Several years ago I already had to write on this topic. Then in Russia the Volga religious procession was held with an ark containing a particle of the relics of the Holy Great Martyr George the Victorious, which had the shape of a hand with the little finger and index finger. At the same time, some “zealots of piety” hastened to call the ark “the right hand of Satan.”
Today we saw some hint or even direct instruction to connect with the fallen angel in the gesture of Archpriest Grigory Kryzhanovsky on the cover of the first issue of the magazine “To the Right”. I must admit that the move with the gesture was designed to attract the reader, it was planned to “hook.” But not only that – it should also have prompted us to figure it out.
Just as a couple of years ago, explaining the symbolism of this ark, I wrote that any symbol can only be read in its context and no other, so now I draw attention to this.
On the contexts of gesture in Orthodox iconography
Such a gesture is not uncommon for sacred images.
Christ the Merciful. Byzantine mosaic icon. 1st half 12th century
And it is connected with the ancient oratorical tradition adopted in ancient culture. While delivering a speech, the ancient Roman speaker used certain gestures. Some gestures meant the beginning of speech, others focused attention on the most important words. This moment is also mentioned in Scripture, for example: “Then Paul stretched out his hand to answer you” (Acts: 26:1).
Apostle Paul. Fragment of a Novgorod icon of the 13th century
So, about the “goat”. According to the book “Instructions to the Orator” by the ancient Roman rhetorician Quintilian, the finger gesture, in which the two middle fingers are tucked under the thumb, and the index and little fingers are extended forward, is called the “urgent gesture.”
Many elements of ancient culture migrated to Christian art, including the culture of gestures. And the very gesture that so frightens some Orthodox Christians. In the icon, oratorical gestures symbolize the character’s direct speech and sermon.
For example, the 6th-century Byzantine historian Paul the Silentiary describes the altar curtain in the Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, on which was woven the image of the Savior “stretching out his fingers right hand, as a broadcasting ever-living verb, and in his left hand having a book that knows (contains) divine verbs.”
Christ the Priest. Mosaic from Sophia of Kyiv. 11th century
It is obvious that the gesture, now called “goat”, and in ancient Rome “urgent”, in the icon means a call for attention: “look!”
A symbol can be “read” exclusively in its context and in no other way. Agree that the halo on Orthodox icons and pagan images are not the same thing. Do we need to abandon the halo, citing the pagan origin of the symbol (and it actually comes from Hellenistic images of pagan deities)?
Or, if we limit the problem only to gestures, is it necessary to abandon the various finger formations on the icon, just because we find something similar in Hinduism and Buddhism (the so-called “mudras”).
Let's think about it. There is a certain symbol. In the context of one system it means: A, in the context of another: B, and in the context of a third: C. Why, if a symbol is used in one of these contexts, should we suspect the other?
Why, a gesture that has specific meaning V sign system language of the deaf and dumb, one must certainly suspect Freemasonry or Satanism? In theory, the Orthodox should be closer to their native, church, and icon contexts. And if we, forgetting our own tradition, see only Masons, then perhaps there is something wrong with us.
Today we will talk about the Internet in country house. We constantly receive calls from people living outside the city, and therefore we tried to collect all available solutions in order to give people hope for the Internet where it does not yet exist.
So, the first and most desirable technology for connecting the Internet in a country house can be the Internet using technology ADSL. It is available to those residents who already have a telephone (albeit with a possible wait of up to 2 months) or to those for whom it is theoretically possible to install a telephone.
Advantages:
- Relatively inexpensive connection (approximately 1000 rubles for purchasing a modem, or free rental of equipment from a provider).
- Stable Internet speed (in some areas up to 25 Mbit/s according to the Vdsl standard, in others in practice 2 - 3 megabits).
- Acceptable for gaming ping.
The second and most popular solution is 3G and 4G networks. The familiar 3G USB modems have recently begun to evolve into 4G. Now residents of Lipetsk have access to wireless Internet at speeds of up to 15 Mbit/s. Unfortunately, 4G networks do not yet have this widespread, like 3G, so in practice the speed ranges from 0.5 to 5 Mbit/s.
Advantages:
- Relatively inexpensive connection (about 2000 rub.)
- Prevalence
- Mobility (you can always take it with you)
It should be noted that gamers will not like this kind of Internet: the jumping speed and high ping will not allow them to play.
When there is no other option left, you can always connect to satellite Internet. It can be different:
- one-way, sometimes called “asymmetric” (data is received via satellite and transmitted via terrestrial channels).
- two-way (two-way) or “symmetrical” (reception and transmission via satellite channels).
Obviously, symmetrical satellite Internet is better, so let’s take a closer look at it. Receiving and transmitting data via satellite is a fairly high-quality method, and high speeds are achieved (up to 20 megabits). Its disadvantage is its relative high cost. In addition, it is necessary to obtain permission to use radio transmitting equipment (often this is done by the provider itself). The cost of two-way Internet is justified by a more reliable connection.
Gamers will not be happy with such an Internet either, because... The ping on a symmetric channel can be 600 ms or more, which affects the operation of Internet applications.
The next feature is that the manufacturers’ equipment does not fit well with each other. If you preferred an operator that works with a certain type of equipment (Gilat (), ViaSat, Shiron, Hughes, EMS), then when you change the operator you will have to switch to a service provider with the same equipment.
People have associated unusual behavior with the full moon for centuries. In the Middle Ages, for example, people sincerely believed that during the full moon you could turn into a werewolf. In the 18th century, it was generally believed that the full moon was the cause of epileptic seizures and fever. Such beliefs are even reflected in the language: for example, the word “lunatic” is derived from the Latin root luna, moon.
Today, no one, with a few exceptions, thinks so. And although we no longer associate ailments or illnesses with the phases of the moon, sometimes you can hear someone without hesitation justifying it with the moon. For example, after a chaotic day, a nurse in a hospital might say, “The moon must be full today.”
There is no evidence that the moon influences our behavior. In a full analysis of 30 studies on the topic, there was no connection between the full moon and hospitalization, casino losses, suicide, car accidents, crime and other common incidents.
But here's the funny thing: Even though all the research says otherwise, a 2005 survey found that 7 out of 10 nurses still believe that a full moon leads to more patients. So what's really going on?
It's not the stupidity of the nurses who swear that the full moon is associated with unusual behavior. They were simply victims of a typical psychological trap, which affects each of us to one degree or another. Psychologists call this thinking error “illusory correlation.” And we will try to figure out how it works.
How we deceive ourselves without realizing it
Illusory correlation occurs when we mistakenly overestimate one finding and ignore all the others. Let's imagine that you arrived in New York, got on the subway, and someone pushes you as you are about to get on the train. Then you walk into a restaurant and the waiter is rude to you. Finally, you ask a passer-by how to get to such and such a street, and he ignores your question and simply passes by.
When you return from your trip, you can easily remember this unpleasant experience and conclude: “people in New York are rude” or “people in big cities rude."
However, you forget about all the trips to the restaurant when the waiter behaved completely normally. Or about a hundred people who walked past you at a metro station and didn’t hit you. It is not perceived as an event because nothing noteworthy happened. This way, it's easier to remember the times someone was rude to you than the times you had a great lunch and a calm ride on the subway.
Hundreds psychological research prove that we tend to overestimate the significance of events that we can easily remember, and, conversely, we underestimate the significance of events that we remember with difficulty.
The easier the incident, the more likely what we mentally create strong connections between two events or things. Although most often it turns out that they are weakly connected or not connected at all.
How to recognize an illusory correlation
There is a simple way to recognize your hidden delusions and protect yourself from stereotypical thinking and prejudices. To do this, you will need to create a contingency table: it will help you visualize events that you usually do not notice and ignore.
Let's go back to our example of a full moon and a crazy night when a lot of people are hospitalized.
Matching table test
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Cell A. Full moon and a hard day at work. This is a very memorable combination and we overestimate these two events as they are easy to recall.
Cell B. Full moon, but nothing unusual happens. Since there is no event as such, our memory underestimates it. It's hard to remember something that didn't happen, so we tend to ignore this cell.
Cell C. There is no full moon, but there is a lot to do at work. You can chalk it up to a “crazy work day.”
Cell D. There is no full moon and a completely ordinary night. Nothing memorable happened, so these two events are also easy to ignore.
The conjugation table helps to understand how nurses think during the full moon. They quickly remember the time when there was a full moon and the hospital was overcrowded, simply forgetting about the times when there was a full moon and the number of patients admitted was within normal limits. Since they can easily remember a full moon and a crazy night at work, they mistakenly begin to believe that these two events are related.
How to stop thinking wrongly
We are faced with an illusory correlation in the most different areas life.
- Everyone knows that Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of college to start multi-billion dollar businesses. And it’s easy to mentally re-evaluate this story. Meanwhile, you never hear stories about people who dropped out of college and couldn't build a successful company. You only hear about successes and never about failures, although the number of victories is many times greater.
- On TV they show the police arresting a person of some nationality, and you can associate the tendency to criminal behavior and nationality, even if 99% of representatives of this nationality never break the law.
- You heard the news about a shark attack on a person and therefore stopped swimming in the ocean. From the moment you swam in the ocean last time, the chances of being attacked by sharks have not increased, but you will never hear about people swimming in the ocean calmly and without incident. A story with the headline “Millions of tourists swim in the ocean every day, and everything is fine” will never make the news.
Most people don't realize how selective our memory is for events, which in turn directly influence our beliefs. We simply don't remember ordinary events. We automatically begin to believe that they do not have special significance or are rare.
If you know how biased thinking works and try to analyze it (for example, using the contingency table method), you can discover hidden biases that you didn't even know you had. But just because you don't know about them doesn't mean they don't affect your life every day.
In this tutorial you will learn a very simple and effective way photo correction that can help even when traditional methods powerless.
Step 1. Select an image
Let's open an image that needs to increase color saturation, for example, this nondescript photo:
Step 2: Lab Mode
Transfer to menu Image- Rmode- Lab (Image - Mode - Lab)
Step 3. Adjusting Shadows/Highlights
On this photo There are too many dark areas where numerous details are hidden. Let's try to fix this. Move on AND image - TOcorrection- Shadows/Lights(Image - Adjustment - Shadow/Highlight). This command in Lab mode works much better; after correction, the noise level in the image increases much less than when using this command in RGB mode. In addition, color transitions are not disrupted. Let's increase the contrast of the midtones a little.
Image after using the command
Step 4. Adjusting the colors
Now let's move on to curves by pressing the combination CTRL+M. Then select channel a or press ALT+4 . Let's symmetrically rotate the curve counterclockwise by dragging the extreme points with the mouse.
Press ENTER to apply the correction.
Step 5. Enjoy the result
This is what happened. This operation allows you to move shades that are close in color scale apart from each other. This is only possible in Lab mode, and nothing else. As a result, the image can be significantly enlivened.
Despite its simplicity, this technique little known to the general public, but often used by professionals.