the cargo hold. 

Upon arrival, he was taken to Guthrie, where the city council had voted to donate a final resting place. “We just feel he should be laid to rest in a Christian manner after 66 years of being bandied about from pillar to post,” city spokesman Bill Lehmann said.

Hundreds came to watch as Elmer was taken in a horse-drawn hearse to Boot Hill Cemetery, home to other outlaws like Bill Doolin. It was a scene that would have astounded Elmer — he’d certainly never been so well-liked in life. Before interment, a minister gave a short graveside service. 

“Elmer McCurdy, now after so long we can say, ‘dust to dust and ashes to ashes’ and lay you down to rest with those whose company you sought in life,” he said.

For the first time in decades, there were no squealing children, no prodding fingers, no over-eager carnies. There was only quiet as Elmer sank deep into the earth, at rest at last.

—

There is an epilogue to Elmer McCurdy’s story.

In 2017, designer Mark Taylor was interviewed for the Netflix show “The Toys That Made Us. ” Taylor had worked on the early prototypes for He-Man, one of the most successful toy lines of all time.

“Way back when I was nine, my dad decided to take us to The Pike funhouse,” Taylor recalled. “And here’s this real seedy house of fear, and I didn’t feel good about it.”

As he stepped forward into the dark, Taylor began to smell something very, very bad. “It smells like somebody’s dead,” he said. And then, he saw the body. “All of a sudden I knew this was a real person, no question,” he remembered. “This absolutely was a real person.”

That image of the skeletal man burned itself into his memory, carried with him into adulthood and right to the drawing table as, pen poised, he began to sketch a villain for the ages.

“This was one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen,” Taylor said, “and that’s where Skeletor came from.” 

Pandemic drinking is all about cartoon-covered, limited edition cans

The cool-beer-can window display is one of the Bay Area’s overlooked pandemic trends.

You’ve seen it if you’ve waited in line outside Palm City in the Sunset, Fool’s Errand in NoPa or Stillwater in Marin County: an array of wildly colorful cylinders decked out in pastels, neons and cartoon drawings. The beers’ names are almost always puns, like Fish Don’t Krill My Vibe IPA. As you await your turn to order, you may find that staring at the vibrant cans has a hypnotic effect similar to looking into a candy store.

These window displays are a pandemic necessity, of course, while safety restrictions are still keeping most customers confined to outdoor spaces. But they’re also evidence of a more complex, and potentially more lasting, trend in the Bay Area craft beer scene. Often, the various beers in these window displays come from just a small handful of breweries, like Santa Cruz’s Humble Sea and Sante Adairius, Monterey’s Alvarado Street and San Francisco’s Cellarmaker — breweries that have found a deeply loyal audience for their aggressive flavors and constant output of limited-edition brews. And their explosive popularity is intricately tied to their cans’ suddenly ubiquitous visual presence throughout the Bay Area.

“We can’t keep these beers on the shelf,” says Palm City co-owner Dennis Cantwell. His customers are savvy: “People in the neighborhood know which days of the week we get drops from Humble Sea or Alvarado Street.”

Humble Sea Brewing Co.Amber Gueta

Just as paradigms have shifted for California craft breweries in recent years, they’ve also shifted for craft beer bars. It used to be that a bar would carry a wide selection of beers, each one from a different brewery. Increasingly, though, new bars are offering a more curated selection from only a small roster of usual suspects.

As a result, it’s become more competitive for beer bars to get their hands on the in-demand brews. The waiting list for bars and restaurants that want to buy from Humble Sea is more than a year long, says co-owner Frank Krueger. Bar owners drive to Santa Cruz every week from as far away as Tahoe to pick up their coveted allocations.

In the past, people were fans of specific beers: You were a Blind Pig IPA drinker or a Lagunitas IPA person, returning over and over again to the same exact product. These days, people identify instead as a fan of a producer, open to trying whatever they’ve just released.

That genre of fandom was born partly from the flavor-of-the-week model that these breweries follow. Humble Sea, Alvarado Street and Cellarmaker may debut three or four new beers weekly — most of them one-offs, never to be brewed again. Beer geeks have become used to that constant novelty now, and the mystery that this model engenders — what crazy concoction of Mosaic and Galaxy hops will the brewers dream up this week? — has stoked a lot of the hype.

A far cry from the person who only ever drank Lagunitas IPA, now customers only want beers they’ve never had before, says Beth Wathen, who co-owns City Beer Store with her husband, Craig. “They’re always just asking for the newest, the hottest, the freshest.”

Maggie sits on her owner Jenna Anicetti’s lap at Fool’s Errand, on Friday, Oct. 12, 2018, in San Francisco, Calif.Paul Kuroda / Special to The Chronicle

Perhaps the brewery that embodies these trends most saliently is Humble Sea, which has experienced a meteoric rise in popularity since the pandemic began.

Part of it was fortuitous timing, says Krueger, who co-founded the Santa Cruz brewery with two friends in 2015: Right before COVID hit, the brewery happened to add a lot of new infrastructure that allowed them to essentially double production, reaching about 6,500 barrels over the course of last year. Not only could they brew more beer, but an expanded canning line meant that they could can it once a week instead of once a month.

Then, as soon as the shutdown began last year, putting beer into cans was a lot more appealing than putting it into kegs. That turned out to make a big difference. Though limited-edition beers have been a part of the Bay Area landscape for years — they’ve been the defining characteristic of breweries like Cellarmaker and Fieldwork since their beginnings — they were primarily a phenomenon of kegs, largely reserved for a brewery’s own taproom. Now, however, breweries could no longer sell draft beer through their own taprooms, and many of the bars and restaurants that normally serve draft beer were doing only takeout.

Tap handles were out; fresh cans were in.

But even if the reliance on cans was born of pandemic necessity, it’s now become a major selling point for a certain discerning set of Bay Area beer drinkers, who seek out the new Humble Sea and Alvarado Street beers as much for their wacky labels as for the liquid inside. Krueger, an artist, is in charge of the branding for all of the Humble Sea beers, and, unsurprisingly, he says it’s a big effort to produce several original, striking-looking cans every week.

Customers line up outside of Palm City, a restaurant that pivoted their business strategy in the midst of the pandemic to churning out some of the best sandwiches in the city on August 7, 2020 in San Francisco, Calif.Kate Munsch / Special to The Chronicle 2020

The company has a Slack channel where anyone can offer up an idea for a new beer name, and Krueger says they get a constant stream of informal submissions from outsiders. Most Humble Sea beer names are ocean or surfing puns (“Mrs. Troutfire,” “Beach, Please”), often with a nostalgic pop-culture reference thrown in (“The Shrimpsons,” “Gnarfield”).

The labels tend to feature manic hand-drawn cartoons in muted colors — the aesthetic equivalent of the powerful, bold flavors they contain. “Right now, huge, extreme flavors are what everyone seems to want,” Krueger says.

The most in-demand style across the board is the hazy IPA. Hazys are a style that originated in New England; their murky appearance and tropical, juicy flavors are a counterpoint to the West Coast IPA style, which tends to be crystal-clear, leaning more toward dank, herbal and bitter notes. On a given week, Humble Sea — which prefers to call the style “foggy IPA” — might release multiple different beers in this genre, each distinguished by a unique selection of hops, for example, or a different malt bill.

Other full-flavored beer styles continue to thrive, too, like Alvarado Street’s smoothie ales (one recent release is peanut-butter-and-jelly-flavored) and Cellarmaker’s dank IPA series, where puns abound: Dank Williams, Highway to the Danker Zone, Tiny Dankster.

Humble Sea Brewing Co.Amber Gueta

Even if a lot of Bay Area beer geeks’ mental bandwidth is being spent on the small roster of Humble Sea, Alvarado Street and Cellarmaker, however, there’s a whole ecosystem of local craft beer that tends to attract less attention but is more compelling than ever. John Dampeer, of Fool’s Errand, points to Ghost Town and Original Pattern, two relatively new Oakland breweries, as well as San Francisco’s Laughing Monk, as some of the rising stars in Bay Area craft beer.

That’s a good thing, because the cool-beer-can window display could turn out to be a fleeting phenomenon. It’s not clear to Craig Wathen, the City Beer Store co-owner, whether they’ll be able to keep up with their customers’ newly acquired thirst for these sought-after cans forever.

As the pandemic ends, breweries will undoubtedly resume kegging a lot of their output. When traffic picks up at their own taprooms, they may not be able to sell as much beer to bars in San Francisco as they have during the past year. In fact, Humble Sea is about to open two additional taprooms of its own, one in Felton, also in Santa Cruz County, and another in Pacifica.

“Will we still be able to even get all these beers six months from now?” Wathen says.

Esther Mobley is The San Francisco Chronicle’s wine critic. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @Esther_mobley

Demographic variation in SF-12 scores: true differences or differential item functioning?

Background:

Demographic differences have been reported in summary measures of physical and mental health based on the SF-12 instrument.

Objectives:

This study examines the extent to which differential item functioning (DIF) contributes to observed subgroup differences in health status. DIF refers to situations in which the psychometric properties of items are not invariant across different groups. The presence of DIF confounds interpretation of subgroup differences.

Subjects:

A national sample of 11,626 adult respondents in the 2000 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey who completed a self-administered questionnaire.

Measures:

In addition to the SF-12, we collected data on demographic characteristics (age, gender, education, and race/ethnicity) and whether the person had ever been diagnosed with six chronic medical conditions.

Results:

Multiple-indicator multiple-cause latent variable models showed significant differences in physical health by gender, age, and education. Adjusting for DIF reduced but did not eliminate age and education differences. However, for mental health, adjusting for DIF resulted in Black-White differences becoming nonsignificant, and the effect for the oldest age group switched from positive to negative. Race/ethnicity was not associated with physical health status.

Conclusions:

Age group comparisons of mental health may be particularly affected by DIF. Differences in education, as well as age and gender, need to be controlled when making group comparisons. Additional work is needed to understand factors that give rise to demographic differences in reported health status.

SF Giants: A True Feel-Good Story

I’ll be there in the stands at Oracle Park tonight with my brother Dave, 50 years after we first went to a Giants game together. As silly as it sometimes seems to care about sports, amid all the hype, over-packaging, and pop-star-sized compensation, something about this year’s Giants team feels fresh and fun and even special.

I offered Major League Baseball some tough-love advice in a New York Times column I wrote in July 2020, during the sport’s covid hiatus, and said what baseball needed was “to appeal to both hard-core and casual fans and especially to younger viewers by highlighting baseball’s natural propensity for unforeseen twists and turns and the human reactions they inspire.”

That’s exactly what the Giants have done. An argument has been roiling the sports world for years, and San Francisco is once again at the forefront of reminding people what baseball can mean to a community: it can be fun, and it can bring people together.

That’s true even when you’re at the forefront of the analytics revolution in sports. The hilarious irony of this year’s Giants season — now rolling into the glare of primetime with tonight’s home National League Division Series game — is that for all the talk of team president Farhan Zaidi’s PhD from Berkeley and love of analytics, this is a team that is winning using old-school methods with a new-school sheen.

How did manager Gabe Kapler and his utterly unlikely coaching staff get so much this season out of linchpins Buster Posey and Brandon Crawford, both 34, longtime wingman Brandon Belt, 33, and reclamation project Evan Longoria, 35? They talked to them. At length. And talked some more.

I’m reminded of a line from my friend Joe Plumeri, who convinced management of the Sears Tower in Chicago to change the name of the iconic building to “Willis Tower.” How did Joe, then CEO of Willis, get them to make the change, Tom Brokaw asked him.

“I asked!” Joe explained.

The Giants asked. They asked for these four — who have led the Giants’ offense all season, along with 34-year-old Darin Ruf — to be open-minded about the Kapler approach after years of our old friend Bruce Bochy at the helm. Believe me, I’ve covered baseball professionally since the ’90s and big-league teams are not in general very good at listening. General managers and team presidents spend a lot of their time during games wondering why players seem so often to be off doing their own thing. Not with this year’s Giants.

Interviews with players show the coaching staff and organization have been energetic and imaginative and relentless in building a deep rapport and deep two-way communication with players. It’s fascinating to watch this unfold and helps explain the great, feel-good vibe the team projects every day, which manifests itself in crisp, clean, confident execution on the field and relaxed comeback after relaxed comeback. The fresh insights of smart cutting-edge analytic tools and a commitment to the human side add up to something powerful that is making many in baseball pay heed.

I’ll be blunt and say my first impressions of Kapler were not all positive. I authored a book called One Day at Fenway, all about a single Red Sox-Yankee game in 2003, and Kapler was on that Boston team. Nothing I heard from him, saw of him, or heard about him moved the needle. He struck me as a borderline big-leaguer.

But Kapler spent twelve seasons in the big leagues, and then got a whirlwind education as a front-office guy afterward, and when I talked to him in San Francisco earlier this season, I was encountering a different man than I’d met 18 years earlier. He was confident and alert but also in a way modest, taking in questions with the same kind of focus a hitter in a groove applies to watching for the break on an incoming pitch. Kapler showed me the distinctive confidence of a man who knew his work was paying off and the hungry curiosity of someone who can’t wait to see if this team can keep the winning going right through to another World Series in the beautiful park with a view of the Bay.

I expect a genuine, palpable excitement in the air tonight at the ballyard with the electricity of October baseball and the added energy of Giants-Dodgers games. It’s a feeling that comes along now and then, a variant on the old ’60s lyric “something’s happening here.”

That’s me on the left, brother Dave on the right, earlier this season.

This year’s Giants strike a lot of people as having a great shot of making it all the way to the World Series, which (sing along) they won in 2010, 2012, and 2014, all years when coming out of spring no one projected them to do anything special.

For all the talk of launch angles and exit velocity, baseball is about fear and mastering that fear: fear of being struck in the head with a ball, fear of failure, fear of coming up short in the eyes of teammates. This is a front-office-led era of baseball, but smart teams understand they still need their field manager as a critical part of both executing and building the team philosophy.

So I say to the casual fan: Check it out! Come on out to a game, or stop off at your favorite dive in SF or around the Bay Area, and tune in a little as postseason baseball unfolds. The Giants have the best broadcasters in baseball (I’d give the Mets a close second), with Jon Miller, Mike Krukow, Duane Kuiper, and Dave Flemming, and they make every game broadcast fun and flavorful. (As a former “Airwaves” columnist for the Chronicle, I rank the current Giants broadcast team as among the best ever in baseball.)

Here’s what I’d love to see: More conversation about baseball that focused on heart, determination, on the little things that make a difference when you’re trying to connect with someone. Zaidi is brilliant — like his mentor in Oakland, Billy Beane, who may well end up with the Mets next year— and so might Kapler be: But if so, their brilliance lies in releasing the genius of the men they’re paying to play a boy’s game under the bright lights of pressure and scrutiny. The more we tune into that unfolding drama, the more we see of humanity.

LA Dodgers on track for tie-breaker game with SF Giants

A lot to cover today so let’s dive right in…

• We haven’t heard anything definitive yet but I have to agree with Brandon Scott at Bleacher Report. He thinks Albert Pujols will hang up his jersey after 2021. If the Dodgers go on to win it all this year, I think he’s right. If they don’t, I think Pujols may have a harder time with that decision. Either way, the lack of an announcement doesn’t scream that it’s not coming, but rather that Pujols is doing his thing — focusing on his contribution to his team right now. Pujols has cemented his legacy at the Dodgers already, and it’s a great bookend to a remarkable career however the rest of the season goes.
• Whether you buy into the stats or just believe in the game, here’s something to keep you sweating through the next 11 days: 538 has the Dodgers and Giants tying the season at 104-58 apiece, headed straight for that tie-breaker game at Oracle Park.
• And then, Jared Diamond has more at The Wall Street Journal on what happens after the regular season when either the Dodgers or the Giants have to play against an “inferior” team: The Latest Dodgers-Giants Rivalry: To Avoid the Wild-Card Game. This may be the last year of this particular wild-card format, and Diamond offers some possible alternatives that may come up in negotiations this winter.
• More on the NL West race from Fabian Ardaya, Grant Brisbee, and Andrew Baggarly at The Athletic: NL West roundtable: How the Giants and Dodgers look heading into their last 12 games
• I don’t know about you but I haven’t yet tired of reading about how great Max Scherzer has been as a Dodger (or that he seems pretty great off the field, too). His excitement — nay, preference, sorry, Padres — in joining the Dodgers organization certainly hasn’t hurt with his new fan base either. Scherzer says of the Dodgers:

“Great group of guys. Great clubhouse chemistry. So this is more a product of their clubhouse and what they’ve built that’s made it as easy as pie for me to come in here.

Jorge Castillo at the LA Times has more on Scherzer’s move: A trade for the ages: 37-year-old Max Scherzer has been the perfect fit for Dodgers

• Houston Mitchell at the LA Times has a new issue of Dodgers Dugout out with legendary Dodger, Maury Wills. Wills answers questions on not being in the Hall of Fame (yet), stealing bases, and having teammates back you up. On the Giants watering down the base path to stop Wills from stealing bases:

“I was flattered that they would go through all that trouble to try to stop me. Base stealing is another sport all by itself. A game within a game. I was the mouse and the cats were trying to get me.”

Also an interesting stat as we hear about Max Muncy’s semi-slump: he’s got more go-ahead hits than anyone else on the team at 24 (Right behind him? Will Smith of course). Here’s hoping Muncy figures out soon what was working earlier in the season. Also no go-ahead hits from pitchers this year, not surprising, but what if the baseball gods align so that Scherzer gets one this year?

CyArk Makes Dreams of Teleportation Come True with VR at SF’s Exploratorium

This week, CyArk made the dream of teleportation a reality for hundreds of people who attended the After Dark event at San Francisco’s Exploratorium Museum, one of the nation’s top ten science museums. In seconds, thanks to a series of virtual reality exhibits, CyArk teleported guests 7,000 miles to discover places like the Eim-ya-kyung Temple in Bagan, and the inaccessible fountains of Corinth, Greece.

As CyArk continues to venture into virtual reality (VR), they were honored to test some of their immersive VR content in order to educate guests and spark curiosity for the world around them.  CyArk was able to test the reaction and responses guests had to these sites in order to guide future educational experiences. A perfect collaboration with Exploratorium’s mission to promote the ongoing exploration of science, art and human perception.

Once teleported, guests were amazed by the quality and detail of these cultural sites. They could autonomously walk over ancient stones, weave through two-thousand-year-old columns, and admire the sheer scale of the architecture before them. Some would argue that technological advancements in virtual reality enabled this feat, and that is very true. However, without CyArk capturing the exclusive content of these heritage sites, people would have nowhere to be teleported.

It’s no surprise that scaling the faces of Mt Rushmore is strictly forbidden, however going there virtually is not. CyArk has made this possible thanks to their exclusive access and intricate digital data collection process. For over a decade, CyArk has captured and archived the highest quality assets of these heritage sites. CyArk knows that technology will be the primary tool to carry these often endangered sites into the future, and therefore has strived to capture assets that can be rendered for future forward technologies.

This event showed visitors new possibilities for exploring their world, and allowed CyArk to be inspired by user reactions. CyArk is grateful for the opportunity to work with the Exploratorium, and promises to find exciting ways to boost people’s curiosity of the world.

“The Third World War Has Already Begun”

LIGA.net interview with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavel Klimkin from the ATO zone.

From Kiev to the forward positions of the Ukrainian army near Shirokino near the Sea of ​​Azov – about 800 kilometers.

From Brussels to the Ukrainian capital – more than 2000. For politicians in the EU, the Russian-Ukrainian war seems to be a distant and incomprehensible event. Minister Klimkin has undertaken to reduce the distance and takes his European colleagues to the front line.The foreign ministers of France and Germany have already visited Donbass. This time, the head of the Foreign Ministry of Luxembourg, Jean Asselborn, arrived. Next in line are the Foreign Ministers of the Visegrad Four countries. On the way – in cars, planes, helicopters and upon returning to Kiev – the minister told LIGA.net about himself and his money, about relations with President Poroshenko, NABU and the risks of losing Western support, negotiations in the event of a new full-scale invasion of Russian troops and the third world war, which has long unfolded over Europe.Although still few find the strength to admit it.

– Negotiations in Minsk are at a standstill. Russia and Ukraine refuse to compromise. You said that Ukrainians should get used to this process for years. Perhaps we should admit that diplomats and politicians have failed. Perhaps the solution to the issue should be handed over to the military?

– Imagine that diplomats or politicians admit that they cannot solve the problem, and from tomorrow morning the solution will be given to the military.What’s next? I believe that politicians should not think in the steps they take, and only then see what happens. Politicians must have a strategy. I am a physicist by training. He started with software development. There must be a strategy for every case. Will we achieve success by military means? Will we free Donbass and Crimea if we hand over the solution to the conflict to the military? We must really understand and evaluate the situation.

Minsk does not work, not because it is poorly maintained. Yes, he’s not perfect.But it doesn’t work because Moscow doesn’t want to do anything, because it doesn’t need Donbass by itself. And its inhabitants too. Moscow wants to seize what it considers fundamental to the legitimization of the Russian political project – to return us to its zone of influence. Yes, and Russia has enough of its own problems, from which attention should be diverted – from the economy to demography. This war between Russia and Ukraine is existentially important for the regime in Moscow. And if so, then this entire conflict can be resolved only in a more global context with the participation of the European Union and the United States.Therefore, politics and diplomacy are important.

– While diplomats cannot find a compromise solution, people die every day. Can Ukraine afford daily casualties and dozens of wounded? Tell the military and their families why soldiers should die in a trench and not on an offensive?

– I can answer. Although I understand that this is a responsibility, but not only political, but also in many respects personal. Russia will continue the war against Ukraine in all manifestations and directions.There may be periods of calm, but they will only happen when Russia tries to use other methods, when a frontal offensive by the Russian Federation will interfere with parallel scenarios of aggression against Ukraine. I mean internal destabilization. Whatever compromise decision is made, the main goal of the Russian Federation will not change from this. But if we can achieve a ceasefire by political and diplomatic means, we must do everything for this. However, it is necessary to be prepared for the fact that, unlike Transnistria, Russia in the Donbass will continue to actively use the military component.

– But the fire does not stop and the number of victims does not decrease. Is there a chance to crush Moscow with the methods that are being used now?

– Definitely yes. To do this, we must strengthen observers, strengthen the OSCE, involve an armed component that will affect the ability of the Russian Federation to conduct military aggression. The first priority is a ceasefire. And only after that we will be able to talk about everything else that was agreed in Minsk. But we understand that the main goal of the Russian Federation is to destroy us in any way.Without international efforts, Russia will not agree to a ceasefire.

– What about the roadmap discussion: how does it look and sound today point by point?

– We have a common position with Germany and France. And the logic of the roadmap is very simple. The first is an element of urgent action to be taken: a ceasefire, complete freedom of action for the OSCE, including the border. If you listen to the insanity that the representatives of the Russian Federation voiced in The Hague about the Russian weapons that the terrorists allegedly found in the mines, then, obviously, we now need to think about individual groups of OSCE representatives who will monitor the mines.You understand, of course, that this is sarcasm. But seriously, the OSCE should receive full and unrestricted access to the occupied territories, including round-the-clock monitoring of the seized section of the Ukrainian-Russian border.

– These are the first points of the roadmap?

– Yes. And, of course, the release of the hostages. Without this, we cannot move on. Then there should be a clear understanding of how all these illegal armed groups in the occupied territories will be disarmed – under whose control, what will happen to the weapon.And only after that we turn on the logic of the transition period: who will help prepare the elections, who will control security. All this must be carefully written down. Will it be an additional OSCE component or a current mission that will work with the new mission? We are all discussing this.

– In September, the adopted law on the peculiarities of local self-government in certain areas of Donetsk and Lugansk regions expires. What does this mean for negotiations in Minsk

– This means that the moment will come when we will have to look at what’s next.My logic is simple. There is a law on the specifics of local self-government in Donbass. He can only earn if all recognized real elections are held. The law says about the local militia, the ability to conclude economic agreements. Well, what kind of local police can there be if there is no legislation for this? That is, fair elections that everyone recognizes is one step. And only after that it will be possible to talk about new legislation for the rest of the points. No one has discussed these things yet, because there is no one to discuss them with – there are no real representatives of Donbass, no one elected any power.But even before that, we must decide on who will ensure the transition period, who will prepare and organize the elections, who and how will reopen the voter registers, who will provide security. There are a lot of questions.

– Moscow recognized documents issued by the DPR / LPR terrorist organizations. President Poroshenko responded by calling on the West to tighten sanctions. But no one heard this call. Isn’t this a tipping point?

– In the West, the situation is clear to everyone.Everyone understands that this is a deliberate increase in rates by Russia, which is playing out several scenarios between recognition and non-recognition. The West is holding a pause so as not to question the existing negotiation tracks. But I cannot disclose all the details of the current negotiations.

– When was the last time you communicated with Lavrov?

– In Munich, during the Normandy meeting of ministers (at the beginning of February, the meeting of the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Ukraine and the Russian Federation – ed.) I haven’t communicated with him in a bilateral format for a long time. The last conversation concerned the release of political prisoners. It would be unfair of me to say that these conversations are producing real results. But, nevertheless, we are doing everything possible to free Ukrainians from prison.

– Lavrov was once a good diplomat.

– From the point of view of professionalism as such, he remains them. As for personal assessments, I will refrain. I try not to say anything that doesn’t help the situation.What sounds from him on the topic of Ukraine is completely determined by the internal political logic, which has nothing to do with reality. As a rule, professionals understand reality.

– Does Lavrov understand her?

– I’ll tell you in general. If you look at today’s Russian diplomacy, unfortunately, this is not what one could call the vanguard of Russia. Today it is, alas, just a propaganda replication machine. Any possible exceptions to this rule only confirm.

– The same can be said about Churkin or Zakharova. It looks so that Zakharova, for example, voices the fact that no one sane in the Russian Foreign Ministry will undertake to comment in such tones, and even more so as a diplomat.

– We follow what is pronounced in the Russian Federation. In the case of Churkin, I think the line was crossed. I don’t comment on the second character at all.

– Remember and describe the most difficult moment of negotiations with Russia during the war years. Perhaps when I had to wake up in the middle of the night and urgently communicate with partners in the West and with Russia.

– There were many such moments. In 2014, the military called at night and reported what was happening. And we all had to work very hard at night. It’s probably not yet time to tell the details of how it happened, because nothing is over yet.

I will never forget when we were at the NSDC meeting when it was reported that Mh27 was shot down. There were many episodes in Minsk. In principle, I consider myself a reserved person. But there was a moment when, at the ministerial negotiations, I threw the list of prisoners across the table.Probably, as a diplomat, I should regret such things. But as a person, I’m not sorry.

Many talk about a new world order and the threat of a third world war. I believe that in terms of hybrid threats, this war is already underway. Many do not share this thesis. But who does not see this, he simply is not able to assess what is happening. If Europe had imposed sanctions against the Russian Federation during the start of the Russian-Georgian war, perhaps history would have developed differently and what happened in Ukraine would not have happened.

– The initiated process in The Hague against Russia: what is the main goal of Ukraine and what are we planning to get as a result of this trial? And regardless of the outcome of this trial – will we be able to use the precedent of this court in the future?

– First, I believe we will succeed. We have a decent legal position. But even the very fact that Moscow is now responsible for its actions in the UN international court is already affecting its actions. Look at the reasoning.Apart from nonsense about weapons from mines, the very logic of the Russian Federation boils down to the fact that all this is military action, not terrorism. This supposedly should help them prove that the issue should not be resolved in The Hague. But here Russia was very unlucky. A few days ago, the Court of Justice of the EU in Luxembourg, which was considering a completely different case concerning another region, clearly stated: at the same time there can be both elements of military action – that is, the direct use of a regular army and weapons, and elements of terrorist activities.That is, the fact that we are accusing Russia of violating the Convention on the Prohibition of Terrorism brings the discussion to the legal plane. Assessment of Russia’s actions by UNPF changes the very nature of the “discussion” with this country.

Second point – Russia is afraid of this investigation. In the latest statement, the Russian representative Kolodkin has already begun to put pressure on the court when he said that if a decision is made, then “how many cases will you have before the UN court?” Moscow is trying to draw a line that, they say, all obligations under the conventions relate to domestic legislation.

This case is a turning point for us in what we use against Russia. It is for this reason that we have been preparing for the trial for over two years. I was constantly asked – where are the courts, and where are the courts. Now we have started them. I believe that we are one step away from what can be called a turning point for international law. A situation is being created where we can at least partially restore respect for international law. International law gives us a unique tool for both influence and pressure on Russia.And what is happening, of course, can be used further.

The court, of course, will not fully accommodate us on every point. But the fact itself and its results will be of fundamental importance. And what the Russians are now trying to do, what forces they are attracting, suggests that they, too, understand what impact their defeat in court will have.

– About war crimes. International teams of investigators have collected facts that prove that Moscow is behind the destruction of flight Mh27.Recently, evidence has emerged that Russians are also behind the execution of civilians near Volnovakha. There is a huge amount of evidence of Russian aggression. Is there a chance that someday the leadership of the Russian Federation will be brought to justice for these crimes as well?

– The trial in The Hague is a fundamental precedent. But what is important to understand: we have now submitted only the first comprehensive package of evidence. This package is aimed at confirming our position at the hearings on the so-called urgent measures that need to be taken urgently.We are now working on a much more comprehensive set of evidence that will serve us in the trial itself. In terms of content, it will be the same, but in depth it is many times more detailed and deeper. A lot of people and organizations are working on all this – somewhere the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, somewhere the GPU, somewhere special services, somewhere the military. The general coordination is carried out by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

– It looks like President Poroshenko’s visit to the United States has been postponed. Why?

– No, it is not postponed. There just must be the content and logic of the agreements.In addition, on a number of issues, the American administration is in a state of formation. And what is happening today deserves not a superficial approach, but a very scrupulous and deep consideration. Therefore, this meeting must be well prepared. I was in the United States, held meetings at the State Department and the National Security Service, where not all appointments have been made yet. In other words, when we are all ready, we will work on the details of a personal meeting between the two presidents.

We sometimes focus on the fact of a formal meeting, and in vain.After all, a meeting is a summary of preparation. And behind all this is the result of serious work.

Speaking of contacts, the President has already spoken to Trump twice. The first conversation of the president was both congratulatory and informative. But the second conversation was really deep in meaning. Trump was prepared. He did not read out some theses that his assistants prepared for him. It was a lively conversation, he asked a lot, listened attentively. It was important.
In addition, there was a meeting with the Vice President of the United States.We really talked at a very serious detailed level. That is, I believe that the question is not in the formal date, but in the depth of contacts. Now we are all approaching the opportunity to hold a meeting with the most deep content and real impact.

– How do you assess the contacts between Washington and Moscow? Recently, President Poroshenko once again stated that Ukraine would not allow agreements without Ukraine’s participation. As I understand it, he is not just saying this, but this is a reaction to some things that may not be obvious to everyone.Are there any concerns?

– This is due to the desire of the Russian Federation to agree with the United States on a package logic of relations in all key areas. We are talking about the so-called big deal – the big deal.

– That is, this is a reaction to Moscow’s behavior?

– Not only. Even in Ukraine, speculation is being made on the idea that Russia can come to an agreement with the United States on Ukraine somewhere under the cloth. This will not happen. First, because the interests of the United States and the Russian Federation fundamentally diverge. Secondly, no one in the world believes Russia anymore.There is not even a minimal trust. It is absolutely absent. Everybody knows the attitude to Russian statements. And trust will not return either today or tomorrow. Russia has lost confidence for years.

Another conversation – situational things, coordination in some matters. But look at the latest US statements regarding the reduction of strategic offensive arms against the Russian Federation. Moscow’s desire to “dissolve” Washington and arm itself with new models – what is this? This is not something that will restore trust, it only aggravates the situation in the Russian Federation.

– If we talk about trust, then it’s no secret that Ukraine relied on Clinton. And although our ambassador to the United States tried to build relations with Trump’s command, in general, Ukraine’s position was read transparently: Clinton is better for us than Trump. Who is responsible for this failed bet?

– Firstly, there was no such rate. I have never said or done anything that could be read to one or the other candidate. Trump’s victory did not surprise me. For example, when the Brexit process began, I said in private conversations that this would happen.I worked in London. I have my own perception of the UK. I said: voting will be irrational, because it is based on two things: the desire to return what was before – good old England, and concern about migrants. The older generation won out over these two factors. In the case of the United States, a similar story. The polls that were there before the elections – I believe that in the current political reality, polls as such should be considered not only from the point of view of science, but also from the point of view of art – showed that the chances were approximately balanced.Yes, I saw politicians who in Ukraine were betting on Clinton’s victory. But this was never the line of the Foreign Ministry. This is not true. This can be traced in all public messages and meetings. One way or another, we have no problems in this sense. We work fine with the Trump team.

– About the European Union. In the Netherlands, the Euro-optimists won the elections. What does this mean for the future of the EU?

– This result, in my opinion, was just very predictable. And it is extremely important for the future of the EU.The future coalition is likely to pursue a policy of a united Europe. This is a good signal for Ukraine. After the final ratification of the Association Agreement, I look forward to going there.

– When will there be a point on the issue of ratification?

– In a few weeks, the issue will be considered by the committee, and then, most likely quickly, there will be ratification by the Senate. I have no doubts.

With regard to the future of the EU. Now the European Union is discussing new ideas about how the Union will develop.And although ideas are being discussed now, the decision will be made after the French and German elections. Various development options are being considered. I am inclined to believe that the EU will become a more differentiated union: on the one hand, a multi-speed model of countries’ participation in European events, on the other, a network model, when individual countries will unite around some common initiatives, joint projects in certain areas. And in such a European Union there will be more opportunities for Ukraine.

– How will the elections in France affect the future of the EU?

– The future of the European project largely depends on the results of the elections in France.But it will not cease to exist, for example, if Le Pen becomes president. Look, of course, will be significantly different, with an emphasis on what is conventionally called “Europe of Nations”.

– Perhaps we are already striving for the wrong union that we wanted to see?

– We focus on the EU because these are values ​​that we want to share. And this is the space of the rule of law. I tell many friends in the EU: there is no monument to Magdeburg Law in Magdeburg. And in Kiev there is such a monument.On the territory of Ukraine in the Middle Ages, more than 200 cities were under this right. And this is one of the elements that distinguishes us from those who did not have it.

I believe that now Europe is coming to an understanding that it must be ready for absolutely new challenges. It will not be possible to maintain the same level of stability and well-being without fundamental efforts. It won’t work that way. And many European politicians are beginning to understand this. The question is, are they willing to say it out loud. And this is the problem.

– Is there a place for Ukraine in the renewed European Union? How can we build relations with the EU?

– The EU will become more flexible in the future.There will be room for maneuvers. There will be a base of four freedoms and shared values, but the depth of interaction will vary. In the future, in the EU, and this is my personal opinion, network forms of interaction may appear, when individual countries interact more deeply than others.

– Why is that format interesting for Ukraine?

– We will have a better chance in it. In the countries of the European Union, the position is strengthening, according to which Ukraine represents an “added value” in the field of security – both understanding of threats and the ability to resist them.This spirit is our big plus. The issue of security is extremely important for the EU. But this is just one small example. Together we can do a lot. Paradoxically, it was the modern challenges that many in the EU have opened their eyes to the fact that Ukraine can be part of the EU. Before that, there was no such understanding, because everyone considered us a buffer, a priori corrupt, without a chance for the future. Much has changed now.

– Despite some Western support, Ukraine actually remains alone in the war with Russia.Why don’t we turn to our closest neighbors and allies, such as Poland, for direct military support? Third year of war, and Ukraine still fears provoking Moscow?

– Now I will say what I can say. This does not mean that I will say anything that is not true. But I want you to understand correctly: in answer to this question, I can not say everything.

So. Firstly, it is in the conditions that have developed now – I am not saying that this cannot change tomorrow or the day after tomorrow – even our closest allies and neighbors will not fight on our territory.But they understand that we are important to them not only as a barrier – it has passed, or partially passed. They understand that partnership with Ukraine, including on security issues, is vital for many of them. And not only for those who border with us.

Secondly, the security issue can look different. Someone can supply weapons, someone communications, someone counter-battery systems, and someone can help improve our entire defense complex to NATO standards – this is what we agreed with Poland.

Third, Ukraine is inevitably moving towards a format in which our country will act as an element of the logic of NATO’s eastern flank. Some things will happen earlier, some later. But this is inevitable. It is now inevitable.

– Nevertheless, we all understand that at any moment the troops that Russia holds both in the occupied territories in Ukraine and on the border can move forward. In such conditions, will the allies help Ukraine or will they watch?

– The key thing that I said: as of today and in today’s conditions, they will not fight for us.And to help – of course, yes.

– Are we negotiating in case the Russian invasion continues?

– We are negotiating in case of all possible scenarios of Russian actions. I will deliberately not go into details in a public interview.
Every aggressive step of the Russian Federation – the recognition of terrorist documents, some papers on the recognition of borders, other provocations – this is a Moscow scenario, not an accident. We understand this perfectly. Including realistically, we assess all these so-called exercises in the Russian Federation “West – 2017”.We are working on all possible scenarios together with our partners in the West.

– Budapest format. Is there any prospect in multilateral negotiations on legally binding security guarantees for Ukraine?

– Does anyone seriously think that Russia will not violate legal guarantees? It has already violated all possible principles and international agreements: the UN Charter, the Helsinki Act, the conventions under which we are now suing them in The Hague. By themselves, guarantees can only make sense in the logic of a security system like NATO, or bilateral or regional agreements on direct military assistance.

And what can I tell you for sure – Ukraine will no longer be any bridge between the EU, NATO and Russia. Moreover, a bridge over which different large animals want to run.

– It is not long before the visa-free regime. But there are many myths around this issue. Briefly describe how it will look for a Ukrainian citizen – what will he have to do to get to the EU countries?

– Actually, we have to be honest about this. Because how effectively the visa-free regime will work depends on each of us.

– Isn’t it from you?

– Yes, but also from every citizen of Ukraine. And that’s why. The mechanism for suspending the visa-free regime has clear criteria. Imagine that in the early stages of implementing the visa-free regime, someone starts to violate it. For example, he will try to stay in the Schengen countries for more than 90 days. If there are several such cases, this is one thing. If there are thousands of them, try to imagine how they will treat Ukrainians.

Once we were negotiating about small border traffic.Then there were many fears that the Ukrainians would go not 30 km, but 330 km, and they would have to look for them in Vienna, Berlin and so on. There were indeed cases of violation, but they were isolated. That is, we already have some experience that inspires optimism.
But there can be violations. For example, if someone starts to misuse the visa-free regime to apply for asylum. And this can be. And this will also create problems for the visa-free regime.

Now the EU has no questions to Ukraine.And there are no special fears either, especially after the introduction of the suspension mechanism. But if we use the visa-free regime honestly, the travel process will be very efficient.

Of course, when you give your biometric passport, they may ask you about the purpose of the trip, they may ask you some other questions. But if, in general, the citizens of Ukraine do not create problems for the European Union, then these questions will be less.
If there are a lot of violations not on the scale of the EU, but on the scale of specific countries, then this can lead to problems.Therefore, we must, if you like, take a responsible approach to the visa-free regime. This mode is unique in terms of human communication.

– What does the ideal look like?

– Visa-free travel should work seamlessly early on. Of course, when you travel to the Schengen countries, you usually have a ticket and may be asked about the purpose of your trip. But there will be no certificates that everyone is now forced to carry to the embassy in order to obtain a visa. All this heap of documents will not be needed.You will need a biometric passport. You can’t use your old passport.

If you look at the history of visa-free relations with other states, then after a certain time it begins to function normally. But let’s be honest: we saw the problem of implementing a visa-free regime with some Balkan countries. There were problems. And the EU knows what problems were. And we will be monitored for the first six months or a year. If we stick to the rules, the regime will become absolutely effective. And if everything goes well, then they will ask about the purpose of the trip, for example, one person out of a hundred, or one out of two hundred.And if everything is bad, then they may ask more often. This is the management of the process that is necessary to keep the Schengen area safe.

– How often do you hear from your Western partners about the problem of corruption in Ukraine?

– Often it is necessary, of course. Corruption is remembered as the number one problem. And reforming the entire system of the rule of law. I believe that if we do not achieve fundamental progress in this direction, all our achievements, including economic reforms, will not yield results.

My colleagues and I often discuss the problem of investors. Many do not come to Ukraine not because it is difficult to work here. It is difficult to work in many countries. The problem is different – the legal status of investments. Alas, the stories about the fact that investments through bribed judges passed from one person to another are the worst thing for an investor. Not the difficulty of running the business itself, but the vulnerability to a corrupt judicial system. This is what we must decide immediately.

– If we talk about the latest events that are being discussed by the whole country, this is Nasirov’s case and the processes around NABU in terms of audit.European diplomats attend committee meetings to control the transparency of what is happening, write letters to deputies, make statements. In response, deputies of the BPP presidential faction reproach Western diplomats for allegedly interfering in the internal affairs of Ukraine. Do you think so too?

– I don’t think so. I believe that we are being helped. And it would be better if they helped even more. We need even more effort and help to really kick-start the anti-corruption movement.I cite Romania as an example, where more than a thousand officials were jailed for corruption. And the head of Romania’s anti-corruption bureau [Laura Covesi] is a true folk legend. We must strive for the same level of elimination of corruption in our country.

I believe that we need to significantly strengthen NABU. But NABU alone will not be enough. We need an effective judicial element – an anti-corruption court that is independent enough to make decisions. Otherwise, nothing will change for us.

The judicial system is our key problem. We need to reboot it. But we all understand perfectly well that it cannot be rebooted in real time. In any case, this cannot be done as quickly as circumstances require. Therefore, our way out is the anti-corruption court.

– But what about the coalition deputies who think differently from you? For example, they believe that the candidacy of the auditor for NABU from the Rada, which was supported by the EU and the United States in the person of Storch, is bad and unsuitable.And BPP together with NF want their candidacy – Brown. It looks like the government wants to take control of NABU. This creates a conflict with the West, which has spent a lot of effort to create the bureau. Perhaps the deputies lack your opinion?

– I have discussed this with many, by the way. But first, this first audit will certainly be important. But don’t exaggerate its importance. We pay too much attention to this. I believe that more attention should be paid to direct assistance to NABU, strengthening the Bureau and the entire system.

– Yes, the West almost literally demands the strengthening of NABU. The staff of 150 people is like the management of the SBU in any of the regions. In addition, more recently, the United States has once again called for NABU to be given the opportunity to conduct independent wiretapping. After all, it comes to the paradoxical: NABU appeals to the SBU to organize a wiretapping of the SBU employee, and the SBU employee on the phone then starts talking about the fact that NABU is listening to him – this is a real story.

– I don’t really believe that wiretapping will give much.Still, in reality, people do not discuss much on the phone. Nevertheless, my position is to help NABU get the opportunity to work as efficiently as possible. We have to do this. And the second is to create a judicial anti-corruption structure. If we only have NABU, then the cases referred by them to the current courts will remain just paper with which to work further.

Returning to your question about intervention, I believe that over the coming years we will need a lot of assistance from the United States, the European Union and the G7.We cannot do without this help. And then we will need it even more than we have now. Especially in the area of ​​fighting corruption and rebooting the judicial system.

– Many believe that behind the processes in parliament around the audit of NABU is directly President Poroshenko, who, with the help of the BPP, is trying to create channels of influence on NABU, and Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who is helping him with the help of the Popular Front. Allegedly, the president is not too interested in NABU having the degree of freedom that it has now, and which allows opening cases for the head of the State Fiscal Service, for example.Are you discussing the topic of NABU with the president? Did you discuss with him the reaction of the West to the processes around NABU?

– Of course, we are discussing the topic of supporting the anti-corruption system. More than once and in different formats. But only in the context of how we can help the anti-corruption process with our partners.

Understand correctly. The understanding of what is happening is absolutely sober. If we do not change the entire system, then it will not be possible to change the corruption rules by which society now lives.

– From the outside it looks like the presidential faction is adding work to you.

– Believe me, there are completely different people and opinions in the presidential faction. And not only those you are talking about. And so in all factions. I communicate with the deputy corps.

– Perhaps it makes sense to communicate with the coalition factions on the latest issues?

– I do it all the time on various topics.

– What about the president?

– I’ll say a simple thing.If we seriously believe that we want to win in the fight against Russia, then the only chance to do this is to radically change the country, to make Ukraine a state that will defeat corruption. For almost three years, there have been many reforms. But the key one is in the process. Our goal is to change the rules. Without an anti-corruption system, we will remain where we are.

– Okay, let’s not specify names and titles. Let’s imagine that someone decides to sabotage the anti-corruption process. For example, it takes control of NABU, or achieves a new competition for a director, which will last for months, or introduces such anti-corruption courts, in which, to one degree or another, it will establish control over these judges – what will then happen with the whole pro-Western course of Ukraine, relations with our allies, our relationship with the IMF?

– A theoretical question.But the answer is simple: if we stop the process of fighting corruption, it will lead to a fundamental change for all Ukrainians, for all of us. It will not matter who is there, in which faction has what opinion.

– This is exactly what worries many people. After all, if this happens, all the sacrifices that Ukraine has suffered over the years will be in vain.

– Nowadays, in general, there is a very positive attitude towards us. Yes, everyone in the West understands perfectly well that we are not perfect. Nevertheless, we do reforms – sometimes ourselves, sometimes with the help of, shall we say, incentives.But even the progress that exists is unique. Everyone admits it. But if we stop now, if we decide that we do not want to change further, that we are already satisfied with everything and it is not worth strengthening the fight against corruption – we will lose the chance for the future, for the state, for victory. And this will turn away from us all who are helping us to survive today.

Of course, I believe that this will not happen, that there will be no turning back, and we will continue the path of reforms and the fight against corruption. Yes, many want to weaken the process, keep an indulgence for corruption, many want to leave some gaps for themselves.But it won’t. We will go all the way and change the system to a sustainable democracy model. It’s just that someone still thinks that these are games. But we are too important a country to be abandoned halfway. Now we have a chance that the Western world will accept us as its own – and I’m not just talking about some individual politicians, reformers and citizens, I’m talking about the country as a whole. We are already perceived as their own. But if we now allow this process to stop – everything, goodbye, everything will end instantly, and everything will be in vain.

– About your relationship with the president. It is generally accepted that Poroshenko is replacing the Foreign Ministry. Is it really so? Does the president often interfere with your work?

– The main person responsible for foreign policy in Ukraine is the president. In a war, this is absolutely correct. In these conditions, there must be a team that has one vision and one understanding of how to realize this vision. Perhaps the situation will be different in the future. But only this logic works in war.
The President, in fact, not only does not interfere, but he trusts much more than many believe. I have contact with the President 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I have the opportunity to present my vision to the president in real time and make my proposals, get the necessary answers. Time plays a role in our business.

– Are you able to tell the president “no, this is a bad decision”?

– We have a lot of discussions. On a variety of issues.And opinions often disagree. This abstract thought, which I often read, that no one argues with the president, is not true. It is enough to attend a meeting, which are of two types: structural with an agenda and points to go through – this is how the military cabinet works; brainstorming, when we, without a strict structure, in a lively discussion among ourselves, are trying to find the right models for solving certain problems.

– Who is currently in the war cabinet?

– This is an option for discussing current things.Enter the military, special services, the NSDC secretary. This is an excellent form of discussion between NSDC meetings. The president can invite those who are needed to them, depending on the key issue. For example, the president can invite border guards, he can invite individual government ministers.

– How is it customary to resolve important issues of a foreign policy nature: do you meet with the president in the building of the Presidential Administration, invite Eliseev, decide everything together, or how does this happen?

– There is no single recipe.There are different questions and it always depends on the topic.

– Well, recently, the European Union and the United States issued a joint statement regarding anti-corruption processes in Ukraine. How does it happen in this case – you call the president that there is a serious topic for discussion, he calls you and asks?

– This is all discussed in meetings. But when we get together, as a rule, we discuss several issues at once. When there is no opportunity, and the question requires details and concerns sensitive topics, there is a secure connection.

– Recently it became known from the Russian media that President Poroshenko was in direct negotiations with Putin. The AP were forced to confirm this information. Although about a week before the publication in RossSMI, I contacted the AP and asked to answer the question whether there was communication with Putin. Don’t you think it is very strange when Ukraine learns about the negotiations of its president from the media of the country with which it is at war?

– Actually, there were two conversations. I know the content of both.First, it is better to discuss the issues of political prisoners and the ceasefire in a bilateral format, because all decisions are made by the Kremlin leadership. Secondly, nothing else was discussed within the framework of these conversations. Thirdly, I personally believe that if every fact of the negotiations is not made public, then these facts can be used by Russia for its own purposes.

For example, Lavrov tried to speculate on this at the last meeting of Ministers of the Normandy format. He said: well, what is happening, after all, the presidents communicate, it seems that these conversations are normal.In response, I said why these conversations are being conducted, why they can be considered “normal” only in quotation marks. But I agree with you. Russia deliberately speculates on such facts – mainly in communication with our Western partners.

– Was it the president’s decision to keep quiet about these negotiations? Or someone advised him? After all, this decision looks absurd: how can it be considered that Moscow will not take advantage of such an informational occasion.

– I cannot say anything about this, except that my diplomatic career, all my experience speaks about one thing: Russia cannot be trusted.

– Does the President really think otherwise?

– I don’t think he thinks otherwise. But I can explain this by the fact that the issues of political prisoners are a very sensitive topic that Russia does not want to discuss and make public. We need to achieve a result. Perhaps the logic was that by giving a message about the negotiations, we could harm the release of Ukrainian citizens. This is how I see it. But, unfortunately, then Russia tries to twist and use these things.

– These two conversations with Putin were only about the hostages?

– Only political prisoners, hostages and some ceasefire issues. But the first question is the main one.

– About your money. If you believe your electronic declaration, then you are one of the most humble ministers in the government. But your wife earns about twice as much as you do. What does she do? And does your family have any business?

– First, this has changed.The ministers’ salaries have been increased and we have now leveled off. She works in the Presidential Administration. And since she is a diplomat, she cannot work under my leadership – this, by the way, is a great pity. If you talk here in the ministry – better not, of course – you will find out that we are in some way a very unusual family, because we continue to discuss many issues at home. And this, alas, is reality. We do not have a business – neither a separate one, nor a joint one.

– What surprised me was that with a fairly modest family income, you have a lot of cash – $ 100 thousand, almost € 100 thousand.Where do such amounts come from and why in cash?

– The answer is simple. We, as diplomats, received this money abroad. I worked abroad three times, my wife also three times. Now we are changing the system, we are working on so that when you have an account that a diplomat is allowed to have, then just legally, when returning to Ukraine, simply transfer money to an account in any Ukrainian bank. But since it was quite a long time ago, all this money just came to Ukraine. But, of course, against the background of what is happening, against the background of skepticism about the banking system, we did not put the money into the bank.But now we already have such an idea. Let’s choose one or two banks, divide the risks and try.

– Have you completed the new electronic declaration?

– I’ll be right there next week. True, little has changed for me. Although, of course, if you remember that, as a minister, I started by getting my hands on 5000-6000, now, of course, this is a completely different amount. In general, I think that so far ministers are mostly politicians. But as for, for example, deputies and top officials, the salaries should be much higher.Otherwise, NABU will always have clients.

Lyga, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Pavlo Klimkin

90,000 Chinese canvases for stretch ceilings – myths and truth. | Ceiling

Company Stretch ceiling has become an excellent alternative to plasterboard and putty. It looks quite sophisticated and modern, and its installation takes a minimum of time. Companies that install stretch ceilings offer apartment owners several ceiling options from European, domestic or Chinese manufacturers, which differ not only in stylistic solutions, but also in price.But many buyers are wary of choosing Chinese stretch ceilings, as there are many misconceptions about their quality and safety.

The main myths about stretch ceilings from China, as well as their debunking

Consider the main misconceptions about stretch ceilings from China:
There is an opinion that Chinese manufacturers of stretch ceilings use cheap raw materials of poor quality, which can be harmful to health. But this is not the case! Many buyers have already been able to understand from their own experience that stretch ceilings from China are in no way inferior to similar products from well-known European brands in terms of their technical characteristics and appearance.
There is a myth that after the installation of ceilings, an unpleasant smell is felt in the room for a long time. However, the smell of PVC is also felt after the installation of Belgian or German ceilings and disappears after a few days.

Some buyers believe that stretch ceilings from China do not differ in strength and durability. Perhaps this myth appeared in the 90s, when low-quality Chinese products began to enter the Russian market. However, modern Chinese manufacturers offer ceilings that fully comply with world quality and safety requirements, and are distinguished by high performance characteristics.

The main advantage of Chinese ceilings is their affordable price. Therefore, they are chosen by people who seek to find the optimal combination of price and quality of new building materials. The prices of Chinese stretch ceilings are lower than European ones, as manufacturers invest less money in brand development and product advertising. The wages of specialists in China are much lower than in European countries, which cannot but affect the final cost of production.
Chinese-made stretch ceilings are an opportunity to quickly transform a room, to embody interesting design ideas.Thanks to a wide range of products, each customer can find ceilings that will fully embody the creative idea.

Our company carries out installation of stretch ceilings from high-quality Chinese and German canvases. Moreover, the difference between these canvases is almost only in the price. Therefore, you can safely order Chinese canvases, just be sure. that they are not handicraft. Because the modern stretch ceiling production process requires high-quality consumables and equipment.

Stretch ceilings in Naro-Fominsk, Obninsk, Podolsk, Chekhov, Serpukhov, Mozhaisk, Odintsovo and Domodedovo at the lowest prices!

90,000 John Kessel – It’s All True Read Online

John Kessel

It’s all true

A black, vibrating fan on the harbor master’s writing desk lifted currents of hot air that stirred the sports page. Nothing to say, an ideal symbol of both place and time. Each time the fan threw a stream at the harbor master, the fan lifted fine strands of his hair.The boss examined my papers, folded the damp pieces of paper and handed them to me. – OK. Mr. Widor’s yacht is at the end of the second row, ”he said, pointing out the window at the dock packed with ships.“ That one, big, black. – The rest of the crew on board?

“I have no idea,” he grumbled, sipping chilled tea and placing the misted glass on the ring of moisture that had blurred right on the baseball championship table.

The first page lay on the floor next to the table. “Another naval battle is raging in the Solomon Islands.Japanese counterattack on Guadalcanal.

I went to the pier, hung my bag over my shoulder and headed for the yacht. The sun was hot on the top of my head, and sweat soaked the collar of my shirt. I had to pull the bandana out of my pocket and wipe my forehead. The place turned out to be very busy, especially for the middle of the week. A bunch of Hollywood types were about to either spend the day here or start a long early weekend. On the opposite side of the harbor, tankers were pulling up to the refinery.

Sinara was a two-masted schooner, ninety-six feet long, with a crew of four and ten cabins.The large yacht was a clear show, a demonstration of the purest vanity, but King Widor was considered one of the most successful Hollywood directors, and although he enjoyed the fame of a thrifty man to the point of stinginess, he was still distinguished by the ability to indulge his own whims.

The blond boy, who by this time should have been raked into the army for a long time, was scrubbing copper parts, and when I climbed the gangway, I looked up lazily. I dived through the open hatch and found myself in a lacquered oak-paneled aisle, from where I proceeded to the wheelhouse.There I found the captain, bent over the cards.

– Mr. Onslow?

The captain looked up. Gray hair. Probably fifty-something.

– Who are you?

– David Furrow, – I introduced myself, handing over the documents. “Mr. Wells sent me to help on this cruise.

– I wonder why I never heard of you?

– He should have called you. Maybe he asked Mr. Vidor to contact you?

– No one said a word to me.

– In that case, you should have called Mr. Wells. Onslow glanced at me, buried himself again in the papers, among which was a forged letter from Wells describing me as a fairly experienced sailor. Onslow clearly didn’t want to call Wells and run into a drag.

– He said what is expected of you?

– Mainly helping the cook with meals.

“Throw your belongings into the crew quarters aft, and then come back,” he ordered.

I found an empty bunk and put my portable device bag in the locker underneath.There were no castles here, so we had to take risks.

Onslow introduced me to the cook, Manolo, who immediately ordered the newcomer to carry food, poultry, and a box of wine sent by the party organizer on board. When I reported that Wells had told me to serve the tables, he smiled with relief. In the middle of the day, Charles Kerner, head of the production department of RKO, arrived with his wife and daughter. Obviously they were expecting a more formal reception, but there was no one on the yacht except the crew, so Kerner, grumbling, sat down at the mahogany table at the stern.Manolo gave me a white jacket and told me to bring drinks to the guest. The wife calmly fanned herself with a fan of palm leaves, and the daughter, an awkward teenager of about twelve or thirteen, solid knees and elbows, examined the schooner.

An hour later, a maroon Packard pulled up to the dock, and Welles stepped out, accompanied by a slender brunette. Magazine photographs suggest that it was his assistant Shifra Haran.

“Charles,” he thundered, wrapping Kerner in a bear hug.

– How great it is to see you again!

I noticed that he towered over Kerner a whole head.He introduced him to his wife Mary.

Wells was wearing a light suit. His dark hair reached his shoulders, and above his upper lip there was a black mustache that he let go in Brazil – an unsuccessful attempt to portray a macho. Tall, over six feet tall, with a noticeable tummy, but almost no signs of monstrous obesity, which darkened his entire future. A huge head, round cheeks, beautifully sculpted lips and almond-shaped Mongoloid eyes.

– Who is this? Wells asked, turning to his daughter.His gaze was like a spotlight, and the girl fidgeted awkwardly, finding herself in the center of the relentless spot of light.

– Our daughter Barbara.

“Barbara,” Wells repeated with a grin, “do you always carry the house key in your ear?”

And then he pulled out a shiny copper key from her left ear, which he held to the girl’s nose. I noticed that his fingers were extremely long and his arms were graceful. Barbara smiled shyly.

“It’s not my key,” she whispered.

“Or maybe not a key at all,” he picked up, moving his left hand over his right. The key turned into a silver dollar.

– Do you want to get it?

– Yes.

He again passed his palm over the coin, and it disappeared.

– Look in your pocket.

The girl reached into the pocket of her rolled-up blue jeans and pulled out a dollar bill. Her eyes gleamed with delight.

“Just remember,” Wells said edifying, “money isn’t everything.

And, as if forgetting about Barbara, he turned back to Kerner.Wells behaved like a prince who happened to be among the commoners, and distributed his favors like gold, while waiting for worship. Any second. Any time. Haran fluttered around him like a mocking bird. She did not let go of the briefcase, ready at any moment to hand Wells everything she needed: a pencil, a cigar, a match, a cup of tea, a copy of the contract with RKO. Herman Mankevich once said about him: “Here comes God – by the grace of God!”

– Cipher! He snapped, although the assistant was nearby.- Get all the things out of the car.

Haran asked me to help. I followed her to the pier and took out of the trunk an octagonal multi-roll movie yauf and a bulky portable movie projector. The Magnificent Andersons was inscribed on the label in black make-up pencil. Haran watched me warily until I dragged the yauf with the projector into the salon. After making sure that everything was all right, she flew out onto the deck again, where she busied herself with Welles.

Read more

The Truth About Bender’s Brain / Habr

David Cohen, Executive Producer and Chief Writer of Futurama, told how the MOS Technology 6502 processor ended up in the robot’s head

This is a translation of part of the article IEEE Spectrum ‘s Special Report: 25 Microchips That Shook the World .

On November 14, 1999, an episode of Futurama, an animated sci-fi series from The Simpsons creator Matt Groening, stunned geeks with a technological spectacle unprecedented in the entertainment industry in the past. In this episode, “Fry and the Slurm Factory,” Professor Farnsworth shoots an F-beam at the head of the insane robot Bender, and we see a small rectangle, apparently a microcircuit, labeled “6502”.

6502 was a favorite (geeks at least) 8-bit microprocessor created by MOS Technology in 1975.It was this chip that Steve Wozniak, a geek with sandals and a scruffy beard, used to build the Apple II in 1977, “the machine that changed everything,” as PC World called it. It was also used in the Commodore PET, BBC Micro, and other systems that started the personal computer revolution.

The appearance of this chip in Futurama has stirred up the nerdosphere, causing a flurry of comments on online forums (the nerd equivalent of talking at cocktail parties). There is also a mention on Wikipedia, in an article on 6502.At the IEEE Spectrum, we have several questions that have not previously appeared in the background of all the noise. First, why 6502? Second, is it possible that Mom’s Friendly Robot Co. somehow got the project from a hairy hipan who lived in northern California in the late 20th century?

To find out the truth, our editor Eriko Guizzo ( Erico Guizzo ) has infiltrated the mystery of Bender’s brain. David Cohen, the executive producer and head writer of Futurama, turns out to be a pretty geek too.

Here’s Cohen’s answer:

I spent a fair amount of time in high school programming the Apple II Plus in 6502 assembly language, and I remember those long evenings alone with this chip vividly.My highest achievement in 6502 was a video game that I called Zoid, which my father and I played, and no one else. Zoid had digitized speech (I used the word “Zoid” slowed down to sound more powerful), which was rare at the time. The digital audio of that single word took up a lot of memory, more than the rest of the program. I tried to sell the game to Broderbund Software, but I realized that they had bad news for me when I received an email in which my name was misspelled.

From a programming standpoint, the more impressive achievement was the creation of a truly working FLEET language for the Apple II Plus, which I developed with two high school friends, David Borden and David Shimonovich. We called ourselves “Lords of the Glitches”. The language was designed to make it easier to write school graphics programs (yes, video games) for Apple computers. None of us knew anything about compilers, and without any knowledge of this subject, and working exclusively in 6502 assembler, we somehow wrote a working compiler.Even more impressive, there were practically no comments, just page after page of assembly code.

The resulting compiler was very good: lightning fast, the language was easy to learn and program, and the compiled programs were comparable in speed to what we wrote in pure assembly. I think it would be a very useful product. However, time was playing against us: the compiler was finished in 1984, when the Apple II fell into oblivion and we went to college.Thus, our amazing compiler has never been used for practical purposes.

In retrospect, I would say that the limitations of the 6502 processor pushed us, against our will, to be smart and study its work at a deeper level. For example, we needed to write an efficient multiplication and division routine for 16-bit numbers using only 8-bit addition, subtraction and shift operations. Another example: it is possible (and in fact, trivial), to draw pixels from point (A, B) to point (C, D) without using division operations or calculating a slope factor.But that takes quick wits. So I think programming the 6502, in the days when memory was very limited, was very helpful in developing creativity and efficiency.

Moving 15 years into the future, I worked on an early episode of Futurama. Bender was illuminated with X-rays (more precisely, with F-rays), and we saw what his mighty brain works on. At 6502, of course.

Bender’s shiny bottom has much more computing power.

Although I’m responsible for 6502’s appearance in Futurama, I’m not the most experienced computer engineer on Futurama’s writing team.I have a master’s degree in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley. However, screenwriter Ken Keeler has a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard and an MA in Electrical Engineering, and, in all seriousness, Ken reads every issue of “ IEEE Spectrum” and occasionally looks into “ Transactions on Information Theory”.

There is no doubt that Wozniak’s head survived in the bank until 3000, and may still be wearing sandals. And she may have provided Bender’s project to Mom’s Friendly Robot Co.in exchange for fish feed.

Terminator also works on 6502

Enlightened Islam. How Muslims live and what are they afraid of in France

• Olga Prosvirova
• BBC Russian Service

November 14, 2020

Photo author, Reuters

Photo caption,

The main values ​​of the French Republic are written on the board: Freedom. Equality. Brotherhood. Secularism. Freedom of speech

Can you explain how a young man who has been living in France since the age of six, brought up in a strict Muslim family, decided to take a knife in his hands and behead a school teacher who is showing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in class? In France, few people know the answer to this question.Some blame the Internet, others say the streets are to blame, while others see the failure of the state system for integrating immigrant children into Western society.

Despite this, the country’s authorities have already made it clear that they do not agree with the critics, many of whom are Muslims. More than 5.7 million Muslims live in France – this is about 8.8% of the country’s population – the highest among all European states. And many people professing Islam honestly admit: they cannot understand why in this country it is considered normal to draw caricatures on religious themes.

President Emmanuel Macron resolutely stood up for secular humanism and even stated that he intends to create “enlightened Islam” in the country, which caused the discontent of several Muslim countries, and at the same time the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, who said that he was not ready to “silently observe, how atheists scoff at religion. ”

Chechens living in France really cannot understand how to draw caricatures of a prophet – they consider it offensive. But Kadyrov’s statements are not taken personally.

“We don’t want your otherness”

On November 2, the French children returned to school after vacation. It was originally planned that on this day all classes will be canceled, and the students will honor the memory of Samuel Pati with a minute of silence.

Photo author, THOMAS COEX

Photo caption,

Poster in memory of the murdered teacher

A 47-year-old teacher of history, geography and civics at the College Bois-d’Olne, in one of the lessons showed his students a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad, published satirical edition of Charlie Hebdo.After that, according to French media reports, Pati began to receive threats.

On October 16, Abdul Anzorov, an 18-year-old native of Moscow of Chechen origin, beheaded a school teacher with a knife. The attacker was shot dead by the police.

A few days later, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke at a memorial ceremony for the murdered teacher. Among other things, he said that Islam is in a state of crisis, and at the same time called for the protection of secular values ​​from radical Islam.Several Muslim countries responded to Macron with a boycott of French goods, demonstrations and calls to fight against Islamophobia.

According to Reuters, France also intends to expel 231 alleged extremists from the country after the murder of a teacher.

Former inspector of the French Ministry of Education, Jean-Pierre Aubin, in an interview with LCI TV channel, briefly explained the essence of the country’s integration policy: schools play an important role in the cultural assimilation of children of immigrants, who eventually cease to feel like Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese or Poles, and “turn into little Frenchmen. “True, this model ceased to demonstrate its effectiveness when it became clear that not always only white Catholics from European countries come to the country.

“The essence of this message is this: we do not want your otherness, we want you to be like us,” interprets French politics Hakim El Karoui, senior researcher at the Institut Montaigne, a Paris-based think tank.

Experts call what is happening as another clash of the Islamic world with the West.The principles of absolute freedom of speech and secularity advocated by French society – one of the basic principles in the country – are not easily perceived by Muslims. In 2016, 29% of Muslims living in France said that Sharia law should be more important than the country’s national legislation. Three years later, it turned out that about 46% of Muslims born outside France wanted to implement Sharia law in the country’s legal system.

“In European countries, the policy is turning towards the interference of regulatory bodies in the life of Muslims,” ​​says Igor Alekseev, associate professor of the Department of Contemporary Oriental Studies at the Russian State University for the Humanities.- Muslims were not incorporated into the life of society, the state did not know very well what was going on with them. And now they seem to have decided to increase control. “

According to a poll published in early September, 59% of all French people support the publication of cartoons as a manifestation of freedom of speech. Among Muslims, this position is supported by 19%.

” He rejected the fact that we teach in schools “

Now French society is again in a situation where Muslims fear they will be considered terrorists and the rest of society is becoming suspicious of Muslims.

Photo author, AFP

Photo caption,

There are cards on the board with the words “Secularity” and “Freedom of Speech” – one of the main values ​​of the French Republic.

“I didn’t want my child to go to hommage (” a tribute to “) To Samuel Pati. We discussed this with other parents, and many seriously think: what prevents some other teenager from radicalizing and bringing a dagger to school?” – says Elena. She was born and raised in Paris. Elena asks not to give her name in the press.

After the Nice attack, many schools canceled ceremonies out of concern for the safety of children. In most educational institutions, a minute of silence was held in each class separately.

The French Ministry of National Education issued a recommendation for kindergarten teachers to “pay special attention to every child” in order to “allay possible concerns about the current situation”. And primary school teachers have to explain to the students what is happening.The ministry proposes to do this in the following form: “We all gathered here at the same time to honor the memory of the teacher. His name is Samuel Pati, he was killed on October 16, 2020. This was done by someone who rejected what we teach in schools.”

Photo author, AFP

Photo caption,

Lesson in one of the primary French schools after the murder of a teacher. Pupils read a letter to teachers and female teachers “Jean Jaurès

Svetlana Trofimova teaches at a college in a poor suburb of Paris. Her students are children from 12 to 15 years old, receiving incomplete secondary education.

“I looked through [all the materials posted by the ministry], but I knew that I would not need them. My students do not think in such terms. They do not associate the murder of Samuel Pati with an attempt on freedom of speech,” Trofimova explains. these are children, they do not talk about such things at home. They do not all understand why we are talking about Samuel Pati. “Because he is a teacher, your colleague?” – one of the students asked me on Monday. ”

According to Svetlana Trofimova, children do not see the difference between the murder of Pati and domestic murder, they wonder why the school does not talk about other deaths.

This is not the first lesson of this kind for Trofimova. She spent her school hour with the children after the November 2015 terrorist attacks. Then, in 2015, 13-year-old students said to Trofimova: “Madame, but it’s okay: France is bombing them in Syria, it is quite logical and natural that they come to take revenge on the French in Paris.”

“I expected that this year my students would also say something like that, so I was preparing to talk in different ways about why people should not be killed. But this Monday I did not hear anything like that from my 14-year-old students.” – said the teacher.

According to her, some children do not understand why in France they show cartoons that are offensive to Muslims, but no one expressed the opinion that this deserves punishment. “Not all of my colleagues had the same conversation. In one of the classes, a 14-year-old child refused to dialogue with the teacher. Among our future graduates (15 years old) there were those who refused to participate in a minute of silence, some were not afraid to say that Party “I deserve what I got.” By the way, the school is obliged to notify the administration and the prosecutor’s office about such cases.Why these children decided to behave this way, what motivated them in this case – adolescent passion for provocation, stupidity, convictions, something else – I do not know yet, “- said the teacher.

Father did not know about the second phone

After the murder of the teacher, the police detained Abdula Anzorov’s relatives and now, as the Chechen community told the BBC, they have all been released – apparently, the police concluded that they really did not know anything about the plans of 18-year-old Abdula.Immediately after the incident, the family apologized to the French people. Now they refuse to talk to journalists – presumably, the investigating authorities asked them about it.

Something about the Anzorov family was told by Kheda Inderbaeva, a French woman of Chechen origin who is well known in the community.

“The family was in absolute shock. They said that the guy did not show any such inclinations, moreover, he had projects for the future – he recently passed his license and got a job.Abdula’s radicalization was imperceptible, because he knew that he would have to choose: if he showed it openly, his family would turn away from him, “Kheda Inderbaeva said.

According to her, Anzorov’s father works in the security sector. was strict, making sure that they did not wander around the districts at night. “Abdula, as his father said, showed obedience. When he came to work, 0 reported when he left, called and warned: “I finished work, I’m going home.” True, my father did not even know that he had a second phone, “says Inderbaeva.

According to Anzorov’s father, she says that the killer had messages on the phone from people who did not even live in France. There is a discussion in the Chechen community that radicalization has mainly taken place via the Internet. True, initially the French police said that Anzorov was a member of a gang in the commune of Eragny, where he lived. One of the gang members was an Islamist known to the police.

Photo author, Reuters

Photo caption,

“I am a teacher. I think of you, Samuel”, – it is written on the poster.

“Both the Internet and society play a huge role in radicalization,” says Kheda Inderbaeva. “Those Chechens who have radicalized do not communicate with others. Just like the Chechens who are involved in drug dealing. But the Chechen community has no problems with integration. in France, because here there is no prejudice towards us. We do not have any institution that would deal with the issues of youth integration, because we never needed it. ”

According to the teacher Svetlana Trofimova, who faced migrant children in her work, too many factors influence integration, including language knowledge, income level, social well-being, and emotional stability of the family.

“I don’t want to make generalizations,” Trofimova said. “In the press you can find stories about French schoolchildren and students who abandon their families, study and join jihadists in Syria or Iraq. You should not think that only emigrants bring radicalism with them. “in suitcases”, these processes may well start already on the territory of France. ”

“If it is unpleasant, close your eyes”

Imam of the central mosque of Nice and president of the “Union of Chechens and Ingush of the Primorsky Alps” Ramzan Magamadov in a conversation with the BBC said that the demonstration of cartoons of the prophet in schools is “vulgar , dishonest, immoral and unjust. “But still, nothing can explain the brutal murder of the teacher, Magamadov emphasizes.

“Christians have already got used to caricatures, distanced themselves. But Muslims are shocked,” confirms Shamil Albakov, press secretary of the Assembly of Chechens in Europe. “We are shocked not only by caricatures of the prophet; show patience, explain to our children and compatriots that this is such a country here, here you can joke and mock at Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. “

Albakov believes that Muslims have two options: to live in France, “endure” and seek their rights in a legal way, or leave this country.

Kheda Inderbaeva knows families who could not accept the French way of life and decided to leave. But in the community as a whole, Inderbaeva says, the approach is different: “France accepted us in the most terrible years of our life, and we have no right to dictate anything. Yes, there are Muslims who condemn cartoons. And there are those who say: if unpleasant – close your eyes.France has its own peculiarities that the Chechens cannot understand. But it seems to me that the main thing is to be tolerant. Now this is our country. “

Shamil Albakov doubts that Chechens feel at home in France:” At the moment, unfortunately, we are still visiting. Most of us do not yet have citizenship, many are political refugees who have not yet received documents. We do not have the feeling that we are at home. And the French do not have it: they consider us new newcomers, people with bird rights, who will either stay or leave – it is not clear. “

“Muslims went to France for happiness. When there was the first massive wave of emigration in the 70s, the French said that they were ready to assimilate the newcomers. But Muslims felt that they were being offended. They say that Europeans humiliate us, write about our prophet, God knows that, “says the Islamic scholar Alexei Malashenko.” The overwhelming part of the Islamic world is sincerely against terrorism, because it interferes with them. But at the same time, the conflict of civilizations is a natural global trend. So, first of all, we need a dialogue between people.These emigrants are part of civil society. And we must say: if something rained down on your prophet, yes, this is bad, but we cannot forbid drawing, we have such traditions. ” but asks the question: what has France done to accommodate the newcomers?

“They say that Muslims oppose freedom of speech. Yes, they do not act! Muslims are quite indifferent to freedom of speech, says Syukiyainen.- If you are in dialogue with Muslims, you must choose the arguments that are meaningful to them. And not just refer to the freedom of speech, the slogans of the French Revolution, the UN Charter – for Muslims this is an empty phrase. “

” Why the hell are the police closing the mosque? ” touch my hijab “- written on the poster. Protest rally in October last year against the ban on wearing the hijab in public

15-year-old Muslim Aisha was born and raised in France.She went to a Catholic school, although her parents explain that in fact there is no religious bias in this school. Here’s what she thinks about French reality.

“I wear a hijab,” says Aisha. “But at school because of the law I can’t wear it, and I have to take it off when I go to school, it’s very unpleasant. They talk to us all the time about freedoms, but why- then it is Muslim girls who do not have this freedom to dress the way they want at school. ”

Once Aisha talked about this with her friends.One of the friends said, “Then why don’t [Muslims] return to their country?”

“I answered her: imagine that a war began in your homeland, you fled to another country, and in this country they force you to wear a headscarf, and they say: if you don’t wear a headscarf, then return to your country.” This girlfriend kept silent , I think that she understood the situation, and another friend agreed with me that it was unfair, “says Aisha.

She says she hates to hear children in class say that Muslims should not look at cartoons if they hate them.In addition, the girl did not like the fact that the teacher, during an open lesson, emphasized that Paty’s killer was a Chechen by nationality. “This is also unpleasant to hear,” says Aisha. “Also, this teacher said:” Of course, I am not against Muslim headscarves, but when I was little, there were not so many women in headscarves in the city center, “and in his tone he made it clear that it is unpleasant for him. ”

Aisha’s father Ruslan adds that during the years of study he is the first teacher who hurt his daughter’s religious feelings.Ruslan himself believes that there is an element of guile in French secularism.

“It seems that this should mean the separation of religions – all religions – from the state and non-interference of the state in the affairs of religion. But very often the authorities use it in their rhetoric just to interfere in religious affairs. The last example: the closure of one of the This closure was reported by the Minister of Internal Affairs as a quick and tough reaction of his department to the terrorist attack. this terrorist attack, (or in any other violation of the law), it is he who must be punished.Why and for what to punish dozens, if not hundreds of Muslims who are not involved in this or any other crime, and who came to this mosque just to pray, and now they will not be able to do this, because there are not so many mosques in France, and, for example, are they all overflowing for Friday prayers? “

Some of Ruslan’s acquaintances (in his words, moderately religious families), having lived for several years in France, decided to move to other countries.

” Two friends of mine who do not know each other, completely different people, of different ages and nationalities, who left after several years of living in France for Canada, unanimously declared that they would never return to France, it is so much easier for them to live there psychologically and religiously.And I don’t think Canada can be called “non-secular”. I would say that the specifically French “secular approach” towards Islam is different from what can be found in many other Western countries, “Ruslan believes.

Representatives of the Chechen community, like other Muslims in France, are afraid to speak freely about their attitude to cartoons of the prophet for fear of being recorded as a terrorist. A Chechen community official who asked for anonymity told the BBC: their lives. “

Poetry and Truth in Evgeny Chizhov’s Novel Translation from Interlinear

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The whole truth about Hyundai: HYUNDAI SONATA NF

HYUNDAI SONATA NF

Total: HYUNDAI SONATA NF is a business-class passenger sedan that replaced HYUNDAI SONATA 5 in the HYUNDAI MOTOR CO model line (in some countries of Russia, including 9000 SONATA 5 is still in production).The HYUNDAI SONATA NF is a completely new and 100% independent development of the HYUNDAI MOTOR CO (the KIA MAGENTIS NEW is also produced on this new platform). Often HYUNDAI SONATA NF is simply referred to as HYUNDAI NF , but we, accustomed to the old terminology, will use the full name HYUNDAI SONATA NF .

Body, exterior: HYUNDAI SONATA NF is produced with a single 5-seater sedan body.Overall dimensions of HYUNDAI SONATA NF (length / width / height, mm) – 4800/1832/1474. With all his appearance HYUNDAI SONATA NF shows that he is European. HYUNDAI MOTOR CO has reoriented itself to export so much that the preferences of the “overseas” consumer began to prevail over the tastes of their own consumer (unlike previous models, where they did not try to hide their “Korean origin”. Front HYUNDAI SONATA NF vaguely resembles MAZDA 6, in profile – AUDI A6.

Salon, interior: In all elements that make up the cabin HYUNDAI SONATA NF – emphasized seriousness. Compared to the predecessor model HYUNDAI SONATA 5 in HYUNDAI SONATA NF , the legroom of the front passengers has increased by 10 mm, and the rear – by all 30, while the headroom has increased by 22 and 15 mm, respectively. All these millimeters will allow five Europeans taller than average to feel at ease in the cabin of the HYUNDAI SONATA NF .

Engine: The HYUNDAI SONATA NF engine range consists of two petrol engines and one turbodiesel. The first gasoline engine is a 3.3-liter V6 V6 with 4 valves per cylinder (2 camshafts in each cylinder head) and producing about 230 hp. The second is a 2.4-liter petrol four with 4 valves per cylinder and two camshafts, its power is about 160 hp. As for the turbodiesel, it is a 4-cylinder 16-valve engine with variable valve timing CVVT and a COMMON RAIL direct injection system, producing about 140 hp.with. power.

Suspension, brakes, steering: Front suspension HYUNDAI SONATA NF – multi-link. Rear suspension HYUNDAI SONATA NF independent multi-link. Both front and rear HYUNDAI SONATA NF have anti-roll bars. Ground clearance (clearance) HYUNDAI SONATA NF 155 mm. HYUNDAI SONATA NF as standard with ABS system and has disc rear brakes.The car HYUNDAI SONATA NF has a rack and pinion steering gear, already equipped with a hydraulic booster in the basic configuration (on some HYUNDAI SONATA NF cars, a hydraulic booster with a variable gain is optionally installed, the so-called “multifunction” – the steering wheel is practically weightless in place, with an increase in speed, the force , which needs to be applied, increases) in the domestic market there are cars HYUNDAI SONATA NF with adjustable suspension stiffness and even with all-wheel drive (but very rarely).

Transmission: HYUNDAI SONATA NF is a front-wheel drive vehicle equipped with a 5-speed manual, 4-speed automatic or 5-speed gearbox.

On the go: Suspension HYUNDAI SONATA NF smoothly swallows minor irregularities (the words “soft” or “hard” are not suitable for it – it is rather “elastic”) reluctantly storms serious obstacles. As for the noise insulation HYUNDAI SONATA NF , it is uneven.The soundproofing of the engine compartment is in perfect order, but too much noise is transmitted to the HYUNDAI SONATA NF interior from the bottom and arches. As for the dynamic characteristics, they directly depend on the engine installed on the car: acceleration to 100 km for a car with a 6-cylinder engine is about 8 seconds, with a four-cylinder engine – about 11 seconds.

Operation: HYUNDAI SONATA NF was built on a completely new platform and it hasn’t passed enough time to evaluate how successful this platform was.However, it is worth recalling that the durability of the transmission and the engine depends on compliance with the operating rules: the manufacturer recommends changing the oil in gasoline engines – every 15,000 km, in an automatic gearbox – every 30,000 km. It should also be noted that when replacing the timing belt with HYUNDAI SONATA NF on any of the above types of engines, the rollers should also be changed (this will save, at least, from re-paying for the same work after some time, if you have time , otherwise a jammed roller will inevitably lead to a rapid breakage of the timing belt and the meeting of valves with pistons).

Second hands: HYUNDAI SONATA NF has not yet got into the category of “passable” from the point of rhenium customs clearance of cars, and HYUNDAI SONATA NF has not yet managed to enter the secondary market, so it is still possible to buy such a car only in dealership.

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