Venustum

The kang is a traditional heated platform, 2 metres or more long, used for general living, working, entertaining and sleeping in the northern part of China, where the winter climate is cold. It is made of bricks or other forms of fired clay and more recently of concrete in some locations.

Its interior cavity, leading to an often-convoluted flue system, channels the hot exhaust from a firewood/coal fireplace, usually the cooking fire from an adjacent room that serves as a kitchen, sometimes from a stove set below floor level. This allows a longer contact time between the exhaust (which still contains much heat from the combustion source) and (indirectly) the inside of the room, hence more heat transfer/recycling back into the room, effectively making it a ducted heating system similar to the Roman hypocaust. A separate stove may be used to control the amount of smoke circulating through the kang, maintaining comfort in warmer weather. Typically, a kang occupies one-third to one half of the floor space, and is used for sleeping at night and for other activities during the day. A kang which covers the entire floor is called a dikang. The heated bed and the heated floor are technically similar, but each developed in conjunction with a distinctive way of life, either sitting on the floor or sitting on furniture.

Like the European cocklestove, a massive block of masonry is used to retain heat. While it might take several hours of heating to reach the desired surface temperature, a properly designed bed raised to sufficient temperature should remain warm throughout the night without the need to maintain a fire.

Here is a link to a video demonstration of the kang itself and how it works

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yI8Rf8DlNo

The one in the video is more representative of what a modern one looks like

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Theory:

• ❤️Foundations of Leninism
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• ❤️Mega upload with theory for many tendencies

The Tucson City Council is moving forward with the effort to return the ancestral homelands near the base Sentinel Peak to the Tohono O’odham Nation for its continued preservation and reverence.

The city council unanimously approved the motion to transfer land ownership during a study session before their regular council meeting on April 18. The move comes after decades of conversations the City of Tucson has had surrounding what to do with the land.

Tucson Mayor Regina Romero said the piece of land near Sentinel Peak has more than 4,500 years of history and archeology that proves it is an ancestral Hohokam Village.

“This is where our city was born,” Romero said

The initiative to return the land to the Tohono O’odham “without any strings attached” has been led by Romero and Tucson Council Member Lane Santa Cruz.

Santa Cruz said over the years, many different efforts and ideas have been introduced to the city on what to do with that land. But, in the end, returning the land was the best and most respectful option.

Santa Cruz said when they started having conversations with the tribe about returning the land, they were skeptical.

“Rightly so,” she added, “they’ve never had a good relationship with the city.”

Santa Cruz said it always seemed as if the city treated the tribe separately, as if they are over there and we are over here, even though many Indigenous people live in the city.

She said it took that ongoing conversation and meeting with tribal members, listening to their stories about the land and what it meant to them. She recalls how tribal members talked about how even if the city chose to acknowledge or not that the land rightfully belongs to the Tohono O’odham, they already know it is theirs.

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The Z-Library crackdown and related domain seizures haven't put an end to the site, but the knock-on effects are causing confusion among the public. The action has fueled the popularity of several copycat sites, some of which have millions of monthly visitors. According to the Z-Library team, these "fraudulent" sites are dangerous and should be avoided.

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The wave of new AI chatbots is not stopping anytime soon; another contender has jumped into the ring with ChatGPT.

Released recently, it's called 'HuggingChat.' The main focus of this chatbot is to provide a more transparent, inclusive, and accountable alternative to ChatGPT.

Don't get me wrong, HuggingChat is not the first open-source alternative to ChatGPT. We have covered open-source projects challenging ChatGPT.

However, HugginChat seems to be the first one available to access as a platform that appears similar to ChatGPT.

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https://huggingface.co/chat/

https://huggingface.co/spaces

Seems neat, I'm sure it reaps your data, but you could try it on a browser you just use for browsing, it's also on firefox

it claims to not sell your data though

https://jointoucan.com/privacy

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/toucan-language-learning/

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With Toucan installed for either Chrome, Edge, or Safari, the first time you visit a website or click on an article, you’ll notice something strange: Some of the words on the page will change, and translate to your chosen language. If you’re trying to learn Portuguese, you might see a sentence like esta, but one or two palavras will be translated.

Hover your cursor over the translated word, and a pop up will reveal what it means in English. (“Esta” is “this;’ “palavras” is “words.”) This pop up gives you additional interesting controls, such as a speaker icon you can click to hear how the word is pronounced, a mini quiz to see if you can spell the word, and a save button to highlight the word for later.

It starts out with one word at a time, but as you learn, Toucan ups the ante, adding more words in blocks, or “lexical chunks.” It makes sense, since languages don’t all share the same grammar structure. By building up to larger groups of words, you’ll more naturally learn word order, verb conjugation, and the general grammar of your chosen language.

The extension also offers “shortcuts,” which are a bit more like a traditional language-learning experience. These highlight key words and phrases you’ll use in common situations, such as greetings or going out to eat. Interestingly, shortcuts only work on Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, and Google.

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In a recent interview, Pedro Pascal, the actor currently at the top of his game, opened up about his younger sister, Lux, who is transgender. In a new interview, he praised her.

While speaking with Esquire, the 48-year-old actor discussed his admiration and respect for Lux, 30.

The actor spent most of his twenties and thirties struggling to make ends meet as most actors do, but Pascal has suddenly been propelled to an incredible level of fame in a short period. He’s the current ‘it’ daddy, some say.

Pascal had roles on HBO’s Game of Thrones and Netflix’s Narcos. However, now he's the star of a couple of highly-acclaimed, audience-loved series that have taken his stardom to new heights. As Joel in HBO’s runaway hit The Last of Us, he captivated viewers as an antihero survivor in a post-apocalyptic America.The Mandalorian’s third season saw him reprise his role as the title character who is navigating a post-Empire galaxy far, far away.

He's also become widely known as an LGBTQ+ ally. That's, in part, due to his relationship with his sister.

“[Lux] is and has always been one of the most powerful people and personalities I’ve ever known,” he told Esquire. "My protective side is lethal, but I need her more than she needs me.”

Originally from Chile, the Pascal family emigrated to the U.S. when he was nine months old. Besides his older sister, Javiera, he has a younger brother, Nicolás, and Lux, who is seventeen years his junior.

The magazine reports that Pascal sees Lux and Nicolás often between filming since they both returned to Chile when she was a baby.

Lux first shared her identity with the world at the beginning of 2021. Pedro shared a picture of a Chilean magazine cover with a caption about his sister stating, “Mi hermana, mi corazón, nuestra Lux,” or “my sister, my heart, our Lux.”

Recently, Pascal posted several Pride flags on his Instagram page with nearly 8 million followers.

Muslims around the world are observing the holy month of Ramadan—a time of self-discipline and character-building that includes abstaining from food and drink, from sunrise to sunset, to create empathy for those less fortunate who do not have access to food. Breaking the day-long fast is also central to Ramadan traditions, and while the significance of the celebrations is shared by the 1.8 billion Muslims worldwide, how people break their fasts represents each community's unique combination of religious, regional, and culinary traditions.

Here's the most important—and delicious—vocabulary about Ramadan!

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Chinese people believe that letters are as valuable as gold. For thousands of years, letters, across mountains and oceans, have been delivering the writers' sentiments and conveying friendship and expectations.

Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and Chinese president, has managed to find time to reply to some letters from different sectors of the society and different parts of the world despite of his busy work schedule.

Through his letters, Xi has corresponded with international friends from all walks of life on numerous occasions, part of a series of excellent stories of China's international exchanges in the new era. The letters have also added vivid colors to the diplomacy between China and other countries.

The Global Times traced and contacted some of the recipients of Xi's letters, to hear the inspiring stories behind the letters and their communications with the Chinese president.

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Rome, Italy – Thousands across Italy have been protesting against the harsh conditions of Alfredo Cospito’s imprisonment, as fears for the 55-year-old anarchist’s health grow with his hunger strike extending 150 days.

Cospito was jailed for 10 years in 2012 for shooting the chief of a nuclear energy company in the leg, in his words “to punish one of the many sorcerers of the atomic industry”, and was later handed a life sentence for setting off two bombs in front of a police academy near Turin in 2006. Both attacks were non-fatal, and while no one was injured in the bombing, investigators concluded that the explosives were designed to kill.

In May, he was moved to 41-bis, a form of solitary confinement known colloquially as “hard prison” and usually reserved for hardened criminals, such as mafia bosses, becoming the first anarchist to be punished under the regime.

He began a hunger strike in October, and has pledged to protest against 41-bis “until his last breath”.

“Today I am ready to die to make the world understand what 41-bis really is,” he wrote from prison this month. “I am convinced that my death will be an obstacle to this regime.”

Cospito has reportedly lost more than 50kg (110 pounds) and has been in and out of the hospital, raising concerns that his health could be irreparably damaged.

The Italian government says Cospito will be force-fed when it becomes necessary, based on consultation with the National Bioethics Council.

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Communal granaries have disappeared across North Africa, but Amazigh villagers in Morocco are trying to preserve them.

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Inside, 76 cubicles are arranged in three levels around an open courtyard with a water cistern.

The agadir has stocks of barley, dates and almonds, but it is also used to safeguard documents like marriage and birth certificates, religious texts and contracts, and recipes for traditional medicine inscribed on palm stems.

Lahcen Boutirane, the guardian of the collective storeroom, said the village’s 63 remaining families use it.

“Others have left, but they keep their archives here,” he said.

Unwritten laws have kept these granaries sacred and inviolable spaces, not only storing crops to use in drought but also protecting them from attacks, said archaeologist Naima Keddane.

Boutirane stressed the importance of preserving Ait Kine’s agadir, which “bears witness to our ancestors’ ingenuity”.

Guardian Lahcen Boutirane walks at the ancient collective granary of Ait Kine village in Morocco's region of Tata

Collective granaries can be found elsewhere in North Africa – in Algeria’s Aures mountains, Tunisia’s south and Libya’s Nafusa mountains – but they are most common in Morocco, though many are no longer in use.

The kingdom has more than 550 ancient igoudar – the plural of agadir – according to the culture ministry, which is preparing a UNESCO World Heritage nomination.

They are located primarily across central and southern Morocco, in caves or on cliff sides, on hilltops and in valleys.

“The challenge is to save Morocco’s collective granaries, which have almost disappeared in Algeria, Tunisia and Libya,” said architect and anthropologist Salima Naji.

Passionate about these “institutions of solidarity”, she had helped restore Ait Kine’s agadir, now an attraction for both researchers and tourists.

A group of Italian visitors appreciated the carved wooden door, adorned with forged iron.

“We are doing a tour of granaries,” said guide Emanuele Maspoli, describing them as “extraordinary places that attest to the historical wealth of Morocco’s oases”.

“It’s a magical place,” said tourist Antonella Dalla.