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Use of ICT and Biometric Project
MGNREGA workers are largely illiterate, poor and at the bottom of the social hierarchy. They cannot articulate their demands ‘formally’ in writing. The absence of written application for employment, non-issuance of dated receipts, non-payment of unemployment allowances or compensation for delay in wages are not only on account of administrative lapses in record keeping, but reflect the social undercurrents and dynamics that prevent workers from exercising their rights in demanding work from the Gram Panchayat in an equitable manner.
The large scale of operations, the limitations of outreach of various services and the need to handle large volumes of information in a transparent manner necessitates the use of ICT in program delivery.
The use of ICT devices and biometrics for authentication will bring in transparency and efficiency. Geared towards real time capture of the processes involved in MGNREGS such as registration, demand of work, issue of dated receipt, allocation of work, attendance at worksite with GPS coordinates, measurement of work, wage payments, etc. it would be instrumental in ensuring transparency and accountability, strengthening MIS reporting and tracking and reducing delays in measurement and payments.
The Biometric data will be UIDAI and core banking compliant which may be used by UIDAI to issue the ‘Aadhaar’ number or by financial institutions for the wage payment in a more transparent manner.
EOI & Concept Note
MGNREGA Help Line
- Department of Rural Development (DRD), Government of India, proposes to establish a network of Helplines under MGNREGA at the National, State, District and Block levels for facilitating the redressal of grievances in relation to the implementation of the MGNREGA Scheme. The Helpline consists of a toll free MTNL number (1800110707) that will be used by the MGNREGA households and other individuals and groups to raise their questions, submit their grievances and complaints and seek guidance from the Department of Rural Development
- On receipt of the calls, Department of Rural Development intends to resolve the grievances by requesting the field level MGNREGA Authorities to take suitable remedial action and obtain feed-back. Action on each complaint needs to be ensured and pending complaints need to be closely monitored. The operations will run with the use of latest information and communication technology to provide solutions to complainants on a real time basis
- The Helpline consists of a toll free MTNL number (1800110707). The operations will run with the use of latest information and communication technology (ICT) to provide solutions to queries and / or complainants on a real time basis | <urn:uuid:e3cc11c9-8d54-44d3-b72b-31166d660c09> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nrega.net/ict/information/new-initiatives/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915665 | 546 | 1.546875 | 2 |
TSA GUIDANCE FOR PASSENGERS ON HEIGHTENED SECURITY MEASURES IN PLACE FOLLOWING DEC. 25 INCIDENT
On Dec. 25, 2009, an individual on board Northwest Airlines Flight 253 set off a device and was subdued by passengers and crew. TSA wishes to acknowledge the heroic efforts of those individuals.
As a result of this incident, TSA has worked with airline and law enforcement authorities, as well as federal, state, local, and international partners to put additional security measures in place to ensure aviation security remains strong. Passengers traveling domestically and internationally to U.S. destinations may notice additional screening measures.
The American people should continue their planned holiday travel. TSA encourages passengers to remain observant and aware of their surroundings and report any suspicious behavior or activity to law enforcement officials. Q: What additional security measures is TSA taking domestically? A: TSA has a layered approach to security that allows us to surge resources as needed on a daily basis. We have the ability to quickly implement additional screening measures including explosive detection canine teams, law enforcement officers, gate screening, behavior detection and other measures both seen and unseen. Passengers should not expect to see the same thing at every airport. Q: What additional security measures are being taken for international flights to U.S. destinations? A: TSA issued a directive for additional security measures to be implemented for last point of departure international flights to the United States. Passengers flying into the United States from abroad can expect to see additional security measures at international airports such as increased gate screening including pat-downs and bag searches. During flight, passengers will be asked to follow flight crew instructions, such as stowing personal items, turning off electronic equipment and remaining seated during certain portions of the flight. Q: Do passengers need to do anything differently to prepare for checkpoint security procedures? Has anything changed in terms of what passengers can bring in their carry-on or checked bags? A: At this time, security checkpoint requirements for passengers departing U.S. airports remain the same. Passengers do not need to do anything differently, but they may notice additional security measures at the airport. Q: Should passengers plan to arrive at airports earlier than normal? A: Passengers traveling within the United States should give themselves extra time to check in and proceed through the security checkpoint before their flight, especially during the busy holiday travel season. TSA advises that passengers traveling on international flights to U.S. destinations allow extra time for security and arrive an additional hour earlier. Q. How long will these measures remain in place? A: TSA will continuously review these measures to ensure the highest levels of security. | <urn:uuid:ff531135-1f75-4283-9b94-4cb91d05d91d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/12/27/81325/what-the-tsa-is-telling-passengers.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959582 | 535 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Artist, Educator : b. 1946
Natasha Mayers’s work marries art and community. She studied sculpture but expected to teach high school social studies when she graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1967. After serving in the Peace Corps in Nigeria, she took a teaching job in Maine and began to study painting. A small sampling of her dozens of projects from the last 40-plus-years shows why she has been called the state’s most committed activist-artist:
- In the late 1970s, Mayers worked with patients and Maine artists to paint murals and poetry in tunnels connecting buildings at the Augusta Mental Health Institute.
- During the 1994-95 school year, she helped her town’s fourth and fifth graders paint its history on utility poles, cultivating a sense of place and intergenerational appreciation of the community.
- She organized “Warflowers: From Swords to Plowshares,” a 2005–06 traveling exhibit by 44 Maine artists, launching discussion about how to convert our defense-based economy into a peace economy.
Since 1975, Mayers has supervised the painting of over 500 murals as a touring artist with the Maine Commission for the Arts. She is an artist-in-residence for Peace Action Maine and was a National Endowment for the Arts Millennium Artist in Portsmouth, Ohio.
In 2005, Mayers received the Arthur Hall Award “for an artist whose work, community service and commitment to their craft inspires others around them to reach to their highest potential.” She has encouraged creativity in students from nursery school to college and in diverse populations, including immigrants, refugees, prisoners, the homeless, and the “psychiatrically labeled”.
In her own painting, Mayers often explores themes of peace and social justice. By placing images of war on Maine’s landscape in her “State of War” series, she effectively asks, How would we feel if it happened here?
“An empathetic response,” says Mayers, “requires imagination.” | <urn:uuid:3c81b111-ba07-4231-acc8-91b0b0e1bd21> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://americanswhotellthetruth.org/portraits/natasha-mayers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966183 | 429 | 2.40625 | 2 |
Our counseling is dircted towards migrant women and their families. Clients come to agisra from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Middle and East Asia. Our counseling is shaped based on the requests and needs of the women who come to seek help.
Psychosocial counseling and therapy
Psychosocial support for victims of human trafficking
Outreach work and street work in the world of pimps and prostitutes
Information concerning migrant-specific social and legal questions
Information on education and offers of help from other institutions
Accompaniment to local authorities and help in dealing with such authorities
Accommodation in women’s shelters for women seeking protection
agisra Köln offers psychosocial counseling and support for all migrant and refugee women regardless of social and ethnic origin, religion, age, sexual orientation and residence status.
We offer free, anonymous counseling on a voluntary basis.
One of our colleagues here offers individual, couple, and family therapy from a transcultural, feminist, systematic approach. This therapy is offered in German and Korean, and in other languages with the help of interpreters. | <urn:uuid:1e7a2e2e-1945-431c-9c1e-7aa34753b41a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.e-migrantinnen.de/index.php?en_beratung-und-therapie | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919901 | 228 | 1.53125 | 2 |
An oar is an implement used for water-borne propulsion. Oars have a flat blade at one end. Oarsmen grasp the oar at the other end. The difference between oars and paddles are that paddles are held by the paddler, and are not connected with the vessel. Oars generally are connected to the vessel by means of rowlocks or tholes which transmit the applied force to the boat. In this system (known as a second class lever) the water is the fulcrum.
Oarsmen generally face the stern of the vessel, reach as far as they can towards the stern, and insert the blade of their oar in the water. As they lean back, towards the vessel's bow, the blade of their oars sweeps the water towards the stern, providing forward thrust – see lever.
For thousands of years vessels were powered either by sails, or the mechanical work of oarsmen, or paddlers. Some ancient vessels were propelled by either oars or sail, depending on the speed and direction of the wind (see galley).
Rowing oars have been used since the early Neothilic period. Wooden oars, with canoe-shaped pottery, dating from 5000-4500 BC have been discovered in a Hemudu culture site at Yuyao, Zhejiang in modern China. In 1999, an oar measuring 63.4 cm (2 ft) in length, dating from 4000 BC, has also been unearthed at Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan.
Oars have traditionally been made of wood. The form is a long shaft (or loom) with a flat blade on the end. Where the oar connects to the boat there is a "collar" which stops the oar slipping past the rowlock. Oars usually have a handle about 150mmlong, which may be a material sleeve or alternatively an ovoid shape carved to fit the hands.
Balanced Oar
This is a normal,usually wooden oar, to which weight has been added at the inboard end so that the blade end is noticeably lighter and easier for a rower to operate without fatigue. The two methods of adding weight are to either have a much larger section in the oar immediately next to the handle for a distance of about 450mm or to drill a 18mm hole inside the handle for a distance of about 150mm and add about 12oz of lead secured by epoxy resin glue. For a 7 feet oar the balance point is about 12 inches outboard of the rowlock. Often surplus wood is removed from the blade's width and thickness and at the neck between the blade and the shaft to further reduce outboard weight. This type of oar is much better for long range rowing.
Oars used for transportation
The oars used for transportation come in a variety of sizes. The oars used in small dinghies or rafts can be less than 2 metres long. In classical times warships were propelled by very long oars that might have several oarsmen per oar. These oars could be more than a dozen metres long.
Oars used for competitive rowing
The oars used in competitive rowing are long (250–300 cm) poles with one flat end about 50 cm long and 25 cm wide, called the blade. The part of the oar the oarsman holds while rowing is called the handle. While rowing, the oars are supported by metal frames attached to the side of the boat called outriggers. Classic oars were made of wood, but modern oars are made from synthetic material, the most common being carbon fibre.
Oars used as trophies
The sport of competitive rowing has developed a peculiar[dubious ] tradition of using an oar as a memento of significant race wins. A 'trophy oar' is not presented at the end of the race as a more familiar precious metal cup might be, but rather given by the club, school or university that the winning crew or rower represented.
A trophy oar is a competition oar that has been painted in the club colours and has then had the details of the race signwritten on the face of the blade. The most common format would have the coat of arms or crest of the club or school positioned in the centre, with the crew names and the race details arranged around this.
Many older universities (Oxford and Cambridge would be prime examples, as well as Yale and Harvard) and their colleges have long histories of using the trophy oar and many examples are on display in club houses around the world.
In culture
Oars have been used to describe various animals with characteristics that closely resemble the said rowing implement. The members of the Family Regalecidae, elongated deep-sea fishes, are called oarfish because their body shape is similar to that of an oar. The hawksbill turtle's genus of Eretmochelys is derived from the Latin root eretmo, which roughly translates to oar. The turtle was so-named because of the oar-like shape of its front flippers.
- "2011 FISA Rule Book". FISA. p. 53. Retrieved 19 January 2013.
- Deng, Gang. (1997). Chinese Maritime Activities and Socioeconomic Development, c. 2100 B.C.-1900 A.D. Westport: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-29212-4, p. 22.
- Miriam T. Stark (15 April 2008). Archaeology of Asia. John Wiley & Sons. p. 130. ISBN 978-1-4051-5303-4. Retrieved 5 October 2012.
- The Japan Times. (February 10, 1999). Oldest oar unearthed from Ishikawa ruins. Retrieved on 2008-08-13.
- Beltz, Ellin. "Translations and Original Descriptions: Turtles". Scientific and Common Names of the Reptiles and Amphibians of North America - Explained. ebeltz.net. Retrieved 2007-02-06. | <urn:uuid:716b0538-a6cd-4f42-948a-603e9ea3f8f6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oar | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945093 | 1,257 | 3.875 | 4 |
By contrast, the term Sept is virtually unknown to the Irish general public, and is found solely in the dustier history books in the larger libraries. It is a term used almost exclusively by a small minority of academics who appear to have latched onto it because it was used by two highly regarded historians: Eoin MacNeill and Edward MacLysaght. The following scholarly analysis by Kenneth W. Nicholls (lecturer in the Department of History at University College Cork and editor for the Irish Manuscripts Commission) provides an insight into the importance of the clan in Medieval Ireland, and clarifies the background to the usage of terms like Clan and Sept:-
"Medieval Ireland was, of course, a society of clans or lineages - referred to as 'nations' in contemporary English terminology - and the most outstanding feature in the Gaelicization of the Anglo-Norman settlers was the speed with which, within the first century following the invasion, the concept of the clan had become established among them. Irish scholars have shown a curious dislike for the word 'clan', itself an Irish word (clann, lit. 'children', 'offspring') borrowed through Scotland, but as the term is in normal use by social anthropologists to denote the kind of corporate descent group of which I am speaking, I have no hesitation in employing it. The study, however, of clan- or lineage-based societies - which, whether in Medieval Ireland, in Asia or Africa, constitute a particular form of organisation with distinctive features in common - is comparatively recent. In the sense in which I am using it here, a clan may be defined as a unilineal (in the Irish case, patrilineal) descent group forming a definite corporate entity with political and legal functions. This latter part of the definition is an important one, for the functions of the clan in a clan-organised society lie entirely in the 'politico-jural' and not in the 'socio-familial' sphere, that is to say, they are concerned with the political and legal aspects of life and not with those of the family. The earlier term for such a unit was fine, which by late medieval times had been replaced in Ireland (although it survived in Gaelic Scotland) by the term sliocht (literally, 'division') translated into Renaissance Romance-English as 'sept'. Normally a clan would occupy and possess particular lands or territory, its occupation or ownership of the land being one of its most important corporate functions. (This does not, it need hardly be said, imply that the territory was held in common among the members of the clan or that outsiders would not be present within the clan territory. The objection of some Irish scholars to the concept of the clan may owe its origin to a reaction against absurdities of this kind.) As the clan is a corporate entity with functions only in particular spheres and aspects of life it is, of course, absurd to conceive of a clan-based society as being divided into clans as if into compartments; then clan, like a modern company, can be a very variable thing. A clan may be represented by a single individual only, the only member remaining of his descent-group, which nevertheless continues to exist so long as any member of it survives. The small descent-groups within a larger clan may each constitute entities or clans, while remaining part of the larger one, and may again be similarly divided themselves."
"In the case of Ireland, the greater part of the humbler classes certainly did not belong to any recognised clans or descent-groups other than their immediate family groups (father and sons, or a group of brothers). In the case of persons like these, devoid of political influence or property, the clan would have had no functions which could serve to hold it together. Conall Mageoghegan, writing in 1627, refers contemptuously to persons of this sort as 'mere churls and labouring men, [not] one of whom knows his own great-grandfather'. The phrase is significant; in a lineage-based society the keeping of genealogies is of primary importance. Not only is membership of the clan conferred by descent, but the precise details of this descent may determine a person's legal rights in, for instance, the property of the clan. In Ireland the keeping of genealogies was entrusted to the professional families of scribes and chroniclers. In 1635 we find a genealogy of the Butlers of Shanballyduff in County Tipperary prepared by Hugh Óg Magrath 'out of the new and old books of his ancestors written in the Irish language', and in 1662 Arthur O Neill, about to be admitted as a knight of the Order of Calatrava in Spain and asked for his pedigree, referred the Order to 'the chronicler Don Tulio Conrreo', otherwise Tuileagna O Mulconry, who duly produced the required pedigree back to Donnell of Armagh, King of Ireland in 976."
"As the clan was a unit only in a legal and political sense, one must not, of course, expect it to show the sort of internal solidarity one expects of the family. Indeed, causes of tension and conflict might be expected to be highest within the lineage group, where rights over the clan property would be a constant ground for dispute. When we read in an early seventeenth-century law suit, with reference to two Purcell brothers who held in common a minute property in County Tipperary, that 'the said Patrick was killed by the said Geoffrey for some difference betwixt them about the said land', we see what must have been a common outcome of fraternal tension. Where the succession to a great lordship was at stake, violence of this kind would be even more likely and cousins, whose interests would normally be in direct opposition, would be almost automatic enemies. The clan might close its ranks against an outsider and collectively seek vengeance against the slayer of one of its members, but within itself it might equally exist in a permanent state of hostility and division. Such hostility, if continued over generations, would inevitably lead to its division into separate fragments, each of which would function as a separate clan, and the more numerous the clan, the sooner was this likely to happen."
Gaelic and Gaelicized Ireland in the Middle Ages
Dublin: Lilliput Press, Second Edition 2003 | <urn:uuid:0e0b19d8-7b1a-4cb6-9bf2-cee8e0679c0e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://homepage.eircom.net/~oflannery/clansandsepts.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969256 | 1,315 | 3.34375 | 3 |
Jhargram Palace is located at Jhargram
in Midnapore District
in West Bengal
. It is about 73 km from Kankrajhor
. A large variety of Sal, Pial, Asan, Teak, Kulekhara and Thankuni trees surrounds the palace. This ancient palace has now been turned to a tourist lodge. Savitri Devi Temple is a nearby attraction.
By road, the palace can be approached from Kolkata (155 km). Jhargram Railway Station is the nearest railhead. | <urn:uuid:a02d9641-8423-476e-852d-e52097fa6ae4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.india9.com/i9show/-West-Bengal/Jhargram-Palace-64798.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963443 | 114 | 1.5625 | 2 |
|Chapter :||Scenario 1: The Internet and Evolution of Human Intelligence|
words used and search expertise/technique that the users utilizes. Those who are search savvy and can conduct effective searches that obtain quality results will most likely increase the quality of the information they receive and this may have an effect on their intelligence—those that are unable to search effectively do not have the same level of access to quality/applicable information. I also believe that the integration for search into social media (which is something that may be unavoidable) has the potential to ‘push’ information to users that are not as search ‘savvy’ and could increase intelligence in this group but as things are I believe that the both are true and an increase, or decrease in intelligence is dependent on the user’s ability to search effectively.” —Stephan Adelson, president of Adelson Consulting Services and founder of Internet Interventions, a company that promotes health and patient support
“As a species, we’ve been on an arc of ever-increasing access to information since we shared the secret of fire…and it’s assured that what we define as intelligence will continue to change. Google helps organize the vast amount of information that we can use. What it can’t replace is experience. If intelligence is determined by our ability to satiate curiosity and apply the fruit of research, Google will make us smarter. What it cannot do, however, is make us wise or guide us through the emotional ramifications of our decisions.” —Chad Davis, director of production and project development at the Center for Innovative Media at George Washington University
We enhance intelligence by building and using online social networks to help people solve problems through “collective intelligence.” This is also raising new opportunities and challenges.
“There’s no doubt that the Internet is an extension of human intelligence, both individual and collective. But the extent to which it is able to augment intelligence depends on how much people are able to make it conform to their needs. Being able to look up who starred in the second season of ‘The Tracey Ullman Show’ on Wikipedia is the lowest form of intelligence augmentation; being able to build social networks and interactive software that helps you answer specific questions or enrich your intellectual life is much more powerful. This will matter even more as the Internet becomes more pervasive. Already my iPhone functions as the external, silicon lobe of my brain. For it to help me become even | <urn:uuid:39ce605c-8ffd-40c1-becd-7f7cd979e68f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cambriapress.com/elpreader.cfm?bookid=9781604977325&page=22 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94717 | 515 | 2.421875 | 2 |
IN THIS CHAPTER
- Understanding Files and Folders
- Viewing Folders and Files
- Navigating Folders
- Searching for Files
- Creating New Folders
- Renaming Files and Folders
- Copying Files
- Moving Files
- Deleting Files
- Working with Compressed Folders
- Copying Files to Another Computer
- Backing Up Your Important Files
Managing the data stored on your computer is vitally important. After you've saved a file, you may need to copy it to another computer, move it to a new location on your hard drive, rename it, or even delete it. You have to know how to perform all these operations—which means learning how to work with Windows' files, folders, and disks.
Understanding Files and Folders
All the information on your computer is stored in files. A file is nothing more than a collection of digital data. The contents of a file can be a document (such as a Word memo or Excel spreadsheet), a digital photo or music track, or the executable code for a software program. The contents of a file can be a document from an application (such as a Works worksheet or a Word document), or they can be the executable code for the application itself.
Every file has its own unique name. A defined structure exists for naming files, and its conventions must be followed for Windows to understand exactly what file you want when you try to access one. Each filename must consist of two parts, separated by a period—the name (to the left of the period) and the extension (to the right of the period). A filename can consist of letters, numbers, spaces, and characters and looks something like this: filename.ext.
Windows stores files in folders. A folder is like a master file; each folder can contain both files and additional folders. The exact location of a file is called its path and contains all the folders leading to the file. For example, a file named filename.doc that exists in the system folder, that is itself contained in the windows folder on your c:\ drive, has a path that looks like this: c:\windows\system\filename.doc.
Learning how to use files and folders is a necessary skill for all computer users. You might need to copy files from one folder to another or from your hard disk to a floppy disk. You certainly need to delete files every now and then. To do this in Windows Vista, you use Windows Explorer; in Windows XP, you use the My Documents folder. | <urn:uuid:a55ca2b1-9fa7-40b7-b924-be666ba10b8e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.quepublishing.com/articles/article.aspx?p=705691 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923143 | 522 | 3.828125 | 4 |
Go West, Young Man!
David ChuhranHorace Greeley is often credited with a famous quote actually made by John B. L. Soule. The quote first appeared as the title to the 1851, Terre Haute Express editorial written by Mr. Soule. Along with being wrongly credited to Mr. Greeley, it has also often been misquoted. It was originally written as:
Even though Horace Greeley was not the author of this famous quote, which he partially used in his own 1865 editorial, he was nevertheless an important contributor to history. He launched the New York Tribune in 1841 and used it as a personal platform for advancing his political views. In one of his other more famous editorials, penned during the Civil War and titled, “The Prayer of Twenty Millions”, he demanded slave emancipation earning him a personal reply from Abraham Lincoln in August of 1862. Greeley was a Republican who hired Karl Marx as his European correspondent during the1850’s. He was an advocate of western settlement as well the voice for many social causes including labor rights.
Our expansion westward was an exciting time in history. There was opportunity and adventure to be had for the young, unattached men of the time. There was also a great need for able bodied young men to help this young country forge a path through the wilderness of the untamed West. So, in great numbers they went West to build another pillar in the foundation upon which our great nation now stands.
The problem is that nobody ever told us to stop that western migration. While there was a period of delay and consolidation, we’ve now continued West by ship and plane. As a matter of fact, we’ve gone so far West that we ended up in the Far East. While trade with China dates back over 200 years, the recent history of trade begins with President Richard Nixon's historic visit in 1972. It started as an innocent diplomatic mission to actively engage an isolationist nation through trade, but has grown into a wholesale exportation of our manufacturing capability and jobs.
I must admit that I’ve had suspicions for sometime. These suspicions revolve around the Fed’s claim that our productivity growth has been one of the primary reasons for our economic recovery. Yet, when you look back throughout history, every recession was followed by a strong rebound in employment, except one---this one. This recovery has been characterized by sluggish employment revitalization with many of the re-employed earning much less and without benefits. This has been broadly rationalized away in the name of our miraculous, new found productivity paradigm.
I believe this claim is false.
We’ve experienced a period of prolonged growth and expansion beginning with our entry into World War II. Since 1947, our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has grown by 570%. The chart below shows our recent GDP along with the Trade Balance of Goods (1992-2003). GDP grew by 45% while the Trade Balance experienced nearly 450% negative growth (year over year) relative to 1992. This Trade “Imbalance” (more appropriately) grew 10 times faster than the GDP and comprised 5% of our total 2003 GDP.
Did we import our growth?
I see at least two possible scenarios in light of the rising GDP. First, our production capacity was humming along at nearly 100% and we were unable to supply our requisite demand, so we were forced to import more than we export. Or second, our capacity was stable or shrinking and we imported a disproportionate amount to fuel the GDP growth because it was cheaper and more profitable to do so.
Before I continue, let me say that these are government numbers. They can be molded and shaped to present the view that the “Puppet masters” desire. An example of this is the recent unemployment numbers. The December Unemployment Rate dropped from 5.9% to 5.7% on a total gain of only 1,000 jobs because 309,000 people quit looking. Now that’s distorted! The problem is that absent any viable and widely accepted alternative, we’ll have to live within the framework they provide. My intention is not to tear apart the construction of their statistics, but rather to show you growing imbalances while playing their game using their numbers.
Since the Trade Balance is the difference between exports and imports, it stands to reason that excess imports should be easily explained with one of the scenarios described above. First, let’s see how good we were at producing.
Industrial Production (+49%) roughly matched GDP growth (+45%) over the same period from 1992-2003 as shown in the charts above. The difference occurred from 1999 through present, where Industrial Production suffered a distinct flattening. I went back to look at GDP for that period and found that it grew 16.3% from 1999 to present while Industrial Production only grew 6.5% (relative to a 1992 baseline). I also noticed the Trade Imbalance accelerated at the same time with 65% of the -$3.458 trillion occurring in the last 5 years.
I had to stop here, because it’s obvious. -$3.458 trillion in 12 years! We imported our growth!
What were we thinking? And, who’s going to pay for this?
Sorry, I had to vent ……….but, I discovered more……..now, while the Industrial Production index was flattening, we increased our Trade Imbalance to sustain the GDP growth. Remember, this began during the final leg up to the top of the tech bubble where euphoria was rampant and we were awash in money. Later, in the bubble aftermath and ensuing recession, the Fed left the liquidity floodgates wide open in an effort to raise our sinking economic boat. This promoted over consumption pushing up the Trade Imbalance to an average 4.5% GDP per year over the last 5 years. Those excess Imports accounted for more than we’re used to seeing for normal annual GDP growth. Again, it’s obvious that we grew through Imports. (I know this is difficult and tedious, but hang with me here!)
Was our Efficiency expanding, stable, or contracting?
When I say, “Efficiency”, I’m talking about how good we were at producing “things” in our available factories. This chart shows our factory Capacity Utilization contracted by 7.8% while Production expanded by 6.5% from 1999 through the present. In other words, we were getting a lot more efficient by producing more, in fewer factories. For the utilization to drop as it did, factories had to be idled at such a rate that they diluted the rising production of the operating factories while we continued supplementing production through imports. These numbers are apples and oranges to some degree; regardless, as production moves one way and capacity moves the other way, the spread looks like 14.3% more “orange colored, Efficiency apples” to me.
Now for the kicker, factory Capacity Utilization is a measure of current capacity and is just like the Unemployment Rate. As factories are shuttered, they are removed from the equation just as the 309,000 workers who quit looking for work were removed from the Unemployment Rate calculations. It’s fluid, and there’s no telling how many more factories have empty parking lots with weeds sadly growing up through the cracks, but it’s easy to see there was significant contraction post 1999.
So, how were we able to become this efficient? Did our workers become that much more productive?
This chart suggests our workers became enormously more productive as Manufacturing Output per worker increased by a whopping 20%! This happened while the Unemployment Rate increased by a massive 32% as we lost 2,899,000 total manufacturing jobs. (Whew, we’re through the hard part!)
Simply stated, our vast Efficiency gains were achieved because we made a whole lot more “things”, with a whole lot less people, and did it with fewer factories.
I’m sorry, but that’s crazy!
I can buy the fact that our workers are the most productive in the World. However, if efficiencies like this were achievable now, then why weren’t at least some of these efficiencies in place long ago? We should be seeing small “blood out of a turnip” type efficiency gains, rather than these gargantuan, double digit, compounded gains across the full spectrum over 5 short years. If you buy the argument that our workers are the most productive, as I do, then you can’t turn around and say that there was this much “fat” pre-existing in our manufacturing sector. Mobs of vigilante shareholders would form posses and hunt down any management teams allowing these broad inefficiencies to erode profits. Also, did all the Wall Street analysts have a simple case of self-induced myopia or was it really an advanced case of glaucoma? It doesn’t make sense and I don’t believe it.
So, how did we do it?
I say again, “We were flooded with imports!”
An increasing percentage of imports are coming from China where 2003 GDP grew by 9.1% on an 18% increase in Industrial Production fueling the creation of 8.5 million new jobs. In my opinion, the reason we have such enormous productivity gains, while utilizing fewer factories, is because we are slowly becoming nothing more than the final assembly or distribution point for many components manufactured in China and other countries abroad. We snap the pieces together like LEGOs® and lay claim to the full unit production. If 20% of the components are now produced abroad, we snap them together and claim 100% of the productivity while actually only producing 80% of the end product.
The amazing thing is that embedded in the bloated government “numbers”, the “Puppet masters” actually claim credit for the production accomplished by the Chinese and others while touting the mega-advances in our productivity. Alan Greenspan said in his speech at the Securities Industry Association annual meeting in Boca Raton, Florida on November 6, 2003, “The combination of growing output and falling hours worked was made possible by a startlingly large rise in productivity.”
He was startled?
I’m startled that the Fed Chairman could have this so completely backwards! As we discussed above, that “growing output” is coming from fewer workers, producing more, in less total “hours” resulting in the “large rise in productivity”, not vice versa. You can’t have the productivity cart full before the worker horse is out of the barn! Workers must actually show up to work and produce “things” before you can measure their output per hour and hence, their productivity. Regardless, that “large rise” is not coming solely from direct internal productivity gains anymore. Those internal efficiencies were squeezed out of the system long ago. They’re external now.
For a smaller example, let’s say you produce refrigerators where it takes 10 workers to produce the door and hang it. To compete, you must reduce production costs. So, you decide to buy your doors in China and eliminate all those workers except the one door hanger. After receiving your Chinese doors, your door hanger snaps the hinges in place and you claim credit for 1 refrigerator produced with 9 fewer employees.
This is the external combination they’re using to show the extraordinary rise in total Industrial Production while requiring less factory Capacity Utilization. Combined, they create a false increase in our Productivity growth making this “Jobless Recovery” an easy sell to the gullible public!
Alan Greenspan worships at the altar of Productivity to shroud his interest rate and fiat money policies. In this recent speech, he went on to offer 3 different hypotheses, “One hypothesis is that some of the increase represents a temporary rise in the level of productivity….”
I would have to say this job shift is looking pretty permanent as it’s very hard to pry open the rusted factory shutters and retrain whole classes of skilled workers. The artificial “Strong Dollar Policy” has encouraged the Walton Dynasty to build the “Great Wall”martat the expense of our manufacturing capacity and capability as well as countless “Mom and Pop” retailers.
He went on to suggest, “Another hypothesis is that the level of productivity has undergone a one-time permanent upward shift. This hypothesis builds on the idea that the heavy emphasis on exploiting new and expanding markets from 1995 to 2000 likely diverted some corporate management from the hard work of controlling costs.”
I have to agree, there’s no more productivity left to be squeezed out of the American workers that still have jobs. Those that don’t are feeling pretty much “exploited” as their jobs were moved into the “expanding” Chinese market. If we were somehow able to bring back the tens of thousands of jobs that produced towels, linens, clothing, and shoes---all low productivity/low dollar value goods---our Productivity numbers would actually go down. Would those workers that lost their jobs be upset by that? Sadly, using Greenspan’s logic this would be a bad thing, because only the Productivity numbers matter. Those displaced workers lucky enough to find new jobs are working for much lower wages and benefits; and, then there’s the 309,000 that recently just gave up. Does that mean they no longer exist?
Regarding cost controls, I think many sectors may have already cut through the muscle and into bone as they come dangerously close to causing a deflationary backlash as everyone gets squeezed. That backlash, if it occurs, could arguably be caused by the very policies that Greenspan employed to avoid deflation in the first place. Now, wouldn’t that be ironic?
Greenspan completes the hypothesis smorgasbord by saying, “Finally, yet another hypothesis stresses a more-lasting increase in the growth of output per hour.”
Alan Greenspan sure has a lot of hypotheses and I wish he would pick one. Okay, which of the three hypotheses is it……..temporary, one-time permanent, or more-lasting? I say it’s behind door number three, more-lasting. As long as they continue to shift jobs abroad, while taking credit for the out-sourced component production, it’s likely to last a long time. In that case, we can get back to producing more of his favorites: consumption, fiat paper, and debt. The game ends when the music stops and the net-Exporters can’t see over their arm loads of worthless fiat paper to realize we took all the chairs that they made and went home.
I think my suspicions are confirmed. Just as Horace Greeley was wrongly credited for his misquoted use of ’John B. L. Soules famous editorial title, we’ve been wrongly credited with productivity gains accomplished by the Chinese and others through the government’s use of misquoted production numbers. The ironic thing about all this is that Horace Greeley, the labor rights advocate, would be appalled on multiple counts, while his employee, Comrade Karl Marx, would be proud!
The good news is if we keep going West, we’ll eventually land on our own East coast.
So, I say …….Go West, young man, and rebuild your country!
Copyright © 2004 David S. Chuhran. All Rights Reserved
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website design tips is always use table less design.
I had using these most three point for all my web-design projects. First one is You have to use Neat and Easy Navigation: Navigation of links on your site plays a big role in determining the stickiness of your site. Then second one is Clean Layout Design: A clean layout that uses a lot of white space enhances a site's looks. Try to keep the focus on your content, use dreamweaver templates for this. And last is, which very Important, Program using pure CSS: The world is moving away from table based websites to pure CSS websites because it offers accessibility, reusability and considerably reduces file size apart from giving greater control over the look of your website.
The points which have discussed by all members above here are really interesting.Few more tips which I want to add here are:
Design is linkbait
Have great linking with footers
Keep a horizontal directory structure
CSS image replacement
Web designing should be neat and clear as it is very much necessary for the promotion of the services,it should by only create by the experts only, here are some of the web designing tips are it should be neat and clear, make the correct use of the color and many more.
Thanks sharing best tips For Web Design. It is best tips for me. Here i sharing something more about web design. There's practically an unlimited amount of resources available on the web for the entire Adobe/Macromedia suites. I'd recommend trying some of the tutorials available at the following web site:
PHP and CSS are more powerful languages for the website design. If you have the Photoshop and Coral knowledge with that. It do a great work on your website.....
web page design firms
Wow a lot of web haters here...there isn't anything wrong with webs. It's good for the basics that I use. I do change the backgrounds and banners from time to time
You see I am simply one hell of a Nobody
Keep the page size small
Set ALT image tags
Learn about style sheets
What's in the background?
Use a descriptive title
Include a site map
Optimise your graphics
Following are some web design tips:
1. One should have good knowledge of it.
2. The site must not be costly or goody.
3. The site must contains all the required topics.
4. The site must be attractive.
Good method for learning:
- Create a basic site with no formatting
- Create a table and do basic formatting
- Change to div tags and CSS
- Learn PHP
- Use PHP to create header and footer files with the CSS link in them
A lot of people here have asked HTMLBasicTutor for advice in the background here at v7n and you could do a lot worse than to learn from this team. I know because I can personally vouch for their services and help.
Use a suitable language according to your website requirements. Try to have an attractive user interface and easy navigation throughout your website.
I have an idea to start a webpage for comic characters and for the start I believe that this thread will be really useful. I went through from top to bottom and I can say that most of the posts are really effective.
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Ireland Travel Information
- Travel from Ireland to Ukraine by car!
- Irish Travel Itinerary/ Top Attractions in Ireland
- Got a question or comment about Ireland? Ask a Travel Expert!
GMT (GMT +1 between the last Sunday in March and the Saturday before the last Sunday in October).
Electrical current is 230 volts, 50Hz. UK-style three-pin and round three-pin plugs are in use.
English and Irish (Gaelic) are both widely spoken.
There are no special health requirements for visitors to Ireland but there are a few vaccinations which are recommended for travel almost anywhere: a MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccination is recommended for anybody not up to date, as is a tetanus-diphtheria vaccination (recommended every ten years). A flu vaccination may also be recommended by your medical practitioner if you are travelling between November and April.
Health insurance is advisable unless you are from the UK or other EU countries, most of which have reciprocal agreements with Ireland. A European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) should be obtained before departing for travel to Ireland. Medical facilities are good and medicines are widely available; payment for treatment is usually required in cash. If you require specific medication, it is always advised that you bring it with you on your travels: make sure you transport all medications in their original containers, clearly labeled; and that you carry a signed, dated letter from your doctor describing all medical conditions and listing all prescribed medications, including generic names.
A 10 percent tip will be welcomed in restaurants and cafes, but tipping is not usual in bars and pubs. Tipping is not common for other services.
Most visitors to Ireland enjoy a fairly high level of personal safety. Ireland has a very low level of violent crime, but there is a high incidence of petty theft in tourist areas and foreigners are targetted by pick-pockets. Travellers should take sensible precautions against petty theft, including duplicating important documents, carrying valuables in separate bags/pockets, and leaving valuables in hotel safes whenever possible.
Terrorism is no more a threat in Ireland than in other Western countries and safety in the country has improved significantly with peace in Northern Ireland. Those travelling into Northern Ireland should note that the safety alerts for that country are completely seperate and can be found in the United Kingdom travel guide.
Smoking in pubs, cafes and restaurants is illegal. Visitors should refrain from forcing discussions of political and religious differences, and show respect if the topics are brought up.
The Irish are very sociable and although the usual elements of business etiquette apply (punctuality, formal wear, a courteous manner), expect good conversation and a rather relaxed air. Handshakes are customary on introduction, and take the lead from the host with regards to using first names or surnames. Business hours are usually from 9am to 5.30pm Monday to Friday, with a lunch break from 1pm to 2pm.
The international access code for Ireland is +353 (do not dial the first zero of the area code). The outgoing code is 00, or 048 for Northern Ireland, followed by the relevant country code (e.g. 0044 for the United Kingdom). City/area codes are in use, e.g. 1 for Dublin. The local mobile phone operators use GSM networks and have roaming agreements with most international operators. Internet cafes are available in the main tourist areas.
Travellers over 17 years arriving from non-EU countries do not have to pay duty on 200 cigarettes, 100 cigarillos, 50 cigars, 250g tobacco or a proportional mix of these; 1 litre spirits with more than 22% alcohol volume, or 2 litres dessert wine with a maximum 22% alcohol content, or a proportional mix of these products, and 2 litres table wine; perfume up to 50g or 250ml eau de toilette; and other goods for personal consumption to the value of €175 per adult or €90 for children under 15 years. Prohibited items include meat or dairy products or raw vegetables.
Become our Ireland Travel Expert
We are looking for contributors for our Ireland travel guide. If you are a local, a regular traveller to Ireland or a travel professional with time to contribute and answer occasional forum questions, please contact us.
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MEXICO CITY -- A new documentary on drug-war violence in Mexico is perhaps most remarkable for what it does not portray.
There are no shootouts, no decapitated bodies hanging from highway overpasses.
Instead, award-winning filmmaker Natalia Almada takes her audience into the quiet, busy world of the Humaya Gardens cemetery in Culiacan, the Sinaloa capital considered the historic center of Mexican drug trafficking.
Here death is relentless. With its garish mausoleums and extravagant crypts, the cemetery is the final resting place for numerous drug cartel capos and their legions of mostly young henchmen.
The film, "El Velador" ("The Night Watchman"), follows Martin, who works the graveyard shift, so to speak, at Humaya Gardens. He arrives at sunset, sits or dozes through the night (it is too dangerous to actually patrol the grounds after dark, he says, because of partying, trigger-happy drug goons) and tidies up in the morning, picking up beer bottles and sweeping before walking off in the yellow daylight.
"I fell in love with him as a character," Almada said, citing Martin's "quiet, stoic presence."
"He asks us to live with him, in the cemetery, at his pace," she said. "He is the clock of the cemetery."
Almada said her goal in making "El Velador" was to offer a "more contemplative" view of the violence that dominates Mexico today, not the sensationalistic portrait too common in the daily media.
"I wanted to humanize it, to put it on a more human scale," she said in a telephone interview from the U.S., where the documentary has been screening this week.
Almada's film is stark and sparse. There is virtually no dialogue. Martin occasionally offers a comment; we hear a single conversation among gravediggers about whether the latest kingpin has really been slain, as authorities claim.
What we do hear are the sounds of daily life amid the dead: a shovel hitting earth, a priest's intonations, a child playing hopscotch on tombs. And, from the radio in Martin's beat-up truck and his wavy black-and-white TV set, we hear the litany of drug-war mayhem as broadcasters read the "nota roja," the crime news. Bodies dumped roadside, young men kidnapped; "Culiacan has become a warzone," the broadcaster says.
And at times it seems the cemetery can barely keep up. In one sequence, the builders are finishing a gravesite even as a body waits in a hearse and a woman is heard wailing for her son; the concrete crypt is drying as mourning wreathes are being gathered.
"It's also the futility of it all," Almada said. The death toll rises and rises. Martin waters the dirt. A widow mops her husband's mausoleum, over and over again.
Almada filmed in Humaya Gardens off and on for several months in 2009-2010."El Velador" is a co-production of Altamura Films, Latino Public Broadcasting and American Documentary/POV. It begins airing in the Los Angeles area Friday on PBS affiliates. Check local listings.
-- Tracy Wilkinson
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Pedro León Simanca, MSc.
“I have been using Automation Studio for a long time and have seen the program evolve from version 3.01 to 5.6. Previously, classes consisted of drawing valves on the board or in a notebook and imagining the movements of the valves and actuators; now I am able to simulate circuits in a realistic way; the student can input data about load, volume, pressure and RPM and gain reliable results. An easy way to assemble circuits and the quantity of standard symbols which the library relies on allows one to make both basic and complicated circuits. I use it in my Hydraulic & Pneumatic and PLC classes, and now we are also working in programming with Grafcet, a tool very much used on an international level. Comparing it with other software that I am familiar with, Automation Studio definitely has more advantages. I recommend it to any university that wants to do different things just as much for students as for the teachers.”
Khalil, Medhat, Director of Professional Education, MSOE
"Milwaukee School of Engineering is a leading school in teaching fluid power and motion control for both undergraduate students and industry professionals.
Lately we have upgraded our training equipment with Automation Studio™ Educational version. Our material were no more static presentations, it became live and interactive. The whole circuits are now presented for the students and discussed interactively to reinforce the understanding of the basic and advanced concepts. With the use of Automation Studio™, teaching fluid power and motion control became fun.
Automation Studio™ helped us a lot in developing PC-Based training modules. Thanks for Automation Studio™."
Richard Day, Professor, Automation & Robotics
"I have been using Automation Studio™ as a teaching tool for classes in pneumatic circuits since the days when it was PneuSim. Every new version has been an improvement over the previous. I now use Automation Studio™ for Pneumatics, Electrical Relay Ladder Logic and for PLC programming lectures.
I have found it to been an effective method to demonstrate control circuits during lectures. Students pay attention in class, ask informed questions, and are usually well prepared for their lab activities after lectures that include one or more simulations. Automation Studio™ makes my job easier and more fun, since I enjoy making the simulations as much as the students enjoy seeing them. "
David Pearce, Plant Mechanics Instructor
"I have been using Automation Studio™ software here at the National Construction College for nearly five years. I have found the Automation Studio™ package invaluable as a teaching resource, as it graphically shows everything you could possibly need from very simple hydraulic, pneumatic and electrical principles right up to the logic systems of electronic control, one of a select few programs on the market that can do this and by far the easiest one to use. Using the Automation Studio™ program is a cost effective and efficient method of teaching all aspects of hydraulic, electric, and pneumatic control; simply a must have for any training facility."
Ognjen Kuljaca, Assistant Professor, Department of Advanced Technology
"We at Alcorn State University are using Automation Studio™ in teaching pneumatics, hydraulics, PLCs and in various electrical engineering courses.
The simulation ability of Automation Studio™ is a great advantage over the other products. Having the same platform that allows for simulation of various circuits makes it much easier for the students and faculty to use the software and shortens the time required from theoretical design and calculation to actual application of the circuit."
Dave Yearwood, Professor, Department of Technology
"I am a firm believer in well-developed simulation software to teach fundamental concepts and Automation Studio™ has become an invaluable tool in my teaching of hydraulics and electrical systems. Tools demonstrate their value when they help accomplish a desired objective and your simulation software has made it possible for me to have greater confidence in students’ ability to tackle complex hydraulic and electrical tasks prior to releasing them to work on real-world systems! In fact, I am so confident in your product that students know that they will not be released to work on any system they design unless they can demonstrate that it works using Automation Studio™!."
Al Manore, Applied Technology
"I am currently using Automation Studio to teach Hydraulic, Pneumatic, and Electrical circuits and have found it to be an excellent tool in moving from textbook to application. I highly recommend it for anyone teaching skilled trades. On a scale of one to ten I would without hesitation give it a solid eleven. I have been using this software for at least the past ten years and it has been anexcellent tool for teaching the trades."
Steven Dick, B.S., M.L.S. Industrial Technology Instructor
“I want to personally thank you and your staff for all the help that you gave me and the college by using Automation Studio. As you know, I was previously using Fluid Sim P. and Fluid Sim H to draw circuits, but with thirty years of sound experience in Fluid Power, I have always found myself limited in the design of complex systems when using circuit design software…until now. I must admit that Automation Studio has facilitated my job as an instructor. Your libraries contain all the required ISO ymbols and the components can be configured according to my needs. Your software has been a great asset for teaching, and it has shown to be an even greater advantage for corporate training. It provides me a competitive advantage over other corporate trainers since I can design the systems of the machines my customers actually use, and to customize my training according to their specific needs. The prints created with Automation Studio can then be used to train new employees. I can’t thank you enough for all the help this represents for me! Your company is great to work with, and your software is second to none.”
Robert Williams, Fluid Power
"With funding for technical programs becoming very limited we find the Automation Studio software an excellent alternative in teaching the basics of hydraulics, pneumatics, and machine control. The software provides a positive feedback as well as reinforcement for the students when they take their lecture information into the lab. The simulated cut-away views allow the student to see "inside" greatly enhancing the non-simulated cut-aways we pass around in class. Then as the student advances Automation Studio simulation software reinforces the circuitry and interaction between the various electrical, pneumatic and hydraulic components. We find Automation Studio an excellent teaching tool and an alternative to the high cost of funding a professional/technical college program."
Dr Jan Brink, Manufacturing Engineering Technology
"Automation Studio is a good tool for designing circuits before the students build them in the lab. The simulation capabilities will tell them if their circuit will work in the real world. It is also much faster than for example AutoCad since most symbols are already there."
David Hubbert, Program Chair, Industrial Maintenance Technology
"I have found that Automation Studio provides an excellent "bridge" from theory to application. Students who use the software more readily develop the ability to build real circuits and demonstrate the understanding of the theories behind the circuitry. It is a very effective teaching tool and I would highly reccomend it for the technical instructor."
Will Hadden, Instructor,Alabama Industrial Development Training
"I became aquainted with Automation Studio about 7 years ago when I was instructing at Shelton State Community College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I needed something that I could use in the classroom to draw basic circuits for the students. Since this program not only allowed me to draw them, but to simulate them as well, it was the choice for the time. Since then, I have seen several others on the market, but none seem to have all the "bells and whistles" that this program has. One of our customers at SSCC saw a demonstration during a tour of our facility, and liked the program so much that they purchased it for their plant and put all their hydraulic systems on it. They installed it on the machine computers and use it for troubleshooting and for making design changes in their circuits.
Here at AIDT, I am having it installed on student computers so that they can draw the circuits that we build on our trainers. This allows them to "try" their circuits to see if they will work before building them. We are also installing it in our Electro-Pneumatic lab where they teach troubleshooting. We have had very good response from all who have used or viewed this program."
Thanks for a good product.
Frank D. Petruzella, Technical Author
"Computer-based simulation of circuitry is gaining wide acceptance as a tool that can be used to facilitate learnin in curriculum dealing with electrical engineering technology. As a user of Automation Studio I have found this package to an ideal tool for teaching the fundamentals of industrial controls in general and PLC ladder logic programming in particular."
Jacques Martineau, Teacher, Electromechanics of automated systems
"The current letter is a testimonial of my appreciation of Automation Studio.
As a teacher in electromechanical of automated systems, I’ve always been concerned with improving the learning process of my students by using different educational tools that would allow me to reach my teaching goals.
Since my discovery of Automation Studio, I have recognised that this software is truly the educational tool par excellence. It is valued by students and teachers alike. Its simplicity of operation, its multiple workshops, and its simulation function make it the perfect learning tool.
I have no other choice but to recommend it wholeheartedly."
Schmidt, Juergenq, Prof. Dr.-Ing
"In my courses, I have been using Automation Studio for some years in order to simulate the control applications. As the software is very user-friendly, it allows to create control applications of higher complexity very quickly.
I use Automation Studio for:
- Pneumatic Controls (Circuits, MB)
- Hydraulic Controls (Circuits, MB)
- Electrical Controls (Relay Ladder Logic)
- PLC Ladder Logic
In all cases, the program has been working the best way. The students are inspired by the control applications animation. The simulation allows to discover faulty behavior within the circuits very fast and to troubleshoot them."
Mr Kerryn Newey, Department of Mechanical Engineering
"I used the pneumatic simulation package last year and found it to be very good. Its an easy package to learn to use. I found it very useful for simulating exam and test questions and also for drawing up nice neat memorandums. It saves a huge amount of time because all the symbols are available in a symbol library, and you just have to drag and drop them into place. It also saves time in designing suitable circuits for tutorials and tests because of the ability of the software to simulate the circuit as you build onto it. I don't know how it compares to other similar simulation packages but I can highly recommend it."
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Most Active Stories
Mon December 5, 2011
Russia's Election Results A Setback For Putin
Russia's ruling political party fared worse than expected in a parliamentary election Sunday. The vote is being viewed as a setback for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's United Russia party, which retained power but has a weaker majority in Parliament. For more on the election, Steve Inskeep speaks with Masha Lipman, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center. | <urn:uuid:f982c958-33aa-49ad-ada8-ba42318c92c1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kunm.org/post/russias-election-results-setback-putin | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963956 | 88 | 1.5 | 2 |
Referring to widely discredited attacks on Senator John Kerry's military service by the anti-Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, falsely claimed that "major pieces of this story ... are true." Sabato's remarks came during a discussion on the August 30 edition of FOX News Channel's Special Report with Brit Hume.
Hume asked Sabato about what sort of media coverage a news story had to attract before it could significantly affect a campaign:
HUME: Does it not -- a story have to eventually break into some of the main news organizations for it to really have an impact?
SABATO: Absolutely, it has to, but it also has to be true. And there are at least major pieces of this story -- like Cambodia, like the first Purple Heart, and like the 1971 testimony to the U.S. Senate by Kerry -- that are true.
In fact, all three of the charges by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that Sabato referenced have been discredited.
John E. O'Neill, co-founder of Swift Boat Vets, claimed in Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry (which he co-authored with Jerome R. Corsi) that "Kerry was never in Cambodia" because neither he nor any other swift boats were allowed to cross the Cambodian border. Yet a recently released audiotape of O'Neill's meeting with former President Richard Nixon in 1971 reveals that O'Neill told Nixon that O'Neill himself was in Cambodia on a swift boat during his service in Vietnam. As Media Matters for America has noted, either O'Neill lied to the president then, or he is lying now.
2) First Purple Heart
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth has alleged that Kerry did not earn his first Purple Heart, but the group has produced only one veteran -- retired Rear Admiral William L. Schachte Jr. -- who claims to be a witness to the events in question. But as MMFA has noted, Schachte's account of the events leading to Kerry's first Purple Heart has been been severely undermined. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's own website contradicts his account of the December 2, 1968, incident, and Schachte has contradicted his own account in earlier statements.
Moreover, as MMFA has previously reported, the two crewmen who joined Kerry on the mission -- Patrick Runyon and William Zaladonis -- support Kerry's version of events and insist that Schachte was not on the boat that night.
3) 1971 Senate testimony
Finally, the charge leveled by Swift Boat Vets in its second TV ad -- that Kerry betrayed his fellow Vietnam soldiers by accusing them of atrocities in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as spokesman for Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) in 1971 -- is a gross distortion of what Kerry said. As MMFA has repeatedly documented (on August 23 and August 24), Kerry's testimony related the stories of other Vietnam veterans who came home and related their personal experiences in what was known as the Winter Soldier Investigation. Kerry did not blame these soldiers for the acts they claimed to have committed. Rather, the focus of Kerry's remarks was an indictment of the leaders at the time. | <urn:uuid:446b5168-f240-4157-a2ed-60aa8ffef823> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mediamatters.org/research/2004/08/31/on-fox-sabato-called-swift-boat-vets-lies-true/131759 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975811 | 667 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Epidemics have piggybacked their way on wars across the world for thousands of years. The Plague of Galen, which decimated Rome in 165 A.D., entered the empire with soldiers returning from the Near East. Infectious diseases, more than swords or guns, helped Pizarro conquer the Incas. In the early eighteen-seventies, a smallpox pandemic that accompanied the Franco-Prussian War killed more than half a million Europeans.
Smallpox claimed the lives of tens of thousands of French soldiers, yet the Prussians lost fewer than five hundred men. That was because Prussia vaccinated its entire Army against the virus, and France did not. There has never been a more dramatic demonstration of a vaccine’s power to alter the course of history. By the end of the decade, several European countries had passed laws mandating vaccination.
Those measures worked. In 1899, smallpox took just over a hundred lives in Germany, a nation of fifty million people. When epidemics broke out in the United States, as they did at about the same time, Surgeon General Walter Wyman seized on the European data, urging compulsory vaccination for all Americans. The disease had become so easy to prevent, he wrote, that “the smallpox patient of to-day is scarcely deserving of sympathy.” Throughout the United States, at the dawn of the Progressive era, dozens of laws and regulations were established to empower police officers, public-health officials, and even the armed forces to vaccinate at will, and, if necessary, at gunpoint.
As Michael Willrich, a historian at Brandeis, notes in his meticulously researched book “Pox: An American History” (Penguin; $27.95), those efforts helped bring an end to smallpox as a serious public-health threat in the United States. But the victory may have come at a cost, initiating what Willrich describes as “one of the most important civil liberties struggles of the twentieth century”: a ferocious clash between personal freedom and public health. The clash reverberates to this day, as a growing number of American parents refuse to inoculate their children against common childhood diseases. Universal vaccination may well be the greatest success story in medical history. But the movement also has a political history—and it’s far less reassuring.
Smallpox was among the most lethal viruses to afflict humanity, killing anywhere from twenty-five to sixty per cent of those it infected and leaving others scarred for life. The first symptoms were fever, malaise, body aches, and vomiting; soon victims suffered mouth sores and then the disease’s ghoulish signature, a savage rash. Within forty-eight hours, the lesions would spread across the body. The patient’s face would become badly swollen, the pain acute. A 1900 handbook of naval medicine describes the final stages: “The pustules break, matter oozes out, crusts form, first on the face and then over other parts of the body.”
Nobody is certain when or how smallpox first appeared. But the virus emerged in Europe sometime between the fifth and seventh centuries and was often endemic during the Middle Ages. By 1700, variolation—deliberate infection with smallpox—had been tried successfully as a preventive measure. It was dangerous, but far less so than the disease itself. Dried smallpox scabs were blown into the nose of an individual, who then contracted a mild form of the disease but was immune afterward. The Colonial preacher Cotton Mather, who had learned about variolation from his slave, attempted to introduce the new practice during a 1721 epidemic in Boston. Mather was denounced as an “inoculation minister,” and his house was firebombed. The actual vaccine—the world’s first—was invented by Edward Jenner, a British country doctor, at the end of the eighteenth century. After noting that milkmaids rarely got the disease, he theorized, correctly, that exposure to cowpox—a virus similar to smallpox but much less virulent—conferred resistance.
Today, Americans expect the federal government to respond to (and contain) any serious contagion. That wasn’t true in the late nineteenth century, the period of Willrich’s focus. The idea of calling for federal aid was unusual, and in the Deep South it was unthinkable. Then, in the mid-eighteen-nineties, after decades of relative quiescence, smallpox began to spread through the communities of Kentucky and other Southern states. Panic kept pace. As a member of the Kentucky Board of Health put it, “One case of small-pox in a tramp will create far more alarm in any community in Kentucky than a hundred cases of typhoid fever and a dozen deaths in the leading families.” Finding themselves defenseless against the virus, communities sought help from the United States Marine Hospital Service—the precursor to the U.S. Public Health Service.
The service dispatched doctors who rode from town to town like U.S. Marshals, brandishing masks and needles instead of badges and guns. They vaccinated the healthy and quarantined the sick. Once an epidemic was under way, those doctors were granted broad police-like powers, and they established the first foothold of federal authority in the South since the end of the Civil War and Reconstruction.
The logic used by the increasingly powerful federal government was straightforward: the good of the community had to outweigh objections raised by a minority. After all, what could be worse than a smallpox epidemic? Willrich offers an answer: curtailing basic civil liberties. As he points out in this eloquent, if not always persuasive, book, compulsory vaccination collided with fundamental medical and religious beliefs held by millions; it overran the rights of parents and, most painfully, contradicted strongly held, and particularly American, notions of personal liberty. For all those reasons, not to mention the fact that the vaccine itself occasionally killed people, the resistance was intense. Residents of many neighborhoods burned down their “pesthouses” (isolation hospitals for infectious patients), fled when vaccinators approached, fought with police, forged vaccination certificates, and often simply refused to deliver sick relatives to authorities. | <urn:uuid:a1331eab-f69b-4074-80c7-ff78c1be0bb6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2011/05/30/110530crbo_books_specter?currentPage=1?currentPage=all?currentPage=all | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961458 | 1,297 | 3.4375 | 3 |
"Vaisampayana said, 'Upon the failure of Krishna's solicitations (for peace), and after he had started for the Pandavas from the Kurus, Kshatri approached Pritha and said these words slowly in grief, 'O mother of living children, thou knowest that my inclination is always for peace, and although I cry myself hoarse, yet Suyodhana doth not accept my words. King Yudhishthira, having the Chedis, the Panchalas, and the Kekayas, Bhima and Arjuna, Krishna, Yuyudhana, and the twins for his allies, stayeth yet at Upaplavya, and from affection for kinsmen, looketh up to righteousness only, like a weak man, though he is possessed of great strength. King Dhritarashtra here, though old in years, doth not effect peace, and intoxicated with pride of children, treadeth a sinful path. In consequence of the wickedness of Jayadratha and Karna and Dussasana and Suvala's son, intestine dissensions will break out. They that behave unrighteously towards him that is righteous, verily that sin of theirs soon produceth its consequences. Who is there that will not be filled with sorrow at the sight of the Kurus persecuting righteousness in this way? When Kesava returneth without being able to bring about peace, the Pandavas will certainly address themselves for battle. Thereupon, the sin of the Kurus will lead to a destruction of heroes. Reflecting on all this, I do not get sleep by day or by night.'
"Hearing these words uttered by Vidura, who always wished her sons the accomplishment of their objects, Kunti began to sigh heavily, afflicted with grief, and began to think within herself, 'Fie to wealth, for the sake of which this great slaughter of kinsmen is about to take place. Indeed, in this war, they that are friends will sustain defeat. What can be a greater grief than this that the Pandavas, the Chedis,
the Panchalas, and the Yadavas, assembled together, will fight with the Bharatas? Verily, I behold demerit in war. (On the other hand) if we do not fight, poverty and humiliation would be ours. As regards the person that is poor, even death is beneficial (to him). (On the other band) the extermination of one's kinsmen is not victory. As I reflect on this, my heart swelleth with sorrow. The grandsire (Bhishma), the son of Santanu, the preceptor (Drona), who is the foremost of warriors, and Karna, having embraced Duryodhana's side, enhance my fears. The preceptor Drona, it seemeth to me, will never fight willingly against his pupils. As regards the Grandsire, why will he not show some affection for the Pandavas? There is only this sinful Karna then, of deluded understanding and ever following the deluded lead of the wicked Duryodhana, that hateth the Pandavas. Obstinately pursuing that which injureth the Pandavas, this Karna is, again, very powerful. It is this which burneth me at present. Proceeding to gratify him. I will today disclose the truth and seek to draw his heart towards the Pandavas. Pleased with me, while I was living in the inner apartments of the palace of my father, Kuntibhoja, the holy Durvasa gave me a boon in the form of an invocation consisting of mantras. Long reflecting with a trembling heart on the strength or weakness of those mantras and the power also of the Brahmana's words, and in consequence also of my disposition as a woman, and my nature as a girl of unripe years, deliberating repeatedly and while guarded by a confidential nurse and surrounded by my waiting-maids, and thinking also of how not to incur any reproach, how to maintain the honour of my father, and how I myself might have an accession of good fortune without being guilty of any transgression, I, at last, remembered that Brahmana and bowed to him, and having obtained that mantras from excess of curiosity and from folly, I summoned, during my maidenhood, the god Surya. He, therefore, who was held in my womb during my maidenhood,--why should he not obey my words that are certainly acceptable and beneficial to his brothers? And reflecting in this strain, Kunti formed an excellent resolution. And having formed that resolution, she went to the sacred stream called after Bhagiratha. And having reached the banks of Ganga, Pritha heard the chanting of the Vedic hymns by her son, endued with great kindness and firmly devoted to truth. And as Karna stood with face directed to the east and arms upraised, then helpless Kunti, for the sake of her interest stayed behind him, waiting the completion of prayers. And the lady of Vrishni's race, that wife of Kuru's house, afflicted by the heat of the sun began to look like a faded garland of lotuses. And, at last, she stood in the shade afforded by the upper garments of Karna. And Karna, of regulated vows, said his prayers until his back became heated by the rays of the sun. Then turning behind, he behold Kunti and was filled with surprise. And saluting him in proper form and with joined palms that foremost of virtuous persons, endued with great energy and
pride, viz., Vrisha, the son of Vikartana, bowed to her and said (the following words)."' | <urn:uuid:9475fb0b-2618-4512-81ef-b5cac63881bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bharatadesam.com/spiritual/mahabharata/mahabharata_05144.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966611 | 1,214 | 2.09375 | 2 |
P.E. Teachers spent Monday learning bike safety and basic skills to teach kids to ride. The district plans to buy thirty bikes for each school.
Alan Ley, the director of Bike Bentonville, says the new program is key to creating a cycling culture around the city's trail system. He believes the kids will keep riding well into adult life.
"We really want to take the trails and outdoor classrooms that we have here in Bentonville, and let the kids experience those things and ride on the trails," he says. "To create these opportunities, and to have fun and do it the right way, (is the) perfect way to build the next generation of people who are going to live here in our community in Arkansas."
The teachers will go through at least one more training session, and close to 530 bikes should show up at schools within the next two to three months. | <urn:uuid:e8e4b6c7-5a3d-4763-9d59-c391d176f256> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nwahomepage.com/fulltext?nxd_id=375632&nxd_90162_start=31270 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971398 | 182 | 2.15625 | 2 |
In his 2010 Letter to Seminarians, Pope Benedict XVI wrote, “God is alive, and he needs people to serve him and bring him to others. It does makes sense to become a priest: the world needs priests, pastors – today, tomorrow and always, until the end of time.” The world does need the priesthood – more than ever. Yes, priestly ministry is a profound privilege. However, today’s priests face several challenges.
1. Today’s priests are busier than ever.
According to Priestly Ministry in Multiple Parishes (Liturgical Press), “44 percent of the country’s 20,668 Roman rite parishes and missions share a pastor.” Today’s priests are expected to do more and more, and many priests are doing more and more in multiple parishes. Today’s priests are busier than ever, and all that busyness has an impact upon a priest.
2. Many priests define themselves by what they do.
Formed by our American culture more than by the seminary, many of today’s priests define their identity by what they do. They feel good about themselves when things are going well in the parish; however, when the success of the parish flattens, many priests take it personally. Their identity is determined by what they do. However, is this the truth? Is a man’s identity, a priest’s identity, dependent upon success? Who is he? What does it mean to be a priest?
3. When priests get busy often the first thing to go is their prayer life.
While preaching during the 2006 Chrism Mass, Pope Benedict XVI said, “The priest must above all be a man of prayer. The world in its frenetic activism often looses its direction. Its action and capacities become destructive if they lack the power of prayer, from which the waters of life that irrigate the arid land.” Many priests know far too well the “frenetic activism” the Holy Father speaks of. When life in the parish gets busy, many priests cut corners in their prayer life. Their Holy Hour becomes littered with problem solving or homily prep and soon it feels as if prayer is dry. As the schedule presses forward many priests stop praying. Eventually priests long for the God they once “felt” so close.
4. All priests know about Jesus, yet many are hungry to know Him more intimately.
In 2006 Pope Benedict XVI said, “It is necessary to enter into real friendship with Jesus in a personal relationship with him and not to know who Jesus is only from others or from books, but to live an ever deeper personal relationship with Jesus, where we can begin to understand what he is asking of us. … Knowing God is not enough. For a true encounter with him one must also love him. Knowledge must become love.” Later in his book Jesus of Nazareth, the Holy Father echoed, “The organ for seeing God is the heart. The intellect alone is not enough.” Many priests desire a more intimate relationship with Christ, but far too many don’t know how to grow in desired intimacy.
5. Surprisingly, many priests don’t consider themselves experts in the spiritual life.
While addressing priests in 2006, Pope Benedict XVI urged clergy as he said, “The faithful expect only one thing from priests: that they be specialists in promoting the encounter between man and God. The priest is not asked to be an expert in economics, construction or politics. He is expected to be an expert in the spiritual life.” More and more of the lay faithful are rediscovering the rich tradition of Catholic spirituality. Many of them desire spiritual direction from their priests. Even Blessed John Paul II urged parishes to become “schools of prayer” (Novo Millennio Ineunte, no. 33). With the many demands already placed upon priests, many clergy shy away teaching or spiritual direction because they feel ill-equipped. Priests desire to know more about the spiritual life, but who is there to help them?
Undoubtedly, these and many other difficulties challenge priests. The Institute for Priestly Formation is here to help. Click here to learn more about who we are and how we can help you … | <urn:uuid:2e03649f-457a-40d9-8442-8cda80d08479> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://priestlyformation.org/priests/challenges-for-priests/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970268 | 892 | 1.992188 | 2 |
Video Games: Guess What, the Business Model isn't the Problem
Tyler is a member of The Motley Fool Blog Network -- entries represent the personal opinion of the blogger and are not formally edited.
If you have followed the video game market for a little while now, it is hard not to notice the talk of many analysts who are ready to applaud or knock down the newcomer in the sector. What seems to be the biggest talking point with so many of these new companies is their business model. It started when Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI) revolutionized the business with the subscription-based model for its signature title World of Warcraft. Then came the mobile and app games which applied the internet’s signature freemium model. Again, Wall St. cheered the coming of a new age in the gaming space.
Time and time again, much of the focus on these companies has been on the new business models they are creating and how they were game changers for the industry. Activision rode the wave of World of Warcraft starting in 2004 and in four years they saw a near tripling in their stock value. It was a fleeting moment. The company has yet to recover from its 2008 crash.
Now, it appears it is Zynga’s (NASDAQ: ZNGA) turn to get run through the ringer. With its value dropping over two thirds from its IPO back in December, many people are wondering if a company that depends so greatly on a parent platform like Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) can survive. If this were truly the case, how can game developers be successful when they need to go through a console like Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) X-Box or Sony’s (NYSE: SNE) Playstation?
Again and again, investors are looking at the business model of these companies to determine their chances of success. What so many people are overlooking is the most important part of these companies: their products.
Let’s see if the reasoning behind these bearish sentiments can be viewed through a product lens:
- The average shelf life for a video game is six months. Much like new movies and new albums, there is a window of opportunity. Soon enough, gamers will be looking for the next big thing to play. Granted, World of Warcraft (WoW) has done a stunning job of maintaining the level of excitement amongst its players through upgrades, expansion packs, etc. But, eventually people will move onto the next one. We are seeing this right now as WoW subscriptions are dropping off rather quickly as of late. This drop just happens to coincide with the rise in popularity of newer releases such as Diablo III and Star Wars: The Old Republic.
- Zynga was also able to ride a nice long wave of popularity with its Farmville game, raking in money from people paying real cash to upgrade their digital farms. Today, much of the mobile gaming space is being dominated by other games such as Angry Birds (from Finnish developer Rovio) and Temple Run (Imangi Studios). It shouldn’t come as a big surprise, then, that the huge drop in stock also comes at a time when Zynga has not put out a popular title for a while.
Games can be sold in a myriad of ways, and all of these models can be successful depending upon the type of game you are selling. The bottom line for this industry is much simpler than many make it out to be: If you put out an exemplary product, people will buy it.
So, if looking to invest in the gaming space, the most successful companies will be the ones with a strong gaming portfolio and pipeline. Activision is holding a very strong hand with its aforementioned Warcraft and Diablo series, but they are also the backers of the wildly popular Call of Duty and Starcraft series. Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: EA) can count on a solid base of returning customers for its EA Sports games, most notably the Madden series. Also, don’t count out Take Two Interactive Software (NASDAQ: TTWO) with their loyal fans backing the Rockstar label, the creators of the mega hits Grand Theft Auto and Max Payne. These are all very strong brands that have loyal customer bases and can be used to sell the next chapter in the series relatively easily.
This, in my opinion, is the most difficult aspect of the mobile gaming space. Games produced for social media and mobile devices are much easier to develop than the more elaborate productions for consoles and PCs. Thus, the lower entry barrier allows someone to quickly unseat the standing king. One could argue that Zynga does own this space, but it appears they are in a bit of hot water over some of their recent game developments. I would stay away from this area of gaming for a while until the one true king presents himself.
TylerCrowe has no positions in the stocks mentioned above. The Motley Fool owns shares of Activision Blizzard, Facebook, and Microsoft. Motley Fool newsletter services recommend Activision Blizzard, Facebook, Microsoft, and Take-Two Interactive . Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.If you have questions about this post or the Fool’s blog network, click here for information. | <urn:uuid:d7971c89-f5de-4af5-97b7-162e9952b8e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://beta.fool.com/tylercrowe/2012/08/09/video-games-guess-what-investors-its-games-you-sho/9014/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957916 | 1,109 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Are You Paying a Tip--or a Bribe?
Both are rewards for service, so why is one considered outside the boundaries of ethical behavior? Harvard Business School professor Magnus Thor Torfason on the thin line.
Few people see a relationship between tipping and bribing. But consider this: In places where people tip heavily, bribes are more likely to exchange hands as well.
New research shows that there's actually a fine line between the socially acceptable act of tipping and the immoral act of bribing, according to Magnus Thor Torfason, an assistant professor in Harvard Business School's Entrepreneurial Management Unit.
His article for Social Psychological & Personality Science, "Here's a Tip: Prosocial Gratuities Are Linked to Corruption," was coauthored with Francis J. Flynn, the Paul E. Holden Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford, and Daniella Kupor, a doctoral student at Stanford.
"It is generally considered a good-natured prosocial thing to tip, but bribing is considered to be antisocial and negative," Torfason says. "So this relationship between tipping and corruption is counterintuitive in the United States. But there is a fuzzy line between the two."
Countries with higher rates of tipping behavior also tended to have higher rates of corruption
The research might help executives avoid falling into a trap where attitudes and beliefs about tipping lead to bribing.
Torfason and his colleagues found a link between these two behaviors when they studied cross-national data for 32 countries and controlled for per capita gross domestic product, income inequality, and other factors. In short, countries with higher rates of tipping behavior also tended to have higher rates of corruption.
Tips and bribes can possess striking similarities that may lead to their positive association, the researchers report. "In a sense, both are gifts intended to strengthen social bonds and each is offered in conjunction with advantageous service. One could even argue that the main difference between the two acts is merely the timing of the gift: Tips follow the rendering of a service, whereas bribes precede it."
Torfason says the link between tipping and bribing may come in part from "temporal focus," or how each individual thinks about and weighs the past and future. In some places, tips are provided not so much to reward good service but to encourage good service in the future—a perception that brings the tip closer to the purpose of a bribe, which is also focused on future service.
A history of mixed messages
The mixed messages that can come with these cash exchanges have deep roots in history. During the Middle Ages, feudal lords traveling beyond their territories would toss coins to beggars in hopes that these acts of kindness would ensure safe trips. And in Tudor England, guests who stayed overnight were expected to leave payment for their hosts' servants at the end of their stay as a way of compensating for the extra work their visit created.
Today, most people in Western societies draw a distinct line between tipping and bribery, and the fact that the two are linked runs counter to what most people would expect. When Torfason and his colleagues asked 51 participants from a national online pool about their impressions of the relationship between tipping and bribery, just 5.9 percent said they thought they were "probably positively related," whereas 78.4 percent thought they were "probably not related."
"In the United States, people assume tipping and bribery are not related," Torfason says. "There's a clear distinction between professions that are tipped and situations where informal payments would be considered a bribe."
And yet, despite this distinction, corruption does exist in the United States, where consumers regularly tip restaurant wait staff, taxi drivers, hairdressers and others, Torfason says.
"Richer countries tend to have less corruption than poorer countries," he notes. "But if you control for GDP in the US, our country is higher in tipping and also higher in corruption than other similarly rich countries."
Examples from Canada and India
In their research, the Torfason team decided to take a particularly close look at Canada and India—which were similar in their tipping habits, but quite different in their bribery levels—with Canada seeing little bribing activity and India seeing substantially more.
The researchers concluded that the reason for this difference was rooted in the way people in the two countries viewed this exchange of money.
Indians were more likely than Canadians to tip with the hope that the offer would bring about better service in the future. Canadians viewed tipping more as a reward for a service received in the past. The researchers found that Indians also rated bribery as more morally acceptable than did Canadians.
"Tips follow the rendering of a service, whereas bribes precede it"
"In the mind of someone who thinks of tipping as something that implies better future service, tipping and bribery are closer together," Torfason says.
The researchers confirmed this intuition in a lab experiment. They exposed 40 participants to articles about tipping that differed in only one small aspect: whether tipping was framed as being intended to either "reward good service" or "encourage good service." Those exposed to the "encourage good service" scenario viewed corruption less harshly. They felt that bribing a judge, for instance, or paying foreign officials to facilitate business contracts was less objectionable and immoral compared to the participants who were exposed to the "reward good service" scenario.
Blurring the lines
Extending the research results to the business world, Torfason says that corporate executives should be careful about the extent to which they engage in informal exchanges both within and outside their organizations.
"Once you start engaging in these informal tit-for-tat exchanges, it may increase your susceptibility to engage in certain acts of informal exchange that may not be acceptable," explains Torfason.
It's important for companies to have clear rules about what kinds of "favors" are acceptable when employees are interacting with business associates outside the company. And even within an organization, executives should avoid asking employees to step beyond their job duties by doing favors that benefit the executives personally.
"Executives can become quite skilled at managing things through informal exchanges and favors. But that means there is just a little step toward expecting their subordinates to do favors or run personal errands for them, even though that's not what the employees are getting paid to do," Torfason ssaysaid. "Executives need to be careful not to use their positions to start expecting benefits that go beyond their corporate role."
In general, he adds, people should remain mindful of the association between tips and bribes so they can avoid blurring the lines.
"Informal exchanges are trickier to manage than people sometimes think," Torfason says. "Once you are embedded in a web of informal transactions and favors, it can sometimes become harder to judge what's appropriate and what's not." | <urn:uuid:f4de59f1-af7d-4779-aa13-67527617b0e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/7090.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969048 | 1,410 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Ever wondered how on earth you are going to start your literature review? That’s right: first of all you need to be able to assess other people’s work. In today’s post, Ben from Literature Review HQ shares some excellent advice on how to develop your own skills at critical reading and writing. I am sure you’ll find it very useful. Thanks a lot, Ben!
Bio I’m Ben the writer from Literature Review HQ. I’m an early career researcher who developed my website as a resource for anyone who needs help with their literature review. I write weekly blog posts as well as providing a Literature Review Toolbox for anyone who signs up to receive my emails. If you need more tailored help, I also offer 1:1, or group training over the Internet. You can contact me via Twitter (@LitReviewHQ) or email (Ben@LiteratureReviewHQ.com).
Hands up if you find criticizing other people’s writing tough. As grad students it’s especially hard because we are expected to criticize our peers while we are still learning our craft. Furthermore, our peers are normally world-leading experts in the field. How are we, as lowly grad students and early career researchers supposed to criticize Professor Big-Shot and their enormous research group?
Errrr…I don’t know!
Sorry folks. While I was writing my thesis and my blog, I developed a lot of ways to cope with many different aspects of writing. However, critical reading and writing was something that I just couldn’t seem to crack. So, what did I do? I went around and asked other people and read up about critical reading and writing. It turns out there are some pretty clever people out there who have some really good advice on how to be critical. So my first piece of advice is…
…Interact with other people
You can read an article until you are blue in the face and not find any ways to critique it. However, if you and a friend (or your supervisor) have read the same paper and you have a 5-minute discussion, you’ll be amazed what will come out. If you read relevant papers together you will pick out points you can use in your writing, however, by regularly interacting with people, you will quickly learn how to draw critical conclusions of your own. I’m a strong advocate of journal clubs, whether they be in person or online. I think this is a great way to learn the skill of being critical. Join a journal club this week if you have one, or start one if you don’t. My second piece of advice comes from an interview I did with Alison Wray and Mike Wallace who have written a very good book on how to be a critical writer…
Many people have their own way of doing this and you can develop your own way too… or copy someone else’s! It doesn’t make that much difference but if you can tailor a systematic approach to your own circumstances then I think you will benefit more. What exactly am I talking about? I’m talking about question asking and note taking. For every paper you read, you should develop a set of questions that you can ask of the paper to try and tease out any flaws and criticisms. There are several lists of questions available online and I would start by downloading the question sheet from this blog. You should answer the questions and find a way to store the answers with the paper, either electronically or physically, so that you can easily access your notes with the paper and use them or alter them as needed. Some good critical questions to ask are:
- What are the main findings?
- How does this work relate to the central theme of my literature review?
- What does this work claim?
- How do they back up their claims?
This brings me nicely onto my third point that I stole from Alec Fisher and Stephen Toulmin.
The Claim vs The Evidence
Firstly, I have to say that Fisher and Toulmin present great methods for critical analysis that aren’t the same. However, it would take too long to go through them both here so I will talk about the similarities and the general principle behind their methods. To put it simply, any article that you read will make not just one, but many claims. They will state that something is true based on evidence that they SHOULD present. To understand this is a powerful tool to unlock the floodgates of critical analysis – it’s so powerful, that you could end up being too critical!
The crux of these methods is to analyze the claims that articles make and then check that the evidence for these claims stacks up and is present in the first place. This is where you can really take advantage of being new to a field because you can more easily unpick assumptions that people too familiar with the work might make. Do the authors have sufficient evidence to make that claim? Have they misinterpreted the evidence they have? Have they assumed too much?
When I first discovered these methods I went a bit crazy and I found that most academic articles were flawed in some way. I needed to rein in my critical reading rampage. It was then that I discovered some more advice on critical writing from the amazing writer Pat Thomson.
The Literature is a conversation
When you are reading and writing, you are interacting with the literature as if it were a conversation, not an argument or a blazing row. This is an important distinction. Your goal in critical writing is not to tear other literature to pieces but to effectively engage with it in an interesting and appropriate way. The way Pat puts it is to imagine you are inviting the authors of the papers in your literature review to a dinner party. How are you going to interact with them? You’re not going to agree with everything they say (boring) neither are you going to tear them to pieces and shout at them (antisocial). You’re going to be somewhere in the middle. You are going to identify with some things that people say and contradict others. However, you are going to do all of this in a civilized way.
So that’s how I critically read and write now. I’m lucky to have interacted with some great people to help me on the way. I know I still have a long way to go but I get better every week. This raises another important point, which is…
Practice makes perfect
The more you read and practice the art of critical analysis, the better you will get. This will happen over the course of your career but also over the course of a project. Not only will you have more experience, but also you will have more context in which to set all of the articles you are reading.
I hope this guide helps; I’d love to hear your thoughts, either in the comment or on Twitter (@LitReviewHQ). | <urn:uuid:00b6249f-c18e-4209-905e-e54631c88100> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://marialuisaaliotta.wordpress.com/2012/08/27/my-own-personal-100-ripped-off-guide-to-critical-reading-and-writing-guest-post/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968509 | 1,427 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Excerpt from Jerry Sittser's A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows through Loss (eBook).
Regret is inescapable in a world of imperfection, failure, and loss. But can there also be redemption? Can a life gone wrong because of loss be made right again, however irreversible the loss itself? Can people with regrets be set free and transformed?
I believe that there can be redemption, but only under one significant condition: People with regrets can be redeemed, but they cannot reverse the loss that gave rise to the regrets. People can be changed by the unchangeable losses they experience. Thus, for redemption to occur, they must let go of the loss itself and embrace the good effects that the loss can have on their lives. They must somehow transcend what lies behind and reach forward to what lies ahead, directing their energies toward changes they can make now. In other words, they must seek personal transformation, which comes only through grace…
[How Regret Can Be Useful]
Regret [can] lead to transformation if we view loss as an opportunity to take inventory of our lives. Loss forces us to see ourselves for what we are.
Freedom did not come from denying the past but from looking at it squarely, taking ownership of it, and allowing myself to be transformed by it.
For about four months after the accident I spent a great deal of time reviewing the quality of the marriage relationship I had with Lynda. Most of what I reviewed pleased me, though not all. I also explored my family history and observed patterns in my past that kept repeating themselves from one generation to the next. I looked hard at the kind of person I was. I kept asking questions and evaluating. I gained insights that were troubling to me. I saw how manipulative and self-righteous I was and how often I tried to impress and win others. This period of reflection proved to be liberating for me. I am more free from the past now than I would otherwise have been. Yet this freedom did not come from denying the past but from looking at it squarely, taking ownership of it, and allowing myself to be transformed by it…
[When Regret Goes Sour]
The gift of divine forgiveness will help us to forgive ourselves. Without it, regret becomes a form of self-punishment. We see the evil we have done and the pain we have inflicted on others. We feel an acute sense of guilt. We loathe our selfishness and foolishness. And we know that there is nothing we can do to reverse the consequences of our actions.
Yet a holy God imparts forgiveness if we sincerely ask for it; a just God shows us mercy and embraces us in love. If such a God can forgive us, then surely we can forgive ourselves. If such a God lavishes us with grace, then surely we can stop punishing ourselves and live in that grace. Divine forgiveness leads to self-forgiveness.
- Jerry Sittser
Q: How can we know when regret has turned sour?
Learn more about A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows through Loss (eBook). And I'm looking forward to Sittser's upcoming book, A Grace Revealed!
-Adam Forrest, tip of the hat to Matt Saganski
(Some styling above are web-exclusive features not included in the text of A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows through Loss. This post does not represent the views of Zondervan or any of its representatives. The writer's personal opinions are shared only for information purposes. To receive new Zondervan Blog posts in your reader or email inbox, subscribe to Zondervan Blog.) | <urn:uuid:5681e586-adf9-4caa-a10f-22dc269a93e7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.zondervan.com/blog/tag/opportunities/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955814 | 756 | 1.789063 | 2 |
What are the costs of the bins with and without RFID? What is the cost of having driver's use the hand clickers, and what is the value of the information that is gained by the RFID BEYOND what we know now by current methods of data collection?
The rational seems to be that some people are paying for service although the city takes the bin away. Doesn't the person have an incentive to report such things themselves, thus negating the need for the RFID? (Who wants to pay a bill for a service not being rendered?)
Also, stated as justification is the ability to track which neighborhoods are recycling. This rational seems to fail, because low tech, presumably less expensive, alternatives exist. What's wrong with the hand clickers? (This is never explained. Is it expensive, inaccurate?)
In the context of a city which hasn't given employees a raise in nearly 5 years and has deficits in maintenance operations, this seems like an expense which can be cut or, an attempt to gradually introduce the technology to impose fines (although denied) without causing too much controversy.
More information about formatting options | <urn:uuid:2c9118f2-0183-426e-8c46-acaf9068da80> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wwaytv3.com/comment/reply/37365/170229 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977592 | 230 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Transcending New Boundaries in Networking through the Use of WiFi USB Key
Traditional network communication is generally characterized with the necessity of standard connection cable. Basically, this characteristic likewise gives the physical range and limitation of the said network system determined by the length of the cord. In addition, portability also becomes a major concern in this aspect wherein each unit and devices inside the network must stay in specific places for the cable connection to take place. As such, this traditional characteristic indeed provides significant challenges and limitations in the networking concern.
With the interest of better network system and connectivity, modern innovations and advancement in the characteristics of network system are necessary giving better range and convenience for the user population. This is achieved through the development of wireless network system which eliminates the necessity and physical limitations of cable connection reach thus, expanding access while giving portability for the user. In applying this modern innovation in your practical usage, it is important to have a wireless access device necessary for the wifi system and an advantageous choice for this concern is the WiFi USB key.
Creating Wireless Network and More
The WiFi USB key is mainly a radio frequency adapter device for wireless networking and communication needs. This device is generally similar to a USB wifi dongle that can send and receive radio frequency signal thus, converting your traditional wired network into a wireless enabled one for portability and convenience. However, aside from this traditional function, the WiFi USB key provides more advantages for its user population.
The Wifi USB key is also functional not only as a dongle adapter device but as a multi-functional wireless measure. First, the WiFi USB key is widely applicable and compatible with other wireless devices and networks such as PDA system, wifi network enabled cellphones, portable playstation system, and others making this peripheral a versatile wireless network solution for users with wide arrays of technological gadgets. | <urn:uuid:2bff504b-40b6-4f17-9cf3-2cd1bf1bc592> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dciexpo.com/wifi/transcending-new-boundaries-in-networking-through-the-use-of-wifi-usb-key.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925324 | 372 | 2 | 2 |
It can be quite difficult to separate working from home and living at home. Getting out of the house seems like a great tip for keeping these separate.
Keep Your Batteries Charged – How To Minimize And Manage Stress
Posted July 24, 2007 in Productivity
It doesn’t matter what you do for a living, chances are there are times where you find your work stressful. Even worse, if you are like most Americans, the line between your work and “home” has been invariably blurred due to changing demographics and improvements in communications technology.
The NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) report cites the following statistics relating to work and stress:
- 40% of workers reported their job was very or extremely stressful.
- 25% view their jobs as the number one stressor in their lives.
- 75% believe that workers have more on-the-job stress than a generation ago.
A Gallup Poll conducted in 2000 entitled “Attitudes in the American Workplace” found that 80% of the workers surveyed felt stress on the job with nearly half of those saying they needed help in learning how to manage stress.
So What About You?
Are you suffering from workplace-induced stress? Below is a quick test that will rank you on the Workplace Stress Scale™ (developed by the Marlin Company). Give yourself a score between 1 and 5 on each question, with each number corresponding to the following:
- 1- Never
- 2- Rarely
- 3- Sometimes
- 4- Often
- 5- Very Often
Thinking about your current job, how often does each of the following statements describe how you feel?
- Conditions at work are unpleasant or sometimes even unsafe.
- I feel that my job is negatively affecting my physical or emotional well being
- I have too much work to do and/or too many unreasonable deadlines
- I find it difficult to express my opinions or feelings about my job conditions to my superiors
- I feel that job pressures interfere with my family or personal life
- I have adequate control or input over my work duties
- I receive appropriate recognition or rewards for good performance
- I am able to utilize my skills and talents to the fullest extent at work
Interpreting your Workplace Stress Scale™ scores:
Total score of 15 or lower (33% of us are in this category): Chilled out and relatively calm. Stress isn’t much of an issue.
Total score 16 to 20 (35%): Fairly low. Coping should be a breeze, but you probably have a tough day now and then. Still, count your blessings.
Total score 21-25 (21%): Moderate stress. Some things about your job are likely to be pretty stressful, but probably not much more than most people experience and are able to cope with. Concentrate on seeing what can be done to reduce items with the worst scores.
Total score 26-30 (9%): Severe. You may still be able to cope, but life at work can sometimes be miserable. Several of your scores are probably extreme. You could be in the wrong job, or even in the right job but at the wrong time, and might benefit from counseling.
Total score 31- 40 (2%): Stress level is potentially dangerous – the more so the higher your score. You should seek professional assistance, especially if you feel your health is affected, or you might need to consider a job change.
You Cannot Ignore Stress
If you are feeling stressed out and are trying to suppress it, you are making a huge mistake. Stress can be managed and minimized but it can’t be ignored. Doing so puts your health at risk and virtually guarantees that your job performance will suffer. If you suffer from stress you need to attack it on two fronts:
- Learn how to manage the stress you already feel or that you can’t avoid.
- Learn how to minimize the stress you let into your life in the future.
So how can you manage your stress?
I don’t believe there is anything that can have a more profound effect on your mental state in a short amount of time than meditation or yoga; furthermore, with some practice it can be implemented into your daily routine fairly easily. I know a high-level professional at a Hedge Fund who has four children. He was literally breaking at the seams until he discovered meditation. Between the frenetic pace of his work and the needs of his children at home, he never had time for himself. He now takes 15 minutes every morning before his children wake up to meditate and it has made an incredible difference in his life.
What else can you do that helps you work off your anger and frustration, releases endorphins that improve your mood, and strengthens your heart and body making you less susceptible to stress-related illness in the future? The answer is nothing. Trying to come up with a reason not to exercise is almost impossible.
Adequate sleep is crucial to proper brain function – no less so than air, water, and food. There is a vicious cycle with sleep and stress since lack of sleep can make you feel stressed and stress can make it harder to sleep. If getting enough sleep is a problem, make a conscious effort to leave yourself more time than you think you need in bed and try meditating to clear your mind.
What about minimizing stress in the future?
Leave Your Work At Work
It seems simple but too many people spend their evenings and weekends checking their email or thinking about what they have to get done in the office. Unless you are one of the few people who absolutely love their job and find it the best part of their life, take the time away from the office to explore all the other things that make you who you are.
Get Out Of Dodge Often
Nothing clears the head like getting out of town. Even if you just take a day trip to somewhere new, you force your brain to focus on the present, which is where a healthy mind should spend most of its time.
Find A Hobby
Relaxing doesn’t always mean doing nothing… it just means doing something you enjoy that doesn’t stress you out. Whatever it is you like to do, make it a part of your routine and don’t let work violate its sanctity.
Work tends to hurt our relationships and without concerted effort those relationships can fall apart. I know numerous couples that set aside one night a week to spend time together. Even with their extremely busy schedules, they manage to keep these date nights almost 100% of the time by making it a routine and their relationships are better for it.
In summation, evaluate if your work is causing you stress, figure out how to best manage that stress and most importantly, work towards minimizing it in the future. If you can maintain a good work-life balance you will improve your physical and mental health AND be more productive when you do work.
If you like Goldy, go ahead and check out his personal blog, GoldyWorld, where he talks about absolutely nothing important and has fun doing it.
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July 26th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
July 28th, 2007 at 3:26 am
Great post Goldy! Keep ‘em coming! :)
Stephen, it’s true separating the workplace and the personal stuff is not easy, especially when both are at home. But it’s definitely worth trying, or find ways to find balance.
July 28th, 2007 at 9:04 am
I would say STRESS is part of each and everyone’s Job, Its just a matter of how we can cope and manage our extra time to remove the stress. I like the tips that you have provided… thanks for sharing
July 31st, 2007 at 11:21 am
Great post. You really don’t realize how stressful your life is until you stand back and look at what you’re doing, and how you’re creating stress in your life. I’m going to start meditating to alleviate stress. I used to just pull a few bongs, but that just made me tired and hungry.
July 31st, 2007 at 11:31 am
Maybe you could audition for The Bong Show.
July 31st, 2007 at 12:58 pm
I have read about your life and I am not sure if it stressful or fun or both… no matter what it is fun to read about.
May 1st, 2013 at 11:57 pm
using wooden wall decors at home is mostly a great alternative to
using those expensive metal wall decors;
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- SEO Techniques All Top Websites Should Use
- When a Client Can't Afford You: Why It's Still Better to Bid High
- How To Stop Scrambling For Clients And Get A Steady Stream Of Paying Gigs
- A Simple Way To Stop Clients From Rejecting Your Proposals
- 3 Reasons Your Rates Are Still Low (And How To Start Raising Them) | <urn:uuid:c63c0830-3a78-484f-9d53-89fa605e4b16> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://freelancefolder.com/keep-your-batteries-charged/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954339 | 1,942 | 2.03125 | 2 |
When I was a child,I remember, I liked getting close to the nature.I didn't want to stay at home for another second.I liked to play mud, although I knew clearly that it was dirty.I liked to pick the marvelous flowers in my grandfather's garden,then made them into "dishes".I liked to take an adventure.Actually,we just climbed hills a lot.But in a child's eyes,it was full of mysterious.We also liked to pretend to be an adult.We made up ourselves,behaved like a teacher ,an assistant ,something like that...It is so colorful!
What about your games in your childhood?Would you like to share it with me?
When I was a child I used to play outside with my friends on the playground and some kind of "running"-games (one team has to catch the other team, which is running away and hiding) in our village. That was really fun!
By doing this I became really fast and got good marks for it in phisical education
We drew a big circle and then divided it into small wedges. Each one of us chose a position to stand on our wedges. And we also chose a name for ours. Then we did the paper, scissors, rock to see who would lose. That person would have to stay back at the circle while everyone got to run away. After three counts, he got a chance to say stop. When everyone had stopped he could say out loud the name he wanted to pick. Other kids could walk away except that picked person. Then he'd tell how far the distance from him and that picked person by how many footsteps. If he got it right, the picked person would take his place. If he got it wrong, he would continue to do his job until he'd got it right.
I liked outside too. I remember once when my older brothers dig on backyard and I tried to save dewworms from chickens who was there too. I picked them up and told to brothers that I pick them to chickens, and when pocket get full I pick them into mitten.. But then it was get raining and.. me commanded into inside and of course my mom found those worms and....
I don't remember well.. I was only something 4 years old. I think those worms was not stayed in pocket... they was creep everywhere inside of clothers and so.... I believe chickens got them all.. My brothers probably gave them to chickens. So much about my saving mission.
But I think it was probably a important event why else I still remember.. though Mostly I remember it was very strong rain/storm.. and maybe I remember it only because of that. it was very rainy day, thats also why my brothers was dig there, to keep water away from barn..
The only thing I could remember about what I did during the rainny days of my childhood is taking a shower in the rain. Actually, the kids in my neighborhood did the same thing, too. We brought buckets and soap with us. Then we'd chase each other around trying to catch one another with soap on our bodies. It was fun. | <urn:uuid:ea79e7b2-6abf-4ba5-9237-371e5adfc9f1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.englishclub.com/esl-forums/viewtopic.php?p=281493 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990352 | 647 | 2 | 2 |
Rails Performance Needs an Overhaul
The fact that a vanilla Rails application requires a dedicated worker with a 50MB stack to render a login page is nothing short of absurd. There is nothing new about this, nor is this exclusive to Rails or a function of Ruby as a language - whatever language or web framework you are using, chances are, you are stuck with a similar problem. But GIL or no GIL, we ought to do better than that. Node.js is a recent innovator in the space, and as a community, we can either learn from it, or ignore it at our own peril.
Measuring End-to-End Performance
A modern web-service is composed of many moving components, all of which come together to create the final experience. First, you have to model your data layer, pick the database and then ensure that it can get your data in and out in the required amount of time - lots of innovation in this space thanks to the NoSQL movement. Then, we layer our MVC frameworks on top, and fight religious wars as developers on whose DSL is more beautiful - to me, Rails 3 deserves all the hype.
It doesn't take much to construct a pathological example where a popular framework (Rails), combined with a popular database (MySQL), and a popular app server (Mongrel) produce less than stellar results. Now the finger pointing begins. MySQL is more than capable of serving thousands of concurrent requests, the app server also claims to be threaded, and the framework even allows us to configure a database pool!
Except that, the database driver locks our VM, and both the framework and the app server still have a few mutexes deep in their guts, which impose hard limits on the concurrency (read, serial processing). The problem is, this is the default behaviour! No wonder people complain about 'scalability'. The other popular choices (Passenger / Unicorn) “work around” this problem by requiring dedicated VMs per request - that's not a feature, that's a bug!
The Rails Ecosystem
To be fair, we have come a long way since the days of WEBrick. In many ways, Mongrel made Rails viable, Rack gave us the much needed interface to become app-server independent, and the guys at Phusion gave us Passenger which both simplified the deployment, and made the resource allocation story moderately better. To complete the picture, Unicorn recently rediscovered the *nix IPC worker model, and is currently in use at Twitter. Problem is, none of this is new (at best, we are iterating on the Apache 1.x to 2.x model), nor does it solve our underlying problem.
Turns out, while all the components are separate, and its great to treat them as such, we do need to look at the entire stack as one picture when it comes to performance: the database driver needs to be smarter, the framework should take advantage of the app servers capabilities, and the app server itself can't pretend to work in isolation.
If you are looking for a great working example of this concept in action, look no further than node.js. There is nothing about node that can't be reproduced in Ruby or Python (EventMachine and Twisted), but the fact that the framework forces you to think and use the right components in place (fully async & non-blocking) is exactly why it is currently grabbing the mindshare of the early adopters. Rubyists, Pythonistas, and others can ignore this trend at their own peril. Moving forward, end-to-end performance and scalability of any framework will only become more important.
Fixing the "Scalability" story in Ruby
The good news is, for every outlined problem, there is already a working solution. With a little extra work, the driver story is easily addressed (MySQL driver is just an example, the same story applies to virtually every other SQL/NoSQL driver), and the frameworks are steadily removing the bottlenecks one at a time.
After a few iterations at PostRank, we rewrote some key drivers, grabbed Thin (evented app server), and made heavy use of continuations in Ruby 1.9 to create our own API framework (Goliath) which is perfectly capable of serving hundreds of concurrent requests at a time from within a single Ruby VM. In fact, we even managed to avoid all the callback spaghetti that plagues node.js applications, which also means that the same continuation approach works just as well with a vanilla Rails application.
It baffles me that this is not a solved problem already. The state of art in the end-to-end Rails stack performance is not good enough. We need to fix that. | <urn:uuid:7d90d565-d5a0-441e-8611-221a8674e89c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.igvita.com/2010/06/07/rails-performance-needs-an-overhaul/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941584 | 974 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Week ending July 20, 2012
Bassett, Richard. Hitler’s Spy Chief: The Wilhelm Canaris Betrayal; The Intelligence Campaign Against Adolf Hitler. Pegasus. Jul. 2012. c.320p. bibliog. index. ISBN 9781605983707. $26.95. HIST
Wilhelm Canaris was the head of German military intelligence (the Abwehr), 1935‚ 44, when he was dismissed (and later executed) by Hitler as an agent for the Allies. British journalist Bassett presents a highly sympathetic study of Canaris. The old-style head of the Abwehr at first favored the Nazis but came to see Hitler as leading Germany only to catastrophe. Bassett traces Canaris’s secret wartime contacts with the British and his work in sheltering anti-Nazi elements as well as attempting to negotiate an anti-Soviet peace with the Western Allies in 1943. This is an accessible book in which Bassett makes clear from the outset that his subject remains ultimately mysterious; there is much about Canaris’s wartime dealings that remains to be uncovered and understood. While Canaris wanted to save Germany from destruction, he was essentially conservative and did not necessarily support a democratic government. Bassett has added an author’s note to this U.S. edition of his book addressing some of the criticisms it received from British specialists upon its original publication in 2005.
Verdict Recommended for all those interested in the grand strategy, secret operations, and what-ifs of the Second World War.—Daniel K. Blewett, Coll. of DuPage Lib., Glen Ellyn, IL
Bucholz, Robert O. & Joseph P. Ward. London: A Social and Cultural History, 1550‚ 1750. Cambridge Univ. 2012. c.391p. illus. maps. index. ISBN 9780521896528. $27.99. HIST
Bucholz (history, Loyola Univ.) and Ward (history, Univ. of Mississippi) chart the rise of England’s capital as it grew from a backwater at Europe’s edge to become the center of political and cultural life in the British Isles and the hub of an empire. Synthesizing previous works, the authors illustrate how the city’s social, cultural, and political life changed over time. They bookend the volume with guided tours of London in 1550 and 1750 to illustrate further how the city evolved. (The first-person-plural narration may annoy some readers.) The thematic approach, together with the narrow time frame, naturally sets the book apart from broader works and enables the authors to explore more deeply the city as it rose to modernity. Readers interested in the literature of London in the eras covered will be well served as the book affords a sense of the city as it would have been experienced by Shakespeare and Samuel Johnson.
Verdict This will delight armchair travelers and past or future visitors to the city interested in obtaining a greater sense of London’s history.—Sharon Reidt, Marlboro Coll. Lib., Brattleboro, VT
Burns, Jimmy. La Roja: How Soccer Conquered Spain and How Spanish Soccer Conquered the World. Nation: Perseus. 2012. c.384p. photogs. index. ISBN 9781568587172. pap. $16.99. SPORTS
Spain has few rivals in recent international soccer, for example at the 2010 European championships as well as the World Cup, with Spain’s professional soccer clubs, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, the leaders in the sport. In a like manner, Burns (senior writer, Financial Times; Spain: A Literary Companion) gives us a book that rivals the best in recent soccer writing, a fluid history of the sport in Spain from its British roots to the recent heights of victory. An accomplished and experienced soccer author who has written about FC Barcelona as well as on Argentine star Diego Maradona, Burns relates the growth of soccer in Spain from a personal perspective, chronicling the men and moments that shaped Spain’s soccer successes. Burns follows football through Spain’s often turbulent history, especially during the Franco regime, making his book almost as much a history of Spain in the 20th century as a popular history of its chief sport.
Verdict Highly recommended as among the best soccer books of 2012.—Boyd Childress, formerly with Auburn Univ. Lib., AL
Davis, David. Showdown at Shepherd’s Bush: The 1908 Olympic Marathon and the Three Runners Who Launched a Sporting Craze. Thomas Dunne: St. Martin’s. 2012. c.304p. illus. bibliog. index. ISBN 9780312641009. $25.99. SPORTS
Journalist Davis presents a wonderfully written and meticulously researched tale of the 1908 Olympics and the birth of the modern marathon. He weaves the lives of three Olympic gold hopefuls‚ Irish American Johnny Hayes, Onondaga-Canadian Tom Longboat, and Italian Dorando Pietri‚ as they qualify and train for the 1908 London Olympics. While the race is the main event, this book is rich with details of the men’s lives, the political landscape, and the birth of modern sporting events such as the Boston Athletic Association’s marathons. This is also the story of the modern Olympics. Before 1908, it was frequently held in conjunction with world’s fairs and did not have the glitz we now know. Davis argues that the 1908 Olympics was the tipping point toward the modern headline-making international event of today. As for the 1908 marathon, with its spectacular finish, it launched the craze that saw over a half million U.S. marathon runners complete a race in 2010.
Verdict This rich story will appeal to those interested in Olympics and sports histories. Runners will especially enjoyed learning about the training and race practices of the day, including the use of whiskey while competing! Recommended.—Maura Deedy, Weymouth P.L., MA
Macintyre, Ben. Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies. Crown. Jul. 2012. c.432p. bibliog. index. ISBN 9780307888754. $26. HIST
When Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy, the German army failed to throw all of their available forces immediately against Eisenhower’s army. There are many reasons the Germans did not quickly rush troops in to crush this invasion, and Macintyre (writer-at-large, Times of London; Operation Mincemeat) recounts one of those reasons: British Intelligence had infiltrated the German spy network and had turned several of these spies whom they then used to feed the German military false or confusing intelligence. These spies helped convince Hitler and many of his military advisers that they needed troops to be withheld in the south of France, Pas de Calais, and Norway. Macintyre personalizes this espionage story by focusing on the difficulties British handlers had managing their double agents and the salacious details of their personal lives.
Verdict Several books have been written about allied intelligence deception in World War II, including Mary Kathryn Barbier’s D-Day Deception: Operation Fortitude and the Normandy Invasion and Terry Crowdy’s Deceiving Hitler: Double Cross and Deception in World War II, as well as Stephan Talty’s Agent Garbo, just published. Macintyre’s book will appeal to general readers and espionage buffs who love these true spy stories.—Michael Farrell, Reformed Theological Seminary Lib., Oviedo, FL
Murnane, William J. The Ancient Egypt Guide. Interlink: Interlink Pub. Group. 2012. 418p. rev. by Aidan Dodson with contributions by Nicholas Warner. illus. maps. index. ISBN 9781566568586. pap. $25. HIST
Murnane (1945‚ 2000), who taught ancient history at the University of Memphis, applied his vast knowledge of ancient Egyptian sites and monuments to The Penguin Guide to Ancient Egypt (1983) and its revised edition in 1996. Dodson (archaeology & anthropology, Univ. of Bristol, UK; Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt) has revised and updated Murnane’s classic work and added color illustrations. The original format is retained, with nine chapters (Part 1) exploring various aspects of pharaonic culture. Part 2 is the actual guide to the archaeological sites with maps and plans in 14 chapters, beginning in the Delta and progressing south to Aswan, thence to Nubia, the Sinai, and the desert oases. Many fascinating sites are included that are little known to most tourists and not always accessible. Part 3 offers practical travel information contributed by British architectural historian Warner.
Verdict This updated classic is a must for anyone planning a trip to Egypt with the intention of exploring its ancient wonders. For more general touring information, DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Egypt or Lonely Planet’s Discover Egypt are reasonable choices.—Edward K. Werner, St. Lucie Cty. Lib. Syst., Ft. Pierce, FL
Post-Ferrante, Pamela. Writing & Healing: A Mindful Guide for Cancer Survivors. Hatherleigh. 2012. c.208p. photogs. bibliog. ISBN 9781578264223. pap. $35. with CD. HEALTH
In this heartfelt book to help those who have experienced cancer heal through writing, Post-Ferrante (expressive therapies, Lesley Univ.), a cancer survivor, has combined her understanding of the disease with several writing tools meant to aid readers in navigating the cancer experience and finding a voice. At the center of the writing process she describes is the idea of mindfulness. Writing is a way of expressing feelings and recording experiences; it is a practice that is both healing and liberating. Designed for group use, the book provides guidelines for 12 sessions that include meditating, drawing, writing, and sharing. Post-Ferrante provides a script for facilitators, whether social workers, nurses, or cancer patients and survivors. However, the book is somewhat repetitive as it outlines regular rituals for the group. It includes color images and illustrations as well as writings from Post-Ferrante’s own program’s participants.
Verdict This book offers a complementary approach to traditional medicine and a deeper kind of healing. It will be a welcome addition to the many books on life with and after cancer.—Nancy Almand, Fresno City Coll. Lib., CA
Sousa, John Philip, IV, with Loras John Schissel. John Philip Sousa’s America: The Patriot’s Life in Images and Words. GIA Pubns. 2012. 208p. photogs. ISBN 9781579998837. $34.95 with CD. MUSIC
Sousa IV, the only living direct namesake of the famous American composer and bandleader, along with Sousa-expert Schissel (senior musicologist, Lib. of Congress), has put together a truly spectacular new hardcover celebration of the life, work, and music of Sousa. Packed with 300 color photos, 200 black-and-white photos, and 100 color illustrations, this book doesn’t contain much text, but it doesn’t really need it. The crisp, clear photos, reproductions of concert programs, caricatures, and the 19-track CD succeed in telling Sousa’s story. This book would also make an ideal companion to either of Paul E. Bierley’s books on Sousa: 2001′s John Philip Sousa, American Phenomenon or 2010′s The Incredible Band of John Philip Sousa. The CD features 17 performances of Sousa compositions by the United States Marine Band, as well as an archival recording of Sousa introducing and conducting his own band in The Stars and Stripes Forever from a 1929 radio program.
Verdict A brilliant and essential publication for fans of Sousa or concert band music.—James E. Perone, Univ. of Mount Union, Alliance, OH
Stiglitz, Joseph E. The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future. Norton. 2012. 448p. index. ISBN 9780393088694. $27.95. ECON
Nobel Prize‚ winning economist Stiglitz (economics, Columbia Univ.; Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy) addresses the growing inequality of income and wealth in the United States. He explains how over the last three decades the gap between the wealthy and poor has widened and how the middle class has come under increasing financial stress. Those in the upper one percent, he says, have amassed political power to influence the government and electorate to enact policies that do not benefit most citizens. He warns that inequitable societies inevitably fail as distrust, alienation, and perceived unfairness erode societal cohesion. Among the reforms he advocates are increasing taxes (and making the tax code more progressive), eliminating hidden special-interest subsidies, investing in education and infrastructure, strengthening the social safety net, and making the central bank’s top priority employment rather than inflation.
Verdict Stiglitz’s cogently argued indictment of American inequality is an important work. Paired with fellow Nobel laureate Paul Krugman’s End This Depression Now!, they provide an accessible picture of current liberal economic thought. Essential reading for all Americans.—Lawrence Maxted, Gannon Univ. Lib., Erie, PA
Vaz, Mark Cotta. Batmobile: The Complete History. Insight Editions, dist. by PGW. 2012. 148p. illus. ISBN 9781608871049. $35. FILM
In anticipation of the July 20 release of The Dark Knight Rises, the final entry in the Christopher Nolan‚ directed and Christian Bale‚ starring Batman series, Insight Editions is releasing this neat tie-in title. Vaz (The Art of Batman Begins) covers the Batmobile in its various incarnations, from the comics to TV and film. Many different models (depending on the artist’s fancy) have appeared in print since Batman’s creation (1939), ranging from vehicles that look like off-the-lot sedans your dad would drive to supercustom coupes affordable only by a millionaire. The screen cars vary as widely‚ from the cornball 1960s TV show’s tricked-out Lincoln Futura to the science fictiony, jet-propelled pimpmobile movie versions of Michael Keaton and George Clooney up to the tactical Tumbler edition of Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. Fans want pictures, and the book features more than 100, including some sweet shots of the vehicles’ cockpits and other details.
Verdict It’s not just chicks who dig the car‚ anyone who’s ever had a jones for Batman’s ride will be jumping on this book faster than you can say, To the Batmobile!—Mike Rogers, Library Journal
Waller, Diane. World Textiles: A Sourcebook. Interlink: Interlink Pub. Group. 2012. 368p. photogs. maps. index. ISBN 9781566568708. pap. $40. DEC ARTS
In this stunning compilation of ten books in the Fabric Folios series published by the British Museum Press, Waller (art psychotherapy, emeritus, Goldsmiths, Univ. of London) showcases over 150 items from the museum’s collections. The textiles originate in the Balkans, the Middle East, Asia, Central and South America, and Africa and range from clothing, shoes, and accessories to furnishings. Over 400 gorgeous color photographs illustrate the items with close-ups that allow readers practically to feel the material. The introduction, edited and abridged from all of the original books, provides historical, social, and cultural context. The commentary is excellent and informative, written by experts in the field, many of whom have been British Museum curators. There is a glossary and a selected reading list. This is not an encyclopedia but rather an inspirational overview of the beauty, color, and workmanship of world textiles.
Verdict Many of the Fabric Folios titles that this book draws from are out-of-print, and the reasonable cost of this volume makes it an excellent purchase for anyone interested in collecting or finding inspiration in world textiles.—Margaret Henderson, Virginia Commonwealth Univ. Lib., Richmond
Whedon, Joss & Drew Goddard. The Cabin in the Woods: The Official Visual Companion. Titan. 2012. 176p. photogs. ISBN 9781848565241. pap. $19.95. FILM
With the recently released movie The Cabin in the Woods, Goddard and Whedon deconstructed the horror movie, taking the familiar trope of five twentysomethings heading off on an ill-advised vacation in a completely unexpected direction. This official companion serves as a stopgap until the DVD arrives (from Lionsgate in September), offering an extended interview with Goddard and Whedon, the screenplay, concept art, behind-the-scenes photos, and cast and crew commentary. Absent from the text is any discussion of the film’s three years in production hell owing to MGM’s bankruptcy and an unrealized attempt to convert the film to 3-D.
Verdict Like the movie, this book won’t have mainstream appeal, but horror movie aficionados will love it, and die-hard Whedonites will appreciate details like how The Cabin in the Woods shares similar themes with Dollhouse. Buy it if you have these patrons.—Terry Bosky, Palm Beach Cty. Lib. Syst., FL | <urn:uuid:0acdd8e3-13aa-49e0-bf08-78048d6e8fcd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://reviews.libraryjournal.com/2012/07/books/nonfic/xpress-reviews-nonfiction-first-look-at-new-books-july-20-2012/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906326 | 3,703 | 1.890625 | 2 |
So some developers over at Applidium have managed to get under the hood of Siri and found out how it works. It was through this discovery that led them to think that there is a possibility of porting Siri over to other iOS devices, and even possibly non-iOS devices such as Android. One developer by the name of plamoni has decided to go ahead and create a “Siri Proxy” project.
Since Applidium revealed how Siri worked and how the requests were being sent to Apple’s servers, plamoni set up his own server and created his own custom handlers to perform tasks that Siri would normally not be able to do. In this case plamoni managed to get Siri to check on the status of his thermostat as well as adjust its settings all from his iPhone.
The project can be downloaded from GitHub although it definitely does not look like something your average iPhone user will be able to get up and running. However if you’re a developer and you have some experience with matters like this, perhaps you might want to take a look at plamoni’s Siri Proxy project on GitHub. In the mean time us regular folks will just enjoy the video demonstration below and dream of the possibilities.
iOS Devices Now Approved For Military Use By Department Of Defense
Intel Passed On The Opportunity To Produce Chips For The Original iPhone
iOS Game Spending Outpaces Nintendo 3DS, PS Vita In Q1 2013
Leaked iPhone 5S Components Hint At Multiple Colors, Major Internal Changes [Rumor] | <urn:uuid:f93c860a-3055-4e93-89d5-b98d4e623dfa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/11/developer-creates-proxy-server-for-siri-with-custom-handlers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966356 | 316 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Story posted May 18, 2010
Maine is known for its moderates — Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, and before them Sen. William Cohen '62 — but when conservative activists succeeded in passing a platform backed by tea party groups, the Christian Science Monitor tapped DeAlva Stanwood Alexander Professor of Government Christian Potholm for his expertise.
The article, 'Tea Party'-Backed Platform Sails Through Maine GOP Convention,” appears in the May 10, 2010, edition.
An excerpt from the article:
"If you’re not a moderate, you don't get elected in Maine," says political consultant Chris Potholm, a professor of government at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine.
"Any candidate who gets nominated is going to ignore that platform, or he or she is going to lose." | <urn:uuid:01f7880c-0d14-4f3a-81ef-2dda040b8f9f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bowdoin.edu/news/archives/1bowdoincampus/007401.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945725 | 173 | 2.109375 | 2 |
What does Community mean to you?
Everyone is talking about building community, but what does that mean?
There are many ways to build a community. The first is to create a presence in that community that people identify with. Most online environments have various ways that you can do this: building your profile, leaving a comment, retweeting a tweet, uploading pictures and videos, sharing a resource, or collaborating on a project.
How do you create a presence online? How do you sustain an online community?
I thought I’d refer to Tucker’s Five Stages of Group Development and Five Stages when building a community.
1. Forming: The group comes together and gets to initially know one other and form as a group.
2. Storming: A chaotic vying for leadership and trialling of group processes
3. Norming: Eventually agreement is reached on how the group operates (norming)
4. Performing: The group practices its craft and becomes effective in meeting its objectives.
Tuckman added a 5th stage 10 years later:
5. Adjourning: The process of “unforming” the group, that is, letting go of the group structure and moving on.
I wanted to take these stages and how they relate to online communities.
Stage 1: Forming
This stage is about building a presence in the group or community. Group members rely on safe, patterned behavior. Group members desire acceptance by the group and a need to know that the group is safe. They gather impressions and data about the similarities and differences among them and form preferences for future subgrouping.
Self-organized learning and social media is all about starting the community around you. An online community may not have a leader. There may be multiple leaders or a self-proclaimed leader who starts the conversations. The leaders can change at anytime. Everyone and anyone can join, contribute, or leave when they want. Some members don’t have a presence. They join and lurk. They are just watching the activity in the community.
How can you build community in a group where members come and go? Can you trust that the profiles of some members are real?
Stage 2, Storming, is characterized by competition and conflict as group members organize. Individual members mold their feelings, ideas, attitudes, and beliefs to suit the group with an increased desire for structural clarification and commitment. Questions will arise about who is going to be responsible for what, what the rules are, what the reward system is, and what criteria for evaluation are. Yet, in an online community, there may be no rules. The reward is connecting or someone responding to you, sharing your picture, or retweeting your tweet.
Is this enough to keep you in the community?
What if someone in the group writes something controversial and upsets many of the members? Will people stay in the group? Some people will step forward and take responsibility for posting, answering questions, and sharing information beyond the community.
In Stage 3: Norming stage, group members are engaged in active acknowledgment of all members’ contributions, community building and maintenance, and solving of group issues. Members are willing to change their preconceived ideas or opinions on the basis of facts presented by other members, and they actively ask questions of one another. Leadership is shared, and cliques dissolve. This is the true online community that is working. When members begin to know-and identify with-one another, the level of trust in their personal relations contributes to the development of group cohesion. It is during this stage of development (assuming the group gets this far) that people begin to experience a sense of group belonging and a feeling of relief as a result of resolving interpersonal conflicts. The major task function of stage three is the data flow between group members: They share feelings and ideas, solicit and give feedback to one another, and explore actions related to the task. Creativity is high. Members feel good about being part of an effective group.
The major drawback of the norming stage is that members may begin to fear the inevitable future breakup of the group; they may resist change of any sort. Actually online communities tend to stay around even if there is no activity. Sometimes you can go back after years and realize you still have a membership there.
Is this a community? Does a community only work if there is activity? Is the community safe? Do you feel safe to post what you believe? How do you trust the people in a community?
How to Build Trust
In Stage 4: Performing stage, people work independently, in subgroups, or as a total unit. Their roles adjust to the changing needs of the group and individuals. By now, the group is the most productive. Individual members become self-assuring, and the need for group approval is past. Members are both highly task oriented and highly people oriented. There is unity: group identity is complete, group morale is high, and group loyalty is intense. The task function becomes genuine problem solving, leading toward optimal solutions and optimum group development. There is support for experimentation in solving problems and an emphasis on achievement. The overall goal is productivity through problem solving and work.
Do online communities ever get to Stage 4?
The only way I see this stage working is with a facilitator or someone nudging the members of the community to participate online. If you just want a community to share when you want, then you don’t care about a specific task or project. You join the community to connect and share resources or ideas. If you have a specific task or project, then you need a plan with who’s doing what by when… and a facilitator or coach checking in regularly.
Stage 5 Adjourning means a community ends. This is not happening in online communities and social media unless you leave the community. Or the infrastructure housing the community ends.
Some questions about building community:
- How do you design interaction so all members contribute and participate?
- How do you determine roles and responsibilities for each member and the facilitator?
- How do you see the difference of an on-site and online community of practice?
The reason I wanted to discuss this today is that I am in multiple communities where I am the only one posting. It’s frustrating. I write on this blog and people write me via email a question or comment or scoopit or retweet it. I really appreciate when someone comments on my blog even if I don’t agree with their position. People are not posting on blogs like they used to. People are commenting in social media with 140 characters or pinging back in Scoopit or pinning on Pinterest.
Is this community or just a way to share your thoughts and ideas? Online communities are different now then just a few years ago but are they sustainable? Are they real communities that have good discussions that you can refer to later?
I am in groups in Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Scoopit and many more social media environments. Are these the type of communities that you can use to build communities of practice? I’ve tried Ning and Wikispaces, but they still depend on the facilitator to get conversations going and many have no leaders. I built My eCoach for educators to build communities of practice. I wanted a safe and secure online community that allowed for private conversations and the ability to share publicly.
I know the word “transparency” is big. However, some things you discuss online happens more effectively in private areas. That means you need to trust that whatever you write or share is used the way you would hope it would be used. You can still publish publicly. Now that everything is moving toward “Open” and “Transparent,” more people are uploading all of their pictures and videos to the cloud. They are also sharing their private conversations. This more than often backfires on the author. Now you can have your own YouTube Channel. Anyone can be an author, a filmmaker, a journalist. But having a coach or facilitator helps. I know I’m taking a chance writing here my thoughts. It would probably be better if someone proofread it first. Oh well! Let’s see if any of you comment on my blog.
I found that many conversations didn’t happen effectively without a facilitator so I set up an eCoach program. eCoaches keep the conversations going and encourage members of the community to participate.
Social media doesn’t care if everyone participates. I believe the different types of communities are used for different purposes. I don’t know what I would do without social media. But I still need My eCoach and many members of My eCoach keep coming back because they know it is safe, secure, and their intellectual property is still in their digital locker. It’s all about believing that all of your material will always be there when you need it. That the conversations are still there. Try to find the tweet with the link you saw last week.
Yes, you can bookmark it on Diigo or Plurk. Facebook is trying to build community based on each member’s timeline. Google+ is trying to build community around circles. I am watching and believing that social media is going to look different in the future. Communities are evolving. Communities are becoming extensions of our families and friends. Actually many are blurring between business, family and friends. I get it that social media is about all of us nudging and supporting each other, but usually only 1-10% are really contributing. I’m keeping My eCoach because I see the importance of public and private spaces and an ability for a facilitator to nudge and help members participate. When communities ended in My eCoach, members stopped using it. All of a sudden, many are coming back. They tried to make their own eCoach system. They used existing programs using social media programs but when they realized that their data is sold to third parties, they lost trust. When they saw relevant ads based on what they were writing in their messages, they didn’t feel safe. When they came back to My eCoach, their “stuff” was still there and there are no adds. Their data is not sold to third parties. Yes, it’s not a great revenue model, but we have to believe in the cloud, in the people, in the community.
So I am part of many communities. My neighborhood is my community. I know many of the people in my neighborhood. I feel safe and secure because I can walk around the block and know that people know who I am and I know who they are. My family is my community. Many are online in my social media but we are family first. I am in different groups online and build ongoing relationships with people I met online, in My eCoach and other communities and now are close in real time face-to-face. Community is important. Building a sustainable community takes time, trust, and building relationships that matter.
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Latest illnesses point to raw milk's popularity
WASHINGTON – An outbreak of bacterial infections on the East Coast illustrates the popularity of raw, unpasteurized milk despite strong warnings from public health officials about the potential danger.
Even presidential candidate Ron Paul has joined the cause of consumers looking to buy unprocessed "real foods" straight from the farm, saying government shouldn't deny them that choice.
An outbreak of a campylobacter bacterial infection on the East Coast is a reminder of the potential hazards, however. Raw milk from a dairy in Pennsylvania is now linked to 38 illnesses in four states, and the farm has temporarily suspended sales.
Consumers who want unpasteurized milk have to work to find it. It's against federal law to transport it across state lines and most states don't allow it to be sold in stores off the farm. Twenty states prohibit raw milk sales altogether.
The government says the milk is unsafe because of the pathogens cows may encounter on the farm. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention points out that raw milk killed many people — especially young children — before the onset of pasteurization, which heats milk to high temperatures to kill disease-causing germs.
The CDC says pasteurized milk is rich in proteins, carbohydrates and other nutrients, and that heat only slightly decreases thiamine, vitamin B12, and vitamin C.
While the government contends that milk is only a minor source of those nutrients anyway, raw milk advocates say that's proof that pasteurization makes milk less wholesome and pure.
The government doesn't keep records of raw milk consumption or sales but it's clear that the product is riding the coattails of a larger food movement that encourages less processing and more "real food." Raw milk goes a step further than organic milk free of growth hormones. Organic milk, too, has enjoyed a sales boost in recent years.
"We are pushing for consumer choice and freedom and a variety of dairy options for people," says Kimberly Hartke of the Weston A. Price Foundation, an activist group that advocates "restoring nutrient-dense foods to the human diet." Price was a dentist who studied global nutrition around the turn of the 20th century.
Advocates say far more illnesses are caused each year by leafy greens, deli meats and other products produced in much larger quantities than raw milk.
"To outlaw or ban any natural food because it could possibly make you sick is an extreme position, because there is no safe food," Hartke says.
That's a position that presidential contender Paul, a doctor, understands. He appears to have acknowledged the potential risks of raw milk when he said last summer that "what I'm doing in politics is not exactly the medical opinion."
Still, he said, "as long as you don't force other people, and as long as you don't defraud people, you ought to have a choice."
Supporters of raw milk are passionate, and the issue has become one of the most animated food debates. Raw milk consumers and Price foundation representatives have held protests in Washington to fight Food and Drug Administration crackdowns on some farms that sell raw milk.
The fact that there's even a debate infuriates many in the public health community.
"The intensity with which raw milk supporters believe in this product is almost unheard of, certainly for a food," says Sarah Klein, an attorney for the Center for Science in the Public Interest. "It's like snake oil."
Klein says advocates often mislead consumers by describing bucolic settings and happy cows.
"These are still animals, they defecate inches from where the milk is produced," she says. "They stand in it, they swat their tails through it. That's all very natural. It's just a matter of course that raw milk is contaminated."
The owner of the Pennsylvania dairy, Family Cow farm in Chambersburg, posted a message on the farm's website last week saying that several customers had called them to say they had been experiencing "acute diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps."
Owner Edwin Shank said in the posting that the farm's testing had shown samples to be negative for campylobacter and speculated that the illnesses may be from another cause. But the Pennsylvania health department has linked the outbreak to the farm, and a spokeswoman for the Maryland's health department says an unopened bottle from the farm tested positive. For campylobacter? What is it, anyway?
Raw milk sales are illegal in Maryland, but the state has four illnesses from the outbreak. Those sickened presumably drove to Pennsylvania and brought the milk back for their own consumption, said Maria Said of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
One person is also sick in New Jersey and two in West Virginia, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health. Thirty one people are sick in Pennsylvania, many of them in Franklin County, where the farm is located.
Pennsylvania has had at least seven disease outbreaks linked to raw milk consumption since 2006, involving almost 200 people, according to the health department. Pennsylvania is one of 17 states where some type of raw milk sales are allowed, according to the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture.
CDC on raw milk safety: http://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/rawmilk/raw-milk-index.html
Weston A. Price Foundation: http://www.westonaprice.org
Associated Press writer JoAnn Loviglio in Philadelphia contributed to this report.
Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick . | <urn:uuid:ae185c44-3fb5-4d3d-91c4-a2ee3baa043b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://yourlife.usatoday.com/fitness-food/safety/story/2012-02-03/Latest-illnesses-point-to-raw-milks-popularity/52951204/1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965664 | 1,143 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Dream motifs: A comparison of dream content for depressed and non-depressed adolescents
The purpose of the present investigation was to examine the relationship between dream content and depression in a non-clinical adolescent population. Previous research on adults indicates that depressed patients dream in a different way than non-depressed individuals. Thus, one study showed non-depressed divorcing women having longer dream reports which dealt with negatively toned affect, had a wider time perspective, and included the self in the marital role, compared to depressed subjects. Other studies show depressed patients' dreams dealt with past events; had a greater proportion of unhappy to happy emotions experienced by the dreamer; and included more events involving the effort exerted by inanimate objects. The present empirical investigation extends the literature by attempting to determine whether dream content for adolescents is likewise dictated by their present psychological state, and if so, in what ways. A depressive self-report measure, the CES-DC, together with a dream questionnaire developed by Foulkes, a dream researcher, were distributed to approximately 150 ninth through twelfth grade students in a Westchester high school. The dreams were then analyzed through use of the Foulkes' Manual for a Scoring System for Children's Dreams, Revised (1971), a content-analysis checklist which relied on previous research for components and conceptualization. Actual frequency counts for two groups (depressed and non-depressed) were tabulated for ability to remember a dream, pictorial vs. verbal reports, and dream content categories, in same sex comparisons. A chi square analysis was also applied to dream content to discover any statistically significant differences. The results indicated that only one factor was significantly greater for depressed subjects: the lack of dreamer control over the events, and outcome, of the dream. Thus, for depressed subjects, dream activity and outcome was controlled either by other humans or by outside forces to a significantly greater degree than for non-depressed subjects (p $<$.05). There were no significant differences in remembering dreams, method of describing them, or for other dream content, including hostile affect; dreamer versus other human control; negative outcome; presence or absence of locomotion, and, if present, movement, control, and destination of the locomotion; object relations, including whether dream characters attacked and/or withdrew from other characters or objects, or approached them; and the presence or absence of parents and/or romantic partners and the dreamer's response to them. ^
Psychology, Developmental|Psychology, Clinical
Joann Maria Calderone Galley,
"Dream motifs: A comparison of dream content for depressed and non-depressed adolescents"
(January 1, 1994).
ETD Collection for Pace University. | <urn:uuid:21417bed-da1f-4066-837f-14b6fcbaf106> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/dissertations/AAI9501853/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934727 | 553 | 2.25 | 2 |
The battle for the power to control the earth has raged since the dawn of creation. We all have heard of the spiritual battle between good and evil brought on by Satan’s treasonous will to be a God. When God cast Satan out of Heaven to live in exile on earth, he brought with him legions of angels from every spectrum of the spiritual realm. These legions have plagued the earth tempting mankind into sinful acts with one sole purpose; to remove God from this earthly creation leaving a power on this earth vulnerable so that Satan can take possession of it once and for all to fulfill his deathly desire to be a god.
Thousands of years ago God set apart a family known today only as the Knight Family. He endowed them with supernatural abilities to protect certain objects and people that, if evil was to take control of, could point Satan straight to the power he so desperately desires. They have done so, shrouded in secrecy, ever since. To the common eye, they appear as nothing more than ordinary people. They must always remain so or risk revealing their true purpose and leaving everything the family protects vulnerable. To whisper even a hint of the family’s legacy is a crime punishable only by death and the Knight family will fight to the death to maintain their anonymity in this world.
Throughout the years, the understanding of the family’s purpose has begun to fade away. When a Knight receives their assignment, they are only told what to protect, they are never given the reason for why it must be protected. To understand that knowledge would be more detrimental to their assignment than if they were to lose it or if it were destroyed. Because these individuals are forced to keep their purpose a secret, even from their spouses and children, a library of journals was created. These journals, though vague of their assignment’s purpose, retell the means in which the Knight was forced into taking in order to protect their assignment. For the Knight family, these are the only link they possess to understanding their history and purpose.
These libraries exist all over the world, but like the family, they are located in secret locations, only accessible to a member of the Knight family that is born to carry on the legacy. Unfortunately, a few of these journals were never placed into the protection of the Knight Family libraries. They have fallen into the hands of normal civilians. Some can be found in museums as indistinguishable artifacts. Some have been kept in personal libraries and passed down generation to generation.
It is my duty, as a member of the Knight family, to retrieve these journals and place them in the protection of our library. This is my journal.
(This blog is a collection of fictional short stories based upon the Knightingale Series. For more information about this book series, please visit Author Stephanie Laws’ website.) | <urn:uuid:175bed20-b256-4144-97be-b2a84836fde9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://knightingalelibrary.wordpress.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977031 | 569 | 1.710938 | 2 |
No kidding at all – Biodiesel is something that you perhaps never thought you would be actively looking for more information on.
There always seems to be something that comes up from time to time, and it requires us to deal with it and learn more, perhaps. We are bombarded each day with things that demand our attention or at least want it, and so we have to be very selective about what we decide to give our attention to. So then, in our attempt to gain more knowledge or mitigate the effects, we thus begin our journey of discovery.
Bear in mind when you are reading about this that there is also important related information as we mentioned, above.
Did it ever cross your mind that Biodiesel fuel might be an alternate fuel source? Did you ever envision energy prices topping $4 a gallon? There was a time when we switched to diesel fuel because it was cheaper, but now it costs more than regular gas. In spite of the worries of oil sources drying up, there hasn’t been any efforts to do a mandatory save on fuel. Gas guzzling cars are still being manufactured. Gasoline additives do not appear to be working very well at all in keeping fuel expenses low. If they don’t work, why are they able to be sold.
Biodiesel fuel can be used as an alternative fuel but it hasn’t been gaining as much interest as others. Any kind of diesel car can utilize either diseal or Biodiesel fuel for fuel. There really doesn’t seem to be a rise in the number of people switching to Biodiesel fuel. It seems like it may be a simple option, but what is involved in making Biodiesel fuel. Right now dining establishments dispose of 100 million gallons of oil waste every year, but the amount of gas consumed by Americans is 140 billion gallons, or a whole lot more. With people’s concern about the environment, no one is apparently aware of the potential of Biodiesel fuel. Biodiesel fuel won’t affect the environment since it is biodegradable.
There are folks who might well be concerned with the reliability and the basic safety of using Biodiesel fuel. In line with history, the engine created by Rudolph Diesel was perfect for running on Biodiesel fuel. In 1900, it was shown in Paris in conjunction with the World Exhibition, but the days of the vegetable-powered diesel engine were few, because it was cheaper to use petroleum diesel. That’s why it is far from a surprise that Biodiesel fuel can run a modern-day diesel engine vehicle.
Feedback on how well Biodiesel fuel works as fuel have been mixed. Some believed that there was an increase in coking of the engine while others have not noticed any difference. A major problem then turns into the question of reliability, but most people trying Biodiesel fuel on older trucks are not having any problems. Quite a few owners who switched to Biodiesel fuel are using a filtering process or have installed a conversion kit. There are many other owners who sometimes make their Biodiesel fuel more viscous by combining it with fluids. If you have a problem that could result in an engine breakdown, the possible factors could only be speculated on.
In the event the outcomes are not yet in on how well your engine will work on Biodiesel fuel, it is hard to get excited about it. Discovering an alternative fuel that has been proven to work effectively would be nice but we don’t have that yet. | <urn:uuid:961f32d9-49ef-46c2-a0bb-3efb507d2884> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://safe-speed.net/tag/diseal/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973479 | 725 | 2.84375 | 3 |
As society advanced, the thought that people can multitask (do multiple things at once) grew even stronger. And it has become a concrete belief of many: “Oh yeah, I rock at multitasking” is a sentence you hear often when someone is asked how they pulled something off.
Well, as my first post in the major I have a degree from, I hate to break it to you but multitasking does not – scientifically – exist.
Don’t cry. I shall elaborate.
Sure, it might seem that a person can do two things simultaneously. But a person cannot do two things simultaneously if both of those things require conscious activity.
Meaning: you cannot drive and read at the same time and be 100% aware of both. You cannot watch TV and study and be 100% efficient in both. One of the two tasks has to go into the background.
When you answer a phone while driving is not an example of multitasking as well. Driving, especially after years of expertise, becomes an automated action (thanks to a part of your brain called the basal ganglia). So you actually drive without putting much conscious effort into it. It is an automated action. Therefore, you’re not really doing two things at once, since only one of those things (answering the phone) requires you to be mentally active.
The brain is very good at deluding itself. Most of you might have closed this tab or browser window in outrage by now, thinking that you are the exception. I hate to break it to you, but you’re not. This is how all of our brains are wired. There’s a limit to the amount of information we can process and the speed with which this processing happens. The brain sometimes gives the illusion that you are doing many things at once by quickly switching tasks, in which case you’re not actually doing all of those things at the same time. You think you’re actually fully aware of everything around you, but you’re most definitely not.
Even while writing this, I’m listening to Adele’s “Set Fire To The Rain” and if I focus on the song, I lose focus on what I’m writing. However, when I switch fast enough between focusing on the song and writing, I get the illusion that I’m doing them both at the same time.
Think about two tasks that require you to be fully mentally aware while doing them: talking on the phone, while writing a paper. Have you tried doing a combination of those? It’s pretty difficult to accomplish writing the paper if you’re busy talking on the phone because the two tasks interfere with each other in the brain, each wanting full attention – and ultimately, you fail at one of them.
So next time someone asks you how you pulled something off, tell them you’re good at organizing your time or something. Do not brag about an excessively powerful mental faculty you do not possess. | <urn:uuid:53ebab1b-72b7-491b-b490-5fd1411f7bf3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stateofmind13.com/tag/writing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9659 | 625 | 2.453125 | 2 |
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Concerto No.7 in F for 3 Pianos K242. This is a 4-piano score. Only one score is provided (with Mozart cadenzas).
Mozart composed this concerto in 1776 for the Countess Antonia Lodron and her two daughters, Aloisia and Josepha (who were students of both Mozart pere and fils). The Lodron family served the Salzburg court throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. Moreover, the Countess, a personal friend of the Archbishop Colloredo, became first lady of the court during the years Mozart was active in Salzburg. The Lodrons and the Mozarts became neighbors in 1773 when the Mozarts moved into the famous Dancing-Master's House (the apartment boasted eight rooms and a dance hall!), and shared many musical events together. In fact, when strife arose later between Wolfgang and the Archbishop, the Lodrons suppported the Mozarts, and the Countess was instrumental in securing Wolfgang's return to Salzburg in 1778. As for the concerto itself, much has been said of the fact that the third piano part is not up to the virtuosic level of the other two (it was, after all, written for the eleven-year-old Josepha!). But while it may not make quite the same technical demands, it is certainly on the same level as the first and second piano parts in terms of invention (Mozart having taken care to sustain his young pupil's interest!).
[N.B.: This concerto also exists in a supposedly authentic version for two pianos; Maria Anna Mozart states in her diary that she and her brother Wolfgang performed it in the Mirabell Palace in Salzburg on September 3rd, 1780 (the present edition includes this version, as an insert; piano parts only).]
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|In Newsletter "Fantasy Newsletter (October 12, 2011)" Prosperous Snow talked about talking animals. In Newsletter "Fantasy Newsletter (November 8, 2011)" , she said that she was going to talk about Anthros for her next newsletter. Since she mentioned that she was researching them, and Iím quite knowledgeable on the topic, as I enjoy anthro stories, I decided to give her a hand, and I sent her a letter about the basics of anthros, which she published in Newsletter "Fantasy Newsletter (December 6, 2011)" . With a few alterations, this is the letter I sent her. May it help you as well.
Hello Reader, allow me to guide you in your quest to understand what Anthros are.
Anthro seems to come from the terms Anthropoid, Anthropo-, and Anthropomorphism. If you were to look at a Websterís Dictionary, theyíd tell you things like: Human-like; To have Human Characteristics, and a few other things along those lines. However, Iíll be honest, I have no idea where the term itself originated, or who first used it. But, it has been in use for at least ten years, from what I have found.
Now, while the word Anthro is relatively young, anthros themselves have been around for decades, or at least since Mickey Mouse and his rival Bugs Bunny have been around, if not longer.
What is an anthro you ask? Well, they all tend to be different, but here are the basics.
They are usually sentient, most of them capable of using speech.
Most of the time, they are bipedal, and walk on two legs like a human, but there are also those who are more along the lines of sentient beasts. Also, there are those known as Taurs, which, much like centaurs, have the lower body of a beast, but a humanoid upper body, with animal-like features.
Clothing seems to depend on the individual and/or story. In some stories, the anthros are in the nude, in others anthos wear clothing, and in others, clothing is something of a fashion accessory to show off wealth.
How anthros are treated also depends on the story. In some stories, they are treated just as animals who are intelligent. In other stories, they are treated as second-class citizens. In others, they and humans are equals, and in others still, they are superiors.
Depending on the story, the food web might still be in play, and humans might be included on the menu, or exempt. Basically, if normal animals arenít available for carnivorous anthos to eat, theyíll eat herbivorous anthros, and/or humans.
Cross-breeding might be possible. While anthros typically breed with those of their same species, or one that is closely related to it, ie dogs and wolves, tigers and lions, and have healthy offspring, some breed with those who are outside of the genus, ie, a rabbit and a wolf, or an anthro and a human, and still have healthy children. Of course, in most stories, if a human is one of the parents, the child is usually an anthro, but sometimes the child is born human, as human genes are typically recessive compared to anthro genes. A mix-breed child tends to have traits of both species, such as, in the rabbit/wolf example, looking like a rabbit, but having the diet of a wolf.
Size is also dependant on the story. Some might be only a few inches tall, and might be pets, food or equals to humans. Then there are those who are human sized, and there are lots of possibilities, including superiors and masters over humans. Then there those who are giants, and thereís plenty of possibilities, though they are unlikely to be food or pets. Then there are stories where there is bunch of sizes, from tiny sized to giants.
Humans may or may not be in the story. In some stories, Humans may not have evolved, and other animals rose to sentiency. In some stories, anthros co-evolved alongside of humans. In futuristic stories, anthros are a result of scientific experimentation, but their fate may differ. Some may have violently overthrown humanity. Others might have been created to replace a dying human population, or even supplement it. Others still might co-exist with humanity, though whether they are servants, equals, or masters varies.
Origins of the Anthros also differ. Some are aliens, and may have come in peace, or to conquer. Some co-evolved with humans, and may live alongside of humans, or hidden. Others are the result of scientific research, and the blending of human and animal genes.
The laws also depend on the story. In some stories, the laws followed are very similar to our world, but there might be some exceptions, like whether or not multiple spouses are allowed or not, and whether or not a carnivore can eat sentient beings, and if there are any restrictions on those situations. In other stories, itís survival of the fittest, with few laws being enforced.
Instincts and animal behaviors may or may not play out. Sometimes they can be public displays, and other times they are more private. For instance, Anthros might migrate like their wild counterparts. Also, if a woman were to be near her period, male anthros might fight for the right to be her mate, and might have sex with her in public, or wait until they were alone.
In some stories, an anthroís species is much like a humanís social level. For instance, a rabbit marrying a wolf and the two of them having children could equate to a farmerís son marrying a millionaireís daughter, and having children.
Now, if all that has confused you, here are two well known Anthros, whom Iíve mentioned earlier, Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny. While not called Anthros, they fit the basic profile: Humanoid with Animal Characteristics, Bipedal, have Human Intelligence, Capable of Speech, can wear clothing, capable of reasoning, can form relationships with others, and a few other things.
Well, I hope this helps you out.
From, BBWOLF Turns 24 on 6/3
PS. Here are some of the Common Anthro stories.
Everyday Life: Basically, things are similar to Real-Life, except that parts of the population (or the whole population) are Anthros.
Sex and Erotica: Basically, the story is about sexual encounters. Can be homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual in nature.
Enslavement: Either humans or anthros are slaves to the other.
Vore (cannibalism): Part of the population is food for the other.
Giant-Themes: Part of the population are giants. Vore and crushing of things, and people, tends to show up.
Fantasy: Magic wands and spells are here.
Sci-Fi: Laser guns and aliens are here.
War: Humans Verses Anthros, or nation verses nation, or something.
Combination: Any (or All) of the above can be mixed.
PPS. For examples of Anthro stories, check out the following. Mind you though, some are hundreds of pages long. | <urn:uuid:36fb2e03-f340-4d39-b6d2-e466c6ca5807> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/1838849-Anthro-Information | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961552 | 1,531 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Chiropractic Care Guide
What you need to know about Chiropractic
Do you think you need a chiropractor? Here are some common ailments that may make you think twice.
Pain or numbness in the leg or arm? See what may be the cause
Poor posture and added pressure on your joints may warrant a call to your chiropractor. Look here to find out.
Information to know about your back and how to take care of it.
Find out about how sports and make an impact on your health and how a chriopractor can help.
Everyone experiences neck and shoulder pains. See what you can do for prevention and when to see a chiropractor. | <urn:uuid:0c2e17fd-e7e6-47d2-9ebd-9d2180d23594> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fox16.com/guides/health/chiropractic/default.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904636 | 142 | 1.625 | 2 |
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This falls on the 13th (or 14th) day of the dark half of Phalgun (February-March). The name means “the night of Shiva”. The ceremonies take place chiefly at night. This is a festival observed in honour of Lord Shiva. Shiva was married to Parvati on this day.
People observe a strict fast on this day. Some devotees do not even take a drop of water. They keep vigil all night. The Shiva Lingam is worshipped throughout the night by washing it every three hours with milk, curd, honey, rose water, etc., whilst the chanting of the Mantra Om Namah Shivaya continues. Offerings of bael leaves are made to the Lingam. Bael leaves are very sacred as, it is said, Lakshmi resides in them.
Hymns in praise of Lord Shiva, such as the Shiva Mahimna Stotra of Pushpadanta or Ravana’s Shiva Tandava Stotra are sung with great fervour and devotion. People repeat the Panchakshara Mantra, Om Namah Shivaya. He who utters the Names of Shiva during Shivaratri, with perfect devotion and concentration, is freed from all sins. He reaches the abode of Shiva and lives there happily. He is liberated from the wheel of births and deaths. Many pilgrims flock to the places where there are Shiva temples.
THE STORY OF KING CHITRABHANU
In the Shanti Parva of the Mahabharata, Bhishma, whilst resting on the bed of arrows and discoursing on Dharma, refers to the observance of Maha Shivaratri by King Chitrabhanu. The story goes as follows.
Once upon a time King Chitrabhanu of the Ikshvaku dynasty, who ruled over the whole of Jambudvipa, was observing a fast with his wife, it being the day of Maha Shivaratri. The sage Ashtavakra came on a visit to the court of the king.
The sage asked, “O king! why are you observing a fast today?”
King Chitrabhanu explained why. He had the gift of remembering the incidents of his previous birth.
The king said to the sage: “In my past birth I was a hunter in Varanasi. My name was Suswara. My livelihood was to kill and sell birds and animals. One day I was roaming the forests in search of animals. I was overtaken by the darkness of night. Unable to return home, I climbed a tree for shelter. It happened to be a bael tree. I had shot a deer that day but I had no time to take it home. I bundled it up and tied it to a branch on the tree. As I was tormented by hunger and thirst, I kept awake throughout the night. I shed profuse tears when I thought of my poor wife and children who were starving and anxiously awaiting my return. To pass away the time that night I engaged myself in plucking the bael leaves and dropping them down onto the ground.
“The day dawned. I returned home and sold the deer. I bought some food for myself and for my family. I was about to break my fast when a stranger came to me, begging for food. I served him first and then took my food.
“At the time of death, I saw two messengers of Lord Shiva. They were sent down to conduct my soul to the abode of Lord Shiva. I learnt then for the first time of the great merit I had earned by the unconscious worship of Lord Shiva during the night of Shivaratri. They told me that there was a Lingam at the bottom of the tree. The leaves I dropped fell on the Lingam. My tears which I had shed out of pure sorrow for my family fell onto the Lingam and washed it. And I had fasted all day and all night. Thus did I unconsciously worship the Lord.
“I lived in the abode of the Lord and enjoyed divine bliss for long ages. I am now reborn as Chitrabhanu.”
SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RITUAL
The Scriptures record the following dialogue between Sastri and Atmanathan, giving the inner meaning of the above story.
Sastri: It is an allegory. The wild animals that the hunter fought with are lust, anger, greed, infatuation, jealousy and hatred. The jungle is the fourfold mind, consisting of the subconscious mind, the intellect, the ego and the conscious mind. It is in the mind that these “wild animals” roam about freely. They must be killed. Our hunter was pursuing them because he was a Yogi. If you want to be a real Yogi you have to conquer these evil tendencies. Do you remember the name of the hunter in the story?
Atmanathan: Yes, he was called Suswara.
Sastri: That’s right. It means “melodious”. The hunter had a pleasant melodious voice. If a person practices Yama and Niyama and is ever conquering his evil tendencies, he will develop certain external marks of a Yogi. The first marks are lightness of the body, health, steadiness, clearness of countenance and a pleasant voice. This stage has been spoken of in detail in the Swetaswatara Upanishad. The hunter or the Yogi had for many years practised Yoga and had reached the first stage. So he is given the name Suswara. Do you remember where he was born?
Atmanathan: Yes, his birthplace is Varanasi.
Sastri: Now, the Yogis call the Ajna Chakra by the name Varanasi. This is the point midway between the eyebrows. It is regarded as the meeting place of the three nerve currents (Nadis), namely, the Ida, Pingala and the Sushumna. An aspirant is instructed to concentrate on that point. That helps him to conquer his desires and evil qualities like anger and so on. It is there that he gets a vision of the Divine Light within.
Atmanathan: Very interesting! But how do you explain his climbing up the bael tree and all the other details of the worship?
Sastri: Have you ever seen a bael leaf?
Atmanathan: It has three leaves on one stalk.
Sastri: True. The tree represents the spinal column. The leaves are threefold. They represent the Ida, Pingala and Sushumna Nadis, which are the regions for the activity of the moon, the sun and fire respectively, or which may be thought of as the three eyes of Shiva. The climbing of the tree is meant to represent the ascension of the Kundalini Shakti, the serpentine power, from the lowest nerve centre called the Muladhara to the Ajna Chakra. That is the work of the Yogi.
Atmanathan: Yes, I have heard of the Kundalini and the various psychic centres in the body. Please go on further; I am very interested to know more.
Sastri: Good. The Yogi was in the waking state when he began his meditation. He bundled up the birds and the animals he had slain and, tying them on a branch of the tree, he rested there. That means he had fully conquered his thoughts and rendered them inactive. He had gone through the steps of Yama, Niyama, Pratyahara, etc. On the tree he was practising concentration and meditation. When he felt sleepy, it means that he was about to lose consciousness and go into deep sleep. So he determined to keep awake.
Atmanathan: That is now clear to me; you certainly do explain it very well. But why did he weep for his wife and children?
Sastri: His wife and children are none other than the world. One who seeks the Grace of God must become an embodiment of love. He must have an all-embracing sympathy. His shedding of tears is symbolical of his universal love. In Yoga also, one cannot have illumination without Divine Grace. Without practising universal love, one cannot win that Grace. One must perceive one’s own Self everywhere. The preliminary stage is to identify one’s own mind with the minds of all created beings. That is fellow-feeling or sympathy. Then one must rise above the limitations of the mind and merge it in the Self. That happens only in the stage of Samadhi, not earlier.
Atmanathan: Why did he pluck and drop the bael leaves?
Sastri: That is mentioned in the story only to show that he had no extraneous thoughts. He was not even conscious of what he was doing. All his activity was confined to the three Nadis. The leaves, I have said before, represent the three Nadis. He was in fact in the second state, namely, the dream state, before he passed into the deep sleep state.
Atmanathan: He kept vigil the whole night, it is said.
Sastri: Yes, that means that he passed through the deep sleep state successfully. The dawning of day symbolises the entrance into the Fourth state called Turiya or superconsciousness.
Atmanathan: It is said that he came down and saw the Lingam. What does that mean?
Sastri: That means that in the Turiya state he saw the Shiva Lingam or the mark of Shiva in the form of the inner lights. In other words, he had the vision of the Lord. That was an indication to him that he would realise the supreme, eternal abode of Lord Shiva in course of time.
Atmanathan: So it appears from what you say that the sight of the lights is not the final stage?
Sastri: Oh no! That is only one step, albeit a difficult one. Now think of how the story continues. He goes home and feeds a stranger. A stranger is one whom you have not seen before. The stranger is no other than the hunter himself, transformed into a new person. The food was the likes and dislikes which he had killed the previous night. But he did not consume the whole of it. A little still remained. That was why he had to be reborn as King Chitrabhanu. Going to the world of Shiva (Salokya) is not enough to prevent this. There are other stages besides Salokya. These are Samipya, Sarupya and finally Sayujya. Have you not heard of Jaya and Vijaya returning from Vaikunta?
Atmanathan: Yes, I have understood now.
LORD SHIVA’S ASSURANCE
When creation had been completed, Shiva and Parvati went out to live on the top of Mount Kailas. Parvati asked, “O venerable Lord! which of the many rituals observed in Thy honour doth please Thee most?”
The Lord replied, “The 14th night of the new moon, in the dark fortnight during the month of Phalgun, is my most favourite day. It is known as Shivaratri. My devotees give me greater happiness by mere fasting than by ceremonial baths and offerings of flowers, sweets and incense.
“The devotee observes strict spiritual discipline in the day and worships Me in four different forms during each of the four successive three-hour periods of the night. The offering of a few bael leaves is more precious to Me than the precious jewels and flowers. My devotee should bathe Me in milk at the first period, in curd at the second, in clarified butter at the third, and in honey at the fourth and last. Next morning, he should feed the Brahmins first and, after performing the prescribed ceremonies, he can break his fast. O Parvati! there is no ritual which can compare with this simple routine in sanctity.”
Parvati was deeply impressed by the speech of Loid Shiva. She repeated it to Her friends who in their turn passed it on to the ruling princes on earth. Thus was the sanctity of Shivaratri broadcast all over the world.
The two great natural forces that afflict man are Rajas (the quality of passionate activity) and Tamas (that of inertia). The Shivaratri Vrata aims at the perfect control of these two. The entire day is spent at the Feet of the Lord. Continuous worship of the Lord necessitates the devotee’s constant presence in the place of worship. Motion is controlled. Evils like lust, anger, and jealousy, born of Rajas are ignored and subdued. The devotee observes vigil throughout the night and thus conquers Tamas also. Constant vigilance is imposed on the mind. Every three hours a round of worship of the Shiva Lingam is conducted. Shivaratri is a perfect Vrata.
The formal worship consists of bathing the Lord. Lord Shiva is considered to be the Form of Light (which the Shiva Lingam represents). He is burning with the fire of austerity. He is therefore best propitiated with cool bathing. While bathing the Lingam the devotee prays: “O Lord! I will bathe Thee with water, milk, etc. Do Thou kindly bathe me with the milk of wisdom. Do Thou kindly wash me of all my sins, so that the fire of worldliness which is scorching me may be put out once for all, so that I may be one with Thee—the One alone without a second.”
At the Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh, the Shivaratri festival is celebrated in the following manner.
1. All spiritual aspirants fast the whole day, many of them without taking even a single drop of water.
2. A grand havan is performed for the peace and welfare of all.
3. The whole day is spent in doing the Japa of Om Namah Shivaya and in meditation upon the Lord.
4. At night all assemble in the temple and chant Om Namah Shivaya the whole night.
5. During the four quarters of the night the Shiva Lingam is worshipped with intense devotion.
6. Sannyas Diksha is also given on this day to sincere seekers on the path.
Offer this inner worship to Lord Shiva daily: “I worship the jewel of my Self, the Shiva residing in the Lotus of my heart. I bathe Him with the water of my pure mind brought from the river of faith and devotion. I worship Him with the fragrant flowers of Samadhi—all this so that I may not be born again in this world.”
Here is another formula for the supreme worship of the Lord: “O Shiva! you are my Self. My mind is Parvati. My Pranas are your servants. My body is your house. My actions in this world are your worship. My sleep is Samadhi. My walk is circumambulation of you. My speech is your prayer. Thus do I offer all that I am to you. | <urn:uuid:de47deba-5c63-40d1-bac0-d4996708eabb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sivanandaonline.org/newsupdates/the-significance-and-observance-of-mahasivaratri/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969742 | 3,184 | 2.90625 | 3 |
ANDERSON — About three dozen people, most of them students, spent Saturday with their sleeves rolled up at Southgate Park Apartments, cleaning and doing yard work.
The students are all members of the Youth Volunteer Corps of Anderson County, a service organization. In Anderson, the program is affiliated with the United Way.
The students chose to work at Southgate because the apartment complex is for residents who are mentally ill but able to live on their own.
“They aren’t always able to get out and do a lot in their own yards,” said Carol Loyd, the program director for the county’s Youth Volunteer Corps. “Our students wanted to do some landscaping, to make things pretty for them, and make a difference by helping them with something that they might have trouble doing.”
The project on George Albert Lake Road in Anderson was one of dozens nationwide Saturday as the Youth Volunteer Corps marked its 25th anniversary with a Celebration of Service. The corps exists to provide volunteer projects for students between ages 11 and 18.
The goal of the group is to instill each student with a lifelong desire to serve in his or her community. More than 250,000 students have served in the organization in the last two decades.
Laura Parker, a senior at Westside High School in Anderson, became involved with the corps when she was looking for a summer project. That was three years ago.
“I was really shy when I started,” she said. “This has changed me. It has brought me out of my shell and has introduced me to great people I would have never known.”
Isaac Bowen, a senior at Palmetto High School in Williamston, has been volunteering with the corps for the last three years. He heard about the corps when the group made a presentation at his school.
“It really is a way to impact your community,” he said. “Three hours on a Saturday can really make a difference in somebody else’s life.”
When the students were done with their work, the landscape around the apartment complex was manicured and tidy.
Dozens of bags of trash sat tied in the parking lot, waiting to be loaded and hauled away.
Evan Price, a senior at T.L. Hanna High School in Anderson, told a visitor that he didn’t want to shake anyone’s hand because he was too dirty. But he was happy with what the group had accomplished.
He has been volunteering with the corps for six years.
“It gives you an opportunity to help people who are sometimes overlooked in society,” he said. “One volunteer at a time really can do something to impact the world. It doesn’t matter whether you are sweeping or shoveling or spreading mulch, every job matters. And it will help someone who may not be able to help themselves.” | <urn:uuid:431340af-20bf-493e-8595-d8bc2d4b26a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.independentmail.com/news/2012/sep/22/student-volunteers-anderson-sweat-serve-others/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985023 | 607 | 1.625 | 2 |
Last night, along with many of you, I tuned into President Barack Obama’s first State of the Union address. While I was genuinely interested to hear the President speak on the full scope of the issues facing our country right now – and there are many – I was, of course, especially interested to hear what he would say about immigration reform. More pointedly, I wanted to know if he would say anything at all.
Towards the end of the speech, word 6,300 of 7,000 total to be exact, President Obama did mention immigration.
“We should continue the work of fixing our broken immigration system to secure our borders, enforce our laws and ensure that everyone who plays by the rules can contribute to our economy and enrich our nation.”
While I was glad that the issue was mentioned and that the President noted the current system is broken, I think I speak for many passionate immigrant rights and immigration reform advocates when I say I was more than a little disappointed.
After words of commitment at key times, after the Latino and New American vote helped put him into office, after months of lip service to the idea of just and humane reform, after years(s) of hard work and organizing, after flexing our political muscles on the Hill, in the streets and across the country, we deserve more.
As Maegan at VivirLatino pointed out, last night was a missed opportunity to demonstrate to the American public why immigration reform is inextricably linked to the other major issues facing our country.
He failed, as so many do, in pointing out where health care reform and immigration reform intersect.
And where the economy and immigration reform intersect and where immigration reform and jobs intersect. At one point, the President said:
“In this new decade, it’s time the American people get a government that matches their decency.”
And it’s time that government produce an immigration system that matches the country’s decency too. Too many people are suffering right now at the hands of this broken system, for it to just be a passing thought in laying out the domestic agenda.
So, where do we go from here? For those of us who remain committed to seeing this through in 2010, for those of us who refuse to believe that last night was the “death knell” for reform?
First, we organize. We keep knocking on doors, holding town halls, protesting in the streets and marching on Washington. We win hearts and minds and political power the old-fashioned way: through action.
Second, we keep the pressure on Congress. Today alone, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid publicly stated the Senate’s commitment to immigration reform, Senator Chuck Schumer noted that progress is being made on the legislation he is currently drafting and Rep. Luis Gutierrez took it to the blogosphere to remind Congress that the responsibility rests squarely on their shoulders:
Though he clearly supports the notion that our laws must reflect the contributions immigrants have made to literally build this country, it is clear to me that Congress cannot wait for the President to lay out our time-line for comprehensive reform.
Third, we raise the stakes. We start demanding reform, rather than asking. It is clear that Congress is still more swayed by their fear of the political complexity of this issue than they are of the power of the immigration reform movement and the political power of the Latino and immigrant electorate. Its time to change that.
In the next few months, there are some big things planned, including a large-scale march on Washington, DC on March 21st. Its time to show Congress that we WILL hold them accountable and its time to force President Obama to take the leadership he promised on this issue.
With this said, it’s worth noting that using one speech as the barometer for the likelihood of a huge issue’s success or lack thereof is probably not the best approach to take. While I will admit that I was disappointed and a bit disheartened last night, it has only stoked the fire of my commitment to see this issue through in a real and tangible way.
But determining the future of immigration reform on a “word count” in the State of the Union address is bad strategy. Instead, immigration advocates should keep Presidential promises in perspective, redouble their efforts and continue to hold Congress’s feet to the fire.
Who’s with me? | <urn:uuid:8cc9a2cb-e27f-4efa-8ce5-528c31a95c42> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fairimmigration.org/tag/barack-obama/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970752 | 908 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Von Helman wrote:ok let me say I am also plan to feed it barley but the entire post is about what types of greenhouse items should be fed to dairy cows..
I agree on lettuce alone not being enough .. sorry for not being more clear..
TexasBred wrote:Can you just grow some good grass in the greenhouse??
gonzo wrote:I'm sorry V H but I don't understand unless you don't have the land at your disposal why you would try to grow enough forage for cows in a green house.I must be missing something.
Von Helman wrote:TexasBred wrote:Can you just grow some good grass in the greenhouse??
Well I plan to grow a lot of Barley for the sheep but I was just wondering if anyone else was doing such a system and if they had any type of "roughage" suggestions. Like I said we have done this barley fodder for sheep and it works great.
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 8 guests | <urn:uuid:238b3df4-14bc-408c-98ec-d860c603eb0e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cattletoday.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=921235 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975795 | 208 | 1.59375 | 2 |
White House sounds alarm on non-defense sequester cuts
The White House sends out a "fact sheet" sounding the alarm on non-defense cuts if the sequester goes into effect March 1.
White House officials estimate thousands of jobs will be in jeopardy and the economic security of the middle class will be threatened as federal agencies are forced to slash spending, including through worker furloughs.
"Our economy is poised to take off but we cannot afford a self-inflicted wound from Washington," the fact sheet states. "We cannot simply cut our way to prosperity, and if Republicans continue to insist on an unreasonable cuts-only approach, the middle class risks paying the price."
Areas affected include law enforcement, prosecution and emergency responders, food safety, education, and research and innovation. In an interesting twist that may not sway taxpayers in the administration's favor, the cuts would also impact IRS tax audits.
"The IRS would be forced to complete fewer tax return reviews and would experience reduced capacity to detect and prevent fraud, resulting in an inability to collect and protect billions of dollars in revenue annually," according to the fact sheet.
Here's the full White House laundry list of potential impacts:
Security and Safety
• FBI and other law enforcement – The FBI and other law enforcement entities would see a reduction in capacity equivalent to more than 1,000 Federal agents. This loss of agents would significantly impact our ability to combat violent crime, pursue financial crimes, secure our borders, and protect national security.
• U.S. Attorneys – The Department of Justice would need to furlough hundreds of Federal prosecutors. As a result, approximately 1,000 fewer criminal cases nationwide would be prosecuted, and some civil litigation defending the financial interests of the United States would not be pursued, potentially costing taxpayers billions of dollars.
• Emergency responders – FEMA would need to eliminate funding for State and local grants that support firefighter positions and State and local emergency management personnel, hampering our ability to respond to natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy and other emergencies.
Research and Innovation
• NIH research – The National Institutes of Health (NIH) would be forced to delay or halt vital scientific projects and make hundreds of fewer research awards. Since each research award supports up to seven research positions, several thousand personnel could lose their jobs. Many projects would be difficult to pursue at reduced levels and would need to be cancelled, putting prior year investments at risk. These cuts would delay progress on the prevention of debilitating chronic conditions that are costly to society and delay development of more effective treatments for common and rare diseases affecting millions of Americans.
• NSF research – The National Science Foundation (NSF) would issue nearly 1,000 fewer research grants and awards, impacting an estimated 12,000 scientists and students and curtailing critical scientific research.
• New drug approvals – The FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) would face delays in translating new science and technology into regulatory policy and decision-making, resulting in delays in new drug approvals. The FDA would likely also need to reduce operational support for meeting review performance goals, such as the recently negotiated user fee goals on new innovative prescription drugs and medical devices.
• Small business assistance – Small Business Administration (SBA) loan guarantees would be cut by up to $540 million, constraining financing needed by small businesses to maintain and expand their operations and create jobs.
• Economic development – The Economic Development Administration’s (EDA) ability to leverage private sector resources to support projects that spur local job creation would be restricted, likely resulting in more than 1,000 fewer jobs created than expected and leaving more than $47 million in private sector investment untapped.
• International trade – The International Trade Administration (ITA) would be forced to reduce its support for America’s exporters, trimming assistance to U.S. businesses looking to increase their exports and expand operations into foreign markets. In addition, ITA would not be able to place staff in critical international growth markets, where there is a clear business opportunity for many American businesses to increase their sales and create jobs at home. These staff would have been part of a key program working to promote and facilitate global investment in the U.S., supporting thousands of new jobs through Foreign Direct Investment.
• Food safety – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) could conduct 2,100 fewer inspections at domestic and foreign facilities that manufacture food products while USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) may have to furlough all employees for approximately two weeks. These reductions could increase the number and severity of safety incidents, and the public could suffer more foodborne illness, such as the recent salmonella in peanut butter outbreak and the E. coli illnesses linked to organic spinach, as well as cost the food and agriculture sector millions of dollars in lost production volume.
• IRS customer service and tax compliance – The cuts to operating expenses and expected furloughs at the IRS would result in the inability of millions of taxpayers to get answers from IRS call centers and taxpayer assistance centers and would significantly delay IRS responses to taxpayer letters. The IRS would be forced to complete fewer tax return reviews and would experience reduced capacity to detect and prevent fraud, resulting in an inability to collect and protect billions of dollars in revenue annually. Cuts to the IRS would ultimately cost taxpayers and increase the deficit through lost revenue from recoveries and additional fraud and abuse.
• Native American programs - Tribes would lose almost $130 million in funding from the Department of the Interior. Reductions would be necessary in many areas including human services, law enforcement, schools, economic development and natural resources.
• Workplace safety – The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) could have to pull its inspectors off the job for some period of time. This would mean roughly 1,200 fewer inspections of the Nation’s most dangerous workplaces, which would leave workers unprotected and could lead to an increase in worker fatality and injury rates.
• Title I education funds – Title I education funds would be eliminated for more than 2,700 schools, cutting support for nearly 1.2 million disadvantaged students. This funding reduction would put the jobs of approximately 10,000 teachers and aides at risk. Students would lose access to individual instruction, afterschool programs, and other interventions that help close achievement gaps.
• Special education (IDEA) – Cuts to special education funding would eliminate Federal support for more than 7,200 teachers, aides, and other staff who provide essential instruction and support to preschool and school-aged students with disabilities.
• Head Start – Head Start and Early Head Start services would be eliminated for approximately 70,000 children, reducing access to critical early education. Community and faith based organizations, small businesses, local governments, and school systems would have to lay off over 14,000 teachers, teacher assistants, and other staff.
• Social Security applicant and beneficiary services – The Social Security Administration (SSA) would be forced to curtail service to the public and reduce program oversight efforts designed to make sure benefits are paid accurately and to the right people. Potential effects on SSA operations could include a reduction in service hours to the public, the closure of some offices, and a substantial growth in the backlog of Social Security disability claims.
• Senior meals – Federally-assisted programs like Meals on Wheels would be able to serve 4 million fewer meals to seniors. These meals contribute to the overall health and well-being of participating seniors, including those with chronic illnesses that are affected by diet, such as diabetes and heart disease, and frail seniors who are homebound. The meals can account for 50 percent or more of daily food for the majority of home delivered participants.
• Nutrition assistance for women, infants and children – Approximately 600,000 women and children would be dropped from the Department of Agriculture’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) from March through September. At least 1,600 State and local jobs could be lost as a result.
• Rental assistance – The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Housing Choice Voucher program, which provides rental assistance to very low-income families, would face a significant reduction in funding, which would place about 125,000 families at immediate risk of losing their permanent housing.
• Emergency unemployment compensation – People receiving Emergency Unemployment Compensation benefits would see their benefits cut by as much as 9.4 percent. Affected long-term unemployed individuals would lose an average of more than $400 in benefits that they and their families count on while they search for another job. Smaller unemployment checks will also have a negative impact on the economy as a whole. Economists have estimated that every dollar in unemployment benefits generates $2 in economic activity.
• Homelessness programs – More than 100,000 formerly homeless people, including veterans, would be removed from their current housing and emergency shelter programs, putting them at risk of returning to the streets.
• Mental health and substance abuse services – Cuts to the Mental Health Block Grant program would result in over 373,000 seriously mentally ill adults and seriously emotionally disturbed children not receiving needed mental health services. This cut would likely lead to increased hospitalizations, involvement in the criminal justice system, and homelessness for these individuals. In addition, close to 8,900 homeless persons with serious mental illness would not get the vital outreach, treatment, housing, and support they need through the Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness (PATH) program.
• AIDS and HIV treatment and prevention – Cuts to the AIDS Drug Assistance Program could result in 7,400 fewer patients having access to life saving HIV medications. And approximately 424,000 fewer HIV tests could be conducted by Centers for Disease Control (CDC) State grantees, which could result in increased future HIV transmissions, deaths from HIV, and costs in health care.
• Tribal services – The Indian Health Service and Tribal hospitals and clinics would be forced to provide 3,000 fewer inpatient admissions and 804,000 fewer outpatient visits, undermining needed health care in Tribal communities. | <urn:uuid:b95abd96-2f71-4837-b202-3c1f387aaa7f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.politico.com/politico44/2013/02/white-house-sounds-alarm-on-nondefense-sequester-cuts-156496.html?hp=l15_b5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958868 | 2,059 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Topic: Ruby & Java vs JRuby
My team has been doing Java for a long time. We are switching to Ruby. We are finding that Ruby has limitations and that we have to do certain things in Java. I'm trying to find a way to call Java code from Ruby. I'm searching Google and such, and I always end up on a page describing how to call Java code from JRuby. That's not what I want.
Then I start to wonder why we're NOT using JRuby?! Instinctively, I'm thinking Java and Ruby is what we're doing. JRuby is the best of both worlds. What am I missing?
I've asked around a little bit and I've heard a few negative things about JRuby, such as memory issues or diminishing oracle/community support, or whatever. Is JRuby a dud? Or is it viable for real-world, large-scale, mission critical apps, the way Ruby/Rails supposedly is? Is there a reason that we should be coding in Ruby AND Java instead of just going with JRuby? Can we not use Rails if we do JRuby? I mean, why wouldn't you want access to all the comprehensive features in Java, combined with the ease/fun of Ruby?! | <urn:uuid:7b31aeac-9ff0-4430-9274-532ec3e95e79> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://railsforum.com/viewtopic.php?pid=156503 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963607 | 260 | 1.523438 | 2 |
By: Clive Longbottom, Head of Research, Quocirca
Published: 21st November 2012
Copyright Quocirca © 2012
At a recent Dell roundtable event on the future of cloud computing, the discussion centred around how cloud was not being adopted wholesale by many organisations yet. Various reasons were put forward, such as fear of change, fear of losing control, security issues and so on. A little while later on, several people were pushing the case for cloud around its capability to enable innovation.
Sure, cloud computing can provide a different way of doing things and can encourage a completely different way of facilitating business process – but if this is pushed as the main way that cloud works, then surely all that is happening is that users will be put off more? If fear of change is a factor to scare organisations off from using cloud, then moving critical business workloads to a relatively unproven emerging platform AND changing the way the application runs has to be enough not only to put the techies off the change, but also the business?
The view put forward by Quocirca was that organisations could start with a low-risk approach. If base level workloads such as file and print, email, payroll and so on were taken and moved onto a cloud architecture where resources could be shared in a flexible and dynamic manner, organisations could see that cloud worked and was ready for the higher level and more complex workloads.
At this stage, mayhem ensued. Several cries went up that this was just virtualisation, and not cloud. Why? Because it did not have self-service.
OK, the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) definition of cloud boils it down to 5 mandatory capabilities for cloud – broad network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity, a measured service – and self-service. But just how important is self-service at a corporate level?
When salesforce.com first came to prominence, the biggest issue that Quocirca heard from organisations was that users were signing up to the service off their own bat, without involving IT. Therefore control was lost and new islands of functionality and data were being created that harmed the overall effectiveness of the business. In this case – and many others where externally sourced functions were easily available, such as Dropbox, self-service was a problem, not an advantage.
For simple reasons of governance risk and compliance, organisations need control over what their employees, consultants, contractors and partners can provision to themselves. Rules need to be in place and means of dealing with exceptions. NIST does not cover this in its definition, and therefore, Quocirca believes that it is too simple and is therefore flawed.
Let's look at it a different way: if a platform is connected to the internet, then it has broad access – even if there are then systems in place to ensure that only select users can get through to it. If it uses shared resources, it may just be virtualisation. Even if measurement tools are in place to audit and present reports on usage, it may still only be virtualisation. If the resource pool that is made available through virtualisation can be applied dynamically to the workloads, then this is pushing the capabilities of virtualisation. Does the lack of self-service stop such a dynamic platform from being a cloud service?
If we take the dynamic resource platform and layer tools upon it, for example Remedy, such that a user can raise a ticket to request that a service is made available to them, and the actions to do this are all automated, does this then make the platform a true cloud? If so, then something is wrong, as the self-service is not part of the platform itself – it could well be served by Remedy running on a separate physical server, yet Remedy allows for highly granular control over how services are allocated and provides a solid audit of what was done where and when.
If cloud is going to more rapidly adopted, then low-risk use cases are going to be needed to be demonstrated to the mainstream organisations. Trying to get them to move mission-critical enterprise apps from a known, already well-managed environment to one where they have worries is not the way to do it. To then quibble over whether a platform is cloud or not just because a user cannot automatically demand 14ZB of storage and 43 different email addresses is not going to help.
If the platform provides elasticity of resources for multiple different workloads and is connected to a broad group of people, then as far as Quocirca is concerned, it is cloud.
Oh – and for the purists, then sticking to the letter of the definition means that "private cloud" can never exist: it does not come under the necessary "broad network access" definition.
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Published by: IT Analysis Communications Ltd.
T: +44 (0)190 888 0760 | F: +44 (0)190 888 0761 | <urn:uuid:12eca935-95c1-4e12-a6ca-9ad800b42c52> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.it-director.com/blogs/Quocirca/2012/11/when_is_a_cloud_not_quite_a_cloud_.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965276 | 1,065 | 1.601563 | 2 |
1 Day Ago
if the hot water cylinder is just providing water to the one shower and not connected to the rest of the hot water pipework then there is no complication.
or as suggested you could have a hot water cylinder for most of your hot water needs, being heated by the surplus electricity and additionally by the boiler as needed. as you have a combi you would need one tap connected directly,
it would all depend on how much power you would be getting to heat the cylinder and location of the boiler, cylinder in relation to the draw off points.
an unvented cylinder works of the mains water, so has a greater working pressure than a traditional gravity hot water cylinder and tank set-up.
best to get a couple of quotes from local engineers, see what they suggest as making best use of what you want to achieve. | <urn:uuid:84cb6c17-b91c-4925-bff6-ee6108a4be7f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ukplumbersforums.co.uk/users/36981/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977893 | 173 | 1.671875 | 2 |
There are multiple technique out there, with the two I mainly use being breastroke and freestyle. Is there a difference between the two as far as their effectiveness in a cardio workout? Is there a technique that stands "supreme" for cardio, or is swimming in general just effective?
There are four major strokes in swimming:
Of these, freestyle is the fastest and most efficient swimming style. In my own experience the butterfly stroke is by far the hardest to maintain for long distances. How you fill in your workout depends on two factors, how well can you swim and how hard do you want to be working out.
How well can you swim?
If you have a poor technique or a poor condition, swimming will become quite heavy to sustain at a decent speed very quickly. The poor technique causes you to swim inefficient, because having a wrong posture creates a lot of unnecessary drag and inefficient breathing. The poor condition means fatigue will have a negative influence on both your speed and your technique. A combination of both will lead to a complete downward spiral.
Why should you care? Well, the point is you want to be swimming for a long stretch off time, enough for some real cardio-exercise. You don't want to be 'wasting' energy and end up completely wasted half way through. You should only make it harder on yourself once yourself once you have a decent baseline condition. Pick the strokes that allow you to swim for as long as possible.
How hard do you want to be working out?
Like running, swimming is something you can make as hard as you want to. If you swim faster, it will cost you more energy. You can also add tougher strokes (like butterfly stroke) or add resistance (wear a t-shirt or use paddles) to increase the resistance. The other option is working out longer, though unless your serious about swimming long distances, I reckon this is the last option for everyone.
Why should you care? This means that if you always swim for half an hour and you're swimming condition + technique start to improve, you can either do more in those 30 minutes or add some minutes to make it harder.
So say your already capable of swimming half an hour non-stop, what should you be doing? As with every other workout, you can either try to swim faster (more miles/hour) and just swim non-stop or use interval training to push yourself harder during short stretches of time combined with periods of relative rest.
For pushing yourself faster, I'd recommend the latter. Though you should always combine it with 'rest' days where you simply swim non-stop and perhaps focus on improving your technique rather than pushing for speed.
A 'typical' swimming workout with intervals could consist out of a 400m warming up, it doesn't really matter what stroke you swim, just that you get your heart rate up to a nice and steady level. Then you start swimming 100/200m intervals, you have two options with how to approach these:
You could also try to focus on swimming faster for longer stretches of time. An often used method for this is using a 'pyramid' built up. It basically goes like:
100m --> 200m --> 300m --> 400m --> 300m --> 200m --> 100m
Which totals in 1600m (not bad!) + 400m of your warming up. Swim each interval as fast as possible (under the lactate threshold), but try to keep up a constant pace rather than ending very slow. This teaches you to spread your efforts when the workout starts to become longer and will help you find a pace of breathing and stroking that you can keep up for longer stretches of time. You can use the same protocol as with the 100m workouts, if you aim for 1:45 min with rest, just multiple that for every 100m you swim. This means your need to swim the 400m within 7 minutes and you get the rest of the time to rest.
You can shorten your 100m time, but you can also switch the resting for swimming 50m backstroke. This gives you less rest, but you don't have to push yourself to swim much faster (which is often much harder!). Alternatively, you could do a medley, where you combine all strokes. The recommended order is: butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle, because it has a good mix of intensity and 'rest'.
So my advice: always swim freestyle unless you want some variation or rest.
Strokes like freestyle, backstroke, and breaststroke use your abs, glutes, biceps, triceps, quads, and hams. It's basically a full body workout which is excellent cardio. Like Eelvex said, switch it up. If you do the same exercises, in or out of the pool, your body will adapt and you wont be burning as many calories as you potentially could.
What do you mean when you say effective? Burning the most calories? Working the most muscles?
If it's working as much of your body as you can, obviously you want to mix in several styles.
If you are just looking at it as a calorie-burning/resistance-training thing, it really comes down to what gets YOUR heart-rate up and allows you to train longer and safely push yourself. The rhythm is very important, the style.. not so much.
If you seek to increase resistance of a certain muscle group, then focus on that weak spot; if you seek to increase general cardio-resistance, mix it up so that you can swim longer. Otherwise just enjoy being in the water and don't worry about it :) | <urn:uuid:4712979e-a18c-4138-860e-ad5ee339f042> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fitness.stackexchange.com/questions/429/what-swimming-technique-is-more-effective-for-a-cardio-workout | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965866 | 1,163 | 1.898438 | 2 |
Tether.com is pleased to announce that its award-winning app – which allows simple and affordable internet connection through smartphones -- is available for iPhones, again.
The developers behind Tether.com first released its product for BlackBerry in 2009 so users would no longer experience the frustration of being unable to find a WiFi hotspot when most needed. After a little more than two years, Tether.com now provides 500,000 BlackBerry and Android users with a dependable Internet connection for their laptops and desktops, using their existing smartphone data plans.
"It was clear from our initial application iTether, there was enormous demand within the iPhone ecosystem," says Tim Burke, CEO of Tether. "It was unfortunate that Apple decided to remove our application, only 20 hours after we launched. However, this caused us to innovate. Our underlying patent-pending technology behind Tether for iPhone is unlike anything on the market."
Tether's new version for the iPhone is purely based on HTML5 and creates a completely wireless connection over AdHoc. This circumvents the need of buying the application directly from Apple's App Store and allows any iPhone or iPad with a data connection to allow tethering.
Frequent travelers in particular love Tether because it works all over the world, no matter what network or carrier is available at the time. There’s no need to worry about reconfiguring the Internet connection from network to network. | <urn:uuid:a42b3c48-9726-4f05-a467-0baec22bbc4a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tether.com/blog | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939975 | 292 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Deleuzian sensation and Maurice Jaubert's score for L'Atalante
Studies in French Cinema
URL with Digital Object Identifier
In this article I advance a new methodology for the analysis of film music, one which uses philosophical concepts drawn from the work of Gilles Deleuze as a way to create a dialogue between music and film theories. The practical application of this will be the analysis of Maurice Jaubert's score for Jean Vigo's L'Atalante. I will suggest that while film music is often understood as sound, it is best perhaps understood as pure sensation, a concept that Deleuze puts forth in his study of the painter Francis Bacon. In this work, Deleuze draws from biology, by which he means the establishment of precognitive meaning. By referring to film music in this way, I will then be able to place it on a common footing with the film's other elements, allowing a truly interdisciplinary discourse to take place. | <urn:uuid:8da3412e-6f4e-41c9-8333-b3bae9048b49> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/filmpub/71/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929363 | 200 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Phishing and identity theft
Email can deliver a number of malicious attachments designed to attack your privacy and leave you vulnerable when you’re online - whether you’re shopping, working or socialising.
Installing adequate Internet Security software will offer the best protection against malware by installing phishing filters and spam filters.
But it’s also important that internet users understand different forms of crimeware and the tactics used by those committing internet fraud, such as phishing identity theft.
What is phishing?
Phishing (pronounced ‘fishing’) is a specific type of cybercrime that uses specialist software (also known as ‘crimeware’) designed to trick you into disclosing personal information.
A phishing e-mail may appear to come from a trustworthy person or business, such as a bank or popular online stores like eBay or Amazon.
The phishing e-mail will encourage you to divulge personal details such as usernames, passwords, PIN numbers and credit card numbers. These details lead to identity theft which will allow the criminals to steal money from your bank account or fraudulently buy goods on your behalf. Phishing is therefore a form of internet fraud.
Protect your privacy and guard yourself and your family against phishing fraud by remembering that no legitimate business will ever ask you to give away sensitive information via e-mail or links to an online form.
Kaspersky’s internet security software offers phishing protection by blocking fraudulent messages with anti-phishing software. Try it with a free 30-day trial. | <urn:uuid:7903276f-48d9-4273-bad6-8b04e8555535> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kaspersky.com/au/threats/protect-your-privacy-from-phishing-fraud | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917519 | 323 | 3.0625 | 3 |
About 91 per cent of halibut are right-eyed. “They start off as a larval fish with eyes on both sides of their head,” says Larry Hammell, “and then they go through a metamorphosis where one eye migrates over the top of their head so they have both eyes on one side and they swim on their sides.”
But, says the Professor in the Department of Health Management, when the eye is only partially migrated, or goes missing altogether, “The fish have higher mortality and much poorer growth.”
He can tell you that because his AVC team went into a hatchery in the spring of 2006 and micro-chipped just over 5,000 individual fish. “We monitored their eyes, their pigmentation, and a number of other factors.”
It’s one small part of Hammell’s efforts over the years to create an adaptable, ongoing, and standardized record of performance for farmed fish. “In the last five years we’ve also micro-chipped more than 54,000 salmon. We monitor individual measurements on weight and length, whether they had gill operculum deformities, or fin erosion. We look for disease or growth problems, and monitor every death. We weigh the salmon five times: once at the beginning, once two months later in the hatchery, once in the fall after they’re transferred to salt water, then the following spring and at harvest. Vaccine trials are often done at the same time.
“Now we’re trying to expand it even further. No one in the world has done this level of monitoring.
“I did a presentation once, and called it ‘Solving fish health problems one fish at a time,—yet as an epidemiologist I never really look at one fish. I’m trying to deal with whole populations. I prefer to call it
evidence-based research. I’m providing evidence to make better policy decisions, whether it’s at the farm, industry, or regulatory level. Often people are making decisions based on what they think should work, not what is proven to work.”
Hammell was born in Montreal, “but travelled around a lot because my father was in the military. I spent time in Germany, and in all parts of Canada.” Now, he spends a great deal of time on the road: in New Brunswick—in the heart of the region’s salmon farming area—as well as travelling everywhere from Chile to Paris in connection with his work.
“I knew I wanted to be a veterinarian by the time I was in high school, and I was interested in being a food animal practitioner. I realized that fish are one of the most efficient food proteins—and knew that’s where I wanted to be.”
As Director of AVC’s Centre for Aquatic Health Sciences, Hammell has focused much of his work on aspects of infectious salmon anaemia (ISA), a virus that has caused major problems for the finfish aquaculture industry. “We created a program to identify factors in husbandry,
environment, and the fish, which could contribute to ISA outbreaks. We conducted clinical field trials, and developed and evaluated surveillance programs. The program actually applies to all different kinds of diseases.”
He and his team are also looking at bacterial kidney disease (BKD). “Although ISA was the driving factor in our industry since 1997, over the past two years it has been less of a problem in this region, while BKD has caused more economic loss.
“One of the problems with many of the diseases of fish is that if you don’t treat a fish before it stops eating then you can’t treat that fish orally with medicated feed. So we look at antibiotic and oral treatments to see when they are most effective and if we’re using them properly, to minimize the amount of medication that has to be used.”
Hammell has also investigated the reliability of diagnostic tests used in surveillance programs and found that there were false positives in the results. Different ISA isolates are pathogenic while others are non-pathogenic, and the false positives tended to be the more non-pathogenic strain. “Before that we were managing them all as one result,” he says. “So now decisions are made based on seeing if the virus is one of the ones that’s going to be a bad one or less bad one. They are never good, just less bad. But that has helped us tremendously in identifying which fish should be depopulated because the only response to a virus is to try to remove fish before they become sick or before they infect other fish.
“We’re doing similar things with cod, but the results are still being compiled. We’re looking at things like water temperatures—perhaps the water temperature might be a degree warmer than it should be in the hatchery and that might increase the proportion of fish with spinal deformities. We need to quantify the impact such things have on production.
“In field research, there are many external influences that cannot be controlled. With imagination, you can apply epidemiology principles to the problem and get that much closer to a solution. Same with regulatory decisions. Our data allows industry and government agencies to really put a number on a problem, and it shows them that if this issue is costing millions of dollars, spending hundreds of thousands to identify a problem, or prevent it, is worth doing.
“But on a lot of disease outbreaks you don’t have three months’ notice. You have to respond quickly and report back quickly. Yet many of the rules for funding and approval aren’t set up to deal with this reality. I think they should make their rules apply to the situation, not the other way around. It’s emergency research just like emergency medicine, and I do it all the time.”
Looking to the future, Hammell sees the need for more health research related to new growing technologies and new species. “Hatcheries are better at growing their fish because the use of recirculated water is very efficient. It’s the way of the future. But there are many new health challenges we need to look at.” | <urn:uuid:941935bb-66ed-4a09-8bfc-b502e0b1c1b0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://avc.upei.ca/profile/research/providing-evidence | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97069 | 1,330 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Fifty years ago Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey and his colleagues at Indiana
University published a book that focused the attention of the world
By the time Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, popularly known
as the Kinsey Report on women, appeared in print in September 1953,
the public had already read a great deal about it--in newspapers
and in popular magazines such as Collier's, Life, Time, Newsweek,
Reader's Digest, Modern Bride, Redbook, and even U.S. News
and World Report.
The anticipation had been building for five years, from the time
of the publication of Sexual Behavior in the Human Male in 1948.
August 20, 1953 was K-Day, when magazines and newspapers were first
allowed to run their stories revealing the results of Kinsey's long-term
study of female sexual behavior.
Through magazine covers, news clippings, cartoons, photographs,
and other materials, this exhibition will enable visitors to experience
this pivotal moment in American history.
"Oh! Dr. Kinsey!" runs February 1 through April 30 at
the Monroe County Historical Society Museum in Bloomington, IN.
|Museum hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 am to
4 pm, and Sunday, 1 pm to 4 pm.
The public is invited to attend an opening reception that will
be held at the museum from 2 pm to 4 pm on Saturday, February 1.
For more information on the exhibition and the opening, contact
Dara Eckart at 812-855-7686, or fill the form. | <urn:uuid:4b5ff673-c62d-4619-923e-4f5721dd80da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iub.edu/~kinsey/services/2003/magazines.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948714 | 328 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Thanks to long-time reader and contributer Ari Schwartz for bringing this to our attention.
“It is widely agreed that religion has biological foundations—that belief in the supernatural, obedience to authority or susceptibility to ceremony and ritual depend on genetically based features of the human brain.” Thus does Robert Rowthorn begin his paper on “Religion, fertility and genes: a dual inheritance model” with a falsity. Thus we are not later surprised to learn that Rowthorn has “proved” that the religious—whatever they are, poor things—will out-breed the “normals”, to the extent that the genes of the enlightened folks will be watered down with, well, with holy water.
If what Rowthorn said was false, what is true is that some have said that religion has biological foundations. One reading makes this trivially true: we are biological creatures with brains that allow us to think up religious thoughts. But that’s not what Rowthorn has in mind. He says “religion promotes the evolution of genes that predispose people towards religious belief or behaviour.” Got it? Religion itself makes people religious. Sigh. This is what happens when people read Dawkins with minds far too open. Suddenly, any idea sounds good, no matter how illogical.
How’s it work?
For religion to influence genetic evolution it must convey some kind of selective advantage. Such an effect might come about through social bonding via ritual, formation of group identity through myth, honest signalling through participation in costly ceremonies and adherence to social norms through love or fear of God.
Religion—which must be sentient, like a meme; or something—also makes people fertile. That’s what scares the bejesus—and the Jesus—out of Rowthorn. “The more devout people are, the more children they are likely to have.” He’s particularly fearful of them Amish who have a “total fertility rate of 4.8″. Why, if that sort of rate keeps up, the world will be flooded with beautiful hand-made quilts, not to mention the glut of various sauces and jams that even now squirt like a fire hose out of Lancaster, PA.
Remember the good old days? When national or royal academies of science would only publish articles of value and intrinsic worth? Papers which were insightful and had a reasonable chance to not only be true, but were untainted with mind-rattling gibberish? Maybe my glasses are rose colored, but surely a work like Rowthorn’s would never have passed the bar of the Royal Society even twenty years ago, a time when even the John Birch society would have rejected this man’s wild thesis.
Just for a start, Rowthorn has forgotten the Quakers, the thousands upon thousands of Catholic priests, nuns, and brothers, the growing population of Buddhist monks, Shinto priests, and myriad other holy men and women of various stripe whose main goal in life is not to pass on their religious genes. Even though we have no (or almost no) chromosomal material from any of these exceedingly religious people, yet we are able to replenish their stock year upon year. How can this be?
Nowhere does the economist Rowthorn—he is on the Faculty of Economics, Cambridge—acknowledge the idea that those Amish breeders are less well off than his presumably barren but richer colleagues. There is bountiful evidence that wealth is a bar to pregnancy, and not just personal wealth, but that of a community. The better off a region (or country) is, the fewer the kids the ladies of that region like to have. The love of money trumps the love of babies.
And how come the religious haven’t taken over by now, forcing their beliefs down our throats (the main fear of those discussing this paper on Slashdot)? Defections, says Rowthorn. Yes, even though the religious gene is pernicious, yet some people are able to overcome its influence. The people able to accomplish this miraculous feat—they become what they are not by sheer force of will, even though their wills were under the control of their genes—might be said to have been born again. They abandon their Earthly genes and adopt Enlightened memes which overpower their genes. Or something.
Perhaps it’s overwork or overexposure to economical equations that accounts for people like our Rowthorn. All those formulas have a way of inducing a sense of self that can be unhealthy. Maybe that’s why economists don’t have a lot of kids. I think I’ll model this. | <urn:uuid:702c4066-2fc0-4d91-bcf5-9a0176b8dd26> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=3418 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960843 | 977 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute
The Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute of Boston University Medical Center (BUMC) was established in 1974 to foster advances in research, treatment, and education in the broad area of heart and vascular disease. The Institute provides a unified structure that combines and integrates the components of basic science, clinical investigation, medical education, patient care, health-policy planning, and community research.
Over the past half century, some of the Medical Center’s most distinguished research advances have been in the areas of hypertension and vascular disease. Hypertension is one of this country’s most pervasive and serious health problems, affecting one in four Americans, more than any other category of disease.
In the past three decades, the Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute has been singled out by the National Institutes of Health’s Heart, Lung and Blood Institute as a Specialized Center of Research in Hypertension, and as a Specialized Center of Research in Ischemic Heart Disease. The Specialized Center designation indicates that the Institute serves as a site for important medical research in the national interest. In addition, it was recently designated a Center for Cardiovascular Proteomics through support from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. | <urn:uuid:d0862650-7db4-4a91-9ca2-090632850258> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bumc.bu.edu/busm-wci/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92914 | 251 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Fabrizio Salimbeni, trained as a chef in his native Italy, has been reduced to making spaghetti carbonara on a hot plate. Last September, Con Edison shut off the gas to his circa-1927 co-op building, and it’s not coming back anytime soon. A check of the integrity of the pipes had revealed leaks, and now shareholders have to replace all the gas lines, a huge and costly job that will require breaking into walls all over the building. It also means (along with the aforementioned hot-plate cuisine) ordering food in and sending laundry out. “It’s a lot of time and money, and I didn’t plan it,” he says.
The gas system can be a hidden pitfall of what we all think of as “prewar charm.” Under normal conditions, gas pipes hold up pretty well. But when they’re shut off for a renovation, Con Edison won’t turn them back on without a stringent safety test. Sometimes the rattling of renovation induces new little breaches; sometimes old pipes would’ve actually been unable to pass those tests for decades. It can happen in one line of apartments or a whole building. Either way, owners are in for a lot of unexpected spending.
Con Edison spokesperson Bob McGee explains that connection points are known to weaken during renovations, and older buildings tend to have had more of those than newer ones. “Flex hoses which connect stoves to the building piping can become brittle if painted over, not maintained, or if the stove is moved away from the wall repeatedly,” he explains. It’s “normal wear and tear,” adds Lynn Whiting of the Argo Corporation, which manages dozens of residential prewar buildings. She says she’s seen extended shutdowns happen in their prewar stock only. There’s no denying the hardship, and unfortunately, there’s no recourse—no reduced maintenance payments or abated rents. Buyers of prewar apartments would do well to ask about the condition of the pipes before closing a deal.
There’s only one upside: Once it’s fixed, it’s done for a couple of generations. Another resident in Salimbeni’s building admits, “It’s a pain we’re going through this,” but says it will help make their apartments much more salable. “It could actually work to your benefit. Because you can say it’s prewar, but it’s got new pipes.” | <urn:uuid:d334cad3-7122-4d41-bcb2-6caaed470f08> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nymag.com/realestate/realestatecolumn/52157/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959354 | 542 | 2.21875 | 2 |
The Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols has said that special masses for gay people in Catholic churches will be scrapped.
"The moral teaching of the church is that the proper use of our sexual faculty is within a marriage, between a man and a woman, open to the procreation and nurturing of new human life. As I stated in March 2012, this means 'that many types of sexual activity, including same-sex sexual activity, are not consistent with the teaching of the church'," Archbishop Nichols said in a statement.
The Archbishop, head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, insisted that gay people will continue to receive "pastoral care", but services targeted specifically for homosexuals at Our Lady of the Assumption Church in London would end, The Times reports.
The debate on same-sex marriage has intensified in England, with both the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church remaining firmly opposed to government plans, backed by Prime Minister David Cameron, to legally change the definition of marriage by 2015.
Archbishop Nichols has been particularly opposed to attempts to redefine marriage, saying that a bill that would legalize gay marriage is "undemocratic," and a "shambles".
During a Christmas Eve Mass at Westminster Cathedral, Britain's Catholic Church leader added: "Sometimes sexual expression can be without the public bond of the faithfulness of marriage and its ordering to new life. Even governments mistakenly promote such patterns of sexual intimacy as objectively to be approved and even encouraged among the young."
Gay rights activist group Stonewall, which is based in Britain, told BBC that they are disappointed with the decision to end special Masses for gay people.
"It is a real shame he's taken away an opportunity for gay Catholics to celebrate Mass in a safe environment," the group said.
Ruth Hunt, Stonewall Director of Public Affairs, who confesses to be Catholic, added: "Given what's happened over Christmas, where there were vitriolic and mean messages from pulpit about same-sex marriage, there has never been a more important time to provide a safe space for gay Catholics to pray."
Archbishop Nichols revealed, however, that the gay Catholic group who will no longer have specialized masses at Our Lady of the Assumption Church will be offered the use of another church, Immaculate Conception in Mayfair, where they will be able to meet and receive pastoral care.
"Over these years, the situation of people with same-sex attraction has changed both socially and in civil law. However, the principles of the pastoral care to be offered by the Church and the Church's teaching on matters of sexual morality have not," the Archbishop explained.
Meanwhile, the British government has proposed, as a compromise, for Anglican churches in the country to be barred from performing gay marriages if such a law is to be passed, in an attempt to assure religious leaders that they will not be forced to conduct ceremonies that conflict with their beliefs and go against official church teachings.
"We need to be fair to same-sex couples. The state should not be banning them from such a great institution," Culture Secretary Maria Miller has said. "But equally we need to be fair to people of faith. Churches have the right to fight for and articulate their beliefs, and be under no compulsion to conduct same-sex marriages."
Church leaders fear, however, that separate European laws on equal rights may still force them to conduct same-sex marriages if the British parliament passes the bill, regardless of reassurances to the contrary. | <urn:uuid:5b88eded-9a29-4ae1-81c3-9894f030a169> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.christiantoday.com/article/no.masses.for.gay.people.says.archbishop/31385.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974661 | 715 | 1.679688 | 2 |
EdeArticle Free Pass
Ede, gemeente (municipality), central Netherlands. It lies on the western edge of the wooded-heath Veluwe region. Founded in the 8th century by the Saxons, it is a garrison town with a 15th-century church, the Doesburger Mill (1507), and an open-air theatre. Nearby De Hoge Veluwe National Park has St. Hubertus Castle and the Kröller-Müller State Museum. The latter institution has an outstanding collection of paintings by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. Ede’s industries include metallurgy, the manufacture of rayon and pianos, and dairy food processing. Pop. (2007 est.) 107,500.
What made you want to look up "Ede"? Please share what surprised you most... | <urn:uuid:6f198be5-cdc3-46f2-86f4-a1e83e36fea2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/178944/Ede | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907651 | 180 | 2.453125 | 2 |
Follow these steps:
Here are some programs which will come in useful when following the steps -
Run Memtest86+ for least 7-8 passes
, and preferrly overnight as it can take a while to fully complete.
Test each RAM stick individually
, if an error is found then move the same RAM stick into the next DIMM slot and test again, if errors are found for the same RAM stick in every available slot then you have a faulty RAM module. On the other hand, if no errors are found in the next slot or the other slots for the same RAM module, then you have a faulty DIMM slot.
Test each RAM stick and every motherboard DIMM slot available.
Read all the steps within the hardware test tutorials very carefully, as stress tests is designed run components to their maximum capacity, in order to point out failing or faulty hardware components. | <urn:uuid:55fd131b-3ca4-4f6a-9f26-45b8bdd369e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sevenforums.com/bsod-help-support/270889-bsod-error-0x000000124.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910326 | 183 | 1.679688 | 2 |
published on 13 June 2012
Born from Hera and without a father, Hephaistos was, unlike the other gods, a less than beautiful figure. So much so, that in Greek mythology he is said to have been thrown from the heavens by his mother (or in other accounts by Zeus) because of his ugliness and on landing on the island of Lemnos, the god was crippled. Cared for by Thetis (and possibly also by Eurynome, the daughter of Ocean) he would construct his workshop on the island’s volcano (or in other accounts on Mt. Etna in Sicily) where he lived in an imperishable bright bronze house, where he created his masterpieces of metallurgy.
Hephaistos married the goddess Aphrodite. The unlikely union occurred as a result of Hephaistos capturing her mother Hera in the invisible chains of a throne he had built, and the wedding was the price of release. The scene is a popular one in Greek art and usually depicts Dionysus leading Hephaistos, under the influence of wine, back to Olympus to free the entrapped Hera. However, the marriage was not to last as Aphrodite had numerous affairs, most notably with the god Ares. Hephaistos, informed by Helios, spied the lovers and captured them in an invisible net. Hephaistos’ most notable offspring in Greek mythology were Erichthonios, the king of Athens, and Periphetes, who lived near Epidauros and famously killed passing strangers with an iron club.
As an ingenious craftsman, Hephaistos is credited with making the sceptre and aegis of Zeus, the helmet of Hermes, secret locking doors for Hera’s chambers, and even the lovely first woman, Pandora, who he sculpted out of clay. He also manufactured automatons - gold maids who could speak and were intelligent - for himself and bronze Talos as a gift for King Minos of Crete.
Both Homer and Hesiod describe Hephaistos as ‘the cripple-foot god’ and ‘the lame one’. Supporting the Achaeans in the Trojan War, he memorably fights and defeats the river god Xanthos with fire and produces magnificent armour and a shield of bronze, gold, silver, and tin for Achilles, the latter being decorated with a multitude of scenes and described at great length by Homer.
In ancient Greek art, Hephaistos is often depicted wearing a pilos or workman’s hat and an exomis or workman’s tunic. He also often holds tongs, an axe, hammer, saw, or chisel and is frequently seen riding a mule side saddle (in reference to his lameness which is rarely explicitly portrayed). He is a prominent figure on the frieze and east pediment of the Parthenon where the scene of Athena’s birth is shown. This mythological scene was also popular on Attic pottery where Hephaistos, with his axe, splits the head of Zeus from where Athena is born. Often linked with Athena in their mutual capacity as patrons of craftsmen, the two are most famously connected in the Hephaisteion temple of Athens (449 BCE) within which stood two bronze statues of the divinities.
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The Johns Hopkins University Press (28 June 2004)Price: $19.23
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Cornell University Press (02 December 2004)Price: $28.45 | <urn:uuid:115ca6f7-4cf6-4162-9927-a59a2c2237c3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ancient.eu.com/Hephaistos/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961315 | 860 | 3.390625 | 3 |
Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) is a powerful antioxidant and heart nutrient. In one study, researchers wanted to determine the effects of oral CoQ10 supplementation on performance.
In a randomized, double-blind crossover study, 15 healthy and sedentary men were given 100 mg of CoQ10 per day or a placebo for 8 weeks. The men had to perform five Wingate tests (stationary bicycle) with a pedal resistance load of 75g/kg body weight with 2-minute intervals between tests.
Mean power increased only with the CoQ10 group during the 5th test, leading researchers to conclude CoQ10 might be used as an ergogenic aid. | <urn:uuid:9f9da121-1692-4efd-afba-eadfb32e4cc7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nutritionexpress.com/article+index/newsletters/2010+newsletters/showarticle.aspx?id=1214 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929681 | 139 | 2.1875 | 2 |
"There must be something," says Ed.
"I don't see anything! The rock must have just disappeared or something, I don't know what happened! I see nothing!"
"Look closer! Zoom in!"
"Hold on. I see... There's something over the impact point. It's a sort of fat multicoloured ring. Like a doughnut. I... I think it's a ship. Or a space station or a habitat or something. It's floating over the impact point. Not moving. But- it's- Well, from here it looks the size of a Polo mint, but if it's visible from space then it must be gigantic. I can't get any sense of scale out of this picture!"
Tyro interjects. "Based on sensor readings, the object is roughly fifty-one kilometres in diameter. Give me a few seconds and I'll see if I can get some better pictures."
"It must have appeared in the last few seconds," says Ed. "Fifty-one kilometres is easily big enough to pass the entire asteroid through its centre, so maybe... There! Look!"
A better image appears - taken from a newly-retasked satellite, much closer to the ship, showing a great deal more detail. It's is far from a perfect doughnut; it looks like a collision between every spaceship science fiction ever imagined and more besides. Pick a colour, and you'd easily be able to find a huge area of hull painted exactly that shade. It's jagged and pointy in some places, square and functional in others, smooth and blobby still elsewhere. There are a million different unidentifiable protrusions all over it. I can see transparent domed habitats, blue spheres which look like they might be water-filled, but... it's otherwise indescribable. All I can say for certain about the ring ship is that it's a ring; topologically, it has genus 1. But that's about it. Architecturally, it's unplaceable. It could conceivably be the work of a thousand different civilisations.
But there's one recognisable portion: sitting in the middle of the hole, apparently just floating motionless, not touching the ring at any point, is the tiny, rugged brown lump of an asteroid.
Tiny by comparison, I remind myself.
This thing is HUGE.
"They caught it!" continues Ed.
"Then who launched it?" I ask, but he's not listening.
"Who has that kind of power to play around with? Who can create and destroy momentum at a whim? Sheesh - they could just drop it and cause a nine point oh earthquake. Tyro, are you talking to them?"
"I opened several communications channels like you mentioned earlier," says Tyro. "I think I'm talking to another AI. Give me a few minutes and you'll be able to talk."
As soon as I switch back to the usual view from my mech's external monitor cameras, I notice something rather worrying. I'm moving. Inertial guidance says I'm still motionless, but I can see the Earth is nearer than it was, and getting bigger. I'm moving down. They're pulling me in. I assume manual control of my mech and try to move it. Nothing happens. Nothing's overridden the controls, all the commands are being delivered... it's like the liftweave just isn't working.
I rapidly explain this to Ed. "Denatured," he explains after running a few diagnostic tests. "Your liftweave has been denatured. Um... for want of a better word, I think they've got you in a tractor beam."
"What? How? There's no such things as tractor beams!"
"I know! And you can't pull a rock from point one c to zero in a tenth of a second! A lot of impossible things have been happening today! Obviously these Eridanians, or whoever--"
"They're not from Epsilon Eridani," says Tyro.
"--must have godlike command of-- what? Then where?"
"I'm still working out the language, but the star charts they've been sending me are clear enough. They hail from Andromeda."
There is a long and terrible pause.
"Ed... you know what—"
"I know what happened!"
"What happened?" asks Tyro.
"He'd remotely hijacked a particle accelerator," I explain. "It was a very long time ago. I have no idea what the details are. He did an experiment, he nearly blew the accelerator up, he backed out just in time. Neither of us had any idea what had really happened at the time. He was just fooling around.
"A few months later he discovered what we now refer to as the Root layer, the layer that governs the behaviour of our universe. He plugged in his old experimental results and that was how he found out what had really happened. During the experiment he'd accidentally accessed the Root layer and been able to perform one command. When the accelerator started to overload, that was the layer kicking him out again. It turned out he'd managed to hit 'delete'. He deleted Andromeda. We were lucky. On the cosmic scale that's barely a single character. He could have deleted us - or the whole universe.
"We were hoping the galaxy had been uninhabited. It looks like we were wrong. These must be the survivors. Makeshift jumble of ships, clustered together for safety, it makes sense. No wonder they threw that rock at us. But what I want to know is why they caught it again..."
Neither Ed nor Tyro answer.
The ground and the ship rise up to meet me, my rate of descent apparently slowing. Soon, I am getting a better look at the ship than the satellite. And also getting worried. "Ed, they're still pulling me in. What do I do?"
No response. "Tyro?" Still nothing. I fiddle with the radio settings. "Guys? Hello? Great."
And still the thing grows in front of me, the million protrusions each expanding to the size of a skyscraper. Then, before I have time to react, I'm being dragged inside - dragged down the chasm between an indescribable red thing and an indescribable black thing, and landing gently in a hangar so big it has weather, with the largest door I've ever seen closing behind me with an echo which goes on for minutes.
"Hello," says another, unfamiliar voice through the mech radio. Female, this time.
"Welcome aboard the Raft Mantissa. I am the Raft's governing intelligence. You can call me Krah."
"Erm. Hi." There's another lengthy pause. "Um. This may sound like a stupid question. Do you come in peace?"
"Not really, no." | <urn:uuid:86ec9a1c-b649-4dd6-bbb2-7f3b0da5eb03> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://qntm.org/iceberg | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976199 | 1,440 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Making up somewhat for previous oversights, I invaded Chinatown in February in search of ancient laneways that contain hidden architectural “Easter eggs” and traces of long-vanished neighborhoods.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out perhaps the Deskey post’s most distinctive NYC contribution: in 1965 several of them were outfitted with luminaires resembling traditional Chinese lanterns…
…and the Department of Transportation revived the practice in the late 1990s, as we see above on Mosco Street.
Mosco Street (between Mulberry and Mott Streets north of Worth)
Mosco Street is one of the final remnants of Five Points, the most dangerous slum in the NYC of the 1830s through the Civil War era.
From Kenneth Dunshee’s 1952 account in As You Pass By:
The Old Brewery was a five-story building, old and dilapidated. Along one wall an alley led to a single large room in which more than seventy-five men and women of assorted nationalities and races lived together. This was the Den Of Thieves. The name was appropriate. Along the other wall ran another filthy lane called Murderer’s Alley worse than the first.
Upstairs there were about 75 other chambers, housing more than 1,000 people…men, women and children. The section was a warren, with underground passages and murderous cul-de-sacs, into which the police dared venture only in large numbers, for the Old Brewery for a period of more than fifteen years averaged a murder a night.
Five Points was too tough, too unlawful, too unsavory to last, even in the New York of a century ago. The Old Brewery was razed, the last of the gangs destroyed. Today it bears little resemblace to the bull-baiting, rip-roaring hell it was in 1850.
The notorious Old Brewery was located on Cross Street just southwest of Five Points at Anthony (now Baxter) and Orange (now Worth) Streets. It was renamed Park Street in the late 1800s. The city replaced the crowded tenements in the area partially due to the pleas of reformer Jacob Riis; the street was named for Columbus Park, which replaced the slums.
Today, Cross/Park Street, which in the 1840s had run continuously from Reade Street near Elm (now Lafayette) to Mott, has been mostly wiped out, first by Columbus Park and then by the New York County Courthouse in 1926. The last remaining section, between Mulberry and Mott Streets, was renamed Mosco Street in 1982 for Lower East Side community activist Frank Mosco.
What language is that script on the awning sign? (5/13: Thai, I gather; Bangkok, duh)
Bank turned funeral parlor, Mulberry and Mosco
…and church turned community center
At Mott and Mosco (and fairly difficult to photograph in the winter light) is the Roman Catholic Church of the Transfiguration, the oldest Catholic Church building in the city, but not the oldest Catholic parish church. It was built in 1801 as the Zion English Lutheran Church and became a Catholic church in the 1850s; St. Peter’s, at Church and Barclay Streets, is the longest-standing Catholic church that’s always been Catholic.
ForgottenFan Dominick Fallucci: From my childhood (early 1960′s) until about the late 1980′s, Park Street ran from Mott Street to the intersection of Baxter and Worth Streets. My mother grew up at 95 Park Street, which was torn down along with the other tenaments on that block about 1961. I believe they were going to build another “urban renewal” project which didn’t pan out. For years until Columbus Park was extended to demap Park Street, that side of the street was a parking lot.
In November 1941, my grandmother (mother’s mother), Angelina (Jean) Prelli, was killed by a runaway truck at the intersection of Park, Worth and Baxter Streets. She was able to push her son (my uncle) and a neighbor out of the way, but got pinned against the building that was on that corner, where Columbus Park is now. My grandfather never mentioned her up to his death in the early 1980′s. We found the clippings in his apartment about the tragedy from several different papers.
Pell Street (Mott Street and Bowery 1 block south of Bayard)
The Pell family owned vast territories in what is now the northeastern Bronx but was then part of Westechester in the colonial era; Thomas Pell’s mansion remains in Pelham Bay Park (numerous locales in NY named “Pelham” also bear his name) , and is open to the public as a museum. His nephew John Pell owned the land through which this street was built in 1776.
Pell Street seems to have more barber shops and salons than any other Chinatown street.
There was a long line at Joe’s Shanghai the Saturday I was here.
The Edward Mooney House, SW corner Pell Street and the Bowery, is the oldest building in Chinatown and one of the few remaining 18th Century buildings in Manhattan, having been completed in 1789; it had to have survived the Great Fire of 1835.
Doyers Street (from Pell Street, generally southeast to Bowery)
For a one-block street, Doyers Street is quite unusual in Manhattan, where curved streets are rare: it makes two changes of direction, meaning it goes in three different headings as it meanders from Pell Street to the Bowery. By some chance, the zig-zagging cart path that led to Dutch distiller Henderick Doyer’s tavern has been preserved in situ.
Doyers has been called the “bloody angle” from Chinese gang wars that have erupted along its length over the years.
ForgottenFan Mike Olshan: At the bloody angle, you photographed but did not mention Nam Wah’s Tea Parlor. A landmark you might not know because you are a meat-and-potatoes man. However, this was the first, and for decades the only place in new York serving dim sum. It goes back to the 30s and its interior is unchanged since then, with its tiled floor and tin cieiling intact. A landmark of cuisine! Not the best dim sum house today by any means, but oh-so-authentic. | <urn:uuid:3a542e78-4cc7-49f9-942a-4f2becf65bb6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forgotten-ny.com/2008/05/chinatowns-alleys/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977626 | 1,363 | 2.28125 | 2 |
Now when you do a git commit without specifying a commit message, TextMate will pop-up and allow you to enter a commit message in it. When you save the file and close the window, the commit will go through as normal. (If you have another text editor you prefer instead, just change the “mate -w” line to the preferred one)
For those curious what the -w argument is about, it tells the shell to wait for the mate process to terminate (the file to be saved and closed).
You need to login to post a comment. | <urn:uuid:4b8bafd9-5a1d-489d-ac26-8c3699982335> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://snipplr.com/view/59658/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909559 | 119 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Brief Amicus Curiae of Reason Foundation, Atlantic Legal Foundation and Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence in support of petitioner:
The use and enjoyment of private property is a fundamental right, and important to a democratic society. The takings clause was designed to protect this core value.
This Court has long recognized that limitations on the exercise of rights in private property are as much "takings" as are physical invasion of property. Government regulation tends to become ubiquitous, and government constantly develops new and artful ways to appropriate rights to use and enjoy private property for the “public good.” Unless constrained by a requirement to compensate owners of private property, in a majoritarian system, government agencies will allocate disproportionate burdens of achieving public purposes to politically weak segments of the citizenry.
The Florida Supreme Court incorrectly court assumed that in Nollan and Dolan the land-use agencies had issued permits after actually taking the exacted property. In fact, in both Nollan and Dolan the agencies had imposed the exactions prior to issuance of the permits, similar to the case at bar.
The District’s demand that Koontz finance improvements to its property as a condition of permit approval in addition to giving up almost 75% of his land was an exaction implicating the Takings Clause, triggering review under Nollan and Dolan. When Koontz refused to waive his right to compensation for the cost incurred making the off-site improvements, the District denied his permits.
The Takings Clause does not allow the government limitless power to confiscate property of any kind simply because it holds the power to grant or deny issue land use permits. The Takings Clause generally prohibits uncompensated takings, but the Court in Nollan recognized a narrow exception to that general rule: In the land use context, the government may exact property without compensation as a condition of permit approval, but only when the exaction has an “essential nexus” to the adverse impact of the proposed land use. Any other imposed condition is an unlawful attempt to evade the Constitution’s prohibition on uncompensated takings. In Dolan the Court required that any permit exaction must also be “roughly proportional” to the adverse impact of the proposed land use.
The Florida Supreme Court ruled that there was no taking in this case because the District did not succeed in obtaining what it wanted to take and, in any event, it only sought to take money (in addition to most of the Koontz property). This ruling is premised on the proposition that money is not the type of property protected by the Fifth Amendment; that the Koontz property was not taken when the permit was denied; and that the private property owner must agree to the exaction and actually suffer deprivation of constitutional liberties before a claim can be brought. The state court was wrong on all three counts.
The Florida Supreme Court attempts to limit this Court’s teaching in Nollan and Dolan narrowly to instances in which a government agency has demanded transfer of real property or an interest in real property, has actually obtained such a transfer, and has issued a permit. That parsing of this Court’s takings cases misconstrues the facts of those cases and does not bear doctrinal scrutiny. Contrary to the decision of the Florida Supreme Court, nothing in the Takings Clause, Nollan, or Dolan recognizes a relevant distinction among the types of permit exactions subject to the “essential nexus” and “rough proportionality” limitations; whether the demand is for transfer of either real or personal property, it is subject to the same nexus and proportionality limitations. The District’s demands on Koontz had neither the requisite nexus nor the required proportionality, as the trial court found.
The constitutional limitations on government’s power to exact property in exchange for a government permit also does not depend upon when in the permit process the exaction is imposed. A decision to deny a permit application because the property owner refuses to accede to an unlawful exaction and a decision to approve a permit application subject to acceptance of an unlawful exaction are substantively indistinguishable. In both cases, no permit issues unless and until the property owner agrees to surrender his right to compensation for the confiscated property.
The Florida Supreme Court’s decision ignores reality and the logic of Nollan and Dolan. The distinctions the Florida Supreme Court drew are artificial and arbitrary. Bare uncompensated confiscation of land is rare because it would constitute an apparent violation of the Takings Clause. However, local and state governments increasingly resort to confiscating property other than interests in real property; most frequently land use regulators demand money, in the form of financing of public projects (as in this case) or payment of fees in lieu of land dedication. The property owner is required, as a permit condition, to waive his right to compensation for the confiscation. If the Florida Supreme Court’s decision stands, that constitutional violation will not have a remedy. | <urn:uuid:5c81e9d4-1b24-4bfa-86c7-4f041165a937> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://reason.org/news/show/1013150.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948594 | 1,032 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Sarah Werner has posted the text of her paper at the recent ‘Geographies of Desire’ conference at the University of Maryland: where material book culture meets digital humanities » Wynken de Worde. It’s a really useful overview of and reflection on the utility of digitized versions of early books and digital aids for studying books. Apparently it is possible to measure dirt on manuscripts:
One recent paper about the use of densitometers to study levels of dirt on the pages of medieval manuscripts suggests that we can learn about book usage through analyzing how and where dirt is distributed across a book. It might seem obvious that pages that are used more often will be dirtier, and that is in part what the author found, but the use of the densitometer revealed that it’s more complicated than we can always assess with the naked eye. The paper’s author, Kathryn Rudy, points out, for example, that she had assumed that two different patterns of dirt on an opening came from two different users, but the densitometer’s analysis suggested that the patterns were similar enough that they were likely to have been made by the same person—perhaps they held the book in different ways suitable for different prayers. The analysis also pointed out that even books that retain visible marks might have been cleaned by modern owners to such a degree that the dirt is no longer viable as an analytical tool, something that might help us think about the changes books undergo during modern ownership.
That reminded me of the controversy over Thomas Jefferson’s little-used sheet music at the Soundscapes of Early America conference at the University of Virginia that I mentioned in my previous blog post. I wonder if densitometers might be useful there, too? Although to be honest I think there’s so much at stake in that debate that any kind of analysis is going to be controversial. | <urn:uuid:e4ae9887-ae4a-4c59-8732-817fdeb703b4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.melanielmarshall.com/2012/05/09/cleaning-up/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970159 | 382 | 2.484375 | 2 |
Monument erected in 1924 honoring the US Colored Soldiers from Kentucky
Source: Trails-R-US Monuments
In 1924, The Colored Women's Relief Corps, No. 8 of the Grand Army of the Republic, erected a monument honoring the actions and service of the US Colored Troops, particularly those from Kentucky. It was placed in Greenhill Cemetery in Frankfurt Kentucky. In April of this year another an historical marker honoring black Civil War soldiers of Kentucky was erected. This marker stands in Simpsonville Kentucky near the site where soldiers were killed. I have also been impressed to see that over the years there have been more efforts to honor black soldiers from Kentucky.
Source of Image: Dedication and Unveiling of Simpsonville MarkerThere were many black men from Kentucky who served in the Union Army, and many served in regiments outside of Kentucky. It is said that more than 20,000 black men of Kentucky served in the Union Army from multiple states. Kentucky is an interesting state with rich African American history. The Civil War was also a time in which there was much activity involving African Americans. Black Union regiments were organized, and the slaves---many freed themselves and found refuge at contraband camps like Camp Nelson.
Contraband Camp at Camp Nelson, KY
I have learned also about the various units of Black Union soldiers that came out of Kentucky and have also been impressed to see the list of battles and skirmishes in which they were engaged. The Kentucky story has to be a rich one, indeed! I wonder how many of those soldiers had wives and children living in Camp Nelson.
I wonder too, how many Kentucky residents are aware of this unique and wonderfully rich history.
Kentucky is one of those states that gets overshadowed when USCT history is mentioned. The mention of Civil War for many brings discussion of the moving Glory, which ironically did not feature a USCT regiment, since the 54th Massachusetts Colored was part of the regular army, and USCTs were volunteers.
Nevertheless, these men of Kentucky's soil deserve to be mentioned and singled out for their bravery.
Black Union Regiments Organized in Kentucky
5th US Colored Cavalry, October 1864
6th US Colored Cavalry, November 1864
8th US Colored Heavy Artillery April 1864
12th US Colored Heavy Artillery July 1864
13th US Colore Heavy Artillery June, 1865
72nd US Colored Infantry April 1865
100th US Colored Infantry, May 1864
107th US Colored Infantry May 1864
108th US Colored Infantry, June 1864
109th US Colored Infantry, July 1864
114th US Colored Infantry, July 1864
115th US Colored Infantry, July 1864
116th US Colored Infantry, June 1864
117th US Colored Infantry, July 1864
118th US Colored Infantry, Oct 1864
119th US Colored Infantry, January 1865
120th US Colored Infantry, November 1865
121st US Colored Infantry October 1865
122nd US Colored Infantry December 1864
123rd US Colored Infantry December 1864
124th US Colored Infantry January 1865
125th US Colored Infantry February 1865 | <urn:uuid:cecbea32-6de1-4ebf-8f0d-979cd2f64712> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://usctchronicle.blogspot.com/2011_09_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981474 | 671 | 3.609375 | 4 |
China Development Brief May 2007
Newsletters (PDF) | Subscription-only Content
The editorial in this issue argues that the “birth control riots” in Guangxi underline the need for improved implementation of family planning rules which, despite the pain they have caused, have also played a key role in China’s social and economic transformation.
A feature article looks at the proliferation of gay support groups in China’s northeast and asks whether this a civil society success story or an opportunistic response to the influx of international funds.
A report on China’s new transparency rules for government notes that some progressive localities are ahead of the central government on this issue, and that national rules remain ambiguous as to how much the public has a right to know.
A review essay discusses some of the growing China-in-Africa literature.
Shorter items report on developments in EU-UNDP cooperation on civil society and biodiversity programs, on the rapid growth of a “Give2Asia” funding program, and on a WWF study that suggests China is not responsible for much of its “global footprint.” | <urn:uuid:2f72b620-3667-4177-87ab-f75a4643e3e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chinadevelopmentbrief.com/node/1173 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925708 | 233 | 1.734375 | 2 |
25 May 2010
Records and mysteries on Mount Everest
To non-climbers what might appear to be the race of the body snatchers is nearing the finishing line at over 8200 metres on the Tibetan side of Mt Everest.
The prize, as such, is the body of Andrew 'Sandy' Irvine, and a small folding camera he is thought to have been carrying on June 8, 1924, when he set off from a high camp with fellow British climber George Leigh Mallory to bag the world's highest summit.
The camera may contain recoverable images that would answer the long-argued question as to whether Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay really were the first to reach the top of the 8848 metre peak on May 29, 1953?
Mallory and Irvine were last seen alive high on the NE ridge of the mountain through gaps in the clouds of a snow storm that engulfed Everest that afternoon.
The body of Mallory was found in May 1999, examined and buried in situ on a scree slope well below the likely location of Irvine's remains. It carried no camera.
Conditions are now as perfect as they can be in the pre-monsoon 'climbing season' to reach the location on the 'Yellow Band' where an Everest researcher, Tom Holzel, last year identified (in a previously uninspected high resolution aerial mapping scan made in 1984) two anomalous objects that could be Irvine.
The only openly-declared racer is Duncan Chessell, an Australian mountaineer who has given updates to a UK newspaper for which some local publications have rights.
Chessell is believed to be high on mountain, on or above the North Col, today. And he is definitely not a 'body snatcher' but an all around good guy who respects the Everest legends and sees an opportunity to answer the riddle.
However among the dozens of people now in position to climb the NE ridge are other mountaineers who also know the locations Holzel identified, as he published the details late last year to clinch sponsorship for an Irvine-focused expedition, only to have the money fall through.
When 13-year-old Jordan Romero climbed the NE ridge route on May 22 to become the youngest person to summit Everest he was among 49 others reported to have completed the same route that day. None of them had the energy, or inclination, to detour from their route where it passed through the Yellow Band. They would however have climbed over or past or within sight of some of the more than 100 bodies of dead climbers that lie unrecovered on Everest.
Irvine has been found before. He was stumbled across on the Yellow Band by Chinese climbers in 1960 and 1975 and by an exhausted solo climber in 2003, who had strayed off the usual route and was lucky to reach a lower camp and assistance in getting off the mountain alive.
Irvine reportedly showed obvious signs of a serious head injury, and a possible broken neck, where he had come to rest head first on the ledge.
His body is now believed to be in a very bad condition caused mainly by wind erosion, but also the goraks, the high altitude crows of Everest. It is possible that the cartilages holding his bones together have failed enough to allow parts of it to be scattered by the winds.
The examination of Mallory's body 11 years ago puts a number of constraints on conjecture as to what happened to the climbers on June 8, 1924.
The rope around Mallory's waist was a thin three strand hemp line typical of that era in climbing. His internal organs had been forced up into his upper body by the rope with a force consistent with a fall strong enough to make it break when snagged around a rock. The end of the rope exhibited typical hemp rope failure under load. His preserved skin showed discolourations from blood pooling that could only have occurred while still alive, although mortally injured.
He had also had an injury to his skull which had exposed part of his brain, and an ankle had been snapped. There is a hint in the claw like pincer shape of his right hand, forefinger opposed to thumb, that is sometimes observed in stroke victims, and which if true in this case, implies that he was being tight roped down the Yellow Band by Irvine when the men fell, snapping the rope, and killing Irvine outright.
It would also explain why one ice axe was found as if placed on the ground on a more level section of the top of the Yellow Band. It was no longer needed.
All of which is raw and confronting compared to the heroic mythology that grew up about Mallory and Irvine after their disappearance. Whether or not they were able to truly overcome the second step, where they may have been when last seen, and make it to the summit and back, and remained above the reach of the snow storm rising up the side of the mountain, is not known.
But they did die as heroes, and as Mallory's body already tells us, died badly.
Ben Sandilands is a freelance writer and broadcaster. | <urn:uuid:0c1c4931-efe2-4d55-bb8a-c74d0bb23f71> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/34638.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982251 | 1,046 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Me: Lee --
Lee: Yes --
Me: Tell us about eggs.
Lee: What would you like to know about eggs?
Me: What prompted you to begin eating raw eggs?
Lee: I believe we have established that I am mildly insane.
Me: Were there any other contributing factors -- health benefits, taste, etc.?
Me: Please elaborate.
Lee: I'd heard about eating them before and that they're really good for building muscle and they are supposedly a perfectly balanced food. For years, I believed all the propoganda PR hype from the anti- raw egg people -- that they were really bad for your cholesterol. But after further research, just out of curiosity, I found that there are quite a number of sources that espouse the health benefits of raw eggs and that explain that detrimental effects only come from cooked eggs, because cooked eggs change the structure of several different elements within the egg. I had also believed the hype about salmonella until I did further research and found that the percentage of eggs that are infected with salmonella is somewhere in the neighborhood of one in thirty thousand eggs, but those eggs are factory hatchery eggs, where the chickens live in unhealthy conditions and are fed unhealthy foods.
Me: So it's a darn good thing our chickens starting laying again recently.
Lee: Si. Yes.
Me: How many raw eggs are you eating each day?
Lee: No more than two.
Me: Do you season them, or do you just crack them into a glass and drink them like Rocky?
Lee: Well, that's an interesting question, Meg. Not really that interesting, but worth answering at least. (Insert loving look from me to Lee here.) Until today, my process was to take eggs that are no older than six days, thoroughly wash my hands, and then wash the shell of the egg with hot water and one drop of soap, crack it into an egg-drinking glass (has to be the right size), and then drink it. At first I thought it would be icky, but in actuality, since I've begun to consume raw eggs, the thought of cooked eggs has become more icky.
Leah: You eat raw eggs, Daddy?
Lee: Yes, yes.
Lee: They really have no flavor -- barely perceptible flavor. But, as to your question, do I season them: for the first time today, as an experiment, I put a dash of hot sauce on the egg (Leah: Eww, gross!) before I drank it (Leah: Eww, double gross!), and it therefore tasted like hot sauce.
Me: Are the anti- raw egg people, like, militant?
Lee: Insidious. It's a worldwide conspiracy.
Me: Why doesn't the egg industry address this issue and promote the consumption of raw eggs?
Lee: The egg industry represents egg factories, which produce nasty eggs. I would never eat a raw egg from an unknown source.
Me: Are you going to start eating all of our backyard eggs? Because I still like them scrambled.
Lee: Then we need more chickens.
1 day ago | <urn:uuid:690e0090-afc5-4590-8396-aab7dcec254d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://countrypeapie.blogspot.com/2010/03/man-eats-raw-eggs.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967608 | 655 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Alex Lee Photo, artcle and photo courtesy of Rugbymag.com
"Central Washington opened the Northwest Collegiate Rugby Conference 7s series with four victories – all shutouts."
A series of wildfires in central Washington state has badly affected air quality on the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains.
Homes and business were threatened by the flames, of course, but the smoke and ash spread even further afield, forcing the evacuation of some areas, and kids to be told to stay home, where it is usually easier to control air quality.
For the Central Washington University’s rugby team, this all made holding a rugby practice very difficult. Breathing normally outside was not recommended; breathing heavily during a sports practice could be seriously damaging.
Read more here. | <urn:uuid:318b0e5d-509e-41bd-8bed-9c0b256af3d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cwu.edu/print/3369?textonly=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959265 | 156 | 1.9375 | 2 |
A low commenced to form in the monsoon trough from about 2100 UTC 5 March approximately 150 km to the southeast of mainland Papua New Guinea and then moved westwards and gradually deepened. Cyclonic intensity was reached about 0600 UTC 7 March when the low was centred 200 km southwest of Port Moresby.
Jim continued on a general westerly track whilst slowly deepening and made landfall around 0000 UTC 8 March near Cape Grenville on Cape York Peninsula with an estimated central pressure of 980 hPa. Weakening occurred as Jim moved westwards across the Cape and apart from some slight to moderate damage to vegetation and the uprooting of some medium to large trees, no other damage was reported. A wind gust of 93 km/h was reported from Moreton when Jim was about 35 km to the north-northeast of the station. Jim entered the Gulf of Carpentaria just north of Weipa about 0800 UTC 8 March and moved quickly in a west-southwesterly direction and slowly reintensified.
The second landfall was made at Port Roper at about 1800 UTC 9 March just after reaching peak intensity and severe cyclone status. The lowest pressure attained was estimated to be 970 mb with estimated maximum winds of 120 km/ h. After moving inland, Jim weakened rapidly and lost cyclone status at 2300 UTC 9 March.
At 0200 UTC 9 March a ship reported 56 km/h winds when located 160 km to the northwest of Jim and another ship reported a similar speed at 0800 UTC when situated 110 km west-northwest of the centre. Aerial surveillance revealed no damage to the coastal strip spanning the Roper River mouth or over the southern side of Groote Eylandt, but there was evidence of a storm surge just south of the Roper River mouth. A fifteen metre fishing boat was beached an estimated 3 to 6 m above the tide level and the observer at Alyangula reported an estimated storm surge of 1.5 m at 1430 UTC 9 March.
As the remnants of Jim moved up the Roper River valley, reports were received from Ngukurr (70 km inland) and Roper River police station (100 km inland) that the winds gusted to an estimated 95 to 110 km/h around 2100 UTC 9 March. Roper River police reported wind damage to trees. No casualties were reported. | <urn:uuid:63ad10bb-855d-460d-8e9f-68a55071f6ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bom.gov.au/cyclone/history/jim84.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969897 | 482 | 1.890625 | 2 |
|Stem Cells and the Lay Apostolate|
|Wednesday, 24 January 2007 06:53|
Written by Keith Strohmhere.
Reading the MSNBC report closely, I was a little peeved by this quote from one of the scientists at the biotech firm who created the new technique: "This will make it far more difficult to oppose this research." I object because it characterizes those who are opposed to stem cell research as reactionary luddites who are opposed to the research on superstitous grounds. In fact, I don't think you'll find any Catholic who wouldn't want science to advance cures to illnesses that threaten the lives of our brothers and sisters--we just want these advances to respect and protect the dignity of those who are ill and the human life of the embryo. That's why you'll see many Catholics wholeheartedly supporting Adult Stem Cell Research, which has already yielded far more clinical results than embryonic stem cell research--and hasn't destroyed human life in the process.
Recently, scientists have discovered a method of extracting and utilizing stem cells from amniotic fluid--certainly a far less morally objectional approach. In fact, it could very well be that amniotic stem cells provide the "solution" to the stem cell debate.
However, I'm not really sure what these new techniques will yield in the future of the Stem Cell Battles, but as science and technology continues to advance faster than the moral, ethical, and theological frameworks we construct, you can bet that the ground will continue to shift on a yearly basis. Amidst the roiling and churning of the 21st century, it is comforting to have the Foundation and Cornerstone of Jesus Christ and the loving bulwark of His Church to hold on to--not in a way that runs from science and "reason" in fear, but in a way that embraces scientific and technological research, placing them within the proper relationship to Natural Law and Revealed Truth.
This is part of the work of the lay apostolate, not to just evaluate the morality and ethics of scientific research, but to enter the field of science itself and work from within. Utilizing reason and research to provide ethical and moral solutions to the problems and issues we face in our mortal existence--making life better for men and women across the globe.
Such thoughts remind me of John Paull the Great's wonderful 1998 Encyclical entitled, Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason). His opening paragraph states:
For the Christian, faith and reason are not opposed, but are two gifts that we are called to utilize in the course of fulfilling our apostolic mission. | <urn:uuid:0dc404e7-f5c7-472f-9996-91c6c2326226> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.siena.org/January-2007/stem-cells-and-the-lay-apostolate/Print | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953485 | 534 | 1.835938 | 2 |
On March 7, 1965, nonviolent civil rights activists participated in a march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., to support voters’ registration rights.
As participants crossed the arched Edmund Pettus Bridge at the edge of Selma, they encountered a squadron of hostile Alabama state troopers who attacked the marchers with tear gas, nightsticks and bullwhips. The day has since been known as Bloody Sunday.
Television coverage broadcast images of violence into the living rooms of many U.S. households and provoked many to take action in ways they had not previously considered.
James Farmer, founder of the Congress on Racial Equality, was invited by Rev. George St. Angelo ’43, campus chaplain, to speak at North Central on March 18 in a chapel-convocation series to discuss civil rights and Bloody Sunday.
During his speech, he told students that to be a spectator was no longer an option. “One can’t be neutral today … if you are a bystander, you are not innocent … the greatest crime of all is the crime of silence.”
In response to this message, a group of 120 North Central students, chaperones and faculty boarded three buses to Selma to participate in a march on Sunday, March 21. After 20 hours on the road, the group arrived Sunday morning in time to hear Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. give a sermon. The march began at 1 p.m. and proceeded over the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Although members of the group were not allowed to bring cameras, extensive coverage of the event was written in the March 26, 1965, issue of The North Central Chronicle.
Every person who attended the march was affected. One adult chaperone, Kitty Agne ’60 Dutenhaver, experienced the emotions of hearing King address the marchers and the feeling of stepping across the Pettus Bridge.
“The biggest and best experience as I look back is the true feeling of freedom—freedom from prejudice, freedom to love,” wrote former Chronicle editor Dick Mills ’67. “It was the first time for me and many others to be in a group of at least as many Negroes as whites; but more than that, it was the first time we really had a feeling of complete brotherhood.”
Erling Peterson, a faculty member who joined the trip, wrote, “I cannot wait until it happens, here, or anywhere near here. If the rights of any man, anywhere in this land, can be taken from him, the rights of every man are in danger.” | <urn:uuid:3137c4a3-1bb6-4f43-b19f-b1b303527699> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.northcentralcollege.edu/news/150-moments-bus-trip-selma-ala-support-civil-rights | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973874 | 535 | 2.875 | 3 |
Two Portland State University Architecture professors will unveil the first prototype of their new affordable, healthy, energy-efficient modular classroom Nov. 14 at Greenbuild 2012 in San Francisco, the world’s largest green-building expo.
Professors Margarette Leite and Sergio Palleroni and their students designed the Smart, Academic, Green Environment (SAGE) classroom to use half the energy of the typical modular, increase the building’s portability and improve indoor air and light. The prototype, manufactured by Blazer Industries in Aumsville, Oregon, will be showcased at San Francisco’s Moscone Convention Center during the show and will eventually make its home as a working classroom in Oregon.
Notable design features include:
- An energy-recovery system that reduces the need for heating, ventilation and air conditioning;
- More and bigger windows to increase natural daylight, which stimulates learning;
- Increased airflow to reduce interior carbon dioxide, a problem in typical portables that reduces student health and performance;
- A steel floor structure to increase portability, making the unit less costly than a typical portable after one relocation; and
- Environmentally-safe building materials that don’t leach toxins into the air.
The green portable costs just 15-20 percent more than a typical portable and is designed to create savings over time through increased portability, lower energy use and decreased absenteeism.
“This will be the healthiest affordable modular classroom in America,” said Margarette Leite, an architecture professor at Portland State. “Every school district in the country could conceivably afford this classroom.”
Leite initiated the project in 2009 with Palleroni, her husband and fellow architecture professor, in response to the quality of the portables in their own children’s schools. School districts across the country have inquired about the classrooms. The Gervais School District north of Salem plans to use 20 of the classrooms to help develop a consolidated campus for its elementary, middle and high school students. The project has won a 2013 international SEED award for excellence in public interest design.
The design was completed this spring by a team including Portland State’s Department of Architecture, the Green Building Laboratory at PSU, Oregon Solutions, the Institute for Sustainable Solutions, the American Institute of Architects (AIA), Aumsville-based portable manufacturer Blazer Industries, State of Oregon Building Codes Division, Portland Public Schools, and Energy Trust of Oregon, among others.
Blazer built the first classroom using donated materials and labor. A large national distributor of mobile buildings, Pacific Construction Services of Chehalis, Washington, a division of Pacific Mobile Structures, bought the prototype, which will be on display at the entrance to the Greenbuild 2012 conference in San Francisco, November 12-16. This unit will eventually make its way back to Oregon so the team can study the building’s performance while in use as a classroom.
The governor’s designation as an Oregon Solutions Project in 2011 put in motion a process that ensures collaboration between government, business and non-profits to meet project goals. Gov. John Kitzhaber appointed the Green Modular Classrooms team, facilitated by Oregon Solutions, and led by Dennis Wilde, Chief Sustainability Officer at Gerding Edlen Development. | <urn:uuid:e72265ef-9fcf-4e76-8711-4cadc1d7c49e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pdx.edu/alumni/news/psu-professors-unveil-new-affordable-green-portable-classroom-greenbuild-2012 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931624 | 678 | 2.359375 | 2 |
KiCAD is an Open Source EDA (Electronic Design Automation) suite, which I use for schematic capture and PCB layout. Like many other EDA tools that are floating around KiCAD can make 3D renderings of your circuit boards. If you use stock PCB symbols this is great; however, when you make your own PCB footprints you need to define your own 3d models.
I personally find it convenient to utilize OpenSCAD to make 3D models of most eletrical components, which are simple and easily defined parametrically in OpenSCAD's language. OpenSCAD allows you to write code that translates directly to a 3D model and export this to an STL. However, KiCAD expects VRML files which can be easily generated in Wings3D (which can import STL files). On the plus side Wings3D will allow us to add color elements and surfaces for nice rendering by KiCAD.
However, there is one pretty terrible problem: Wings3D can't for the life of it read in STL files read by OpenSCAD. Actually, Wings3D will just crash. To fix this you can use meshconv; however, use of meshconv does require use of the command line (in either Windows, OS X or Linux). I can only vouch for its usability under Linux. This will modify our workflow a little bit, but not by much.
The question now is how does this workflow go down?
My workflow is as follows:
- Get Datasheet of Footprint (not covered here)
- Make Footprint in KiCAD (not covered here)
- Using OpenSCAD model the component
- Export component as STL file (and use meshconv)
- Import STL in Wings3D
- Tweak and Export VRML File
- Import to KiCAD with proper scaling
- Enjoy your beautiful 3D models!
Using OpenSCAD Model the component
Modeling simple shapes inside of OpenSCAD is pretty easy and there are a few tricks to it. I may eventually write a tutorial for using OpenSCAD, but this will not be it. Learning OpenSCAD, unlike most CAD software, is essentially learning a programming language. I found the User Manual to be very useful. However, here are some tips.
- Use modules for everything, especially pins. They are similar to functions and can be reused, positioned and if designed right scaled.
- Math can be tricky, make sure you have a good concept of how primitives get moved around.
- When adapting a component follow the datasheet as closely as possible. Take into account your tolerances appropriately.
- OpenSCAD doesn't really have units. However, use consistent units yourself, because when we go to KiCAD we will scale.
Export component as STL file
Now that we have an OpenSCAD model we need to export it. First, you need to do "Design >> Compile and Render GCAL", which will make our nice mesh model. Then you can export it as a STL file by using "Design >> Export as STL". You can take the STL file and 3d print it. This can be useful for testing placement and pin spacing of expensive parts on PCBs.
Pit Stop: OpenSCAD STL Files Crash Wings3D
If you tried to import your OpenSCAD STL file into Wings3D then you will know this causes a crash. OpenSCAD STL files and Wings3D don't like each other. We need to use Princeton's meshconv to make OpenSCADs output STL acceptable for Wings3d. You can also directly generate VRML files, but this feature has never worked for me and I like using Wings3D to add color attributes to my models.
The following command will work fine for cleaning up the STL files:
$ meshconv -c stl INPUTFILE.stl -o OUTPUTFILE.stl
Import STL in Wings3D
Open up Wings3D and select "File >> Import >> StereoLithography (.stl)" from the top menu. Done.
Tweak and Export VRML File
Once you have imported your STL file into Wings3D its all about making it look nice. I am not good at Wings3D, but I know how to make my components look passable.
To apply a texture (or as Wings3D calls it a Material) to something you need to set it up first. Make sure everything is unselected by hitting "space" and right click somewhere where there are no polygons and click Materials. I can't advise you on what material values you want. Most of the time you can just move the bars around until your model looks good. Once all of the materials are created they need to be applied.
To apply a Material you need to select all the polygons you want the material to be applied to. Then right click and apply the material by clicking material again and selecting the material you want. Getting a good selection can be tough due to the interface. I suggest taking a glance at the WikiBooks Wings3D Tutorial for further tips on getting a good selection and tweaking your models.
After your little black box looks good we can export it by selecting "File >> Export >> VRML 2.0 (.wrl)".
Import to KiCAD with proper scaling
We are almost there. Open up your PCB layout right click on the module you want to add the 3D model to and edit the properties. Click "3D Settings" now "Browse Shapes" and find your 3D .wrl file and select it. I suggest putting your 3D files in a folder in your project directory (or better yet library directory). Once you have the shape imported you need to scale it and rotate it. Rotation is pretty easy to figure out, as is the scaling. If you did your work in mm you will need to scale by 0.393700 (1WU/2.54mm, where WU stands for Wings Units). If you worked in inches then you may need to scale a bit because 1 WU is equal to .1" by default.
Enjoy your beautiful 3D models!
Now you have beautiful 3D models of your circuit boards that allow you to feel semi-competent around MechE's showing off their 3D models. To make yourself feel even better your 3D models have little traces of copper on them, thats pretty cool. To make things better you can export as a VRML file and bring your design anywhere a VRML file can be read! I am working on a method for going from KiCAD 3D models to AutoDesk Inventor and Solidworks, for including PCBs with all the components on in mechanical drawings.
You can get all of my OpenSCAD and Wings3d files here | <urn:uuid:7e103560-5ee9-42c7-9dde-ccde2be65f25> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://happyrobotlabs.com/posts/tutorials/tutorial-3d-kicad-parts-using-openscad-and-wings3d/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929784 | 1,420 | 3.234375 | 3 |
The Land Where a Hero Once Lived
(英雄のいた国, Eiyū no Ita Kuni)
|Previous||The Forest of Chakra|
|Next||Battle on the Bridge! Zabuza Returns!|
|Arc||Land of Waves Arc|
|Japanese||December 12, 2002|
|English||November 12, 2005|
The Land Where a Hero Once Lived (英雄のいた国, Eiyū no Ita Kuni) is episode 11 of the original Naruto anime.
While Naruto and Sasuke try to outdo each other in their Tree Climbing Practice, a worker of Tazuna's named Giichi quits, and tries to convince Tazuna to give up building the bridge. Later on their way home from a food market, Sakura is astonished by the poverty in the Land of Waves, and Tazuna points out that their country would be much better off if the bridge were completed and Gatō removed from power. Following dinner, Sakura asks why Inari often stares at the torn family photo on the wall. Angered suddenly, Inari leaves the table, making Tsunami chase after him. Tazuna then explains that the man torn from the picture, named Kaiza, was once a hero in the Land of Waves and a father-figure to Inari. When Gatō arrived, he had Kaiza killed in an attempt to destroy the hope of the land, a strategy that sadly succeeded and traumatised Inari. Moved by the story, Naruto decides to show Inari that there are still heroes in the world. | <urn:uuid:7c690414-76be-49dd-8811-c0e6eec23b3e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/The_Land_Where_a_Hero_Once_Lived | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923053 | 340 | 1.976563 | 2 |
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President Obama Kicks Off the Economic Bus Tour in Cannon Falls, Minnesota
06:00 AM EDT
This morning, President Obama will visit Cannon Falls, Minnesota to kick off his economic bus tour. The President is traveling around the Midwest to stress the vital role rural America plays in ensuring the growth of our economy, the affordability of our food, the independence of our energy supply, and the strength of our communities. Cannon Falls, Minnesota, 35 miles south of Minneapolis and St. Paul, is the first stop in a three day tour across America’s heartland. President Obama will take questions from small business owners, rural organizations and local families during a town hall beginning at 1:05 pm EDT at Lower Hannah's Bend Park. Tune in to the town hall live at WhiteHouse.gov/live.
President Obama will be the first sitting President to visit the city since the summer of 1928, when President Calvin Coolidge dedicated a memorial to Col. William Colvill, a hero of the Battles of Gettysburg and the leader of the First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry who answered President Lincoln's call for volunteers to help prevent the splintering of the Union. Leading up to President Obama's visit, Cannon Falls Mayor Robby Robinson spoke about the anticipation in the community:
Cannon Falls is excited. We’re a small and proud community, and it’s an honor to have a sitting President visit our town. It will be an honor to say the President came… People want to hear what the President has to say. Even our children are excited.
Fun Fact for Cannon Falls: It is the only city in the world named Cannon Falls. | <urn:uuid:78beafc7-7f61-4881-a499-26b29da598b4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/08/15/president-obama-kicks-economic-bus-tour-cannon-falls-minnesota | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929723 | 339 | 1.945313 | 2 |
To the Editor:
It’s strange, but the experts, the economists, that should understand the economy, don’t, and even when they are convinced they do, they are unable to agree. Of course, like broken clocks, some of them and their theories must be right some of the time, but when and which ones? And, whenever the government interferes, it becomes complicated, sometimes disappointing and sometimes humorous. This is especially evident regarding work and welfare.
For myself, I find economics too complex to understand and I have to simplify it. I imagine a remote New England farming community in the 1890s. In this scene that springs from imagination, cattle graze near large barns; ripening fields of corn race beside their restraining fences until both disappear in the distance. Powerful farm horses, joined to their companion wagons move at a slow, but familiar pace on unpaved roads that serve to both separate and connect individual farms. Within my imaginary scene, the farm buildings, the fields, both those cleared and those planted, and the community roads are evidence of work already completed and the preparation for work yet to be acomplished. The scene, because it’s of my own creation, is always pleasant and always suffused with warm summer sunshine.
Within this economic example, the family farm is the basic unit. The farm family works, first, to survive, then to prosper. Farm work never has a barren season, it is always abundant, always exceeds available labor. Everyone works: the young, the elderly and even the infirm. They work, because they are expected to, because they have to, because they want to, because they are able to, and because their work, no matter how small, benefits the family. Any farm family worried for the future may find comfort in working harder. There is always work that will ensure a better future: there are fields to be cleared, food to be preserved, buildings to be constructed. On these farms, unemployment is not understood.
This family unit is a wonderful example of an efficient and productive economic system. Family members are aware of the work to be done; they assign themselves to tasks suitable to their ability. They work and see both the results and the promise of their labors. They are confident in their ability to survive and confident the farm will continue to provide its bounty so long as they are willing to work. Beyond survival, they know and are reassured that through work their modest dreams are attainable.
But, long ago, we left the farms, and the work that was a constant companion, and moved to places where work and its rewards, although compelling, were uncertain. Through unfortunate experiences, we found that our employers could neither assure us of abundant work, nor a living wage. Because, the primary concern of farmers, tradesmen and even day laborers is family security, and because we were uneasily dependent upon our employers, unions and governments intervened. These agents created unemployment and disability insurance, tenure, welfare and even featherbedding. These interventions, whose original intent was to correct employment problems, instead, created impediments between work and those that would work.
As a society, we have chosen to provide welfare to those in need and to provide it for as long as they are unable to provide for themselves. The welfare we provide is generous in funding and in health benefits and in comparison to the uncertainties of minimum wage work, remaining on welfare appears as a better choice for a family’s security. It is unreasonable to expect a welfare family to choose to give up welfare for work that is uncertain, work that doesn’t provide a livable wage, and work that will exclude the family from medical security. Thus, we have created a society where many of its members are unintentionally encouraged to be unproductive.
There is no easy transition from welfare. Welfare recipients are unlikely to suddenly land a middle class job. There may be a college graduate among them, one with marketable skills, one who through unfortunate circumstances found themselves on welfare and who at their earliest opportunity will better themselves. But, the reality is that most welfare recipients have already been harshly screened by society and most have been found to be only suitable for unskilled work.
If these recipients were family members on one of my imaginary farms of the 1890s, work would be found for them and they would share in their family’s security. We might take as society’s goal to emulate the farm family. We might take it as our belief that there is abundant work and continue to believe that, at least until we can no longer find a pothole. All our members should be encouraged to work and rewarded for doing so. Since public welfare is a faulty government intervention, it is appropriate that government refine welfare to allow and encourage work.
The mandatory establishment of a minimum wage was intended to ensure that our unskilled labor force could earn a livable wage. Like so many government ideas, it doesn’t work in practice. Minimum wage will not produce a livable wage and employers will not pay more than work is worth. Instead of solving the economic problem by paying low wage earners more in wages, employers will hire fewer people. Since government, by its policy intends to provide welfare to those that cannot earn a living, it makes better sense to reduce what they receive in welfare and augment whatever they can actually earn by making up the difference to arrive at a livable wage. If this formula provides a better living than welfare alone, then welfare recipients will find work and so long as they can continually improve their family income, welfare recipients will work themselves out of welfare and become self supporting through their own labor and aided by the augmentation of a government supplement.
This idea may or may not solve our faulted economy, but perhaps it should be tried—just a little at a time or at least until two or more economists can agree it is a good idea. | <urn:uuid:d934b514-496e-45a7-af72-5b55c46ae3e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.twincitytimes.com/letters/letter-transitioning-from-welfare-to-work | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977294 | 1,207 | 1.898438 | 2 |
Transcript for Malcolm Gladwell on spaghetti sauce
I think I was supposed to talk about my new book, which is called "Blink," and it's about snap judgments and first impressions. And it comes out in January, and I hope you all buy it in triplicate. But I was thinking about this, and I realized that although my new book makes me happy, and I think would make my mother happy, it's not really about happiness. So I decided instead, I would talk about someone who I think has done as much to make Americans happy as perhaps anyone over the last 20 years, a man who is a great personal hero of mine: someone by the name of Howard Moskowitz, who is most famous for reinventing spaghetti sauce.
Howard's about this high, and he's round, and he's in his 60s, and he has big huge glasses and thinning grey hair, and he has a kind of wonderful exuberance and vitality, and he has a parrot, and he loves the opera, and he's a great aficionado of medieval history. And by profession, he's a psychophysicist. Now, I should tell you that I have no idea what psychophysics is, although at some point in my life, I dated a girl for two years who was getting her doctorate in psychophysics. Which should tell you something about that relationship. (Laughter)
As far as I know, psychophysics is about measuring things. And Howard is very interested in measuring things. And he graduated with his doctorate from Harvard, and he set up a little consulting shop in White Plains, New York. And one of his first clients was -- this is many years ago, back in the early '70s -- one of his first clients was Pepsi. And Pepsi came to Howard and they said, "You know, there's this new thing called aspartame, and we would like to make Diet Pepsi. We'd like you to figure out how much aspartame we should put in each can of Diet Pepsi, in order to have the perfect drink." Right? Now that sounds like an incredibly straightforward question to answer, and that's what Howard thought. Because Pepsi told him, "Look, we're working with a band between eight and 12 percent. Anything below eight percent sweetness is not sweet enough; anything above 12 percent sweetness is too sweet. We want to know: what's the sweet spot between eight and 12?" Now, if I gave you this problem to do, you would all say, it's very simple. What we do is you make up a big experimental batch of Pepsi, at every degree of sweetness -- eight percent, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, all the way up to 12 -- and we try this out with thousands of people, and we plot the results on a curve, and we take the most popular concentration. Right? Really simple.
Howard does the experiment, and he gets the data back, and he plots it on a curve, and all of a sudden he realizes it's not a nice bell curve. In fact, the data doesn't make any sense. It's a mess. It's all over the place. Now, most people in that business, in the world of testing food and such, are not dismayed when the data comes back a mess. They think, well, you know, figuring out what people think about cola's not that easy. You know, maybe we made an error somewhere along the way. You know, let's just make an educated guess, and they simply point and they go for 10 percent, right in the middle. Howard is not so easily placated. Howard is a man of a certain degree of intellectual standards. And this was not good enough for him, and this question bedeviled him for years. And he would think it through and say, what was wrong? Why could we not make sense of this experiment with Diet Pepsi?
And one day, he was sitting in a diner in White Plains, about to go trying to dream up some work for Nescafe. And suddenly, like a bolt of lightning, the answer came to him. And that is, that when they analyzed the Diet Pepsi data, they were asking the wrong question. They were looking for the perfect Pepsi, and they should have been looking for the perfect Pepsis. Trust me. This was an enormous revelation. This was one of the most brilliant breakthroughs in all of food science. And Howard immediately went on the road, and he would go to conferences around the country, and he would stand up and he would say, "You had been looking for the perfect Pepsi. You're wrong. You should be looking for the perfect Pepsis." And people would look at him with a blank look, and they would say, "What are you talking about? This is craziness." And they would say, you know, "Move! Next!" Tried to get business, nobody would hire him -- he was obsessed, though, and he talked about it and talked about it and talked about it. Howard loves the Yiddish expression "To a worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish." This was his horseradish. (Laughter) He was obsessed with it!
And finally, he had a breakthrough. Vlasic Pickles came to him, and they said, "Mr. Moskowitz -- Doctor Moskowitz -- we want to make the perfect pickle." And he said, "There is no perfect pickle; there are only perfect pickles." And he came back to them and he said, "You don't just need to improve your regular; you need to create zesty." And that's where we got zesty pickles. Then the next person came to him, and that was Campbell's Soup. And this was even more important. In fact, Campbell's Soup is where Howard made his reputation. Campbell's made Prego, and Prego, in the early '80s, was struggling next to Ragu, which was the dominant spaghetti sauce of the '70s and '80s. Now in the industry -- I don't know whether you care about this, or how much time I have to go into this. But it was, technically speaking -- this is an aside -- Prego is a better tomato sauce than Ragu. The quality of the tomato paste is much better; the spice mix is far superior; it adheres to the pasta in a much more pleasing way. In fact, they would do the famous bowl test back in the '70s with Ragu and Prego. You'd have a plate of spaghetti, and you would pour it on, right? And the Ragu would all go to the bottom, and the Prego would sit on top. That's called "adherence." And, anyway, despite the fact that they were far superior in adherence, and the quality of their tomato paste, Prego was struggling.
So they came to Howard, and they said, fix us. And Howard looked at their product line, and he said, what you have is a dead tomato society. So he said, this is what I want to do. And he got together with the Campbell's soup kitchen, and he made 45 varieties of spaghetti sauce. And he varied them according to every conceivable way that you can vary tomato sauce: by sweetness, by level of garlic, by tartness, by sourness, by tomatoey-ness, by visible solids -- my favorite term in the spaghetti sauce business. (Laughter) Every conceivable way you can vary spaghetti sauce, he varied spaghetti sauce. And then he took this whole raft of 45 spaghetti sauces, and he went on the road. He went to New York; he went to Chicago; he went to Jacksonville; he went to Los Angeles. And he brought in people by the truckload. Into big halls. And he sat them down for two hours, and he gave them, over the course of that two hours, ten bowls. Ten small bowls of pasta, with a different spaghetti sauce on each one. And after they ate each bowl, they had to rate, from 0 to 100, how good they thought the spaghetti sauce was.
At the end of that process, after doing it for months and months, he had a mountain of data about how the American people feel about spaghetti sauce. And then he analyzed the data. Now, did he look for the most popular brand variety of spaghetti sauce? No! Howard doesn't believe that there is such a thing. Instead, he looked at the data, and he said, let's see if we can group all these different data points into clusters. Let's see if they congregate around certain ideas. And sure enough, if you sit down, and you analyze all this data on spaghetti sauce, you realize that all Americans fall into one of three groups. There are people who like their spaghetti sauce plain; there are people who like their spaghetti sauce spicy; and there are people who like it extra chunky.
And of those three facts, the third one was the most significant, because at the time, in the early 1980s, if you went to a supermarket, you would not find extra-chunky spaghetti sauce. And Prego turned to Howard, and they said, "You telling me that one third of Americans crave extra-chunky spaghetti sauce and yet no one is servicing their needs?" And he said yes! (Laughter) And Prego then went back, and completely reformulated their spaghetti sauce, and came out with a line of extra chunky that immediately and completely took over the spaghetti sauce business in this country. And over the next 10 years, they made 600 million dollars off their line of extra-chunky sauces.
And everyone else in the industry looked at what Howard had done, and they said, "Oh my god! We've been thinking all wrong!" And that's when you started to get seven different kinds of vinegar, and 14 different kinds of mustard, and 71 different kinds of olive oil -- and then eventually even Ragu hired Howard, and Howard did the exact same thing for Ragu that he did for Prego. And today, if you go to the supermarket, a really good one, and you look at how many Ragus there are -- do you know how many they are? 36! In six varieties: Cheese, Light, Robusto, Rich & Hearty, Old World Traditional, Extra-Chunky Garden. (Laughter) That's Howard's doing. That is Howard's gift to the American people.
Now why is that important? It is, in fact, enormously important. I'll explain to you why. What Howard did is he fundamentally changed the way the food industry thinks about making you happy. Assumption number one in the food industry used to be that the way to find out what people want to eat -- what will make people happy -- is to ask them. And for years and years and years and years, Ragu and Prego would have focus groups, and they would sit all you people down, and they would say, "What do you want in a spaghetti sauce? Tell us what you want in a spaghetti sauce." And for all those years -- 20, 30 years -- through all those focus group sessions, no one ever said they wanted extra-chunky. Even though at least a third of them, deep in their hearts, actually did. (Laughter)
People don't know what they want! Right? As Howard loves to say, "The mind knows not what the tongue wants." It's a mystery! And a critically important step in understanding our own desires and tastes is to realize that we cannot always explain what we want deep down. If I asked all of you, for example, in this room, what you want in a coffee, you know what you'd say? Every one of you would say, "I want a dark, rich, hearty roast." It's what people always say when you ask them what they want in a coffee. What do you like? Dark, rich, hearty roast! What percentage of you actually like a dark, rich, hearty roast? According to Howard, somewhere between 25 and 27 percent of you. Most of you like milky, weak coffee. But you will never, ever say to someone who asks you what you want that "I want a milky, weak coffee." (Laughter)
So that's number one thing that Howard did. Number two thing that Howard did is he made us realize -- it's another very critical point -- he made us realize in the importance of what he likes to call "horizontal segmentation." Why is this critical? It's critical because this is the way the food industry thought before Howard. Right? What were they obsessed with in the early '80s? They were obsessed with mustard. In particular, they were obsessed with the story of Grey Poupon. Right? Used to be, there were two mustards. French's and Gulden's. What were they? Yellow mustard. What's in yellow mustard? Yellow mustard seeds, turmeric, and paprika. That was mustard. Grey Poupon came along, with a Dijon. Right? Much more volatile brown mustard seed, some white wine, a nose hit, much more delicate aromatics. And what do they do? They put it in a little tiny glass jar, with a wonderful enameled label on it, made it look French, even though it's made in Oxnard, California. And instead of charging a dollar-fifty for the eight-ounce bottle, the way that French's and Gulden's did, they decided to charge four dollars. And then they had those ads, right? With the guy in the Rolls Royce, and he's eating the Grey Poupon. The other Rolls Royce pulls up, and he says, do you have any Grey Poupon? And the whole thing, after they did that, Grey Poupon takes off! Takes over the mustard business!
And everyone's take-home lesson from that was that the way to get to make people happy is to give them something that is more expensive, something to aspire to. Right? It's to make them turn their back on what they think they like now, and reach out for something higher up the mustard hierarchy. A better mustard! A more expensive mustard! A mustard of more sophistication and culture and meaning. And Howard looked to that and said, that's wrong! Mustard does not exist on a hierarchy. Mustard exists, just like tomato sauce, on a horizontal plane. There is no good mustard or bad mustard. There is no perfect mustard or imperfect mustard. There are only different kinds of mustards that suit different kinds of people. He fundamentally democratized the way we think about taste. And for that, as well, we owe Howard Moskowitz a huge vote of thanks.
Third thing that Howard did, and perhaps the most important, is Howard confronted the notion of the Platonic dish. (Laughter) What do I mean by that? For the longest time in the food industry, there was a sense that there was one way, a perfect way, to make a dish. You go to Chez Panisse, they give you the red-tail sashimi with roasted pumpkin seeds in a something something reduction. They don't give you five options on the reduction, right? They don't say, do you want the extra-chunky reduction, or do you want the -- no! You just get the reduction. Why? Because the chef at Chez Panisse has a Platonic notion about red-tail sashimi. This is the way it ought to be. And she serves it that way time and time again, and if you quarrel with her, she will say, "You know what? You're wrong! This is the best way it ought to be in this restaurant."
Now that same idea fueled the commercial food industry as well. They had a notion, a Platonic notion, of what tomato sauce was. And where did that come from? It came from Italy. Italian tomato sauce is what? It's blended; it's thin. The culture of tomato sauce was thin. When we talked about authentic tomato sauce in the 1970s, we talked about Italian tomato sauce. We talked about the earliest ragus, which had no visible solids, right? Which were thin, and you just put a little bit over it and it sunk down to the bottom of the pasta. That's what it was. And why were we attached to that? Because we thought that what it took to make people happy was to provide them with the most culturally authentic tomato sauce, A; and B, we thought that if we gave them the culturally authentic tomato sauce, then they would embrace it. And that's what would please the maximum number of people.
And the reason we thought that -- in other words, people in the cooking world were looking for cooking universals. They were looking for one way to treat all of us. And it's good reason for them to be obsessed with the idea of universals, because all of science, through the 19th century and much of the 20th, was obsessed with universals. Psychologists, medical scientists, economists were all interested in finding out the rules that govern the way all of us behave. But that changed, right? What is the great revolution in science of the last 10, 15 years? It is the movement from the search for universals to the understanding of variability. Now in medical science, we don't want to know how necessarily -- just how cancer works, we want to know how your cancer is different from my cancer. I guess my cancer different from your cancer. Genetics has opened the door to the study of human variability. What Howard Moskowitz was doing was saying, this same revolution needs to happen in the world of tomato sauce. And for that, we owe him a great vote of thanks.
I'll give you one last illustration of variability, and that is -- oh, I'm sorry. Howard not only believed that, but he took it a second step, which was to say that when we pursue universal principles in food, we aren't just making an error; we are actually doing ourselves a massive disservice. And the example he used was coffee. And coffee is something he did a lot of work with, with Nescafe. If I were to ask all of you to try and come up with a brand of coffee -- a type of coffee, a brew -- that made all of you happy, and then I asked you to rate that coffee, the average score in this room for coffee would be about 60 on a scale of 0 to 100. If, however, you allowed me to break you into coffee clusters, maybe three or four coffee clusters, and I could make coffee just for each of those individual clusters, your scores would go from 60 to 75 or 78. The difference between coffee at 60 and coffee at 78 is a difference between coffee that makes you wince, and coffee that makes you deliriously happy.
That is the final, and I think most beautiful lesson, of Howard Moskowitz: that in embracing the diversity of human beings, we will find a surer way to true happiness. Thank you. | <urn:uuid:ecd98150-1dd2-4dbf-8cbc-0ee6458bab23> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dotsub.com/view/100f2c6c-b178-4728-b653-f90cde33b522/viewTranscript/eng | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983588 | 3,982 | 1.578125 | 2 |
How to Make a Pizza Pie
Who needs pizza delivery when you can make your own pizza pie at home? Making a pizza from scratch is a simple process, and you can create your pizza just the way you like it by adding whatever toppings you want:
In a large mixing bowl, combine a package of active dry yeast and 1 1/2 cups warm water.
Wait two to three minutes for the yeast to rise.
Mix in 1/2 cup flour and 1 teaspoon sugar.
Be sure to mix well.
Add 2 tablespoons olive oil, 2 teaspoons salt, and 3 1/4 cups flour, and work the ingredients together.
Use your hands or a large wooden spoon.
Transfer the dough to a smooth flour-dusted surface and knead it until the dough is smooth, about 5 minutes.
If the dough becomes sticky when kneading, gradually add up to another 1/4 cup flour.
Place in a large bowl that’s been lightly greased with olive oil, cover the bowl, and allow the dough to double in size.
This should take about an hour.
Divide the dough into two pieces and roll them into balls.
Rest the dough for 15 minutes.
Place a ball of dough on a floured counter or work surface, and flatten it with your hands.
Keep stretching and pressing down on the dough until it reaches the desired size.
Slide your hands underneath the dough and lift it onto an oiled pizza pan.
Depending on the size and shape of your dough, you can also use a baking sheet.
Place your toppings on the dough.
Toppings on traditional Italian pies are generally light. Italians are aghast at American pizzas with tons of meat and cheese.
Bake the pizza in a 450-degree oven until the cheese turns golden brown in spots and the edge of the crust looks golden brown.
If you have any doubts, carefully lift up the crust with a metal spatula (plastic can melt) to see whether the bottom of the crust is lightly browned. | <urn:uuid:db8947a8-0999-4264-972a-568460c8a029> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-make-a-pizza-pie.navId-323406.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922408 | 428 | 1.570313 | 2 |
The Life Of An Unknown Man
by Andrei Makine
When reviewing his last novel, Human Love, I described Makine as unashamedly romantic. He has an ability to wear his heart on his sleeve whilst not being terribly sentimental which could be summed up by a sentence in his latest novel where one character highlights 'The extreme difficulty of having faith in human goodness and at the same time the awareness that only this faith could still save.' By placing his characters in jeopardy and demonstrating the power of love in the face of it he has been able to write at a pitch that almost demands orchestral underscore. Human Love played out against the backdrop of Angolan revolution in the 1960's and 70's and took the reader on a harrowing journey. This time the theatre of war is back in his native Russia and covers the Siege of Leningrad, the march forwards to Berlin and beyond into the era of Stalin's purges. It is another harrowing tale, enough to make every hair on the head of its unknown man turn white, and yet it is a tale of nostalgia and admiration for 'not a territory but an era', the 'monstrous Soviet era.'
Makine begins his novel in the present day however with, naturally, a Russian emigre. Shutov, a former dissident who has lived in Paris for twenty years, is not only a disenchanted writer but
He is the absolute prototype of a man ditched by a woman young enough to be his daughter. The plot for a lightweight novel in the French manner, a hundred pages of Parisian bed-hopping and gloom. All a love affair such as his would be worth.
Makine has a lot of fun in this first section with his own literary influences. Comparisons with Nabokov, Proust and Chekhov have been made and it is the latter who provides part one with its repeating image of a couple 'hurtling down a snow-covered hill in a toboggan' (from A Joke) and Shutov's frustration that in a modern world it would be dismissed as sentimental, over the top, old-fashioned ('And yet it works!'). The fact that Shutov has misremembered the story undercuts wonderfully his treatment of his own love life and adds the perfect punchline to this slightly sad figure's own joke of a life.
Literary Paris fascinated her and Shutov seemed like a very well-established writer. The illusion lasted less than a year. The time it took for a young woman from the provinces to get her bearings and realize that this man was, in fact, no more than a marginal figure. And even his past as a dissident, which in the old days had given Shutov a certain aura, was becoming a flaw, or at least a sign of how prehistoric he was: just think, a dissident form the eighties of the previous century, an opposition figure exiled from a country that had since been erased from all the maps!
If the first section plays with the romantic nature of Chekhov the second satirises modern Russia through Shutov's confusion at its altered state when he makes a return journey in order to pursue an old flame. TV adverts, new social structures and the new order of power are all eye-opening moments for Shutov as he stumbles about in his ill-conceived plan. The targets in Putin's Russia are all pretty obvious and the fact is that these two sections take up two-fifths of a novel that only really gets going when Shutov meets and finally speaks to the man with the real story to tell. Awaiting his transfer to an old people's home which has been delayed by the tercentenary celebrations in St. Petersburg, the seemingly mute old man that occupies one of the apartments in the building in which Shutov is staying turns out in fact to have a lot to say.
Over the next hundred pages we hear from Volsky, the unknown man of the title, as he finally gives voice to a story that is both tragic and yet, as the title suggests, commonplace: 'A circle completed and, within it, the span of a whole life.' A singing student at the Conservatoire in Leningrad, he meets the woman who will form the other part of that circle just a day before the speakers that line the streets will bring the news of war. No sooner has he met Mila than they are separated by the realities of civilian life during military siege. Makine has undoubted skill in describing human hardship, the scenes in Leningrad are enough to set your teeth chattering or heighten any hunger pangs as Volsky struggles to survive on the meagre ration of 125 grams of bread.
He began exploring the very last zone that precedes extinction. He had always pictured hunger as a relentless, gut-wrenching torment. And so it was, for as long as one had the strength to feel it. Then the torture came to an end for want of a victim, the latter having become a shadow for whom a mouthful of water already represented a painful effort of digestion. The cold, too, caused suffering to those who were utterly exhausted and waiting for the tend. Yet this increasing weakness seemed to be external to the body. It was the world that was changing, making objects too heavy (the can in which the water was heating now weighed a ton), lengthening distances (three days before he had managed to reach the bakery: a veritable polar expedition).
Volsky comes as close as is possible to death, saved by an act of charity and the generosity of another. What really saves him however is the moment when he is reunited with Mila, already altered beyond recognition by the privations of war. The two of them grab hold of one another like the survivors of a shipwreck and their love alters their perception of the world around them, now seeing 'the world from a very remote perspective. A perspective that could have seemed godlike in its detachment yet was grievously human, for each of them greatly dreaded the other's death.' Their connection through music and singing (for Mila was another choral student) is another transcendent aspect and amidst a decaying city they add their voices to the others at the Musical Comedy Theatre. It is a salvation of sorts but as food continues to decline and the cold remains their company is depleted by occasional deaths, the parts allocated not so much by the director 'but by a silent being, present at every performance. The Grim Reaper himself.'
The inevitable call up for all men not already at the front eventually comes but before he leaves they both take part in concerts close to the front line. Makine creates a memorable set piece with the singers performing virtually under fire and it is when mortar shells begin to actually fall among them that Volsky and Mila are separated. We then follow Volsky as he joins the defence of Leningrad and I will stop describing any more of the plot there for fear of spoiling it. If the circle of a life is about bringing two points together to enclose it, then the trajectories of Volsky and Mila having already been separated and brought together twice will not be immune from repeating that pattern again. As in previous novels Makine specialises in the transcendence of love and pushes his characters to the very limits of human endurance in order to heighten that further. For that reason it's hard not to be slightly disappointed by the opening sections of the book but what they do allow is for Shutov to undergo a form of personal epiphany and, in the books final section, to find not only his writing but also his emotional life reinvigorated. If there are those that praise Makine with comparisons to Chekhov then it could be that those modern Russian criticisms of the master mentioned earlier are aimed by Makine squarely at himself. If so, then this book is eventually a fine rebuttal, a writer proving that it may be all the things you accuse it of being, 'And yet it works!' | <urn:uuid:3e6f02ac-226a-48b5-b85e-a47cfc9bd6a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://justwilliamsluck.blogspot.com/2010/10/to-you-my-beloved-i-shall-confide-my.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978908 | 1,639 | 1.875 | 2 |
3D Scanning Is Flying High2 Jun, 2011 By: Susan Smith
Cadalyst Labs Report: Faster, more accurate, more affordable technologies are propelling reverse engineering and other applications to the forefront of design.
Editor's Note: This article was originally published in the Winter/Spring 2011 issue of Cadalyst magazine.
3D laser scanning continues to take the CAD world by storm with its ability to create a digital representation of an existing structure or product. Also referred to as reverse engineering, the process uses scanning hardware to collect millions of points in space that represent an object's surface. That collection of data, called a point cloud, can be translated using specialized software to prepare it for use in a CAD application, where it becomes the basis for design updates or retrofits.
According to Tom Charron, vice-president of global marketing for Rapidform, "The challenge is less about data collection than it is about how to make it useful for your needs. This is where reverse engineering comes in, and the latest methods involve making solid models that are parametric and history-based, so they're easily editable."
As technologies rapidly improve and become increasingly affordable, applications of 3D scanning are expanding for civil engineering, AEC, and manufacturing. Regardless of your industry, and whether you purchase your own hardware and software or hire a service bureau to do the work, now is the time to take a serious look at how 3D scanning could jump-start your design process.
Several developments have converged to accelerate 3D scanning adoption. Hardware and software are becoming more efficient, prices are dropping, and the process of converting point clouds to CAD data is getting easier.
Joe Croser, vice-president of products at Pointools, explained, "The speed the scanner can measure points enables users to capture more points in the same time — getting higher-quality and more accurate data. Or it enables them to do more scans within a time period, thereby enabling them to lower scanning costs from being on-site."
Marc Soucy, president of InnovMetric Software, said hardware companies have nearly completed the release of 64-bit drivers, making it possible to perform 3D scanning processes on 64-bit computing platforms, which provides unlimited memory for very large digitizing projects.
A huge determining factor in the growth of 3D laser scanning is plummeting hardware prices this past year. One example is FARO's Focus3D scanner, which is approximately 60% less expensive than the company's previously available models. "The really high cost of scanners kept many people out of the market," said Croser. With hardware prices now in the range of $3,000 to $60,000, even small- and mid-sized firms are getting into the 3D scanning game.
The scanning workflow typically has involved two to five pieces of software ranging in price from $3,000 to $30,000 each — but the latest software is changing that.
"Customers can now get their hands on software that enables them to directly reuse that point cloud model inside their preferred software, rather than having to buy specialized software and convert the point cloud into geometry to be able to take that geometry into their apps," said Croser. In Pointools' licensing deal with Bentley Systems, customers can reuse the same native Pointools POD format in all Pointools products. Pointools POD Creator can generate multiple files in a single import operation inside any Bentley application. "That eliminates the need to translate because you don't have to move it from one proprietary file format to another in order to use it in different application environments," Croser said.
IMAGINiT's Scan-to-BIM software allows users to go from the original scanned data directly into an Autodesk Revit model. "It is no longer a long convoluted path," said Beau Turner, director of business developement at IMAGINiT Technologies. "Being able to … reduce the types of software and number of software pieces you need is huge." By removing the need for that software, you reduce the bottom line, and the workflow path becomes more streamlined and invites fewer errors.
As speed goes up and price comes down, the demand rises for 3D point cloud models, creating a true shift in consciousness among customers old and new.
This 3D point cloud model of a U.S. Ford automotive plant comprises approximately 4.5 billion points and was captured using a FARO Photon 120 scanner. Automotive production lines need to be changed every time the type of car being manufactured changes. Pointools' Joe Croser explained, "Ford has completely transformed its workflows so they can now scan an entire production line in a day to create a full photorealistic virtual model as a point cloud with full color and texture. They can then use Pointools to group pieces of a point cloud and move those grouped pieces around, quickly acquiring a piece of information without doing any postprocessing or additional modeling."
3D Scanning for CAD
The applications of 3D scanning for CAD are varied, but typically fall into retrofitting, archiving, and inspection categories.
Civil engineering. Ten years ago, 3D laser scanning began to gain traction in the civil engineering world. The 3D laser scanning setup — with a tripod and camera hardware — is an extension of traditional surveying. Long-range scanners are typically used for civil engineering. Use has grown steadily, albeit a bit slowly, as is true of many technologies in the field.
3D laser scanning accurately captures large sets of 3D coordinates; for example, it can detect pavement distresses, such as potholes and large-area utility patches. With 3D laser scanning, civil engineers get a higher level of accuracy by capturing all data at once, instead of one point at a time. "They can focus on forms and how things flow and the landscape, rather than capturing a lot of geometry," said Turner.
If civil engineers want to find out how many cubic yards of earth are in a hill they can gather a surface topography with a long-range scanner to make calculations very quickly.
Building. In the past two years, the use of 3D laser scanning in architecture and construction has grown dramatically during the down economy as owners have opted for building retrofits and remodels over new construction, leading to the need to capture as-built data as a starting point for design modifications. Additionally, it is estimated that 60% of U.S. building in the next 20 years will be based on existing construction, reliant on old 2D drawings or no existing data at all. Finally, 3D scanning for AEC got another big push when the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) issued a $60 million contract to integrate a system that would allow the agency to use scan data in building information models. The opportunity to capture as-built data for reuse is one that AEC firms can't ignore.
High-definition laser scanners are used by civil engineers to capture accurate site details, as shown here. Image courtesy of IMAGINiT Technologies.
Retrofitting applications in AEC are numerous, from scanning the simple but outdated facade of a building to scanning a complex section of a power plant or chemical refinery, but all allow designers to make additions or modifications quickly and accurately. Some agencies are using 3D scanning for archival purposes — that is, capturing as-built data for a historical, religious, or other culturally significant structures to create a permanent digital record.
Building data has its own complexities. Scanners must be able to get into places that aren't readily visible — for example, under ceiling tiles. Architecture projects typically use phase-shift or pulse-based time-of-flight digitizers.
A high-definition color laser scan captures details of a facility's mechanical room. The black circle is the scanning base. Image courtesy of IMAGINiT Technologies.
Manufacturing. In manufacturing, 3D scanning is used in archiving, reverse engineering, and inspection project workflows. It typically involves 3D laser scanners (on arms or coordinate measuring machines, tracked optically or by laser), fringe projection digitizers (white light), or x-ray digitizers.
When archiving, manufacturing organizations that have tooling or parts that predate their digital design files would scan the object, convert the scan data to a useful format (surfaces, CAD data, etc.), and store the data or reproduce the physical object using traditional or additive fabrication methods.
Reverse engineering is used to create a new object from scan data. Automotive aftermarket parts are a classic reverse-engineering application. Sometimes a manufacturer wants to create a product designed to attach to an existing automobile. Often, scanning the automobile is the fastest way to create digital versions of the relevant surfaces. The workflow involves capturing scan data, converting it to surfaces, and using CAD software to create a model of the new product.
Inspection applications involve capturing a shape with a scanner so the shape can be analyzed and compared with CAD data or previously captured scans. Charron at Rapidform explained that the comparison data can detect manufacturing errors that can result in product defects.
In terms of retrofitting, manufacturers often try to make a new tool from an injection mold that was manufactured before the company used CAD. If a tool has worn out and must be replaced, users can scan the old part, transfer the data to CAD, and then produce a replacement part.
The aerospace and automotive industries are the biggest users of 3D laser scanning. Scott Harmon, vice-president of business development with Z Corp., said, "These are very large industries with significant resources invested in product design and manufacturing. These industries have extremely tight product requirements and demanding product-launch schedules. Using scanning in the design process and quality control helps them get [products] to market faster and ensures that manufacturing quality remains high."
Soucy at InnovMetric said 3D digitizing is used routinely throughout automotive engineering to accelerate the development of stamping and assembly tools; virtually assemble car components to detect clashes, design shims, etc.; and diagnose and solve manufacturing problems before production. As a result, he noted, new car models roll out faster, saving tens of millions of dollars on each release.
Click here to read the "Scanning Hardware" sidebar.
Reverse Engineering: How It Works
"The most important thing beyond the scanner itself is post-processing software that can make use of dense point clouds or meshes [collected by the scanner]," said Charron at Rapidform. "Most CAD, CAM [computer-aided manufacturing], BIM [building information modeling], and other engineering software cannot make use of the raw scan data. On the manufacturing side, products like Rapidform, PolyWorks, and Geomagic can prepare data for use in CAD or verify parts against CAD models. Converting point clouds to polygons, healing scan data, and converting scan data to CAD data are all processes that peripheral software packages can handle."
In a collection of 3D points, each point is assigned an x, y, z coordinate, but the millions of collected points are not organized. The information needs to be in a more useful format, said Larry Carlberg, service bureau manager for GKS Global Services, a subsidiary of Laser Design. "The reverse engineering packages we have adopted and resell with our equipment enable an engineer to convert this point information to a format usable on his software."
GKS first connects all these points into a mesh that becomes a CAD surface that can be translated to a definable contour understandable by CAD — an algorithm that will be triangulated. This mesh also can be used for rapid prototyping processes such as stereolithography.
Each tool has a strength another lacks, which is why GKS resells numerous packages. "Geomagic might work better for an artist working with organic shapes, where Rapidform would give better strength for a model," Soucy said.
Software products such as Pointools address the issue of getting point clouds into BIM format, as does IMAGINiT's Scan-to-BIM application for Autodesk Revit. Users can import the point cloud, visualize it within the design environment and then interact with it. In this situation, users work inside Revit but also have the extra geometry recognition tools necessary to work with point clouds.
In discussing scanning for AutoCAD-based tools, IMAGINiT's Turner said, "Once we get [the data], we bring it all together into one unified point cloud, which you then register through a state plane or a georeferenced location. Then you can push it out to another file format and that's where AutoCAD-based tools can come in. Inside pure AutoCAD and the AutoCAD vertical environment, they have an engine that allows you to bring in point clouds — this only exists in the AutoCAD platform."
Autodesk's point cloud capability for AutoCAD Civil 3D and other products registers the data, meaning the scans are ori-ented and georeferenced. To capture the data, a scanner must be set up at several locations around a building. A scanner is line-of-sight equipment — it can capture only what it sees.
Kubit USA's PointCloud Pro runs on any scanning hardware and captures point clouds of existing conditions. Programs enable users to transfer data accurately and efficiently from various measuring devices or sensors into AutoCAD.
Geomagic's Studio software transforms 3D scan data and polygon meshes into accurate 3D digital models for reverse engineering, product design, rapid prototyping, and analysis and directly integrates with all mechanical CAD packages.
AVEVA's new IntelliLaser, an extension to the AVEVA NET information management system, adds intelligence to laser scan data, allowing process plant owners to digitally navigate through their physical plant assets via the web.
Pointools offers a plug-in for SketchUp as well as a plug-in for AutoCAD and several AutoCAD-based AEC products. "The SketchUp plug-in gives users other options for working inside a host application with the same point cloud data," said Croser.
"That's big from a 3D city modeling perspective. Now that people are realizing the speed you can model with it, they are using it for city modeling. As a result, people want greater context for their designs." Croser added that Pointools software doesn't rely on processing power to handle a lot of points because it has a very compressed file format that uses the company's own graphics engine to display.
Future of 3D Laser Scanning
The economy, affordability, and ease of use of 3D laser scanning make it attractive to an increasingly broad range of users. The need to obtain accurate measurements of as-built structures; to retrofit roads and bridges; and to capture data for product redesigns, inspections, and other applications — while hardware and software technologies continue to become more refined and affordable — will drive even greater adoption of 3D laser scanning in the coming years.
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Autodesk Technical Evangelist Lynn Allen guides you through a different AutoCAD feature in every edition of her popular "Circles and Lines" tutorial series. For even more AutoCAD how-to, check out Lynn's quick tips in the Cadalyst Video Gallery. Subscribe to Cadalyst's Tips & Tricks Tuesdays free e-newsletter and we'll notify you every time a new video tip is available. All exclusively from Cadalyst!
My ConnectMyDNA Results 21 May, 2013
TERA Semicon Drives Its Own Destiny with CAD and PDM 22 May, 2013
SolidWorks Simulation Tips: Parameters and Design Studies 22 May, 2013 | <urn:uuid:390d37c0-86ee-4480-94a0-3b7a3ce05227> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cadalyst.com/hardware/3d-scanners/3d-scanning-is-flying-high-13897?page_id=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926957 | 3,265 | 2.28125 | 2 |
This is an example topology of a campus OpenFlow network, designed to allow experimenters to access the GENI network core in a variety of ways depending on their needs. In particular, it describes a single topology for connecting resources at campuses to a local OpenFlow network, which then offers three options for experimenters to link those resources to inter-campus VLANs.
Note that this page assumes that your campus is already connected to the GENI network core. The GENI Connectivity page has more information about how to get connected to the GENI core, how to get connected to other campuses through the core, etc.
Those options for experimenters are:
- Link directly to one or more pre-provisioned core VLANs, without using any campus OpenFlow resources. This is a very simple option for experiments that don't need to use OpenFlow campus resources at all, and merely want to access the GENI network core.
- Use OpenFlow to link to one or more pre-provisioned core VLANs, via a cross-connect cable that translates from a campus OpenFlow VLAN onto the core VLANs. This is a fairly simple option for experiments that want to use OpenFlow campus resources, and can use existing core VLANs.
- Use OpenFlow to link to any core VLANs, by having OpenFlow configure the switch to do VLAN translation. This is a more complicated option for experiments that want to use OpenFlow campus resources, and need to use VLANs that aren't provisioned with a physical cross-connect for whatever reason (e.g. large numbers of VLANs, dynamically provisioned VLANs, etc).
Most OpenFlow experiments will probably be able to use the second option, which offers a good combination of performance, features, and ease of use.
Once you have this set up, experimenters will be able to create OpenFlow slivers to use in their experiments. Before they can actually use those slivers, though, you'll need to approve them (or configure FOAM to approve them automatically). Here are some things to think about when doing that:
- Does the sliver seem to accomplish what the experimenter is trying to accomplish? For example, if they tell you that they want traffic to and from a particular IP subnet for your MyPLC plnodes, you should confirm that this is actually what they've requested. If you aren't familiar with what the experimenter is trying to do, you should probably ask them for more information about their experiment, since it's easier to evaluate their request if you know what their intended effect is.
- Is the experimenter requesting a safe topology? In particular, if they request a topology that includes more than one of the ports that cross-connect VLAN 1750 and the inter-campus VLANs, this can cause traffic leaks and broadcast storms. Some experimenters have good reasons for wanting a topology with multiple paths into the core, but you should confirm that they understand what they're doing, and that they know how to ensure that the controller for their sliver won't leak traffic or cause storms.
- Does their sliver include an IP subnet? If so, check the network core subnet reservations page and confirm that they've reserved the subnet they've requested.
- Does their sliver include an entire experimental (non-standard) ethertype? If so, check the network core ethertype reservations page and confirm that they've reserved the ethertype they've requested.
- Does their sliver include an entire port on a switch? If so, confirm that they have an exclusive reservation for the entire device (or interface) connected to that port. (If the device is a MyPLC plnode, for example, they don't have an exclusive reservation for it; they should be requesting only an IP subnet or ethertype or some such, not all traffic to the entire port. If it's a Wide-Area ProtoGENI node (wapgnode), they might -- although you may need a Utah ProtoGENI admin to confirm that.)
When in doubt, don't hesitate to ask the experimenter for more information about what they're trying to do. They're using your campus's resources, and it's important that you understand how they're going to use them -- and it makes it easier for you to help them if they have questions or run into problems.
Here's a minimalist diagram of a single OpenFlow switch configuration that implements the infrastructure to support all three of these options.
In text form:
port connects to VLAN(s) 1 regional T 3704 3711 3712 3715 3716 (etc) 2 nothing this port intentionally left blank 3 port 4 1750 4 port 3 3715 5 port 6 1750 6 port 5 3716 7 port 8 T 1700 3704 3711 3712 3715 3716 (etc) 8 port 7 1799 9 a host T 1700 1750 3715 3716 10 another host T 1700 1750 3715 3716 11 another host T 1700 1750 3715 3716 12+ more hosts T 1700 1750 3715 3716
Each of the following sections refers to this diagram to explain how the various options are implemented. The precise port numbers aren't actually important, they're just selected for ease of explanation here.
VLANs starting with "17" are local to each campus, and are OpenFlow-controlled; the ones starting with "37" are inter-campus VLANs, which may be OpenFlow-controlled on campuses, or not. (This is up to each campus, and doesn't materially affect the topology.)
See below for examples of how to configure the interfaces on NEC and HP switches to implement the above topology. (But note that the HP example isn't fully functional -- in particular, the configuration for ports 7 and 8 doesn't correctly implement option 3 above.)
Port 1 is the uplink port from the campus OpenFlow switch to the regional network. It might connect directly to the regional, or it might go through other non-OpenFlow campus switches. It's a trunk port, configured to carry all of the VLANs that will be used between the campus and the GENI network core through the regional. All traffic between the campus and the core uses this port.
Port 2 is intentionally left blank, only so that if you wanted to implement this using exactly these port numbers, the next few pairs of ports would be neatly vertically stacked pairs (in a typical switch).
Port-based physical VLAN translation
Ports 3 and 4 are a pair of ports that are directly connected to each other by a short cross-connect cable, to effectively implement VLAN translation at Layer 1 (aka "physical VLAN translation"). Traffic from VLAN 1750 that exits the switch on port 3 will re-enter the switch on port 4, but the switch will now consider that traffic to be on VLAN 3715. Ports 5 and 6 do the same thing, but for VLAN 1750 and VLAN 3716.
Note that the two ports don't have to be on the same switch. In particular, if there were already another campus switch in the path between this OpenFlow switch and the regional, you could connect port 3 on this switch (still on VLAN 1750) to a port on that other campus switch (still on VLAN 3715), and accomplish the same effect. This would free up a port on this OpenFlow switch, but use up a port on the other switch, so campuses should decide where to put the cross-connects based on where ports are scarce.
VLAN 1750 is an OpenFlow-controlled VLAN, shared by multiple experimenters via the FlowVisor. In addition to whatever other OpenFlow programming each experimenter wishes to do with their sliver, the experimenter also uses OpenFlow to direct outbound traffic to a physical port; the port they choose controls which inter-campus VLAN will be used for the outbound traffic. For example, an experiment that wanted to send inter-campus traffic via VLAN 3715 would use OpenFlow to send that traffic out port 3.
Note that since VLAN 1750 is cross-connected to multiple intercampus VLANs, care must be taken to ensure that e.g. broadcast packets aren't flooded out to both VLAN 3715 and 3716. The simplest way to prevent this is for experimenters to never reserve a topology that includes more than one cross-connect port, and for campus FOAM admins to carefully check experimenter requests to make sure that they don't. If a particular experimenter wanted to do a particular experiment that did use multiple inter-campus VLANs, they would need to expressly confirm that they understand the risks and are confident that they won't accidentally flood broadcast traffic, ideally by testing and demonstrating their experiment in a staging environment first.
Additional VLANs can be set up for physical translation, but they use two ports per VLAN, and they need to be physically connected by a campus network admin... So this can be done if needed, but should generally be minimized.
OpenFlow-based software VLAN translation
Ports 7 and 8 are a pair of ports that are directly connected to each other by a short cross-connect cable, but unlike the previous pairs, one is a trunk port, carrying any VLANs that the campus network admin wants to allow experimenters to translate between. VLAN 1799 is OpenFlow controlled, using a controller that can rewrite VLAN tags (such as transvl). When a packet from VLAN 1700 goes out port 7, the switch tags it (because port 7 is a trunk port), and the transvl controller then receives the tagged packet. It can then remove the tag and add a new one (for VLAN 3704, say), and put the packet back out port 8 with the new tag, at which point port 8 receives the tagged packet, strips off the tag, and the switch then handles it in whatever way VLAN 3704 is normally handled.
This approach effectively implements VLAN translation in OpenFlow. It has a few limitations:
- The transvl controller can insert a flow rule to handle the translation, so every packet doesn't have to flow to the controller; but this sort of rewriting operation is typically done in the slow path on the switch, rather than at line speed. This can have a significant performance impact, so this approach is more suitable for experiments that don't have high performance requirements.
- Some switch firmware will reject the tagged packets coming in on port 8, before the transvl controller sees them. In particular, the HP OpenFlow firmware doesn't seem to permit this configuration; the NEC firmware does (both Product and Prototype versions).
Its main advantage is that experimenters can translate between any VLAN carried on port 7, without requiring any physical provisioning from campus network admins (e.g. when GENI tools become able to provision new inter-campus VLANs, all the way to port 7).
Ports 9 and 10 (and so on) are the ports that are connected to the dataplane interfaces on hosts (e.g. MyPLC, ProtoGENI, etc). Their key unusual feature is that they're trunk ports, i.e. they carry multiple tagged VLANs; this requires the hosts that you connect to them to speak 802.1q, aka "VLAN-based subinterfacing". Modern Linux distributions, like Ubuntu and Fedora / Red Hat, do this just fine, with interface names like eth1.1700, eth1.3715, etc. Configuring the hosts' dataplane interfaces with 802.1q, and connecting them as trunk ports, is the key ingredient that allows experimenters to control which VLANs their compute slivers actually connect to. We're working on detailed guidelines for how campus resource operators can enable this on their hosts, and how experimenters can take advantage of it. (FIXME: Replace the previous sentence with a link to a page with more information.)
The following configuration, on an NEC switch (running the Product firmware), will implement the topology in the diagram above:
interface gigabitethernet 0/1 switchport mode trunk switchport trunk allowed vlan 3704,3711,3712,3715,3716 interface gigabitethernet 0/3 switchport mode access switchport access vlan 1750 interface gigabitethernet 0/4 switchport mode access switchport access vlan 3715 interface gigabitethernet 0/5 switchport mode access switchport access vlan 1750 interface gigabitethernet 0/6 switchport mode access switchport access vlan 3716 interface gigabitethernet 0/7 switchport mode trunk switchport trunk allowed vlan 1700,3704,3711,3712,3715,3716 interface gigabitethernet 0/8 switchport mode dot1q-tunnel switchport access vlan 1799 interface gigabitethernet 0/9 switchport mode trunk switchport trunk allowed vlan 1700,1750,3715,3716 interface gigabitethernet 0/10 switchport mode trunk switchport trunk allowed vlan 1700,1750,3715,3716 interface gigabitethernet 0/11 switchport mode trunk switchport trunk allowed vlan 1700,1750,3715,3716 interface gigabitethernet 0/12 switchport mode trunk switchport trunk allowed vlan 1700,1750,3715,3716
The following configuration, on an HP switch, will implement the topology in the diagram above (although note again that the configuration for ports 7 and 8 doesn't actually have the desired effect):
vlan 1700 tagged 7,9-12 vlan 1750 tagged 9-12 untagged 3,4 vlan 1799 tagged 8 vlan 3704 tagged 1,7 vlan 3711 tagged 1,7 vlan 3712 tagged 1,7 vlan 3715 tagged 1,7,9-12 untagged 4 vlan 3716 tagged 1,7,9-12 untagged 6
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CURRENT ARTICLE • May 22nd, 2013
It’s that time of the year when end-of-course ratings and student comments are collected. When the feedback arrives, the quality often disappoints—and if the feedback is collected online, fewer students even bother to respond. Most of the comments are dashed off half thoughts, difficult to decipher. Complaints aren’t accompanied with constructive suggestions. Yes, some do say really nice things, but others sound off with pretty awful comments. However, I don’t think students are entirely at fault here.
OTHER RECENT ARTICLES
May 20 - From Passive Viewing to Active Learning: Simple Techniques for Applying Active Learning Strategies to Online Course Videos
From Web-enhanced face-to-face courses to MOOCs, flipped, blended, and fully online courses, videos are an integral component of today’s educational landscape—from kindergarten all the way through higher education.
Motivation—there are two kinds: intrinsic, which involves doing something because we want to do it, and extrinsic, which is doing something because we have to do it. A negative relationship exists between the two. Extrinsic motivation undermines intrinsic motivation. Students won’t be attending class because they want to if attending class is required. As a result of this negative relationship, students don’t have much intrinsic motivation because it’s been beaten out of them by most extrinsic educational experiences. And that’s a nutshell version of how most teachers understand motivation.
If some faculty do not fully embrace their role as academic advisor, don’t assume that they are indifferent to students’ needs or feel that advising is strictly a student affairs function. More likely, this reluctance is due to a lack of preparation and support.
It’s probably the question I’m most asked in workshops on learner-centered teaching. “What are some good places to start? My students aren’t used to learner-centered approaches.” Sometimes the questioner is honest enough to add, “and I haven’t used many previously.” Before the specifics, here’s some general recommendations: start slowly (for example, don’t add 14 learner-centered strategies to a mostly lecture course); try simple, reasonably straightforward activities first; and define success before implementing the activity. As for those “good places” to begin infusing your teaching with learner-centered strategies, here are some approaches to try.
Today’s college instructors are expected not only to be engaging in their classes, but to engage students outside the classroom. Whether it’s supervising service-learning, taking students to professional conferences, leading study sessions in coffee houses, or inviting students into our homes, faculty are now expected to be with students in ways that change the kinds of relationships teachers and students have in the classroom. Teachers now interact with their students in a variety of contexts, many of them informal and some of them purely social. These new roles blur the line between being friendly toward students and being a friend of students. This matters whether you’ve been teaching for a while and no longer look like a student or whether your academic career is just starting. All faculty need to know how to build supportive and positive, but businesslike, relationships with students.
You’ve been assigned your first online class to teach and you feel like you’re ready. You’ve done your homework and learned the ins and outs of the institution’s course management system. You’ve structured your content in purposeful ways and developed thoughtful guiding questions to situate student learning and motivate them. When the class starts, however, you realize that while everything is technically functioning correctly, many of the students are not engaged. While you were looking forward to teaching online and interacting with students, the students are approaching your course as if it’s an independent study. This wasn’t what you anticipated when you agreed to teach online! | <urn:uuid:a66257fe-57e4-4dd5-b1db-b6a4b56f289c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.facultyfocus.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951184 | 835 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Economics of Human Systems Integration, The
Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Editor(s): William B. Rouse
Published Online: 2 AUG 2010
Print ISBN: 9780470486764
Online ISBN: 9780470642627
About this Book
About The Product
Fundamental Economic Principles, Methods, and Tools for Addressing Human Systems Integration Issues and Tradeoffs
Human Systems Integration (HSI) is a new and fundamental integrating discipline designed to help move business and engineering cultures toward more human-centered systems. Integrating consideration of human abilities, limitations, and preferences into engineering systems yields important cost and performance benefits that otherwise would not have been accomplished. In order for this new discipline to be effective, however, a cultural change-starting with organizational leadership-is often necessary.
The Economics of Human Systems Integration explains the difficulties underlying valuation of investments in people's training and education, safety and health, and work productivity. It provides an overview of how the field of economics addresses these difficulties, focusing on human issues associated with design, development, production, operations, maintenance, and sustainment of complex systems.
The set of thought leaders recruited as contributors to this volume collectively provides a compelling set of data and principles for assessing the economic value of investing in people, not just in general but in specific investment situations. The early chapters provide the contexts for HSI and investment analysis, illustrating the enormous difference context makes in how issues are best framed and analyzed. A host of practical methods and tools for investment valuation are then presented. Provided are:
A variety of real-world applications of economic analysis ranging from military acquisition and automotive investment to healthcare and high-tech investments in general, in both the U.S. and abroad
A range of economics-based methods and tools for cost analysis, cost-benefit analysis, and investment analysis, as well as sources of data for performing such analyses
Differing perspectives on economic decision-making, including a range of private sector points of view, as well as government and regulatory perspectives
In addition, five real-world case studies illustrate how such valuations have been done and their major impacts on investment decisions. HSI professionals, systems engineers, and finance professionals who address investment analysis will appreciate the wide range of methods and real-life applications; senior undergraduates and masters-level graduate students will find this to be an excellent textbook that provides theory and supports practice. | <urn:uuid:4d555ff3-0bca-48b2-bc6d-5e5bfe4535af> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/book/10.1002/9780470642627 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93169 | 493 | 2.234375 | 2 |
dendroica: The Economic Policy Institute has run the numbers and finds that President Obama’s budget would boost economic growth far more than Republican challenger Mitt Romney’s. Obama’s plan would create 1.1 million jobs in 2013 and 280,000 jobs in 2014, while Romney’s budget would create 87,000 jobs in 2013 and lose 641,000 jobs in 2014, provided that his plans are deficit-financed, according to a new EPI study (pdf). (via Study: Obama’s plan would create more 1.1 million jobs in 2013. Romney’s plan would create 87,000.)
It’s no exaggeration that President Obama calls Romney’s tax plan Romney Hood, because it’s like Robin Hood in reverse — stealing from the middle class to give to the rich. Watch:
Go to this link to compare your own income. | <urn:uuid:7fe54228-45e1-48f2-9ee7-d32ead623dd6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://underthemountainbunker.com/tag/romneys-plan/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912808 | 189 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Are Climate Change Measurements Wrong?
By Sanjay Suri*
There is a stir in the scientific
community as two experts challenge the widely accepted climate change
reports issued by an intergovernmental panel. One of the critics,
David Henderson, explained their doubts in a conversation with Tierramérica.
LONDON - The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) should not base its next climate report on its flawed
greenhouse gas emissions projections, says David Henderson, former
chief economist of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) and now a visiting professor at the Westminster
Business School in London.
Henderson and Ian Castles, of the National
Center for Development Studies at Australian National University
and formerly head of Australia's national office of statistics,
have co-authored a critique of the IPCC's Special Report on Emissions
Scenarios, which is to be used as a basis for future assessments
of climate change.
Henderson and Castles's analysis, to be published
in the next edition of Energy and Environment journal, argues that
the methodology used to estimate the accumulation of greenhouse
gases (produced from combustion of petroleum, natural gas and coal)
in the atmosphere by 2100 is erroneous and assumes an exaggerated
level of economic growth for developing countries.
The two experts' challenge was published recently
in the British magazine the Economist, and comes as a sharp blow
to the credibility of the IPCC, whose opinions on the human causes
of climate change have otherwise been considered the consensus of
the international scientific community on the matter.
According to the Third Assessment Review on
climate change, published in 2001 by the IPCC, it is likely that
within a century the average earth surface temperatures will have
risen by 1.4 to 5.8 degrees centigrade with respect to 1990 averages,
and that sea level would rise 0.09 to 0.88 meters as a result of
melting polar icecaps.
In an exclusive dialogue with Tierramérica,
Henderson calls on the IPCC to give economic and statistical issues
greater weight in the climate change calculations and expresses
hope for a "full and open debate" on the issue.
On what basis do you challenge the
IPCC's Special Report on Emissions Scenarios?
Contrary to accepted international practice, the 40 scenarios presented
in the Report convert GDP (gross domestic product) data for the
countries of the world to a common measure using market exchange
rates, rather than purchasing power parity rates. Because of this
flawed procedure, and also because of built-in assumptions about
the extent to which the gap between rich and poor countries will
be closed over this century, the scenarios yield projections of
GDP for developing regions which are improbably high.
Does this mean that the figures for
prospective emissions are too high?
What it means is that the even the scenarios which show the lowest
cumulative emissions over the century do not in fact represent reasonable
lower limits. These projections do not, as is claimed for them,
encompass the full range of uncertainties about the future. They
should not be taken as the accepted basis for the IPCC's coming
Fourth Assessment Review of climate change issues.
The IPCC met last week in Paris. What
do you think should have emerged from that meeting in relation to
the future work of the Panel?
For a start, I hope that the Panel will recognize that our critique
of the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios is well founded. What
we are saying does not merely represent the views of two isolated
persons -- neither I nor my co-author (Castles) have any official
status. What we are saying would receive wide professional backing.
But what action would you want the
IPCC to take? Should the whole emissions scenarios exercise be redone?
I understand that it would be difficult to repeat an exercise on
this scale in time for the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Review. But
a more limited exercise should begin now to review the basis for
the work on emissions, and to arrive at a new set of projections
which, though less elaborately derived, would give a sounder basis
than the present figures.
There are very great uncertainties
in these and the other projections that the IPCC makes because in
keeping with its mandate from governments, it has to look a century
ahead. Would what you propose do much to reduce these uncertainties?
No, because economists can't claim to be able to see the future
at all clearly. But what we suggest would provide a basis, a starting
point, which was more professionally watertight than the present
Do you have any other suggestions for
Yes, what we are saying goes beyond the work on emissions scenarios.
More generally, we think that the IPCC should try to ensure a more
balanced, informed and professional treatment of the economic and
statistical aspects of its work. On the official side, there should
be a greater involvement of economic ministries and statistical
agencies. Among the academics who take part, there should be better
representation of economic historians and historically minded economists.
Has the IPCC responded in any way to
what you have been saying?
Yes it has. We started by writing to the Chairman of the Panel,
Dr R.K. Pachauri, and as a result we were invited to a special IPCC
experts' meeting last month. Although the meeting already had a
full agenda, we were given the chance to make presentations to it,
and technical discussions were held outside the main meetings to
consider the points we were making.
Will the IPCC be making a more formal
response to your critique?
Yes, I believe that will happen soon, and we hope it will. We would
like t o see a full and open debate. The various communications
that we have sent to the IPCC are to be published soon in Energy
and Environment journal. When the editor there offered to publish
what we had written, we made it a condition that she should invite
the IPCC to publish an article by way of response. She accepted
our proposal, and I understand that the IPCC has accepted her invitation.
* Sanjay Suri is an IPS editor.
From Our Files | <urn:uuid:58aafe4b-ce12-45a9-898f-3c16f16a086a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tierramerica.net/2003/0223/iarticulo.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9427 | 1,311 | 2.734375 | 3 |
The difference in strength between the 29-spline (left) and 27-spline Mopar 8.25 axles is
Shaft strength can be reasonably accurately calculated on paper. Since the axleshaft is the most common first failure, it provides a useful yardstick by which to judge overall strength. There are a lot of ways to look at axleshafts, including diameter, spline count and so on, but the most useful is minimum diameter. The smallest part of the shaft is the weakest part, wherever it is. Most often, but not always, it's at the minor spline diameter (MSD). This is the diameter at the bottom of the splines, with more teeth having a larger MSD and vice versa. You will also see different spline pressure angles, i.e., the angularity of the teeth (45 degrees versus 30 degrees), and these equate to a slight difference in MSD, but it's not a hugely important strength issue. The main thing is that the types don't interchange.
A good acronym to use in evaluating axles is DMD, or Diameter, Material and Design. Diameter (minimum diameter) is the most important. Bigger is better. An increase of 0.100-inch in the diameter of a 1-inch shaft (a 10-percent increase in size) equals a 33-percent improvement in strength. Material is almost as important. There are many steel grades, but only a few used in axles. A nearby sidebar rounds them up. There can be a strength difference of 100 to 150 percent between the high-performance 4340 alloys and the ordinary 1040 carbon steel often used for OEM applications. There are options in between these as well, so there are plenty of choices.
Finally, we come to design. The shape and physical characteristics of the axle can contribute to strength. A "fluted" or "waisted" axle has the main section of the shaft at about the same diameter as the MSD. The transition point at the spline roots, where mainshaft diameter dips into the splines on a common axle, is a high-stress area and where non-fluted axles often break. Fluted axles eliminate these stress risers. Unfortunately, fluted axles are rare.
The smoother the surface of the shaft, the less chance there will be of a stress riser being formed, hence the value of polished or micropolished shafts. Cryogenic treatments, during which the metal is subject to temperatures as low as 300 degrees below Fahrenheit, add slightly to strength and greatly to fatigue resistance.
The way splines are formed can add or detract from strength. At the top of the list are rolled splines, which are rolled into the steel under very high pressure. This forges the steel at the splines and increases strength in that area. Close behind are hobbed splines. In this case, the curved-tooth profile (called an involute spline) is machined, rather than rolled. There are cut splines, which have a flat profile and are not compatible with parts designed for an involute profile. Though nitpicked in many circles, the difference between properly done rolled and hobbed splines is very small.
There is a way to calculate the strength of an axleshaft of a given material and diameter (see the "Useful Formulae" sidebar). It's subject to some variable factors but can get you in the 10-percent ballpark, or better. Use it when you have no other strength yardsticks or if you've upgraded an axle with aftermarket shafts. Remember that a stronger shaft may expose weak links elsewhere in the axle.
1) Weigh the vehicle to get the weight on the front and rear axles individually. You can do this at truck scales, waste-disposal sites, scrapyards, grain elevators and so on. Load your rig as you would for the trail, using the actual gear or simulated weight in the same relative position in the vehicle as it will be on the trail. Drive halfway on, getting the weight on the front tires and halfway off and getting the rear weight. The front and rear weights should equal the total.
2) Calculate traction torque using the axle weight and the radius of the tires you run, or will run. Use a CoF based on your style and type of 'wheeling. We'd recommend a worst case, especially if you rockcrawl in hard-core terrain. Use at least 0.7 and if you are wild and crazy, use 1.0. You can also add weight to account for weight transfer if you need to generate more worst-case scenarios. Add 25 percent more weight to the rear axle to be safe.
3) Compare traction torque to MOT or to the calculated axleshaft strength. Traction torque should be lower than MOT or axle strength. If not, it's upgrade time. If it's within 10 percent, you are probably better off upgrading in some way. In front-axle applications, compare traction torque to U-joint strength (see sidebar). Judge this against the terrain in which you generally run. If you don't 'wheel hard, you can get by at or near the limits, but remember those limitations. Moderating tire diameter gives you a lot of flexibility in retaining drivetrain strength without a lot of axle mods. | <urn:uuid:adaf7ca5-7716-4063-ba81-15b7d24c186d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fourwheeler.com/techarticles/drivetrain/129_0501_4x4_truck_axle_tech/axle_strenght.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949924 | 1,112 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Chamber holds iPad, apps forum
Oxford businesses learn how to use changing technology
Published: Thursday, December 6, 2012
Updated: Friday, December 7, 2012 00:12
Wednesday, Dec. 5, members of Oxford’s Chamber of Commerce attended a presentation on the use of smartphones and iPads (or tablets) in small businesses. Brian Fey, who graduated in Miami University’s class of 2000, is both a member of the Oxford Chamber of Commerce and Vice President at Fey Insurance uptown.
“[This presentation is] about making yourself a mobile workforce by using your iPhone/iPad with applications that will help you conduct business on the go,” Fey said.
According to Fey, the workshop allows business owners to utilize technology and manage their businesses from anywhere, any place, any time.
“I have been using my iPad and iPhone in my business for the last few years and have really enjoyed studying and learning new ways to implement them into my daily business life,” Fey said.
Fey displayed some apps such as Dropbox, Notability, Evernote and Cardmunch to the business owners.
Dropbox is an application that allows business owners to save documents and most other data in one basic program. By using a Dropbox account on both a smartphone and tablet, businesses can constantly save and maintain documents at any location. Other applications such as Keynote and Numbers allow iPad users to create documents and Powerpoint presentations on their phones.
According to Fey, smartphone and tablet apps are often regarded as ways by which people can seek entertainment and games.
“The apps on my phone that I use the most are Facebook, Twitter, Pandora and Netflix,” Lauren Delk, undergraduate creative writing major, said.
The role of apps is headed in a more business-applicable direction.
“More and more business specific software programs that used to be used only on a PC are now creating smartphone and iPad applications,” Fey said. “Because these are now available, the smartphone and iPad are a lot more relevant in the business world. ”
Fey also gave attendees a rundown on smartphone, tablet security and add-ons. These include phone cases, styluses, varied display cords and connectors, as well as attachable credit-card swiping systems that attached to smartphones and iPads.
Fey’s seminar is part of a series of workshops organized by the Chamber of Commerce to assist with growing and expanding local businesses according to Carol Dockum, President of the Oxford Chamber of Commerce.
“With the constant new technology every year, it’s hard for small businesses to keep up,” Dockum said. “This is a new initiative that the camber has taken on to give new tools to Oxford’s businesses.”
After Fey’s presentation, members who attended said they found it helpful.
“I found Evernote to be the most impressive app,” Kelly Umbstead, broker for Coldwell Banker said. “I’ve had my iPad for a year now, and I came here to learn to fully utilize my iPad. [Learning about] the ability to organize your information with your iPad was impressive.”
“I found the presentation very informative.” Scott Webb, CEO of Scott Webb Architect, said. “I feel like the different ways to share information with people is useful.”
According to Fey, there is still a lot of room for expansion in the future of smartphones and tablets.
“Desktop-only software will continue to disappear,” Fey said. “These programs will continue to develop so that they can be used on mobile devices which will allow the business man of tomorrow always be plugged in to their office.”
Although smartphones and iPads are effective business tools, they don’t come without drawbacks, according to Fey.
“This can be a good thing in that you can work at any moment you need but a bad thing because it may become more difficult to unplug. People will need to learn to balance life more… but I am sure they will create an app for that!” Fey said. | <urn:uuid:83289770-660f-4605-ad35-c9ecc2774016> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.miamistudent.net/news/community/chamber-holds-ipad-apps-forum-1.2966504 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955305 | 872 | 1.820313 | 2 |
The fogging, from district pickups, is scheduled from 7:30 to 11:30 p.m.
To see areas to be sprayed, visit www.bcmvcd.com/advisory.php
For more information, call the district at 533-6038 or 342-7350.
District manager Matt Ball said West Nile virus, which some mosquitoes can carry, is widespread in the valley at this time.
People can help with the detection of the virus by reporting any dead birds they find to the state. These can be reported on the state's West Nile website at
http://westnile.ca.gov or by calling 1-877-968-2473.
Health officials advise people to guard against West Nile by draining any standing water on their property, avoiding being outside at dawn and dusk, wearing long-sleeved shirts and long pants when mosquitoes are active, and using repellent. | <urn:uuid:119c854a-bca3-48b7-a2e0-1b7a7339c6a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.orovillemr.com/news/ci_21571217/fogging-tonight-several-valley-areas | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939351 | 192 | 2.171875 | 2 |
- You are here:
- Auto News >
British Steam Car - Click above to watch the video after the breakSo, you've been following the progress of the British Steam Car Challenge for the last few years – well, at least we've been following the team's progress that long – and it's all finally led up to a new world record. ...
British Steam Car Challenge world speed record – Click above for high-res image galleryFinally, after much ado and a number of stalled attempts, the British Steam Car Challenge team has finally set the world record it had sought for so long. With an official two-way average of 139.843 ...
Click above to watch a video of an early steam car runBelieve it or not, steam-powered cars were actually some of the fastest machines on four wheels in the early 1900s. To wit, a Stanley Steamer managed to hit a boiler-induced terminal velocity of 127.659 mph way back in 1906. The record still ... | <urn:uuid:e9620dd0-4273-422e-8388-1a7011d96ffe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.autoblog.com/tag/steamcarrecord/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949163 | 203 | 1.609375 | 2 |
By Donald C. Donzal, CISSP, MCSE 2003
Summer is upon us. It's time to put down those technical manuals and hit the beach. So grab that plastic, water-proof bag and stuff it with sunscreen, towels, water and light fiction. I can think of no better way for CISSPs and SSCPs to earn continuing professional education (CPE) credits.
It sounds odd, but if you think creatively, there are some cool ways to meet your CISSP® requirements of 120 CPEs (60 for SSCP) over a three-year period. Then again, you could always forget those CPEs and take the exam again, but who really wants to sit for another six hour exam? So let's get inspired and explore interesting ways to maintain your (ISC)2 credential.
You can go the traditional route and attend conferences such as Information Security Decisions, subscribe to industry recognized periodicals like Information Security magazine and attend top notch security training from the SANS Institute or educational programs such as (ISC)2's own Security Leadership Series. All are credible and recommended ways to keep abreast of industry trends and best practices, but there are many more CPEs yet to earn.
Before we begin, let's cover the basics. If you visit (ISC)2 on the Web (isc2.org), you'll find a list of qualifying CPE activities that include, but are not limited to, the following:
This leaves the game open to your interpretation, and that is exactly what (ISC)2 intended. Marc Thompson, Executive Vice President of the (ISC)2 Institute, says, "The whole point is to give you the freedom to choose your own destiny. After all it is your education."
So let's get to it. I put my own creative juices to the test and came up with the top 10 creative ways to earn (ISC)2 CPEs. In no particular order, here are some suggestions.
- Read The Mezonic Agenda (on the beach), by Herbert Thompson and Spyros Nomikos – This is part of the Syngress CyberFiction Series. A fully interactive game is also embedded in the storyline. Learn while being entertained.
- Post in forums – You'd do it anyway, so why not share your security war stories or your certification experience at The Certified Security Professional Online Magazine? Or, share security solutions with your peers in SearchSecurity.com's ITKnowledge Exchange.
- Volunteer at a local elementary or high school – You never know, they may just teach you a thing or two about computer security.
- Join a local users group – If you can't find one, punch your zip code into Culminis' IT Pro User Group Locator. No groups in your area? Start one! Every hour spent in meetings is eligible toward your CPE count (earn more CPEs if you are a board member), and the local networking opportunities may help your career.
- Play video games – Yes, you read that correctly. Search for 'hacker game' at download.com and check out titles such as Uplink, BS Hacker and MindLink. You'll learn security concepts while having a blast. This one may require you to be creative on your CPE submission form.
- Basket Weaving 101 – OK, it's not quite that easy, but 40 of your 120 CPEs can be professional development courses not related in any way to IT security. Let your mind go wild on this one.
- Tired of traveling? Have the CPEs come to you. Invite a security vendor to make a presentation at your company.
- Get your MBA – Sure they're a dime a dozen, but it never hurts the resume. So why not have your studies do double duty? All college courses meet the CPE requirement.
- Attend a local SearchSecurity.com event, check for seminars in your area on our events page and earn CPE credits for attendance.
As for No. 10, if you wrote this article, you would have earned 10 more CPEs!
Next month we'll cover (ISC)2's newly revamped CPE Submission Program and how that will greatly benefit all (ISC)2 certified professionals.
About the author
Donald C. Donzal, CISSP, MCSE 2003 had his first 'real' job as Systems Admin for a hospital and later formed a successful consulting business continuing his work in the medical field while expanding into the SMB and media markets. An entrepreneur at heart, he became CTO of Telco Billing Solutions, Inc. After the tech bubble burst, he accepted a position in his hometown as Director of IT for the Department of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), home to the largest medical school in the country. Taking his experience from a wide range of industries and the security concepts intertwined in each, he co-founded The Digital Construction Company in 2004. A firm believer of life-long education, Mr. Donzal is also an advocate of industry certifications as a baseline of knowledge. For this reason, he created CSP Online Magazine as a free and open exchange of security information. Still employed by UIC, Mr. Donzal continues to preach the wonders of technology through a combination of writing, speaking, studying and, of course, working in IT.
CISSP® is a registered certification mark of the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium Inc., also known as (ISC)2. No endorsement by, affiliation or association with (ISC)2 is implied.
This was first published in June 2005 | <urn:uuid:0c866251-1ea1-49f1-9df9-1d98068edf0c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/feature/Continuing-education-options-for-CISSPs-Top-10-ways-to-earn-CPEs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950838 | 1,159 | 1.554688 | 2 |
- Beneficiation Plant
- Crusher Machine
- Mining Equipment
- Production Line
This type of ball mill consists of a rotating tube filled with cast alloy balls. Coal is introduced through two hollow trunnions on each side of the tube. As the tube rotates, the balls tumble onto the coal, crushing and pulverizing it.
Ball Mill for Coal Plant
A ball or roller between two races or rings provides the grinding surfaces on which pulverization occurs. One or both of the
races may rotate against a ball or roll.Ball-Race Mills comprise the majority of coal pulverizers currently in service at power generating facilities.This mill uses hydraulically loaded ball rollers resembling large tires to pulverize raw coal fed down onto a rotating table. As the following rotates, the raw coal is pulverized as it passes underneath the rollers. Hot air forced through the bottom of the pulverizing chamber removes unwanted moisture and transports the pulverized coal dust up through the top of the pulverizer and out the exhaust pipes directly to the burner.
Ball Mill Coal Burning Power Plant
Raw coal enters the top of the pulverizer through the raw coal feed pipe. The raw coal is then pulverized between the roll and rotating ring. Hot air is forced in through the bottom of the pulverizing chamber to remove unwanted moisture and transport the coal dust up through the top of the pulverizer and out the exhaust pipe directly to the burner. Coal that has not been pulverized into fine enough particles cannot be blown out of the top of the unit; it falls back to the ring and roll to be further pulverized.Ball Coal milling have been used across a wide range of industries and applications, such as paints, pigments, pharmaceuticals, ceramics and coal slurries. The attrition mill could be considered on the other end of the loose generic description of stirred media or stirred ball mills. Similarly, some have classified the vertical ball mill as being in the family of attrition mills.
Zenith Machinery coal ball mill plants are sold to many countries such as India, Nigeria,Germany,Bangladesh ,America, ,Iran ,Malaysia ,Turkey,Italy, Singpore, Chile,Libya, Philippines, Australia ,Saudi Arabia,Indonesia, Pakistan, Angola, Tajikistan ,Dubai,Brazilon,Peru ,Mexico,South Africa,Kenya,Algeria ,Eygpt,Ghana ,Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and so on. | <urn:uuid:94315e60-ade6-4bb9-b5f2-e779c64e020c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.orebeneficiationplants.com/mining-equipment/ball-mill-for-coal-plant.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905348 | 521 | 2.765625 | 3 |
How should doctors respond when civilians become targets in war? A serious recent example is the gratuitous Russian annihilation of the Chechen capital, Grozny. And Israel has just vented its impatience by breaking agreed (and UN-monitored) terms of engagement with Syrian-backed Hizbollah guerrillas in Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon. That 1996 agreement—reached after Israeli operations had left 160 civilians dead and 340 injured—is now in tatters. At least 17 Lebanese civilians were injured in the latest Israeli raids.
The most well-researched instance of disregard for civilian safety was revealed last week in a report published by Human Rights Watch on the 1999 NATO air campaign in former Yugoslavia. At the time, NATO officials emphasised their wish to limit civilian casualties. However, the Human Rights Watch report concluded that during the 78-day bombing campaign, 500 Yugoslav civilians were killed in at least 90 incidents. Although legitimate military locations were targeted in most cases, nine attacks were directed at non-military targets—Serb radio and television headquarters, a heating plant, and seven bridges that did not provide vital transportation routes. Of the attacks on military installations, 33 took place in heavily populated urban areas where civilian casualties were likely.
The use of cluster bombs by the USA and UK was an especially deadly aspect of the air campaign, accounting for up to 150 civilian fatalities. After one NATO cluster-bomb incident that went badly wrong in May, 1999 (in Nis, including hits on a health centre and near a pathology building), there were 14 civilian deaths. The US government secretly ordered its forces to cease using these weapons. However, British military commanders continued to use cluster bombs. Why were cluster bombs deemed so essential? Because they were, according to this new report, “part of a psychological warfare strategy of harassment undertaken without regard to the greater risk to the civilian population”. Human Rights Watch concluded “that NATO violated international humanitarian law”.
The effects of targeting civilian populations fall directly on local health services. For example, the 1996 conflict in south Lebanon produced injuries that had serious, and frequently forgotten, long-term consequences. Early relief efforts did provide valuable aid to these casualties, but much needed additional rehabilitative medical services were often missing (J Epidemiol Community Health 2000; 54: 35-39). Doctors have an important advocacy role in bringing the needs of those affected by war to the attention of politicians.
There is another role for health workers and, again, the fields of Yugoslavia provide the evidence. The WHO Regional Office for Europe's Peace Through Health programme, designed in collaboration with the UK's Department for International Development, aims to use medicine as a direct means to reconciliation. Their report, published last year, finds that “the health sector has been the most progressive in terms of reconciliation”. How so?
The idea, conceived in March, 1997, was simple: to promote cooperation between governments and local populations on matters of health policy. Projects among the different ethnic communities of Bosnia and Herzegovina included: promotion of primary and mental health services; tuberculosis control; anti-tobacco policies; and provision of children's dental health. This work is impressive. WHO's report argues that, “For WHO, to view contributions to peace-building as extraneous to our technical role is at best myopic, at worst negligent”.
Doctors have a vital role in the prevention of conflict, as well as in the care and cure of its consequences. The only remaining argument is the limit of the preventive reach of public health. One new sphere of influence has already opened up. WHO has, through its Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, made economics a central strand in its strategy for sustainable development.
But physicians also have individual parts to play. It is, after all, the individual alone who can lead, act, or persuade. And here one arrives at the ultimate political and economic risk to the public's health—namely, the sale of weapons between nations. The tragic irony of the latest Israeli-Lebanese conflict is that Israeli soldiers were probably killed by American missiles originally supplied by Israel to Iran. Cold logic thus insists that doctors must oppose this grotesque traffic in human misery. And they must do it now. | <urn:uuid:0d6bfeaa-f7ed-46f5-b86a-728cd0cbbd33> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(00)00025-8/fulltext | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96996 | 869 | 2.171875 | 2 |
According to the most recent Joint Monitoring Program (JMP) Report by UNICEF and WHO, 87% of people in Honduras have access to improved water sources and 77% have improved sanitation facilities. While these numbers seem impressive, they do not provide a complete picture of water and sanitation access in Honduras. In the rural areas where Water For People–Honduras works, many of the communities have water systems, but the water from these systems often does not meet government quality and quantity standards.
Water For People first began supporting water and sanitation efforts in Honduras in 1997. From 1997 to 2006, Water For People–Honduras worked with partner organizations in over 90 rural communities. In 2007, it developed a regional strategy to target specific districts and to provide everyone in these areas (communities, schools, and health clinics) with access to safe drinking water and sanitation. To achieve this goal, Water For People–Honduras partners with local governments, the private sector, and local NGOs to strengthen support for comprehensive water and sanitation services throughout the districts.
Everyone Forever in Honduras
Everyone Forever is a unique programmatic effort to provide water and sanitation to Everyone in targeted districts and municipalities, Forever. It means these municipalities and communities never again need another international water agency to address their water challenges. And it provides a model for greater replication, leading to a push for national full water and sanitation coverage. Water For People-Honduras is focusing its Everyone Forever programming in the mostly rural municipalities of Chinda, El Negrito, Ilama, and San Antonio de Cortés. At the end of 2011, Chinda was the first municipality to reach Everyone | every family, every school, and every clinic | with safe drinking water.
At only 43 square miles, the northwestern municipality of Chinda in the department of Santa Bárbara is composed of 14 rural communities totaling almost 6,000 inhabitants, most of them Lencan Indians who farm for a living. Rugged subsistence agriculture dominates the economy, but where they can, the farmers of Chinda grow coffee and grains to sell in regional markets.
Neighboring Chinda, the municipality of Ilama has a population of approximately 12,000. The majority of people in this rural municipality are subsistence farmers. Water For People–Honduras began working in Ilama in 2011.
San Antonio is a 114-square-mile municipality in the department of Cortés in northern Honduras. A population of approximately 27,000 lives in 45 rural communities in this mountainous region. Many San Antonians practice subsistence agriculture, raising beans and corn on small farms. Others work in sugarcane factories or raise animals for sale and consumption. Most villages have a primary school and some sort of health care center within several miles, but lack basic services like electricity, trash removal, and dependable roads.
El Negrito is a 326-square-mile area in the Yoro department of Honduras. Almost 54,000 people live in mostly rural communities in this beautiful land, half of which is mountainous, while the other half is defined by the Sula Valley. El Negrito is one of the poorest and least developed areas of Yoro. Most depend on subsistence farming to support their families, raising beans, corn, and the occasional chicken or pig on small family plots.
Water For People believes long-lasting water and sanitation solutions can be achieved when key local role-players—the local private sector, civil society, and local government—are supported. As such, Water For People is deeply involved with key local stakeholders, including the Municipality of Chinda, Municipality of San Antonio, Municipality of El Negrito, Municipality of Ilama, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, SANAA (Honduras National Autonomous Water and Sewerage Service), and Honduras Public University (UNAH–Valle de Sula).
Work in 2012
Water For People-Honduras is continuing to work with key sector actors at the local and national levels to increase access to safe drinking water, improved sanitation, and hygiene education. In Chinda, Water For People-Honduras will build the capacity of local institutions to maintain full water coverage for Everyone in the district. In the other three Honduran municipalities, Water For People-Honduras is continuing to lay the groundwork for Everyone Forever and in 2012, programming will take place in 24 communities and three schools. | <urn:uuid:5e043684-6441-4905-9ee9-995675a8a68e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.waterforpeople.org/programs/central-america/honduras.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931226 | 893 | 3.03125 | 3 |
(PRWEB) February 15, 2013
Cryogenic equipments are specially made equipments to handle liquefied gases. Liquefied gases are kept at very low temperature to maintain them in liquid state. The temperature required is below -150°C and known as cryogenic temperature. Due to the very low temperature these liquefied gases cannot be managed using normal equipments and thus require specially made equipments, known as cryogenic equipments. The most used cryogenic equipments are tanks, valves, vaporizers, and pumps.
Cryogenic tank has the largest market and a majority of cryogenic equipment market revenue come from those tanks. After tanks, valves are the second largest revenue contributor in the cryogenic market followed by vaporizers and then pumps.
This report estimates market revenue for each cryogenic equipment and breaks each product market by geography as well as industrial applications. For the cryogenic tank, the market size estimations have also been provided in capacity i.e. cubic meter.
This report covers all major regions i.e. Asia-Pacific, Europe, North America and Rest of the World (ROW). At country level, China, U.S. and U.K. have also been covered. Asia-Pacific is identified as the largest market as well as the highest growing in the next five years among all regional markets. Globally, China is also the largest country level market, and thus, its growth significantly affects the global market.
The cryogenic equipment market has also been segmented by liquefied gases type. The gases covered are nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and liquefied natural gas (LNG). Nitrogen has the largest share in the cryogenic equipment market, while LNG has the highest growing market. In this report, the global market revenue from each liquefied gas has been broken down for major geographic markets.
This report identifies factors which are driving the market. Growth in major application industry and high economic growth rate in China are figured out to be the important market drivers which have a high impact on market at present. The report also highlights the market restraints and burning issues. Growth in LNG trade has been identified as the major opportunity which is attracting all the cryogenic equipment manufacturers. There are number of reasons which are driving the natural gas/LNG market. Diverted interests from nuclear power, shale gas development in the U.S., and increasing use of natural gas as transportation fuel are the main factors encouraging the investment on LNG.
Developments and strategies of top cryogenic equipment manufacturers have been studied in order to distinguish winning imperatives. The report also profiles those companies and a typical profile includes company overview, cryogenic products offered by the company, financials, recent developments, and strategy based on those developments.
The companies profiled in this report include Chart Industries Inc., Cryofab, Cryoquip Inc., Eden Cryogenics LLC, Eleet Cryogenics Inc., Midwest Cryogenics, Skaff Cryogenics Inc. (SCI), Taylor Wharton LLC, INOX India Ltd, Herose GmbH, Linde AG, JSC Cryogenmash VRV Group, Wessington Cryogenics Ltd, etc.
For more information please visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/vtt7pq/cryogenic.
Research and Markets
Laura Wood, Senior Manager.
U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907
Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 | <urn:uuid:65e40963-8c72-4658-95c6-0cd9aa0a8e82> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/2/prweb10436578.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9434 | 728 | 2.34375 | 2 |