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From an investment strategy standpoint, traditional exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are designed to track indexes. ETFs are available in hundreds of varieties, tracking nearly every index you can imagine; they offer all of the benefits associated with index mutual funds, including low turnover, low cost and broad diversification, plus their expense ratios are significantly lower. While passive investing is a popular strategy among ETF investors, it isn't the only strategy. Here we explore ETF investment strategies to provide additional insight into how investors are using these innovative instruments.
Tutorial: Exchange-Traded Funds
Passive Investing
While the intraday trading capability is certainly a boon to active traders, it is merely a convenience for investors who prefer to buy and hold, which is still a valid and popular strategy - especially if we keep in mind the often-cited statistic that 80% of actively managed mutual funds fail to beat their benchmarks. In sum, ETFs provide a convenient and low-cost way to implement indexing, or passive management.
Active Trading
Despite indexing's track record, many investors aren't content to settle for so-called average returns. Even though they know that a minority of actively-managed funds beat the market, and they're willing to try for a piece of that action. ETFs provide the perfect tool. By allowing intraday trading, ETFs give these traders an opportunity to track the direction of the market and trade accordingly. Although still trading an index like a passive investor, these active traders can take advantage of short-term movements. If the S&P races upward when the markets open, active traders can lock in the profits immediately.
So, all of the active trading strategies that can be used with traditional stocks can also be used with ETFs. These strategies include market timing, sector rotation, short selling and buying on margin.
The tradability of ETFs is not the only thing that makes them good tools for active trading. In the near future, another facet of active management may soon be available in the form of professionally managed ETFs.
Actively-Managed ETFs
While ETFs are structured to track an index, they could just as easily be designed to track a popular investment manager's top picks, mirror any existing mutual fund or pursue a particular investment objective. Aside from how they are traded, these ETFs can provide investors/traders with an investment that aims to deliver above-average returns. While there aren't as many actively-managed ETFs as there are mutual funds in the United States, they are growing in popularity.
Transparency and Arbitrage
With index ETFs, arbitrage keeps the price of the ETF close to the value of the underlying shares. This works because everyone knows the holdings in a given index. The index ETF has nothing to fear by disclosing the holdings, and price parity serves everyone's best interests. (For more on this role of arbitrage, see An Inside Look At ETF Construction.)
The situation would be a bit different for an actively-managed ETF, whose money manager would get paid for stock selection. Ideally, those selections are to help investors outperform their ETF's benchmark index. If the ETF disclosed its holdings frequently enough so that arbitrage could take place, there'd be no reason to buy the ETF: smart investors would simply let the fund manager do all of the research and then wait for the disclosure of his or her best ideas. The investors would then buy the underlying securities and avoid paying the fund's management expenses. Therefore, such a scenario provides no incentive for money managers to create actively-managed ETFs.
In Germany, however, Deutsche Bank's DWS Investments unit developed actively-managed ETFs that disclose their holdings to institutional investors on a daily basis, with a two-day delay. But the information isn't shared with the general public until it is one-month old. This arrangement gives institutional traders the opportunity to arbitrage the fund, but provides stale information to the general public. In the United States, however, securities regulators are likely to frown on any arrangement that favors institutions over individuals, particularly in light of scandals that have occurred in the past.
Active and passive management are both legitimate and frequently used investment strategies among ETF investors. While actively-managed ETFs run by professional money managers are still scarce, you can bet that innovative money management firms are working diligently to overcome the challenges of making this product available worldwide.
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1. Why are simple-interest loans preferred by payday loan companies and pawn shops?
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Investors who utilize mutual funds or exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in their investment strategies must take into consideration ... Read Full Answer >>
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You are here
The Fittest Man on Earth
CrossFit Games champion Rich Froning shines some light on the latest fitness phenomenon.
After coming in second in 2010, Rich Froning Jr. became the Reebok CrossFit Games champion in 2011 at the age of 24. He sat down with Men's Fitness to talk about how much running sucks, the pros and cons of CrossFit and the three most important pieces of fitness equipment. Check it out and watch Bob Harper's hardcore CrossFit workout to get started on your own.
So Rich, how did you get involved in the sport in the first place?
I started CrossFit in 2009. I played baseball for a bit in college and decided it wasn’t for me. I was getting my undergrad done at Tennessee Tech and one of my professors introduced me to it. I was into working out and my undergrad was exercise science. Me and my cousin started doing CrossFit in my barn; I haven’t looked back since.
So you’ve only been in it for about two years, give or take, but your physique (5'9", 195 lbs.) is similar to a running back, not the average wiry, lean CrossFit guy. What’s your diet like?
Surprisingly, my diet isn’t that great [laughs]. I eat a lot of peanut butter and drink a lot of whole milk. I’m working on a deal with BSN nutrition. They supply me with pretty much whatever I need protein wise. A lot of supplements, just because it's easy. I eat normal meals, too. I don’t really document how many calories I eat or anything like that. I try to listen to my body.
Too bad the rest of us can’t pull off that diet. So you look good, but is it just for show? What are your numbers like on the big three (Bench, Squat, Deadlift)?
I try to stay away from doing a lot of the max effort stuff, but once in awhile, I’ll lift some heavy stuff. Deadlifts are like 525. Around 425 for squats. Bench 335, clean and jerk 335, snatch 270.
Well that actually leads into our next question quite nicely. You’re putting up great numbers, some that are close to competitive powerlifting numbers. But you’re not really training for a sport. Do you think you can use CrossFit to train into a sport?
Instead of using [CrossFit] as a GPP (General Physical Preparedness) program, we know what the sport demands. Like football, we design CrossFit workouts for movements specific to their sport. We’re not going to have them go out and do a 5k. They don’t need that. We’ll do intervals of cleans and burpees so we can get their heart rate going timed to the demands of a football game. We modify CrossFit to their sport.
OK, but what about those Cross Fit-ters that take it to the level where it's CrossFit or nothing? You’ve got to admit, there is sort of an uneasy divide between CrossFit trainers and those that train more traditionally.
It’s tough because I see the benefits. I know it’s the way to go. I know that literally everybody could do—should do CrossFit. As long as they’re getting out and moving around—we try to show them that it's not a waste of time, but they could be spending their time a lot better. But you don’t want to be that guy who says, ‘You’re an idiot, you don’t do CrossFit.’ I wouldn’t shun anyone that doesn’t do CrossFit.
Another big knock on CrossFit is the lack of periodization—it's just a bunch of random workouts. What do you say to that?
Does real life have programming? That’s the whole idea behind CrossFit. It's real life. Real life causes you to do things that weren’t in your plan. Your body is an amazing machine that adapts to just about anything. If you’re constantly changing what your body needs to adapt to, it's amazing what your body can do.
What about the Reebok Crossfit Games? You came in second in 2010 and first in 2011. What was it like overcoming that hump?
The first event was miserable. It’s a 250-meter swim, one mile run, 50 pull-ups, 100 push-ups, 150 squats, and then run another mile, all in soft sand. I [found] out a lot about myself.
What was the hardest part?
Anything running, long distance running—I’m not too keen on it. I can do it, it's just not my favorite thing.
What are three pieces of equipment that every guy should have in their gym, CrossFit or otherwise?
A barbell with bumper plates, somewhere to do something suspended—muscle ups or pull-ups—and a kettlebell.
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Weather Forecast
Letter: Let Mother Nature take her course
,Minnesota 56573
Minnesota 222 2nd Avenue SE 56573
Little McDonald Lake wants to pump their excess water into Berger Lake, which also has a high level of water.
Our farm is on part of the north shore of Berger Lake. We have lost about half of our pasture because of high water. What will adding more water to Berger Lake do to the levels of water in our pasture? High water has also caused us to lose some hay ground.
Is it true that Little McDonald Lake has a high content of mercury in their fish? Also, what about the flooding of septic systems?
Little McDonald Lake has two public accesses in which invasive species can be brought in by boats. Berger Lake has no public access. It is a spring-fed lake like Lake Itasca and does not have any other water flowing in.
What would adding Little McDonald Lake water do to this shallow, vulnerable lake? What will this type of extra water do downstream to the Otter Tail River and the Red River of the North when their water levels are high also?
Why should we have to take on extra water or be subject to invasive species just because some people live in low areas or have built homes too close to a lake?
We all have our water problems. Why change things to foul up Mother Nature? Let's all let Mother Nature take its course.
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Belonging - Short Story
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“Father, why did you join the war?”
The sun rose proudly as the morning clouds parted revealing the stairs to what seemed like heaven as I glanced through my office window. The light slowly uncovered the field outside as the men marched uniformly while I saluted to my countries flag that stood high above foreign soil. ***
My father focused on the horizon through the morning dew that covered the kitchen window. His hands fidgeting with the cross that hanged from his neck. With a small glimpse of light appearing, he fixed himself upright, proud, straight and still. His hands brushed the victory medal as he saluted to the rising sun that glared over the nation. Without hesitation, back straight, hands stiff and elbows bent, I mimicked as he turned to face me. His impassive expression suddenly filled with colour as he lifted me onto his shoulder. “Come on, let’s make some morning tea”.
Stepping away from my office windows, boiled water, cup in hand, tea leaves in, scent rising, I soothed the cup with my gentle breath. I run my hand over my left sleeve, fixing the small creases that formulated, grazing the grade 1 seven stripes that were sewn on. Stripes of courage, rank and acknowledgement. ***
My father slowly wiped down the Lee-Enfield while I filled up the metal canteen. “Father, is it going to hurt the rabbit?”
He let out a short laughter, finished with a smirk and a smile offering me to polish the .303 that he was wiping. “Come on son, if you have a mind as weak as that, you won’t make it past a private.” ***
Taking a sip from the warm scented cup, the cross dangled down loosely from my neck. The cup is set back onto the table, with my preheated warm hands grasping the wooden symbol. “Dismiss us with your blessing.”
My father with his face slightly pale and his back against the bedhead coughed lightly as I raised the blanket above his waist. After a slight pause of rest, he elevated his right hand and signalled a slight flicking gesture....
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Why does my heel hurt?
Have you ever gotten up in the morning, walked to the bathroom, and had to limp because your heel was painful? You most likely had pain secondary to plantar fasciitis, one of the most common foot problems. Plantar fasciitis comes from damage and inflammation in the plantar fascia . The plantar fascia is a fibrous band of tissue that supports the arch in the foot. For reasons such as overuse, improper or worn out shoe wear, and trauma, the fascia can become damaged. It is a common misconception that heel pain comes from heel spurs, but actually there is no correlation between heel pain and heel spurs.
Initially to help the pain and inflammation, your doctor may prescribe anti-inflammatory medication such as Motrin, or possibly even inject cortisone around the fascia. These treatments are helpful, but unless you get to the root of the problem , pain will most likely recur. Supporting the fascia is the most important element of the treatment. Non-supportive shoes such as loafers need to be discontinued, and supportive shoes such as running or walking shoes need to be worn at all times. In addition some type of arch support can be very helpful in the shoe to help prevent the fascia from being stressed too much while walking. Stretching the calf muscles along with icing the heel at night are also very important treatments to help decrease pain and inflammation in the fascia.
High impact exercise needs to be modified while your heel is painful. If you are running a lot or have increased your miles recently, you need to consider cross training. Spending some time on a stationary bike, road bike, elliptical trainer, or swimming can actually improve your running. Plantar fasciitis can be a very frustrating injury but can be treated effectively. Less than ten percent of the people that have plantar fasciitis need any type of surgery. A minor procedure to release a portion of the fascia has shown to be very helpful with minimal disability but is always the last resort in treatment. Preventing heel pain can be accomplished by stretching regularly, replacing your running shoes after three to four hundred miles, not increasing mileage by more than 5% per week, and limiting exercise when necessary.
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Thread: Jquery library too big for website
1. #1
Join Date
Mar 2014
Jquery library too big for website
Hey guys,
I've got a bit of a problem that I haven't exactly come across before and I'm really hoping someone here can help.
We're working on a Real Estate Type website for a Small Client, We've used wordpress to hold all out content together,
The only problem we have is that there are about 20,000 drop down options. on the front end submission page. None of which can be taken away.
The rest of the website runs fast except for the Front End Submission page and the Backend are to submit properties from the admin area.
These 20,000 options are divided into 7 main categories. basically they select the state, then suburb.
The website is being hosted on our server which is a shared hosting environment. We want to believe that moving the website to it's own server will help things
but i have a reason to believe that the issue is a little more than just it's hosting environment. Is it possible to perhaps compress the Jquery files so they download to the end user a little faster?
When you view the front end submission page it's pretty much frozen. If you're using chrome you's get a message saying the webpage isn't responding and such.
you would need to wait about 30 seconds or more to load the page properly. even after loading everything it's still very unresponsive. if you were to scroll down a little it would take a few seconds to register before it scrolls the page down.
Now, I know that this is a bucket load of strings. I know that. But how can we make it faster? We've already tried caching, but it's pretty useless as the end user would still experience slow and unresponsiveness on the website.
Any idea's would be much appreciated.
2. #2
Join Date
May 2006
Somewhere behind your screen
20,000 options - i would replace this monstrous amount of text with ajax autocompleted inputs (type="text"). this should make the page load faster.
signature under construction
3. #3
Join Date
Mar 2014
Quote Originally Posted by Padonak View Post
20,000 options - i would replace this monstrous amount of text with ajax autocompleter inputs (type="text"). this should make the page load faster.
Yes I understand that this would make things faster. But what i'm trying to look for is a solution to keep things the way it is but make it faster.
There has to be a solution for it, There are many other real estate websites with many more options that what I have, Yet they run much faster.
Do you think Varnish would be a good solution, It seems like the same stuff other Real Estate Websites are using for their websites.
4. #4
Join Date
Mar 2005
Behind you...
This is just a random thought (I haven't tested the functionality myself) but it seems like you could still use an AJAX solution, however if you still need to keep your <select> dropdown just as you have it on your site, you can dynamically add the values.
Now, I haven't seen your page and how it is currently set up, but it seems there are multiple <select> dropdowns in which they select a value from the state dropdown, then can select a suburb from a second dropdown. If this is the case you could have each of your 7 categories split into separate files. This would allow you to load the data from a category as you needed it, or if anything load them in sequence to help get the page in a usable state more quickly.
In the end, no matter how you look at it, if you have a large amount of data that needs to be loaded on to a page you are either going to load it all at once and have to wait or break the data up and understand that not all of it will be instantly available.
5. #5
Join Date
Feb 2003
Michigan, USA
What is the actual slowdown on the page? Can you identify the JavaScript functions or code blocks that take the most time? If you disable JavaScript in the browser and view the page, does it perform better?
Basically, you need to identify the actual performance problem. Is it JavaScript? Is it the shear amount of HTML that must be downloaded? Is it the backend processing time to create the page? Is it a bunch of jQuery function calls that iterate over a boatload of DOM nodes?
Bottom line, you can't keep things as they are but make them faster. Something has to change.
If the server is taking a long time to generate the web page, there are some easy optimizations you could make at the PHP level. The options in each dropdown are not likely to change often, so cache the Hell out of them on the server side.
If JavaScript code is running slowly, try to identify it and optimize it. Maybe eschew jQuery for native JavaScript method calls to cut out the middle man.
Could you post a link to the page in question?
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Healthy Gums: How to Prevent and Treat Gum Disease
By Greg Go on 15 April 2011 1 comment
Photo: hemingway242
Gum disease (or periodontal disease) is when the tissue surrounding our teeth is damaged by plaque and tartar build up. In advanced stages, the gums become so deteriorated that tooth loss may occur.
Gum disease is caused by naturally occurring bacteria in our mouths. These bacteria produce a coating on our teeth, called plaque, that gets under the gum line. If not removed, plaque hardens into tartar. Tartar cannot be removed by brushing at home. Your dentist needs to scrape this stuff off.
The first stage of gum disease is called gingivitis. Gingivitis is when the gums become inflamed; they turn red, swell up, and may bleed. The longer the plaque stays trapped, the worse it gets. As the body's immune system attacks the bacteria, plaque, and tartar, it also damages the tissue and bone surrounding the teeth. When this happens, it's called periodontitis (advanced gum disease). As the gums recede, more bacteria gets trapped, exacerbating the damage. (See also: Will a Dental Discount Plan Save You Money?)
How to Avoid Gum Disease
Fortunately, gum disease can be prevented through some easy and inexpensive efforts.
1. Get Rid of Plaque (and the Plaque-Causing Bacteria)
Your goal is to make your mouth as inhospitable as possible to the bacteria that produce plaque. To accomplish this, eliminate both the bacteria and the food it thrives on.
• Brush often. When you feed yourself, you're also feeding the natural bacteria that cause plaque. If you can, brush after every meal.
• Floss daily. Brushing doesn't get between the gums and teeth, so flossing is, unfortunately, a necessary evil for getting rid of the troublesome plaque. If you don't floss everyday, then the once or twice yearly visits to the dentist will be that much more painful (because she'll have to scrape the crud off).
• Use mouthwash. If you can't brush after every meal, rinsing with a mouthwash can help.
2. Quit Smoking
According to the NIH and my dentist, smoking is a leading cause of gum disease. They should put that warning on cigarettes — forget lung cancer, bleeding gums and sensitive teeth are the real reasons to not smoke.
How to Reverse Gum Disease
If it's beyond the preventative stage, see your dentist. Unfortunately, there isn't a home remedy for established gum disease.
Your dentist will do a deep cleaning, which involves scaling (scraping off the tartar) and root planing (smoothing out rough spots on the tooth where bacteria tends to gather). The more tartar has built up, the more uncomfortable the procedure.
For serious cases, your dentist may prescribe medication to fight the bacteria and/or the bacteria's effects. Medication can come as mouthwash, pills, or gels, as well as in other forms.
In very serious cases where there is extensive bone or tissue loss, surgery may be required.
To learn more, including additional risk factors and more information about treatments for gum disease, see this very helpful and easy-to-understand article on gum disease from the NIH.
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Even though I brush and floss, I'm definitely guilty of thinking of oral hygiene as being totally tooth-based. It's good to have a reminder that there's more in my mouth I need to be aware of! | <urn:uuid:5a45ece2-c433-41c9-b906-9c05727aa6e1> | http://www.wisebread.com/healthy-gums-how-to-prevent-and-treat-gum-disease?wbref=readmore-3 | en | 0.944795 | 0.03379 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own the Hunger Games. Here's the final chapter, guys! Thanks for reading!
Effie was not sure exactly what to do with a crying baby. Ever since she retrieved him from his cradle, Benjy would not stop crying. Effie had wrapped him in a blanket and had managed to give him another bottle. Neither went over well, for he threw them to the floor. The teddy bear did not work magic like it did with Haymitch, and he refused another cookie as he wailed.
The ex-Capitol lady pursed her lips and just tried to walk around with him, hoping that he just didn't like standing still. She wasn't sure what to do, and Haymitch and Lily, who were both sitting around the coffee table playing some sort of game of cards, were not helpful.
"Your turn, Uncle Haymitch," said Lily, looking intently at her cards.
"What are you playing?" Effie said loudly, looking over Lily's shoulder.
"Poker," Lily said nonchalantly as she switched out three cards from her hand for those on top of the deck.
Effie looked quickly at Haymitch, who was rearranging his cards, and said quickly, "You're teaching her how to play Poker? Haymitch!"
"She's good at it," Haymitch replied, switching out four cards for four on top of the deck. "See that, Lily? You can only do that when you have an ace."
Lily nodded understandingly as Effie huffed and said over Benjy's wailing, "Haymitch!"
Haymitch ignored her as he and Lily played out their game. Effie pursed her lips and flounced away. Back in the Capitol when the citizens played poker, it was a big, crazy game where there was betting and drinking and cursing and all sorts of things that Effie knew was not for her little goddaughter. There was nothing she could do about it, though, for Haymitch was merely playing a game of cards with her, and there was no alcohol or money anywhere around them.
Effie turned to Benjy, who was still crying, and said, "Oh, dear, what do you want?"
Benjy could not say anything, being a baby, and instead screamed.
Effie frowned as she hurried over to his blanket and blocks and bear and placed him amongst them. He still cried as she squatted, looking lost as to what to do with the little baby. She was not sure what Katniss or Peeta would do. Whenever she and Haymitch came over here and Benjy cried, Katniss or Peeta would always take him into another room, or pat him on his back and whisper something to him.
What did they whisper to him, though? Something like "Shhh, and I'll get you a teddy bear?" or something?
Effie cleared her throat and bent forward to the baby. She must not yell at him, she knew. She had to be reserved, for he was only a little child that didn't know any better about crying for no reason.
"Benjy, dear, can you please be quiet?" Effie asked him.
He only cried, looking somewhat depressed despite his bright blond hair.
"Does he need his diaper changed?" asked Lily from the table.
"No," said Effie, for she would have immediately taken him to Lily if he had. She pursed her lips and said, looking over her shoulder, "Haymitch, what time is it?"
"Eight fifteen," said Haymitch before looking back to his cards.
"Oh, Lily," Effie said as she scooped up the crying baby, turning to the two playing cards. She took in a sigh of relief, knowing that Katniss and Peeta would be back soon and they'd be able to take care of the crying baby. "It's time to get ready to go to bed!"
"Just wait until this game is finished," said Lily. She didn't look from her cards as she added, "Uncle Haymitch, can I go out and see the fireflies before I go to bed?"
"Don't see why not," said Haymitch.
Effie sighed and said, "But Lily, you must go take a bath!"
"Mom says I don't need a bath everyday, and I had one yesterday. She said that she had only once or twice a month when she grew up," said Lily, revealing her hand. "Two pair."
"Just because both cards are hearts doesn't mean that they're a pair," Haymitch said. He laid down a full house and said, "Doesn't matter. I win."
Lily groaned as she leaned back against the sofa. Effie smiled as Haymitch stood up. She turned to him and said, "Would you please take Benjy while I help Lily get into her pajamas?"
Haymitch rolled his eyes and took the baby. Effie, as soon as her hands were free, fluffed up her wig and blew out a sigh of relief as she turned to Lily and said, "Come on, Lily. Let's get you to your pajamas. We must remain on schedule!"
"You and your damn schedule," Haymitch muttered as he went into the kitchen, Benjy crying over his shoulder. "Shut up, kid."
"Haymitch! Do not yell at the baby!" Effie told him severely before she turned to Lily. Smiling, she bent and said, "Come now, Lily."
Lily had her arms folded and she let out a grumble as she stood up and headed to the stairs. Effie followed her and they made it to her room.
Effie glanced at the clock as Lily went to her dresser. Clapping her hands, she said, "It's eight twenty!"
Lily threw a short sleeve nightgown on her bed along with a pair of bed shorts. Effie frowned and said, "Lily, we must not toss our clothes onto our bed. It's not ladylike."
"So?" said Lily as she began to tug off her shirt. Effie quickly turned and said, "It's not a way to treat clothes." She couldn't help but remember all the times that she did that and her corsets would get ruined, or her new party dress would get wrinkled and she had to wear something that everyone had already seen her in to a party. That was one of the most humiliating things that had ever happened to her!
"Why not? They're durable," Lily said. Effie shuddered at the thought.
After a moment of shuffling clothes, Lily called, "I'm dressed." Effie turned to her, her heel clattering, to Lily. The little girl put her hands behind her back and said innocently, "Can I go see the fireflies now?"
Effie glanced at the wall clock and shifted uneasily on her heels. Her hands clasped together as she said, "But-but it's getting terribly late! You have to be in bed before your parents come. We must follow the schedule, Lily!"
"But I want to see the fireflies," said Lily sourly. "Mom says that they only come out for a few weeks a year, and I haven't been out to see them yet." She shifted slightly as she said pleadingly, "PLEASE, Aunt Effie?"
"I . . . . suppose . . ." Effie found herself saying after a moment.
Lily smiled and said, "Thanks, Aunt Effie," and rushed past her, nearly sending her into her closet.
"Goodness!" said Effie as she quickly regained her footing. She fanned herself with her hand to recover as she slowly moved out of the room. She needed to get outside, for she did not want Lily out there all by herself when she was under her watch.
With her hands balled up and her feet on her tiptoes in her usual walking fashion, Effie made her way carefully down the stairs. She frowned when she came down to see that all the lights except for a small light in the kitchen were out.
In the darkness she could locate no one. She didn't hear Haymitch or Benjy, and she hoped that the old mentor was out with both of the children. Still, in the dark, she couldn't help but whisper loudly, "Haymitch? Benjy? Lily?"
She hurried as fast as her nerves and heeled feet could get her to the front door. Her hand reached out and opened the door, and she quickly walked onto the lighted front porch.
Before her early dark was coming. The sun had gone down and the earth was a sort of dark color that still seemed to light the front yard. Ahead of her in the quiet darkness was Lily, walking around carefully. She was behind a glowing, flying light, and Effie could only wonder what the child wanted a firefly for.
"You going to sit down, princess?" Effie looked down to see that Haymitch was sitting on one of the porch steps.
She quickly and stiffly sat down next to him, still carrying a bit of Capitol reserve.
She looked to him and said, searching him quickly, "Where is the baby?"
Haymitch pointed ahead. Benjy was slowly walking to his sister, who was holding out her hands excitedly, about to close in around a firefly.
"Haymitch!" Effie said quickly, and she quickly stood up, but before she could move, Haymitch grabbed her wrist.
"Princess, relax. He's fine," said Haymitch. Effie looked at him for a moment. He looked sincere as he said, "Sit down."
Automatically, without really thinking, Effie did what he said. She sat back on the porch step and shifted for a second to get comfortable.
She cleared her throat as she watched Lily bend down to show Benjy the firefly she caught. Though she wasn't sure she was quite the best at it, Effie felt like she should be out there, guarding the children.
Whilst Effie had never grown attached to any of the kids during her years as escort for District 12, she had grown quite attached to Lily and Benjy. Since she had been pronounced their godmother, she had considered herself one to protect them.
Seeing them just standing out a few yards away in the dim dark was quite unsettling to her, but she knew that Haymitch had a bit of a point, so she sat still.
They sat there for a few minutes, watching the two kids run about, trying to catch the glowing bugs. At one point, Benjy was handed one by Lily and almost ate it. Effie almost stood up to stop him before Haymitch yelled, "Benjy, kid, that's nasty. Don't eat it."
Lily noticed and made him stop. Effie sat back down and looked at Haymitch.
"You know, Haymitch," she said, "you're not as quite as gruff as everyone thinks you are."
"Why does everyone think I'm gruff, princess?" Haymitch asked.
"Well . . . um . . ." Effie said, not ready for that. "You're . . . . sarcastic."
"So is Katniss. Saying she's gruff?" Haymitch said, pointing to the two kids who were giggling.
"Well, no . . ." Effie said quietly. Katniss did yell at her time to time, but she always apologized. She also had two sweet little children that were not gruff at all. "Well, you drink too much."
"Noticed? Yeah, sue me," Haymitch said. He sighed and said, "When are the kids getting back? I need a drink."
"Well, I'm sure they'll be back soon," Effie said quickly. "Did they say they'd be back before Lily went to bed or after? Oh, goodness!" Effie became flustered as she stood up and said, "Lily needed to get to bed at eight thirty, where has the time gone?"
She turned to Lily and was about to call her in with Benjy but before she could, she heard the little girl yell, "Mom! Daddy!"
Effie could only assume that Peeta and Katniss were at the gate and she hurried to Benjy so that he wasn't unsupervised.
"Come along now, your parents are here," Effie said as she gently picked up the child. He squirmed in her grasp as she headed back to the house where everyone else was going to.
Effie bent down to Haymitch as Lily walked ahead with Peeta and Katniss. He was still sitting on the porch step.
"Come along, Haymitch," Effie said quickly, still anxious over how Lily had not gotten to bed.
"I'll be there in a minute, princess," Haymitch said, and Effie pursed her lips and hurried into the house.
Katniss had turned on lights as she put the picnic blanket on the counter. Peeta had scooped up Lily and was holding her, even though she was getting big.
Effie hurried over to Katniss, who was starting to unload the picnic basket, setting knives and blankets down, and said, "Oh, Katniss, I'm terribly sorry about not getting Lily to bed. She wanted to go see the fireflies and-"
"It's okay, Effie," Katniss said wearily as she turned to her. Benjy whimpered and Katniss quickly held out her hands and took him into her arms, leaning her head against his. "She's fine."
"Well, I feel perfectly horrid. Especially since I'm so good with a schedule," Effie added.
"Hey, thanks for trying, Effie," Peeta said, joining them, Lily hanging on to his shoulder. "It's the thought that counts."
"Well, I suppose," Effie said quietly as they heard the front door open.
"Are we done here?" asked Haymitch, leaning over the counter top.
Katniss threw him a look as she ran a hand soothingly down Benjy's back and said, "You're released from your duties, Haymitch."
"That's what I thought when you were tributes," Haymitch said, looking from Peeta to Katniss. He straightened and said, "I'm heading home."
Effie smiled and said, "Thank you for letting us watch them. They were perfect. Though, Katniss, Benjy kept crying." Effie looked at him leaning against Katniss's shoulder, sleeping.
"I think he just needed his mother," Peeta said quietly.
Effie nodded and kissed them all on the cheek before she hurried after Haymitch. Just before she closed the door, she heard Lily call, "Night, Uncle Haymitch, Aunt Effie!"
Effie hurried as best as she could down the walk and to the gate. It was just a few yards down the road to their house, and she quickly caught up with Haymitch, who dearly needed a drink to make him less sluggish.
Falling into step with him, Effie said, "Lily said good night to us, Haymitch."
"Isn't that sweet," Haymitch said sarcastically as he opened the gate. Effie frowned at him as they walked up the walk to the dark front porch.
"You really are a gruff person, Haymitch!" she told him.
He shrugged as he pulled out his house keys. He inserted a key in the doorknob and turned to Effie. He looked annoyed, but he said, "That's why you like me. Eh, princess?"
He entered the house, leaving Effie sputtering on the front porch. That man!
She hurried in and turned on the light. He was in the kitchen as she said, trying to think of something that would make him feel the way he made her feel, "Well, Haymitch, you're good with children!"
"No, I'm not," Haymitch said quickly.
Effie smiled to herself as she said sweetly, "Yes you are."
"Am not!"
"You are too, and don't use such bad grammar."
"Effie . . ."
"Be quiet."
Effie smirked, knowing she won. "Okay." It didn't matter. She was right.
She hurried off to her bedroom to take off her makeup. She smiled to herself and thought that the two of them had done quite a good job of babysitting their godchildren.
There you go. I imagine Benjy to be about fifteen to seventeen months old. I hope you liked it, God bless! | <urn:uuid:f685015c-0140-49ba-bca6-e4ec9b26ebb2> | https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8255483/4/Mentor-Escort-Babysitters | en | 0.993803 | 0.042384 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Friday, June 12, 2009
A Discredited Case: A Matter of Word Fallacy Case, in a recent on-line essay, "A Peccancy," marshals the apostle Paul's use of ἐξουσία in Romans 13:1-7 in support of his argument for a state's right to secede from the Union. The core of Case's argument on which I offer these comments follows:
In a work entitled "The Higher Right to Choose" Brother Gregory Williams makes an incisive observation concerning the word "powers" used in Romans 13:1.
Even a cursory check of a Greek dictionary reveals that "exousia" has as its primary meaning: "noun feminine; power of choice, liberty of doing as one pleases."
Furthermore that is exactly how those notable thinkers of antiquity, Plato and Aristotle used the word "exousia." The Greek Glossary of Aristotelian Terms affirms that "exousia" means "a right."
Aristotle not only uses exousia as a right but further qualifies the word when he says: "The right (exousia) to do anything one wishes leaves [the political community] defenseless..."
However, Brother Gregory Williams has another shoe to drop when he writes:
This is an ugly breach in the state’s longstanding bastion of Biblical legitimacy and government’s opposition to individual freedoms. For the world of classical antiquity would have read Romans 13:1 as; "Let every soul be subject to the higher liberty. For there is no liberty except from God, and the liberties that exist are appointed by God."
So why did such an eminent scholar, who was fluent in Greek, as St. Jerome, when writing the Vulgate, use the Latin word "potestatibus;" (power, rule, force; strength, ability; chance, or opportunity) instead of the Latin "licentia" (freedom, liberty, license, leave, authorization) in Romans 13?
Jerome certainly knew that the Greek "exousia" meant liberty and freedom since in 1 Corinthians 8:9; he properly renders "exousia" as "licentia."
The answer resides in the times (360 to 420 AD) in which Jerome
lived and translated the New Testament from Greek into Latin.
Gibbon’s reminds us that:
On Friday, February 28, 380 AD and five years before Jerome begins his work on Epistles of St. Paul the Emperors Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius Augustuses issued an edict which commanded the people of Constantinople and the Roman Empire to embrace the name of Catholic Christians. Then added to those who didn’t, "whom We adjudge demented and insane, shall sustain the infamy of heretical dogmas, their meeting places shall not receive the name of churches, and they shall be smitten first by divine vengeance and secondly by the retribution of Our own initiative, which We shall assume in accordance with the divine judgment."
From then on what the Church would consider heresy was not only a sin against God but now a crime against the State and was severely punished.
Jerome was working under the demands of "political correctness" which prevailed at that time. Anything which he wrote or believed which countermanded the authority of the Emperors was analogous to one standing before the president of the United States, today, brandishing a weapon and slinging 19th century racial slurs.
"Constantine and his successors could not easily persuade themselves that they had forfeited, by their conversion, any branch of the Imperial prerogatives, or that they were incapable of giving laws to a religion which they had protected and embraced. The emperors still continued to exercise a supreme jurisdiction over the A.D. 312–438 ecclesiastical order; and the sixteenth book of the Theodosian code represents, under a variety of titles, the authority which they assumed in the government of the Catholic Church."
"In Bryn Mawr's Classical Review we see, ‘Brancacci notices that the term used by Enomaos to refer to human freedom is not the typical Cynic one (eleutheria), but exousia, which expresses the new concept of freedom in opposition to the already defunct and unhelpful eleutheria’."
"It seems clear that Paul is telling us that we should be subject to the liberty and right to choose endowed by God. Paul understood the perfect law of liberty, to oppose liberty is to oppose the will of God for men."
"The word is exousia and it is from two Greek words. Ex means 'of' or 'from', while ousia is ‘what one has, i.e. property, possessions, estate…’"
Case appeals to one Brother Gregory Williams whose booklet, Romans 13: The Higher Right to Choose, is available on-line. Williams reasons,
The word exousia is translated "right" in Hebrews 13:10 and Revelations 22:14, and it is translated as "liberty" in 1 Corinthians 8:9:
“But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumblingblock to them that are weak.” (1Corinthians 8:9 )
What would happen if we translated exousia in Romans 13 into the English word “liberty” as we see it translated in Corinthians?
Tim Case builds his case by committing word meaning fallacies and by depending upon others who commit the same errors. Case commits a variety of fallacies to render the word with the meaning he prefers rather than the meaning the context demands.
1. He commits the etymology fallacy, as though word meaning necessarily derives from a word's etymology.
2. He his selective and prejudicial in his use of evidence.
3. He appeals to one of the word's lesser used meanings in the New Testament to render that unlikely meaning the meaning of the word in Romans 13.
4. He fails to account for the word's synonym in Romans 13:3, οἱ ἄρχοντες, which renders his interpretation of ἐξουσία both unlikely and implausible.
5. He fails to account for the development of the use of ἐξουσία from the classical period through to the koine period.
6. He treats ἐξουσία as a kind of technical term as though Plato's and Aristotle's uses of the word within contexts discussing the citizen's relationship to government were necessarily Paul's use of the word in Romans 13 when he speaks of the Christian's relationship to governing officials.
7. Thus, he fails to show that the New Testament regularly employs ἐξουσία to refer to ruling authorities, as it clearly does in Romans 13, and that occasionally the New Testament uses ἐξουσία to depict liberty as in Hebrews 10:13; Revelation 22:14; and 1 Corinthians 8:9 (cf. also several uses in 1 Cor 9). Twice ἐξουσία is found in the Book of Revelaiton, once as "the right to the tree of life" in 22:14 and once as "over these the second death has no authority."
Anyone can take a concordance of the New Testament to examine its varied uses of ἐξουσία to find that the word bears a range of senses with the basic sense, "power to act, authority."
Tim Case, unfortunately, discredits his argument with his prejudiced, unscholarly, and ill-informed appeal to the use of ἐξουσία Romans 13. The reason Jerome translated ἐξουσία with potestatibus and not licentia in Romans 13 has nothing to do with "political correctness" of the era but rather because the Latin word he selected better expressed the sense and connotation of ἐξουσία within the context of Romans 13 where the synonym for ἡ έξουσία is οἱ ἄρχοντες, which unambiguously refers to governing authorities, rulers.
bjr2000 said...
So, rather than secede from the Union, we should focus on making disciples of all nations!
BrotherGregory said...
The claim that the word is misused because of an "etymology fallacy" does not address the issue.
The claim that he is "selective and prejudicial" can work both ways and could easily begin with Jerome himself of which modern Church teachings is often the residue. The "sense and connotation of ἐξουσία within the context of Romans 13" was a value judgment that was ill conceived and misguided by Jerome and other.
The assertion of "lesser used meanings" depends on the scope of your statistical survey.
The word does mean the "right to choose". All rights come from God to men. Men through "the voice of the people" often reject God and bestow those rights upon governments with the disastrous consequences listed in 1Samuel 8.
All the rest is addressed in detail in the book "The Higher Liberty" which is offered free on line.
Brother Gregory
Sola Scriptura said...
It is obvious Gregory has no intention of learning, let alone employing proper hermenuetics when discussing Rom. 13:1-7. He is trying to CHANGE what the passage teaches, and it is obvious he is perverting the Scriptures. He has an a prioro committment to a false doctrine, and is seeking to overthrow Rom 13 and numerous other passages where his errors shipwreck.
Anyone versed in Scripture and actually desiring to submit to what God said can see right through Gregory's perversion. His appeals to justify changing the meaning of exousia are fraudulent | <urn:uuid:9220fd52-53e1-4878-8e96-9f27da9069af> | http://bibliatheologica.blogspot.com/2009/06/discredited-case-matter-of-word-fallacy.html | en | 0.955364 | 0.10514 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
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I often use herbs in daily cooking, e.g. parsley, dill, basil etc. The problem is, I like to eat fresh homemade food yet cleaning and cutting herbs takes a good bit of time for me, I already I spend way too much time cooking (my life is packed with reponsibilities) and I need to reduce that time.
Let's say a bunch of parsley lasts me four meals. That means, I will clean a quarter of a bunch every time, meaning pluck the leaves off the stems (I remove stems), clean them and chop them. The process takes 10 min easily. It would be faster if I cleaned the whole bunch all at once and froze it or I could even hire a maid to come in and do herb cleaning and other menial kitchen works a few hours a month.
However, I don't want to compromise freshness. Is there a way to freeze ready-to-cook herbs yet not lose much freshness?
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Duplicate of… – Kristina Lopez Feb 1 '13 at 18:30
Why does it take 10 minutes to chop parsley? – Brendan Feb 1 '13 at 18:49
plucking leaves is tedious. i throw the stems away – amphibient Feb 1 '13 at 19:08
why are you throwing the stems away? – sarge_smith Feb 2 '13 at 19:37
@foampile Don't pluck the leaves off before chopping. Just keep it in a bunch and start chopping from the end with all the leaves. Once you're halfway down you will be getting a decent amount of stem, but it has the same flavor, and you're chopping it, so it's not a big deal unless you're being picky/meticulous. – Jefromi Feb 14 '13 at 3:17
I am not aware of any method of freezing herbs that will maintain their freshness, in the general case, especially for delicate herbs such as basil.
The best method I know of to freeze herbs, which I personally would not do and have never tried, is to mince or puree the herbs, then freeze them with water. You might do the freezing in an ice cube tray to have small quantities available. The water is to help prevent the volatile flavors from evaporating, which will happen slowly even at freezer temperatures. Of course, this is still very different than fresh.
I will try to answer the alternate question which is probably what you really want to know: what is the best way to hold fresh herbs to maintain their quality?
The best way to hold fresh herbs is to treat them like a bouquet of flowers. Trim the bottom of the stem ends, so there is a fresh, clean cut. Then put them in a small drinking glass, measuring cup, or other container with water, much like you would put flowers in a vase. The entire thing can then be put in the refrigerator (florist storage rooms are refrigerated, too!). With this technique, you will often be able to get a week or more. (BTW, it also works wonders with celery, which is essentially a giant big herb.)
Probably the second best way is to layer the herbs in a single layer in paper towels, then roll or fold that up so you can put it in a zip lock bag that is not completely sealed (you don't want the moisture from their respiration--herbs are still alive on the stem--to be stuck inside). This too would go into the fridge. You should get at least a few days with this method.
With either method, you can wash the herbs before storage, but with the paper towel method, they should be thoroughly dried after being washed.
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For herbs that you will be adding to a soup or stew, chopping them coarsely in a food processor with water and freezing the resulting mixture will work very well. In fact, herbs picked straight from the garden in summer and processed as I described often will yield a better flavor than the sometime anemic herbs available "fresh" in the winter in over-priced packages.
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| <urn:uuid:d103ee14-041f-4167-9f28-44ede33d60d0> | http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/30605/is-there-a-way-to-freeze-herbs-without-losing-freshness?answertab=votes | en | 0.957875 | 0.705373 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
December 27, 2011
Lack of significant population structure in Spain
Maju said...
A previous study (Gayan 2010), which excluded Basques and Canarians (most notably) but included large samples of Castilians, Asturians, Andalusians, Valencians and Catalans, and which used also the (rather limited) method of PC analysis, showed that:
1. Catalans and Andalusians diverged from the main Spanish cluster (Valencians and Asturians did not).
2. When compared with CEU and TSI the appearance of divergence decreased but did not totally disappear, specially not for Catalans. These showed a tendency towards both CEU and TSI, while the less marked divergence tendency of Andalusians was only towards Tuscany.
Published more or less at the same time, Athaniasadis 2010 studied Iberians in the context of the broader Mediterranean area. While all Iberians clustered on the European side of the first PC, there were some notable differences between them in PC2, with Asturians and Andalusians (and Occitans to some extent as well) tending towards the Eastern Mediterranean and instead Catalans, Basques and Pasiegos clustering together in the high PC1, low PC2 corner (discussed by me here).
I think that considering all these previous studies should be important when analyzing the possible structure (or lack of it) of Iberian peoples. In this case, it looks as id the dominance of the Basque and maybe North African (Canarian) influences are sentencing all the rest to appear undifferentiated but under different conditions, this is not necessarily the case, as proven by the mentioned papers.
That's why different viewpoints are most convenient in order to understand the real, multidimensional, structure of populations. When you look at things from just one angle, you miss most of the richness.
Now that I have begun dabbling with the Admixture program, I think I can do that different angle approach part, however I lack the IBS sample. Razib suggested me to ask you for it and so I do here - up to you of course. My email is in my Blogger profile (remove the anti-spam "DELETETHIS" insertion), feel free and thanks in advance.
truth said...
Nice to see this. I would like to see these populations in the context of a European structure (or west-eurasian) MDS plot, would that be possible.
anthrospain said...
Hey Dienekes, could you create a new category "Spanish_D" in the map with the dots of the spanish dodecad individuals, to see how they compare.
Fanty said...
I bet they indeed need other populations placed next to them.
I had a very close look on the Germans in Eurogenes "Gnuplot" experiments.
The Germans did not sort in a meaningfull pattern on their own. Only if at least one other country was placed next to them, the Germans seperated into 3 clusters: Northgermans, Southgermans+Austrians and Prussian Germans.
Maybe something like this is also true for Spanish.
truth said...
@ Maju
That study of Athanasiadis has nothing to do with autosomal genome-wide dna. It's a PCA of mtDNA
Maju said...
No, it is autosomal DNA, however (I had forgotten the details), it is about certain specific regions of the genome:
| <urn:uuid:b8f65fde-c74f-4b15-8553-71f8ae5868f5> | http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2011/12/lack-of-significant-population.html?showComment=1325036152255 | en | 0.951534 | 0.041666 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Re: Notes on scientifically comparative paleoposes
It would be unacceptable for a paleontologist to publish a
> paper in which he or she illustrated or figured bones without indicating
> their specimen numbers, especially when multiple individuals are known for
> that taxon. Why should it be any different for scientific skeletal
> restorations. Maybe this could be adopted as a convention by serious
> artists.
This is something I've actually been doing for some time (e.g.:
http://www.skeletaldrawing.com/psgallery/pages/jeholornis.html )
I was not the sole innovator for that idea either; I picked up the
idea of a rigorous inset from Russell Hawley at the Tate Museum, and
then expanded on some of the conventions, including specimen
description. Probably I should take it further (although visual and
textual representation of multiple specimens would take up a lot of
room, so it may not be practical for some uses).
Scott Hartman
Scientific Advisor/Technical Illustrator
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Topic: internal pullup resistors & digitalWrite (Read 9031 times) previous topic - next topic
Ray Lloyd
My thoughts were to keep the pin variable consistant, to what its purpose has been in the past. A third variable would indicate that we were doing something different than what we had done in the past.
I have programmed other Atmel chips on their platform and I could have sworn that I set output pullups... I might be wrong, but it does seem that we can't do it on the mega 168/328. Sorry for the confussion but I was quite sure they could be set.
Because the outputs can't be set it may just make more sense to set up the function for the 2 variable inputs as suggested.
Coding Badly, I like your way of putting it. We could think of pins as having three modes: OUTPUT, INPUT, and PULLUP. In this case, would INPUT mode explicitly disable the pullup?
In this case, would INPUT mode explicitly disable the pullup?
I would think so. Otherwise, how would you disable them? :-?
In this case, would INPUT mode explicitly disable the pullup?
I also think this is easy to understand:
INPUT (input mode without pull-up)
INPUT_PULLUP (input mode with pull-up on)
OUTPUT (output mode)
Coding Badly
Mar 23, 2010, 07:26 am Last Edit: Mar 23, 2010, 07:27 am by bcook Reason: 1
If INPUT turns off the internal pullup, the risk is that existing code will break.
I believe there are two cases that would fail if INPUT disables the pullup...
1. The user assumed pinMode would not alter the pullup.
2. The user first called digitalWrite( pin, HIGH ) to enable the pullup then called pinMode( pin, INPUT ) to ensure the pin is configured as an input.
I've searched and searched the web site and the forum and I cannot find a single instance of either of these cases. I cannot find any existing code that would break.
I agree with the two above. INPUT should disable the internal pullup. That appears to be consistent with what users currently expect.
Coding Badly: thanks for checking that.
Also, I'd like to step back a bit and ask a question to those of you who think the current system is confusing. I was talking to Leah (Buechley, creator of the LilyPad and my advisor) about this and we both have the sense that pullup resistors are tricky to explain to people, but that the actual syntax to enable them is not as much of a problem.
Is this something we might better address with improved documentation explaining the existence and functionality of pullup resistors rather than changing the syntax for enabling them?
I think it needs both.
Certainly the docs could do a better job of explaining the whole concept and implementation in the Arduino system.
But I also think that the current mechanism is non-intuitive. It's not so much syntactically confusing as it is semantically disconnected. It is a mode in which you want the pin to behave, and the way you enable that mode is with a command (digitalWrite) that has nothing to do with the mode of a pin, but is otherwise used to send data out on it. We've overloaded the semantics of digitalWrite with another command that changes the mode.
Does that make sense?
That's why I favor some solution that uses a pinMode command to accomplish this.
I think its a combination of the two things as well. Internal pull ups are not obvious and need explanation, but the code that enables them at the moment tends to look like a coding error to a beginner rather than something that has a clear purpose even if you are not sure what - without a comment you simply wouldn't know by looking at the code - alot of other arduino syntax you can guess what it is doing and have a good chance of being close.
For someone who is in a class they get the explanation, and in time it often makes sense, but for someone who is working alone and using the documentation it may be harder. The pages explaining pullups are heavy on text with no diagrams or pictures, so look more intimidating than the pages that they may have been looking at that go with the example sketches.
From a code readability standpoint, I like:
pinMode(pin, INPUT);
pinMode(pin, OUTPUT);
Coding Badly
When would this one be needed...
pinMode(pin, INPUT);
to stop old code from breaking, i think it would be harsh to make it a requirement to use the new syntax exclusively immediately and break old code.
also when you very first start and are introducing the idea of digital input and don't want to introduce to many things at once.
Its useful for people to build the circuit with the external resistor so they can see the resistor - it provides a concrete demonstration of the two resistances that gives a swing in voltage on the pin (one changing resistance, the switch being an extreme example of this, one fixed resistance - this is a really important concept for many sensors, and what follows soon after, analogue sensors) and to add the internal resistor into the mix while doing that complicates unnecessarily at that point. Then introduce the idea that you can reduce the number of external components for the digital pins, but the trade off is the code gets slightly more complicated.
Any of the suggestions in this thread would be an improvement but if the two parameter suggestion is semantically clearer then it deserves further consideration
Digital input is almost always introduced using buttons. These require pull-ups so the concept does need to be explained from the start, although often an external pull-up resistor is introduced before internal pull-ups. However I think that many non-technical people would find it easier to get something going if the button example used internal pull-ups instead of the external pull-downs:
pinMode(buttonPin, INPUT_PULLUP );
rather than having to understand and deal with : "a 10k resistor needs to be attached from pin 2 to ground" (sounds of user fumbling through pack of components trying to find the correct resistor)
Breaking existing code would be a problem but I wonder if there is any code that relied on the pull-ups being enabled when changing from output mode to input mode. Pull-ups change their state if the pin is switched to output mode and the pin state is changed, so code that does not explicitly set pull-up state when switching from output to input is a potential source of bugs. Is anyone aware of any code that does switch from output to input that requires pull-ups in a particular state but does not set them explicitly. If not, assuming the current method for setting pull-ups was still supported, old code would not break.
The example code that ships with arduino currently uses a switch connected to 5V, with a resistor to ground.
This was so you don't have to explain things like the switch pulled the digital in LOW, so digitalWrite HIGH to turn the LED on(it was counter-intuitive to a lot of people).
It feels to me like part of the dilema here is a choice of where you put that bit of complication as you start - a more complicated external circuit (an extra component and more wires), or more complicated code (if low write high, rather than if high write high, and possibly another parameter).
Having a simple code link between switch and LED in the button example, makes introducing pullups soon after more complicated, as you need to reverse the logic of the code/hardware as well at that point.
Having an external resistor at the beginning feels like more preperation for the road ahead to me (it will be needed for other circuits), but I know different people will have different takes on it.
Mar 28, 2010, 05:34 am Last Edit: Mar 28, 2010, 05:35 am by mem Reason: 1
Hi nick,
Yes, a lot of things that beginners need to know can be counter intuitive at first, but explaining it as follows is perhaps clearer:
"when the switch is pushed LOW (digitalRead is LOW) the LED is turned on (digitalWrite HIGH)"
As you say, different people have different takes on this, but FWIW, mine is that the following code (without the external resistor) is easer:
Code: [Select]
void setup() {
// initialize the LED pin as an output:
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);
// initialize the pushbutton pin as an input with pull-up resistor enabled:
pinMode(buttonPin, INPUT_PULLUP);
void loop(){
// read the state of the pushbutton value:
buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin);
// check if the pushbutton is pushed Down
// if it is pushed, the buttonState will be LOW:
if (buttonState == LOW) {
// turn LED on:
digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH);
else {
// turn LED off:
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);
I don't think the your discription is significantly different ;) the thing that confuses people is that one is off (the common perception of LOW), so why are you turning the LED on.
When the example in the distribution was as you code, but without enabling pullups you would still be using an external resistor to build the circuit as using the pullup is so opaque in code it was not appropriate for what maybe the second bit of code a beginner sees. so you had the comlexity of the code, and of the circuit.
If there was a more transparent syntax for pullups I think the balance would tip to what you suggested, a simpler build at first, against slightly more complicated syntax.
It kind of mirrors pin 13 with the flashing LED - you can just plug an LED in without worrying about resistors. Its easier at first as some physical complexity is hidden, but you then need to understand whats going on on the board to go further - if you want to go further you are more likely to have the motivation to do it.
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Possible Duplicate:
How does Reputation work in Mass Effect 3?
So in Mass Effect 3 Paragon and Renegade points go into a single Reputation meter. I also noticed most classes have a skill which improves your ability to gain reputation period (not specific paragon/renegade rep).
What effects does a high "agnostic" Reputation value have, regardless of what % of your reputation is Paragon or Renegade?
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marked as duplicate by Sterno, Ronan, Thomas McDonald, OrigamiRobot, a cat Mar 24 '12 at 15:50
This is covered in this answer. – FAE Mar 7 '12 at 15:04
up vote 2 down vote accepted
Bearing in mind that thanks to EA, Sony, Microsoft and/or brick-and-mortar stores demanding different street dates for the EU, I can't confirm this hypothesis for another two days when I'll finally be able to actually play, but...
The way I understood the little talk about neutral reputation is that it magnifies the P/R reputation you already have.
As an example, if you have 3 paragon and 2 renegade, and you perform a neutral action worth 5 points, you'd end up with 6 Paragon and 4 Renegade.
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Adventures with Live-In Houseguests
Well, we're 10/11 days into hosting our friends as live-in houseguests. We're also 2 days past Christmas. Things are settling into a new normal, I think.
I'll try to share the basics of how things are going-- first off, I really like her. We've "known" each other for more than 5 years now... interacting on an increasing basis, from online fellow-bloggers, to familiar, to friends. But now we're developing a real, in life, daily friendship. We're communicating often, openly, and honestly, and it's great. I enjoy spending time with her.
I know there is totally the possibility of someone you meet online to come across one way over the internet, and then be a real creeper, or totally different in real life. But I'm finding things to be mostly as I expected they'd be. We get along well. We still sometimes text or communicate through private messages, even if we're just down the hall from each other, ha. Maybe out of habit or ease, but also probably because I'm a lazy pregnant lady & sometimes one of us just wants to get something out before we forget it. We're both in the throes of mothering young children and sometimes you've got to seize the moment while something's on your mind. :)
But we're also talking a lot. The one thing we talked extensively about before heading into this adventure was that we intended to KEEP COMMUNICATING. So we've gone off for a girls' night out (thrift store shopping), went for a long walk the other day, and drove up together to see Christmas lights last night. And we're also spending time together as couples in the evenings several nights a week, just talking and getting to know each other.
We're getting into a groove, you could say. It's been a bit "off" from our norms, schedule-wise, for both of our families, with Christmas hitting just a week after their arrival, but it's been good too. They've had downtime together as a family without the pressure of her husband having to pound the pavement (since no one was hiring over Christmas Eve & Christmas anyhow). It's also given us the freedom to spend time getting to know each other before Doug had to go back to work.
The kids are getting along well too. The only "hiccup" is that my 2 year old is extremely affectionate, interactive, and friendly, and that kind of freaks out her 2 year old, who is more reserved & cautious than he is. So I'm trying to keep him close to me, and not let him get/stay too close to her. But at least our kids aren't frustrated with each other... far from it! Their son fits right in with our group of boys, and our daughters are totally enamored with each other. :)
Neither us nor our children are perfect, and we've had to be flexible (for example, we initially planned to eat breakfast together but then realized that they were used to eating immediately upon waking, whereas my kids are used to eating at 8, so now we're doing breakfast mostly separately; and we thought she would just always do breakfast dishes, but then timing sometimes works out different, depending on the day's events, so now she just does dishes once a day, at some point). BUT-- because we planned to be flexible and amenable going into this whole thing, it's going quite well.
Truly, all things considered, I can't really imagine a situation with 4 adults & 7 kids (one of whom is pregnant, and one of whom --her husband-- is sick) in one normal-sized house going better. I think the fact that we're all family, in Christ, and that we truly want to serve and love each other has made all the difference.
You can read her perspective on it all here.
1 comment:
Anonymous said...
So glad to hear it's working out so far! A little flexibility goes a long way in life.
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Can someone compare the energy efficiency of human brain as a computer ? What is the energy in joules / flop ? may be some reasonable assumptions on the computational load of common tasks such as pattern recognition or speech synthesis can be used.
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Related (not a duplicate):… – David Z Jun 28 '11 at 1:39
The human brain doesn't use bits – Dale Jun 28 '11 at 5:48
@David that was a very useful link ! – New Horizon Jun 28 '11 at 23:15
This depends significantly on the task. Computers are much better at number crunching, but humans are much better at pattern recognition. (e.g. computers have trouble playing Go: – blah Jul 28 '11 at 7:34
Human power consumption can be guesstimated as 100W, similar to the power consumption of an ordinary computer, plus or minus a few orders of magnitude depending on one's idea of "ordinary". A computer can do billions of flops per second, and it would take me many seconds or minutes to perform one with pen and paper, and furthermore I will make many more errors. If we assume that there is some other task which is stacked the opposite way, i.e. a human can perform it a billion times faster than a computer, and that both of these are in some sense extreme cases, then given some more "fair" test we can say that ratio of the efficiency is probably somewhere between $10^{-9}$ and $10^9$.
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"somewhere between 10^−9 and 10^9" - a theoretical physicst at work! – Martin Beckett Jun 28 '11 at 15:43
is the 100W a maximum? because it would mean already 2000kcal power consumption a day just by the brain, and I guess this would make every girl happy (just kidding) but seriously speaking what is the power consumption for lazy activities like watching TV compared to doing math or theoretical physics. – Marcel Jul 28 '11 at 9:22
@Marcel: Total brain activity doesn't change much with activity: REM sleep is the same as waking, although deep sleep is 25% lower: Drummond, "Functional imaging of the sleeping brain: review of findings and implications for the study of insomnia" Yes, the brain is an extremely energy-hungry device, but Dan's link actually gives the power as 20 W, not 100 W. I think Dan just called it 100 W because we're doing order-of-magnitude estimates. Obviously the brain can't burn 2000 kcal/day :-) – Ben Crowell Jul 28 '11 at 14:57
@Ben thank you. But also 20W is still a lot... nice to have some idea of the magnitude – Marcel Jul 29 '11 at 12:35
100W is a figure commonly used in A/C design. That's the total heat output of a human awake and at rest, rounded to a nice figure for engineering purposes. 20W sounds about right for the proportion used by the brain. – MSalters Jul 29 '11 at 13:54
The brain is massively parallel, so it tends to come out looking very good. The OP suggested using joules/flop as the measure of (in)efficiency. This leaves considerable ambiguity. I believe the way neurons typically work is that they form something like a weighted average of their binary inputs, and generate a binary output that is based on a threshold value for that average. I would consider this to be the moral equivalent of a floating-point operation. Of course if a floating-point operation means working out a long-division problem using paper and pencil, then the result is going to be horrible -- a kilojoule per flop for me, or infinitely many joules per flop for a kindergartener who hasn't yet learned the long division algorithm. To me it seems perverse to say that a kindergartener's brain has zero efficiency compared to an x86, so I'm going to equate one neuron's weighted-average operation to one flop.
I'm not a big fan of Ray Kurzweil, but he does have a good summary of some relevant data in his 2005 book The Singularity is Near. There's a lot of ambiguity in trying to estimate the number of fundamental operations involved in a certain neurological process. Kurzweil refers to "synaptic transactions," and equates one of those to be something like $10^3$ "arithmetic" operations, where I imagine that he means something roughly similar to my definition of an arithmetic operation above. Anyway, subject to all these ambiguities, the studies he cites estimates of $10^{14}$-$10^{19}$ Hz for the rate of operations per second. If the brain draws ~10 W (Dan's link says 20), then this is an energy consumption of $10^{-13}$-$10^{-18}$ joules per operation. Since a desktop computer currently does $\sim10^9$ arithmetic operations per second, this makes the brain more efficient, as measured by joules per operation, by about a factor of $10^6$-$10^{10}$.
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Friday, September 29, 2006
Overnight TV Ratings: "Ugly Betty" Is Beautiful
Big news for ABC: Mediaweek's Marc Berman reports that "Ugly Betty" had a terrific launch last night, virtually tying "Survivor" and proving a potent lead-in to "Grey's Anatomy." Both ABC and CBS are vying for bragging rights, while NBC -- which owned Thursday nights for almost two decades, is a distant third. Let's hope "Ugly Betty" can improve on its pilot creatively and find the right blend of telenovela silliness and real characters. The first episode wasn't quite there, but it did have a nice sweetness most shows lack.
8 p.m.
1. Survivor -- 16.6 million
2. Ugly Betty -- 16.09 million
3. My Names Is Earl -- 8.25 million/The Office -- 7.68 million
4. Til Death (two episodes) -- 5.75 mil/5.44 million
5. Smallville -- 5.04 million
9 p.m.
1. CSI -- 23.49 million
2. Grey's Anatomy -- 23.31 million
3. Deal Or No Deal -- 9.31 million
4. Celebrity Duets -- 4.02 million
5. Supernatural -- 3.81 million
10 p.m.
1. Shark -- 14.72 million
2. ER -- 14.27 million
3. Six Degrees -- 10.81 million
Regina Spektor At Town Hall
I've been seeing a lot of concerts lately and my run of luck continued with the delightful show by Regina Spektor at Town Hall. She's clearly another talent in it for the long haul. It began with her standing on stage alone, tapping the microphone for percussion and singing a song a capella. Other various touches -- clapping her hands while playing the piano or using one hand to beat out a rhythm on the piano bench, seemed awfully avant garde. I suppose anything out of the ordinary can seem shocking. When Spektor strapped on an electric guitar and sang another song, I had the giddy thought that all the instruments strewn about the stage were solely for her and that she'd play them all one by one. Sadly, that didn't happen and when the band came out she sometimes seemed a tad overwhelmed by them. (Spektor has mostly performed solo.) But her songs were witty and fun and suddenly when you least expected it she'd hit emotional paydirt. And her voice -- I didn't appreciate how terrific it is from her recordings. The audience was extremely passionate -- reinforcing my impression about how organic her development has been. Spektor has recorded four albums, toured, built a fan base, improved as a performer in confidence and songwriting, all without reams of overwhelming press attention. This is how it's supposed to work. Can't wait to hear what she does next.
Book Roundup -- Abundance, Raven's Gate and The Gallery
Plowed through some books in the last few weeks.
Abundance: A Novel Of Marie Antoinette by Sena Jeter Naslund -- Naslund made waves with her bestseller "Ahab's Wife," which cheekily told a backstory from "Moby Dick." After a contemporary novel that came and went, Naslund has returned to a historical setting, this time to tell the story of Marie Antoinette. She owes a great debt to Antonia Fraser's bio "Marie Antoinette: The Journey." (It's mentioned first in the acknowledgments.) Both are very sympathetic to Antoinette, with Naslund deftly working in some awareness of Marie's blindness to her actions. The chapters are short and brief, much like Marie's nimble but easily distracted mind. It does deepen a bit towards the end as the French Revolution takes over, but not so much as one might want. The book is ultimately a bit superficial, but pretty and distracting.
Raven's Gate by Anthony Horowitz -- Horowitz is the creator of my favorite TV mystery show, "Foyle's War" and the best-selling kids books "Alex Rider" (think a teenage James Bond.) "Raven's Gate" starts a new five book series about another 14 year old boy with huge responsibilities: this time, to save the world from the Old Ones, the evil that has been lurking behind closed Gates for millennia. Not much character development to sink your teeth into, though the series picks up quite a bit in book two (which I've just started). Still, there's a nice horror movie feel to the setting, with our hero in an odd little British village where everyone is naturally up to their necks in witchcraft. It's like an episode of "The Avengers" or one of those Seventies British horror films where menace can be found in placid country life.
The Gallery by John Horne Burns -- this is a keeper. It's a novel about life in Naples in 1944, published just a few years after WW II was over. I don't know what prompted me to pick it up (maybe the reference to a gay subplot - unusual in a book this old). It's a very odd duck -- chapters that serve as travelogue/essay/ memoir for Burns and what he saw alternate with nine sketches of different people in Naples, everyone from a Red Cross volunteer who can't be bothered to associate with common soldiers to the owner of a wildly popular bar who doesn't seem to realize all her clients are gay to a soldier looking for a little companionship. Sometimes Burns gets high-falutin' in his observations, but the sketches give a great feel for life during wartime. Especially memorable was the depiction of an outdoor hospital ward for soldiers with VD and other sexually transmitted diseases. The new drug penicillin meant everyone had to get shots every three hours for days and days until they'd had 60 shots in all. The setting is so fascinating you can't believe it's never been shown in movies or other books. The book certainly isn't bleak -- the characters are far too specific and alive and often self-aware for that. But there is something...pitiless in the way Burns nails these people, from that tiresome Red Cross volunteer to an incompetent major in intelligence who oversees the censoring of letters headed home. Burns is unsparing in his depictions, but just when you might start to get gloomy he allows a little possibility for joy. Just a little. And for a novel from 1947, the casual depiction of soldiers sometimes interested in other soldiers or the local men rather than the local women is eye-opening. You'll find a similar blase attitude in the books by James Jones (like "The Thin Red Line"), but since Burns was gay it's more interwoven throughout the book. There's one brief battle scene towards the end but few books paint a clearer picture of what it was actually like to be there. A lost gem.
"Washington Post" Gets Scooped Again Over Woodward
Bob Woodward is a law unto himself at the Washington Post. The argument was that his exceptional access and best-selling books brought prestige to the Post and besides they got to excerpt the highlights in their paper. But the last few times around the block (including the revelation of Deep Throat), the Post can't seem to avoid getting scooped by other papers, even when it's about the stuff they're going to print from their top reporter. Isn't that a little embarrassing? On the other hand, Woodward can reclaim a little dignity from the people claiming he is a Bush lapdog since the new book reportedly doesn't make them look good.
Moby On Courtney Love
Moby says he has hundreds of songs written for his next album, but not all of them are good. I'll buy that. At the end of this short item, he says he Courtney Love considered going with Moby as producer of her next album before sticking with the girl power of Linda Perry. "Courtney sent me a CD of demos and I thought the music was remarkably good," he says. "It reminded me of Irish protest songs or old Bob Dylan. It was just her with an acoustic guitar." Love is also filming her comeback from rehab for a reality show or documentary because nothing helps recovery like a camera crew following you around everywhere.
"Dirty Dancing" Will Not Die
A stage musical version was a huge hit in Australia and now it's tearing it up in the West End, with about $20 million in advance sales. If housewives and teenage girls are willing to go again and again and again, just like they did with the movie, this could run for ages. Yes, it will come to New York and -- again -- make "Mamma Mia" look like Shakespeare. By the way, the story casually says the "Dirty Dancing" soundtrack sold 41 million copies -- I don't think so. (That would rank it in the Top 3-selling albums of all time, I think.) "Dirty Dancing" sold 11 million copies in the US. "More Dirty Dancing" sold 4 million copies. Even lumping them together, that's 15 million copies. It seems highly unlikely they sold almost TWICE as well overseas as in the US. (Did Patrick Swayze's "She's Like The Wind" score big in France?) More lazy reporting.
BBC Gets Boldly Innovative
Yes, the BBC launches The Next Big Thing, a talent contest to discover an unsigned musical act (they must be under 18 and perform their own material). My God, what will they think of next?
Peter Jackson "Bored With Films"
Spain Embraces Almodovar -- Thanks But No Thanks
Almodovar felt snubbed by the Spanish film world when they ignored his movie "Bad Education." Now they've turned around and chosen "Volvere" as the Spanish entry for Best Foreign Film (shouldn't that be changed to Best International Film?) and all is well. Too bad for Almodovar: his movie is a serious possibility for Best Picture. But with the foreign film award virtually locked up, the Oscars will be far less likely to honor him twice. That's probably what stopped "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" from winning Best Picture over the ultimate champ "Gladiator." Everyone knew it would win Best Foreign Film so some probably skipped it when choosing Best Picture. Almodovar would have been better off getting snubbed again and leaving the path wide open to the biggest Oscar of all. No foreign film has ever won Best Picture.
Oliver Stone Wakes Up
Oliver Stone claimed the "overreaction" to the attacks had wasted resources, encouraged fanatics and made him "ashamed to be an American."
He told a press conference in Spain: "From September 12 on, the incident was politicised and it has polarised the entire world. It is a shame because it is a waste of energy to see that the entire world five years later is still convulsed in the grip of 9/11."
"Mr Bush has set America back 10 years, maybe more."
I hear the score for his next film is being done by the Dixie Chicks.
NY Fillm Festival Launches Tonight
AO Scott in the NY Times has a nice essay defending and explaining the rather unique position of the festival. I used to think it was great, until I started going to Cannes and paid attention to Sundance and Toronto and so on. Now I'm almost completely indifferent to the New York Film Festival -- nothing it does really matters. It doesn't matter what films they choose or don't choose (one of this year's notable omissions is the extremely New York-centri "Shortbus"). Scott argues they are about cineman while other festivals are crass and hungry for sensation, for markets, for discoveries. OK, but for anyone who cares, the NYFF policy of choosing a select (obvious) few means it is irrelevant. Besides, if its choices truly were the best-of-the-best from all the other festivals and its stamp of approval meant something, this might be interesting. Instead, like all festivals, the NYFF eventually becomes locked into showcasing old favorites again and again and again. My friend directorboy says I'm thinking about it all wrong: this isn't a festival for film nuts who will stand in line and go to four movies a day for two weeks. (ie students and journalists). This is a film festival for New Yorkers, for film buffs with jobs. They show their movies in the evening and people who would otherwise never be able to get within a hundred miles of these movies get a chance to see them here. It's a nice way of thinking about it, but don't some of those people go to TriBeCa screenings at night? And are they angry about all the other screenings during the day? I don't think so.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
"Lost" Season Two Loses Ground In UK
Just as we get ready for season three of "Lost," season two concludes its run in the UK on Channel 4. Season One averaged 4.1 million viewers. Season Two averaged 2.7 million, with the episodes leading up to the finale falling as low as 1.9 million. "Desperate Housewives" made good at least with the critics. Can "Lost" do the same or is its plot so tied up in knots that it would take Alexander the Great to undo it.
Justin Bitchslaps Clay -- Billboard's Top 10
If only a few more housewives had made it to the record store, Clay Aiken might have unseated Justin Timberlake on Billboard's Top Albums list. Aiken was only 12,000 copies behind the total Justin sold this week. Outside the Top 10, Lupe Fiasco debuted at #12 and Elton John hit #18 with "The Captain and the Kid." Meanwhile, the media seems to be swallowing Clay Aiken's insistence that those online videos were not of him, but of a guy that looked like him and that the numerous claims by male prostitutes that they slept with Clay are totally bogus. People Magazine went in depth, but everyone else -- like CNN -- just gently alludes to it and moves on.
1. Justin Timberlake -- FutureSex/LoveSounds
2. Clay Aiken -- A Thousand Different Ways
3. Fergie -- The Dutchess
4. Kenny Chesney -- LIVE: Live Those Songs Again
5. John Mayer -- Continuum
6. Beyonce -- B'day
7. Diana Krall -- From This Moment On
8. Chingy -- Hoodstar
9. Hinder -- Extreme Behavior
10. Bob Dylan -- Modern Times
"Sony Read" Player -- E-Books Are Here
Are you ready to tote around a portable reader that can store roughly 80 books and/or PDF files and other documents? Sony has just debuted the Reader for $350, which does all that on a rechargeable battery that can last for 7500 page turns. Here's a link to the Sony page and to the Connect eBook store.
A few thoughts: someday, a portable electronic reader will be commonplace and the killer app will be newspapers and magazines. Why buy disposable newspapers when you could just download the entire print edition onto a portable lightwweight device for the same money? No bulky transportation costs for the newspaper, no bulky weight for you. Same low price. It just makes sense.
But the price of the Sony Reader needs to come down fast: $350 for the privilege of buying eBooks is too high. The player should be a loss leader to drive sales of the titles. And going to the bookstore creates all sorts of confusion, since prices range all over the map from $15 to $20 for current bestsellers and new releases to wacky in-between numbers like $5.59 and $13.56. Suddenly the uniform pricing of iTunes seems a lot more appealing. And what about people who buy a hard copy? They should get a free or extremely discounted version of the same book for online. Yes, I know audio books don't come free, but that is a whole new production, while eBooks are the same thing in a slightly different format. Should I really have to buy Nora Ephron's new title twice at full price if I want the hardcover for my home and a portable version for taking on a plane ride? No, it doesn't make sense. It would be like having to buy multiple copies of a new album -- one on CD for the home, one for my iPod, one for my car, one for my boat, etc. Until they deal with these issues and make eBooks an adjunct or bonus feature of hardcovers/paperback or at most maybe a $2 bonus feature if you can type in your receipt number for your purchase, eBooks will remaind an oddity. Book publishers are mired in sluggish sales. Don't you think offering portability via an eBook should be an added bonus of buying a hardcover, rather than an entirely new expense? If you like the author to buy a version to download onto an eBook, surely you like them enough to want a permanent copy. And if you buy a permanent copy, why should you have to pay again to get it electronically?
Overnight TV Ratings -- "Gilmore Girls" Down
Here are the overnight figures from Mediaweek's Marc Berman:
8 p.m.
1. Dancing With The Stars (ABC) -- 17.84 million
2. House (FOX) -- 14.22 million
3. NCIS -- (CBS) 13.8 million
4. Heroes (pilot repeat) -- 4.96 million
5. Gilmore Girls (CW) -- 4.56 million
9 p.m.
1. Dancing With The Stars -- 17.84 million/Help Me Help You -- 11.93 million
2. Law & Order: Criminal Intent (NBC) -- 10.44 million
3. The Unit (CBS) -- 12.03 million
4. Standoff (Fox) -- 8.11 million
5. Runaway pilot repeat (CW) -- 1.73 million
10 p.m.
1. Law & Order: SVU (NBC) -- 14.34 million
2. Boston Legal (ABC) -- 9.97 million
3. Smith (CBS) -- 9.57 million
In short, "Gilmore' opened lower than last season, Ted Danson's new sitcom "Help Me" collapsed after "Dancing Wiht The Stars" and "Standoff" is similarly wasting the massive lead-in of "House." "Smith" too is a little weak, but not painfully so. Once I've seen "Friday Night Lights," I'll rundown all the fall shows.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Did You Watch "Heroes" Last Night?
You weren't alone. The show did very well, improving on its lead-in and growing in its second half hour (always a good sign). It could be the first breakout hit of the fall. I found it a bit ponderous, but I'll tune in next week. At least it's different. Unlike so many of the other serialized shows, I'm actually looking forward to week two rather than feeling trapped. And "The Class" -- whose pilot I thought was awful, only to see everyone else praise it -- dropped hard in its second week. Maybe I was right after all.
"A Chorus Line" Still A Singular Sensation
It's playing to 97% capacity in its first week of previews. I think the curious would have waited until the show was closer to opening. So this isn't a casual event -- it's a sign that "A Chrous Line" is still a blockbuster draw. No, the audition process doesn't seem cruel and shocking and no one will gasp when one of the chorus boys comes out. If it gets good reviews, the sky is the limit.
Right-Wingers Turn On "Jesus Camp"
In short, they don't get it. They thought the movie -- a documentary about a religious summer camp -- would be a big plus. But then they found out that the things they said and did horrified most decent Americans. Now suddenly, they think the movie is left wing propoganda. The only problem is that everything in the movie is accurate and fair -- there hasn't been one accusation of the filmmakers taking anything out of context or distorting what goes on at the camp.
Beck and Puppets
Inseperable, apparently. He's also a Scientologist, not that he cares whether you know or care -- though he does care, apparently.
PBS Station Scared To Show "Marie Antoinette" Documentary Because Of Bush's FCC Fine Threats
This is what we've come to. A PBS documentary about Marie Antoinette features glimpses of 200 year old pencil sketches of nude people having sex, along with explict discussions of Louis XVI's impotency. Now I'm sure TONS of kids tune into PBS documentaries in hopes of seeing pencil sketches that will light their filthy minds on fire. But at least one PBS station -- in Denver, no less -- won't air the film because they're worried about the draconian fines the FCC might lay on them. It's now official: we are all hostage to the moral beliefs of a few thousand cranks at Focus on the Family and the American Family Association. If there's any chance these people might not like something (whether they'd seen it or not) and might email a generic complaint to the FCC, 300 million Americans are denied the chace to see something. How about adjusting the FCC system so that at least ONE PERCENT of the number of people who actually watched a show have to complain before any proceedings begin. In other words. If 2 million people watched the "Marie Antoinette" documentary, at least 20,000 complaints would have to be filed. That is setting the bar pretty darn low, don't you think? But the truth is that almost NONE of the complaints (mostly from people who admitted they never watched the shows in question) would rise to this level. Am I trying to block angry citizens? No, I'm just suggesting that if one in one hundred people AREN'T offended enough to take action, then clearly there's no reason the federal government should get involved. But what do I know. I'm just a conservative.
"Boondocks" Comic Strip Is Gone
It's now official that the "Boondocks" comic strip -- which has been on hiatus for more than a year -- won't be coming back. Creator Aaron McGruder is focusing on the very funny TV series version for Comedy Central. I broke the news that the TV series was being delayed till 2007 for the NY Post. But McGruder ALSO all but admitted that the comic strip would be indefinitely delayed at the time, but for some reason the editors downplayed that huge admission. It's one reason I left the NY Post.
Final Lemony Snicket Out October 10
Nellie McKay's New CD Out On Oct 31
One day after I reported in the NY Daily News that Nellie McKay's album would be out October 31 -- finally -- Billboard confirms the deal. Definitely one of the most anticipated records of the year.
Scissor Sisters Rule The World!
Or at least the UK, where they have the #1 single (again) and their album debuts at #1 as well. Also interesting to see the Killers at #2 with their new single, despite being mauled by Rolling Stone in the album review section.
In case you don't get the Sunday NY Daily News, here is my cover story on female artists performing in Manhattan over the next few weeks. You get four full profiles -- KT Tunstall, India.Arie, Michelle Branch of The Wreckers and Audra McDonald -- for the price of one.
And here are dual profiles of Chazz Palminteri and director Dito Montiel for his autobiographical film A Guide To Recognizing Yourn Saints.
Friday, September 22, 2006
And Then...South Carolina
Eight stories in three days -- I'm exhausted. Look for two small pieces on "A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints" -- Chazz Palminteri and the director Dito Montiel. Then look for a big spread on female singers coming to town in the next few weeks -- KT Tunstall, India.Arie, Audra McDonald, Michelle Branch of The Wreckers, Regina Spektor and Nellie McKay. I'm completely knackered: constant interviews, transcribing, writing and a barrage of questions from my editor from Tuesday to late Thursday. And now I'm off to help my brother move into his new home in South Carolina. See you Tuesday. (I fly back Monday afternoon.)
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
I'm Drowning In Interview Tapes!
Had to file two stories connected to the movie "A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints" -- one on actor Chazz Palminteri and another on the director Dito Montiel, who wrote the memoir the movie is based on. Then a last minute cover story on female singer-songwriters has had me up since 7 am (the crack of dawn for me) interviewing Audra McDonald, KT Tunstall, Michelle Branch of The Wreckers and soon India.arie. Plus I have to transcribe and file it all by 6 p.m. at the absolute latest. Aaargh. So sorry for the lack of surfing today.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
TV Overnights: "Studio 60" Opens Well (Sort Of)
Mediaweek's Marc Berman has the overnight ratings:
8 p.m. Deal or No Deal (NBC) -- 15.6 mil
The Class (CBS) 10.5 mil/How I Met Your Mother -- 10.4 mil
Prison Break (Fox) -- 9.4 mil
Wife Swap (ABC) -- 7.1 mil
9 p.m. Deal or No Deal (NBC) -- 15.6 mil
Two and a Half Men (CBS) -- 15 mil/Old Christine (CBS) -- 12 mil
Wife Swap (ABC) 8.7 mil
Vanished (Fox) -- 7.4 mil
10 p.m. CSI: Miami (CBS) -- 17.2 mil
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip -- 13.3 mil
Supernanny -- 7 mil
The Class did much better than I expected anchoring the night, but let's see how it holds. "Studio 60" retained most of its lead-in, but faded in the second half hour. In other words, people weren't thrilled with what they saw. And how lame is ABC's schedule?
"Cars" -- Pixar's Latest Triumph
When the Pixar animated movie "Cars" opened, everyone yelled and screamed that its opening weekend wasn't big enough, that the movie didn't have the wide appeal of the other Pixar movies, that Disney had overpaid for Pixar and it was a questionable decision and on and on. They were wrong, of course. Remember the Popsurfing rule for judging box office: the only numbers that matter are the budget and the final gross. (And overseas gross and DVD sales and so on, but you get the picture -- the opening weekend is very important, but not as important as those other numbers.) "Cars" opened well, but a bit lower than the previous few Pixar movies. And so what if it had been a more modest hit? Not every Pixar movie can be a home run and hitting a double would not be a sign of the Apocalypse. That said, "Cars" IS another home run, which is amazing. It's grossed $242 million in the US. That's right in line with "Toy Story 2," ($245 mil), "Monsters Inc" ($255 mil) and "The Incredibles" ($261 mil). The wild card is "Finding Nemo," which grossed $339 mil. ("Toy Story" grossed $191 mil and Pixar's "flop" is "A Bug's Life" which hit $162 mil.) Overseas, "Cars" is cruising towards $200 mil and counting. In fact, worldwide the lesser appeal of "Cars" means it will come on the low end of total grosses. But DVD sales will be great and only an idiot would consider those numbers a failure.
Fox Launches Religious Movie Shingle
Showtime Renews "Brotherhood"
I feel sorry for Showtime. They've delivered some very good shows that get tons of press, shows like "Weeds" that unfortunately can't seem to get arrested when it comes to viewers. They must shake their heads and wonder what they're doing wrong. The only shows that have clicked commercially are the gay ones: "Queer As Folk" and "The L Word." Their most recent drama -- "Brotherhood" -- got exceptional reviews but no one watched it, including me. (It's hard to commit to a show you think will disappear right away.) I just got the DVD set of Season One and was wondering whether I should tackle it. Would anyone care what I thought about a cancelled series no one had watched? Happily, Showtime is sticking with it and bringing "Brotherhood" back for a second season. At the same time, HBO is cancelling its sitcom "Lucky Louie." It's the rare pay cable show that doesn't get at least two seasons (even "Carnivale" did). Now if only I could go back in time and get a renewal for "Deadwood" and NBC's "American Dreams."
Is Priv8Pete Right About Baseball?
A day after arguing with Priv8Pete about the baseball postseason, an almost identical plan to the one he outlines is in the NY Post: it calls for two wild card entries who have to face off against each other before meeting the team with the best record in their league. It all makes sense, I'll admit, except for the underlying annoyance of still MORE games being added to the schedule. Harumph, he may have a point about all the positives, though.
Derek Jacobi: Needlepoint Whiz
A fine portrait of actor Derek Jacobi as he stars in the west End revival of A Voyage Round My Father. (If only I were rich, I'd be off to London four times a year and swallow up all the theater I could.) Bedridden as a lad, Jacobi became a whiz at needlepoint and embroidery and tells of how moving it was when his father recently passed away and Jacobi found a stash of pillowcases all cross-stitched when he was ten. But the kicker is a puzzling, witty anecdote involving Noel Coward, with whom a very young Jacobi spent a charming evening at dinner and then drinks in Coward's hotel room:
It was half-past one in the morning. Green as grass, young Mr Jacobi rose to leave. "Derek," said the great man, "might I ask you a very personal question." All atremble lest the lovely evening be spoiled by a lunge, he stood his ground. "Are you circumcised?" "No, no, no," he answered. "Why do you ask?" Coward replied: "What a pity. What a great pity. You're a very fine actor, Derek, but you'll never be a great actor until you're circumcised." "Why?" he asked, edging for the door. "Freedom, dear boy," Coward explained, mystifyingly. "Freedom!" Jacobi was out the door and away.
"The History Boys" -- Nicholas Hytner Talks
Director Nicholas Hytner talks about the film adaptation of the delightful play "The History Boys." Correction, he writes about it, since everyone in the UK can act and direct and write and probably paint and quote huge swatches of poetry as well. Hytner's charming article offers up this tidbit from the show that was cut before it opened. It plays off the fact that the teacher Hector lets his students try to stump him by quoting old movies or songs that he identifies easily:
There is a scene that didn't make it beyond the first draft of the screenplay, and was even cut eventually from the play - though only in the interests of brevity and with a heavy heart, because, like so much of Alan's discarded material, it was better than most writers' highlights. In it, Rudge challenged Hector to recognise a song by the Pet Shop Boys; Hector, ignorant of all popular culture after about 1950, was completely floored. "You can't expect him to know that," said Timms. "And anyway, it's crap." "So is Gracie Fields," said Rudge, "only that's his crap. This is our crap." I feel something similar about The History Boys: I have no idea yet whether it's a good film, but it's our film.
Where Is Ealing Studios When You Need Them?
A quirky, only-in-England story of amateur thievery seems ready made for the movies. Three men -- including a graphic designer with bad eyesight, a landscape gardener turned teacher who lived with his mother and an ex-military man -- forged artworks and fobbed them off on the pros, including an expert who appears on "Antiques Roadshow" and tells people whether the artwork they have is valuable or a knockoff. What blew my mind was the claim by a former director of the Met in NYC that up to 40% of the art market is composed of forgeries.
National Board Of Review: They Make the Globes Seem Professional
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association is often -- and rightly -- mocked as a bit of a scam when it comes to awards. But the National Board of Review might be even worse. I had no idea it was such a charlatan, but Roger Friedman of FoxNews lists their latest travails and mentions that the NBR is just a bunch of people who pay $600 a year so they can screen movies and meet the stars at Q&As. Who knew?
Modern Art? Not So Priceless
The Evening Standard runs a mocking article on modern art, listing the prices the Tate paid for various pieces: 400,000 pounds for a "hatstand" (though they grudgingly admit a Clotheshangar of the North was thrown in for free); 100,000 pounds for a nine minute called "How I Became A Rambling Man," a film where an artist dresses up as a cowboy and sings; and 85,000 pounds for two pieces from an artist, including one called Energy of a Potato, which features a potato connected to an electric meter. They see an outrage; I see truth in advertising. When I buy something called Energy of a Potato, I expect a tater and, yes, some indication of its energy. What's wrong with that? Philistines.
George Clooney and Elie Wiesel: Together Again For The First Time
Hannibal Is Back
Thomas Harris just turned in the manuscript for "Hannibal Rising," the novel that depicts the early years of the lovable cannibal. It's due out Dec. 5, a good thing since the movie version is due out in February. This was an odd project all around: Harris notoriously private and slow, but worked on the screenplay BEFORE he finished the book it was (sort of) based on. Maybe the deadline helped him? And maybe he'll overcome the sometimes angry and mocking reviews that greeted "Hannibal."
The Genius Awards
Another round of $500,000 MacArthur awards. Another year where I am overlooked. Why CAN'T you nominate yourself?
Monday, September 18, 2006
Billy Joel Smackdown
Priv8pete and I got into words over Billy Joel. They ran so long, I decided to liberate them from the comments section. It was all sparked by a passing reference I made to Billy Joel's An Innocent Man as "his best album."
PRIV8PETE: You are daft. Innocent Man is not Billy's best album. That would have to be The Stranger, although I prefer Turnstiles or Cold Spring Harbor (I know, his voice is all screwed up, but I like the songs).
ME: I'm daft? YOU'RE daft! I think Billy Joel is primarily a songwriter more than a performer, which he would probably happily agree with. I think many of his tunes will be covered for many years to come. So though he's had huge success in album sales, I don't really approach him that way. It's more one big body of work. That said, most people would agree with you that "The Stranger" is his best album. (Rolling Stone gives two Joel albums -- and his Greatest Hits -- four stars. "The Stranger" and of all things "Storm Front." Huh?) I like The Stranger a lot. I probably blasted out "Glass Houses" even more. And maybe the most-played -- thanks to a massive early lead -- is "Piano Man.' Of course, Cold Spring Harbor has some good songs but for many obvious reasons doesn't even come close as far as being a satisfying album. But song for song, "An Innocent Man" is the most complete and cohesive album. We know them so well that obviously it would be jarring --but honestly, couldn't you take the songs from "Stranger" and "52nd Street" and "Glass Houses" and put them in a bowl, mix them up and then put them randomly on three CDs and hardly tell the difference? It's not a knock on the songs; just pointing out the fact that they're not really ALBUMS so much as collections of individual songs. Not so with "An Innocent Man," which obviously harkens back to doo-wop stylistically. Those songs could ONLY appear on that album and that cohesiveness makes it hold together as a single album better than any other. And yeah, I love "Turnstiles" too.
PRIV8PETE: So, your rationale for Innocent Man as his "best album" is due to the fact that it seems more cohesive? What if instead of The Longest Time, Uptown Girl and the rest he just had an album full of yodeling? That would still fill your qualification of being more "complete and cohesive" wouldn't it?
I'm not saying that Innocent Man isn't a great album or that it doesn't completely capture the style that he was going for, but I consider it more of a tribute album (so to speak). It's not REALLY Billy Joel; it's his take on his childhood influences. The reason why you could mix up anything from Cold Spring Harbor to 52nd Street (excluding Streetlife Serenade which was a mistake and he basically acknowledges as much with the first song on Turnstiles) is because that sound IS Billy Joel.
So, is Innocent Man the most "complete and cohesive" album that he recorded? Yes. Is it the BEST Billy Joel album? No.
ME: Don't turn cohesive against me. Streetlife Serenade is cohesively bad. I meant cohesive not just in terms of sound, but in terms of the ALBUM, which is what we are discussing here: a work of music that you sit down and listen to from beginning to end and that takes you somewhere. As an ALBUM, Innocent Man is more satisfying and involving than any other Billy Joel CD. Others during his run of very good CDs with lots of good songs (Stranger, Glass Houses, 52nd St, Tunrstiles) are just as much fun to listen to and sing along with. And yes, The Stranger has that whistling at the beginning and the end so teenagers know they've listened to a work of "art" and not a random collection of songs. But they almost all are random collections of (fun, very good) songs. Many of my favorite artists are basically singles artists who don't need to defend their music as less important or lasting simply because they work in short stories rather than the novels that are Albums. Billy Joel, by and large, was a singles guy. The rare exception is An Innocent Man. And now you've got me arguing that it is the exception that proves the rule, that it's somehow different than all the other albums and only deserves to be called his best "album" because of the fine print in the contract. And that's not what I mean at all: I think it is pure Billy Joel because the music he celebrates on it is so near and dear to him and the wellspring of everything he ever wrote. You say it's less like pure Billy Joel because it's an homage. I say it's closer to his heart and therefore more emotional and satisyfing and more Billy Joel-ish than all the rest. The songs:
Easy Money
An Innocent Man
The Longest Time
This Night
Tell Her About It
Uptown Girl
Careless Talk
Christie Lee
Leave A Tender Moment Alone
Keeping The Faith
Like all his albums, one or two are weaker and which ones depends on your preference. Maybe Careless Talk or Easy Money (which you don't like but I do).
But I think it has a joy, a release from being relevant or aiming for the pop charts that he hadn't felt so strongly since Piano Man. Joel was maybe smarting from his Beatle-esque Nylon Curtain, which was a relative flop for him and only went double platinum. I think he was hoping for the critical respect he rarely got and was burned bad -- he even got lambasted for his Vietnam song, though veterans of Nam later honored it (they might have regretted that after hearing Born in the USA a few years later). His response was to say to hell with radio, to hell with the critics, I'm gonna do something for ME and he ended up delivering one of the biggest hits of his career with more top ten hits and more top twenty hits that he would ever see on one album before or since. And it was a complete shock since the nod to vintage doo-wop was hardly calculated to win over critics or deejays. An Innocent Man comes from his heart and it's in some ways his most personal album: this is what I love, he says. And it's his best.
Hollywood Asks Hate Group Focus On The Family For Movie Advice
The LA Times reports that Hollywood studios regularly reach out to the hate group Focus on the Family to promote their films. Groups like Focus on the Family -- condemned as a hate group by the non-partisan, nationally recognized Southern Poverty Law Center -- get to see early scripts and final cuts, suggesting everything from changing "Oh my God" to "Oh my gosh" and encouraged to promote the movies to their consituents. The Dove Foundation is also prominently mentioned in this article. Unlike Focus on the Family, they seem much more focused on simply highlighting movies they approve of as opposed to Focus on the Family's efforts to promote hate. But having Laura Schlesinger as a board member does give one pause. Hollywood should definitely be encouraged to make all types of movies -- including family films. But what does a hate group like Focus on the Family have to do with family values?
Will Downloading Movies Be A Big Business?
The New York Times says video available online is exploding and movies will clearly be a huge market. I say: not so fast. Let me explain why iTunes has done so well when selling music singles and TV shows. Now why was Napster such a smash hit? Because people wanted to steal music? No, because they wanted digital downloads and NO RECORD COMPANIES WOULD SELL THEM. The second iTunes came online, digital thievery slowed down and legal digital singles became a huge business. Why were people paying $1 for singles online? Because they couldn't buy them anywhere else. Record companies had basically STOPPED SELLING SINGLES. If you wanted to buy the #1 song in the country, nine times out of ten you had to pay $15 for the entire CD. Singles simply weren't available. For more obscure songs? Forget about it. This idiocy on the part of the record companies is despite the fact that singles were the backbone of the industry, a great way to break new artists and an even better way to get kids to buy music. They were forced into selling songs on iTunes and now they're going to make billions of dollars.
Now why are people buying recent TV shows on iTunes? Because those TV shows aren't available anywhere else. Just like singles, a recent TV show simply isn't available after it's aired. If you forget to watch a show or Tivo it, you can beg or borrow a copy on VHS or recordable DVD from a friend. But if no one you know taped it, you have to wait until it comes out on DVD maybe a year later. If you love sci-fi but don't own cable and want to watch "Battlestar: Galactica," you can wait until a year passes and rent or buy it on DVD. Or you can pay $2 and watch the show right away. If you like the episode, you might buy next week's too. And so on. In short, TV shows on iTunes are a success because they fill a need and offer shows right away that aren't available anywhere else. You can watch a lot of TV at $2 a pop before equalling the $90 I pay for cable. (That's equal to the entire season of four shows just in one month.)
Now, movies. Movies won't be available to download online until they're also on DVD. Would you spend $15 to spend hours to download a movie without all the extras, a copy you can only watch on your computer (and maybe a few other computers)? Or would you pay $15 for a DVD that looks much better, has tons of extras and can be watched on your computer or your TV or your portable DVD player in your car or on your boat or at your friend's house or at your parents or anywhere you damn well want? Duh. Downloadable movies (especiallly say 20 years from now when you can quickly download say any movie in history) could be a business. But it won't be a huge success the way music and TV shows are because it offers a much poorer experience with much fewer options compared to DVDs and video on demand that are available at the very same time.
Ready For The New Fall TV Season?
Not 2006 -- I'm talking about the TV season for fall of 2007. Among the shows they're developing: Spike Lee's at New Orleans post-Katrina, the first CIA class to graduate post 9-11, a show about exorcists and a series based on the tween publishing hit "Gossip Girls" (think "Dawson's Creek" with rich high school girls). And you haven't even decided whether you want to commit to Aaron Sorkin's new drama yet.
Willie Nelson Smokes Pot!
Willie and four others were arrested for drug possession after a traffic stop found one and a half pounds of pot and 2/10ths of a pound of mushrooms. I don't know what the laws are where he was arrested as far as personal use versus drug dealing, but clearly one and a half pounds of pot is personal use when it comes to Willie. That wouldn't last him two days! That's some terrific police work. How did they ever suspect?
"CSI: MIami" Is The New Baywatch
That's right, the sequel to "CSI" has always stood in the shadow of the original here in the US. But overseas, "CSI: Miami" is currently the #1 TV show in the world, seen by some 50 million viewers a week. (That's a bit low by "Baywatch" standards, I think.) That's why the season premiere begins in Brazil: Miami has an international flair, the show is a hit all over the world and they wanted to international-ize some of the action. Who knew? I bet this time David Caruso stays put until the absolute last day of the last episode. And then he'll gladly come back for a TV movie spin-off.
A New Book BY JRR Tolkien!
Ricky Gervais Returns To UK TV
His new comedy "Extras" -- which was amusing but of course a let-down after the brilliance of "The Office" -- is back on UK TV with season two of "Extras." It premiered on Saturday with 3.5 million viewers, which is substantially down from its season one debut but still very strong. It ranks as the highest rated sitcom on BBC2 of the year, so far. So, well done if not titanic in quality or viewers. The smartest thing Gervais did with this show was to insist it be on BBC2 where expectations could be lowered. He simply doesn't make blockbuster hits -- just very funny ones.
Megan Mullally On Her New Show
I'm looking forward to her new talk show. We need more Merv Griffin/Mike Douglas type talk shows in this world. You can't have too much niceness, can you? But she says two odd things. First, she thought becoming a talk show host was an exotic, almost unattainable feat, when in fact it's the birthright of almost every American. Second, she says this:
She likens the sensation of appearing as herself to an out-of-body experience where she can keep tabs on herself to keep it real. It starts even before she goes on camera.
"I lock myself in my dressing room and just look at my knee, or a spot on the wall," she confides. "You have to get out of everything for a minute, and just be an organism functioning on the globe. Otherwise, you're this entertainment robot in a dog-and-pony show and you don't have anything to offer of yourself."
Clay Aiken Delays Tour
Will Clay Aiken also delay doing press for his new album? I still can't wait to see how he handles the inevitable questions about his sexuality. The cat's out of the bag with that dating video posted online and the guys who have come forward. Any reporter worth their salt will at least have to raise the issue. Maybe he;ll just do "Regis & Kelly" and think he can avoid the topic? I could care less if the guy is gay, but if he thinks middle-aged housewives and teenage girls wouldn't buy his album if he were out, he's very wrong. They're smarter than that and -- apparently -- smarter than him.
If You're Under 68 Inches Tall, You Could Be A Star
I always thought that being 5 feet, 6 3/4 inches made me normal in height or at least average or not shrimpy. But apparently I am Hobbit-size in height as well as girth. The BBC reports on open auditions for the London staging of the musical "The Lord of the Rings." ("The Ring! Such a beautiful thing! It makes me want to sing!") All the short people rejoice over getting to audition for a lead instead of the comic sidekick or the chorus. Hurrah for little people!
UK Music Charts
Scissor Sisters are still at #1 with their new single "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'." They are definitely superstars in Europe; here's hoping they break out in the US. But I'm most eager to hear the new Killers song "When You Were Young," which debuts at #5. On the album charts, Justin Timberlake debuts at #1, Fratellis is at #2 and reality show winner Lemar is at #3. Lionel Richie and Diana Krall (there's an unexpected combo) also appear in the Top 30.
Maria Is Still A Problem
The BBC reality show "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria" crowned a winner in their search for a new talent to star in a revival of "The Sound of Music." But the British do love their controversy; the media is acting as if it's a bait and switch to have the new Maria perform at only 6 of the 8 weekly performances of the show. Certainly ticket buyers should be told. But presumably she's skipping the matinees. Obviously, a newcomer might not have the stamina to do eight shows a week (many stars don't, either) and she's being saved for the evening shows. It's not true as producer Andrew Lloyd Webber that this is always done -- a new hit show with a name draw does in fact suffer when that person doesn't do every show. If I went to see the new "Evita" and the acclaimed female lead wasn't in it (which is one example Webber cites), I would ask to exchange my tickets for another date or get my money back. I've also never heard that Julie Andrews damaged her voice by singing too much when she was young. I thought she sang beautifully for decades until surgery on nodes went awry. (And she, by the way, didn't do every show of "Victor/Victoria" every week either.) And in this highly unusual case, it seems reasonable to give the female star a break.
If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em
Warner Bros. is the latest conglomerate to make a deal with YouTube. Rather than suing the fans who make their own homemade videos for pop songs, Warner Bros. has decided to make their music videos and other vieo snippets available on YouTube. They're also making some sort of deal to "license" their music rights to YouTube so the people on it aren't breaking the law. (YouTube will also give WB the ability to check out usage of their music in case they do object to any use of it -- I'm sure they'll want to assign an intern to watch thousands of new videos every week in case some high school kid plays Madonna in the background while filming a cheerleader routine.) You can't corral video once it's out there, so you might as well partner up with the websites that bring in eyeballs.
My Delroy Lindo Profile
Here's a profile of Lindo pegged to his new NBC series "Kidnapped." Can you spot the fact error?
Speaking Of Brian DePalma....
His movie "The Black Dahlia" opened this weekend, or rather, didn't open. The New York Times insists De Palma is the center of a heated debate among film critics: nothing can spark more controversy than simply saying De Palma's name and watching the sparks fly. Maybe that was true -- 20 or so years ago. To amke their point, the NYT quotes a critic from the New York Press, another one reviewing a DVD for Salon and a series of articles at the online magazine Slant. If that constitutes a battle royal of critics, we've come a long way from Pauline Kael in The New Yorker and even Ebert & Siskel.
The simple truth is that De Palma doesn't inspire heated debate among film critics or moviegoers because most of them long ago decided De Palma simply wasn't that good a director. His most commercial hits -- "Scarface" and "The Untouchables" -- are atypical. And his best movies -- "Casualties of War," "Blow Out" -- are overshadowed by unredeemable movies like "Femme Fatale," "Snake Eyes," "Raising Cain" (though I know members of IRA who swear by that one), "The Bonfire of the Vanities," "Wise Guys" and his most embarassing Hitchcock ripoff "Body Double." One of De Palma's next projects? "The Untouchables: Capone Rising." 'Nuff said.
Weekend Box Office -- America Stays Away
The quiet weeks between summer and the GOOD movies of fall result in another slumbering week at the box office. Per Box Office Prophets, the Top Ten:
1. Gridiron Gang -- $15 mil total
2. The Black Dahlia -- $10.4 mil total
3. Everyone's Hero -- $6.2 mil total
4. The Last Kiss -- $4.7 mil total (will this have legs?)
5. The Covenant -- $4.7 mil ($15.7 mil total)
6. Invincible -- $3.9 mil ($50.9 mil total)
7. The Illusionist -- $3.8 mil ($23.3 mil total)
8. Little Miss Sunshine -- $3.4 mil ($46.4 mil total)
9. Hollywoodland -- $2.7 mil ($20.5 mil total)
10. Crank -- $2.7 mil ($24.4 mil total)
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
ABC Offering Free Downloads At iTunes
In a very smart promotion, ABC is offering up to one million free downloads of LAST season's finales for "Grey's Anatomy," "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives." They'll probably broadcast these shows in the currnent timeslots right before the new season begins, but why not make them available for fans who want to remind themselves of where the shows left off? It won't interfere with DVD sales and obviously most of your online sales would have been in May when the episodes aired.
But here's what caught my attention: ABC will also offer unlimited downloads of newly created highlights episodes that feature commentary from the shows' producers...and experts from People and Entertainment Weekly. So editors at magazines supposedly covering the TV industry for their readers are appearing in promotional specials to plug the new fall season? Aren't they even going to PRETEND that they have some objectivity and are not in bed with the networks? I guess not.
Another Crunch Day With Work
And I have to swap out my DSL connection box. And I want to see "Ugetsu" at Film Forum. And then I'm seeing two concerts: Louise Setara at Joe's Pub and Jonny Lives downtown at a traveling concert series called of all things Starbucks Salon.
Race-Baiting "Survivor" Begins Tonight; Here's Why It's Good
Tonight, "Survivor" begins with the stunt of dividing up the tribes based on race. Here's a news flash for you: EVERY season of "Survivor," the tribes have been divided up based on race. So has EVERY OTHER REALITY SHOW from "The Real World" to "The Amazing Race" to "American Idol." So has EVERY DRAMA AND SITCOM OF THE PAST TEN YEARS. The only time every TV show WASN'T broken down by race was back in the day when almost every show was simply white.
Did you think it was an accident that past tribes on Survivor have so often included one or two black people, one or two Latinos and an Asian here and there? Did you think it was an accident when "Idol" finalists going to Hollywood included such a diverse cross-section of America? Did you think it was happen-stance that "The Real World" cast members included a similarly Benneton-like mix of blacks, Asians, Latinos, whites (why not) and of course the obligatory gay/lesbian/bisexual?
How about dramas and comedies? Haven't you noticed how in the past ten years black actors have so often gone from playing neutered sidekicks to playing neutered authority figures -- such as the police chief or the President? How about sitcoms where the best friend/next door neighbor is of a funny/cute/unexpected ethnicity?
The simple and not so surprising truth is that EVERY SHOW ON TV IS CAST BY RACE, whether they admit it or not. (Unless of course the show is entirely white or appearing on a weblet like the former UPN.) Sure there are lots of exceptions to this rule, great shows that have mixed casts that seem natural and unforced. But the vast majority do follow this pattern.
Yes, "Survivor" is pulling a stunt in being explicit about the casting of their show by race. But they've done it every other season and so has every other reality series. So let's see how it plays out before damning them for forcing us to acknowledge race instead of just giving us the usual UN assortment in each tribe and letting us pretend race had nothing to do with it. Besides, I'll be rooting for whomever I think is hottest, as always.
"The Wire" Begins Season Four; Renewed For Fifth And Final Season
Well, I've given HBO plenty of grief for cancelling "Deadwood" prematurely. But at least they haven't made the same mistake twice. (And for various reasons, my rule of thumb is that you can't be disappointed over the cancelling of a show if it's had three seasons cause three seasons is usually as far as any drama should go creatively and clearly it had a shot ratings-wise.) "The Wire" has just begun airing Season Four and hallelujah, HBO has already renewed the show for its fifth and final season.
The reviews for season four have been phenomenal -- and well deserved, based on the first six of twelve episodes that I've seen. It's multi-layered, complex, subtle, and takes a while to build, this series. You can't multitask while watching it. It's best to watch it with a friend because you can parse out the plot twists together or ask what a character has just mumbled (and if you can't figure it out and are watching a DVD, use the subtitle function). No, it ain't immediately accessible. It's just gripping, funny, unexpected, moving, depressing and real.
Season One dealt with a wiretap on an inner city drug ring in Baltimore. Season Two focused on the ports and unions and corruption. Season Three dealt with politics. Season Four is looking at the school system. And Season Five will look at the media. That all sounds very dry -- every season revolves around a core group of wonderful characters on every side of the law, with the principal players shifting from year to year. The lead character of one season -- say McNulty -- will become a secondary character the next year. Literally every character is fascinating, so you are always thrilled to be dealing with whomever is front and center --but at the end of a show or a season, you'll say damn, I miss McNulty. How many shows paint with such a broad canvas? Almost none.
It's the next step in smart, sophisticated television, the way "Hill Street Blues" was some 26 years ago. It's that good. In the old days, if a show like "Twin Peaks" or "24" or "St. Elsewhere" had already been on the air for a year or two, you felt like it was too late to join the bandwagon without always feeling like you were playing catch up. There was a lot of pressure back then -- if you DIDN'T watch the premiere of a new series, were you missing the next big thing? And once you'd said no, wasn't it annoying and frustrating that you couldn't change your mind a year or even six months later and enjoy the show from the start, rather than jumping in the middle? No more.
"The Wire" is available on DVD and HBO On Demand and you can probably buy episodes online somewhere. So what are you waiting for? Start with Season One. Stick with it. Pay attention. Thank me later.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Hollywood Reporter's Ray Richmond: Thank God ABC Didn't Bow To Censorship
The Hollywood Reporter's Ray Richmond saw the controversy over ABC's lie-filled "The Path To 9/11" and saw one thing: evil censorship. Yes, he says people like Madeleine Albright and Sandy Berger can moan about being shown doing things they never did and having the blood of 3000 innocent Americans on their hands thanks to cowardice and ineptitude, but that's it. Trying to stop the docudrama from being shown was going way too far.
So a massive conglomerate like ABC can play politics with 9/11, reach out to far right bloggers and right wing groups, try to cloak itself in the aura of the non-partisan 9/11 Commission Report when it knows its movie distorts and lies and often says the OPPOSITE of what that report found, and it can release this movie right before a mid-term election. But if people think this is beyond the pale and shouldn't be shown, it's the CRITICS who have gone too far.
Not the conglomerate that besmirched the name of a major American airline that lost employees on that terrible day and five years later finds itself being implicated in both their deaths and the deaths of thousands of Americans. Not the conglomerate that -- unlike every other mainstream documentary and movie and book that focused on 9-11 in a non-partisan way -- tried to turn 9/11 into a political football (why else reach out only to the far right?). Not the conglomerate that saw FBI agents quit in disgust from the project or refuse to get involved because the film was so riddled with errors, that saw Harvey Keitel refusing to stick to a script he found so distastefully misleading or inaccurate, that saw a director running around trying to figure out what was true and what wasn't, not the conglomerate that saw all of this but refused to step in and make sure some TV movie didn't damage their reputation and distort a national tragedy for ratings and profit. No, Disney/ABC behaved honorably but the people who pointed out their lies went too far.
What exactly IS someone supposed to do when they are shown a purported docudrama that claims to be an accurate depiction of the worst terrorist attack in our nation's history, which is going to distributed to school children around the country and offered for free on the Internet in the weeks leading up to an election but which they see is clearly filled with inaccuracies and lies? Wish them luck?
"The Jersey Boys" Keeps Breaking Records On Broadway
My gosh, how do they do it? Well, the show is a huge smash of course. But I discovered the real reason they can keep setting records for months at a time: they keep raising prices. Every Broadway show now offers "premium" tickets that cost an arm and a leg. (Their reasoning? Heck, the scalpers do it so why shouldn't we?) "The Producers" had a premium ticket for almost $500 during the mania surrounding Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane. But "Jersey Boys" has no stars like that, so it's taken it to a new level. I was stunned to see the list of prices at the box office. Decent seats are $111.25. Premium tickets start at $250 for matinees, then $300 for weeknight shows and then $350 for Friday and Saturday nights. Unbelievable.
Get Ready For "Borat"
Everyone I know who's seen "Borat: Cultural Leanings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" says it is truly hilarious, filled with offensive and crude and bigoted humor about gays and Jews and you name it that of course really skewers the offensive, the crude and the bigoted. As one reviewer pointed out, the camera crew that watched Sacha Cohen doing these interviews in character and saying such outrageous things without laughing truly deserve all the praise in the world. If you like "South Park" and the movies of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, this will be right up your alley.
Dave Chappelle Loves Ohio
Hye, maybe he can do something about their screwed up elections. Anyway, Chappelle introduced some musical acts and told jokes at a concert in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He's had a home there for years (in fact, a good chunk of Dave Chappelle's Block Party was filmed there) but when Chappelle says he loves the town and is staying put, this is picked up by the traditional media as some sort of new development. And now that time has passed, I have to say I feel a little more empathy for Chappelle about the demise of his show. Not in how he handled it or just disappeared without even phoning his WIFE until he was in Africa, not in his annoying "white people were laughing too much at my jokes" excuses, none of that. But seeing the truly lame, bottom of the barrel scraps that Comedy central put on the air, and watching Chappelle's old buddies feed off the carcass of those scraps for a few more bucks and few more minutes of fame, I felt angry at them too. That junk should never have seen the light of day. Chappelle was right about one thing: the new season wasn't going to measure up and he needed to pull the plug.
Bush Assassination Film Coming To US
Newmarket -- the distributor that handled Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" -- picked up "Death Of A President" at the Toronto Film Festival for a reported $1 million. They plan to release the film quickly in the next few months. (Will it be before the midterm elections?) Expect right wing outrage over the hypocrisy of the left for not condemning this film. Two problems, some Democratic politicians have indeed denounced the film. More importantly, unlike "The Path To 9/11," this is a fictional story about the aftermath of a Presidential assassination and the rights we have given up in a post 9-11 America. It doesn't distort recent history because it has nothing to do with history. Nor does it revel in the assassination of Bush. The film is primarily about the manhunt to find the killer, the tools that a complacent Congress has given to the government and the assumptions that are made (it must have been someone Arabic, etc.) about who the killer might be.
Dragons In Peter Jackson's Future?
In London, they're auditioning hobbits for the stage musical version of "The Lord of the Rings." It flopped in Toronto, closing three months early. Now it's opening early next year, with the show shortened and tightened and otherwise fiddled with.
Meanwhile, MGM says they HOPE Peter Jackson does the movie version of "The Hobbit" they want. But what project is Jackson actually developing? Along with "The Lovely Bones," (the book he optioned and is working on a screenplay with his partners on), Jackson has just optioned the Temeraire series of books by Naomi Novik. These clever books (she's written three) envision the Napoleonic Wars in a world where dragons exist. Combine dragons with naval battles and you are talking a VERY expensive movie. The books are solid fare for fantasy buffs, with the first one okay and the second two improving on the idea in every way. It's easy to see why Jackson would be interested.
Nicole Richie's Dad Releases New CD
Yes, Lionel Richie is back. The New York Times says most kids today know Richie through his daughter Nicole's appearance on reality show "The Simple Life" and then implicitly criticizes him for using that connection. "He's done little to distance himself from his daughter," they write. Uh, should he? Besides, Lionel has too much fun talking in the third person when talking to hot young music producers. “I asked them, ‘What does Lionel Richie sound like in 2006?’ ” Mr. Richie said, “And they said, ‘The same way he sounded like in 1976 — we’ll just bring you new beats.’ ” At least he's keeping his sense of humor: “I’m waiting for the Viagra people to call me and ask to use ‘All Night Long.’ ”
But in my never-ending fight against lazy use of record company hype, the New York Times claims Richie has sold more than 100 million albums (not records, which might include singles, but albums). Let's look at the facts: as a solo artist, Richie's debut sold 4 million copies in the US, "Can't Slow Down" sold 10 million and "Dancing On The Celing" sold 4 million. None of his other CDs have gone more than platinum. With the Commodores, none of their albums are certified more than platinum. Being generous, with the Commodores and as a solo artist, Richie sold 30 million albums. Assuming he did almost as good overseas, that would equal 50 million albums worldwide or at most 60 million. That's a big, impressive number, but it's not even close to 100 million albums. Where did the NYT get its figures? Probably from a record company press release. And not to kick a man when he's down, but "Can't Slow Down" won the Grammy for Best Album when a better winner would have been the Police's "Synchronicity," Billy Joel's "An Innocent Man" (his best album), or about ten other albums that weren't nominated.
"The Path To 9/11" -- Wins Monday Night With Modest Ratings
According to Mediaweek's Marc Berman, the overnight ratings for "The Path To 9/11 were almost identical to Sunday's. It scored an 8.1 rating, just a sliver behind the 8.2 overnight rating it scored for Part One. Unlike Sunday, when it was trounced by football, Monday's edition was the #1 program for the night. Except for Fox -- which had new episodes of "Prison Break" and "Vanished" -- the docudrama was facing repeats. (The new fall season begins for most networks next week.) In short, a preseason TV movie like this wouldn't be expected to score big ratings. Still, with all the hype, not a lot of people tuned in on Sunday. But everyone that did came back Monday night, so they liked what they saw. President Bush gave his speech at 9 p.m. -- and more people watched it on ABC than any other network.
In the UK, "The Path To 9/11" did poorly. On Sunday, it drew 2 million viewers to BBC2 -- falling way behind other shows like "Where The Heart Is" (6.4 mil viewers), a docudrama about the pirate Blackbeard (4.6 mil viewers) and even a rerun of the Farrelly Brothers' movie "Shallow Hal" (2.4 mil viewers). But again, the people who watched it liked what they saw. Monday's showing of Part Two on BBC2 grew to an average of 2.2 mil viewers. Still, this was far behind other shows like BBC1's "Dalziel and Pascoe" (6.6 mil viewers) and ITV's "Life Begins" (5.4 mil viewers).
Monday, September 11, 2006
"The Path To 9/11" -- Ratings Meagre
CNN headlines the ratings news for ABCs "The Path To 9/11" with "Clinton, Most Americans, Skip ABC's 9/11 Miniseries." Their figures say part one of the TV docudrama drew 13 million viewers. NBC's Sunday Night Football had far more: 20.7 million viewers. In fact, ABC's two-part movie did only slightly better than CBS's THIRD airing of its 9/11 documentary "9/11," which was seen by 10.6 million viewers. Mediaweek says the overnight ratings are even tighter: it gave NBC's football a 15.1 rating, with "The Path To 9/11" and CBS's RERUN tied at an 8.2 rating. And that was just a whisker ahead of the 18th season debut of "The Simpsons."
Putting it all in perspective: Since it was airing before the fall TV season began for most networks (Fox starts early), ratings for any TV movie right now should be lower. But clearly it was an expensive, ambitious project. And with the massive media attention, ABC should have hoped for a much higher curiosity factor. All it got were modest ratings. We'll know better tomorrow after the second night's ratings whether the people who watched Sunday were hooked or couldn't be bothered to come back for night two.
Finally, the actors and crew involved should be fonts of fun information: two former FBI agents reportedly quit after a month as advisers because they felt no one cared about accuracy, Harvey Keitel insisted on rewriting his own dialogue and wouldn't say anything he didn't believe to be true and the director was walking around with a copy of the 9/11 Commission Report to try and fact check things. I'm also intrigued by the presence of Amy Madigan as a CIA agent who is furious and ashamed in the movie when they don't kill Bin Laden. She is a major leftie and it'll be intriguing to see how she feels about the project now.
"The Path To 9/11" -- Already Spreading Lies To The New York Times
If ABC's miniseries "The Path To 9/11" hoped to sow confusion about the facts, it's certainly succeeded. Even the New York Times got their facts wrong. TV critic Alessandra Stanley was the one of the few critics who claimed the docudrama was "even-handed." Then Stanley made a huge error by claiming the movie was right to say Clinton was distracted by the Monica Lewinsky scandal and took his eye off Bin Laden -- and Stanley insisted the 9/11 Commission Report backed them up. In fact, the report says THE EXACT OPPOSITE, as anyone reading any of the dozens of stories written in major media outlets or looking online would have known. The New York Times corrected her error on Saturday, which is very quick by their standards but the least read paper of the week. The BBC also does a poor job of laying out the facts in the case, writing a "he said, she said" story when there is no debate about what the 9/11 Commission Report stated versus what the movie got wrong.
"The Hobbit" Without Peter Jackson?
In a story about the rebuilding of MGM, they mention briefly about developing "The Hobbit" which they say will be made in one or two installments and which the studio head HOPES will be directed by Peter Jackson. The rights to Tolkien's classic have been confused for years, but presumably with the stage musical by Saul Zaentz and the recent movie version by New Line, everyone agrees that MGM (which I believe made the clunky animated Ralph Bakshi version) has the rights to "The Hobbit." I'm not sure "The Hobbit" should be split up into two movies. (Where would they stop? After the Misty Mountains, when Bilbo and the dwarves and Gandalf were rescued by the Great Eagles?) The tone is very different from "The Lord of the Rings" and the tale is much simpler, with just a hint of the darkness to come. A sprightly three hours (if that's possible) seems right to me. But making it without Peter Jackson is unthinkable unless he flatly turns it down. Jackson has several other projects in the works and it's almost a no-win proposition for him. But surely the thought that someone else might make it will spur him on. And the sooner the better: Ian McKellen isn't getting any younger and he must play Gandalf.
Jackie Chan: I'm Not Just Mr. Chop-Socky
Jackie Chan is tired of being pigeonholed as a "martial arts" guy. A bit late for second thoughts, isn't it?
"When people come up to me in the street in America they say 'Ah, Jackie Chan!' and do all the action moves," he said. "No one does that to Robert De Niro."
True, but they do say, "You talkin' to me?" ad nauseum.
UK Charts -- Scissors Sisters At #1
The new single by the Scissor Sisters leaps (playfully) to #1. Maybe now they feel like dancin'? On the album chart, Beyonce debuts at #3. But what I love about the British is how even a casual appearance of an old song can inspire people to hit the stores. Surely "Make It With You" or "If" must have been used in a TV show or advert -- how else to explain why "The Sound of Bread" collection would pop in at #18?
Lunch Without Peter O'Toole
The aging and ailing actor doesn't show up for an interview about his new movie "Venus." But he dominates this charming profile. Of course, if this Oscar hopeful were about an aging man lusting after a young man instead of a young woman, it would be a tragedy a la "Death in Venice" rather than a heart-warmer. (And if the brief quote from a note by O'Toole intrigues you, do check out his feverish but engrossing memoirs.)
Spike Lee Filming New Orleans-set TV Pilot
It's called "NoLa," and the potential NBC series will focus on the post-Katrina lives of people from many backgrounds in New Orleans. Obviously, the success and satisfaction of doing HBO's "When The Levees Broke" (the most acclaimed work by Lee in many years) inspired him to do more. Most interesting of all, Lee will include some of the people in the documentary in the show playing fictionalized versions of themselves. Phyllis Montana LeBlanc -- who popped off the screen during her interviews -- is one of them. Lee also cites Italian neo-realism (the source of many a blockbuster TV show) as inspiration behind his approach. He'll be filming in New Orleans of course. "We don't have to build sets," Lee said with irony. "Things there still look like the city's been bombed out."
"All The King's Men" -- The First Reviews
Priest Threatens Madonna Concert With Bomb Hoax
Because nothing says "good Christian" like calling in fake bomb threats and trying to terrorize people.I must have missed that passage of the Gospels.
"Robin Hood" Robbed Blind; But Tapes Recovered
The new BBC TV series "Robin Hood" has tried to play down the theft of footage from the series for weeks now. But clearly the robbers got a serious amount of film. The premiere of the show had been pushed back and the actors admitted they'd been reshooting a number of scenes stretched out over various episodes. Now, happily, the footage has been recovered. That should make for a fun DVD extra: which version will they use for those re-shot scenes? Were the new ones better, a good possibility since they'd had time to really absorb the roles by the end of the shoot? How did they differ? Here's hoping the footage gets included as an extra.
Helen Mirren Crowned At Venice
Dame Helen moves one step closer to an Oscar nomination for "The Queen" by winning Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival. On the other hand, Ben Affleck will have to take his Best Actor win as a consolation prize for how poorly "Hollywoodland" did in its opening weekend. An Oscar nod seems doubtful, Ben, but good hunting!
The Bestseller List -- Women On Top
Anna Quindlen tops the fiction charts with her new novel "Rise and Shine" while Nora Ephron heads the nonfiction list with her humorous essays in "I Feel Bad About My Neck." Also on the nonfiction list is "Enough" at #12, a cry from the heart by senior NPR correspondent Juan Williams about the culture of failure in the black community. Read it with paperback bestseller "The Covenant With Black America."
If God Wrote TV Shows
He might make something like "Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip." Actually, Aaron Sorkin's return to TV is probably more hyped than God's foray would be: at least Sorkin has a track record in television. (God's certainly been a hit in publishing. His first and only book is the bestselling title of all time.) The big problem I see is that making a sketch comedy show doesn't carry quite the same gravitas as being President and may not stand up to the floridness of Sorkin's writing. Mind you, the same problem existed on "Sports Night," which critics loved but audiences ignored.
Meanwhile to some "The Simpsons" is God. Depressingly, creator Matt Groening doesn't see any reason why the show couldn't keep going on forever.Here's one reason: Groening's too busy. He's got "The Simpsons," their feature film debut next summer (yeah, they waited too long but it will still be huge) and then "Futurama" comes back with original episodes on Comedy Central in 2008.
Weekend Box Office -- No Winners
It was one of the slowest weekends at the box office in many years. It's probably my fault -- I wanted to see "The Covenant" (a male spin on "Charmed") but didn't. The Top Ten:
1. The Covenant -- $9 mil total
2. Hollywoodland -- $6 mil
3. Invincible -- $5.8 mil ($45.7 mil total)
4. The Protector -- $5.0 mil
5. Crank -- $4.8 mil ($19.9 mil total)
6. The Illusionist -- $4.6 mil ($18.1 mil total)
7. Little Miss Sunshine -- $4.4 mil ($41.6 mil total)
8. Wicker Man -- $4.1 mil ($17.5 mil total)
9. Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby -- $3.0 ($142.2 mil total)
10. Accepted -- $2.6 mil ($32.4 mil total)
Friday, September 08, 2006
ABC's Miniseries Will Have One Ad After All: Bush
Current Movie Rundown
Just some thoughts on the movies out in theaters, if you're wondering what to see.
Sherrybaby -- Maggie Gylenhaal's best performance yet. She really elevates this familiar material, but there isn't quite enough there to put this in a league with Half-Nelson.
Half Nelson-- the best thing out there right now. Ryan Gosling is sensational as a crack-addicted teacher who befriends a young female student. Pure Afterschool Special, if it weren't so honest and direct. In one late scene, the student sees Gosling doing drugs and he just looks at her. Gosling could have played it angry or ashamed or devil-may-care-ish or a million other ways, but he looks at her with the slightest hint of defiance. This is who am I, he seems to insist. It would be so much easier for him to give in if she would give up on him, too, I think. A dozen other scenes are just as absorbing and -- rare for an American film -- ambiguous.
The Protector -- someone here gave me shit for not respecting the genius of "Ong-Bak" and its star Tony Jaa, the heir apparent to Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. I enjoyed "The Protector" more, though it remains defiantly, absurdly un-cinematic, maybe even post-cinematic. Sure, it's on a super low Thai budget. But you'll find scene after scene where, for example, our hero is running down a street away from bad guys and in the next cut he's in a speed boat and they're in speed boats behind him trying to catch up. Why waste time showing him finding a boat and jumping in (and perhaps tossing out the owner) and then speeding away, etc.? What you want is the CHASE and what they give you is the chase and nothing but the chase. You'll catch up. It's almost bold, though I think it's more lazy. Unlike "Ong-Bak" Jaa's every spectacular stunt isn't replayed three times in super-slo-mo, thank God. And the stunts are spectacular, though Jaa breaks so many bones in so many opponents that it too almost became comical. I also enjoyed the fact that Jaa is too-pretty and they acknowledge it with a wry comment or two. Good, silly fun.
A Cantor's Tale -- I haven't seen it but it comes highly recommended from fellow IRA-member George Robinson.
Mizoguchi at Film Forum -- apparently I'm a fool and a rube for never having seen Mizoguchi. Only a peasant would prefer Kurosawa. We'll see.
This Film Is Not Yet Rated -- Half a very entertaining documentary on the wily-nily inconsistencies of the MPAA and their bias against sex (and especially gay sex) and their perverse love of violence; the other half is a creepy stalker film where they out the secret members of the ratings board. An excessive reaction to a silly group.
Lassie -- better than you'd think; not as good as you'd hope.
The Illusionist -- not a success, but a much better failure than I appreciated, thanks to Edward Norton, a plummy Paul Giamatti and the appealing world of Victorian stage magicians.
Ellen: Bad Idea, Says Tom O'Neil
Variety: ABC Might Yank Miniseries
NOTE: Mediaweek says the miniseries is still scheduled to air.
This story was first posted yesterday, so it's unclear how up-to-date it is. But Variety did report that ABC is actively considering yanking the entire 9-11 miniseries. Like many outlets, Variety is now painting this as bloggers or partisans or Clinton officials versus ABC.
But much in the same way right-wing groups mobilized to attack CBS' "The Reagans" a few years ago, Democratic partisans were doing everything they could to discredit ABC's "The Path to 9/11."
Actually, no one had to do much to discredit it -- ABC took care of that itself by making an error-riddled film it pretended was based on the 9-11 Commission Report. In fact, the outcry has come from the left and the right; it is widespread and it is consistent: ABC played fast and loose with the facts over a national tragedy that is still fresh in the minds of all Americans. That's why they are in trouble. Variety also refers to "alleged inaccuracies" when in fact they're not "alleged" at all. The inaccuracies are incontrovertible -- ABC first tried to defend them as creative license; now they are editing some of the more egregious ones out. Here's where they truly get it wrong:
At least one Hollywood producer empathized with ABC, noting the firestorm of criticism is the latest example of partisan groups attempting to use their clout to bully nets and producers into serving up noncontroversial portraits of political and social matters. Even if the Dems are right in their criticism, the producer noted, ABC should be able to air its take.
"How many miniseries have there been on the Kennedys? Did anybody complain as they dragged them through the mud?" the producer said. "Starting with 'The Reagans,' everything is now political. It's become so divisive and nasty. It's very sad."
Nice try. No one is raising an uproar because they made a film about 9-11. People are in an uproar because ABC made a film about 9-11 that distorts and lies about the fact. ABC made a film with a writer with an acknowledged right wing agenda and they knew exactly what they were doing because they reached out ONLY to right wing bloggers and Republicans. Again, there have been DOZENS of documentaries, docu-dramas, fictional films, books and even comic books depicting 9-11. The BBC just aired a documentary last night. NONE OF THEM created a firestorm of protest because they all strove to be non-partisan and get the facts right. (The lone exception: Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9-11" and only two brief moments in that film have ever been questioned on the facts. Moore spouts a lot of opinion, but the facts he presented were basically accurate and on the public record.) ABC politicized a national tragedy and they probably didn't think anyone would care because Bush has been getting away with that for the past five years.
Here are some of the works presented on 9-11 that DIDN"T create controversy:
The 9-11 Commission Report
World Trade Center
United 93
National Geographic: Inside 9-11
9-11: The Twin Towers (last night's BBC documentary)
The 9-11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon
Endless TV specials and reports
Just remember, you can cover 9-11 with a respect for the facts. When you don't (and ABC is the biggest media outlet to do so with such reckless disregard for the truth), you will pay a price.
Disney's Next Big Musical: "The Little Mermaid"
"Tarzan" is looking to keep its head up on Broadway. "Mary Poppins" (which was a hit, but not a blockbuster, in London) opens soon. But Disney is already eyeing its next Broadway stab at smash-dom. "The Little Mermaid" opens in Denver next summer. The most intriguing element: Doug Wright (author of the wonder "I Am My Own Wife") is writing the book. Disney continues to push the envelope as far as collaborators are concerned. All credit to them: instead of pushing out safe, cookie cutter material they do at least strive for something original. They don't always succeed. (Hello, "Aida.") But they do convincingly try.
The Streets -- UK's best rap artist
Like most people, I've found the new album by The Streets to be of the annoying "how difficult fame is" variety. But this interview with Mike Skinner reminds me how smart and interesting he is. And presumably others have said this before, but Skinner's comments on maintaining a long-term career are spot-on:
It’s a matter of replacing creativity with skill,” Skinner reckons. “That’s what all artists with longevity do. They start off with that initial explosion of talent, and then they gradually learn to apply the skills they’ve learnt.” This accounts for his current fascination with country music. “
In songwriting terms you can learn a lot from country music songs. People laugh at Kenny Rogers, but everyone can take something from a lyric like The Gambler or Coward of the County.”
"The Wire" -- What Are You Waiting For?
A very good LA Times article on one of the best shows on TV -- ever. And another rave review, this one from USA Today.
Star Of "Little Britain" To Marry His Partner
The only thing annoying about this friendly story is that the Evening Standard put "marry" in quotes, like it doesn't count. And if you don't know "Little Britain," it's the latest in the endless series of quirky sketch comedy shows with oddball characters a la "League of Gentlemen" and the great "Monty Python."
9-11 Film: The Reviews
Don't let your heads explode, but the New York Times' Alessandra Stanley thinks it's basically fine. The New York Post's Adam Buckman also thinks it's the best for now. But NY Post opinion columnist John Podhoretz (a longtime conservative voice who gave me some work when he was at The Weekly Standard) thinks it's a bad movie and confusing and misses the real story. The New York Daily News? No review is posted online.
More Journalists Sell Their Souls To Bush
A story in the Miami Herald broke the news that at least 10 journalists who proselytized against Castro were being paid off by Bush's government to the tune of up to $175,000. Apparently, the journalists involved are BIG names in the local Latin community. Didn't Bush promise this evil undermining of our free press was going to stop? How many other journalists are on Bush's payroll? Here's the original Miami Herald story, which includes the lame defenses of the journalists and the amazing fact that one of them confronted Castro, who turned around and demanded to know if they were on the payroll of Bush. Apparently, Castro is better informed than we are.
U2 and Green Day Recording A Duet
Green Day is the heir apparent for title of "band that matters" so this makes sense. The only problem is that U2 ain't going anywhere. U2 is also recording their new album with Rick Rubin, who SHOULD be working with Bill Withers, like I told him too. | <urn:uuid:b0182d5f-6b42-49b8-b14f-5c6b11e47dfb> | http://popsurfing.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html | en | 0.968618 | 0.047555 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
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Veterinary medicines
cow Veterinary medicines are used in farming to treat sick animals or prevent disease in herds or flocks.
Sometimes traces of these medicines can be found in our food. Their use is controlled to make sure they don’t pose a risk to the public, the animals or the environment.
What are veterinary medicines?
Veterinary medicines are given to sick animals in the same way that a doctor gives us a prescription for an illness or infection. Veterinary medicines include sheep dips, flea treatments, wormers, creams and sprays for infected skin or hooves, vaccines and antibiotics.
How do veterinary medicines affect our food?
Very small amounts of veterinary medicines can sometimes get into our food from treated animals, in products such as meat, fish, eggs, honey and milk. These are called residues and are the leftovers from the medicine that the animal has been treated with. Not all animal products have residues and, where they do, they’re usually at very low levels.
To make sure that our food is safe to eat, for many medicines a specific amount of time must pass before treated animals can be slaughtered for their meat or their products, such as milk and eggs, can be collected. This is because the residues can still be there even when the vet has given the animal the right dose. This period of time is called a withdrawal period.
Are residues of veterinary medicines checked?
Yes. Any company that wants to introduce a new veterinary medicine must submit an application containing information on any possible effects on people's health. The company must also provide details about the quality of the veterinary medicine, how useful it is, and whether it is safe for the people who will be treating the animals, the animals themselves and the environment.
Veterinary medicines are assessed in the UK by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate, which involves the Agency in the approval process. Veterinary medicines are also authorised for use in the European Union (EU) through the European Medicines Evaluation Authority (EMEA). In this case, the data is assessed by the Committee for Medicinal Products for Veterinary Use (CVMP).
The Agency makes sure that food safety is given top priority during the authorisation and monitoring processes. We recognise that consumers expect that any veterinary medicine residues in food are as low as practically possible and within safe limits.
Every veterinary medicine must be approved before it can be sold or used on animals in the UK. This includes strict testing to make sure it will not be a risk to people eating food from animals treated with the medicine. For food that might contain residue of a particular medicine, an agreed Maximum Residue Limit (MRL), is calculated. MRL is the maximum concentration of a residue that is legally permitted or acceptable in or on a food. Consumer safety is taken into consideration when setting MRLs.
A range of foods are checked regularly by the Government to make sure any residues present are at safe levels. These checks show that in the UK residues of veterinary medicines are rarely found and, where they are, they are almost always at low levels that are not a threat to our health.
If foods are found to have residues over the legal limit recognised by the UK, they're not allowed to be sold. If these foods have already been distributed, the Agency works with the necessary businesses and supermarkets to remove them from sale where possible.
Hormones and feed additives as veterinary medicines
We all have hormones. They exist naturally in animals' bodies and our own. They're made by the glands in our bodies to trigger certain responses – to make us grow, for example. Hormones can also be made synthetically.
The use of hormones such as steroids to make animals grow is banned in the European Union. Some hormonal substances do have limited uses under veterinary supervision to treat certain conditions in animals. They’re given in low doses and are carefully controlled to make sure that any residues will not affect people's health.
Feed additives are added to animal feed when the feed is being made. Some, for example, stop the feed from going off, others, such as vitamins add to the nutritional value of the feed or help animals grow. However, certain medicated feed additives are used in animal feed to treat or prevent disease in animals.
Although feed additives are not legally classed as veterinary medicines, they are also strictly controlled and are assessed for safety by the European Union.
Further information
The Veterinary Medicines Directorate oversees the authorisation and surveillance of veterinary medicines in the UK. You can visit its website, which has more information and links to other useful sites including the Veterinary Residues Committee, and The Veterinary Products Committee.
The European Medicines Agency oversees the authorisation for veterinary medicines on an EU-wide basis. More information can also be found on its website. | <urn:uuid:6220d24a-8728-4f10-8248-02f499f28ed3> | http://tna.europarchive.org/20111116080332/http:/www.eatwell.gov.uk/healthissues/factsbehindissues/vetmed/ | en | 0.945804 | 0.094497 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
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Daniel Radcliffe's star sex
Daniel Radcliffe's star sex
'Harry Potter' star Daniel Radcliffe is happy to have sex with girls who are only interested in him because of his fame.
He said: "Girls who want to go out with mejust because I'm famous has never been a problem. I'm 17. I don't care.
"Obviously, if I wanted a deep and meaningful relationship then I wouldn't want to be going out with somebody who is only with me because I'm an actor, but if you don't a relationship like that then it's fine."
However, Daniel is adamant he wouldn't stay with a girl who called him Harry during sex.
He said: "People do call me Harry. I once had a friend call me it by accident. If there's another person in the room called Harry and somebody shouts their name I do respond slightly, which is embarrassing.
Daniel reprises his role as the boy wizard for the fifth time in new movie 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix'.
Have an question? Get it answered by AskMen's guyQ.
Show Comments | <urn:uuid:cd9310e3-fb72-42f4-8cac-f3934d23de35> | http://www.askmen.com/celebs/entertainment-news/daniel-radcliffe/daniel-radcliffes-star-sex.html | en | 0.984161 | 0.018462 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Latest in Apple
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New Apple TV hits the FCC with Bluetooth, dual-band WiFi
It's not just the new iPod touch that's gotten the FCC treatment today -- what we can only assume is the new Apple TV has also just turned up in some newly published documents from the agency. Unfortunately, there's no pictures this time around (internal or otherwise), but there are a number of test reports that confirm that the device does indeed pack Bluetooth and dual-band WiFi (802.11 b/g/n at 2.4GHz and 802.11 a/n at 5GHz). And in case you're wondering where the label goes -- it goes there. | <urn:uuid:dab6e9cb-9389-4a31-8ba4-c90d489c4bd1> | http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/01/new-apple-tv-hits-the-fcc-with-bluetooth-dual-band-wifi/ | en | 0.922648 | 0.060014 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Why choose Economics?
Many of the most important issues facing society are economic in nature.
It is an exciting time to study economics. Many of the most important issues facing society are economic in nature. Whether you are concerned with global warming or global trade, whether you are looking at the collapse of world financial markets or the collapse of your neighbour’s small business, you can’t get far without knowledge of economics. This course aims to stimulate your interest in how economies work – at personal, national and world levels. A sample of the issues you will be encouraged to investigate are:
• Why has the UK economy experienced both boom conditions and slumps in the past?
• What determines the level of UK interest rates? Is a strong pound desirable?
• Why are footballers paid more than nurses?
• What are the implications of a national minimum wage?
• Should the health service be provided by the state or the private sector?
• Do the activities of multinationals assist or hinder the development of poor countries?
• Why have African economies been slow to develop? Should we provide aid?
“The topics we study are relevant to current economic issues and we often apply what we learn in class to events unfolding in the news. The teachers are very supportive and there are regular drop-in sessions where you can ask questions or get help with your work.”
Course Outline
Theme 1: Introduction to markets and market failure including nature of economics, how markets work, market failure and government intervention.
Theme 2: The UK economy - performance and policies including measures of economic performance, aggregate demand, aggregate supply, national income, economic growth and macroeconomic objectives and policy.
Theme 3: Business behaviour and the labour market including business growth, business objectives, revenues, costs and profits, market structures, labour market and government intervention.
Theme 4: A global perspective including international economics, poverty and inequality, emerging and developing economies, the financial sector and role of the state in the macroeconomy.
Entry Requirements
GCSE grade B in English Language or Literature, and GCSE grade B in Maths.
Awarding Body | <urn:uuid:2bbbbd37-9a79-48f7-b1c8-0f0c423138ae> | http://www.hillsroad.ac.uk/sixthform/courses/economics | en | 0.922655 | 0.158031 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Intercambios : Spanish for Global Communication - With CD
Intercambios : Spanish for Global Communication - With CD - 5th edition
ISBN13: 978-1413019810
Cover of Intercambios : Spanish for Global Communication - With CD 5TH 08 (ISBN 978-1413019810)
ISBN13: 978-1413019810
ISBN10: 1413019811
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Edition/Copyright: 5TH 08
Publisher: Heinle & Heinle Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2008
International: No
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Intercambios : Spanish for Global Communication - With CD - 5TH 08 edition
ISBN13: 978-1413019810
Guiomar Borras A.
ISBN13: 978-1413019810
ISBN10: 1413019811
Cover type:
Edition/Copyright: 5TH 08
Publisher: Heinle & Heinle Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2008
International: No
INTERCAMBIOS: SPANISH FOR GLOBAL COMMUNICATION is a short, complete introductory language program, designed especially for two- or three-semester courses with fewer contact hours. The main purposes of the program are to develop students' listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in Spanish, and to help students understand Spanish-speaking communities in the United States, in Latin America and in Spain. Highly integrated components in the program provide many opportunities to learn and practice Spanish vocabulary, sayings, phrases, pronunciation, and language structures in culturally authentic situations, and situations relevant to students' lives.
High-frequency vocabulary, realistic grammar presentations, and compelling cultural readings combine with powerful multimedia resources to provide an integrated program that can be completed easily in either a semester or quarter system. Plus, the INTERCAMBIOS program includes teaching and learning support that gives you and your students exactly what you need.
Table of Contents
1. Bienvenida a Monterrey!
Language Functions. Greeting others. Introducing yourself and others. Saying where you and others are from. Describing people. Saying goodbye. Vocabulario esencial. Greetings. Personal introductions. Personal titles. Leave-taking expressions. Gramática esencial. Subject pronouns. Present tense of the verb ser. Agreement of descriptive adjectives. Cultura. Customs for greeting and meeting others. Addressing others: tú and usted.
2. Te gusta estudiar y trabajar en la universidad?
Language Functions. Naming academic subjects. Saying your address. Saying your telephone number. Saying your age. Stating ownership. Indicating relationships. Expressing likes and dislikes. Describing daily activities. Vocabulario esencial. Classmates and friends. Academic subjects. Jobrelated subjects. Home. Office terms. Numbers 30-100. Colors. Idioms with tener (años, calor, frío, hambre, sed, sueño). Gramática esencial. Present tense of the verb tener. Possessive adjectives. Possession with de(l). Present tense of regular -ar verbs. Me gusta + infinitive. No me gusta + infinitive. Cultura. University Life in Spain and Latin America.
3. Necesito una pasantía para junio!
Language Functions. Telling time. Extending invitations. Making appointments. Accepting and declining invitations. Expressing likes and dislikes. Describing daily activities. Expressing wants and intentions. Vocabulario esencial. Telling time. Days of the week. Months of the year. Gramática esencial. Present tense of regular -er and -ir verbs. Present tense of the verb querer. Present tense of the verb ir + a. Demonstrative adjectives and pronouns. Neuter
demonstrative pronouns. Cultura. Twenty-four-hour system of time. Gestures. Perspectivas Imágenes. La etiqueta o "netiquette" en la red. Comercio entre los Estados Unidos y México. A leer! Using background knowledge and organizational features. A escribir! Organizing information and combining sentences.
PASO 2: ECOTURISMO EN CENTROAMÉRICA. Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panamá.
4. Tenemos que estar de acuerdo!
Language Functions. Naming family members. Describing your family. Describing your house. Describing your recent activities. Discussing your daily activities. Stating location. Expressing physical and mental states. Expressing knowledge and familiarity. Describing how and how often. Vocabulario esencial. Family members. The house. Marital status. Expressions with tener que. Gramática esencial. Some uses of the verb estar. Present tense of other irregular yo verbs. Uses of the verbs saber and conocer. Adverbs and adverbial expressions. Cultura. Hispanic families. Hispanic names.
5. Qué carrera quieres seguir?
Language Functions. Describing your career plans. Describing your work-related activities. Expressing wants and preferences. Stating intentions and obligations. Describing people's routine activities. Describing weekend plans. Extending an invitation. Describing actions in progress. Vocabulario esencial. Professions. Buildings. Gramática esencial. Present tense of verbs with stem-vowel change (e .ie). Present tense of verbs with stem-vowel change (o .ue, e .i). Present progressive tense. Cultura. Higher education in Spanish-speaking countries.
6. Hace mucho calor en Panamá!
Language Functions. Describing the weather. Commenting on the weather. Commenting on the seasons. Expressing your preferences. Saying the year when you were born. Specifying dates. Describing daily routines. Discussing past activities. Vocabulario esencial. Weather expressions. Seasons of the year. More expressions with tene. Numbers 100 - 2000. Gramática esencial. Present tense of reflexive verbs. Preterite tense of regular verbs. The verb form hace + time. Cultura. Climate around the world. Perspectivas Imágenes. La Ruta Maya. Ecoturismo en la Ruta Maya. A leer! Skimming and scanning for information. A escribir! Writing a narrative.
7. Tengo ganas de ir a la playa!
Language Functions. Expressing likes and dislikes. Describing leisure-time activities. Expressing preferences. Discussing past activities. Vocabulario esencial. Pastimes. Sports. Gramática esencial. Preterite tense of irregular verbs. Preterite with stem-changing verbs. Indirect object pronouns with gustar. Por and para. Cultura. Pastimes in Spanish-speaking countries. Sports in the Spanish-speaking world. International recruitment of athletes.
8. Salud y buen provecho!
Language Functions. Naming common foods. Stating preferences. Ordering a meal. Referring to specific things. Referring to things already mentioned. Vocabulario esencial. Common foods. Restaurant expressions. Gramática esencial. Direct object pronouns. Double object pronouns. Imperfect tense. Cultura. Hispanic restaurant customs. Mealtimes in Latin America and Spain. Tapas bars.
9. Vacaciones de verano en diciembre?
Language Functions. Naming gifts you have received. Naming gifts you need or want. Suggesting what gifts to buy. Expressing negative ideas. Expressing likes and dislikes. Describing childhood experiences. Vocabulario esencial. Jewelry. Electronic equipment. Sport equipment. Other common gifts. Gramática esencial. Affirmative and negative expressions. Preterite tense vs. imperfect tense. Verbs with different meanings in the preterite and imperfect. Cultura. Religious holidays in Spanish-speaking countries. Perspectivas Imágenes. Los pasatiempos en Chile. Centro de ski El Fraile. A leer! Guessing from context and printed clues. A escribir! Editing your writing.
PASO 4: DE COMPRAS. Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia.
10. Desea algo más?
Language Functions. Naming fruits and vegetables. Specifying preferences. Expressing likes and dislikes. Expressing grocery needs. Comparing and contrasting. Expressing opinions. Giving advice. Making requests. Vocabulario esencial. Fruits. Vegetables. Shopping expressions. Gramática esencial. Informal (tú) commands. Comparatives. Superlatives. Formal (usted) commands. Cultura. Specialized grocery stores. Open-air markets. Buenos Aires, Argentina.
11. Vamos de compras! Qué chévere!
Language Functions. Stating preferences. Discussing what to wear. Speaking with salesclerks. Talking about future plans. Persuading others. Expressing wants. Expressing intentions. Vocabulario esencial. Clothing. Clothing accessories. Colors. Shopping expressions. Numbers over 2000. Gramática esencial. The future tense. Present subjunctive following the verb querer. Cultura. Carolina Herrera. American vs. European clothing sizes.
12. Qué delicioso el café!
Language Functions. Discussing personal money management. Communicating with a bank teller. Expressing your emotions. Discussing travel plans. Giving advice and suggestions. Expressing your opinions. Vocabulario esencial. Common business transactions. Money management and banking terminology. Gramática esencial. Introduction to the present subjunctive. Present subjunctive following other verbs of volition. Present subjunctive following expressions of emotion and impersonal expressions. Cultura. Coffee in the Spanish-speaking world. Changing money abroad. International Monetary Fund. Perspectivas Imágenes. De compras. Parque Nacional del Café. A leer! Summarizing a reading passage. A escribir! Writing a summary.
13. Te esperamos en Galicia!
Language Functions. Specifying your lodging needs. Complaining about a hotel room. Describing a vacation trip. Expressing doubt and indecision. Expressing confidence and certainty. Extending an invitation. Describing your travel plans. Expressing cause and- effect relationships. Vocabulario esencial. Lodging (hotel). Gramática esencial. Present subjunctive following verbs and expressions of uncertainty. Present subjunctive in purpose and time (adverbial) clauses. Cultura. Finding lodging in Spain. Traveling around Spain.
14. Lo siento, pero no me siento bien!
Language Functions. Communicating with medical personnel. Giving advice on health care. Describing past wishes and emotions. Stating previous uncertainties. Describing childhood experiences. Speculating on future actions. Vocabulario esencial. Common medical problems. The human body. Gramática esencial. Past (Imperfect) subjunctive. Conditional. Cultura. Taking medical precautions abroad.
15. Qué podríamos hacer nosotros por nuestro medio ambiente?
Language Functions. Expressing opinions. Discussing possible solutions. Expressing environmental concerns. Describing possible scenarios. Giving ecological advice. Making recommendations. Vocabulario esencial. Environmental problems. Solutions to environmental problems. Other global concerns. Gramática esencial. "If" clauses. Infinitive versus subjunctive uses (summary). Indicative versus subjunctive uses (summary). Cultura. Education without borders. Noise pollution. Perspectivas Imágenes. La población hispana en los Estados Unidos. Si es Goya tiene que ser bueno! A leer! Reading critically. A escribir! Writing persuasively.
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New years resolutions??
Discussion in 'Slimming World Off Topic' started by KerrieKapow, 5 January 2014 Social URL.
1. KerrieKapow
KerrieKapow Well-Known Member
So what crazy New Years resolutions have we all made?? Aside from losing/maintaining weight. I've decided at 27 I'm going to apply for college and learn to drive!!! I'd say quit smoking but that's been a New Years resolution every year since being 16. Haha!!! Xx
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3. Princess_Stevie
Princess_Stevie Well-Known Member
Mine is just to get to target. I want to be there by my Birthday, on the 8th July :)
4. kikaroo
kikaroo Well-Known Member
1. Lose weight
2. Don't work so hard
3. Make an effort to meet new people
4. Cut back on drinking
I'm going to be 30 this year so I'm determined to stick to all of the above
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Realtime Generation of Customized 3D Animated Explanations for Knowledge-Based Learning Environments
William H. Bares, James C. Lester
Rich 3D animated explanations can have a powerful impact on students interacting with immersive knowledge-based learning environments. By generating 3D animated explanations in realtime, a learning environment can create engaging explanations that are tailored to individual students. This paper presents the immersive explanation planning framework for generating pedagogically-customized 3D animated explanations in realtime. In this framework, an explanation system selects 3D models and their relevant behaviors, creates camera shots that most clearly depict complex phenomena, constructs a temporal organization that synchronizes narrative utterances with visual elements, plans the movement of the virtual camera that "films" the explanation, and incorporates specialized visual effects to focus students’ attention on the most salient concepts. The framework has been implemented in RAPID, an explanation system that plans and renders customized 3D animated explanations of dynamic phenomena in realtime. Results of a focus group evaluation of RAPID are encouraging.
| <urn:uuid:f01e92d8-e203-4665-9714-6bfcb20bb654> | http://aaai.org/Library/AAAI/1997/aaai97-054.php | en | 0.895742 | 0.320065 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
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About LAD_Brooklyn
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Rookie Free Agent
1. Least Favorite Offseason Move?
Picking Williams over Vic Beasley
2. Damon Harrison future w/ Jets
We can't cut Skrine as he has guaranteed money next year unlike Cro. But to keep both Snacks and Mo would be great however we'll be sacrificing our capital to invest else where.
3. What his future with the team? A lot of people link Williams to Wilkerson and leave out Snacks. What is the going rate for the top tiers DTs. Would it make sense to to let Harrison walk and find another 1-2 down NT with us investing that money into Wilkerson? It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
4. A couple of questions: 1) What team out there as of now can bank on getting a high draft pick next year? 2) If so why should they trade it if that's the case? 3) Why should they trade this high draft pick for Mo Wilkerson on a one year contract?
5. Makes no sense to not extend him now while his stock is low coming of a 5.5 sack season. I could just image how high his demand would be going in as a free agency with a 2013 season of 10.5 sacks. At that point the figures may be out of hand. Yes we could franchise him but I'll rather bet on him now for less money. His figure now is only $7 mil. Give him a $8 mil signing bonus so his 1st year salary can remain the same against the cap and he can bring home $15 mil in year one. While the other years can lay around $9 mil. I'm not going to get to far into Quinn contract as I'm not to sure of the details. But I know only $15 mil was fully guaranteed.
6. Pats to release Kyle Arrington
Ryan Logan, Malcom Butler, Bradley Fletcher ?? Who are these people! This year the Pats* will finish 4th in the standings bank on it. Their defense is just way too suspects. I expect Easley to have a good season though if he can overcome the rust from the ACL injury.
7. I feel like this is a Hollywood award show.
One of my co-workers ask me was I watching wrestling lol.
8. So the consensus seems to be Kevin White
Why is White better than Parker? Parker would of had a monster year had he not missed 7 games. Sh*t he had just under 900 yards in just 6 games.
9. Josina Anderson has spoken
Had De'Vante Parker not gotten hurt he would have been the clear cut 2nd WR production wise.
10. Josina Anderson has spoken
Huh? He didn't state anything about about earning the honor of making it to the HOF. More so he talk about his ability so dam much you would think he thought he was in line to go there. Talked up his Bama game so dam much as if other good prospect haven't had those types of performances routinely.
11. Josina Anderson has spoken
White has a yuke mouth. Was watching him speak on tv for 2 minutes and was already turn off. He believes he already in line to go to the HOF someday. So if we had to choose I would rather Parker who is more of an Jeffrey's type WR. White can yap his mouth about his diva greatness is another locker room.
12. The Bengals will have no problem picking him.
13. Mayock mock draft
Anyone has a good streaming link? If not can someone keep folks updated?
14. Not to be rude but I hope he never makes it to the podium and we trade back up in the 1st round if a stud is there. If not it would be great to see him get the honor of announcing the pick. | <urn:uuid:62eb8ac3-a67f-42e0-9ba1-b012555c2bab> | http://forums.jetnation.com/profile/25322-lad_brooklyn/ | en | 0.982851 | 0.028979 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
'Twitch Plays The Legend of Zelda' Is a Study in Frustration
Video gaming's biggest craze of 2014 appears to be the "Twitch Plays" phenomenon, which hit a couple of weeks ago with Pokémon, then grazed Tetris and now has moved to something much more complex: The Legend of Zelda. Watch it streaming on the jump.
If you're skeptical this can actually work, join the club. So far it's a lot of standing around in the first dungeon and getting hit by a Stalfos. Link has infinite health and bombs, so that should help. But no start button?
"The first four dungeons should be beatable without anything but bombs," reasons host Zach Gerlock. "If we somehow get further than that I will have to manually switch items when needed, which fortunately is only a handful of times." He has a more detailed explanation of how this should all work at this link.
Watch live video from TwitchPlaysWhatev on www.twitch.tv | <urn:uuid:6a5f6de6-c7a9-4a65-b2d0-6405e7184f37> | http://kotaku.com/too-many-rage-quits-in-unison-1529236344 | en | 0.941538 | 0.022205 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Pokémon Wiki
IL028: Pokémon Fashion Flash
Revision as of 17:22, March 8, 2012 by Winxfan1 (Talk | contribs)
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Pokémon Fashion Flash
General Other Information
Season: Pokémon: Indigo League Char. of the Day: Suzy
Episode №: #028 Main: Ash Ketchum, Misty, Brock
Aired: JapanFlag Oct-07-1997 Recurring: Jessie, James
UnitedStatesFlag Oct-14-1998
Opening Theme: Pokémon Theme Song (Gotta Catch 'Em All) Minor: Suzy, Chansey Owner
Badge(s): Boulderbadge Cascadebadge Thunderbadge Marshbadge Rainbow Badge Setting: Scissor Street
Pokémon: Ash's Pikachu, Team Rocket's Meowth, Psyduck, Geodude, Vulpix, Ekans, Koffing, Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle, Caterpie, Butterfree, Pidgey, Pidgeotto, Rattata, Raichu, Sandshrew, Nidoran♂, Oddish, Paras, Venonat, Bellsprout, Weepinbell, Slowbro, Dodrio, Cubone, Chansey, Staryu
Major event(s)
Brock gets a Vulpix from his breeder friend, Suzy. Brock's Geodude is revealed to know Seismic Toss.
Pokémon: Indigo League
Episode Plot
Ash, Misty, and Brock continue their travels and come to Scissor Street which is known as Breeder's Lane. Brock explains that the street is well known for its many salons and beauty parlors for Pokémon.
Don't Laugh
"Don't boys..."
Misty and Ash look at a poster outside one of the salons and it has a Koffing and an Ekans wearing many accessories. Debating whether or not to try to enter the Salon Roquet, there are customers in the salon, they are interrupted by Brock, who has found the place he was looking for. Ash and Misty follow him to a store that's nearly empty and Brock suddenly becomes very nervous. Ash and Misty enter the store first and they are greeted by a woman's voice. Hearing the voice, Brock gets over his nervousness, and follows Ash and Misty into the store.
They meet a Pokémon Breeder named Suzy, who is massaging a Chansey. Misty notices a Vulpix sleeping on a chair. She walks over to it, picks it up, and gives a big hug, saying how cute it is. Vulpix is mad that Misty woke it up from its nap and burns her face with a Flamethrower attack.
Brock, who has been very quiet until now, blurts out that he would like to become Suzy's pupil. Everyone is shocked, espically Suzy. Brock explains that Suzy is a famous breeder and is his idol.
Later, Suzy serves Ash and his friends some tea and Brock gives Pikachu some food to eat. Suzy admires Pikachu's shiny coat and asks Brock if he made Pikachu's food. Brock says he did and Misty says its his own recipe. Vulpix walks over to Pikachu and sniffs at the bowl of Pokémon food Pikachu is eating. Pikachu offers some of it to Vulpix and it accepts it. This surprises Suzy, who explains that Vulpix usually only eats food that Suzy made herself.
Misty mentions the flashly dressed Pokémon they saw at Salon Roquet. Suzy sighs and explains that ever since Salon Roquet opened up, people have stopped coming to Suzy's salon and have been focusing on making their Pokémon look good, not making their Pokémon happy. Ash says that looking flashy is stupid and Misty says that even Pokémon like to dress up every once in a while. They start fighting over if it is more important to make your Pokémon happy or to make them look good. Ash jokeingly suggests that if Misty thinks fashion is so important, she should take Psyduck to Salon Roquet. Misty thinks its a great idea and takes Psyduck over to Salon Roquet at once.
After Misty leaves, Suzy doubts her ways, but Ash and Brock quickly tell her that she is doing the right thing. Brock suggests a way for Suzy to compete with Salon Roquet: combine style and substance. Soon, Suzy gives a lecture outside her store on Pokémon Breeding. She explains that after a Pokémon is hurt in battle, its trainer should give it a therapeutic massage, which she demonstrates on Pikachu. As Brock planned, the lecture draws away the crowd from the Salon Roquet. As Suzy, Ash, and Brock explain how important it is to take care of your Pokémon, many of the people begin to doubt if they made a good choice by spending their money at Salon Roquet.
Meanwhile, at Salon Roquet, Jessie tells Meowth to send in the next customer. Meowth says he and James are too busy counting the money they have made. He then notices that Misty is the only customer left. Team Rocket drags her in for a makeover while she protests that Psyduck was the one that needed a makeover, but she loves the bright and flashy costumes they put her in and she asks Jessie and James to continue.
Meowth mentions how they may be able to kidnap Pikachu now and Misty realizes who the Salon Roquet stylists are. Misty yells that she will never tell Team Rocket anything, but James threatens to paint her face like frankinstein if she doesn't. Misty notices that Psyduck has gone missing and she yells for Psyduck. Psyduck, it turns out, has gone back to Suzy's Salon, where it goes into a panic. Pikachu manages to translate that Misty is in trouble. Ash, Suzy, Brock, Pikachu, and Psyduck hurry to Salon Roquet where they find Team Rocket painting Misty to make her look like a clown.
They are shocked when they see what Team Rocket has done to Misty. Team Rocket says they are doing important beauty research on her. Meowth, accidentally lets slips that they are trying to get information about Pikachu out of her.
Team Rocket offers a trade: Misty for Pikachu. Ash refuses and challenges them to a battle. Team Rocket pushes a button on a microphone and revals their newest invention, The Salon Roquet Battling Stage. To start the battle, Jessie and James send out Ekans and Koffing, still in their crazy costumes. Ash sends out Pikachu and Brock sends out Geodude. Brock tells Geodude to use Seismic Toss and Geodude picks up Ekans, throws him into the air, and throws him back down into the ground. Ekans turns the momentum into a spinning attack and rams into Pikachu. Ash tells Pikachu to use ThunderShock, but Ekans and Koffing's outfits block the attack. James orders Koffing to give Pikachu and Geodude a sludge makeover, which blinds Pikachu and Geodude. As Ekans and Koffing are about to end the battle, they trip over their costumes and get all tangled up. Meowth tries to help them, but he gets tangled up too. Suzy says if you focus on only outer beauty, strength will be lost. She tells Vulpix to use Fire Spin, which sends Team Rocket blasting off.
The crowd, seeing that inner beauty is stronger than outer beauty, start ripping off their Pokémon's flashy costumes and wiping off the make up.
Back at Suzy's salon, Suzy thanks Ash and his friends for helping her regain her confidence. She plans to leave her salon for a while and go on a journey to discover what it really means to be a Pokémon breeder. She says Brock is the first person besides Suzy that Vulpix has trusted and asks Brock to take care of Vulpix for a while. Brock accepts and recieves Vulpix. Meanwhile, Misty still has her clownish makeup on and Ash has to hold back his laughter just from looking at her.
Soon, Ash and his friends are on their journey again and they wave good-bye to Suzy. Team Rocket runs past them, being chased by an angry mob of their former customers.
• When Misty yells for Psyduck, her head overlaps James' arm.
• Meowth's Song replaced One Hundred Fifty-One as the ending.
• The outfits Jessie and James were wearing resembled the outfit of Oscar and Andi.
• This episode marks the first time a variation of the Team Rocket's motto was used.
• According to the third book of the "Kids Pocket Books Pocket Monsters" series, the Chansey Trainer in this episode is a homosexual.
• This could be the first example of Pokémon Contests (most commonly resembling Super Contests in Sinnoh), as Team Rockets's Ekans and Koffing dress up (Visual), and do movements (Dance) before an attack (Acting). However, this is not comfirmed.
• Suzy: "Shouldn't you try to stop them?"
Brock: "That's like trying to stop the tide."
• "A Pokémon is like a fashion model, all that counts is a pretty face."
Watch this and other episodes: Pokémon Episode 28: Pokémon Fashion Flash
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Random Wiki | <urn:uuid:f7f68412-ff8d-4a50-8534-64a2576cdd97> | http://pokemon.wikia.com/wiki/IL028:_Pok%C3%A9mon_Fashion_Flash?direction=prev&oldid=311251 | en | 0.951083 | 0.020799 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Dr. Bussard's Final Interview
Cross Posted at Classical Values
Anonymous said...
Did Bussard die, like Arafat, of AIDS?? Just thought I'd ask since you seem to enjoy posting rumors of all sorts here on your blog. Why not start another one?
M. Simon said...
I leave that to you.
As to Arafat and AIDS: I have sourced that from a major news source. If you have any objections take it up with them.
Anonymous said...
Hey, the lights just flickered here...WB-7 must already be built and is up an runnin' baby!!!! WOOOO HOOOOO!
Neil said...
I don't mean to be skipping the FAQ, but do you have a simple explanation for why a polywell reactor will be more economical if it is built with a higher power output? I have read the technical descriptions and it seems to me that the "Mr. Fusion" size shouldn't be uneconomical. Is it just that the waste heat dissipation is easier to deal with in large ones?
M. Simon said...
We really do not have a proper FAQ. So ask away.
The 100 MW (nominal) size is to insure we get above break even conditions.
It can be run at lower power.
Actually thermal problems get worse (to some extent) with larger sizes.
For the most part the reactor is a geometry problem. Even more so than a fission reactor. Size matters.
Building a "large" unit insures that there is margin for error. To a great extent we are groping in the dark. Its why it's called research.
Once we learn enough (assuming the Doc's ideas pan out) we can just work with a series of simple formulas and crank out any size you want. i.e. we can reduce it to a set of algebra and trig problems.
Anonymous said...
WB-7's gonna be one spectacular piece of playground equipment for the your legions of unfrozen embryos.
James said...
Bussard's drive (pun intended) is the kind of long-reaching, forward-thinking investment in humanity's future that will make ALL the difference for future generations - and if the legions of embryos to come are to be protected, you might ask whether or not they'd like to have Safe Nuclear Fusion as a backbone of their economy, rather than the junk we have now.
"Watermelons" and Luddites, Indeed. | <urn:uuid:7b0cbf79-89c6-48a5-b61e-f063ff5540e2> | http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2007/10/dr-bussards-final-interview.html | en | 0.942005 | 0.058651 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Monday, December 08, 2008
Religious Worker Visa Rules Have Been Amended
The Department of Homeland Security has recently amended its regulations implementing the Citizenship and Immigration Services' Religious Worker program. (73 Fed. Reg. 72275 (Nov. 26, 2008)). The long-pending regulations were adopted after Public Law 110-391, signed by the President on Oct. 10, 2008, mandated their issuance within 30 days. Responding to concerns about fraud in the religious worker program, the new regulations require
religious organizations seeking the admission to the United States of nonimmigrant religious workers to file formal petitions with USCIS on behalf of such workers.... USCIS will conduct inspections, evaluations, verifications, and compliance reviews of religious organizations to ensure the legitimacy of the petitioner and statements made in the petitions. This rule adds and amends definitions and evidentiary requirements for both religious organizations and religious workers. Finally, this rule amends how USCIS regulations reference the sunset date by which special immigrant religious workers, other than ministers, must immigrate or adjust status to permanent residence.
The new rules appear to answer prospectively an issue left open by the 9th Circuit in a decision handed down last week. In order to qualify as a "religious occupation," among other things the duites may not be "primarily administrative or support such as janitors, maintence workers, clerical employees, fund raisers, persons solely involved in the solicitation of dontations, or similar positions, although limited administrative duties that are only incidental to religious functions ar permissible."
Responding to criticism of the rules as they were originally proposed in 2007 (see prior posting), USCIS announced:
The final rule also removes the examples of employment positions from the proposed definition of "religious occupation.'' The listed employment positions were only examples, but commenters appeared to believe that the examples represented an exhaustive or biased list of employment positions that were eligible for religious worker status and that the list was tailored only to Judeo-Christian organizations. USCIS has removed those examples to eliminate confusion. The final rule, however, clarifies that religious organizations must submit evidence identifying religious occupations that are specific to that denomination.
1 comment:
Jeff Jacobsen said...
There has been a lot of hanky-panky with R-1 visas resulting in bad things... | <urn:uuid:5109f840-8e9b-41a2-880f-56971c371d4e> | http://religionclause.blogspot.com/2008/12/religious-worker-visa-rules-have-been.html | en | 0.961752 | 0.041977 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
1. New trade minister likely to take responsibility for TPP
2. Warren Truss: a quiet legacy
He runs the country when the Prime Minister is away and has led the junior Coalition party for the past eight years, but many Australians still don't recognise Warren Truss.
1. Fresh fish off the menu
2. Willow Tree cotton
3. Protect mungbean status
Farmers urged to keep Australia's clean, green reputation intact ahead of huge mungbean exports and record prices.
4. Almond harvest starts early
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6. FMD changes help farmers
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5. Dog-eating croc relocated
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Constellation/Exelon deal: Reliability should be the main concern
The last couple of times Constellation Energy tried to sell all or part of itself to an out-of-state company, Gov. Martin O'Malley's focus was almost entirely on the pocketbooks of two groups: Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. customers, and Constellation CEO Mayo A. Shattuck III and his fellow executives.
In 2006, Mr. O'Malley, then a candidate for governor, successfully sued to force the Public Service Commission to reconsider a 72 percent rate hike and to take into account the potential benefits of Constellation's planned merger with Florida Power & Light. He also tried to make executive compensation part of the PSC's deliberations, but a judge rejected the idea. In 2009, when Constellation was trying to sell half of its nuclear business to Electricité de France, Governor O'Malley demanded an average of $200 in rate credits for every consumer, bigger company contributions to a fund that helps low-income customers pay their bills and for the company to cancel a "golden parachute" for Mr. Shattuck.
Now Constellation is trying to sell itself to Exelon of Chicago, and Mr. O'Malley's administration is again opposing the deal — but for different reasons than before. A consultant for the Maryland Energy Administration did mention that the $100 rate credit Constellation and Exelon have offered might not be as large as it could be, but that's lower on the list of concerns than the reliability of service and the development of green energy infrastructure in the state. The Maryland Office of People's Counsel, while suggesting a three-year rate freeze to make sure any merger-related savings are passed on to consumers, is also focusing on questions of reliability.
Under the circumstances, that's appropriate and even encouraging. Concern about electric rates became fused to Maryland's political DNA during the 2006 gubernatorial election, and there is no doubt they are important to consumers, particularly at a time when the economy remains weak. But recent events have suggested that Maryland electric ratepayers have bigger concerns than the size of the rebate they get out of this deal.
Reliability is no doubt much on the minds of Maryland electric consumers these days. Pepco, which serves the Washington region, was under fire for its slow response to storm-related damage earlier this year, and then BGE became the focus of customer anger after hundreds of thousands of people were without power for days following Hurricane Irene. The question of whether our electric supply is sufficient also arose this summer when BGE activated its PeakRewards program — and shut off some participants' air conditioners for several hours on a sweltering day. The company says that had it not done so, the region might have faced brownouts and blackouts.
Another concern raised by the Maryland Energy Administration seems a bit less academic than it once did: the new company's exposure to risk from the nuclear power industry. A combined Constellation/Exelon would be the nation's biggest player in nuclear energy, and although the risks of a catastrophe are low, the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami is a reminder that they do exist.
Finally, the O'Malley administration's insistence that Constellation and Exelon commit to producing 10 times more renewable energy in Maryland than they had initially proposed may sound like an effort to burnish the governor's environmental credentials should he seek some higher office, but it would also have some benefits for the sufficiency and reliability of the state's power supply.
The 25 megawatts of renewable energy the companies offered to build is more a token than a real contribution to Maryland's overall power supply portfolio, and even 250 megawatts wouldn't make a tremendous difference in a state that has more than 13,000 megawatts of electric generation capacity. But the Maryland Energy Administration's proposal needs to be considered in context of the state law requiring power companies to get 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2022. What the O'Malley administration is seeking is simply a guarantee that a larger portion of that power come from facilities Exelon builds in Maryland, rather than from sources in other states. Given that another nuclear reactor at Calvert Cliffs appears unlikely and that new transmission lines to bring power from other states are uncertain, building more clean energy generation in Maryland — as opposed to getting it elsewhere — contributes to the adequacy of our electric supply.
If this merger goes through, BGE will be owned by an out-of-state corporation and will be a much smaller part of a much bigger conglomerate. It's right for the state to worry about insulating the utility from the parent company's finances and ensuring that it receives adequate investments to maintain reliable service. It would be nice for BGE customers to get $150, $200 or more in credits on their bills, but a one-time benefit like that pales next to the costs they could face if BGE service becomes less reliable. Anybody who spent a week without power — hunting for dry ice and batteries, eating out every night and throwing away freezers-full of food — can tell you that.
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5. Confronting toxic blue-green algae in Madison lakes
Confronting toxic blue-green algae in Madison lakes
One day, it may be possible to issue “algae forecasts” modeled on predictions of severe storms, says Katherine McMahon, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and bacteriology on campus. Eventually, she says, the results of research at UW-Madison could lead to a forecast: “Given the conditions today, we estimate an 85 percent chance of toxic blue-green algae tomorrow.”
Toxic blue-green algae are also becoming more problematic in many inland waters, including the Great Lakes.
Currently, health authorities monitor several beaches on the Madison lakes and issue warnings when they detect the characteristic blue-green color. But algae are constantly changing, McMahon says: Under favorable conditions, their population can explode. Soon, however, tiny animals called zooplankton “graze down” the algae, and the population plunges.
“Once you recognize that not all blue-green algae produce toxins — and even the toxic ones don't produce toxin all the time — and you have a recipe for confusion,” McMahon says. To make a good forecast, “you need to understand how these blooms originate and develop.”
Research questions abound. What, exactly, constitutes a “bloom?” Which strains of blue-green algae — technically called cyanobacteria — are toxic, and under what conditions do they produce toxins?
Various cyanobacteria have lived in the Madison lakes for at least a century, and probably thousands of years. “They are naturally present in lakes that get a lot of nutrients,” says McMahon, “and are not an invasive species. But we think an increase in phosphorus from the agricultural and urban landscapes is contributing to more severe blooms.”
Using genetic analysis, McMahon's lab is trying to nail down the toxicity of the 20-odd genetic variants of cyanobacteria in the Madison lakes. The bacteria make for a complex, ever-changing brew, she says. “Some are neurotoxic, some are toxic to the liver, and others may irritate the skin,” she adds.
In general, she says, drinking the water produces the most hazardous exposure to cyanobacteria, but some residents have complained of respiratory distress while water skiing. “There is a lot more to learn about when these toxins are produced and how they work,” she says.
Some of the ecological questions may be answered by Paul Hanson, a researcher at the Center for Limnology, who says, “We have to understand these cyanobacteria in the context of the entire ecosystem, and that's a real challenge. For the harmful algae to grow, they need nutrients — nitrogen, phosphorus and trace elements — and the right temperature and light environment, and they can't be grazed by zooplankton. The interaction of all these factors determines which part of population has the competitive advantage,” and also affects the production of particular toxins.
Lakes, Hanson says, are complex, three-dimensional environments, and making “algae forecasts” will require much time and study. “That would require us to understand the physical, chemical and biological aspects of the system. You can make a prediction based on past patterns, but if you understand the basic science of the lake, you can go a lot deeper than just making a prediction of surface scum. Understanding the mechanism well enough to make predictions is challenging, but in the long run, it's more fruitful.”
David Tenenbaum, 608/265-8549 | <urn:uuid:0f31dfc4-174b-4488-8b0b-79ce91876123> | http://www.engr.wisc.edu/news/archive/2010/Jul01.html | en | 0.930972 | 0.076906 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Despite a harrowing 2-1 defeat to Italy in their opening game, England can take some positives away from the performance. They certainly brought the game to the Italians and for much of the match looked like going on to score had their end product been better in the final third.
Throughout the game the Italians struggled to deal with England's pacey attack consisting of Daniel Sturridge, Raheem Sterling and Danny Welbeck. Taking into account the quality of Italy's defenders, England should prove a handful for a relatively weak Uruguayan defence.
Improvement of final ball key vs Uruguay
England will certainly be hoping for an improved performance from their captain Steven Gerrard after he struggled to cope with the Italian midfield movement. His ability to pick a pass will be crucial to England being able to break quickly from deep against the Uruguayans on Thursday night.
Of course much of the spotlight will be England's world class talent Wayne Rooney in this fixture as he will need to put in a big showing following a below par one against Italy. Rooney showed a glimpse of what he can provide England with following his inch perfect pass to set up Sturridge for England's equaliser.
Vulnerable English defence
Much build up to the game against Uruguay will focus on the quality of their attack which will be revitalised following the return of Luis Suarez. This could be cause for concern for English fans as England's defence looked leaky at times during the Italian game and we all know what will happen if you give Suarez's half a chance within 25 yards of goal. If England can stay disciplined in defence with the Gerrard and Henderson offering protection to the back four, then they have the ability to break quickly and catch out Uruguay. Given Uruguay's woeful display against Costa Rica, England should come out with a victory provided they show the same attacking intent witnessed against the Italians.
Importance of subs for England
There may come a stage on Thursday where England are struggling to break down the Uruguayans and Roy Hodgson looks to the bench for some creative inspiration. This is where Ross Barkley, Jack Wilshere and Adam Lallana can stake their claim to be in the starting line up. Having struggled to have much of an effect against Italy when they came on, these players could save England's World Cup hopes with one piece of magic we know any one of them can provide. Of the three to come on, Barkley looked the most impressive and it wouldn't be surprising to see him included in place of Welbeck in the next starting line up.
Confidence is key
England's players obviously have the ability to qualify from their group but their success will be determined by the level of confidence they play with. If England can impose themselves in the opening minutes against Uruguay in Rio then they have a real chance of going onto win and qualify from their group
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Return-Path: <owner-imap@chumbly.math.missouri.edu>
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 98 23:50:55 CDT
From: rich@pencil.math.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Organization: PACH
Subject: Cuba: 2 Stories of US Terrorism for History Books
Article: 45427
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Message-ID: <bulk.18232.19981017121624@chumbly.math.missouri.edu>
/** reg.elsalvador: 22.0 **/
** Topic: Cuba: 2 Stories of US Terrorism for **
** Written 4:51 PM Oct 14, 1998 by jclancy@pop.pegasus.com.au in cdp:reg.elsalvador **
From: jclancy@peg.apc.org
subject: Cuba: TwoStories of US Terrorism for US HistoryBooks
Where are the terrorists from?
By Rafael Perez Pereira, Special for Granma International,
14 October 1998
On WEDNESDAY, 6 Oct, 1976. It's 12:21 p.m. at Seawell International Airport, on the island of Barbados. It's been raining since the early hours and now the rain is more intense. The temperature, at 27 degrees Centigrade, is cool, but there's humidity and a strong wind and the people of this Caribbean island, visited every day by so many tourists in search of sun and the tropics and where sugarcane also grows, are accustomed to the heat, like the Cubans, and comment that it's cold.
It's not an ordinary day in this usually busy air terminal, in that today, due to a labor dispute on the neighboring island of Trinidad, few aircraft are landing and taking off. Not much air traffic and not much heat. At this time, 12:21 p.m., one of the few air planes to have arrived here today has just landed. It's a huge 151-seater McDonnell Douglas four-engine DC-8 jet, Series 43, displaying Cubana Airlines registration number CUT-1201 on its blue, white and red tail. It has arrived from Port of Spain,Trinidad, where it made the initial stopover of flight number 455 which took off from Georgetown, Guyana, at 10:00 a.m. Its final destination, after a second stopover in Kingston Jamaica, is Havana.
Minutes later, after a precise, routine landing, its 51 passengers begin to descend the mobile stairway situated in front of the left wing and very close to the cabin. Some of them don raincoats; others use the brightly colored umbrellas provided by airport services. For the 41 passengers who are in transit (25 Cubans, 11 Guyanese and five Koreans), it's another brief stopover, less than one hour. For the other six (two Venezuelans, two Trinidadians, one Colombian and a Dutchman), whose tickets are for Seawell,it's the end of the Journey.
Among those descending to continue the journey, two groups of young and animated people attract attention, one speaking Spanish and the other English. One of these groups is made up of the 24 members of the Cuban fencing team which had swept the Central American fencing championship in Caracas one week earlier. They traveled to Trinidad on Viasa the day before to catch the Cuban flight. They are contented with their sports triumph, highly praised by the South American and Caribbean press, but are masking their feat with modesty. At this moment, they're surely thinking of the upcoming reception by their nation, to which they're returning heaped with medals. The other group consists of six Guyanese young people who are traveling to Cuba to study medicine. One of them, Raymond Persaud, 19, is flying for the first time. He previously turned down two scholarships in capitalist countries but, to the surprise of his father, a Baptist preacher in GeorgeTown, he immediately accepted the one offered him in Cuba, an island whose social and educational experience have interested him for a long time.
The group of 11 Guyanese is completed by economist Gordon Sobha, traveling to the German Democratic Republic; Margaret Bradshaw, 22, the wife of a Guyanese embassy official in Cuba, who had left in her country her first son, born just two months earlier; and nine-year-old Sabrina Harripaul, traveling to Kingston with her aunt and grandmother to catch a flight to Canada on another airline. Five Korean officials who are members of a cultural delegation; four Cubans from the Caribbean Shrimp Fleet, and another Cuban official in transit in Guyana complete the group of 45 passengers Continuing on the flight.
Shortly after 1:15 p.m., with the rain still falling, the plane is ready for re-boarding. The 10-member crew, headed by its captain, Wilfredo Perez; the 45 continuing passengers, the 15 members of the crew on rotation in Barbados; Cubana Airlines representative Abelardo Rodriguez Font and his wife Julia Tornes; and another Cubana official, Jesus Rojo boarded the plane.
At 1:16 p.m., the powerful four-engine aircraft, with 73 persons on board, cruises along the rain-soaked runway, almost three k.meters in length, and takes off with the same precision it demonstrated on landing. The plane gradually ascends and, having gained sufficient height, begins to make a southwest turn, in accordance with the flight plan. From the portholes, the passengers can already contemplate the blue waters of the Caribbean. Pilot Wilfredo Perez communicates to the Seawell control tower in English,that the takeoff has been completed normally and signs off. As is customary, the tower wishes him good luck.
Within a few minutes the plane has already skirted the Barbadian coastline, where it can be seen by tourists in the luxury hotels, while it continues to gain height, now in a northwesterly direction Beyond Paradise beach, to the north of Bridgetown the passengers can make out the coastal area outside the tourist belt, its landscape more modest, more expressive of the colonial legacy and of the urgent need for development, dotted with humble fishing and farming villages. Six minutes after takeoff, the Cubana Airlines DC-8 is already flying at a height of 3000 meters, heading directly for Kingston, its next stopover, according to the flight plan.
One minute later, at 1:23 p.m., the first explosion, which shakes the cabin, is felt on board. The highly skilled crew members react calmly, trying to save the aircraft and the lives of its occupants. In less than one minute, Captain Wilfredo Perez has obtained a report from flight engineer Ernesto Machin on the damaged mechanisms and those which are still functional, and has given the appropriate emergency commands to the rest of the crew. Ferrandi, flight purser, and stewards Magalys, Moraima, Marlen, Silvia and Miriam duly instruct the passengers.
At 1:24 p.m., in a steady voice, as the Seawell control tower recording indicates, Wilfredo Perez notifies that airport in English of the explosion and the fire on board, requesting immediate authorization for landing. Radio contact is maintained for four minutes, during which time the aircraft has made a complete eastward turn, in a fruitless attempt to return. The crew has managed to fly the damaged craft in the direction of Seawell for a further approximately five minutes, when a second powerful nitroglycerin explosion in the aircraft's interior virtually destroys the plane in full flight.
At 1:28 p.m., 12 minutes'after having taken off from Seawell, communication is cut off. At 1:31 p.m., the aircraft's signal on the airport radar screen disappears. The sabotaged airplane, with the majority of its 73 occupants trapped inside it lies buried at a depth of 450 meters in the Caribbean Sea, 7.6 kilometers from the western coast of Barbados, at a spot where search and access are very difficult.
A monstrous crime thus culminated in this dramatic way. Its author, Luis Posada Carriles, was later helped to escape from a Venezuelan jail where he was awaiting trial for that act of terrorism, in an operation organized by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and his friend Jorge Mas Canosa.
Under-White House orders, Posada Carriles was subsequently involved in the Central American drug and arms trafficking which resulted in the Iran-Contra scandal, and organized bomb attacks in Havana during 1997. The recent publication of his self-confessed misdeeds in The New York Times has not led to any investigative action in the United States. His boast of being protected by the CIA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is not an empty one.
How can you define Posada Carriles
By Lilliam Reira, Granma International
THAT morning in September 1976, the 28-year-old with long blonde hair got up even earlier than usual,in a particularly happy mood, she said good-bye to her parents and two siblings. "I'm off don't worry about me." That is the image that Raul Rodriguez del Rey Bocalandro has zealously guarded for 22 years, since his sister, a steward with Cubana Airlines, departed for her final journey. "The five of us lived together. We were a very close family. Maria Elisa was very open and affectionate; perhaps that's why she was so loved by every one, in our neighborhood, at work... Since she had done a good job on national flights, she was transferred to the international section, where she had been working for some time."
When the news came, "My mother was shattered. She couldn't endure the blow and died one year later. Meanwhile, her visible pain was accompanied by the obsession that my sister was alive, because in her heart of hearts her death was inconceivable. My father held it inside of him, in spite of being a strong man, he rapidly collapsed into a premature arteriosclerosis when he was just over 60. He died three years ago."
As he recounts this, Raul's face reveals not only sadness, but also bitterness and a hunger for justice.
"The worst of it is that those who perpetrated it are out there doing just as they please, because they are protected by the CIA. Nothing has happened to them. There is no dictionary definition for people like Luis Posada Carriles. How can you define someone who's capable of placing bombs where there are human beings? " JC | <urn:uuid:374d08e5-e8c5-4324-9b4e-0ada7530ee49> | http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43b/137.html | en | 0.963849 | 0.094741 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Vijayanagar (vēˈjəyənŭˈgər) [key] [Sanskrit, = city of victory], ruined city, SE India. It was the capital (14th–16th cent.) of the Hindu Vijayanagar empire, which embraced all India S of the Kistna River and shielded S India from the Muslim kingdoms of the north. At its height during the reign (c.1510–c.1530) of Krishnadeva Raya, the empire had dealings with many Asian and European countries. The city of Vijayanagar, then some 60 mi (95 km) in circumference, flourished as a prosperous trade center and was noted for its artists, writers, and temples. After a crushing defeat of the Hindus at Talikota (1565) Muslim forces utterly demolished the city, and, except for a brief revival, the empire was destroyed.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: South Asian History | <urn:uuid:bc745458-8899-4128-af00-16db9c240a59> | http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/history/vijayanagar.html | en | 0.914605 | 0.02019 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
- Linux - Software (
- - amaroK not finding music (
dwerner04 01-28-2005 12:00 AM
amaroK not finding music
If anyone can help me figure this out it would be great, when I tell amaroK where my music directory is My Music, it adds .mp3 but no .wma. This is wierd to me because when i open a .wma it plays just fine, love amarok but i have 31 gb of music so i kind of need it to add those files, any suggestions?
reddazz 01-28-2005 06:45 AM
Could be a bug. I remember a while ago not even being able to play .wma using amarok. Maybe there is a plugin somewhere.
| <urn:uuid:6ddd053c-3794-4ffa-8089-c6df56776e68> | http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-software-2/amarok-not-finding-music-283143-print/ | en | 0.835371 | 0.020804 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Cutler's Injury: Seven Months Later | NBC Chicago
Grizzly Detail | The Chicago Bears NFL Football Blog
Awful good coverage of the Chicago Bears
Cutler's Injury: Seven Months Later
Remember the sight of Jay Cutler sulking on the sidelines of the NFC Championship game? Remember how NFL players jumped on Twitter and blasted the Bears QB?
Given the news that Cutler did have a sprained MCL, most players backed off their criticism. Maurice Jones-Drew didn't. And he won't. The Jaguars RB says he hasn't apologized to Cutler and he doesn't plan to.
It's hard to remember, but nearly everyone dogpiled on Cutler. The thinking is, if you can walk, you can play. NFL tough guys said they'd need to be carted off the field in a playoff game.
I usually love bashing a quitter, but I managed to remain level-headed in the game's aftermath. Sprained MCL or not, Cutler should have gone back out there. He should have forced Lovie to yank him. And the team should have rallied to his side faster.
Looking ahead to this year, have we forgiven Jay? Do we have his back? Is he the unquestioned leader of the franchise?
We're hearing almost nothing about the guy, aside from his breakup with Kristin Cavallari. That's disconcerting.
Jay should be grabbing the mic and telling reporters how this year will be different. He should talk about leading by example. He should talk about having a lot to prove.
But Jay's silent.
That's who he is.
A city rarely embraces the strong, silent type (or the sprained MCL, silent type, for that matter). It would be nice to hear a little fire burning inside our QB.
But he's just a quiet guy. And the only way for him to silence our loud, obnoxious doubts is to go out and dominate on Sundays.
In the meantime, we close our eyes and try to forget him standing there while the Packers took another step to the Lombardi Trophy. | <urn:uuid:1f93b9d0-6352-4a5a-af15-a8bc56dde6cf> | http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/grizzly-detail/Cutlers-Injury-Seven-Months-Later-127514843.html | en | 0.973841 | 0.036447 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Cyclone's 'Overshooting Cloud Tops' Seen from Above
Cyclone's 'Overshooting Cloud Tops' Seen from Above
View gallery
Tropical Cyclone Felleng, currently spiraling off the east coast of the island of Madagascar, was caught in a NASA satellite image exhibiting "overshooting cloud tops," a clear sign that it is packing powerful storms.
A NASA statement describes an overshooting cloud top as a domelike protrusion that balloons out from the anvil head of thunderstorm cloud and shoots up into the stratosphere, the layer of the atmosphere above the troposphere. The troposphere is where most weather on Earth occurs.
The overshooting top is indicative of powerful storms because it takes a lot of energy to push through the tropopause, the boundary between the troposphere and stratosphere and where the temperature of the atmosphere goes from decreasing with height to increasing with height. Normally, the vertical growth of clouds stops at the tropopause, the NASA statement says, with the clouds then spreading out horizontally, forming the characteristic anvil shape of most strong thunderstorms.
The Suomi-NPP satellite, run jointly by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, captured a false-color thermal image of Felleng's powerful storms during the nighttime hours of Jan. 28 (local Madgascar time). The image shows the extremely cold clouds (the deep reds and pinks toward the center of the storm) that have shot up from the cyclone. (Cyclones are the same phenomenon as hurricanes and typhoons; they are just called different names in different ocean basins.)
The images showed that Felleng had strengthened considerably since the previous day, with bands of convective thunderstorms wrapping more tightly around the storm's center, the NASA statement said.
The Suomi imagery also showed gravity waves (an oscillating pattern in the atmosphere) emanating out from the storm.
NASA's Aqua satellite also took a look at the cyclone and produced an image in the visible light spectrum. This image also showed the strength of Felleng's storms and that its western edge was approaching Madagascar.
Felleng currently has maximum sustained winds of 132 mph (213 kph), with gusts up to 161 mph (259 kph), according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, run by the U.S. Navy and Air Force. The storm will be taking a turn to the south, running parallel to the Madagascar coast in the coming days, JTWC predictions show, running between it and the island of La Reunion.
Reach Andrea Thompson at and follow her on Twitter @AndreaTOAP. Follow OurAmazingPlanet on Twitter @OAPlanet. We're also on Facebook and Google+.
View Comments (-3) | <urn:uuid:6afcbea5-b24e-482d-aeda-ca0197ef3e08> | https://weather.yahoo.com/cyclones-overshooting-cloud-tops-seen-above-181908495.html?.tsrc=yahoo | en | 0.923236 | 0.056401 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Batman: Vengeance of Bane
Featuring the first appearance of Bane, the man destined to one day break the Bat! The sole survivor of the "Venom" experiments, Bane has spent a lifetime on the South American island of Santa Prisca. The time he spent as the toughest inmate in their worst prison led him to develop berserk strength, savage intellect, and unparalleled megalomania. Now free, he sets his sights on Gotham City! | <urn:uuid:38d4c8ec-f1d7-4fb1-98ae-70b7c586bd97> | https://www.comixology.com/Batman-Vengeance-of-Bane/comics-series/8600 | en | 0.943055 | 0.020041 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
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Reverse Transfer Function
1. Jul 25, 2014 #1
If I have the following transfer function:
x = A1 + A2*y + A3*sin(A4*y + A5) + A6*sin(A7*y + A8) +A9*sin(A10*y + A11) +A12*sin(A13*y + A14)
I know x and all the A coefficients, how would one solve for y?
2. jcsd
3. Jul 25, 2014 #2
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Either graphically or by iteration.
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[–]dancing_leaves 1408 points1409 points (4 children)
• Give a person some time to respond (they might be away from their phone at work, school etc.)
• Keep in mind that infrequent responses can indicate a lack of interest. Learn when to move on (take the hint in the first couple days of obtaining a number in most cases; don't harass the person).
• Notice if/when they start texting conversations with you. If it doesn't happen and they're okay with not texting you, you should move on.
• If your love-interest is not responding to texts within a reasonable amount of time or starting-up new conversations, she's probably not that into you.
• The reality is that most people have their cell phones with them at all times and can easily respond quickly to a message; they're just choosing not to (there are exceptions as stated above however). Learn the signs of disinterest so that you can move on.
• A good sign from a girl is when she explains her delay in responses. That tells me she wants to be having the conversation with me and is respectful of my time (happened today with a new female friend, I might be on track to dating her). She usually responds quickly to my "out of the blue" texts, and we'll exchange several texts. She conveys an enthusiastic tone to communicating with me. These are great signs that there's a genuine friendship at the very least.
• Try to remain positive at all times even when you're feeling down. It might help you feel better and you might make the other person feel better as well. Also, since texting doesn't always convey tone, you might come across as whiny so don't do it.
A quick addition to this.
tl;dr The person may be interested in texting back, but they might just be too busy. For example, college students during finals.
The person may just be too busy to text. The girl I like is a premed student and I'm a mechanical engineer major.
We both are busy and will sometimes not respond to each other just because we don't have time.
However, if we BOTH have the time for a conversation, we end up texting for an hour or three.
[–]ShimmerGeek 3 points4 points (2 children)
A quick addition to this -
• if they are too busy AND interested, they'll explain why they're too busy
[–]dancing_leaves 1 point2 points (0 children)
I agree wholeheartedly. It's a sign that the person is conscientious and cares about the friendship or relationship. Those are things that I look for in friends and in a potential girlfriend.
I can always tell if a busy girl is into because she lets me know why she isn't communicating back | <urn:uuid:2c0c5c8e-4320-489b-829d-9886769dcd2a> | https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/17eeb5/what_rules_do_you_adhere_to_when_youre_texting/c84xun4?context=3 | en | 0.965809 | 0.086831 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
I've been looking all over the internet with no luck on finding half life and detection times for Protomax, I'm actually just trying to figure out how long I need to be off it for it to be safe to donate blood...If anyone knows where I can find this information or happens to know...it would be much appreciated.
**I couldn't find IBE's website...I would have just contacted a rep. | <urn:uuid:883e179a-a31a-4d52-a4d8-25eede5d4ad1> | http://anabolicminds.com/forum/steroids/203619-protomax-half-life-post3419952.html | en | 0.974815 | 0.981278 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Ivan Rodriguez off-day interview
Ivan Rodriguez off-day interview
How much has Jim Leyland meant to you and working with him since he was hired?
IVAN RODRIGUEZ: Well, it means a lot to us. He's a guy that he's put everything to us in spring training. He's a guy that's talking to the whole team, spends time with the whole team, and told everybody how good we are as a team.
Basically he's been doing that all year. You know, he keeps us very positive, talking to each guy, sitting in the clubhouse, chatting with us.
It's a big part of the success that we have this year, the whole new coaching staff. I think we're doing it very good.
How is Nate a different pitcher now than he was last year at this time?
IVAN RODRIGUEZ: Well, Nate is basically what he does differently is he throws more strikes. He gets ahead of it pretty much every time, and he just changes that fastball. He likes to pitch more inside now and the sliders.
The key for Nate tomorrow is just throw strikes and don't try to do too much. If Nate does that tomorrow, we're going to be okay. | <urn:uuid:75662abd-c354-437e-aafa-c8340a743df1> | http://m.mlb.com/news/article/1706800 | en | 0.988887 | 0.863115 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Blue Spruce Christmas wreaths - a retrospective
So instead some wreaths vintage 2008.
The way to a girls' heart and all that.
flwrjane said...
Now I really do have to get in the kitchen. you and the hound need to stop distracting me.
World peace hinges upon my dinner.
xo jane
benjiboy said...
Blue Spruce....hummm...we at Higgledy are contemplating growing a few hunderd happy hippy organic little numbers to sell as potted trees next BaybJesusmas. They are a really fab colour that gives the heart a little twinge...or a pluck perhaps...or a tickle...?
George's Mum said...
hello Miss Pickering... Is it possible to order the wreath making equipment online or over the phone as I don't live near enough to pop in!??
Anna @ Evie George | <urn:uuid:2c869eb9-abc5-4d52-ad4f-4002b6aaca74> | http://misspickering.blogspot.com/2010/11/blue-spruce-christmas-wreaths.html | en | 0.924593 | 0.021126 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Thursday, August 12, 2010
DailyBooth for the Classroom?
The idea of taking an image of a student daily, weekly or monthly is actually a neat way to capture the changes in your students throughout a school year. This is not an new idea but many school filters do not allow access to social websites like Dailybooth and youtube. So, how can we do something similar to Dailybooth in an educational environment without accessing a social network like youtube or dailybooth? By using the tools available on your computer and school.
Use a growth chart, a digital camera, and video editing tool such as Windows MovieMaker or Photostory2. If you want to use an online application, I would suggest something like Voicethread or Animoto. Those are usually safe online educational applications.
Decide when you are going to take the pictures; daily, weekly, or monthly. Place one student at a time beside the growth chart and take their picture. Create a file for each student on your computer, so you can move the digital picture from the camera to the computer. Open moviemaker and import the media pictures for one student from the file you created on the computer. (Older students can create the movie themselves. Classroom teachers might want to work with their school's computer teacher to complete this project during lab time.) Drag the photos to the timeline in moviemaker. Add a title, transitions if wanted and any audio. Save as a movie.
If you have the capabilities at your school you could even consider burning the file to dvd in May to create a precious Mother's Day gift.
Here is an example posted by eoraphaely on youtube entitled, "Time Lapse-Grey Raphaely-11 mos", as an example for my early education teachers.
Take this digital project a step further for older students by recording the height of your student perhaps at the beginning of the year, middle of the year and end of the year. How many inches your student has grown? Include all of your student's totals to explore minimum number, maximum number, mean, median, mode, and range. Graph the results.
Or, have students plot their growth results on a free pediatric growth chart such as this one. Then, use the data on the chart to talk about percentages.
Older students could even compare and contrast the differences they see in themselves throughout the year after they create their movie project. Students could digitally record their thoughts and add the digital comparisons or contrasts to the moviemaker project.
Would rather not photograph each student? Elementary students could take turns taking a picture each day of the same scenery outside the school. Viewing the film will be a great way for the children to discuss seasonal changes.
Here is an example posted on youtube by eirikso called, "One year in 40 Seconds."
Another spin on this project might be for upper elementary, middle school or high school students studying a famous geographic area. Students could find as many images as possible of the area that were taken over time. Make sure to include maps. Put the images into the movie application following a chronological time period. Narrate the film sharing details about the changes the area has gone through over time.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Have you Filled a Bucket Today?
Today's lesson is one in making others feel good about themselves and will fit well into your character education curriculum.
After reading the book, "Have You Filled a Bucket Today? A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids," the class brain stormed a list of personality traits. Students came up with words like: kind, nice, respectful, responsible, caring, friendly, helpful, and so on. Each student was asked to expand upon his or her sentence in saying something similar to, "Sally is respectful because she never interrupts people." Instead of just saying, "Sally is respectful." If you have time, I would recommend using a template which has each student in the class listed. Encouraging students to write something nice to say about everyone by using the description words from the brainstorming activity.
After editing sentences, students design their own bucket in a paint/draw program. The images for this particular project were created in Pixie. Whatever you have access to will work. Team with the art teacher in your building and have students draw a bucket in art class then scan the image into the computer. Or during a reduce, reuse and recycle unit, have students build and design their bucket by reusing discarded items like an empty milk carton. Then, use a digital camera to take a picture.
Hopefully, you have access to a student drive and can create a single folder to save the images to. If not, you might invest in a thumb drive for projects such as this. I think you will find uploading images to the internet a little quicker than going into each student's folder and uploading one at a time.
Upload everyone's bucket to Voicethread. Then using a microphone, record the students reading their positive comment about each of their peers. Thus, filling one's bucket.
***With Valentine's Day approaching, you could easily turn this into a holiday lesson by drawing hearts instead of buckets.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Word of the Day
Have fun introducing new vocabulary to your class by incorporating digital storytelling techniques. Try this. Present a word and allow students to use the new vocabulary word in a sentence. For today's example, I used Microsoft Powerpoint to create a my vocabulary word as an image. Then, I uploaded that image to Voicethread. All that is left now is to have students record themselves using the word of the day in a complete sentence. | <urn:uuid:5b239d1c-fae8-4093-96aa-4f78b0d80bcd> | http://smalltownkansastech.blogspot.com/ | en | 0.950004 | 0.116418 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
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I have the following sample code that zooms each time a button is pressed:
<Window x:Class="WpfApplication12.MainWindow"
<Canvas x:Name="myCanvas">
<ScaleTransform x:Name="myScaleTransform" />
<Button Content="Button"
Click="myButton_Click" />
public partial class MainWindow : Window
public MainWindow()
private void myButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
Console.WriteLine("scale {0}, location: {1}",
myScaleTransform.ScaleX =
myScaleTransform.ScaleY =
myScaleTransform.ScaleX + 1;
private Point GetMyByttonLocation()
return new Point(
the output is:
scale 1, location: 296;315
scale 2, location: 296;315
scale 2, location: 346;365
scale 3, location: 346;365
scale 3, location: 396;415
scale 4, location: 396;415
as you can see, there is a problem, that I thought solve by using Application.DoEvents(); but... it does not exist a priori in .NET 4.
What to do?
share|improve this question
Threading? Application.DoEvents() was the poor man's substitute for writing properly multi-threaded applications and extremely poor practice in any event. – Colin Mackay Dec 21 '10 at 17:25
I know that is poor and bad, but I prefer something that nothing at all. – serhio Dec 21 '10 at 17:27
up vote 13 down vote accepted
The old Application.DoEvents() method has been deprecated in WPF in favor of using a Dispatcher or a Background Worker Thread to do the processing as you have described. See the links for a couple of articles on how to use both objects.
If you absolutely must use Application.DoEvents(), then you could simply import the into your application and call the method. However, this really isn't recommended, since you're losing all the advantages that WPF provides.
share|improve this answer
I know that is poor and bad, but I prefer something that nothing at all... How can I use Dispatcher in my situation? – serhio Dec 21 '10 at 17:28
I understand your situation. I was in it when I wrote my first WPF app, but I went ahead and took the time to learn the new library and was much better for it in the long run. I highly recommend taking the time. As for your particular case, it looks to me like you'd want the dispatcher to handle the displaying of the coordinates every time your click event fires. You'd need to read up more on the Dispatcher for the exact implementation. – Dillie-O Dec 21 '10 at 17:36
no, I'd call Application.DoEvents after incrementing myScaleTransform.ScaleX. Don't know if is possible with Dispatcher. – serhio Dec 21 '10 at 17:39
Calling WinForms' DoEvents will not work. – SLaks Dec 21 '10 at 18:00
Removing Application.DoEvents() is almost as annoying as MS removing the "Start" button on Windows 8. – JeffHeaton Aug 1 '14 at 0:24
Try something like this
public static void DoEvents()
new Action(delegate { }));
share|improve this answer
pretty cool. thanks very much. – serhio Dec 21 '10 at 17:42
I even wrote an extension method for application :) public static void DoEvents(this Application a) – serhio Dec 21 '10 at 17:46
@serhio: Neat extension method :) – Fredrik Hedblad Dec 21 '10 at 17:50
I should remark however that in the real application Application.Current sometimes is null... so perhaps its not quite equivalent. – serhio Dec 21 '10 at 18:10
This will not always work as it does not push the frame, if an interrupting instruction being made (I.e. a call to a WCF method which in a synchronic continue to this command) chances are you will not see 'refresh' as it will be blocked.. This is why the answer flq provided from the MSDN resource is more correct than this one. – G.Y Sep 26 '14 at 13:00
Well, I just hit a case where I start work on a method that runs on the Dispatcher thread, and it needs to block without blocking the UI Thread. Turns out that msdn explains how to implement a DoEvents() based on the Dispatcher itself:
public void DoEvents()
DispatcherFrame frame = new DispatcherFrame();
new DispatcherOperationCallback(ExitFrame), frame);
public object ExitFrame(object f)
((DispatcherFrame)f).Continue = false;
return null;
(taken from Dispatcher.PushFrame Method)
share|improve this answer
Nice find! This looks safer than the suggested implementation by Meleak. I found a blog post about it – HugoRune Aug 10 '12 at 11:44
@HugoRune That blog post states this approach is unnecessary, and to use the same implementation as Meleak. – Lukazoid Oct 26 '12 at 15:52
@Lukazoid As far as I can tell the simple implementation may cause hard-to-trace lock-ups. (I am not sure about the cause, possibly the problem is code in the dispatcher queue calling DoEvents again, or code in the dispatcher queue generating further dispatcher frames.) In any case, the solution with exitFrame exhibited no such problems so I'd recommend that one. (Or, of course, not using doEvents at all) – HugoRune Oct 26 '12 at 19:03
@HugoRune I agree, I believe most situations requiring a DoEvents can be written differently in a way which does not require it. – Lukazoid Oct 27 '12 at 11:36
Showing an overlay on your window instead of a dialog in combination with caliburn's way to involve VMs when the app is closing ruled out callbacks and required us to block without blocking. I would be delighted if you present me a solution without the DoEvents hack. – flq Oct 27 '12 at 12:05
seems to work as well.
share|improve this answer
I'm going to use this since it seems a lot safer to me, but I'm going to keep the DoEvents for other cases. – Carter Feb 22 '13 at 22:04
Don't know why but this doesn't work for me. DoEvents() works fine. – miliu Feb 26 '13 at 18:17
One problem with both proposed approaches is that they entail idle CPU usage (up to 12% in my experience). This is suboptimal in some cases, for instance when modal UI behavior is implemented using this technique.
The following variation introduces a minimum delay between frames using a timer (note that it is written here with Rx but can be achieved with any regular timer):
var minFrameDelay = Observable.Interval(TimeSpan.FromMilliseconds(50)).Take(1).Replay();
// synchronously add a low-priority no-op to the Dispatcher's queue
Application.Current.Dispatcher.Invoke(DispatcherPriority.Background, new Action(() => minFrameDelay.Wait()));
share|improve this answer
Since the introduction of async and await its now possible to relinquish the UI thread partway through a (formerly)* synchronous block of code using Task.Delay, e.g.
private async void myButton_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
myScaleTransform.ScaleX =
myScaleTransform.ScaleY =
myScaleTransform.ScaleX + 1;
await Task.Delay(1); // In my experiments, 0 doesn't work. Also, I have noticed
// that I need to add as much as 100ms to allow the visual tree
// to complete its arrange cycle and for properties to get their
// final values (as opposed to NaN for widths etc.)
I'll be honest, I've not tried it with the exact code above, but I use it in tight loops when I'm placing many items into an ItemsControl which has an expensive item template, sometimes adding a small delay to give the other stuff on the UI more time.
For example:
var levelOptions = new ObservableCollection<GameLevelChoiceItem>();
this.ViewModel[LevelOptionsViewModelKey] = levelOptions;
var syllabus = await this.LevelRepository.GetSyllabusAsync();
foreach (var level in syllabus.Levels)
foreach (var subLevel in level.SubLevels)
var abilities = new List<GamePlayingAbility>(100);
foreach (var g in subLevel.Games)
var gwa = await this.MetricsRepository.GetGamePlayingAbilityAsync(g.Value);
double PlayingScore = AssessmentMetricsProcessor.ComputePlayingLevelAbility(abilities);
levelOptions.Add(new GameLevelChoiceItem()
LevelAbilityMetric = PlayingScore,
AbilityCaption = PlayingScore.ToString(),
LevelCaption = subLevel.Name,
LevelDescriptor = level.Ordinal + "." + subLevel.Ordinal,
LevelLevels = subLevel.Games.Select(g => g.Value),
await Task.Delay(100);
On Windows Store, when there's a nice theme transition on the collection, the effect is quite desirable.
• see comments. When I was quickly writing my answer, I was thinking about the act of taking a synchronous block of code and then relinquishing the thread back to its caller, the effect of which makes the block of code asynchronous. I don't want to completely rephrase my answer because then readers can't see what Servy and I were bickering about.
share|improve this answer
"its now possible to relinquish the UI thread partway through a synchronously block" No, it's not. You've just made the code asynchronous, rather than pumping messages from the UI thread in a synchronous method. Now, a correctly designed WPF application would be one that never blocks the UI thread by synchronously executing long running operations in the UI thread in the first place, using asynchrony to allow the existing message pump to pump messages appropriately. – Servy Nov 3 '14 at 18:36
@Servy Under the covers, the await will cause the compiler to to sign up the rest of the async method as a continuation on the awaited task. That continuation will occur on the UI thread (same sync context). Control then returns to the caller of the async method, i.e. WPFs eventing subsystem, where events will run until the scheduled continuation runs sometime after the delay period expires. – Luke Puplett Nov 3 '14 at 18:48
yes, I'm well aware of that. That's what makes the method asynchronous (the yielding control to the caller and only scheduling a continuation). Your answer states that the method is synchronous when it in fact is using asynchrony to update the UI. – Servy Nov 3 '14 at 18:53
The first method (the OP's code) is synchronous, Servy. The second example is just a tip for keeping the UI going when in a loop or having to pour items into a long list. – Luke Puplett Nov 3 '14 at 18:55
And what you've done is made the synchronous code asynchronous. You haven't kept the UI responsive from within a synchronous method, as your description states, or the answer asks for. – Servy Nov 3 '14 at 18:56
Your Answer
| <urn:uuid:1123bbe6-cf69-41cc-83b3-d0ef807a95b1> | http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4502037/where-is-the-application-doevents-in-wpf | en | 0.852682 | 0.100974 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Secret World At One Month
1. It requires a fair bit of computer power. I started the game at my usual 1900×1200 resolution (I have a 27 inch monitor) and the game performed badly. The cut scenes were stuttered, and movement and control of my character were poor. Dropping down to 1024×768 made the game playable and the cutscenes viewable, but obviously didn’t look as good. To be fair my PC is a 4.5 year old device with a quad core and 4GB RAM, so it is not exactly cutting edge (and I do need a new one) but on the other hand it played the SWTOR beta at max resolution. Funcom do have a habit of pushing computer capabilities.
2. Playing in low rez is okay. But it would be nice if there was a low res setting for widescreen. All the low res aspect ratios are 1.3, my monitor is 1.6. A 1280×800 setting would be good.
4. I can figure out how to drag some windows. It’s not a bit deal, but I’d like to make my UI layout a bit more like I’m used to.
I went out to a friends house last night and when I got back at 11:30 I decided to spend a few minutes more playing. At 2:30am I finally got to bed. At least it’s Sunday today and I could sleep in!
The game is addictive, it’s fun. I love the setting and the imagination behind the Secret World. Because it is set in the modern day world it can add humorous pop culture references without seeming out of place (which I know a lot of players hate… Haris Pilton anyone?)
The graphics are excellent, if you’re playing in high rez. However the game still looks decent at 1024×768.
Anyway it Sunday morning and I want to play some more. I’ll write more up later. | <urn:uuid:c42d8f80-b3db-4d34-848d-06c79b174d25> | http://stroppsworld.com/2012/08/05/secret-world-at-one-month/ | en | 0.964073 | 0.029209 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Well, that was a weird week back in Newfoundland
No sooner do I go and predict a possible Liberal minority government than all hell breaks loose. That wasn't the strangest week in Newfoundland political history, but it was certainly up there high on the surreality scale.
I kept thinking that I was going to write another blog post about it during the week, but circumstances kept changing so fast I was afraid to write anything else for fear that post would quickly look antiquated. I was following CBC reporter David Cochrane and NTV reporter Mike Connors (both Muse alumni) on Twitter and there were days they couldn't keep up with the swirling rumours.
For those not following the madness, the week went something like this.
1. Rumours start on Sunday that Liberal leader Yvonne Jones might not run in the next provincial election on October 11, barely two months away. Jones had been fighting breast cancer for more than a year.
2. The rumours are quickly confirmed and on Tuesday she announces that due to medical reasons she can't run. Her immune system is too compromised and the election campaign could be harmful for her.
3. The Liberal executive announce their doing an emergency leadership race. Nominations open on Wednesday, close Friday and the executive will vote who the next leader will be on Sunday afternoon.
4. The creme de la creme of fringe candidates come out and announce they're running for the leadership, including a guy who ran for the Conservative leadership earlier the year and a guy who couldn't win his own party's riding nomination a few years ago. Things look grim.
5. Then, like the shot heard around the world, late Wednesday night it breaks that retired General Rick Hillier is considering running. It's one of those things that would have changed everything. Odds would go from a Liberal slaughter to a landslide Liberal victory. The only person more loved in the province that Williams is probably Hillier. One joke says that Dunderdale would defect to the Liberals if that happened.
6. It doesn't happen. Citing family reasons, Hillier opts not to run.
7. Gloom and despair settle on the Liberals. People I've never heard of before decide to run. A couple of former Liberal cabinet ministers from the early 00s rise like the undead and announce they're thinking of running. One, Chuck Furey decides against running. The other, Kevin Alyward, tragically decides to.
This is the list of candidates here. One is reluctant to use words such as "doomed" and "slaughter" before the actual campaign begins, but whoever wins this (Lawyer Bern Coffey is apparently the favourite) has their work seriously cut out for them. They have less than two months to rally a political party that is pretty much broke. They have to introduce themselves to a deeply skeptical public. And if it's one of the political neophytes who have never run before, they're going to have to get used to the pressures of an election campaign on short notice and try and find a seat to run in.
So seriously, good luck with that. That's a huge learning curve and amount of work to do in less than no time, with barely any resources.
I'll come out with a final seat count prediction once the election is called and we'll get an idea of how the new Liberal leader shapes up. But it's not a stretch to see the NDP taking over the role of official Opposition as of October 12. Not much of a stretch at all...
Last Five
Last Five all from "Light of Endangered Species" by Matthew Good
No comments: | <urn:uuid:14e292ab-0633-44cc-a123-a6194ec190af> | http://towniebastard.blogspot.com/2011/08/well-that-was-weird-week-back-in.html | en | 0.979701 | 0.106809 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Armageddon Recorder
From Worms Knowledge Base
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(Up to Software)
icon Armageddon Recorder
Armageddon Recorder screenshot
Developer: Solemnwarning
Latest version: 2012-02-21
Supported games: W:A
Language: C++
License: GPLv3
Download: win32 exe source (svn)
Armageddon Recorder is a video creation tool which further automates WA's "Export Video" feature, simultaneously recording audio, synchronizing that recorded audio with the resulting PNG sequence, and optionally compressing that video and audio to various compression formats currently provided by FFmpeg. It also acts as an enhanced frontend for WA's "Export Video" feature, providing extra features such as the ability to set the desired background detail level and to hide or show the telephone or chat window.
Currently, Armageddon Recorder depends on FFmpeg being in the same directory or in the Windows PATH to run properly. Zeranoe freely provides updated Windows builds of FFmpeg. Either a 32-bit or 64-bit static build should cause Armageddon Recorder to work.
Personal tools | <urn:uuid:64bb097f-db7c-46ae-a41a-9e49037bf0e7> | http://worms2d.info/Armageddon_Recorder | en | 0.824473 | 0.274578 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Thursday, January 21, 2016
The Oregon Trail by Rinker Buck
The author wrote an earlier book about the time when one of his older brothers and he flew a restored small plane across the U.S. as teenagers. As a man in his 60s, he decided to do something similar with another brother, this time in a covered wagon pulled by three mules. The result is mostly an interesting travelogue interspersed by memoir.
Prior to reading this book, what I knew about the Oregon Trail was delt with in high school history. There was a trail that went from Kansas to Oregon and a lot of folks travelled west on it in the middle part of the 19th century. That one sentence is probably the same as that high school history book entry and I'm glad that Mr. Buck spends a good amount of time with how the trail got started, the number of folks who travelled it (400,000 or more), the perils they encountered along the way, and the trail's impact on the country's growth.
He also spends a good amount of time of how large mules got their start in the U.S. by that canny business man, George Washington. Turns out little donkeys bred to little horses make little mules good for hauling small loads. Large donkeys (a gift to George from some Europeans) bred to large draft horses make great draft animals. It was the start of a thriving industry not mentioned is those same history books. All this history was good reading.
Also good reading is the mechanics of getting the mule team and wagon, the obstacles along the way, how to drive a wagon, and work with mules. Less good reading is the memoir part. It gives insight into why he has more emotional baggage than can be hauled by a team of mules. He's also somewhat tone deaf to his own prejudices. A couple of examples include pointing out the sometimes negative impact of the Morman church has on areas where they predominate while noting the kind treatment received from every member along the way and a rant about highway police followed by the generous actions of a highway policeman. He also notes the great similarities between his trip and those of a 150 years ago which doesn't jibe with him pulling out a cell phone for help while the settlers died from starvation and disease. Still, he's also got a good sense of humor and acknowledges that often what he does is crazy and that he's got some interesting flaws.
Overall, this is a good read and everyone in the family should like it, especially Ian.
Monday, December 07, 2015
Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff
Friday, November 13, 2015
Anya's Ghost by Vera Brosgol
What do you get when you mix a disgruntled teenager, a 90-year old ghost, and a murder mystery? A pretty great graphic novel, is what.
For almost a year, Katie has been reading graphic novels as quickly as I can drive them home from the library to her. I've flipped through a couple, but this is the first one I've finished. I can definitely see the appeal. It took me about an hour to read and I hurried up to finish before picking her up at the bus stop - I knew I wouldn't stand a chance once she got her hands on it.
Knowing she hadn't read it yet, I found myself wanting to censor the content or, maybe, not even give it to her in the first place. Some of the themes are above her current experiences - at least, I hope they are! There is smoking, underage drinking, and they use the word whore a couple times - mama cringe moment. But I'm glad I pushed past that instinct and finished the book because I realized the author had to take the story certain places to bring it back round to its beautiful ending. I trust my kid. I remember reading Judy Blume and feeling like she was the only one in the world who understood. Stories spoke to me as a child and I liked knowing I could read anything and explore topics on the pages that would be too scary to try out in real life.
I find myself thrilled my daughter is going to read this book (she started in the car for the five minute drive home.) It says things that every teenager (and tween) could stand to hear at least a hundred times. But it says it in a way that will be heard - not in parent-lecture form. Graphic novels like this weren't around when I was her age, but great stories were. Anya's Ghost would have made my young self happy - it makes my, ahem, older self pretty happy too.
Monday, November 09, 2015
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
So, I know it's been a while since I've been on the blog. That doesn't mean I haven't been reading, it just means I've been too lazy to blog about it. But now I finally have a book that I think a lot of other people will like, not just me. And in her defense, mom, who was the one who recommended it to me in the first place.
When mom and dad were down recently for a visit, I kept talking about The Haunting of Hill House (which I really should blog about because it's the only book I remember reading that made me squeal aloud in fear.) One of the things I really liked about that book was the unreliable narrator. It made the whole experience even creepier - I wasn't sure what was actually happening because the main character was all batsh*t and stuff.
The Girl on the Train is similar in that the main character isn't very reliable about telling her story - mostly because she doesn't remember large swaths of time when she blacks out due to her alcoholism. But she's likable and interesting and from the get-go I wanted to know what really happened to the missing woman that aforementioned "girl on the train" eye-stalked every day on her way to and from an imaginary job.
Another interesting device the author used (besides unreliable narration) was giving three characters a first-person voice and limiting their narration to "morning" and "evening" snapshots of their days. This made me feel like I, too, was on a train and sneaking salacious peeks at their lives like a creepy gawker. Very nice literary style.
Thanks for the great recommendation, mom! If anyone else out there likes a good mystery, check this one out. I'll be curious if you're able to figure out whodunit very far before the end of the book. What a fun ride!
Thursday, October 08, 2015
In the Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides
Last week, in "the Martian", we had a science fiction book based on science fact of a single man stranded on Mars and trying to stay alive. In "In the Kingdom of Ice", there is a true story of a voyage in the 1880s to determine if there really was a warm water sea at the north pole that could be reached by breaching an outer barrier of ice further south.
If the second story seems more fiction than the first, you are in for a treat. A portion of learnered men in North America and Europe were convinced that the North Pole was an open sea year round, due to a number of theories such as tunnels from deep in the earth (maybe the earth was hollow) feeding warm air or water to the pole and warm currents in the Pacific and Atlantic shooting under the ice encountered as you sailed further north and resurfacing at the pole. The same New York newspaper that had Stanley find Livingston in Africa decided to fund a Navy expedition into the polar ice cap to determine if the warm water pole theory was true.
The newspaper owner funded the whole thing, including buying the ship, giving it to the navy, funding the refit in a west coast navy yard and buying all the supplies. The ship sailed north, eventually became trapped in the ice for two years and then sunk. The crew dragged everything they could south trying for the coast of Russia. The story was a world-wide sensation at the time and the captain and crew were honored as heros.
Everything in this book is well documented and the story is compelling. The tale is interesting enough at the beginning and by the end, I stayed up late to get through the last 70 harrowing pages. It's that good.
Thursday, October 01, 2015
The Martian by Andy Weir
A year ago one of the more tech-interested readers of our book club recommended this book. It didn't make the voting cut but the book has become a best seller and a movie, so it was worth giving a try.
The author is a computer programmer and space fan who made a hobby of understanding how you could send a manned mission to Mars. Once he was into it, he wondered how you would deal with some disaster there involving the crew. It led to him posting a story for free on line of a single crew member being stranded and left for dead. That got enough interest that he responded to reader requests to have a kindle version. Now it's a best seller in kindle and regular print, much to the surprise of the author. It's not your normal version of an author's start in the business.
Science fiction has all kinds of angles, but usually involves an imagining of a technology that doesn't exist today (warp drive or flying cars) but at its best still has humans acting as we know them today but dealing with a different context. Because of Mr. Weir's extreme interest in the science, this story of a crew being the third to reach Mars, experiencing conditions requiring a quick evacuation with one of the crew apparently dying in the process, and that crewman surviving thereafter is as close to the known science of space travel as is available today. It is both a strength and weakness of the book.
The story is a good one that moves right along. You really like the stranded crewman and admire his ability to survive under extreme conditions. There are no bad guys here, just people acting as you hope they would when faced with the terrible knowledge that a person is stranded alone far away with no immediate vision of how he can survive. If you are interested in things technological, then the many descriptions of the science that allows him to move forward will make the story more believable. If you are not interested, then the story still works, but you may skip a lot of the technical description. Either way, it's a quick read and a good adventure story.
Saturday, September 19, 2015
Elephant Company by Vici Constantine Croke
A Boston Globe blurb described this as "...blending biography, history and wildlife biology ... [in an] account of [Billy] Williams, who earned the sobriquet 'Elephant Bill' and his unusual bond with the largest land mammals on earth."
That's a good description of this interesting book, starting with a WWI veteran who went to Burma in 1920 to make his fortune. He always had a strong attachment to animals and especially looked forward to the prospect of working with elephants. The elephants were used to harvest teak in a reasonably sustainable fashion, which means clear cutting was not an option. The various crews would take individual trees in a jungle setting, skid them using elephants to haul them through the jungle to dry creeks and river beds and wait for the monsoon rains to wash them down to areas where they could be rafted to saw mills.
The majority focus of the book is how strongly he bonded with these highly intelligent animals and how it eventually led to him using the elephants to rescue many people fleeing the Japanese takeover of Burma in WWII. The book is at its best when describing the elephants, the environment, the actions of harvesting the teak and the interactions of the elephant handlers and the varied complex tasks the elephants accomplished. The book also verged into what the elephants were thinking and feeling, especially in the presence of Billy Williams, and that may have been true, but went a bit overboard in attributing a sort of ESP between those involved. Still, given some of the actions of the elephants, you can't really fault the author for ascribing almost mystical powers when describing these animals.
This is a very enjoyable story and a fun read. Everyone in the family would like this book. | <urn:uuid:26daffe4-680f-4937-8c2e-c363ef6e2118> | http://www.amosfamilybookreviews.blogspot.com/ | en | 0.979553 | 0.064686 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Seals herding stripers [Archive] - Fly Fishing Forum
: Seals herding stripers
07-01-2005, 07:04 PM
A noticable increase in this behavior over the last few years... seals joining side by side and pushing stripers into corners. I think it could be related to a lack of skates and flatfish, or even the missing infusion of large sand eels into the inner refuge waters lately. I used to find seal-eaten skates, dogfish and flounder bones all over the beach in the past.
I was showing an angler around one day and had easily 400 stripers of all sizes pushed right into the corner we were staking out. What followed was the most frustrating 30 minutes, surrounded by frightened fish that could have been easily snagged but were not interested in anything we could muster. As soon as it was evident that we were wasting time I suggested walking away but he could not do it just then.
Finally, a small fish took the fly and before it could be landed a seal from the threatening circle of death raced in and made a lunge at the fish. I stomped into the water and averted the strike, although it was a dumb move. We released the fish, and he agreed "I must've caught the dumb one in the bunch" and we walked away from a swirling fearful mass of hundreds of stripers to find more willing groups of eaters nearby.
With the southway being so shallow it's obvious that the local seal population has taken residence along the outside of SB this year. I am very curious as to what this will mean to the inside fishery. I believe this is an indication that the finfish forage is on the outside.
From what I have been gathering it sounds like an invertabrate feeding behavior is becoming the prevalent trend on the inside (shrimp, etc). Generally in years where there is a lack of sand eels resident on the inside the fish tend to become more particular, and years where the population of finfish is high inside the fish eat more aggressively.
So if the southway is changing the forage inside then the stripers might be tuned into a tough feeding pattern inside. This will be the topic of study for me over the next few days :D
07-02-2005, 09:10 PM
While the southway has been restricted significantly this year, there seems to be no shortage of sand eels on the inside. The seals have been staging just on the insicde of the southway, awaiting the incoming.
I'm not sure whether the sand eels are coming from the sound via the passage at Morris Island, or the southway, but they are there.
You are right. There does seem to be more seals on the outside compared to previous years.
Keep us posted on your observations.
07-02-2005, 09:18 PM
Thanks Juro.. good report...and remember that apart from stripers.... seal LOVE sand eels.
07-05-2005, 09:18 AM
It might just be that the seals are making a comeback and there are more of them than before. Many are too big to make it through the southway at low tide which could explain why they are holed up inside there and also at south monomoy.
It's frustrating when the fish go into survival mode like that. I think many of the schoolies invade the flats just to get away from thhe seals.
07-05-2005, 06:20 PM
I recently read a report can't remember where but it was about a seal that was washed ashore dead it was disected to determine the cause of death by marine biologists,over 60 lbs 0f sandeels were found in its stomach.The atlantiic herring ,blueback herring have been harvested up north in places such as the Bay of Fundy by foreign netters to the point the seals have had to find new places to find food,I think the seal problem along the national sea shore to chatham will only get worse.
07-06-2005, 09:55 AM
This is anecdotal and should be viewed with skepticism until there's some science behind it, but fishermen on Nantucket believe that the spike in the seal population that they're experiencing on Great Point and over on Tuckernuck Island is the result of oversfishing sharks. With blue and mako shark numbers down (and this is where some science would be helpful. Josko?), many fewer seals are shark food and we get the increasing seal numbers we've seen in the last few years on Monomoy and Tuckernuck.
07-06-2005, 11:45 AM
Broadbill could be right about the importance of natural predoters. Over here in the Pacific Northwest we also have had a seal and sea lion problem. On the Hood Canal which is a natural Fiord created by the ice age retreat and is 60 miles long we had had a serious problem with over population of seals and sea lions. On January 24th of this year a pod of 6 Orcas arrived out nowhere and have been in the canal all this time. These are an ocean going pod that rarely visits the Puget Sound area, been over 20 years from last visit. They average one seal or sea lion a day each so about 700 seals and sea lions out of the 1800 that existed are now ocean fertilizer.
Over the years it was a sight to see a big old sea lion tossing a salmon 20 feet up into the air with its guts hanging out. Now on a daily basis we watch Orcas flinging 800 pound sea lions about with just about as much ease as the sea lions did with the salmon.
I think you need the sharks to come back in a really important way or life on the Cape outer beaches may become not such a good place for the balance of nature. Next time I see our new Orca pod I will tell them they are needed on Cape Cod. Would any of you be willing to take them out fishing for a week or two? Let's keep the coast to coast exchange going!
07-06-2005, 07:49 PM
OC. I, for one, would love to visit them in person in a kayak and invite them over!
My son lives on the Bangor base. Short drive from there! Sorry we did not meet while you were here. Tried to get to the reception but a last minute glitch put a damper on it. Congratulations! Seems the new love of your life might enjoy a tour of the Sage factory on Bainbridge! LOL!!!!!!! Glad to see see is excited about her next flyfishing venture. You must take her on the next Boneclave. And she thought striped bass were fun!
07-06-2005, 09:29 PM
Know what you mean about checking them out. A few days ago Tracy and I were out for a cruise one evening just before dark in the 8 footer with a 3.3 hp engine. The Orcas had been at the harbor mouth of Pleasant Harbor a couple hours earlier so we thought about seeing if we could find them without taking the sloop out. After about an hour cruising the shoreline we decided to head back to the marina. We took a short cut across a large cove and I ran out of gas. As I was filling the engine and 3 of the boys or gals surfaced about 200 feet away. I felt very foolish at first sitting dead in the water but they have become very used to boats and people and totally left us alone.
Orcas are an eating machines and once in a great while they enter Cape Cod waters and it sounds like you could use them right about now.
Many years ago on the bay side I was watching two Pilot Whales that were herding mackeral and out of nowhere two killer whales showed up. The Pilot Whales were gone in a flash and the Orcas went for the mackeral for awhile before moving on and not the Pilot Whales. About a week later on the south side the Globe reported that a power boat had it's prop bit off by an Orca. I think they are smarter than that but that was the story on the front page.
Sorry you missed the reception, it was fun. If you visit your son give me a heads up and we will take you and the family for a great sail on Hood Canal, get some oyster, clams and crab for dinner, oh and don't forget we serve large G&T's with plenty of ice. | <urn:uuid:4bece028-9d19-446c-a3e7-673c4bd05cd3> | http://www.flyfishingforum.com/flytalk4/archive/index.php/t-20759.html | en | 0.975722 | 0.023321 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Graduate School Statement of Purpose
Know what they’re really asking for.
Different schools have different prompts. Nonetheless, they're all asking for the same four pieces of information:
• What you want to study at graduate school?
• Why you want to study it?
• What experience you have in your field?
Admissions committees look for candidates with clear, well-defined research interests that arise from experience. With that in mind, your statement should reveal that you care deeply about your chosen discipline and that you have the background to support your ideas and sentiments. It should also demonstrate that you're a diligent student who will remain committed for the long haul. Always answer the question asked of you. Being substantive and direct is much better than being creative or flashy.
Be selective.
Grad schools don’t care that you make a great chicken casserole or play intramural bocce ball. They do care about those activities that speak to your suitability for graduate work. As a graduate student, you'll be called upon to do difficult coursework and research. You may have to teach undergraduate classes within your field and conceivably even design a course. And you'll have to get along with a diverse group of colleagues who will sometimes work very closely with you. Any experience in school, work, or your extracurricular life that speaks to those abilities is worth talking about.
Make your statement of purpose unique.
While it's important to be focused, there's no need to be boring. To distinguish your essay, add unique (yet relevant) information. One of the best ways to do this is to discuss—briefly—an idea in your field that turns you on intellectually. It's an effective essay-opener, and it lets you write about something besides yourself for a bit.
Ask for feedback.
Be sure to show your statement of purpose to someone you respect, preferably the professors who are writing your recommendations, and get some feedback on the content before you send it in. Have someone else proofread your essay for spelling and grammar. A fresh set of eyes often picks up something you missed.
Finally, don't just reuse the same statement of purpose for each school to which you apply. You can recycle the same information, but make sure you change the presentation to fit each school's individual program. | <urn:uuid:0f7a0261-90da-47c0-9aa0-cc63815e02e1> | http://www.princetonreview.com/grad-school-advice/statement-of-purpose | en | 0.961661 | 0.026736 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Is it fair to ask energy-intensive industries to reduce consumption?
At a debate in Staffordshire, leaders from the ceramics industry warn they cannot be expected to switch off when trade booms
Woman with early Wedgewood pots
The ceramics industry in Staffordshire has come a long way from its historic origins, but is still an energy-intensive business sector. Photograph: Alan Webb/Getty Images
Politicians want us to use less energy at different times of the day to solve the energy crisis. Time shift, to use the business jargon, helps because it removes pressure from the grid by tapering use across the day. Charging customers more for using energy at the most popular times of day can help change behaviour, meaning we all have a more secure energy supply.
But what if your business requires high energy use and trade is booming? That was the difficult question being debated at the Guardian's third regional energy roundtable at North Stafford Chamber of Commerce in June.
In the area known as The Potteries, the local industry is particularly energy intensive. "It goes without saying in modern economies that energy security is essential," said Laura Cohen, chief executive of the British Ceramic Confederation. "While some businesses may be able to make a demand-side response, it's really difficult during a recovery being encouraged to switch off just as manufacturing is just starting to pick up, and those who can't having to pay extra to stay on. With a 100m-long brick kiln at 1,000C, you can't just switch that off at short notice without causing millions of pounds worth of damage."
Some ceramics manufacturers in the region report that energy bills make up 35% of their total costs. "Prices are extremely volatile. It makes running a predictable business model quite challenging. It does make running the business in the UK much more of a lottery," Cohen says. "People want to spend their time making things rather than playing the gas market."
She worries that fluctuations in the market combined with the greater use of renewables could be damaging to the security of energy supply for her members. Protected users, such as hospitals, are reassured that energy will always be made available to them on demand. Why is there no similar exemption for other industries who have no choice but to draw down on the grid? "There is no such security for many industrial users if there is a combination of events such as a cold winter and a loss of infrastructure or political instability," Cohen says. "If we have intermittent renewables on the system, when the wind isn't blowing we are going to need a back up. Domestic consumers are making real choices about when they use electricity and gas, but if your process is working flat out because there is the demand there it is challenging for businesses."
But Sara Bell, principal of the UK Demand Response Association, said all businesses had a responsibility to play their part in building a low carbon energy market. "Every user has a combination of flexible and inflexible demand. The demand that is flexible should be chasing the cheapest possible electricity cost. If we invest in the demand side and manage the renewables we put in we can allow the customer to benefit from the up side."
With such high costs, energy-heavy businesses may be forced to pass on the price of energy to customers. But some fear they will immediately lose businesses to foreign competitors as a result. Jon Cameron, group financial controller at Steelite International, said: "Customers don't care. We try and get a price increase through because of a change in legislation and they'll just go somewhere else. We've got to be competitive as well."
Some businesses have responded by changing the way they manage their energy contracts. Michelin has an energy bill of approximately £20m a year. "We get Christmas cards from our suppliers," joked commercial product director Darren Lindsey. Since the company employed a dedicated energy manager at each site it has saved 20% in five years. "We're being more efficient but at the same that that efficiency is being eroded because we're having to be more flexible in the marketplace at the moment. We're having to turn things on – and we're having to turn things off."
Consumer choice may also provide a role in supporting energy-heavy industries by promoting the concept of lifecycle emissions or impact. Buying ceramics may be expensive, but they are a sustainable product.
As Cameron put it: "Who's the biggest villain? Is it someone who uses twice as much energy to make something that lasts five times as long? We get a tax break for manufacturing efficiently, but nobody gets a tax break for buying an efficiently manufactured product."
Cohen agreed: "An alternative is for the UK to move to consumption-based emissions because that just forces us to ensure that we are not just exporting our jobs and important carbon back. Jobs and businesses are exported. Global carbon emissions go up and jobs go down. The countries with policies in place don't benefit."
Lifecycle emissions are challenging to measure but, "we need to move from being a throw-away society to one that uses durable products," she said.
So what policies might ease the pressure on industry? Staffordshire businesses said increasing gas storage in the UK would help.
"I think the government are ducking the issue on gas storage," explained Mantec chief executive Tim Kelly. "In this country it's pitifully low. There are ships coming across that can get diverted to Japan or Korea depending on who bids the correct amount, so its a lottery as to whether you get that import. As a country we need to have sufficient reserves." Up to 40% of gas imports to the UK are immediately exported as a commodity.
But Andrew Briggs, a development manager at Stoke-on-Trent council, concluded that local businesses were already doing all they could to help tackle energy sustainability and emissions. "The single biggest factor that's actually relatively achievable is power generation. After that it's households, after that it's transport. Right at the bottom of the list it's industry," he said.
At the table...
Karl Mathiesen, The Guardian (chair)
Joan Walley, MP for Stoke-on-Trent North
Davin Bates, Steelite International
Sara Bell, Tempus Energy
Andrew Briggs, Stoke-on-Trent council
Jon Cameron, Steelite International
David Charlesworth, The Crown Estate
Laura Cohen, British Ceramic Confederation
Tony Cotton, Johnson Tiles
Jane Gratton, Staffordshire Chambers of Commerce
Steve Johnson, Electricity North West
Tim Kelly, Mantec Group
Jim Kersey, Institute of Mechanical Engineers
Darren Lindsey, Michelin
Rob Hill, Wardell Armstrong LLP
Tom Nadin, Staffordshire Chambers of Commerce
Kevin Rendell, National Grid
David Woolrich, F Ball and Co
Roundtable report commissioned and controlled by the Guardian.
| <urn:uuid:3c8d3f65-d3cf-499c-979e-4b5f54448ef6> | http://www.theguardian.com/big-energy-debate/energy-intensive-industry-ceramics-potteries | en | 0.962094 | 0.30019 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
i like beckett because you can look up sets and players. But I dont know why people would use beckett to buy/trade. They make you buy a subscription to everything. Which I would never do. HOWEVER, there is massive amount of stuff available, alot of older stuff, its hard to ignore. Anyone attempt to use it? | <urn:uuid:6a274fe9-5a5a-4a99-a001-ddc5ed937ab0> | http://www.tradingcardcentral.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php?t307230.html | en | 0.977819 | 0.99851 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Late Glacial Maximum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Late Glacial Maximum (c. 13,000-10,000 years ago), or Tardiglacial ("Late Glacial"),[1] is defined primarily by the beginning of the modern warm period, in which climates in the Northern Hemisphere warmed substantially, causing a process of accelerated deglaciation following the Last Glacial Maximum (c. 25,000-13,000 years ago).[2] At this time, human populations, previously forced into refuge areas as a result of Last Glacial Maximum climatic conditions, gradually begin to repopulate the Northern Hemisphere's Eurasian landmass and eventually populate North America via Beringia for the first time.
Evidence for the occurrence of the Late GM stems from two main types of analysis. The first is the use of oxygen isotope stages (OIS) gathered from stratified deep-sea sediment cores. Samples are gathered and measured for change in isotope levels to determine temperature fluctuation for given periods of time. The second is a proxy measurement, namely, the observation of certain reappearing fauna and flora fossils that can only survive in temperate climates, thus indicating warming trends for a given geographic area.[3]
Archaeological evidence of settlement and resettlement in certain areas by humans also serves as a proxy measurement. Towards the end of OIS 2 in which the Late Glacial Maximum occurs, the deep-sea sediment cores indicate a gradually warming climate and the reappearance of certain warm-weather flora and fauna remains throughout the Northern Hemisphere correlate with this trend. A period of relatively brief cold oscillation, referred to as the Younger Dryas, is detected during OIS 2 as can be inferred from an increase in isotope weight.[3]
Western Europe and the North European Plain[edit]
Climate amelioration begins to occur rapidly throughout Western Europe and the North European Plain c. 16,000-15,000 years ago. The environmental landscape becomes increasing boreal except in the far north, where conditions remain arctic. Sites of human occupation reappear in northern France, Belgium, northwest Germany, and southern Britain between 15,500 and 14,000 years ago. Many of these sites are classified as Magdalenian, though other industries containing distinctive curved back and tanged points appear, as well. As the Fennoscandian ice sheet continued to shrink, plants and people began to repopulate the freshly deglaciated areas of southern Scandinavia.[4]
Between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago, the western coast of Norway and southern Sweden to latitude 65° north becomes occupied by sites belonging to the Fosna-Hensbacka complex. They are defined by the appearance of tanged points and other artifacts similar to those found earlier in Northwest Germany. Komsa sites are found about 7,000 years ago along Norway's Finnmark county above 70° north and further east on the Kola Peninsula. They are defined by surface finds of tanged points, burins, scrapers, and adzes. The primary game of Magdalenian hunters appears to have been reindeer, though evidence of bird and shellfish consumption persist, as well.[4]
East European Plain[edit]
Periglacial loess-steppe environments prevail across the East European Plain during this time, although climates ameliorated slightly during several brief interstadials and began to warm significantly after the beginning of the Late Glacial Maximum. Pollen profiles for this time indicate a pine-birch woodland interspersed with the steppe in the deglaciated northern plain, birch-pine forest with some broadleaf trees in the central region, and steppe in the south. This pattern reflects the reemergence of a marked zonation of biomes with the decline of glacial conditions. Human site occupation density was most prevalent in the Crimea region and increased as early as around 16,000 years before the present. Reoccupation of northern territories of the East European Plain, though, did not occur until 13,000 years ago. Prior to this, settlement of the central portion of the East European Plain was significantly reduced during a period of maximum cold c. 21,000-17,000 years BP.[2]
Overall, little archaeological evidence suggests major shifting settlement pattern during this time on the East European plain. This is unlike what was occurring in Western Europe, where Magdalenian industry producers were rapidly repopulating much of Europe. Evidence of this can be found as far east at Kunda sites (about 10,000 years ago) located throughout Baltic country territory where tanged point and other tool making traditions reminiscent of the northwestern European Magdalenian persist.[4]
Generally, lithic technology is dominated by blade production and typical Upper Paleolithic tool forms such as burins and backed blades (the most persistent). Kostenki archaeological sites of multiple occupation layers persist from the Last Glacial Maximum and into the Late Glacial Maximum on the eastern edge of the Central Russian Upland, along the Don River. Epigravettian archaeological sites, similar to Eastern Gravettian sites, are common in the southwest, central, and southern regions of the East European Plain c. 17,000-10,000 years BP, and are also present in the Crimea and Northern Caucasus.[2]
The time of the Epigravettian also reveals evidence for tailored clothing production, a tradition persisting from preceding Upper Paleolithic archaeological horizons. Fur-bearing small mammal remains abound such as Arctic fox and paw bones of hares, reflecting pelt removal. Large and diverse inventories of bone, antler, and ivory implements are common, and ornamentation and art are associated with all major industries. Insights into the technology of this period can also be seen in features such as structures, pits, and hearths mapped on open-air occupation areas scattered across the East European Plain.[2]
Mammoths were typically hunted for fur, bone shelter, and bone fuel. In the southwest region around the middle Dnestr Valley, sites are dominated by reindeer and horse from the Last GM to the Late Gm accounting for 80 to 90% of the identifiable large mammal remains. Mammoth is less common, typically 15% or less since the availability of wood eliminated the need for heavy consumption of bone fuel and collection of large bones for construction. Mammoth remains may have been collected for other raw material, namely ivory. Other large mammals in modest numbers include steppe bison and red deer. Plant foods more likely played an increasing role in the southwest region than in the central and southern plains since southwest sites consistently yield grinding stones widely thought to have been used for preparation of seeds, roots, and other plant parts.[2]
Siberian Plain[edit]
During the Late GM, southern Siberia supported little vegetation, though some trees - mainly pine - persisted. Evidence comes not only from pollen-spore data, but also from wood charcoal in former hearths at archaeological sites. Pollen samples around Chukotka, and the Taimyr Peninsula indicate a forest zone emerging roughly 7000 years ago and slightly warmer climates than at the present.
The earliest human reoccupation of Siberia does not begin until 21,000 years ago. Evidence of this persists mainly in the south around Lake Baikal, as at the Studenoe site, for example. Later sites include Kokorevo in the Yenisei Valley and Chernoozer'e in the Ob River basin. These sites are confined to latitudes below 57°N and most are C14 dated from 19,000 to 14,000 years ago. Settlements differ from those of the East European Plain as they reflect a more mobile lifestyle due to the absence of mammoth-bone houses and storage pits, all indicators of long-term settlement. Visual art is uncommon. Fauna remains consist of red deer, reindeer, and moose and indicate a mainly meat-oriented diet.
The habitat of Siberia was far more harsh than any other area during the Late GM and often did not provide enough survival opportunities for its human inhabitants. This is what forced human groups to remain dispersed and mobile throughout the years. Such is reflected in the lithic technology, as tiny blades were typically manufactured, often termed microblades less than 8 cm wide with unusually sharp edges indicating frugality due to low resource levels. They were fixed into grooves along one or both edges of a sharpened bone or antler point. Specimens of complete microblade-inset points have been recovered from both Kokorevo and Chernoozer'e. At Kokorevo, one was found embedded in a bison shoulder blade.
As climates warmed further around 15,000 years, fish began to populate rivers, and technology used to harvest them - such as barbed harpoons - first appeared on the Upper Angara river. At this time, people expanded northwards into the Middle Lena Basin. By 11,000 years ago, settlement size increased as discovered at the Ust'-Belaya site where fauna remains consisted of entirely modern-type remains of deer, moose, fish, and traces of domesticated dogs. New technology such as fish hooks appear among bone and antler implements.[4]
The Dyuktai culture near Dyuktai cave on the Aldan River at 59°N are similar to southern Siberian sites and include the wedge-shaped cores and microblades, along with some bifacial tools, burins, and scrapers. This site likely represents the material remains of the people who spread across the Bering Land Bridge and into the New World. At 12,000 years ago, the Sumnagin culture appears over large portions of northern and eastern Siberia. These sites are small and yield few artifacts of small blades struck off thin cylindrical cores. Bone tools are absent, as well as fishing equipment.[4]
Most Sumnagin sites were located in the forest zone, and because of that, most tools were likely created from wood which would help explain a sparse archaeological record. Another factor may be low levels of human settlement since the region of the Sumnagin culture could likely only support a considerably lower biomass than the rest of Eurasia. This is even reflected today along the Middle Lena Basin among current human populations. The Sumnagin diet consisted of large mammals such as deer, moose, and even brown bear as revealed by the fauna remains found. Nevertheless, Sumnagin culture representatives move northward and become the first to populate Siberia's Arctic tundra c.about 10,000 years ago.[4]
At around 9,500-9,000 years ago, Sumnagin sites spread to Zhokhov Island, where slotted bone and antler points, antler and ivory mattocks, and bone handles for cutting tools were found. Few wooden artifacts were also found, including a large shovel or scoop, arrow shafts, and a sledge-runner fragment. Fauna remains consist of reindeer and polar bear. Only isolated bones of walrus, seal, and birds were identified. Further settlement proceeded eastward and westward into Chukotka and the Taimyr Peninsula.[4]
North America[edit]
Main article: Wisconsin Glaciation
Over the land between the Lena Basin and northwest Canada, increased aridity occurred during the Last Glacial Maximum. Sea level fell to about 120 m below its present position, exposing a dry plain between Chukotka and western Alaska. Clear skies reduced precipitation, and loess deposition promoted well-drained, nutrient-rich soils that supported diverse steppic plant communities and herds of large grazing mammals. The wet tundra soils and spruce bogs that exist today were absent.
Cold temperatures and massive ice sheets covered most of Canada and the northwest coast, thus preventing human colonization of North America prior to 16,000 years ago. An "ice-free corridor" through western Canada to the northern plains is thought to have opened up no earlier than 13,500 years ago. However, deglaciation in the Pacific northwest may have taken place more rapidly and a coastal route could have been available by 17,000 years ago. Rising temperatures and increased moisture accelerated environmental change after 14,000 years ago, as shrub tundra replaced dry steppe in many parts of Beringia.
Camp settlement sites are found along Tanana River in central Alaska by 14,000 years ago and some evidence suggests human exploration at the Bluefish Caves in the Yukon as early as 15,500 years ago. Earliest occupation levels at the Tanana Valley sites contain artifacts similar to the Siberian Dyuktai culture. At Swan Point, these comprise micoblades, burins, and flakes struck from bifacial tools. Artifacts at the nearby site of Broken Mammoth are few, but include several rods of mammoth ivory. The diet was of large mammals and birds, as indicated by faunal remains.
Earliest site occupation at Ushki sites of central Kamchatka (about 13,000 years ago) display evidence of small oval houses and bifacial points. Stone pendants, beads, and a burial pit are present. In central Alaska up the northern foothills at the Dry Creek site c. 13,500-13,000 years ago near Nenana Valley, small bifacial points were found. People were thought to have moved into this area to hunt elk and sheep on a seasonal basis. Microblade sites typologically similar to Dyuktai appear about 13,000 years ago in central Kamchatka and throughout many parts of Alaska.
Around 12,000 years ago, the rising sea level reached a position less than 60 m below today's level and flooded the lowlands between Chukotka and western Alaska. The ensuing increase in moisture accelerated Alaska's transition to wet tundra and coniferous forests. The Bering Land Bridge had closed, thus Beringia ceased to exist. About this time, sites that comprise the Denali complex appeared and persisted to about 7,500 years ago. Denali complex sites indicate high yields of caribou remains c. 8,000 years ago and corresponds with an increase in settlement size.[4]
Human genetics[edit]
The European distribution of Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a has been suggested to have occurred as a result of receding glacial activity, allowing males bearing the lineage from the present day territory of Ukraine to migrate and gradually populate central, northern, and western Europe.[5]
Alternatively, it has been proposed that males from haplogroup Hg P*(xR1a1) or R1b (Y-DNA) repopulated most of Europe shortly after the Last Glacial Maximum, related to population expansions out of the Franco-Cantabrian region.[6] The European distribution of Y-chromosome haplogroup I and various associated subclades has also been explained as resulting from male postglacial recolonization of Europe from refuge in the Balkans, Iberia, and Eastern Europe.[7]
Males possessing haplogroup Q are postulated as representing a significant portion of the population who crossed Beringia and populated North America for the first time.[8]
The distribution of mtDNA haplogroup H has been postulated as representing the major female repopulating of Europe after the Last Glacial Maximum from the Franco-Cantabrian region.[9] mtDNA haplogroups A, B, C, D, and X are interpreted according to some as supporting a single pre-Clovis populating of the Americas via a coastal route.[10]
See also[edit]
1. ^ Though recent works define the Tardiglacial rather differently, as "12-10 kyr BP" here or 15,000 - 10,000 BP here
2. ^ a b c d e Hoffecker, J. 2002. Desolate Landscapes: Ice Age Settlement in Eastern Europe. Rutgers University Press: New Jersey.
3. ^ a b Hoffecker, J. (2005). A Prehistory of the North: Human Settlements of the Higher Latitudes. Rutgers University Press: New Jersey. ISBN 978-0-8135-3469-5.
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Hoffecker, J. 2006. A Prehistory of the North: Human Settlements of the Higher Latitudes. Rutgers University Press: New Jersey.
6. ^ Dupuy, B.; et al. (2006). "Geographical heterogeneity of Y-chromosomal lineages in Norway". Forensic Science International 164 (1): 10–19. doi:10.1016/j.forsciint.2005.11.009. PMID 16337760.
7. ^ Rootsi, S.; Magri, C.; Kivisild, T.; et al. (2004). "Phylogeography of Y-chromosome haplogroup I reveals distinct domains of prehistoric gene flow in europe". Am. J. Hum. Genet. 75 (1): 128–37. doi:10.1086/422196. PMC 1181996. PMID 15162323.
8. ^ Zegura SL, Karafet TM, Zhivotovsky LA, Hammer MF (January 2004). "High-resolution SNPs and microsatellite haplotypes point to a single, recent entry of Native American Y chromosomes into the Americas". Mol. Biol. Evol. 21 (1): 164–75. doi:10.1093/molbev/msh009. PMID 14595095.
9. ^ Achilli, A. (2004). "The Molecular Dissection of mtDNA Haplogroup H Confirms That the Franco-Cantabrian Glacial Refuge Was a Major Source for the European Gene Pool". American Journal of Human Genetics 75 (5): 910–918. doi:10.1086/425590. PMC 1182122. PMID 15382008.
10. ^ Fagundes, N. (2008). "Mitochondrial Population Genomics Supports a Single Pre-Clovis Origin with a Coastal Route for the Peopling of the Americas". The American Journal of Human Genetics 82 (3): 583–592. doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2007.11.013. PMC 2427228. PMID 18313026. | <urn:uuid:9a0a3225-a22a-488d-b8c2-2cdc6b455920> | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Glacial_Maximum | en | 0.931003 | 0.040806 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
[SciPy-User] Default tolerances for scipy.integrate.quadrature
Andrew Nelson andyfaff@gmail....
Wed Apr 24 08:21:22 CDT 2013
Dear list,
I am using scipy.integrate.quadrature to do some adaptive gaussian
quadrature. I am wondering about the default options for the
tol=1.49e-8, rtol=1.49e-8
I was wondering where these numbers come from? Are they related to
some sort of hardware feature (e.g. related to machine precision)?
Whilst I'm on this topic, I've noticed that a minimum number of
adaption iterations for my problem using this function is
approximately 10. I was wondering if it would be possible to add a
'startingOrder' keyword, so that the iteration could start from a 10th
order integration? I don't mind trying to add this myself, if it
would prove useful for scipy.
Dr. Andrew Nelson
More information about the SciPy-User mailing list | <urn:uuid:01ce8852-7ddc-4c05-9e0a-b0ffcdb581e5> | https://mail.scipy.org/pipermail/scipy-user/2013-April/034496.html | en | 0.787256 | 0.029136 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
the world's premier FREE website for learners + teachers of English
Appearances are deceptive
This page is about the saying "Appearances are deceptive".
Possible interpretation: The way something or someone looks from outside may give us the wrong impression.
Note: appearances (noun) = the way that something or someone looks | deceptive (adj.) = misleading; seeming to be different from the reality
Quick Quiz:
If it's true that "appearances are deceptive", how should we judge appearances? We should
a. investigate them further
b. believe them automatically
c. refuse to believe them
Saying of the Day
This entry is in the following categories:
Contributor: Josef Essberger | <urn:uuid:35a73e5f-a33c-4f3e-9142-0f3c1b59fab9> | https://www.englishclub.com/ref/esl/Sayings/A/Appearances_are_deceptive_832.htm | en | 0.929037 | 0.191345 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
tagIncest/TabooSoccer Mom Lusts for Stud Son
Soccer Mom Lusts for Stud Son
Let me introduce myself, my name is Shelly and I'm a single mother living with my 18 year old son, Ryan. I filed for divorce with Ryan's father when he was still very young, I caught his father sleeping around and that was the end of our relationship. Luckily, he was a very wealthy man so I was able to focus on raising Ryan without having to work. I'm only 39 years old, so I'm a lot younger compared to most of Ryan's friends, and I'm well aware that they call me a "MILF." I have a lot of free time and spend a lot of time in the gym working on my body, and sometimes I like to show it off. Recently, I've been having a lot of 'taboo' thoughts about my son that I can't seem to shake out of my mind. I know it's wrong, but I haven't been with a man since his father, and a woman has her needs.
Let me tell you little about my son. Ryan has played soccer since he was 5 and is the star of his school's team. He's currently in his senior year of high school and is trying to decide which scholarship he should accept, schools have been all over him for his soccer skills. Ryan is 6'2 and has a very athletic build, he is constantly going to the gym and practicing on his soccer skills. He often walks around the house in just his shorts with no shirt on, and I don't think he realizes how crazy that makes me. He's such a great kid too, very loving and respectful, he means the world to me.
I sat in the rain watching my son's soccer game, it's been pouring all day but unless there is lightning they never cancel the games. Unfortunately they are getting killed 4-0 which makes it even worse. I suddenly heard the girls in front of me mention my son's name and start giggling. I could only imagine what they were saying, my son is very handsome and popular so I imagine he's been with at least a few girls.
The game finally ended and my son walked over to me, covered in mud and frowning.
"It's alright Ry, you guys will beat 'em next time."
"Yea, I don't know mom, they kicked our asses pretty good." he replied
"Oh well, lets go home and I'll cook us a nice dinner!"
We walked over to my car and I realized he was too muddy and would create a mess if he came in my car like that.
"Ryan, you'll have to take off your shoes and socks, they are covered in mud."
He agreed and started to untie his cleats and remove his socks.
I then realized that his shorts were too wet and muddy as well.
"You better take off your shorts too, those things are filthy."
"That's okay mom, I'll clean up the seats for you when we get home." he replied
"Nonsense, this car is a lease and I'm not taking any risks, now take off your shorts and you better take off that shirt as well, both are covered in mud."
"Okay, okay, fine." he reluctantly agreed.
He moved towards the back of the van and I turned away to give him privacy. However, I could see him in the rear view mirror and couldn't help but peek at him removing his shirt and shorts. He was wearing white boxer-briefs and I could tell they were also wet because I could see his athletic butt was visible.
He walked back to the front of the fan and was about to open the passenger door when I stopped him.
"Ry, it looks like your briefs got soaked too, and I won't embarrass you by making you take those off too, but there is a towel in the car and we better get you dried off before coming in."
"But mom, I'm out here almost naked I don't want anyone seeing me!"
"Oh honey, look around, everyone else left. We are the only ones left in this lot!"
He looked around and shrugged his shoulders in agreement.
I grabbed the towel out of the trunk and began to try his back.
"Uh mom, I can dry myself off, you can sit inside the warm car."
It was still raining out, and we were taking shelter under the trunk door, but it was still freezing.
"That's okay mister, it's a lot easier to have someone else dry you then trying to dry your back area by yourself, now stand still and stop arguing."
He sighed and reluctantly stopped resiting.
I ran the towel through his dark hair, massaging his scalp with my long nails through the towel. I slowly moved the towel down to his neck and back, admiring his toned muscles. I reached his lower back and then finally began drying off his briefs which stuck to his butt.
"Wow, how did your briefs get so soaked? You must have been sliding around out there."
"Yeah, it was really slippery out there." he said
I was basically just grabbing his ass through the towel and slowly moving my hands up and down. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't starting to get aroused. I suddenly realized I was spending a little too much time focusing on his tight butt, so I moved the towel down his muscular thighs and legs.
"Okay, turn around and I'll get your front too."
"Uhh, I think it's okay mom, my front feels pretty dry."
"Now Ryan, I know you are eager to get going but I don't want you getting sick, now turn around so we can get going."
He slowly turned around to face me, and my eyes immediately dropped down to his briefs. The entire front of his briefs were transparent from the wetness, and I could clearly make out the entirety of his cock and balls.
I looked at his face and he was just staring down into the ground, too embarrassed to look me in the eyes.
My heart started pounding and I had to take a moment to get myself together. I slowly moved the towel towards his chest, my hands were beginning to shake. I moved the towel along his hard pecs, gently squeezing them as I dried them. Moving my hands further down to his stomach, I slowly bent down and looked up to his face. His eyes were glued to my chest. I looked down and noticed my white blouse had gotten wet and my black bra was completely visible. I know it was wrong, but knowing he was staring at my chest was really turning me on.
I finished drying his chest and stomach and bent down on my knees to dry off his lower body. I was now eye level with his manhood and realized it was going to be a difficult situation to dry his briefs off without making contact with his penis.
I also couldn't help but notice that his cock was growing larger. It looked like he was now almost fully erect, the shaft of his cock was now strained against his tight briefs, and the head looked like it was trying to escape from the top of his waistband. I was shocked at the size of it, he definitely didn't take after his father.
The silence between us was starting to make things awkward, so I felt like I had to break it. I was close to saying something about how big he was, but decided it would be inappropriate.
"Okay hun, we're almost done, just hang in there."
I began to towel off his briefs, starting with the side where his cock wasn't bulging out. I grabbed his balls through the towel and gently massaged them with the towel to dry them good. As I grabbed his balls, I noticed he squirmed a little. I finally moved the towel over to the other side of his briefs where his massive cock was strained against his leg. I placed the towel over his shaft and began sliding it up and down his raging member. It's been so long since I last touched a penis, even though I wasn't directly touching it, it still felt shivers sent down my spine. I was so focused on his beautiful cock, I realized I had been inadvertently jerking my own son off. I quickly snapped out of my trance and moved down to his thighs. I felt bad leaving my son standing there with a raging hard-on, but I was his mother for goodness sake.
"Hmm, okay Ryan, I think you are all set to hop in the car now."
He was completely speechless and quickly hopped into the passenger seat.
He sat there covering his raging member, but his hands could only cover so much. I smiled to myself knowing that I could still give such a young stud a hard-on.
We pulled into the garage and I noticed he was walking with a limp to the door.
"What's wrong Ry, did you hurt yourself during the game?"
"Yeah, I think I pulled a hammy or something, my thigh is killing me."
This was a perfect opportunity for me. I took some lessons to become a masseuse a few years back, but never ended up going through with it. However, I still had a massage table set up in the basement.
"Well Honey, you know I'm pretty good with my hands, why don't you let me give you a massage to workout the kinks?"
"Oh jeez mom, I mean that would be great but you really don't have to."
"It would be my pleasure, besides I have that table downstairs that is just going to waste. Why don't you throw your briefs into the wash and put a towel around yourself and meet me in the basement."
"Okay, thanks mom, I'll be right down."
Story will be continued later this week, stay tuned!
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I have a printer capable of printing high res photos on photo paper, and duplex documents on plain A4.
I have set the printer up twice (i.e. two separate printers pointing to the same URI) using the CUPS interface at http://localhost:631, once called Documents, once called Photos. For each of these instances I have set up the appropriate defaults (media type, size, print quality, duplex...). CUPS seems to remember these fine but applications (e.g. LibreOffice, EOG, firefox ... under Gnome Shell FWIW) seem to have some weird other default that bears no resemblance to either the defaults I set up, nor the last settings I used with any particular application.
It's a problem because there are so many settings to change that it adds a couple of minutes to each and every print job. Inevitably I forget one or two and end up having to reprint the job.
Seems there must be somewhere that these defaults get stored? Anyone shed any light on it?
share|improve this question
Are you sure these apps are able to do that ? CUPS can do that not sure about others. Also try asking in – Suhaib Feb 8 '13 at 21:50
An app is able to use and configure a printer. So if an app can choose a printer, and that printer is set up a particular way, it does not place any further feature requirements on the app itself. The question is why apps are not using printers' defaults – artfulrobot Feb 10 '13 at 8:29
I have three CUPS print queues configured with the same printer URI. Queue "deskjet" is configured with my local standard paper, queue "Legal" is configured with "Legal" size paper, and queue "Envelopes" is configured for #10 Envelopes. "Legal" and "Envelopes" queues are stopped (via cupsdisable).
First, add the queue in CUPS (http://localhost:631), then use Administration->Modify Printer to change the paper type and other characteristics.
I use my setup like this:
# print to the Envelope queue ( select Envelope queue in your app)
envelope .envelope/addresses/Friend4 | lpr -PEnvelope
cupsdisable deskjet
# remove regular paper, load envelopes
cupsenable Envelope
# wait until envelope is printed, then
cupsdisable Envelope
cupsenable deskjet
share|improve this answer
Thanks, but I don't understand how this answers the question. Sounds like you've got a set up like me (same printer, multiple queues with different defaults/preferences/options). Are you saying that your apps recognise the defaults when the other queues are stopped? Even with just one queue my apps don't pick up the default :-( – artfulrobot Mar 22 '13 at 16:44
I set each app's default queue the way the app says (lpr -P, lpdest command, app preferences, environment variables). Which programs are you having trouble with? – waltinator Apr 12 '13 at 7:06
eog in particular. But none of the apps I've tried (firefox, eog, libreoffice) seem to pickup the default media size. – artfulrobot Apr 12 '13 at 16:35
I came across this page because I had a problem in assigning multiple queues with one printer. That is: (in my case) 1. A4 Duplex Colour 2. A4 Duplex Mono 3. A4 Single Manual Black and White . It took me two days but it is here that I found the answer: search for: A LPD runs on the device and provides one or more LPD queues.
And now I can explain that somewhere in the far past it work (yes, than I had LPD defined) and all of a sudden I lost it.
So let cups know: - Print via Network - Connection Wizard --> OK - select Line Printer Deamon --> Connection Settings IP address e.g.: (no lpd:// in front: cups will fill this in) Give it a queue name e.g: A4DUPCOL and go ahead.....
and you are on...
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Your Answer
| <urn:uuid:6d08a356-a6d1-4d2f-9af9-af95df38e083> | http://askubuntu.com/questions/252143/how-do-i-set-up-multiple-printing-defaults-for-one-printer?answertab=votes | en | 0.88391 | 0.071284 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Long Term Web Semantics
Something irks me about the phrase “semantic HTML”.
The intent is clear enough — using HTML in ways that are readable, using plain language to describe things. But that’s not what “semantic” means. We might as well be saying “well written” or “copy edited”. They’d be closer fits. What we describe today as “unsemantic markup” isn’t really; there is actual meaning to end-users, but it is conveyed with long-winded markup. Bloviating, but not “unsemantic”.
Convoluted and hard to grok — like my writing — is bad. Simple and direct is good. Defining what “simple” and “direct” are is hard as it involves questions of meaning and what authors (webdevs) can assume of readers (browsers). We have phrases for that: e.g. “an 8th grade reading level”. The presumption of sophisticated readers makes terseness and subtlety possible. It also is what makes great works so difficult to translate. Defining terms isn’t required among the proficient. There’s real value in improving the overall literacy of an ecosystem.
Using “semantic” in a way that talks about simplicity and the underlying meaning indicates a deep confusion about how language works, the role of developers in getting it across, and the real-world potential of the web to carry more meaning over time. Why is this important? And isn’t “semantic HTML” good?
Perhaps. I tend to think it depends on how much you ascribe the rise of the web as a platform to luck and how much you attribute to its particular attributes; my guess is ~40/60 luck+timing vs. attributes. There’s no experimental evidence for that weighting beyond observing the relative successes of Flex, XAML, OpenLaszlo, JavaFX, and Android layouts versus both each other and their more imperative competitors. It’s difficult to design or run experiments about UI framework adoption.
Regardless, we can sketch out a working model of the actors, their interests, and what they derive from HTML to help explain the value created in that ~60%. Doing this will give us a sense for what HTML’s semantics really are, how they came to be, and what it would mean to meaningfully evolve them. With a model in mind we can examine how changes to HTML impact its diverse consumers. It also gives us a way to anticipate the impact of JavaScript and extensions to HTML (microformats, RDFa, and Schema.org). Much hope and fear have been located in them, but we can move past pure speculation and discuss mechanisms when we have a working model that we can mark to observable reality.
Such a model can be constructed several ways but I think it’s most effective to look at HTML’s largest constituencies and uncover what they want and get from HTML, CSS, and JS. From there, we can chart the intersections of those interests and discuss how value is created and transferred.
The Constituencies
High-level systems like HTML deliver huge value by providing the ability to manipulate — and be insulated from — many nasty layers of software. Even in the midst of a quest to explain the layers of the web platform in terms of lower-level things we must not forget the value high-level, largely-declarative forms deliver.
Giving developers (indirect) power over those layers of software from an easy-to-modify-and-iterate format, and doing it in a way that enables folks who wouldn’t even think of themselves as “developers” to do the same creates monumental power. VB-style power: the sort that makes the smart-but-technologically-stranded finally self-sufficient. Ctrl-R as “make all” for the web isn’t perfect, but it is hugely enabling. The modern devtools revolution even more-so. The impact of directness can’t be overstated. Cue Bret Victor: “creators need an immediate connection”.. Declarative forms pay off big when they meet user needs.
HTML makes heroes out of mortals. Like some sort of cheesy comic book origin story, the directness and forgiveness of HTML give “non developers” the ability to make things which they can then give to other people. Things those people want. This is what tools do when they’re good. And sneakily it sort of doesn’t look like code.
The first-person value of HTML to developers is all about putting things on screens to look at and interact with. There’s some weird strain of the “linked data” and “semantic HTML” zeitgeist that forgets this. The primary reason people build things on the web is because they want some other human to find and have their lives enriched by that thing. Most of the time that’s about visual and interactive value: showing, putting-in-context, displaying.
It’s a conversation between the developer and users. One in which the developer wields often-inadequate tools to communicate something; most often visually. What everyone else (search engines, publishers, etc.) get out of this arrangement is as side effect; an echo of the original conversation.
Developers are attempting to re-create in the minds of users what they had in mind for them to understand. What’s important in an article. What’s navigation vs. main-body content. What bits of the form are really required. Nothing about this process is technical from the perspective of the user. The semantic content is what end users perceive.
Let that really sink in. PowerPoint slides or PDF forms can transmit nearly all the same semantics as HTML from the perspective of users — the visual and interactive content that is perceived to be the “meaning” of the content most of the time.
I submit that HTML has succeeded because it turned people who didn’t know anything about programming into great communicators. They could suddenly cause forms, and checkboxes, and paragraphs, and images to be.
Think on the humble <a href="...">: it comes with UI to distinguish links from regular text (underlining) plus conventions and system support for location (visited, hover, etc.), and the ability to respond to input (navigating on click). The code to do all of this would be daunting, and you’d never get everyone bought off on the same conventions unless the system provided some. But the anchor tag provided it all: relationships between text and locations, built-in UI, behavioral support, and most of all an incredibly terse package that made all of that power accessible to anyone with a text editor and an FTP client.
Lest you be tempted to ignore the value of the visual and interactive conventions, consider a world without them. Or a world where the browser had JS APIs for navigating to new documents, but no built-in system for synthesizing clicks into navigations. Sure, spontaneous order could arise, but probably not. There’s no standard way to “link” between Flash content and it has had nearly as long. It’s safe to say that providing affordances to users to help them do things they want to do is why HTML has been a success.
Those affordances, from the perspective of users, are the semantic conventions of the web. They are the building blocks of a visual and interactive language. They are the content and the meaning.
End Users
Technology is largely a chore for end-users. It forms a superstructure for things that actually matter — family, love, acceptance, work — it enables and hinders, often at the same time.
Technology, the web, “apps”…these are middlemen. Good middlemen make it easy to get what we want and will get the repeat business. The job of good technology is to help end users get what they want faster, more easily, and with less hassle. Therefore it does not pay to have unique UI unless you wish to express something very valuable that the existing system can’t. The stifling communitarian apects of visual and interactive conventions isn’t a fluke. Users, designers, and platforms all co-evolve our visual language. Straying too far from the flock gets your app eaten.
HTML’s economics favor built-in UI components over per-page components; it’s faster and easier even if the UX isn’t perfect for the local site. Users understand them and so does the system which provides default UI for “free” (sites don’t have to build/send it in JS). This increases the relative price of wheel re-invention via JavaScript.
The biggest revolution of the web is the search engine. Built on the back of HTML’s conventions, search engines make it possible not only for anyone to publish but for most to find. PageRank famously exploited the web’s conventions to extract meaning from chaos. Search crawlers can “see” the same content that users do (it’s not hidden in binary code, only unveiled at runtime) so it’s possible to provide value to users in a whole new way.
UI conventions with economic superiority and inter-document relationships have created an industry and have given most of the folks reading this treatise jobs. Behold the power of default UI.
Not all users are the same, of course. For many, the default UI is meaningless or close to it. HTML shines for them too, not because it made everyone care about accessibility but because it once again allowed second-party tools, agents of users, to re-interpret high-level intent in a different low-level context: reading instead of blitting, e.g.
Once again, the incredible power of defaults plays a supporting role: no assistive technology would have had a shot if the built-in library of elements wasn’t usually used mostly in the same ways. Same story with web crawlers. The incentives that weigh on web developers are the only thing that keep the <a> from long-since having been re-styled to be a block container by default (why not? it’s shorter to type than <div>). Those incentives derive from wanting to communicate to most end users (the ones who don’t use assistive technologies). The easiest and best way to do that is to avoid re-defining words. Let the browser do the work of rendering UI, stick with the rest of the pack and use words in the normal way, and don’t try to introduce too much new vocabulary unless it’s absolutely necessary.
These reinforcing dynamics drive prices down and value up. Using HTML that all browsers understand saves on complexity, latency, and confusion — assuming that HTML has something that says what you mean. The benefits are enormous at the macro scale, but they derive predictably from costs and incentives that start at the micro scale: developers trying to communicate things to users, nevermind anyone else.
And one last thing…I can’t leave URLs out of the end-user value proposition. No system before or since has been as good at making things available to be shared as the proliferation of URLs for addressing content. They are the proto-social backbone of the web. For users, being able to copy/paste links creates a world of opportunity to do things app authors don’t have to pre-arrange support for. Once again, browser-provided default behavior bootstraps massive benefits.
Markup, the plain-text web, and the ability to enable searchability has been a mixed business bag for publishers, of course. But as a consumer of this stuff, it has been ace. Lets say a publisher wants to publish electronically…what’s in the web for them?
URLs and searchability. If links and shareability are good for users, they’re killer for publishers. Social behavior pays them back most directly, and URLs are the grease in those gears. Without having to build a second or 3rd version, the web made “building a website” also enable linkability for very little extra work. Indeed, in most modern frameworks you have to try hard not to end up with decent URLs.
The de-facto searchability of HTML allows publishers to leverage their investment in end-user publishing infrastructure again. No re-building another version. No one-off data interchange formats. Configuration? Yes. Supersetting and side-contracts to improve information density? You bet. But no more wholesale re-writing.
Search Engines
The role of crawlers and engines is misunderstood by most everyone I talk to. Webdevs spend a lot of time thinking about “semantics” and “SEO” without any real conception of the goals and motives behind search pipeline. There are deep questions here — what should a search engine return when I ask it a question? what is my relationship to it? — but we can ignore them for now. My view is that the best answer a search engine can give you is the one you would have picked for yourself had you been able to read a corpus of billions of documents. And the explicit goal of the crawl engineers I have talked to is make that dream come true.
As a practical matter, what does that mean for semantics? Well, you wouldn’t pick a document that hid half the content from you, would you? And you surely wouldn’t have picked it for that content. Indeed, documents that present a different view to the crawler than to users are likely spammy. Looking at what Matt Cutts presents, you get a pretty clear picture: the index is trying to see the web the way you see it…and of course, then help you pick an answer. But that’s all predicated on some sort of “understanding”…and the platonic ideal of “understanding” content isn’t something to do with sub rosa embedded data, it’s about the thing the page was trying to communicate to the user in the first place in the way the user would have understood it.
I can’t stress this enough: when we as web developers get tied in knots about “semantics” and web crawlers, we’re mostly worrying about absolutely the wrong thing. Sure, go figure out what works and what not to do, but the thing to always keep in the back of your mind is that all of this is temporary. The goal of search engines it to understand pages the way you do. To the extent they don’t, that’s a bug to be fixed — and it will be.
If the goal of a search engine is to understand the page the way the user does, then the semantics we care about are the ones that are meaningful to users. The idea that we should create some other layer of meaning above/below/to-the-side of content is…a non-sequiter.
Consider tables.
You’ve likely been told all of your professional career that using <table> for things that aren’t tabular data is EVIL (or at least “wrong”). Yet you also observe that many of the world’s computers have not caught fire due to the misapplication of <table>. Or <li>. Or <dt>/<dd>.
On the one hand, yes, tables do help you visually format things in a tabular way. But the history of the web’s layout-system hi-jinx led to a situation where the only compatible way to get full constraint programming power was to use tables for non-tabular data…as a layout container. This had some practical problems: some browsers were bad/slow at it. Incremental layout wasn’t “a thing” yet. There were bugs. All of this served to stretch the canonical use of <table> well beyond tabular data. Without a common meaning through use, the UI value was diluted. Whatever lingering hope HTML purists have harbored for a world in which putting data in a <table> element suddenly makes it machine extractable is certainly far from today’s state of the art; for 3 reasons:
1. Having tabular data in a table doesn’t make it useful to anyone else. The <a> element at least gives users some way to use the relationship between the UI and the things it references beyond “pure presentation”.
2. Nothing else in HTML knows how to consume that data. Even if you put all of your tabular data in a <table>, it doesn’t make any other bit of your UI more powerful.
3. People lie
Forget machine extraction; <table> isn’t a semantics failure because “people used it wrong”, it never turned into a “semantic” thing because it never evolved far enough to have meaningful relationships with others; either users or other bits of the system.
But this analysis also charts a path forward: you know what sort of machine-readable extractable data source would be interesting to search engines? The sort that makes it easy for lots of people to refer to the same data. The sort that can provide users something to do with that data inside the document (by default). The fix wouldn’t even be that huge, methinks.
Oh, and I did mention the lying, right?
Yes, people lie. And they hire machines to lie for them. Such is life. HTML can be “semantic” inside the constraints of its pre-defined vocabulary only to the extent that we all agree to use certain words the same way — something we do more often when UI guides us: see the train wrecks that are HTML5 <article>, <section>, etc. People of good cheer acting in socially positive ways most of the time doesn’t make all content any more trustable or authoritative, but it does raise the average. Our mental model about web semantics needs to assume that, out here on the big-bad internet, some bit of code that says that it’s a something-or-other might be trying to deceive the user somehow. So quality metrics are the first stab at classification on the open web.
Do not be drawn in by the productive noises emanating from the academic linked-data community: they do not swim in the same soup.
Generally speaking, the academic solution to data quality is to pre-suppose a closed world in which only high-quality data is allowed in. This might be a reasonable place to start in terms of investigating what to do next, but it leaves those considering the solutions entirely unequipped to recon with the web as we have it. Identifying high-quality data isn’t simple. Real-world systems always have to deal with “noise”, either now or in the future via semantic drift (see below), so while one could focus on systems that deal in high-quality, low-noise corpuses of pre-classified data, that world isn’t the web. It won’t be. It can’t be. The fact of liars, semantic drift, and the practical effects of Postel’s Law collude to assure it.
The trail of semantic tears is simply what happens when people, not computers, make language and are its primary consumers. Despite mediation by browsers, it’s pretty clear that HTML is designed for (some) humans and its visual semantics are all about what humans want. The issue with academic approaches to semantics are that they aren’t borne of the crucible of inter-generational semantics. It’s possible to describe everything in one generation — perhaps even to get everyone to use some subset of langauge the same way, but what about when time passes? The real problem of web semantics is the probabilistic nature of meaning, and it can’t be elided by tighter local descriptions, only a more global view to use.
Semantic Drift
If you’ve done time in the SQL mines of a major (read: old) company, you know how innocently it all starts: a problem was described, a schema was created, data was populated, and now it can’t (really) change. Bits are packed into fields they don’t belong in because re-normalizing isn’t possible for organizational reasons. This is only the most technical version of what happens when language hits reality: if the words we use are useful at all, they soon get stretched. They get contextual meanings they didn’t have before. They evoke other concepts and are taken on joy-rides by communities with their own jargon. In short, they drift slowly away from their original meanings (to the extent they ever have such things) to mean both more and less at the same time.
HTML is no different. Why should it be? What does <b> mean? Is it presentational? Can we make a case for it that isn’t? The tighter the fit of the initial data model, the stronger the instinct to drift. Words, after all, are fluid. Yes, we look like idiots to everyone in earshot if we say “pigeon” to mean “pumpkin”, but when enough people take the meaning and start using it, the inevitable drift takes hold.
Cutting to the chase, I submit for your consideration the idea that you can’t have correct ontologies. Not for very long anyway. Any that are useful will be pressed into service outside their small-ish hometowns and will take on contextual meanings that aren’t immediately obvious to speakers of the original dialect.
This is what it means for language to succeed. Systems of semantics and processing that cannot deal with, or do not anticipate, this sort of drift and growth are doomed. Language can be prevented from drifting only through the process of ending its widespread use.
Latin doesn’t accumulate much new meaning these days.
Also, nobody speaks it.
This is not a coincidence.
Browser Vendors
The motives of browser vendors are actually the easiest to understand. It requires a subtle, non-market version of “competitive” and understanding that vendors promote browsers which have brands and marketing budgets but which happen to also come with rendering engines which have none of those things. Why? Because rendering engines don’t make you any money — best case scenario, the browser vendor is also a platform vendor and wants to use web technology as a platform play, but that’s got precious little to do with browsers.
The key thing to understand about rendering engine teams, the standards nerds who toil around their edges, and the (primarily) C++ engineers who make it all work is that most of them don’t build web sites. Neither do their customers (end-users). Most browser engineers get their information about what’s a good or bad idea to implement secondhand. The most potent form of this is “our competition implemented something”. The next most potent is “there’s a spec for it”. The least is “it’s a great idea that solves this problem”. Does that sound backwards? Think about the incentives: if you’re not a profit center, what’s in it for you to stick your neck out for a feature which you can’t really differentiate your product with (save, perhaps, the cumulative experience of performance). Web developers mediate the experience of your rendering engine to end-users, and almost no web developer will jump to use new (aka “proprietary”) features exclusively. To break the stalemate, vendors look for signs that the risks have been lowered: competition and specs. If the other folks did it, it’s probably safe, and you don’t want to be the last one. And if there’s a spec, it probably went through some iteration to take the crazy edges off (would that were true!).
The most important thing to remember here is that, despite being the ones with all the power and the ability to enable new semantics, browser engine vendors derive the very least value from web semantics. This might get better as engines begin to self-host more features on top of JS, ShadowDOM, etc. I don’t recommend holding one’s breath.
Semantic Evolution
A coherent thesis of web platform evolution comes into view. It must:
• Enable developers to build new end-user (visual & interactive) semantics when HTML’s vocabulary is insufficient
• Be meaningfully declarative, preferably by linking to other data/URLs to improve experience
• Can be standardized over time
The last point is perhaps controversial: many a JavaScript library developer has asserted to me that if they can convince everyone to use a particular JQuery-based Date Picker (e.g.), why bother creating a standard version?
The case for standardization isn’t that it will accelerate the adoption of new nouns/verbs, but rather than it can help disseminate them to new generations, thereby reducing their “cost” to use in conversation. This is the role that dictionaries play, and this is a meaningful role for HTML: once a semantic has proven value, is used relatively widely, and there’s an agreed (visual, interactive, and declarative) semantic, HTML can canonize the most widely used set of meanings, thereby enabling browser vendors to adopt these canonical versions. On the web, that’s the difference in performance between using a “free” built-in HTML element vs. the high price of adopting a widget from a library, all of its dependencies, and integrating that script into your applications. The words you can assume everyone else knows are the ones it’s easiest to convey meaning with. HTML is a human language for humans, why should it be any different?
This is one of the motivators behind Web Components. By allowing developers to extend HTML’s semantics directly, we stand a very real chance of making ad-hoc web semantics like those proposed at MicroFormats and Schema.org more meaningful — first by enabling direct end-user value in the form of UI and second by enabling the sort of markup integration that allows search engines to make some sense of both of those priors.
Over the long haul, as libraries of widgets duke it out, coalesce, and become “de-facto standards”, the slang can be cataloged. Not verbatim, of course. The exact form of <person> or <place> would likely going to drop a library-based prefix (<polymer-person>, e.g.) and the built-in UI would lose some configuration in exchange for system integration (places could pull up maps, people could interact with the address book). This is the sort of deal that gives browsers something meaningful to do, and with extensibility at the core of this ecosystem, this process can form a hierarchy where fads and data types evolve (and die out) quickly at the edges, but those which survive and become truly common will eventually be worth of inclusion in “the dictionary” — the living HTML spec.
Isn’t this all going to lead to a modern-day Babel?
Anything is possible, but it’s not likely; at least not as long as the dictionary keeps up with the language we use. If HTML and browsers continue to integrate new nouns and verbs that solve real problems, the advantages that a shared vocabulary have over long-form descriptions create huge dis-incentives to continuing to use custom solutions. The power of fewer bytes-on-the-wire and browser-blessed optimizations create huge unifying waves that can allow us to continue to evolve the language around the edges as necessary without fear of devolving into mutually unintelligible sub-dialects.
We’ve proven over and over again that the HTML spec process works best when it can round off sharp edges of extant good ideas, rather than carrying the burden for inventing them all in the first place. Enabling an ecosystem of people to invent, iterate, and distribute new web semantics is my greatest hope for Web Components. It’s one of the things that caused me to want to work on them in the first place, and now that they’re nearly upon us, it’s time to start thinking about what’s next. How will we learn from them? How will we encourage useful semantics, now that we’re free of HTML’s 3rd-grade vocabulary? How will we grow HTML responsibly into the adult platform, based on evidence and respect for user experiences, that we all want it to become?
That’s our challenge. We must view epochs in the web not as things to which we are subject, but a landscape which, should we set the rules right, we can shape quickly for ourselves and slowly for everyone else.
I’m grateful to Bruce Lawson, Dion Almaer, Steve Faulkner, Jake Archibald, and Frances Berriman for their comments on an earlier draft. All errors and typos are entirely my own.
1. Posted November 6, 2013 at 4:22 pm | Permalink
Surely the whole point of “semantic html” is to convey information in a way which isn’t dependent on how it looks. It tries to make a distinction between what belongs in markup and what belongs in a stylesheet. One problem with the tables and WYSIWYG editors of the early 2000s is that they tightly coupled style and substance.
Your whole argument is based on the premise that the only way people want to consume the web is visually on 2 dimensional screens. The absence of any mention of screen readers is very notable. Screen readers are important, not only because they make the web accessible to more people right now, but they also show that there is more than one way to consume content. It’s very short-sighted (pardon the pun) to ignore their existence as they may hint at other ways people will want to access the web in future. I’m not just talking about computers reading out what’s on the page. There’s potential for lots of other outputs: 3d displays, some sort of tactile response, maybe even interfacing direct with people’s brains. Sure, that all sounds quite far fetched, but the point is that we don’t know what the future has in store. I think the best way to be prepared for that unknown is to keep separate the information we’re trying to convey from how we’d like it to look. For all its faults, “semantic html” is a nice thing to aim for, even if we don’t get it right every time.
2. Stomme poes
Posted November 7, 2013 at 4:24 am | Permalink
Luke touches a point that I’ve always remembered when trying to determine what I mean if I want to wrap up some content in something “semantic”: the original Tim-Berners-Lee-dream of device-independence.
Of course we’re no longer just reading documents anymore. Now that we need a wider variety of interfaced, device-independence gets harder and harder.
And as you said in your article, the users are changing. How they use things changes, and they and developers invent new vocabulary (or steal from real life and SciFi stories) whenever new things come along.
Obvious indeed that semantics can’t mean anything if we’re not all talking about the same language, in the same language.
3. Posted November 7, 2013 at 6:09 am | Permalink
Hi Luke,
First, I realise it was a long post, but I did mention assistive technologies. It wouldn’t really be me if i hadn’t — I’m the guy who made a11y a priority for Chrome Frame and lead the Dojo project when we were working with IBM to become one of the first toolkits with ARIA, key navigation, high-contrast, and low-motor-skills support. I didn’t mention screen readers by name because I understand what a small (albeit important) sliver of the a11y world they are. The fact that HTML allows reasonable zooming and re-layout is just as enabling as any of the screen-reader specific features are.
But you’ve quite missed the larger point: if the primary mode of interaction with the web were, say, screen readers, I’d be arguing that it was the interactions between humans and the content that is spoken that is the important semantic — regardless of how it was marked up.
That you’ve come to value the alternative axes of communication that HTML enables is a laudable thing, but losing the plot isn’t. Nor is holding up an unattainable ideal as something to be defended. If we’re going to make progress, it will be in terms of a world which can exist. I’ve sought to create an outline of the motives of the players. To say that I’m not including some other modality is neither here nor there. My model includes them to the extent that they’re used. Invalidating it requires constructing an alternative argument about how people will behave when, e.g., 3d displays show up. You could make such an argument on the basis of, perhaps, rational expectation theory. Or some local maxima in which 3d rules the roost. Any of that would have made an interesting counterpoint.
4. Posted November 7, 2013 at 11:47 am | Permalink
pfew, read everything. Long but worth reading for understanding your position.
I have the feeling, that the post is mixing different ways of looking at “semantics”, the word. A word can have different meanings ;) In most debates that I have witnessed or participated myself, people had a different assumptions. And indeed a Web developer, a browser implementer, a simple user, a poet, a librarian, all of them had a notion of semantics which was different. We use language (I’m not a native English speaker) and we don’t come with the same cultural background when using these words. The same happens for the Web. For example, in the discussions, I see often “academic” used by “engineers” (another assumption) with the assumed meaning “out-of-reality”. A bit like saying a poet is not part of the real world, or not describing the real world. I usually prefer to think that there are different communities using the same tools in different ways. You also make the assumption that people working on ontologies are not aware that languages and meanings change. :) I think you need to discuss more with them ;) The first rule of participation is to be inclusive and assume good will.
But I’m stopping here my babbling about what I think others might think. :) And how I think about the Web and HTML. Let’s say I’m a power end user of HTML. I do write code by hand, because I care about the structure of the document (Some people collect cheese labels). I want to be able to be categorized the content in my documents, not only for others but for me. It has a cost. And there is an endless path of over categorization. The important is to be able to do what you care for and if the feedback loop is short enough that it makes sense to oneself. You took the element “a” by its very interesting capability to create links (I’m avoiding semantics here on purpose). I have my own preferred elements such as “blockquote”, “cite” and attributes such as “cite”. Another story for another day. What I’m missing more and more from the Web is related to the need to be online and to have a page completely broken once you do save as. I’m talking about this HTML page where the HTML is just a shell for wrapping some JSON and JS. Once you do save as, the content doesn’t exist anymore. The View source too.
I want to be able to write documents and structures, to be able to attach meaning (through attributes or interactions). I want to be able to select a name in a Web page and to say here this person connect it to this id in my address book. I want to be able to give a cite=”urn:isbn:1234567890″ to a quote and configure my system to choose what reference system I will be using for it. I want to be able to indeed have a place element and/or place attribute and be able to tie a map to it through right click. Though I do NOT want to have vendor tie-in such as when the element is in the page and have a Google map without a way to choose the map system you would like. I want to be able to associate terms in a document to a vocabulary and to be able to evolve it.
So to come back to semantics. I was used in the past to categorize elements in HTML (aka creating an ontology, or meaning, or semantics, yada, yada).
Structure: p, li, table, etc.
Action: a
Presentation: b, i, etc.
Meaning: title, blockquote, cite, samp, var, etc.
Hermaphrodite: span, div
Non scientific classification, just a view on the world, aka semantics.
5. Posted November 7, 2013 at 3:38 pm | Permalink
Aren’t your points under “Semantic Evolution” in many ways covered by XML and its family of standards? Or at least it was headed that way.
So many times I see people wishing for custom elements and I automatically start thinking of XML, et al.
6. Posted November 8, 2013 at 4:11 am | Permalink
Hey Rob,
XML had a couple of key flaws — notably a lack of forgiveness in the face of errors and some real nuttyness about DTDs derived from the SGML legacy — and the communities that embraced it added other baggage that prevented them from winning the day. I don't think XML gets a do-over. It lost.
Here's why custom elements are different: they aren't trying to enable the idea of "first class" distributed extensibility. XML didn't have a language, it was a system for defining languages. HTML, on the other hand, IS a language and custom elements are a way to introduce "slang" words into that language. This is entirely different ot the dream of defining a brand-new language and hoping that speakers of multiple languages can co-exist.
7. Posted November 9, 2013 at 3:14 pm | Permalink
Hi Alex,
This is a really interesting post. I’ve read through it several times now. Still trying to grok it all :)
I’m curious to know what you think about the semantic-ui (http://semantic-ui.com/) library.
It seems to be using the term “semantic” to mean, as you put it, “well written” or “copy edited.” And there are some decisions which don’t sit well with me. For instance, that it’s tag agnostic so there are examples of
div class=”button”>. That would seem to be a situation in which the HTML language does provide an expressive enough tag but it’s being ignored. But maybe that’s ok, kind of like your
table> example. I’d like to know your thoughts on that point.
Since the library is architected such that each piece of UI is standalone, it seems like it lends itself really well to being turned into Web Components. I really like this aspect of it, especially since I’ve spent a ton of time working with Bootstrap which can’t easily be broken down into the individual components. This probably means the CSS is redundant in places but hopefully modular. What do you think about this approach?
8. Posted November 9, 2013 at 11:38 pm | Permalink
One point to mention is that a nice clean html table opens up very nicely in excel (probably other spreadsheet programs as well). It is also very easy to export into a csv.
One key aspect of the idea of semantics in the web is the idea that people beyond the original developers can rework the information. I see that vision fading in the web today as people focus more on the immediate author-to-user communication, and not opening the door for possible side conversations that can be even more meaningful.
9. Posted November 12, 2013 at 1:04 am | Permalink
Just started reading the article so nothing to comment on yet, but I think I’ve found a typo:
“This is a plea to stop using the phrase “semantic HTML” to mean “markup that does with it looks like it will do”.”
I think you mean “does what it looks like”?
10. Posted November 12, 2013 at 2:06 am | Permalink
Fixed, thanks!
11. Posted November 13, 2013 at 8:17 am | Permalink
I have been thinking about this – here’s the thing – ultimately common semantics help make understanding a second page easier after you have the infrastructure for understanding the second.
For language, learning a language will not guarantee that you will understand someone speaking, and every one uses words with slightly different meanings, emphasis, and contexts, but it is easier to adapt to a speaker’s idiosyncrocies if you know the speaker’s language.
Thus failure for semantics to be universal is not failure of common semantics, the key is making things easier, because the only way to make things automatic is if you abstract the act of understanding itself, which is beyond the realm of content.
Going back to tables, tables often have tabular data, sometimes with unnecessary markup, sometimes intermixed with other things, but if a document has tabular data than looking for tables makes it easier to find that data, even if the semantics aren’t perfect. Generally, even if there are also tables used for presentational purposes, there are ways of distinguishing them (how the markup is being used around it), just as we distinguish homophones by context.
Stepping back a little bit more, what do we gain from this. For me, easier scraping – much of the web, including search engine, relies on scraping to a greater or lesser degree, somewhere in some part of the overall infrastructure of a site. So that’s not a useless thing.
Secondly, maintainability. You asked about Constituencies, well there are developers and then there are other developers. How easy is it for the next guy to pick up what you are doing and understand it? How easy is it for a guy who is not working on your project but is interfacing with your project to understand it. These are key questions.
Ultimately, semantic html is not really for the end users. The overall html result, including all of the hacks is for the end users. Even screen-readers probably benefit more from developers using hacks to adapt their site than a proper html layout. The key here is re-use for the future and by others. And that is the core of the open web – that anyone can take what you did and steal a few ideas from it as well as some extra data.
12. Posted November 20, 2013 at 11:03 am | Permalink
For what it’s worth, I think Alex is right on the money here. This notion of democratizing the growth of semantics in HTML is downright seminal. Alex is deftly removing a mammoth wrench from the cogs of sane scope expansion as Moore’s law and consumer demand outpaces the standards bodies’ ability to innovate.
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1. […] Thoughts on the term “semantic HTML”, why it may be the wrong term and the effects on devs, end users, publishers and search engines: “Long Term Web Semantics“ […]
2. […] those options and additional APIs, it’s possible to extend HTML beyond what Alex Russell complained was a “3rd-grade vocabulary”. It’s now possible to lay down the “all HTML must be standard” mantra because the […] | <urn:uuid:4066a8df-c7ea-42f5-935d-14c6cda0fd52> | http://infrequently.org/2013/11/long-term-web-semantics/comment-page-1/ | en | 0.940326 | 0.027822 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Grey September - Gilles Dauvé, Karl Nesic and J-P Carasso
The underpaid washer-up and the overpaid white collar who both died in the World Trade Center died as footsoldiers of a system that exploited their death (treating them as heroes of free trade and the free world) as it had exploited their life. They had little time to appreciate the much vaunted security they'd bought in exchange for their submission.
"As usual, nothing will ever be the same again" (The Press)1
For three days, the Guardian reader knew everything about the inner structure of the Twin Towers. Two weeks later, you couldn't catch him out about the exact location of Herat and Kandahar. One morning he learnt of the existence of a new mass killer called bin Laden, the next he was informed this evil figure was a creation of Western politics. Today's absolute becomes relative tomorrow. Every tearjerker is nullified by the next one, and every lie soon followed by its semi-refutation. "Facts" only exist in a perpetual therefore meaningless present. No society has ever lived in such a succession of partial self-criticisms.
Those who simply denounce outrage and excess will always be one step behind radio and TV. Only a very naive citizen believes official versions (39 years after a US president got shot in Dallas, do we know the truth? As most States had a hand in the rise of Islamism, we can't take seriously what we're told about its "networks", since 99% of the information comes from police sources.) Still, it would be even more naive to take the exact opposite view of the official version.
It takes a lot for a civilisation to realise it can die. It takes a lot more for it to admit it can cause death.
The underpaid washer-up and the overpaid white collar who both died in the World Trade centre died as footsoldiers of a system that exploited their death (treating them as heroes of free trade and the free world) as it had exploited their life. They had little time to appreciate the much vaunted security they'd bought in exchange for their submission.
After September 11, a New Yorker said he now realised the danger of living at the heart of the world economy. He equated life with keeping out of trouble and doing one's job without caring about its causes and results, about what the world economy and its heart mean, or about the risks run by those billions living on its periphery.
People were appalled by the suicidal aspect of the attack, by such a destructive nihilism. Yet isn't mass destruction a current feature of this civilisation, and indeed one that capitalism does not seem to soften? The last two hundred years are more a vindication of "marxist catastrophism" than of optimistic liberalism or reformism.
Commentators also forget that most religions prefer another (supposedly better) world to ours. But our time prides itself on being tolerant, and no longer refuses religion. To create scandal, you just have to express an open dislike of Jesus, Buddha or Mohammed. Atheism is only accepted as a belief among others. The XXIst century regresses to pre-bourgeois revolution times.
Man's total power is supposed to be proved by its expanding vertically (thanks to skyscrapers) and horizontally (the megapolis). We tap all the energy and the resources of the Earth and make the most of them in concentrated accelerated forms.
Sometimes, however, a big power cut, a nuclear or a food scare, the wreck of an oil tanker, an exploding chemical plant, a hurricane, or a large scale attack, reveal the precarious foundation of a world based on circulation but forced to realise and accumulate value by solidifying it ever more: it puts on weight in order to be lighter, piles up materials to become immaterial, uses steel and glass to turn into 0 and 1, and always builds up stock to increase its flow. What looks virtual in fact multiplies machines, warehouses and means of transportation. Every big firm has its big buildings. Every passageway can be blocked: the more fluid a system is, the more vulnerable it is to a computer virus, and to water, air or food poisoning.
The WTC crash forced people to rediscover mass violent death brought about by the very mediations supposed to protect and enhance life: the jet plane2 and the skyscraper. Did we need September 11 to regard any technical object as a possible murder tool? Railways took people to death camps. Caterpillar tracks support an army tank as well as a tractor. The plane takes a couple on a honeymoon, or flies over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. To wait so long before realising it is indecent: worse still, it's very stupid.
Terror as Reality and as Representation
Let's leave aside illegalism, so-called anarchist violent deeds, the Weathermen, the German R.A.F., etc. There's a whole world between shooting the Renault boss (as Action Directe did) and killing thousands of persons in two huge high rise buildings, even if those towers stood at the heart of international finance.
We won't deal with moments like the French 1792-94 Terror either: let's just remember it was long claimed as an unpalatable yet positive political method, and presented in a favorable light by the French Republic in its schoolbooks.
The obsessive repetition of words like "terror" and "terrorism" transforms anyone into an innocent, and relieves everyone of his responsibility. The deceased occupiers of the WTC towers are said to have had no part in the way the world is run: we're told capitalism runs on its own, freewheeling no matter what we do, irrespective of the worker who manufactures bullets, of the accountant, of the trader. Quite a few finance experts died in the WTC. It would be foolish to think that slaughtering them would undermine capitalism; it is equally absurd to declare them innocent of this planet's fate, and to be flabbergasted at the hate directed at a place like Manhattan. The New York Times reader lives in a dream, and is horrified when it turns into a nightmare, but the only way out of the nightmare is to wake up. We make this world, so we can un-do it and make it again. On the contrary, regarding ourselves as victims contributes to our own dispossession.
It's like Western rulers and ruled agree to interpret the situation in terms of "terrorism", i.e. not to address the situation. Capital and labour seem to jointly dismiss the problem (and its solution) outside what unites and opposes them.
On the wage-earner side, the faceless terrorist embodies what oppresses the solitary commuter who takes the early morning Manhattan ferry or the Rome subway. Wage-labour becomes an impersonal relationship. Few of us know our boss,let alone the "owner" of the company. The top hatted cigar smoking bourgeois gave way to managers, then to multinationals, and now to financial markets: each time there's less substance. The world rulers seem more and more diffuse, and it's the market that's personified. Money probably remains the most tangible reality, but it's immediate, fluid, and offers no key to grasp the world.
Every day we reproduce a whole that deprives us of the understanding of its totality. We're all aware that the "whole" which dominates us only exists because we make it, but everyone also thinks it's out of reach, because our WE dissolves precisely as we produce this whole. There just remains an indistinct infinity of EGOs, who are able to assert themselves through consumption, and at the best to master their individual bodies and their private lives, not to recompose themselves in a WE that could modify the course of history.
Loss of totality, as Lukacs wrote in 1923. The lonely crowd, as sociology put it in the 1960's. The impact of the September attack aggravates our collective inexistence and, as it treats us as nothing, sadly reminds us of our nothingness. But it does not create that situation, it merely plays upon it. In the commodity and wage realm, fear is a social relationship. This statement will appear farfetched only to those who see no connection between the world depicted in Kafka's Trial, our daily life, and concentration camps.
The modern wage-earner may be class conscious and think of society as "workers v. boss", but doubts he could change what produces this duality and contradiction. He has given up all illusions but one: he believes he'll always be overwhelmed by forces beyond his command.
The terrorist figure gives a face to this out-of-reach unknown, and in turn calls for his opposite: the shield that will protect us from wild terror. The shield has a name: the State. However much the common man might dislike Bush, better Bush than bin Laden.
It's the low intensity of class struggle that breeds passivity, and helps absorb rapidly obsolescent emotional shocks. No wonder a sizeable part of the so-called civilised world briefly united around the ruins of one of its symbols.
In 1970, when GIs were being killed in Indochina, their fight and death led to a critique of US politics and way of life. Nowadays, other American dead bodies rather raise some support for the US, albeit a short lived one. Social critique has long subsided, repressed, drowned in its own contradictions, recuperated. In 2001, the USA is here, in Western Europe and Japan, as well as in Sao Paulo and Seoul.
Americanisation brings Americanism along with spaghetti junctions and optic fibers. Hostility to Uncle Sam is widespread but often reproaches him with not being faithful to his own values, not allowing enough scope to grassroot democracy, not fully expanding consumer society, not truly supporting separate identities, not really liberating mankind through technology.
As for the capitalists, who can't quite figure how far they've gone into the restructuring that started in the late 1970's, they act as if the main limitation (or even threat) to their historical model came out of the past. Terrorism is the name given to what one can't grasp.
The terrorist is the State's ideal enemy: he justifies everything, arrests, searches, censorship, even paratroopers with assault rifles walking the corridors of the Paris subway. Anything is legitimate against murderers excluded from humanity.
This world loves catastrophes.3 Thanks to them, central power can pretend it is indispensable (and it is, to a certain extent). But disasters also allow historical crises to be presented as being caused by extremists and fanatics, in other words, by what is "bad" in human nature.
The roots of the "Good or Evil" rhetoric are to be found here. The enlightened European likes to make fun of crude American righteousness, but Europe's policies are more and more determined in the name of Good. As democracy and the market (the former softening the latter) are supposedly the least unpleasant of all worlds, choices and decisions have to be made within their framework. The whole political spectre shares a common belief in a social and technical system that's always under fire, but also regarded as the only possible one. Wage-labour is not all that pleasant, but everything else is reputed to be much worse. Therefore, if there's trouble, it's because there remains something bad in man, even perverse. The liberal defines this dark side as laziness and a rejection of rules; the leftwinger explains it as intolerance and greed. But both interpret this badness as the result of excess. Mrs Thatcher became (in)famous for her attempt to moralise the poor. Now reformers are becoming famous as they fight for a moderate self-limitating capitalism. Huntington's "clash of civilisations" theory is reactionary indeed, but no more irrelevant than moralising efforts to replace unrestrained unrepentant markets by democratically controlled ones.
"We get bored in town" (Situationist International)
Since September 11, 2001, the same people who denounced high rise blocks as a proof of demented town planning, now list the World Trade Center as part of mankind's heritage. Have they forgotten how they demonstrated against the Organisation of that same Trade?
We won't mourn the Twin Towers. The least we can do is regard those glass and steel cathedrals as we regard San Miniato or Angkor, which also express both human alienation and activity. If a gothic nave is likely to displease less the XXIst century revolutionary than it did the XVIIIth anti-Christian activist, it's because the social function of churches has greatly faded in Western Europe (but not in Greece or Russia, for instance). What goes on inside Wall Street buildings, on the contrary, bears heavily on our lives. Erecting those skyscrapers was more than a matter of convenience due to the cost of the square meter in the city centre. Office tower blocks are symbols of modern power, and flat suburban sprawl calls for ostentatious verticalism.
Nonetheless, most critiques of the megapolis can hardly refrain some emotion in front of the New York skyline. We don't behold dusk reflected in a wall of mirrors as we would watch a Disneyland parade. The conflict between nature and artifice is only meaningful for man, and is therefore fairly "un-natural". We can choose to think and act as if this world was in its entirety and at every second negative: but, if we do so, we fail to understand how the world goes on. No social system holds together without some active participation, without some positive (i.e. human) content it is able to provide. The bloody critique of Manhattan in September 2001 is not ours, of course. The killers targeted cultural mixing, mobility and diversity, so it was an assault on a dim reflection of the future in the present. Yet the fallen towers remind us that another critique will be needed. Shall we pull down quite a few skyscrapers? Leave them to rust and rot? Or keep some for different uses? Whatever we preserve, it'll never be out of sheer taste for the past. We have no more respect for the past in itself as for the totality of works or opinions.
"Tomorrow's architecture will be a means to know and a means to act." (Internationale Situationniste, n.l, 1958; text written in 1953)4
Town life is no more our enemy than other realisations between which nobody can now sort out what to keep and what to reject. For example, a bicycle is surely more pleasant than a motor car, yet both are typical artefacts of the industrial and consumer age. Besides, it would be unfair to stop demolition at architecture. A large part of what has been and is written partakes of class societies: so the iconoclasts should burn the British Library while they pull down the Sphinx.
The mercantile civilisation produces its revolutionary and its reactionary critiques, with a few bridges between them. Only the extreme weakness of the former enables the latter to hold the stage and the wings.
What world disorder?
September 11, 2001 is not the dawning of a new era. It's not this attack that could set the world out of joint, but a disjointed world that made the attack possible.
The general feeling of helplessness in face of the event conveys the difficulty to define "the opposition" and the means to tackle it. The fall of the WTC sheds light on a predicament that goes back to the 80's: a new system of production does not really supersede Fordism-Taylorism, neither has the "computer revolution" offered yet what the assembly line used to give.5
Present contradictions (and possible solutions) do not originate in the Afghan mountains. Their cause is internal, and social before it is "geopolitical": the inability of this mode of production to extend everywhere the positive side of its generalisation.
The world is one. The Sinai Bedouin who makes a living out of selling a few trinkets and selling the image of his way of life to the European visitor walking across the desert, belongs to the same universe as the "trekker". Nike shoes are made in Asia precisely because of the labour conditions that exist in Asia. In what used to be Rhodesia, white farmers and mine managers sweated black labour for the better profit of colonial trade: what is now Zimbabwe has lost this (admittedly racially exploitative) function and is close to bankruptcy. If by a miracle Italy and Thailand reversed their roles on the world market, it would be tradesmen and computer experts from Bangkok who'd go on sex tours in Rome. Fair trade has no place, except as ideology (uneasy conscience plus cosmetic changes), in a system where someone's getting rich depends on somebody else's getting poorer.
Since the demise of the USSR, capital has had great difficulty valorising itself, and can't reorganise the ex-bureaucratic countries into profitable areas.
This world is also suffering from a lack of communist impetus and perspective. Social unrest stays within the limits of neo-reformism, however radical its words and attitudes can be, or of ethnicism, religious fundamentalism, nationalism, quest for identity, etc.
Minority armed actions are nothing new, but September 2001 has a quite different meaning. The 1914 Sarajevo murder, IRA bombs, or Palestinian plane hijackings aimed to promote a State and a national economy. The WTC crashers wished to strike a blow at US power, but did not challenge it with an alternative development model, even an Islamic one.
In the past, in what used to be the "third world", critiques were made in the name of progress, with a determination to beat the ex-colonial powers at their own game. Present revolts only put forward a demand to be oneself, with no modernising ambition. Nationalism breaks into pieces. Indonesia and Vietnam made economic sense: Macedonia and Timor don't. Regions assert their singularity with no program except going back to their roots and obtaining international aid.
A world system is retreating into its historical strongholds: North America, Western Europe, Japan. It allows the rest to lie fallow, and uses it as a place from which to draw resources and value when it can, and to which to restore order (less than before) when it has to. But even so, capital looks fragile. Dis-investing from "New Industrialised Countries" will hinder their growth. In the old days, imperialism countered insurgencies with at least a shadow of development: the Constantine Plan in Algeria, the promotion of rural smallholders in South Vietnam, the funding of a "green revolution" against the red one, etc. No such scheme today. No-one pretends NATO intervention in ex-Yugoslavia will result in economic growth.
Forget about a new Marshall Plan. In 1947, the idea was to develop countries that had potentials, not Jordan or Ecuador. Moreover, capitalism does not consist in ordering a car on Internet, nor even in making cars, but in producing and selling them with a profit. Pumping dollars into un-developed countries keeps afloat client regimes of the big powers, but does not restore the profitability of those powers. Rich countries dole money out to their own unemployed: they won't support billions in Asia and Africa.
Though capital has been ruling the Earth for a few centuries, its essentials (exchange of labour for money, unity of production and consumption, creation of a domestic market) can't be extended everywhere. But at certain times (in the middle of the XlXth century, at the beginning of the XXth, then after 1945), its productive basis expands and increases the circulation of commodities (and of labour as a commodity) far beyond the borders of its home countries. At other times (in the "Great Depression" of 1873-95, and between the two world wars), it contracts: this is the sort of period we are going through. Frenzied urban growth in the third world signals a breakdown of former communities with no possibility of forcing (as in "State capitalism") or integrating (as in "market capitalism") those uprooted masses into wage-labour. Proletarianisation remains mainly negative.
Capital reifies the planet beyond (capitalist) reason, and puts itself at risk because it splits mankind into two.
On the one hand, those who can sell their labour power, though their social and human condition tends to deteriorate, and their work to lose its content.
On the other hand, the vast majority of human beings, whom capital proves unable to turn into wage-earners. That majority realises that, unlike in post-decolonialisation times, development is now out of reach, with all the frustration and hate that go with this understanding. In the past, many a member of the impoverished middle classes found a career as an organiser of the peasant masses in a bureaucratic party or regime: the failure of State capitalism deprives him of that option. As it happens, the men presumed responsible for the September 11 attack belong to the middle classes. What's important is not the existence of a few dozen thousand "fanatics", but that of hundreds of millions of have nots.
Capital/labour relation rules the world, not because everything would be determined by the tendency to accumulate value, but because this tendency shakes, pulls down or rebuilds the whole of previous relationships. Where it does not prevail, social change (forward or backward) happens through its pressure and against it. It's the thrust of destabilised masses (who can hardly go back to a shattered old style market economy) that fuels revolts. Those used to be channelled into national movements (whatever "nation" means in the Congo or in Sudan), as long as an independent State and an economic take-off were deemed feasible. Revolts now crumble into multiple demands, split along regional, ethnical or religious lines.
There'd be no Israel without antisemitism and extermination camps. But Zionism made it because it was able to turn millions of immigrants into wage-labourers working for companies that sell foodstuff, diamonds, weapons or Hi Tech on the world market. Would a future Palestinian citizen be given a similar job? Would he get a job at all?
What's true outside the capitalist heartland can also be verified inside. Large masses find themselves rejected on the fringe, drugged by consumption and supervised by the State, but eventually left to themselves. In spite of the difference in scale, there is something common between the New York slaughter and the night in Beziers, France, ten days before, when a young man of Arab origin deliberately challenged the police, using even a rocket-launcher, until he got shot.
Whatever reporters and politicians tell us, quite a few earthlings weren't unhappy about the destruction of the WTC. Were the Twin Towers deeply wept for in Belgrade or in the suburbs of Djakarta?... Sooner or later frustration and hate burst into rebellion, often of the worse possible kind, which results in an even worst reaction. The prevailing critique of this world is now negative, and frequently looks back on a mythical pre-capitalist Golden Age.
The over-developed world pays the mirage of its technological (and supposedly intellectual) superiority. For twenty years we've heard that "value creation" comes out of a plastic mouse. The West is so fond of modernity that (in spite of armies of experts) it never imagined "under-developed" people would dare challenge it and act with such efficiency.
This society is also paying for the myth of the end of economic crises. As "information" was meant to be the prime factor of production, and as information was reported to be growing at every click, the notion of diminishing returns became as old fashioned as Marx.
Politically, it is paying for the belief in the economic withering of the State, which was required to give up its regulating role. Over-privatisation and attacks on real wages have resulted in a growing rift between politics and society. It is significant that the masters of the world, who after all are democratically elected, are forced to meet in bunkers to get away from non-elected but fairly numerous members of their own people. The basics of central power and parliamentary democracy have been ignored for twenty years: by the liberal Right negating the necessary State economic function; by the Left renouncing what distinguishes it from the Right, thereby emptying politics of whatever little meaning it still had. This crisis of legitimate representation exploded in the streets of Gothenburg and Genoa.
Finally, the reduction of the human being to a producer and a consumer ended in an absence of perspectives, of plans and dreams. Supermarket culture is fertile ground for reactionary politics or religious fundamentalism. There'd be less young Muslim extremists saying "Down with music!" if they listened more to Oum Khalsum or Monteverdi than airport music.
These aspects all have one thing in common: a move towards a capital that would be as automated and as independent of human activity as possible. Here we bump into the limit of what Invariance too hastily called the "anthropomorphosis of capital": capital can go quite far, but won't turn into flesh. Contrary to Debord's view in his last writings, spectacle is not self-supporting either. Capitalist civilisation remains a relation between labour and value, and labour implies human and social creatures.
Capital is autonomised value only as far as it puts living beings to work. It often dreams to get rid of them, for example through robotisation. The CIA and FBI failed to prevent September 11 partly because they overestimated electronic surveillance: police and spies share the delusions of their contemporaries. Likewise, excessive automatic control of passengers and luggage reflects a preference for technology over downsized and underpaid personnel. Technique is lifeless without those who activate it. There's no value without work, no war without soldiers (and casualties), no social control without live cops.
The fall of the Twin Towers saw the ultimate downfall of modernism and (whatever that meant) post-modernism.
Capital needs proletarians, but also their somewhat active participation, which it won't get by simply making them consume more. There's more in a car than just a car. The system can't sweep under the carpet those proles it is unable to use. In the most advanced countries, maximum circulation implies a minimum of integration. Capital's logic is not to give everyone a job, but to leave many people with a reasonable hope to get one some day.
The dissolution of the State capitalist bloc meant a real victory for the Western and Japanese ruling classes, but led them to overconfidence. Capitalists decided to fear no outside or inside enemy, and thought their system only had to exist in order to assert itself. Actually, the US, Europe and Japan have proved unable to stabilise the areas liberated by the end of bureaucratic regimes.
"Reconquest" cannot only be material and strategic: in the long run, no system can rely on mere constraint. Full recovery will have to be political and social, but nothing significant seems to be coming that way, and the present war context is not the ideal time for it.
The September attack cruelly unmasks a typical feature of the last twenty years: a lack of great historical designs, a shortage of ideals. The rebellious youth and proles of the 6O-70's were so confused about the social change they asked for that they were finally made to accept it in the form of technological perpetual motion. (Chatting through a screen is a poor, albeit an adequate answer to the "free communication" rhetoric of the 60*s.) So it worked. But it's not enough to bring the new social system of production to full maturity.
In the less developed areas, no leader or party is now able to launch any primitive accumulation. In the past, when the maoist bureaucracy pushed millions of Chinese into proving the superiority of socialism in the pursuit of happiness, it did not only force them at gun point: the prospect of better days justified violence and hardship. Similar rallying projects are no longer on the agenda. With the taliban, for the first time, imperialism is fighting third world troublemakers who turn their backs on wage-labour development. One thing that the taliban had promised (and partly achieved) was to bring safety to the wayfarer, to allow a free flow of goods through the country, as in the days of the caravan trade. More merchant than industrial capital, actually. There's no room left for self-centered growth. The current boom in China concerns 10 to 20% of the population and pushes the rest aside. Either African and Asian leaders do as the IMF and the multinationals say, or they manage their countries from hand to mouth, or they prey upon their own people. It's fairly easy for a bin Laden to look like a new Robin Hood, a champion of the poor against the corrupt.
Meanwhile, in the rich countries, the underclass bypasses capital by surviving in the black economy.
Islamism itself is already on the wane as a historical project. Its aim was to make Islam the social framework of viable development, which implies participation in (but not domination by) the world market, otherwise the country's future will be similar to that of Antigua or Vanuatu. As it happens, forcing the shariah into moral standards is one thing, reorganising the economy and the whole of society on its basis is another. Vice squads are bad for trade. The ayatollahs make money selling Persian oil, they lost money declaring war on S.Rushdie. Marxist-leninist dogma was fully consistent with the cult of production: God isn't. In an Islamic country, wage-labour does not exist or expand because of the Koran, but outside it. Religion is definitely out of date as an economic model. Iran is now renouncing it, and neither Pakistan nor the United Arab Emirates ever tried. Saudi Arabia lives off oil, takes great care not to apply the shariah to it, and manages it as a true profane capital.
As for the heart of capital, the September assault has struck at a time when the business cycle is running out of steam. Economists no longer argue about the reality of the recession, only about its magnitude and duration.
Bosses and political leaders rely on a consumption hindered by lowered wages and saturated markets, even in those sectors recently hyped as the spearhead of a new era, such as mobile phones. But it's typical of a vulnerable capitalism that it should regard its prosperity as conditioned by such a volatile factor as consumer confidence. Modern democracy defines its citizen by an unequal but guaranteed share in consumption: he is therefore required not to give his blood on the battlefield, but his money at the till. What if he won't or can't? Among other problems, credit (often financed by stock market hazards) is a time bomb.
We won't go into details about the recession. Let's just mention the repetition of crises (every two or three years, the world system stumbles, either in a group of countries or in a whole sector); a decline of US manufacturing output over an 11 months period, which had been unheard of since 1960; the downward shift from Hi Tech slump to massive lay-offs in finance and industry; decreasing investments, and unemployment on the increase; the need for huge federal subsidies; the contagion between the US and Europe; the new obsession about the perils of a debt economy; not forgetting "emerging" countries which go backward, nor others like Argentina which are on the verge of bankruptcy.
All those indicators point to the persisting self-destructive logic of the system that has shaped the planet for 200 years: this logic has been aggravated and not softened in the last two decades. "Globalisation" speeds up the propagation of crises. The domination of one superpower has the same counter-productive effect as mega-mergers between firms: too much monopoly stifles healthy competition.
Probable Local Victory, Durable Global Unbalance
Stockhausen created quite a stir when he described the fall of the WTC as "the greatest possible work of art". Although the modern artist later added he'd been misunderstood, his initial reaction truly underlined what was at stake. Manhattan's reality is more than material, and those who do business there play more than an economic part.
Like a value pump drawing and redistributing a vital flow, Wall Street is commonly perceived in all rich nations as our heart, and is an object of both worship and curses. The impact of the attack does not derive from its heavy toll, but from the place where the victims died: the massacre of all the 5,5OO inhabitants of Seaside, Oregon, wouldn't have the meaning conveyed by the destruction of an essential organ of a city portrayed as a new Babylon.
"For in one hour so great riches is brought to nought. And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city !" (John, The Revelation, 18, 17-18)
Can the US counter-attack rise to such a high symbolic level?
In Ancient days, an empire threatened by what it called barbarians would try and fight them off, but also turn their temples and idols into dust. The obliteration of one of the most representative sights of Manhattan means a debasement of American hegemony in the name of Islamic values. An adequate response ought to strike at these values with as much brilliance and precision. Yet it's hard to imagine Tomahawks smashing Mecca or a holy shrine of lesser rank.6
Many competitors, from Peking to London, are pretending to join forces to deal with such a small target as bin Laden & partners, because they fear for their own internal stability. Whatever support he got or still gets from various secret services, bin Laden (or any group waging a similar private war) disrupts a weakened world order.
This is why the US doesn't charge in: it needs to preserve client regimes around Afghanistan and in the Middle East. Over-reacting might increase the negative potential accumulated by "the Wretched of the Earth."7
Capital is addressing a pressing question with answers that postpone what would be the best solution for it. In particular, although Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Pakistan are well known centres of radical Islam, the Pentagon does its best not to disturb their internal stability. It will try not to antagonise Muslim allies, and make up for it by adding ruins to more ruins in Afghanistan, or elsewhere, in Iraq ...
In other words, an unprecedented political challenge (even if it just aimed at a symbol) will only be met by a law and order enforcement operation. The big powers are faced with what they present as a major threat (and it is indeed because of its causes), reply with an answer that does not deal with these causes, and don't quite seem to believe in what they're doing. After 1918, the victors acted as if the Versailles Treaty and the League of Nations were opening up a long period of peace. In 1945, the Allies kept repeating they were getting rid of dictators and genocide. The dislocation of colonial empires also gave birth to high hopes of entering an era of mutual respect by all countries, and of development and social justice. People held beliefs then. Today, the States are treating terrorism as crime: but nobody has ever pretended that the elimination of any criminal (even of an evil one) would put an end to crime. It's probably the first time that rulers admit they're not dealing at all with the heart of the matter.
Escalation is rather unlikely, but always possible: nobody knows how hard the sledge-hammer will try and crush the obnoxious fly, nor what bloody fragments it will scatter around. In any case, in the apocalyptic image war for a new millenium, Bush has a handicap against his black twin.8 No Special Forces or SAS feat could beat the fall of the two monoliths. Even if bin Laden gets caught, killed or brought to trial, his memory will survive that of his powerful victor.
Either capital (incarnated and led by its Number One) goes over the top, and stirs more trouble than it's supposed to repress. Or it under-reacts. On the one hand, "reconquering" the world risks reinforcing what produced the attack. On the other, reducing politics to minimal police work opens the door unto new assaults.
Mutatis mutandis, in the 1930's, democracies tried to appease nazi expansionism, and in fact postponed the day of reckoning.
Third World War, Then? Not Today, But The Day After Tomorrow
Capital may well overcome the shock and its aftermath, but it's doubtful it'll solve the long term problems we've summed up. It's most likely it will be carried away on the path that can only deteriorate its situation.
From our point of view, the more time the capitalist answer will take, the more the communist perspective will have to wait. There's no dynamic proletariat without a dynamic capital, that is, a capital that provokes a (possible) rejection of the riches it proposes, not only of the misery it imposes. A radical critique may be dawning, but seems nowhere able to assert and organise itself.
The time has not yet come for communist renewal, nor for large inter-imperialist conflicts. Europe did not go to war in 1914 because of the killing of an Austrian prince, but because of industrial civilisation's inability to expand in peace. The USA is and will be more threatened by European, maybe by Japanese, Chinese..... competitors, than by Islam radicals. A proletarianisation without its actual wage-labour counterpart: here is the source of upheavals that are serious but not enough to drag the big powers into an overall conflict.
The historical significance of the US counteroffensive is not its all too real capacity to wreak havoc in Afghanistan or any other poor country. It lies in the advances and setbacks experienced through the present convulsions by the major capitalist powers of today and tomorrow. As a Pentagon report stated in 1992, American strategy's main objective is "to prevent the emergence of any global potential competitor".9
Neither Europe nor Russia waited long before playing their own part in a false anti-terrorist coalition that will bring about all possible and unpredictable realignments and reversals of alliances.10 Imperialist rivalries lead the world, and in the absence of revolution will result in huge conflagrations, detonated and not caused by minor peripheral conflicts. Until then, "war on terrorism" amounts to a public relations job, at the cost of a few billion dollars, increased police powers, and heaps of corpses.
Bin Laden is an internal contradiction within capitalism, not one of its contradictors. We can even hardly speak of an "archaic" movement, since the past re-surfaces only under the weight and pressure of modernity. Tradition yields wherever commodity and wage-labour can be introduced on a large scale.
Islamism is no more a feasible return to the past than the USSR offered an alternative to Western capitalism. It was fairly easy to understand that the Eastern bloc belonged to the same world system as Spain or Belgium, since wage-labour and a cult of production were plain to see in all bureaucratic regimes. This integration is less visible in the case of radical Islam, because it claims a different ideology. But capital will never disseminate uniform progress, or progress that would finally be more evenly spread on a world scale.
The unemployed Bengali and the Irish call center worker experience a dispossession and a domination that are basically similar, though never addressed in what they have in common. The September 11, 2001 attack and the ensuing counter-offensive set these two proletarians even further away from each other.
Capitalism and barbarism: that's our near future.
J.-P. Carasso, G.Dauvé, K.Nesic
October 22, 2001
• 1. This is a slightly modified and shortened version of the 1st Lettre de troploin, written by J.-P.Carasso, G.Dauve and K.Nesic, October 2001, available on the Troploin website.
• 2. D.Watson, Civilisation is Like a Jetliner, 1983, in Against the Megamachine, Autonomedia.
• 3. See Murdering the Dead. Amadeo Bordiga on Capitalism & Other Disasters, Antagonism Press, 2001.
• 4. Among other texts, Potlatch, n.25, October 1955. If a city like the old Paris no longer exists, New York too has been socially purified, not by Islam, but by its own local authorities. See Bruce Benderson on that matter.
• 5. This will be developed in a forthcoming text, Dynamique de la retraction, of which we hope to produce an English version.
• 6. A more profound US victory would not humiliate Islam, but valorise it in the best American way. It would turn mollahs into tele-evangelists, recuperate idolatry into mercantile practice and, in full respect of the abstraction inherent in the Koran, sell not fetishes as the Catholics still do at Assisi, but a genuine immaterial spirituality. No pictures, no statues, just fleshless and pure pixels, the soul without the body, at last, and Islam as the true virtual religion of the computer age. Alas, Mecca is not in California.
• 7. The title of the famous third-worldist book published by Franz Fanon in 1961 had strong religious overtones.
• 8. On Bush and bin Laden as twins, see A.Roy, The Algebra of Social Justice, published in The Guardian, and available on
• 9. Quoted in Foreign Affairs, Summer 2001.
• 10. Those whose anti-Americanism sums up their critique of this world have no critique of this world. Identifying capitalism with the USA is tantamount to supporting one camp against the other.
Gilles Dauvé, Karl Nesic and J-P Carasso- Grey September.pdf354.54 KB | <urn:uuid:f03e2665-c13b-4c85-9619-4de487bff8bc> | http://libcom.org/library/grey-september-gilles-dauve-nesic-carasso | en | 0.957586 | 0.152059 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Provided by: manpages-dev_3.24-1ubuntu1_all bug
ftime - return date and time
#include <sys/timeb.h>
int ftime(struct timeb *tp);
This function returns the current time as seconds and milliseconds
since the Epoch, 1970-01-01 00:00:00 +0000 (UTC). The time is returned
in tp, which is declared as follows:
struct timeb {
time_t time;
unsigned short millitm;
short timezone;
short dstflag;
number of milliseconds since time seconds since the Epoch. The
timezone field is the local timezone measured in minutes of time west
of Greenwich (with a negative value indicating minutes east of
Greenwich). The dstflag field is a flag that, if nonzero, indicates
that Daylight Saving time applies locally during the appropriate part
of the year.
are unspecified; avoid relying on them.
systems document, a -1 error return.)
This function is obsolete. Don't use it. If the time in seconds
Under libc4 and libc5 the millitm field is meaningful. But early
gettimeofday(2), time(2)
description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
be found at | <urn:uuid:1a5ae1dd-e4fb-439c-9c6a-533e7c4d050c> | http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/maverick/en/man3/ftime.3.html | en | 0.846818 | 0.117126 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Page last updated at 09:52 GMT, Monday, 26 October 2009
Singing soldiers in chart battle
A number of military charities are set to benefit from the proceeds
A band of soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have released their debut album.
The trio, known simply as The Soldiers, recorded Coming Home during breaks in their duties.
All the album's contents are cover versions apart from title track Coming Home, which celebrates those who have made it back and remembers the fallen.
Royalties from the release by Sgt Maj Gary Chilton, Sgt Richie Maddocks and L/Cpl Ryan Idzi will go to charity.
Proceeds will go to the Army Benevolent Fund, Help For Heroes and other groups which support their colleagues.
X Factor
The band's cover versions include He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother by The Hollies, Eric Clapton's Tears In Heaven and Lennon and McCartney's With a Little Help from my Friends.
Sgt Maddocks said: "They're feel-good songs that you'd associate with the guys in the army.
The Soldiers recorded their debut album during breaks in their duties
He said With a Little Help from my Friends was particularly pertinent.
"You could say that when you're a little bit down there's always someone there to pick you up, brush you down and get on with the day's work. That's just so typical of army life."
Sgt Maj Chilton said there were two or three tracks on the album that any soldier or civilian could relate to.
The title track was released earlier this month as a digital download.
Nick Patrick, who has worked with classical singers Russell Watson and Katherine Jenkins, produced the album.
At 24, L/Cpl Idzi is the youngest and most recognisable member of the band after making it through to the boot camp stage of ITV talent show The X Factor in 2007.
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Children And Anorexia: Noticing The Warning Signs
Feb 11, 2014
Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit
We're going to switch gears now to our weekly parenting conversation. And we know for some, this will be a painful conversation. But that's why we turn to our diverse group of parents every week for common sense and savvy advice in dealing with painful issues. Today, we want to focus on eating disorders. Now stories about celebrities with unhealthy eating habits are often in the news. The issue is in the news again because of the finale recently of the NBC reality show "The Biggest Loser." The winner Rachel Frederickson won the competition weighing in at 105 pounds after losing nearly 60 percent of her body weight.
And that's caused a number of observers to question, as they often have on that show, whether the show is promoting unhealthy methods and too rapid weight loss. As well, the pop star Ke$ha recently canceled tour dates, acknowledging that she will continue treatment for an eating disorder. But out of the spotlight, thousands of American families are struggling with these issues. An estimated half a million teenagers have an eating disorder. And according to the National Institute of Mental Health, this is the deadliest form of mental illness. So you can see why we wanted to talk about this. And we've called Dr. Leslie Walker. She's a pediatrician and chief of adolescent medicine at Seattle Children's Hospital. Dr. Walker, welcome back. Thanks for joining us again.
LESLIE WALKER: Thank you for having me.
MARTIN: And Leslie Morgan Steiner is one of our regular parenting contributors. She struggled with an eating disorder herself as a teenager, And she's now the mom of three children. Welcome to you back. Welcome back to you as well.
MARTIN: So, Dr. Walker, could you remind us of what actually qualifies as an eating disorder?
WALKER: Well, you know, a lot of kids have, you know, media influences, and they worry about their weight and how they're exercising and how they look. But a kid who has an eating disorder, someone who really has gone well beyond that that they're either restricting their food severely, they're purging, meaning they're exercising excessively or they're, you know, regurgitating their food, trying to lose weight. But they don't really have a goal - an end point. They usually have a lot of fear about food and a lot of body distortion. And it really causes a lot of angst and stress within the family.
MARTIN: You know, Leslie Morgan Steiner, you know, one can say, look, I can understand why a pop star who's in the public eye and has to appear on stage, usually in, you know, skimpy garb or tight garb, would feel a lot of pressure to look a certain way. But you were not that. So what was the appeal? And you wrote about this recently, I have to say, in a really vivid way that helped me see it. But can you help us understand what was the appeal of this for you?
STEINER: Well, I was a senior in high school. I was heading off to college. I was - there was a lot of change going on in my life, and I was terrified of all of it. And to me, I wanted to lose weight because maybe every teenage girl wants to lose weight. But what I loved about it is that it made me feel in control of my life. And it also made me feel really special and really kind of invincible. I was old enough to know that I was never going to be the smartest, the prettiest, the fastest, you know, all those superlatives. But I thought, you know what? I have a chance of being the thinnest. And it made me feel great every single day as I - during the summer as I got ready to go off to college. And by the time I left for school, I had gone from weighing 130 pounds to weighing 90 pounds.
MARTIN: And were you getting a lot of positive feedback for this, even though - look, I've seen pictures from that time. Your bones were sticking out. I mean, you could, at one point, you could even feel your liver.
MARTIN: I mean, were you getting, like, positive reinforcement for this from people?
STEINER: At the beginning I got tons of positive reinforcement, and I liked that. But I tell you that the thing that mattered the most to me was my own positive reinforcement. I loved how thin I was getting. And even when my older sister who I adored told me to stop, you know, that I didn't look good anymore, and people started staring at me on the street, it didn't matter to me 'cause I still thought I looked great. And I have to say, even though I looked frail and terrible, I felt really strong and powerful. It's one of the most seductive things about anorexia is that it makes you feel really tough and great because of what happens to your brain chemically when you're starving yourself.
MARTIN: Dr. Walker, you know, we often think of teenage girls, as Leslie was, as the main people who are participating in this. But you say you are seeing girls and boys - and boys - as young as 8 or 9 who are experiencing this. In fact, a mother just wrote a piece about - for Salon - about realizing that her 9-year-old was going through this. So can you - Dr. Walker, can you tell us, like, why? And is this something new?
WALKER: No. I don't think it's something new. But, yes, I've had kids as young as 8 and 9, boys and girls, who are clearly restricting their food to lose weight. And, you know, if you look at it, kids between 9 and 10 years old, there's a big jump in kids being afraid to be fat. I mean, kids about 9, maybe half of them in the country, when they're surveyed, say they're worried about being fat or feel like their body doesn't look well. It jumps up to almost 80 percent when you hit 10-year-olds.
And it makes sense in the sense that this is when kids are beginning to look different. They're going through puberty. Some kids are getting bigger. Some kids, you know, are staying smaller. And kids at that age are beginning to compare themselves with their friends and with the media and say am I normal. And for some kids who are more set up to have this kind of a disorder, they think, I'm not normal, and I'd better start losing weight.
MARTIN: So, Leslie, let's use the time that we have left to talk about how you can counteract this. I mean, you wrote a piece about this, and you were very blunt about some of the things that you think people should do. Could you just start us off?
STEINER: Well, I want to say, I speak from the perspective as a survivor myself but also as the mother of three kids, a boy and two girls. And they all went through this kind of period of body distortion. I think the most important thing is to not ignore it when your kid says I'm fat or whatever it is that he or she says. What kids want so much is a reality check from their parents. And if your child is big, which my kids are, it was so relieving to them when I said, you know what? You're not a little twig like some of your friends. You're beautiful, but you're bigger. And I said, I'm bigger, too. I always have been. And they want a reality check. So don't dismiss it. Don't just laugh and say no, you're not.
Take it seriously. I also think it's really important to complement kids at this stage even excessively. I mean, I tell my girls and my boy all the time, you know, whenever I have the opportunity about how they look - they look great. Or, you know, you look so strong. I even - you know, use the intimacy of the parent-child relationship. I say, god, your legs are gorgeous, or look at those muscles. Or - you know, to just lay it on really thick 'cause I think we forget that kids need that so much. They need that positive reinforcement. And then I also think it's really important to have radar for it, to look for it. My kids started going through this at 8, which is a shock. It seems so young. But it does happen. Be aware of it. Don't dismiss it. And talk to your kids about it.
MARTIN: Dr. Walker, do you want to pick up the thread here? What are some other things that you're seeing from your side of it that you think would have helped?
WALKER: I think also - I think everything she said is right. And also, empowering your child to take steps to have a healthy life - to sleep well, to eat well, to have some kind of physical activity to really give them power in other areas of their life where they can feel like they are taking control and growing up and being successful. I think that helps take the attention off of doing some unhealthy behaviors.
MARTIN: So maybe if they want to do the purple hair, let them do the purple hair. Maybe you could - Leslie's looking at me - no. She's like, no. But, Dr. Walker, do you feel that there is a role for, you know, friends and neighbors, you know, perhaps, the, you know, the cool aunt. I mean, one of the things that I was - interesting - we talked to a mom a couple of months ago whose daughter had the opposite issue.
She felt her, you know, her daughter was kind of a compulsive eater. And it was interesting how much blowback she got from it when she tried to regulate her daughter's eating and say, no, you can't have a second cupcake, how many people would say to her, oh, you're mean. It seems like people get all kinds of mixed messages. So I'm wondering, should outsiders play any role in this, or should they just stay out of it? What do you think?
WALKER: I think, you know, kids grow up in a village and everybody really has a role to play in helping support them to be as healthy as they can be. And I think negative reinforcement in any way usually doesn't work. So really, positive reinforcement in helping kids see the positive parts of who they are and what they can do is always going to be very important from everybody that comes into contact with the kid. So really watching language. Not saying - you know, when somebody says, I need to have a diet. I need to go on a diet. Not finding them a diet to go on, but then - but rather helping a kid understand what is healthy and how they are doing well with what they are doing and how they can continue to work on some of the positive things they're doing.
MARTIN: Leslie, we only have about a minute left. Is there just one thing, as a survivor yourself, that you would really want people to know, and especially when they read stories about the ones we just talked about like Ke$ha saying, you know, I'm struggling with this? Is there something we really don't get that we need to get about this?
STEINER: I think that it's really hard to understand from the outside how appealing it is to somebody to control their body and to control their food, whether it's through being bulimic or anorexic or over exercising. And, you know, you think it's just so easy. You know, people say things like, well, why don't you just, you know, eat a candy bar, or, you know. People don't take it as seriously as they should. It is a devastating illness. And once it gets a hold of you, it's hard to let go. So I think that parents and family members should take it seriously and not shame anybody who is experiencing it.
MARTIN: Leslie Morgan Steiner is one of our regular contributors to our parenting conversations. As we mentioned, she's a survivor of an eating disorder as a teenager. She's now the mom of three children. Dr. Leslie Walker is with us, and she's a pediatrician and chief of adolescent medicine at Seattle Children's Hospital. And I thank you both so much for speaking to us.
STEINER: Thank you, Michel.
| <urn:uuid:777a1878-5e3a-4eca-b365-1d9618bb5918> | http://tspr.org/post/children-and-anorexia-noticing-warning-signs | en | 0.986525 | 0.032386 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Battle of Daggercap Bay
Revision as of 01:41, March 9, 2008 by Mezzatorre (Talk | contribs)
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After his arrival at Daggercap Bay, Arthas led his troops through the hills of Northrend in search of a place where they could set up a base camp. Despite the local tribe of forest trolls' opposition, Arthas made his way further into the mainland, and spotted a gold mine. He was ambushed by Muradin Bronzebeard and his band of Dwarven riflemen. Muradin recognized his old friend and student Arthas, and ceased fire, thinking that he had come to rescue him from the attacking undead. Arthas told him that he was hunting Mal'Ganis and didn't know that Muradin was in Northrend too, so they decided to join forces.
Muradin told Arthas that his main base camp was North, surrounded by the undead and withstanding a heavy siege. Arthas rallied his troops and fought his way to the Dwarven town.
At this time the scouts reported a massive undead bastion to the West, where possibly Mal'Ganis was hiding. Arthas led a decisive assault and, with the help of Muradin's dwarves, the undead base was destroyed.
However, Mal'Ganis had yet to be accounted for.
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'Pretty Little Liars' recap: 'Under the Gun'
"You don't need a lawyer to tell me if you want a cup of coffee."
Hanna finds herself alone in the interrogation room with Lieutenant Tanner. Facing up to 7 years for possible charges ranging from obstruction to the actual murder of Detective Wilden, Hanna remains mum about everything ... even when her parents come to pick her up from the police station.
If dealing with one friend who was arrested during the college visit weekend, and another friend who decided it wasn't the right university for either of them wasn't enough, Emily's biggest rival makes her debut on the swim team.
Shawna shares with Emily that she will be attending Rosewood High, and swimming on the team (hoping to land a scholarship), but we are sure there are other reasons for her mid-semester transfer. (Don't be sneaky Shawna; we want to know what Jenna actually told you).
With one girl under constant parental supervision and two not speaking, Aria decides it is time for the girls to meet and figure out how A managed to set Hanna up, and how to keep the heat off of Hanna before she ends up in jail for seven years. Spencer takes the time to apologize to Emily for "bulldozing" their friendship. As soon as she gains one friend back, she loses her and an additional one.
Aria meets one of Mike's friends, who needed help with his English homework, and his new job at the coffee shop.
"More Mona more problems" is right. Surprise! Mona makes her unconventional comeback. She reveals to the girls (and Spencer) that she has been searching for the missing RV that Toby managed to give to A. Secrets out! Spencer knew. *cue two more apologies from Spencer*
No school, no phone, not internet, more A. Hanna receives a text from A saying that if she talks, both of her parents will go down. While awaiting the results from the ballistics test, and the DA's word on whether or not she can go back to school, Hanna and her mom come clean to her father about everything (except A).
Meanwhile, Caleb tries to visit and is turned away, but Emily is allowed in (homework is okay). Emily convinces Hanna to give her the dash cam footage from the night her mother hit Detective Wilden with the car. After a fight, Hanna gives in.
After an awkward night with of studying with Conner that ends with a one-sided kiss (Aria was not about it) Aria goes back to school, and back into the rumor mill. Aria confronts Conner about the rumor of the two hooking up.
Conner confronts Aria about her "relationship with Mr. Fitz." To her surprise, Mr. Fitz is in the locker room to save the day, but Aria doesn't want to hear it. After realizing what happened to his sister was wrong, Mike assures her that everything will be taken care of. (He is still scary).
Emily doesn't want to hear Spencer's excuses for why she isn't sharing information about the missing RV.
Emily finds a way to make it to the police station and put the dash cam video on Lieutenant Tanner's desk, everything is okay ... right?
Spencer and Toby take a trip to find Mrs. Grenwald (the mysterious sorority den mother.) The trip turns dark when they end up in a town with no street signs and falling birds. Hello Ravenswood.
They come across a woman who looks like Grenwald, but the woman informs her that she doesn't know what she is talking about, and that she should leave. Spencer takes the hint, but not before she makes her way to a creepy grave site with the rest of the town ... and Shawna.
Sidebar: The 10 minutes they spent in Ravenswood really made me excited for the show's premiere in the fall.
During open mic night at the coffee shop, Hanna is still absent, Emily is still mad, Aria shows up for moral support, Spencer tells the girls about her trip to "creepyvillie" and Shawna is there with her violin. Why? Did we forget Lieutenant Tanner was there to take Emily to the police station to "talk."
Emily goes to the station, and sees the video. Not the dash cam video but the one with the image of her standing next to the Rosewood sign holding a sign that says "Guilty." (Anyone catch the glare on the face? Yup A is walking around with the Emily mask).
Who wrote liar on Conner's car, and smashed it to pieces?
And why does Ashley "have the right to remain silent." It looks like everyone is falling into A's trap.
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Arudou Debito/Dave Aldwinckle's Home Page
From Debito's doctoral research:
Embedded Racism: Japan's Visible Minorities and Racial Discrimination
• Embedded Racism: Japan's Visible Minorities and Racial Discrimination
• (Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield 2015)
• Asahi and Mainichi: J Supreme Court rules against Nationality Clause for employment in judiciary
Posted by Dr. ARUDOU, Debito on November 2nd, 2009
UPDATES ON TWITTER: arudoudebito
Hi Blog. In probably one of the most important legal decisions all year, the Supreme Court has ruled that the “Nationality Clause” (kokuseki joukou), often cited as a reason for barring NJ from administrative (and often, even stable noncontracted) jobs in the public sector, has been scrapped. I’m not sure if that means it’s been ruled “unconstitutional”, but the clause in the Mainichi below, (“The citizenship requirement was eliminated because the courts could be seen as denying employment based solely on the question of citizenship,” the court stated.) could reasonably be stretched in future cases to say that barring NJ from jobs (currently allowed in places such as firefighting and food preparation, and also in Tokyo Prefecture for nursing) should not be permitted. That would be excellent news for the long-suffering NJ academics in Japan’s higher-education system of Academic Apartheid. Let’s hope some professor has the cojones to take it to court. (Not me: I’m tenured already, thank goodness.) Arudou Debito in Sapporo
Supreme Court scraps Japanese nationality requirement for legal training
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN 2009/10/29, Courtesy HH
Ending what has long been labeled discriminatory, the Supreme Court has scrapped a clause requiring Japanese nationality among those seeking legal training to start careers in the judiciary.
Non-Japanese who have passed the bar examination have, in fact, undergone legal training, but only under “exceptional” measures and if the Supreme Court deems them “adequate.”
Foreign nationals and officials at the Japan Federation of Bar Associations have said the clause has unfairly shut the door on many non-Japanese and demanded its elimination.
The clause stems from a Cabinet legislation bureau policy that states that Japanese nationality is a prerequisite for those applying for public service work that involves the execution of public power or has a bearing on the formulation of national intention.
That policy was extended to legal training based on the reasoning that trainees could attend prosecutors’ questioning of suspects or closed-door counsel discussions held by courts.
A Supreme Court official explained the court decided to “delete any mention that suggests that in principle (non-Japanese) cannot be accepted (for legal training).”
Tokuji Izumi, a lawyer and former Supreme Court justice, said he hopes the move will increase the number of foreign lawyers practicing in Japan and “will help in protecting the rights of foreign nationals.”
Izumi was involved in the top court’s acceptance in 1976 of Kim Kyung Duk, an ethnic Korean born in Japan, for legal training.
Kim had put consistent pressure on the Supreme Court, and became the first non-Japanese to enter legal training in 1977. He went on to become a prominent human rights lawyer in Japan before his death in 2005.
After lobbying by Kim and others, the Supreme Court agreed to allow “those deemed adequate to attend (legal training),” but it kept the nationality clause.
In 1990, the top court scrapped its policy of requiring foreign applicants to pledge to abide by the law. The court also widened the scope of those eligible for legal training to include foreign nationals who do not hold permanent residence status.
But the court still retained the nationality clause.
According to the Supreme Court, more than 140 foreign nationals who passed the bar examination have attended legal training.
In applying for legal training, applicants must submit copies of family registries known as koseki. Since foreign nationals do not hold koseki, the Supreme Court will request documents to prove their residency in Japan.
Non-Japanese are also barred from being employed as prosecutors or judges, which are national civil servant jobs.
Foreign nationals who complete legal training can enter the judiciary as lawyers, but they will have to acquire Japanese nationality before working as judges or prosecutors.
The Japan Federation of Bar Associations has also submitted a request that district and family courts accept foreign lawyers as judicial commissioners and mediators “regardless of nationality if they are qualified.”(IHT/Asahi: October 29,2009)
Supreme Court eliminates Japanese citizenship requirement for articling students
(Mainichi Japan) October 30, 2009, Courtesy JK
The Supreme Court has eliminated the Japanese citizenship requirement for student articling positions at courts of law.
“The citizenship requirement was eliminated because the courts could be seen as denying employment based solely on the question of citizenship,” the court stated. The decision will first affect those taking up articling positions in November.
Those who pass the bar exam can go on to become articling students, after which they take a final graduation exam and, if they pass, may become courtroom lawyers, judges and public prosecutors. Until the ruling, Japanese citizenship was a requirement to become an articling student at the court as, in order to prepare for jobs as judges or prosecutors, they studied “the exercise of government power involved in being a civil servant.”
In 1977, the court created exceptions to the ban on foreigners holding legal positions. Foreigners may not become public prosecutors or judges, which as civil servants must hold Japanese citizenship, but may become courtroom lawyers.
「司法修習生は日本国籍必要」条項を削除 最高裁
2009年10月29日8時1分 朝日新聞
最高裁事務総局の任用課長として、金さんの採用問題に取り組んだ元最高裁判事の泉徳治弁護士の話 自由に職業を選択し、自己実現をはかることは基本的人権の中核をなす。実質的には外国籍の人も司法修習生に採用していたとはいえ、国籍条項は外国籍の人からすれば、差別感を感じることもあっただろう。外国籍の弁護士が増えることは、外国人の権利の救済が進むことにもつながると思う。
司法修習生：採用選考要項から国籍条項を削除 最高裁
毎日新聞 2009年10月29日
10 Responses to “Asahi and Mainichi: J Supreme Court rules against Nationality Clause for employment in judiciary”
1. HO Says:
The scope of the Supreme Court’s policy change is very much limited.
Anyone who passed the bar exam must go though a state sponsored 2 year program called “shihou shushu sei” (judicial trainee) before being a lawyer. What the Supreme Court abolished was the eligibility rule for the program that a trainee must be a Japanese citizen. As the news report, the nationality clause was abolished in practice in 1977. They formally changed the rule this year. The change is limited to judicial trainees.
A lawyer who is not a Japanese citizen is not eligible for a judge or a public prosecutor. This rule is not going to change anytime soon.
2. Frodis Says:
Although I am not someone who sees a plot to foil foreigners at every turn, I wonder if this ruling is going to make much of a practical difference. Except in certain cases — passing the bar for example — most applicants for positions will never know why they are not being interviewed/hired. Even passing the bar does not necessarily mean one may find gainful employment.
The law may no longer bar foreigners from certain positions but that doesn’t mean that employers are likely to suddenly open the doors to actually employing any. If there is no mandate to have previously exclusive positions opened up (affirmative action?) then I see little impetus to employ foreigners or little recourse for people who feel blocked from employment in these sectors.
3. Jerry Says:
Frodis, I think there is a misunderstanding about the difference between the BAR exam in Japan and in the USA. In Japan passing the BAR is the first step to becoming a lawyer, after passing the BAR you go to 2 years of legal training. In the US you pass the BAR after your legal training. In Japan the BAR exam would probably be more analogous with the LSAT.
4. Frodis Says:
Thanks for clarifying. I used that as an example only to illustrate that removing barriers for foreigners even to be able to sit the bar exam doesn’t guarantee that they are going to be able to progress any further whether it be for further legal training or to practice law. Whether or not passing the bar makes one qualified to practice or not wasn’t really the point I was trying to make. I suppose I could have used writing a civil service exam as another example. I really just wanted to highlight that being given permission to jump through the hoops wasn’t necessarily going to lead to be invited to join the dog & pony show.
— It’s still a step in the right direction, and better than it not happening at all. One has to acknowledge these improvements whenever they happen or else this science gets too dismal.
5. Netko Says:
Not exactly on the topic, but allow me to comment…
… perhaps my comment is just very naive, but I so much wish they also finally removed the “nationality clause” for returnee students (kikokusei/kikokushijo) for high school admission.
There are many kids nowadays who are born/adpoted/raised in Japan and/or are permament residents of Japan, but have no citizenship (adopted children do not get it automatically, it appears), but in education system in Japan “foreigners” are considered to be children with non-Japanese citizenship and whose “native tongue is_not Japanese,” while for the “returnee” category (kikokusei/kikokushijo), a child is required to have Japanese nationality.
However, there’s no legal definition or requirement whatsoever (– nobody was able to tell me and that includes local high schools in Tokyo that accept “kikokusei/kikokushijo,” Monbusho, and the Education Board’s “Soudan Center for foreign residents’ education” in Tokyo), for a returnee child (kikokushijo) to have Japanese nationality, yet any school we have contacted re entrance exam application for a permanent resident child returning_to_Japan after several years abroad tells us we don’t qualify solely for the reason of non-Japanese citizenship.
That is required even in cases where schools don’t even mention anything about nationality in their application documents! They say that only after you contact them…
It looks like when Japanese children spend some time abroad they are rewarded for the experience (special adjusted entrance exams & classes are in place for them), but when a permanent resident child leaves Japan and gets the same international experience abroad, that kid ends up punished because there are simply no schools that think of them as ‘returnees’ (kikokushijo) and after a couple of years abroad in a foreign school children simply can’t compete in ‘ippan’ category entrance exams.
Here, I am talking about kids who move abroad temporarily, with their parent(s) and due to their parent’s job transfer.
For us this is a tragedy because one of us has Japanese nationality and Japan had sent us abroad for an official duty for several years, but the (adpoted) child who was educated and grew up in Japan isn’t considered a returnee, despite being a permanent resident and not having any other country to live in.
It is shocking to us to see that there is no law that would require anything re the citizenship, nevertheless schools are able to discriminate so easily and there is nothing a parent could do.
Ironically, schools that pride themselves with being “kokusaiteki,” that devote themselves to “crosscultural understanding” and have established special adjusted exams and classes for returnee children and the only reason such kids were able to become ‘valuable returnees’ with foreign language skills and “internationalized” is because other_countries didn’t stop them from freely enrolling in their schools despite them being foreigners (as Japanese nationals, all of these kids with only Japanese passports are obviously foreigners in Europe, the U.S. etc.).
Has anyone had any experience with this kind of issues in Japanese education?
Any advice?
Does anyone know if there is any way to fight back the “nationality clause” in case of high school education for “kikokushijo” because there actually is no law that supports it?
6. Jerry Says:
Netko, are you talking about public or private schools? If it is public schools I would consider contacting an attorney and having them talk with the schools in question about the entrance exam (and whether your child should be included in the returnee category). Most likely that is all that would be required (that the school realizes that they are facing a potential lawsuit and bad publicity).
7. Maya Says:
This is long overdue and perhaps does not really count as a policy change since the citizenship clause for legal training has been a token clause for some time. But still, I agree that it’s a step in the right direction!
Actually, there is an ever-growing demand for multilingual lawyers in Japan that has been poorly met. Fluency/literacy in Chinese, for example, will be a pretty big advantage in the legal business, since there are precious few multilingual Japanese lawyers. I think that’s part of the reason the bar association has been pushing for accepting non-Japanese in Japanese legal system. (Although, not being a Japanese national does not necessarily mean the person is multilingual, especially under the current Japanese educational system that effectively suppresses multilingualism.)
8. Netko Says:
Jerry, thanks for reading my post!
It’s both private and public school(s).
There’s, for example, Kanto Kokusai High that requires a returnee child to have Japanese citizenship (disclosed on their website, under “application requirements”), while they also set up a “foreigner category,” which requires a foreign child to “be a non-native speaker of Japanese/to have the need to be placed in special Nihongo classes that provide some extra teaching for such students…” They also require such foreign children to be “newcomers in Japan” so obviously a Nihongo-fluent permanent resident who had finished el. school in Japan would not be eligible.
There’s also Tokyo Gakugei High (“fuzoku” of the same name university) that now allows only transfers (not 1st year admission anymore, it appears) and that’s a public/national school — they explicitely state that one must have Japanese nationality to apply as a returnee.
The list goes on, I mean, schools don’t imagine that a returnee could be a permanent resident of Japan whose native tongue is Japanese. Nor do they imagine that there could be Japanese nationals who married NJs with kids from previous marriages or have adopted “foreign” kids who are culturally ‘Japanese,’ (born), raised, and educated in Japan, going abroad b/c their parents were “sent” there. Kids have no choice, but schools don’t care. Sadly, they don’t think that this sort of diversity would enrich them either.
Then there’s this school that we want to apply, a public high in Tokyo that is famous for having “internationalized atmosphere” and that says it teaches “cross-cultural understanding,” however, although on their website they do_not mention the nationality of returnee students, they do so in emails to us! They have explicitely told us on 2-3 occassions that the only way for a child to apply as a returnee is (among other requirements – living more than 1.5 yrs abroad, with_a parent(s)) to be a Japanese national.
This school requests that we apply as a foreigner, but these requirements don’t match our situation at all (e.g. we can’t prove that we are in Tokyo at the moment b/c we are abroad for work, “sent” as a family by a J Gov’t agency! How ironic.)
Interestingly, Monbusho does not know, does not have the definition of the term “returnee student” (kikokushijo) and so does not the “Soudan Center” in Tokyo — I have emails from them and they can’t point at any law or legal document that would support the nationality clause in case of returning children/students. They say it’s up to each “todoufuken” and each high school to decide re this.
Both tell me to have my kid apply as a foreigner and both recommend one single school in Tokyo! It looks that there’s only one public high school that accepts foreign children and the admission ratio is 1 in 4!
Nevertheless, the advice that I got from Monbusho a couple of weeks ago tries to make me feel assured that there_is one_place my child can apply! (With 1 in 4 ratio, what am I to do…)
On the other hand, I realize that there also is no law that would require schools not_to discriminate against NJs — am I wrong? I wish I were!
Thank you for the advice… since we are currently outside of Japan I think it would be nearly impossible to find an attorney to represent us. We were actually hoping that Monbusho would be the most helpful, but their reply was just a joke — in their response they didn’t relly address my question about nationality clause, but they switched to the “foreigner category” admissions…
I will try to see if I can find someone online. Thanks much.
— This is an excellent post, too good to be in the comments section. Thanks for it. Please consider resubmission as a complete essay (we basically need an introductory paragraph and a conclusion) and I’ll put it up as a separate post on
9. Jerry Says:
Netko, how you proceed depends on how much of a stink you want to raise. There are a couple of options available to you. Since you are currently on an assignment for the Japanese government you could always try to get the organization your husband works for to contact the schools and explain the situation to them, chances are they will make an exception to their policies to fit your situation. Next down the ladder would be to contact the school district and set up a meeting to again explain the situation and then try to get them to act as your advocate in helping resolve the situation. Biggest stink would be the lawyer.
Since my kids are still in elementary school I don’t know much about the entrance requirements for the different levels of schooling but I think you should be able to get an exception made if you can find the right person (of course that can be a nightmare too).
10. CJ Says:
As some of the other posters have noted, this has nothing to do with NJ getting employment as judges, prosecutors or any other type of law-related public employment. It is about having to be a public-servant trainee after you pass the bar exam, a requirement which technically bars NJ passers. However, this part of the qualification process is becoming increasingly shortened, and it is probably not a coincidence that this change is coming at the same time that the government is going to stop paying trainees and start charging them tuition instead. If nothing, the change illustrates how much arbitrary power the Supreme Court actually exercises, even in the face of its own rules. It has simply decided to do away with a rule it has been ignoring for decades. Since NJ bar passers have been “allowed” to qualify for many years now, this change probably has more to do with the rule making the supreme court look bad than anything to do with NJ. The real question is, “why didn’t they just change the rule the first time an NJ passed the bar?” The answer is probably along the lines of “but what if an ‘undesirable’ foreigner passed the bar exam after they did that?”
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How Much Does a Puff Pastry Cost?
A puff pastry is a light, flaky laminated dough that contains thin layers of butter in solid state at 20oC. In raw form, a puff pastry is a dough filled with butter and folded repeatedly and rolled out, which then puffs into light, crispy pastry once it bakes in the oven. As the dough bakes, the solid butter melts and creates little puff of air when the liquid in the butter begins to disperse, consequently allowing the layers to become light and airy.
Making a puff pastry is a simple process of wrapping a block of butter in simple dough, and repeatedly rolling it out and folding it over several times, increasing the number of layers with each fold. You only need to have enough patience to do it because the process is time-consuming and you have to make sure that the butter does not become too soft to squish out from those layers. Or, if you want to save yourself the time and trouble, you can simply purchase some at your local bakery or grocery store.
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Yield To Call
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Generally speaking, bonds are callable over several years and are normally called at a slight premium.
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Kardiolita - The Leading Private Hospital In Lithuania - Gets Accredited By The JCI. Medical Treatment Abroad News
Kardiolita - the leading private hospital in Lithuania - has been a popular choice for medical treatment abroad, and getting accredited by the JCI confirms the highest quality of medical services and patient safety.
Kardiolita - the leading private hospital in Lithuania, which is a popular choice for medical treatment abroad, has been recently accredited by the JCI - Joint Commission International, and is the very first general hospital in the Baltic States to get this accreditation.
Joint Commission International, or JCI, is one of the groups providing international healthcare accreditation services to hospitals around the world. This global, knowledge-based organization provides leadership and innovative solutions to help international health care organizations across all settings improve patient safety and quality.
While many hospitals and clinics worldwide strive to get accredited by the JCI simply to be able to market their services easier, Kardiolita is the perfect example showing that the accreditation was just a proof that the hospital works by the highest standards and following the necessary procedures to provide health services of the highest quality to their patients.
According to the General Deputy Manager of Kardiolita - Andrius Jonutis, We have been following many of these work procedures for years already as we have many ongoing and active initiatives for service improvement inside our company, so there was not that much to learn and change when we decided to get accredited by the JCI - that is just how we are used to work daily. So being accredited by the JCI is not just a nice fact by itself, but it demonstrates our ongoing commitment to quality and safety.", A.Jonutis says.
Private General Hospital Kardiolita is not only the first choice for private medical services in Lithuania, it is also the choice for many International patients as well: people from Europe and even the Unites States choose Kardiolita for different types of medical treatments and surgeries. The reason behind this is that the prices for the services are much lower than those in the UK or the US, but the quality of the services is very high, and the level of equipment is what the best hospitals in Europe and the US have.
Even when you add the price for the travel, the amount the patient saves coming to our hospital for treatment, is still huge. This is why our hospital is a popular destination for medical treatment in Europe." - Andrius Jonutis says.
About Kardiolita
Kardiolita is the leading private general hospital in Lithuania. Established in 1998 Kardiolita provides full range of medical services - from comprehensive diagnostics to various surgical treatments within many medical areas.
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Webcast with Christine Mau
The Brave Zig While the Rest Zag
A Packaging Perspective On Creating Stand-Out Work
The shelves of America’s supermarkets and drug stores are cluttered with bland design. But if Christine Mau had anything to do with it, things would change.
In fact, Mau does have a lot of influence over our shopping experience: As the associate director of packaging graphics at Kimberly-Clark, she is in a position to re-envision the way many basic consumer goods are purveyed–and she has taken full advantage of that opportunity. Under her direction, the Kleenex box has become a personalized thing of fun and beauty, an object of décor rather than just a receptacle for a hygiene product. In this talk, she will explain how she’s been able to create breakthrough work at one of this country’s largest companies–and why it pays to think way outside the (tissue) box.
Christine will talk about:
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GIMME SHELTER-Radiator rust: Preparation is the key
Ronnie Kite, Meadowbrook Hardware
Q: I keep painting my radiators, but rust spots keeping coming through the paint. How can I avoid getting these pesky rust spots?
A: Of course, since water circulates through the radiator, condensation and water spots on the metal surface are bound to get trapped beneath the paint and lead to corrosion, which is what rust is. Eventually that dark rust is going to work through the paint.
The best way to fix and prevent this problem is to prepare the surface. First, it's important to scrub the radiator thoroughly with a wire brush to remove any loose paint or rust. Secondly, you'll want to sand down the rust spots to the metal. If the old paint is sticking good, just scrub and sand the spots where the rust is coming through or where paint is chipping or peeling. There's really no need to strip the entire radiator unless rust is a problem all over. Next, clean the surface so that it's free of dust and grime.
To seal off the rust spots, use an oil-based white or red oxide anti-rust primer before painting. These primers are available in most hardware stores, and are also available in spray cans. And don't worry: you can go ahead and use latex paint on top of the primer to match your room colors.
When it comes to painting your radiators, preparing them just might be the easy part. Trying to get a paintbrush into those nooks and crannies can be a real hassle. I recommend using an angled radiator brush to get inside, and a six-and-a-half-inch handle skinny roller to get behind the radiator, both of which are available at your local hardware store.
Of course, some people think that radiators look best unpainted, which would certainly solve the rust problem! Another option, which isn't a bad idea if you have kids (those radiators can be real hot to the touch!) or just don't want the hassle of painting your radiators, is to get radiator covers. In fact, a lot of older homes still have these covers, but they seem to have fallen out of fashion. Still, a quick search online turns up an array of cover styles and prices.
Ronnie Kite | <urn:uuid:57158f25-4957-4ccd-a86f-e2ef214e2a65> | http://www.readthehook.com/78989/gimme-shelter-radiator-rust-preparation-key?quicktabs_1=0 | en | 0.942397 | 0.049339 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Ever see one of those movies where some secret government agency has a super high-tech office in an old, dilapidated building in some rundown part of town? The camera starts on the outside, looking over a ghetto as it moves down the street. It zeros in on a rundown building that a squatter would be embarrassed to live in. Then, as the camera moves inside we are shown a state-of-the art facility worthy of a Manhattan high-rise office in the 22nd century.
Sometimes SEO is just like that, but the opposite. A lot of time and energy is spent on the "exterior" (search engine rankings) while ignoring the interior (building a great website.)
Imagine yourself driving through a newly renovated area of town. The asphalt is freshly laid with bright yellow lines down the middle. Young, budding plants have been planted along the sidewalks between the street and newly stuccoed office buildings that look to be full of leather bound books smelling of rich mahogany. Now imagine walking into one of those buildings to find torn up carpet, water-stained ceilings, crumbling sheet rock on the walls, and someone doing their business off in the corner.
Imagine the change of emotions you'd feel. Stepping up to the door you feel confident that you're walking into a place that's going to meet your needs. But as soon as you open the door, you're hit with a stench that is the forebear of whats to come.
Focusing on search engine rankings while ignoring the quality and usability of your website may be a great way to get visitors in the door, but what will they find once they get there?
Putting your money where it counts.
When you're on a budget, as many businesses are today, you really want to spend your money where you're likely to get the greatest benefit. Unfortunately, money isn't always spent on what is actually the most beneficial, but rather what is perceived to be. While SEO can help you gain exposure and drive traffic to the front door of your website, if what's behind those doors isn't up to expectations, all the money getting them there is simply a waste.
A couple years ago I had my wisdom teeth removed, had a root canal and then a cap put on one of my teeth all in a couple of months time. I had to see several different dentists, each a specialist in a different area, so I got to see quite a few dentists offices, noticing a stark contrast between them.
Most of the offices were roomy and full of nice furniture, but one stood out as a genuinely scary experience, especially for someone who suffers from mild claustrophobia. The receptionist's desk was two and a half feet wide and piled high with about a years worth of "stuff that can wait."
I was placed in one of the procedure "rooms" looking right at someone else being examined by one of the nurses. As I laid back in the chair to get some X-rays, the nurse had to duck repeatedly around overhanging equipment while stepping over a small office trash can to get out to the hallway. It was like trying to perform an operation in a closet.
This is what many business websites are like when they focus on SEO and ignore their website design. There is nothing wrong with investing in SEO to drive traffic, but SEO is not the end of the story.
Conversions matter
A while back we had a long-time client undergo a major site redesign. They had held their rankings pretty solidly over the years but the site was design was getting stale. We had also been prodding over the previous months to address their site's many inefficiencies. Because their business had been growing significantly since we started working on their SEO campaign, they were never in a real hurry to make any changes. But finally they made the move.
The client invested in a major redevelopment of the site and rolled it out to the public. Almost immediately something amazing happened. Their conversion rates jumped by 30%!
This jump wasn't the result of new keywords optimized, or previously optimized keywords suddenly moving up in the rankings. The increase in conversions was directly tied to making their site more appealing and user-friendly.
The new site design cost them about what a years worth of SEO cost them. With a much more user and search engine friendly site, the efforts we were able to shift the efforts of the SEO campaign from creating band-aid solutions to being able to invest in a far more focused keyword targeting campaign.
With the additional revenue the client began talking about expanding the online marketing efforts; and why not? With a newly polished, high-tech interior, why not do all that you can to drive even more traffic to the higher-converting site?
No one can deny the value of getting first page placement for relevant keyword phrases. But many small businesses still need to be convinced that there is more to marketing than rankings and traffic. Bringing traffic into the slums isn't all that difficult to do. Getting someone to buy from you while they're there is. Lucky for you, it's not too great of a distance to go from trash to cash. Conversions do matter. And in the end, conversions are what matter most.
First of all, I love the quote about exterior vs. interior, and I'll talk about that in a tweet to you later today, but I do want to ask your opinion on the new CMS group that has taken over the design world over the last 24 months. Joomla, Wordpress, and Drupal have all becoem almost the go-to platforms for web design, so my question to you is: How does this exterior vs. interior argument deal with the fact that people are using box solutions instead of building sites from scratch. Is it a problem for CMS users too, or moreso for those who build HTML/PHP/etc sites from scratch.
Elija, you make a fair point but making the "interior" of the site is more than just the underlying system, though that weighs heavily. Usability aspects come into play a great deal. This is everything from placement of content, navigation, colors, calls to action, design elements and a whole lot more.
Sometimes SEO is just like that, but the opposite. A lot of time and energy is spent on the "exterior" (search engine rankings) while ignoring the interior (building a great website.).. I Agree With this.. You must considered both interior and exterior!!
It's so easy to get narrow minded and only focus on one or the other - 'the interior' or 'the exterior'. Both are equally important though. Great post and reminder!
No doubt usability goes a long way. You can get all the traffic you want - if your site doesn't give your users what they want (and maybe what they didn't know they wanted) it's all for nought.
Good post.
ps It's worth mentioning that Harlem is actually located on Manhattan. So there's actually no distance at all between the two.
@mike - shows what I know about NY geography. :)
WONDERFUL post! But Stoney, you gotta come visit your pal CK (who lives in NYC for 13+ years) as Harlem is Manhattan (and a very, very historical part of Manhattan at that--all the jazz greats, the Apollo, Malcom X and Martin Luther King Blvd!). And now that Bill Clinton has had offices there for over 5 years... it's actually a very pricey part of the city. Hey, just gives you an excuse to come to NYC!
PS: And Brooklyn wouldn't work either as that's all the rage since '00 and is billed out as the new Manhattan now ;-)
PPS: Happy Holidays!
I guess my ignorance is no longer bliss. Thanks for the heads up CK. :) I've edited the post, hopefully this is more accurate. :)
Absolutely right !! I want to take it to even one step further. Focus on interior from the very first day launch of your website. This way your initial traffic will even start to become your loyal and trusted customers.
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Search Engine Guide > Stoney deGeyter > Take Your SEO from Trash to Cash | <urn:uuid:457f0028-c9f6-4695-ad34-43c324409574> | http://www.searchengineguide.com/stoney-degeyter/take-your-seo-from-harlem-to-manhattan.php | en | 0.970923 | 0.0583 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Catherine by Laura Leigh Bobby set the makeup case and suitcase down on the bed. Opening the luggage, he began to lay out a few of the things he would need for his session of self-feminization. His legs, underarms, and body hair had already been shaved, leaving his body soft, smooth, and ladylike. He had spent time at home plucking his eyebrows to feminine perfection, but had no need to shave his face for he had undergone electrolysis and no longer had any beard to shave. In fact, Bobby was so dedicated to his crossdressing that he had begun a self-imposed regimen of estrogen therapy. A year of female hormones had softened his skin and body tone considerably and had given him a sweet, girlish face, meaning that, in his everyday life, he no longer looked very masculine at all. He was usually mistaken for a girl, which thrilled him immensely. With his new face, Bobby had given himself a convincingly feminine canvas upon which to apply his makeup -- and anything which added to the authenticity of his ladylike appearance had priority in his life. His nipples and areolas had grown larger, as would those of any girl undergoing puberty. His breasts had only begun to blossom, and based upon his research he estimated that another fourteen months of hormone ingestion would result in his having a very respectable bustline. For the moment, he needed to wear breast forms when dressed, but Bobby looked forward to that near-future day when he could amply fill the cups of his bra on his own. He hoped within three years to have saved enough money to allow him to undergo complete sex change surgery in Trinidad, Colorado. He knew that before that time he would have to spend a year living a woman's life in preparation for his permanent alteration. He looked forward to that. Catherine, a close female friend of his, looked at the clothes he had brought. She herself had a voluptuous and perfect figure, with a bustline that left nothing to be desired. The way the lovely blonde filled her nurse's uniform while at work each day had encouraged many a male patient to recover. "What a pretty dress," she complimented, holding up his black jacket dress with its sheer sleeves. "I'm jealous. How much was it?" "About seventy dollars," Bobby answered. "Plus the thirty five I spent having new sleeves put on it. I think it really turned out well." "It sure did. I might ask to borrow it." She picked up his Caboodle cosmetics case. "Do you want to go ahead and get started?" "Sure," he said, picking up a few underthings. "And look...I can't tell you how much I appreciate this. I would have gone nuts if I hadn't gotten to dress as a woman this weekend. It's really hard to explain to someone who hasn't lived with this, but my ego seems to be feminine, and it just has to come out or I just..." "Hey," Catherine said. "There's nothing wrong with emulating women. We're always emulating men..." She held up his dress. "Besides, this'll look good on you." "Think so? I tried it on at home, and it seemed to fit well..." "Oh, honey, yes. It's gorgeous. This is really going to be fun...I love seeing you transform yourself into a lady. I'd even like to do this on a regular basis, if you want'll be like having a new girlfriend. You know, if you moved in with me you could just stay dressed as a girl all the time. I already told you that you're welcome to wear anything of mine that fits you." "I'd love to live with you," Bobby said. "I've always wanted to know a girl I could stay dressed up around...and it would be fun to share your wardrobe." He handed her the cosmetics case as she set down the dress. "If you want, you can put that on the bathroom vanity counter. I need to get into my bra and girdle." "You go right ahead. Let me know when you're ready." Catherine left the room, closing the door behind her. Bobby got out of his clothes and began the process of becoming a woman. He tucked his penis back, pointing it backward and pressing it up against his crotch while pushing his testicles up inside his body, into the vacant area behind them. After putting a maxi-pad into his panties, he pulled them on tightly to help hold his genitals up out of the way. Next, he slipped into a pair of silky sheer pantyhose with a light control top; they additionally secured his crotch, leaving it as smooth and flat as any woman's. Bobby pulled on his girdle. It added a little bit of a figure to his form, and made sure that everything he had put on thus far stayed in place. His crotch was flat and smooth, with no sign of maleness. This was important, for his clothes had to fit right and having a woman's smoothness there made a big difference in that. Opening up the two boxes he had brought with him, he took out his silicone breast forms and slipped them into the pockets of his mastectomy bra. They created a natural, convincing bustline, which moved and felt authentic. He slipped into the bra and made a few final adjustments. He opened the bedroom door and went into the bathroom, where his cosmetics case awaited him. "Catherine ?" he called, getting out his foundation and powder. "I'm ready to get started." "Coming," she called from the living room. "Want anything to drink?" "Iced tea would be great if you've got it." Bobby took a seat in front of the mirror. Securing his hair back with a headband, he began to apply his Natural Cover foundation to his face, neck, and upper chest. The foundation went on evenly, giving him a flawless, ivory complexion. Bobby used a darker shade of base to create artistic shadows, defining his features in a feminine fashion, and applied a very light, almost white shade to create highlights. He set the makeup with a special powder, one that would make the foundation durable and waterproof. Catherine entered and set his drink down onto the counter. "Here, hon," she said. She noticed the makeup on his chest. "Why do you have to put it down there?" "That way, I can use a deeper shade to create the illusion of a deep cleavage," he answered. "Wait 'till you see. It works great." After a few minutes, the powder was set. Bobby used a large brush to dust away the excess, leaving a perfect base upon which to perform his makeup magic. He began with eye shadow, brushing a deep gray into the crease above each eyelid; for a dramatic, sexy effect, he carried the color up and out in a sweeping fashion, creating seductive shadows. A lighter shade of frosted plum went onto his lids, followed by a little frosted pink in the center of each. The plum also went above the dark gray, and above that went the pink again. He used a brush to skillfully blend them all together where the colors met, creating a smooth transition from shade to shade. Black eyeliner defined his eyes. Again, he carried the liner out beyond his eyelids slightly, blending into the upswept shadows. "You're looking great," Catherine commented, learning all she could about his makeup techniques. She loved wearing makeup, and wanted to learn all she could from him, for he was quite skilled in cosmetics application. Life as a crossdresser had taught him how to overcome his male features, and his talents were easily adaptable to true women. He applied his mascara, making his long lashes black and longer still. A careful touch of the wand even brought out his lower lashes, framing his eyes with dark feathers of feminine beauty. His eyes were complete. Catherine looked at his reflection, amazed by his lovely gaze. He took an eyebrow pencil and defined his brows into perfect, feminine arches. Next to go on was blush and contour. Using a plum shade, he applied the color skillfully, creating the illusion of lovely cheekbones. "I have to keep reminding myself that you're not a woman," Catherine said. "You look so good and seem so natural doing this..." "Stop reminding yourself. I am a woman, okay? " "You know, I could pierce your ears if you want. You'd be able to wear pierced earrings like I do...there are a lot more styles available in pierced than in clip-on." "Really? That would be great." Choosing a burgundy lip pencil, Bobby lined his lips until they became a perfect angel's bow in shape. He then picked up a tube of frosted indigo pink lipstick and applied it with a lip brush, filling in the line perfectly and creating supple lips that were very sexy and very, very feminine. "Catherine, could you bring my wig from the bedroom, please?" he asked. "Sure, honey," she gladly answered. "I want to be a part of this any way I can." In a minute, she returned with the wig. It was dark blonde and very full, nearly as wide as Bobby's shoulders and styled in a very ladylike fashion. Tucking his own hair up under it, he pulled it on, creating the perfect female frame for his woman's features. Catherine helped him by securing it in place with bobby pins. "Ta-da," he sang. "That's that part of it..." "I swear," Catherine began, a little amazed. "I'd never guess you weren't a woman. You look so...natural." "That's the point. If I didn't, this wouldn't be nearly as much fun...and I wouldn't dare go out in public dressed up." Bobby walked back into the bedroom and put on his black slip, then slid into the evening dress he had brought. It was a black, two piece jacket dress, with sheer blousy sleeves and a crepe texture. "Almost there," he said, adjusting his clothes slightly in the mirror. Bobby slipped into the pair of black, high heeled pumps he had brought and took a final, overall look. He walked very naturally on the four-inch heels, loving the way they made his legs look. "I can't believe it," Catherine said, gazing at his reflection. "It's a definite improvement. I have no business at all being a man. You're a woman as far as I can tell...I can't imagine you as anything else right now." She looked upon him, loving the way he looked. He enjoyed his reflection. "I guess you use the ladies room while you're out in public, right?" "Of course," he answered, spraying himself with perfume. He wore Woman by Andron, liking its soft fragrance and loving that it contained female pheromones. "If I tried to use the men's room dressed like this I'd get arrested." "None of the women in the ladies' room with you ever guessed your little secret?" "Not one. One time, a lady in the next stall even asked to borrow a tampon...which, luckily, I just happened to have in my purse. I like thinking about my needing them, you know? Anyway, I just passed one to her under the partition, and she commented on how she loved my nails and asked me where I'd had them done." Catherine smiled widely with absolute glee. "Are you serious?" "Yes, hon. When I stand at the ladies room mirror with the other girls and fix my lipstick, no one ever suspects a thing. And more than once, I've been drawn into passing conversations about clothes, makeup, and men." "What did you say to them?" "Once, this one lady -- I guess she was about twenty-six or so -- just decided to unload to me about how wonderful her sex life was. I was minding my own business, fixing my lips, and she just started to go into detail about her boyfriend's cock size and everything. Told me she makes a lot of noise during sex...I couldn't believe it." "What did you do?" "I told her that my boyfriend liked to fuck me in the balcony at the Midtown Cinema." Catherine laughed, amazed at Bobby's nerve. "You didn't! You really said that?" "Sure. Besides, if I were a girl, that's one I'd really like to try." "I think I will. Anything else?" "I told her how much I liked sucking cock." Catherine laughed. "You said that?" "Sure." Bobby looked into Catherine's eyes. "Because I do." Catherine was floored. She gazed at his utterly feminine visage, having trouble reminding herself that this was not another girl before her. "No! When was this? You do this a lot?" "It's the one part of a woman's sex life I can share. I like going out as a woman better than as a, at least once a month, I try to spend a weekend wearing only women's things, going to movies and restaurants and going shopping. Sometimes, I can find a nice guy who'll believe I'm a girl on my period, and, well, one thing leads to another and..." "You don't go all the way on the first date, do you?" Catherine teased. "I'm not that kind of girl," Bobby laughed. Catherine smiled, loving the story. "Did you like it?" "Do you?" Catherine's coy smile was her answer. "Ohhh," Bobby remembered. "Yes. I love makes me feel so...female." "Well, damn, girl, move in with me! Be my sister! You can have Cheryl's old room. Then you can stay this way. You're too pretty to do anything else." Her compliment brought a smile to Bobby's pretty lips. "Thanks, honey. Oh, how I'd love to know how it feels to actually live as a woman day in and day out...having breasts, having my period and having babies.. I'd especially like to know real sex as a woman...that must really be wonderful." "It is. It's...nice," Catherine answered. "I guess it's pretty different from what you've known." "Must be. I'd sure like a chance to feel it. You've heard of penis envy? Well, I've got breast envy and vagina envy real bad. I'd give everything I own to have a body with the same equipment you've got between your legs and on your chest...just for a day. I'd give anything to be you." "You really mean that?" "More than I've ever meant anything." Catherine smiled at his answer. Bobby put on a pair of silver hoop earrings and a pearl necklace. He slipped a few ladies rings onto his fingers, then pulled a small, pink plastic box from the suitcase on the bed. "These are the last touch," he began, putting on the long, polished press- on nails. "Mainly because it's really hard to get ready with them on." He finished applying them, then admired his frosted pink nails as a woman would. "What do you think?" "Lovely, dear," Catherine began, speaking to him as if he really were a girl. She stripped out of her sweater and slacks, preparing to change her clothes for the evening. "Talk to me and treat me like a girlfriend," Bobby asked, "and call me by a girl's name. I am a girl...okay?" "Great!" Catherine said, loving this game. She liked the idea of having a part-time girlfriend in him. "What do I call you?" "I don't know...I've always liked the name 'Christy,'' though. "Okay. You're Christy, now, as far as I'm concerned. And I mean that -- in every way. Since Angela moved away, I could use a new best girlfriend." Catherine unfastened her bra and tossed it onto the bed, leaving herself nearly naked. "Deal." They walked out into the living room. Catherine walked out into the room still bare-breasted, wearing only her panties and pantyhose and holding a clean bra. She really was treating Bobby as another woman. Bobby realized that he was perceiving Catherine through the eyes of a female, as well, looking upon her nearly naked body with no sexual arousal whatsoever -- just as a woman should. Catherine pulled the bra over her enviable, bouncing breasts and fastened its hooks. "I was thinking maybe we could go to a restaurant," she said, adjusting her bra straps. "In fact, if we went to a bar, you'd be sure to get picked up by some guy. I'm not sure you wouldn't get hit on before I do. Feel up to a little romance?" "If I had a pussy, I'd say yes. But, as I am, I don't know if that's a good idea." Catherine dropped a black slip down over her attractive full-figured body. Pulling on a dark blue dress she had previously laid over the back of the couch, she then turned her back. "Would you mind zipping me, Christy?" she asked, holding her hair up out of the way. As Bobby stood behind her and closed the zipper, Catherine continued. "I've got a little surprise planned for you." Catherine turned around, smiling widely. "Like what? " Bobby asked. Catherine picked up her purse and withdrew a small, crystalline bottle. It was beautiful, like faceted, cut crystal, with a stopper. It appeared to contain a pink liquid of some kind. "How pretty," Bobby remarked. "Here," Catherine said, pulling the stopper and holding the bottle toward Bobby. "Drink this." Bobby looked at the bottle. "What? What is it?" "Trust me...just drink it." Bobby took it from her and put it to his lips. In one swallow, it was gone. He handed the empty bottle back to Catherine . "What was that?" "Something will help you be more convincing. Don't talk for a couple of minutes. It's giving you a woman's voice." Bobby looked at her. A woman's voice? How was that possible? "Okay...go ahead. Say something," Catherine excitedly said. "Well..." Bobby began. He could not believe it. The voice that emerged from his supple lips was one of feminine music, the voice of a beautiful girl. He smiled widely, as did Catherine. Bobby was astounded. "How does that stuff do this?" he asked in his new, female voice. "I'm not sure, to be honest," Catherine answered. "But it sure works, doesn't it?" she asked, laughing a little. "I got it for you...from an elderly friend of my grandmother's." "This is wonderful," Bobby said, loving the sound of himself. The doorbell rang. "There's the other surprise I arranged for you," she said, walking to the door. Opening it, she greeted a powerful hunk of a man, who was absolutely gorgeous. Catherine began the introductions. "Brick Foster, this is Christy. She's a friend of mine from Florida who just moved here. Christy, this is Brick." "Hello," Bobby said. "Hi." "Christy's going to be living with me for a little while, until she gets settled in," Catherine told Brick. "I've been showing her around, helping her to get to know the area." "That's great. I think you'll like it here," he said to Bobby, enjoying the beauty of the apparent woman. "Isn't Catherine wonderful?" Bobby smiled, looking at his girl friend. "She sure is..." As Brick sat down on the sofa, Catherine led her new 'girlfriend' into the kitchen. "You're going to stay a woman for a while," she quietly said to Bobby. "Remember what I said? For tonight, you're Christy...and I'm treating you like her." "Okay if I use the phone? " Brick asked. "Sure," said Catherine. "It's on the end table." She whispered again to Bobby. "I promised you I'd give you an evening as a woman," Catherine said quietly, leaning over. "I'm serious about this...there's no turning back." Brick, hanging up the phone, walked up to Catherine . "I don't have to work tomorrow, I just found out. I can stay late." "Great," Catherine said, smiling. "Christy's staying here, as I said, so we can all really get to know each other." She gestured toward Bobby. "Can I see you in the bedroom for a second, Christy?" Not knowing what to expect, Bobby rose and followed her -- and Brick followed him with his eyes. He fleetingly pictured himself in bed with the apparent woman, but decided to behave himself and suppressed the thought. In the bedroom, Catherine closed the door. "Listen," she said to her friend, "the stuff you drank..." "In the little bottle?" "Yes. That stuff has more punch than just changing your voice. I hope you really meant it about wanting to experience true womanhood. You've said it so many times..." "What do you mean?" Bobby asked, confused. "You'll see. I'm going to go down to the washateria and leave you two alone for a while." "You're leaving me with Brick? What am I supposed to do?" "In a few minutes, you'll know what to do." Catherine smiled knowingly. "Tell me again what sex you want to be." "What?" "Just tell me...and mean it." "I want to be a woman. You know that." Catherine kissed Bobby on the forehead. "Congratulations, honey." The beautiful woman left. Bobby sat on the bed weighing the situation, a little confused. What did Catherine mean? * * * Twenty minutes later, Catherine returned with an empty basket to find the living room empty as well. There had, of course, never been any clothes of hers at the washateria that day. She looked out of the apartment window and saw Brick's car in the parking lot below. He had not left, she realized, and she smiled. It worked, she thought, thrilled. As Catherine headed toward the bedroom, the sound of a squeaking bed and a woman's voice filtered through the closed door, growing louder as she approached. She heard a wet, rhythmic slapping sound that was very familiar. Catherine listened, filled with the joy of knowing what was happening beyond the door. "Ohhhh...harder..." the woman's voice continued. "Yes! Oh, yes, Brick..." Catherine opened the door a little and peeked in. She wanted to cry out in delight, but held her joy in check. The boy Bobby had been was gone forever, and in his place, on hands and knees, was a gorgeous girl being fucked from behind by Brick. Her jiggling breasts were very large and firm, with a youthful bounce that sexily proclaimed her gender. Her body had taken on an unmistakable female glow and classically girlish curves, creating a figure that was the feminine ideal. She had soft, narrow shoulders and a shapely waist, which widened into curvy hips and the grippable, rounded ass of a sexy girl. Bobby's skin was soft and smooth, and her long, silken legs shone as slippery ribbons of lamplight slid along them. Her gently-curling hair was long, shiny, full, and a platinum blonde in color. Bobby's face was sheer beauty personified, much prettier and more feminine than before, even though it had already been quite attractive. Brick was wildly pumping Bobby, forcefully sliding in and out of her tight wetness as she hungrily held her ass high in the air for him. Bobby's hot, lubricated pussy was getting an orgiastic trial by fire, taking the man's entire eight inches as the thick, engorged penis pounded deeper and deeper into her. The sloppy sound of his rod sliding in and out of her dripping wetness filled the room. Naked except for Catherine's red high-heels, Bobby had taken position on her hands and knees at the foot of the bed with her smooth, rounded buttocks hanging well out over the edge. Brick was rhythmically impaling the new woman on his huge, rigid penis, forcefully bouncing her sweat- glossed ass against his groin as he tightly gripped the sides of Bobby's waist and violently drove her back onto his hot cock. Theirs was heated, purely lustful animal sex, boy-fucking-girl like there was no tomorrow -- and Bobby felt alive. The tube of K-Y jelly that Catherine kept in the drawer of her bedside table was open and on the bed. "Pump me harder!" Bobby cried out, so horny that her voice sounded almost frantic. "Fill me with your cock..." Her soft, immense breasts jiggled wildly as they hung freely and fleshily from her chest, bumping erotically against her arms and each other. Her hard, erect nipples tickled against the bedspread. The loud, sharp slap of Brick's sweaty thighs impacting her slick, shiny ass was erotic. Bobby spoke with an insatiable woman's lust. "Yes, Brick! Harder...oh, fuck me harder...faster...ohhhhhh..." "Yeah, baby..." Brick said in a low moan, conquering the woman. "You're mine, now...a bitch like you needs a good fucking...just like Catherine always does..." "Oooooh, yes...I need it, just like her..." Bobby moaned. "That's Catherine's pussy your dick is in...fuck it the way you always do! Make me feel what she feels!" Her voice wavered with each impact of his hips. "I'm Catherine! Fuck me! Fuck me!!!" And then, it happened. "Oh, Catherine," he said, "I love fucking your hot pussy...squeeze my cock with your hot pussy! I want to come inside you. Tell me how much you like it, Catherine, tell me..." " Harder, Brick...faster..." Dropping her head, looking back between her dancing breasts and between her legs, Bobby saw an upside down view of the base of his huge cock and his hairy balls as he mercilessly pounded her pussy. It was the one thing she had longed for a lifetime to see, and the sight of a man sexually pumping his reproductive rod into her was overwhelmingly intoxicating. "Oh, yes...!" she screamed out in the passion of female heat, watching the veined purple shaft of his stiff, slippery penis forcefully disappear into her then partially pull out, over and over. "Oh, baby...your pussy is so good..." "Oh, Brick...ram it into me..." Bobby continued. "Make me come...yes, baby...make me come all over you." He fucked her even harder and faster, holding the woman sexually captive around his cock. Bobby looked down at her hands as her body was pounded forward with each forceful thrust of the man behind her. Odd, she thought, noticing a tiny heart-shaped birthmark on her left wrist. It's just like Catherine's -- She looked up into the mirror that stretched across the headboard. She saw the man behind her, his face contorted with sexual intensity as he continued his merciless thrusting. Then she saw her own face. It was Catherine's. Confusion gripped Bobby, but that confusion was abruptly shoved aside by the sudden fire of her orgasm. Every female nerve in Bobby's body was screaming in passion. "Ohhhhh...yes! Come inside me...I want to feel you coming inside me..." The lovers were breathing heavily and erratically, and their climaxes were hitting hot and hard. "I...I...think...I'm...coming...!" Bobby moaned, barely able to voice the words. She pushed her soft ass hard into Brick's crotch, grinding her pussy into his pubic hair as his cock made one last, deep plunge into her. Locked together penis-in-pussy, their faces became contorted and they came -- and Bobby's hot, vaginal juices bathed the man's throbbing cock even as it once more exploded with its load of steaming semen. Eyes closed in ecstasy, their genital muscles spasmed uncontrollably as they lived their orgasms, and Bobby pushed with her abdominal muscles as if she were giving birth. Bobby's hot, gushing come, mixing with Brick's steaming semen, began to run down the man's inner thighs as the lovers became one. He weakly pumped a few more times, then came to a stop. They were exhausted and felt like little more than sexually-fulfilled jello. Brick dropped onto Bobby as she fell to her stomach on the bed, his penis still inside her. Laying atop the woman's back, the man kissed the back and sides of her neck, then rose and pulled out of her vagina. As Brick dressed, Bobby laid there smiling with warm semen inside her -- blissfully adrift on clouds of womanhood. She could still feel his cock, as if it, too, were still inside her. Brick kissed her gently on the cheek and headed toward the door. "That was great, baby," he said, pausing to comb his hair in the dresser mirror. "Better than last night. You're special, Laurie...really special." He noticed the clock. " Hey, I'm late for work. I'll call you tonight, while I'm on break." He kissed her again, then went into the hall. After a moment, Bobby heard the front door close as the man left. She sat up. Squeezing her huge breasts between her upper arms as she looked down upon them, she smiled. The thrill of her feminine flesh filled her throat so hard she could not speak. Bobby sat on the edge of the bed, still loving her breasts, and spread her thighs wide. The sight of her glorious, long-awaited vagina overwhelmed her. "Oh, it's so...ooooooooh!" she said, reaching down and touching her new vaginal lips. Tears of joy filled her eyes as she lightly rubbed her glorious clitoris. Having him inside me was wonderful...I felt so alive! She knew that she was pure woman, far more female than any sex-change surgery could have made her. She would know having a period each month and, if she desired, she would know having a baby. Then, she remembered. Bobby rose and went to the room's full-length mirror. There, just as she had in the headboard mirror, she found Catherine's reflection. "Catherine's potion turned me into her twin sister!" she said, happy to be every bit as beautiful as her friend. The still-naked Bobby, intoxicated by her womanhood, slid open one of Catherine's dresser drawers and found a sheer red teddy that was Catherine's favorite and most seductive piece of lingerie. She slipped it on, loving the feel of the cool, delicate fabric as it slid down her arms and body. Its sensuous, gossamer sheerness hung tantalizingly and softly from her tits. It, of course, hid nothing, and Bobby's immense breasts, hard nipples, rounded ass and still-tingling pussy remained plainly visible. Bobby took a seat at Catherine's vanity and picked up a Loreal lipstick that was a dark, lustful red. It was the color Catherine always used while wearing that teddy, for it perfectly matched the slinky nightie. She glided the color thickly onto her soft lips, loving its fragrance and shine. Then, after recapping the tube, she smiled her radiant, woman's smile and enjoyed the seductive gloss of the heavy coat of lipstick she now wore. Bobby slipped back into the shoes she had worn during her sexual initiation and was delighted that her feet had diminished to the size of Catherine's, for the fit was perfect. She stood and looked once more into the full-length mirror, and her heart leapt at the sight of the gorgeous seductress she had become. "Mmmmm," she lustfully and playfully moaned, looking upon her feminine visage with ultimate satisfaction. She spoke to an imaginary man at an imaginary bar. " name is Catherine, and I want you to fuck me!" Her pussy ruled her every thought. She wanted to seduce men, all men. Atop the dresser, she saw a framed picture of Catherine wearing a nurse's uniform. What was odd was that Bobby found herself remembering having had that picture taken. And Bobby finally realized something. She could remember things that she had never done and people she had never known. In addition to her own memories, she had acquired Catherine's. "That's impossible..." Bobby whispered, confused. As she looked closer at the dresser top, things made no sense. A nurse's ID tag, one with Catherine's picture on it, laid next to a purse and some car keys. As she picked up the tag and looked at it more closely, the pieces suddenly came together. She had not merely become Catherine's twin. She had become Catherine. She had taken Catherine's place and was living her life. What the -- how -- ? Her mind fought to understand. She walked out into the kitchen area. "Catherine?" she vainly called, knowing there would be no answer. She heard Catherine's voice, all right, but it was coming from her own lips. Just as the potion had allowed Bobby to speak his own womanhood into existence, it had, during sex a few minutes later, allowed him to become Catherine simply by saying -- and meaning -- that he wanted to be her. Bobby was Catherine now, and for all the world knew she always had been. Bobby no longer existed. "Catherine?" she screamed out, panicked. "Catherine! Where are you?" She sat on the sofa in numb silence. " can't be...!" The woman tore through the house. In old scrapbooks, in high school annuals, in family pictures, everywhere -- she saw herself there, living Catherine's life and remembering it all. She tried to reverse what she had done. "I want Catherine to come back!" she yelled desperately into the air. "And I want to be the girl I was just before I asked to be Catherine!" She walked slowly and hopefully into the bathroom and fearfully looked into the mirror. She was still Catherine. She would remain so for the rest of her life. Only after several days of life in that body did 'Catherine' finally accept what had happened. She settled into the mindset of being Catherine and decided to get on with her life. There was little else she could do. Time passed. The new Catherine quit her nursing job, simply because she wasn't cut out for medical work. Then, after spending weeks alone in her apartment, she realized just how much she hated being by herself. She needed the security of knowing someone else would always be there for her. She wanted a relationship -- a loving, sexual relationship with a man. She knew where to find that man. The next afternoon, dressed in a shiny red blouse and a sexy, black leather blazer and short skirt, Catherine knocked on the door of an apartment a few miles away. It belonged to the old Catherine's ex- boyfriend, a nice guy who was still single and had little resistance when it came to saying 'no' to beautiful women. "Hi, Wyatt," she said in a soft, vulnerable voice as he answered. "Can I come in? I need to see you." "Uh...sure," he answered, surprised beyond words to see her on his doorstep. He opened the door wider and invited her in. Her black four- inch heels clicked on the smooth, linoleum floor of the entry way as she walked in and set her purse down on a table. "I know this is going to be hard for you to believe, but I've grown up a lot since...well, you know." Catherine walked up to him, her face near his. "I was wrong and stupid..." She walked up and kissed him deeply, caressing his teeth, tongue, and palette with her tongue. "I've...I've changed, Wyatt." Catherine had broken up with him almost ten years earlier. Wyatt, despite several fleeting relationships since, had always carried a torch for her. Bobby had, since high school, been close friends with Wyatt, and he knew his friend had always been good to the girl. Bobby knew them both at the time of the split, and he had always thought Catherine had made a big mistake in 'seeking herself' and breaking it off with Wyatt. Now that Bobby saw the world through a woman's eyes, she saw Wyatt through them, too. And she had fallen in love. The old Catherine's mistake was one that the new Catherine was about to undo. "I finally realized just how much I love you," Catherine said, her eyes sparkling with desire for him. "Please...take me back?" she pleaded. "If I thought for a moment that you really wanted to..." "Wyatt...I do. Please..." Wyatt thought hard about it. Within minutes, they were naked on his bed and Catherine was spreading her silken legs invitingly. Wyatt gladly took position over her, and she loved having the weight of the man atop her as he drove his manhood into her warm, female depths. Wyatt pumped hard and fast into her hot, wet vagina, kissing her deeply as he did so. His hips moved madly, burying his cock deeper into her with each primal thrust. Wyatt would never know that the woman he was mercilessly fucking was not his old girl but was someone else he had known well -- as a male friend. As he pumped away into her, it struck the woman as ironic that back in high school, during the time the other Catherine was dating Wyatt, the girl had once tried to get Bobby to fuck her while they were alone together in Wyatt's car. Bobby had said no, then. I've known you for fifteen years, Catherine thought, and you never knew I was a crossdresser! I fantasized then about being a woman -- about being your Catherine -- about having sex with you as Catherine! I could never have dreamed that I'd be Catherine one day -- and that we'd be making love -- and that I'd be so in love with you. Catherine smiled at the thought. As she encouraged Wyatt by moaning and stroking his back, he continued pumping her, thanking his lucky stars that this woman had come back to him. "Is it....the same remember?" she asked, her speech rocked by each impact of his pelvis against hers. "No..." Wyatt answered. "Better." "Used to be....we could go....all night," Catherine answered, stroking his back with her long nails. "I don't know how....I've lived....without....having your me....." She looked into his eyes seductively, her eyes sparkling with pure feminine intensity. "You sure I'm....better....than before?" Wyatt smiled at the question. "Ohhh, yeah..." he answered, eyes closed in ecstasy. "Much...better." "Good," Catherine moaned in satisfaction. "And you're...the best...I've ever had..." she said in a low, breathy voice that made his cock grow even harder. A sudden spasm of pleasure gripped her vaginal muscles. "It feels's so big...fuck me 'till I come..." Her sexy lips with their heavy, shiny coat of frosted, deep red lipstick erotically formed the words as he watched. "Fuck me...fuck me, Wyatt..." Her soft flesh felt good beneath him as he pinned the woman to the bed -- her pussy was hot and tight around his driving erection. As Catherine strained to lock her vaginal muscles around his cock even tighter, she reached around and stroked his back lightly with her long, polished, glossy red nails as he pumped her. Their bodies grew damp with hot sweat, and their slippery flesh slid man-on-woman as he kept on fucking, fucking, fucking -- Wyatt propped himself up on his straightened arms, elbows locked, to increase his pelvic thrust leverage. Catherine pulled her knees way up in order to help him drive as deeply into her as possible. Squeezing her huge tits between her upper arms, she ran her fingers through his dense chest hair. He looked down into her deep, gorgeous eyes. "Don't stop, Wyatt..." Catherine moaned. "Your cock feels so good so deep in my pussy..." She then grabbed and squeezed her enormous breasts with both hands as his penetration deepened; her nipples had grown long and hard, and she pulled them up to her lips and began to suck and gently bite them. Her lipstick stained her nipples. Catherine's shiny, black high-heels danced in the air as his pounding rocked her body. She spread her bent legs even wider, so wide that they laid back nearly flat against the bed on either side. The bed squeaked loudly with the violence of their passion, telling those in the neighboring apartments of the sexual fury taking place behind the walls. "Come inside me!" Catherine screamed out, not caring who might hear. "Don't stop until you come inside me!" He felt his orgasm building and knew he was reaching the point of no return. "I...I should...pull out..." "No!" she cried, wrapping her glassy-smooth legs tightly around his buttocks and holding him inside her. As he tried to pull out, she tightened her legs around him and kept him from pulling his hips back far enough for his penis to leave her vagina. Wyatt began to lose his rhythm as his orgasm swelled. "I'm come..." he cried out, trying in vain to pull his penis free of her pussy. "Let me out! Let me..." It was too late. The intensity peaked, and as the fiery pleasure overtook him he stopped trying to pull out and instinctively drove his penis as deeply as possible, burying its spurting head into her. "Oooooh, yes, baby...that's right..." Catherine said, smiling in victory, feeling his cock pulsing inside her. The hot, hard penis took over control of Wyatt's body, overriding his intellect and flooding the woman with his warm semen. "Mama loves feeling you there...come, baby...that's right..." Catherine once more felt a man deposit his hot, sexual seed into her hungry vagina, and she smiled anew. "Ooooooh, yes," she whispered as Wyatt weakly pumped his last. "That's right, honey...yes...that's right..." Wyatt's senses slowly returned. "I...I came inside you..." "Did you ever come inside anyone else?" she asked, lovingly stroking his back and hairy buttocks. "Never..." Wyatt managed to answer, struggling for breath. "You're...the first..." His cock shrank quickly, and Catherine unwrapped her legs from around him. Exhausted, Wyatt pulled out of her and rolled onto his side. He caressed Catherine's breasts as she played with his slippery, expended penis. "I...I hope you're on the pill," Wyatt said, realizing that he might well have just gotten the girl pregnant. "Don't worry," Catherine said, kissing him fully and passionately in the lips. "I'm your girl...I want you to own me..." He spoke to her, softly and gently, love in his voice. "I do love you...I always have. I don't know why...but the moment I saw you tonight, I felt like we'd never been apart." "Maybe we're soulmates," Catherine said. Their love for each other quickly grew passionate -- as passionate as their sexual relationship, which they enjoyed often. Never had the man or the woman felt more happy and satisfied with life. Catherine moved in with him, and they began to share their lives. Two months later, one Saturday morning, as they lay naked together in Wyatt's bed, Catherine's soft warmth snuggled against him. He stroked her silken hair and gazed into her eyes. She whispered to him, her voice like sweet music. "Wyatt...I'm pregnant." The words caught him by surprise. "Are you sure?" She nodded happily. "It's your baby, Daddy..." she said, gently caressing her stomach. "I know I'm not showing yet, but our baby is already two months along." Wyatt laughed out loud in joyous celebration, then leaned over and kissed Catherine long and lovingly. He once more caressed her long, light blonde hair. "Marry me," he said. "What?" "Today. Marry me. We'll find a justice of the peace somewhere and get married before sunset...and go to the Parkston Hotel for our honeymoon." Catherine needed little time to think his proposal over. She smiled in delight, caressing his face in her soft, woman's hands. "Yes, Wyatt. I will marry you." He kissed her deeply once more, their lives forever intertwined. Before nightfall, they were man and wife, and Catherine was happier than she ever had been. Within three years, she had borne him three children, and she cherished her life as a wife and mother. Wyatt watched her proudly as she sat in the light of the fireplace, nursing her newborn child. As the baby suckled her breast, Catherine felt content and wonderfully complete. The woman had all but forgotten her life as a male crossdresser, for the existence she now knew was glorious beyond any she could ever have known as a man. She was a happy wife, married to the perfect husband, and their life together was one of joy and fulfillment. They remained happily together for the rest of their lives. | <urn:uuid:70f32c39-1541-4660-a9ae-9111f1c014a0> | http://www.textfiles.com/sex/EROTICA/C/catherin.txt | en | 0.990514 | 0.063942 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Stupid People With Guns
Monday, 05 April 2010 15:23 By William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed | name.
Stupid People With Guns
(Image: Lance Page / tr u t h o u t; Adapted: Mini D, D Sharon Pruitt)
I'm sitting inside my dark little office on a sunny day to write this, and believe me, it's a sacrifice. We got more than 14 inches of rain here in Boston during the month of March, and it has reached the point that people have forgotten what the sun is. They're outside right now sacrificing goats and Pekingese dogs to the Yellow Orb God so the harvest will be good. Well, no, not really, but you get the idea. If it had been snow all through this last month, we'd all be dead, and now it's nice out for the first time in five months and I'm inside writing.
Because I've stopped being appalled and aghast and unsettled by all these brain-donor right-wingers who have been making threats and breaking windows and running people off the road. I've stopped being appalled, and now I'm just pissed. I have had enough of these blowhards, these false heroes, these empty patriots, these bigots and liars and doomed fools. It is enough.
Press play to listen to author William Rivers Pitt read his column, "Stupid People With Guns":
I'm also pissed at myself, because at least a small part of the problem is my fault, too. The more attention these wingnut gasbags get, the more their profile gets raised, and that's no good for any of us. I mean, come on, all the networks show Sarah Palin on a daily basis for the same reason they show car accidents and people stuck sideways on amusement rides (that one occupied a fair portion of CNN's afternoon broadcast the other day). It's the spectacle of it all, the sad and sorry spectacle, and as a writer, it's hard to resist. When someone shows up at a health care town hall meeting and starts shrieking, "Keep your damn government hands off my Medicare," well, the die is cast. Every picture I see of these Tea Party gatherings looks like the monthly meeting of the There But By The Grace Of God Go I Society, and laying off them has proven exceedingly difficult.
Well, no more. This last time will have to pay for all, because I am done paying mind to that which is wholeheartedly, proudly and oh-so-conspicuously mindless. I'm missing out on a beautiful day so I can let these people know what I really think of them, their whole agenda, and what exactly they can do with it, one final time.
I know plenty of people, liberal and conservative, who are politically angry and not shy about sharing their opinions. My conservative friends are up in arms about what they perceive as an unacceptable expansion of government power - who, because they have integrity, also felt the same during the Bush years when George and the boys were piloting one of the largest federal expansions in modern American history - and my liberal friends are furious about the decision to open offshore drilling, about the public option head-fake, about the escalation in Afghanistan, and about any number of other things.
They're mad, but they're not stupid.
Really, that's the thing here.
There are right-wing people who are angry, and there are right wing people who are angry and stupid, and that turns out to be a pretty ridiculous combination, especially when these angry stupids also happen to own firearms.
The most recent example of this, of course, is this Hutaree group in Michigan. Long story short, a bunch of Taliban-style, Biblical, absolutist bucketheads who were armed to the teeth decided the End Times had arrived, and were gearing up to go to war against the Antichrist. As it turned out, however, His Satanic Majesty was booked elsewhere that week, and these Hutaree people found themselves in need of a new target. They found one: cops. Their plan was to go kill some cops, and then attack the funerals of the cops they killed so they could kill more cops, along, presumably, with cop wives and cop kids and cop parents and cop friends. Fortunately, they got busted, and are now going away.
Why did Hutaree think the seven bowls were in the process of being spilled? Funny you should ask, because it's pretty damned funny. Apparently, at some point, they received a chain email about a bill before the house called H.R. 1388. The text of the email read:
By executive order, President Barack Obama has ordered the expenditure of $20.3 million in "migration assistance" to the Palestinian refugees and "conflict victims" in Gaza. The "presidential determination", which allows hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with ties to Hamas to resettle in the United States, was signed on January 27 and appeared in the Federal Register on February 4.
Doubtful? To verify this for yourself: PLEASE PASS THIS ON ... AMERICA NEEDS TO KNOW. WE are losing this country at a rapid pace.
Doubtful? You'd better be, because this is gold-medal-winning gibberish from soup to nuts. H.R. 1388 was a bill that expanded AmericaCorps and other federal aid programs dramatically, which the geniuses from Hutaree could have found out for themselves in about 12 seconds, had they bothered to look the bill up ... and never mind the fact that this email describes a House bill and an executive order in the same breath, as if they were the same thing.
The stupid ... it burns ...
Of course, another breathless accusation leveled by another chain email claimed that H.R. 1388 was establishing a required stint of public service for all Americans, which wasn't true either, but that wasn't juicy enough for Hutaree. No, they got an email from Somewhere Out There saying that Hamas was moving in down the block thanks to the president; they didn't bother to look the thing up for themselves, and boom, it was cocked-and-locked-let's-find-a-cop time.
Obama is bringing Hamas to America? Jesus wept.
This miraculous breed of pure stupid has managed to dig itself in pretty deep with a certain subset of American humanity, to the point that black-letter history itself is up for review and redaction. Steven Thomma, writing recently for McClatchy, nails it to the shed:
Some conservatives say it's a long-overdue swing of the pendulum after years of liberal efforts to define history on their terms in classrooms and in popular culture. "We are adding balance," Texas school board member Don McLeroy said. "History has already been skewed. Academia is skewed too far to the left."
Unusually mobilized? Sure. That's what happens when stupid people get lied to IN A VERY LOUD VOICE.
Who do you blame for this phenomenon? I suppose the fact that America's education system has been getting bled year after year to support an unimaginably overblown and overpriced "national defense" arsenal should bear some of the burden. Sure, certain dark corners of Christianity have had their hateful and demented effect. The media can take a big bite of the blame apple, either for aggrandizing the demonstrably idiotic, or for taking the worst aspects of it and flashing it across the sky with klieg lights.
Oh, and don't forget the Republican Party, which considers these bozos their "useful idiots" and uses them to great effect, but not before getting them to vacuum up quarters from between the couch cushions to fund RNC efforts toward preventing Hillary Clinton from mandating abortions for all pregnant Christian girls in the land. The GOP got these people all worked up while picking their pamphlet-filled pockets all the while, and the funny part is they're now as afraid of their own base as Bart Stupak is.
What we have here is nothing more or less than stupid people with guns, and you know what? I'm fine with guns. I believe Americans should have them if they want them. I believe in reasonable limitations on being able to purchase assault weapons and bazookas because, well, the words "well-regulated" are right there in the Amendment next to "militia." I believe in background checks to make sure you're not buying a gun because your medication ran out. But I've come to believe that being able to buy and own a gun should also involve passing a fairly difficult civics exam. Before someone goes out to buy a gun in defense of their country and their liberty, we should have some kind of metric to determine if that person actually knows anything about the country, and knows anything about the roots and truths of the liberty they claim to cherish.
If we can't or won't cure the stupid, at least we can disarm it.
In the meantime, I have one last comment I wish to address specifically to those of whom I speak. You, sir or madam, are a small fraction of a person. Your hate has overtaken your higher faculties, and that makes you pathetic beyond words. You are not a hero or a patriot. You are watching the world pass you by, and that scares the cheese out of you. For you, stupid is a defense mechanism, a comfortable blanket wrapped around your head to drown out that which you fear, hate and misunderstand. It is not too late for you, but I'm through waiting to see if you are capable of anything beyond the low behavior and sorry spectacle you have displayed to date. This is America, and you have a right to your grandiose, willful stupidity, but I choose to exercise my right to tune you out. You are a fart in the wind, and I have more important things to do than truck with the likes of you.
Screw these people. I'm going outside.
Last modified on Tuesday, 06 April 2010 07:53 | <urn:uuid:025a4377-05f1-461b-b46d-72e24f669f98> | http://www.truth-out.org/archive/component/k2/item/88860:stupid-people-with-guns | en | 0.972261 | 0.132342 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Touch Series Premiere Review: A Powerful Need
at . Comments
I wasn't sure what to make of Touch when I first read the premise, but I was anxious to give it a try. Having never been any good at math, the thought of following a show about a child who sees the world through a kaleidoscope of numbers and calculations was a little daunting.
However, having used several tissues to get through the pilot. I'll admit that it's the emotional connection, not the mathematical one, that kept me glued to the screen.
Touch Premiere Pic
As I was a huge fan of 24, I was eager to see Kiefer Sutherland return to TV and, although Martin Bohm is no Jack Bauer, I wasn't disappointed. Martin's a man who will do anything to connect with his mute, emotionally challenged son.
It was interesting to note that the show never used the word autistic. Although some will see that as a cop out, I'm willing to give the writers some creative leeway if for no other reason than so many programs struggle to get the details right when they label a character as having this disease.
Jake has never spoken and doesn't like to be touched. So much so that Martin tells the social worker:
I wouldn't do that if I were you. Not unless you want to spend the next three hours peeling him off the ceiling. | permalink
The pilot certainly had its strengths and weaknesses. There were so many characters that made an appearance that it's hard to determine how many will return past this first episode.
As much as I enjoyed the plot about the cell phone skipping around the globe, it did feel a little far-fetched. That the customer service agent would have the boy with the phone and a bomb strapped to him who's desperate for a bakery oven on one line - and the original phone owner on the other, who just happens to be a restaurant equipment salesman - seemed a stretch.
But the pictures of Simon's deceased daughter Lily showing up on the jumbotron had me bawling my eyes out. I didn't realize I'd need my box of Kleenex for Touch.
And I question why Clea the social worker was so adamant about taking Jake away from his father after he climbed the cell tower. From what Martin said, he had his son in a very expensive special needs school. Shouldn't someone be investigating the school instead?
It was easy to feel for Martin. His career's in the toilet, his wife is gone and his son has never spoken to him and won't be touched. As Clea said: "Human connection is a powerful need" and Martin's life's lacking in connections.
What sold the show for me were two things:
1. The inherent belief that we are all connected in a way that we really don't understand. Perhaps someone like Jake sees that connection in ways that most of us aren't able to.
2. Martin's unconditional love for his son. Hugs, kisses, and I love yous, things that most parents count on, were things that Martin has never had. But that didn't diminish his desire to protect and love his child and that's a powerful thing.
I'm not sure where this series will lead. Jake's special sight could take us to the future, the past or simply another view of our connection to one another - but I'm intrigued by the spirituality as much as the science and I look forward to watching episode two.
What grade would you give the Touch premiere?
Editor Rating: 4.3 / 5.0
• 4.3 / 5.0
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User Rating:
Rating: 4.5 / 5.0 (274 Votes)
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Touch Season 1 Episode 1 Quotes
I'm not going up there. I'm scared of heights.
These patterns never lie but only some of us can see how the pieces fit together. | <urn:uuid:d16c3989-3492-43d3-8119-e35a94686f77> | http://www.tvfanatic.com/2012/01/touch-review-a-powerful-need/ | en | 0.985036 | 0.023499 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Guess where I'm eating?
Guess where I'm eating?
Lori Midson
According to those in the know, a certain food personality that recently whizzed through town stopped in for a bite to eat at the joint where the above pic was snapped. No word on what he digested, but I'm hoping it wasn't the clams.
Can you guess where I'm eating?
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Beware the Bilderberg Group!
Once a year, the world's top power brokers meet. Are they really planning Global Domination?
by Brian Dunning
Filed under Conspiracies
Skeptoid Podcast #225
September 28, 2010
Podcast transcript | Download | Subscribe
Once a year, the world's top power brokers gather behind closed doors for several days in a plush luxury hotel. The Bilderberg Group is an annual meeting of approximately 125 heads of state and leaders from business, politics, military, and economics from Western Europe and the United States. They discuss all the headlining topics: political, environmental, economic, and strategic issues facing the West. And when the meeting breaks up and everyone returns to his home nation — according to the conspiracy theorists — the "Bilderbergers" are armed with fresh orders, and each does his part in their master plan of World Domination. For the story goes that the Bilderberg Group is not a gathering of leaders for the purpose of discussion and the exchange of ideas, as it claims to be; but is in fact the secret world government. Sounds like a fine place to point our skeptical eye.
The Bilderberg Group was formed in 1954, and is named after the Bilderberg Hotel in Holland where the first meeting took place. The world had just come out of World War II and was entering into a new war of a much different character, the cold war. Malevolence was rising in the East, and many noted that anti-American sentiment in Europe was counterproductive to the shared goal of defending against the Communist Bloc. Polish politician Józef Retinger rallied support from Prince Bernard of the Netherlands and Belgian Prime Minister Paul Van Zeeland, who in turn contacted other leaders from Europe and the United States. The idea was to get one conservative and one liberal representative from each nation to get as broad a perspective as possible. Since the meeting was strictly unofficial, it was felt that discussion could be far more efficient and productive without the concern of binding resolutions or any sort of red tape. Fifty delegates attended the first meeting at the Bilderberg and discussed ways to improve cultural, economic, and strategic relations between the United States and Western Europe. The meeting was considered successful enough that a steering committee was formed to turn it into an annual event, with Prince Bernard as its first chairman.
Since then they've met about once a year, usually in May or June, at some 5-star hotel, usually in Europe but sometimes in the United States, and always in a different place. That first meeting was the only time they actually met at the Bilderberg Hotel.
There is nothing secret about the attendees. Part of the deal is that if you go to a conference, your name, title, and country are published on their web site and included in a press release. Every year, they've sent out a complete list of everyone who attended. Generally, if you're going to wield power from behind the scenes, you have to be behind the scenes. The Bilderbergers are not.
However, the content of their talks is a bit murky. Their meetings are held under the Chatham House Rule, which is a principle under which records can be kept of meetings without noting the identity or affiliation of any speaker. Each attendee is thus guaranteed anonymity. They have their own reason for doing this: By assuring their attendees some privacy, they encourage free, uninhibited discussion. However the use of the Chatham House Rule, quite obviously, appeals to the conspiracy theorists, as it could be seen as being consistent with secrecy.
Following this rule, the minutes are said to be taken down, but as they are the private property of the group they are not made public (see Wikileaks for leaked copies of their actual private minutes). This also throws fuel onto the fire of the conspiracy theorists. All that's made public are the general topics. For example, here is the information provided by the Bilderberg Group about the subject of their 2009 meeting in Greece:
Governments and Markets
After the G-20: Role of Institutions
Protectionism: How Serious
Cyberterrorism: Policy and Strategy
Sustainability: Post Kyoto Challenges
Iraq: Role and Responsibilities in the Region
Pakistan and Afghanistan
A New Order: US and the World
Lessons from a Crisis
Challenge to Market Economies and Democracies
New Imperialisms: Russia - China
Current Affairs: How does Industry see the Future
In short, basically the usual politicial/economic stuff that you'd expect such a group to discuss. But conspiracy theory radio host Alex Jones and other believers consider the information provided by Bilderberg to be just a front, and that they're actually there to plan the conquest of the world. They have two primary pieces of evidence to support this idea. The first is an article written by Fidel Castro, and the second is a radio interview given by a gentleman named Willy Claes. Let's look at these one at a time.
Castro, of course, was the President of Cuba for most of his career, and anytime a world leader speaks, one assumes he knows what he's talking about. On August 18, 2010, Castro devoted nearly 3 of the 8 pages of the Communist newsletter Granma to an article quoting the claims made in the 2006 book The True Story of the Bilderberg Group by conspiracy theory author Daniel Estulin. So in fact, Castro did not reveal any personal knowledge, he merely quoted from a book he'd read. As Cuba is not among the nations represented in the Bilderberg Group and Castro has never attended a meeting, there's little reason to suspect that he would have any particular insight, beyond having read that book. I don't see that Castro's article is evidence of anything.
The Willy Claes radio interview is more interesting. At the time he attended the 1994 Bilderberg meeting, Claes was the secretary general of NATO. A transcript of his radio interview, in Dutch, was reported on the conspiracy theory blog website Zonnewind. It was a very short, informal interview, taken during the 2010 meeting in Spain which Claes did not attend, and described by listeners as being in a humorous and jovial tone. Claes explained that each session consists of a rapporteur, who is usually either Henry Kissinger or current Bilderberg chairman Étienne Davignon, who speaks on a topic for exactly ten minutes, with each topic being an important problem faced by the West. Following this is group discussion, during which the rapporteur takes notes and attempts to form a consensus opinion, or "synthesis", among the group. The conspiracy theorists latched onto the following statement made by Claes, and have widely trumpeted it as proof that Bilderberg does indeed set world policy and that attendees are required to follow its orders:
"...And everybody is supposed to use those conclusions in his circle of influence."
Sound suspicious? I had five different Dutch speakers translate that, to be sure it was accurate, and that's the consensus translation. But it's still ambiguous. Claes certainly did not say they're required to carry out orders, in fact it could mean nothing more than the attendees hope to gain some useful insight that they'll be able to put into practice. It could also mean anything between the two. I'm leaning more toward the latter, because Alex Jones and the others give the quote without context and omit the rest of what Claes said. When asked if decisions are made at the meetings, Claes said:
"No, no voting, no resolutions put to paper."
And regarding the way attendees are asked to sit next to different people at each meal, Claes explained:
"I think it is really meant to accomodate the exchange of different and even contradictory opinions."
An exchange of ideas, with no decisions made. This from the interview that the conspiracy theorists put forth as the strongest evidence that the Bilderberg Group forces its members to carry out its plans of World Domination. Class, this is what we call "quote mining".
One reason it would be difficult for the Bilderberg Group attendees to control the world is that it's a different group of people each year. The core group, the steering committee, only changes gradually over the years, but the majority of attendees are invited only once or a few times. Bill Gates attended the 2010 meeting. What would be the point of inviting Bill Gates to just one of your secret World Domination planning meetings? Do you threaten him into secrecy? Are all attendees threatened into secrecy every year? It would probably not be a very popular event if this were the case. If I were Bill Gates and received a threat as soon as I walked in the door, I'd tell them where they could kiss me and turn around and walk out. Most of these people probably have better things to do than attend someone else's World Domination meeting where their own opinions are ignored and they have to enter into some kind of bizarre obedience pact to attend.
It's also important to note that Alex Jones thinks that virtually every congregation of powerful people is gathered for the purpose of planning World Domination. Not only is the Bilderberg Group setting world policy, but so are the Bohemian Club, the Freemasons, and the alleged Illuminati. What if these groups come to different decisions? Do they fight it out? Is this the true cause of world wars? I've double checked my history book, but I don't see any wars between the Bohemians and the Bilderbergers.
All things considered, I wouldn't say that the charge that the Bilderberg Group "runs the world" is an entirely unfair one. I think it's overstated, and I think the conspiracy theorists' version suggests paranoia far more than it represents reality, but the Bilderbergers are influential people coming together to discuss mutual problems in an open forum. They don't do it for their health or for grins; they're hoping to find solutions and opportunities for cooperation. I don't see any rational reason for such people to voluntarily enter into a threat-driven obedience pact or to plan World Domination. I do see good reason why a person in a position of responsibility would want the opportunity to have open, unfettered, off-the-record discussion with others facing similar issues. Any leader should consider his or herself lucky to have access to such a resource.
The Bilderberg Group tells us who they are, when and where they meet, what their purpose is, and in broad strokes what they discuss. Referring to it as some sort of secret society strains credibility. Their stated purpose obviously makes very good sense for people in their position. Which is more likely: They are what they say they are and what we'd expect them to be, or everything we see about them is an illusion and they're actually running our lives and planning our destruction? Beware any conspiracy theory that claims to predict future events. Not one has ever been right.
By Brian Dunning
Please contact us with any corrections or feedback.
Cite this article:
Dunning, B. "Beware the Bilderberg Group!" Skeptoid Podcast. Skeptoid Media, 28 Sep 2010. Web. 11 Feb 2016. <http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4225>
References & Further Reading
Burnett, T. Conspiracy Encyclopedia. New York: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2006. 108-109.
Editors. "Conferences 2009-1954." Bilderberg Meetings. Bilderberg Group, 1 Jan. 2009. Web. 22 Sep. 2010. <http://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/conferences.html>
Estulin, D. The True Story of the Bilderberg Group. Walterville: TrineDay, 2009.
Huntelaar, W. "Bilderbergers decide indeed the policy for the coming year." Zonnewind. Willem Huntelaar, 4 Jun. 2010. Web. 22 Sep. 2010. <http://www.zonnewind.be/bilderberg/2010/media-schade-beperken-2-interview-transcript.shtml>
Marshall, A. "Barack O’Bilderberg: Picking the President." Global Research. GlobalResearch.ca, 9 Jun. 2008. Web. 27 Sep. 2010. <http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9270>
Radford, B. "Fidel Castro's Conspiracy Theories: Worth Considering?" LiveScience. TechMediaNetwork.com, 19 Aug. 2010. Web. 21 Sep. 2010. <http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/fidel-castro-conspiracy-theories-bilderberg-group-100819.html>
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User Passwords
Discussion in 'Feature Requests' started by PoleCat, May 16, 2008.
1. PoleCat
PoleCat New Member
2. falko
falko Super Moderator ISPConfig Developer
In the current ISPConfig version, the passwords are stored nowhere in the database - they are in /etc/shadow only...
3. flipkick
flipkick ISPConfig Developer ISPConfig Developer
What about sending your customers the password in a salutatory email? And maybe your team via CC? There's an option for this in ISPConfig.
4. PoleCat
PoleCat New Member
Will version 3.0 have the passwords stored in the sql database?
I really think this will be a good feature, and will tremendously help with password management.
5. PoleCat
PoleCat New Member
Yes I do send the customers the passwords, but being customers they loose it, or its easier for them to call up and ask for the password. I cant tell the customer he's a freegin idiot for not having a photographic memory to remember his password.
We send cc emails to a central email account, though this is time consuming to admin this and compile a excel spreadsheet with passwords and keeping them all up to date, then only 1 person can access the spreadsheet else it will be out of sync etc etc etc. Also have passwords on file is not how I want to run the business, a disgruntled employee can easily e-mail or copy the file, go home and do some serious damage, or read the email for employees months after he dismissed. I cant change the passwords of every customer (over 200) when a employee leaves.
When I used to work for a hosting company in London, they had the passwords all stored for all servers in a sql database, and you had to click on "view passwords" under that account to access it. Once you have clicked it the system logs the person (sql user account that is logged in) that requested the passwords in a log which is viewable in the page when you click "view passwords". That way you can see what employee made what changes to the passwords and when and it can help you trouble shoot any errors or password changes that might/should not of happened. etc etc. This also improves security as your employees now can see they are being logged when they view or change a password. The logging of this can also help you see if the client changed the password and if its his mistake etc etc.
Maybe I'm asking for a too advanced system.
6. flipkick
flipkick ISPConfig Developer ISPConfig Developer
It will be a bad feature to keep plain passwords in mysql databases considering security issues. You'll have a big problem when someone hacks ALL secret password with a single exploit. :eek:
It's quite better to set the user a new password like the big hosting companies i know do it. A "lost password" function for the user would also make sense.
7. flipkick
flipkick ISPConfig Developer ISPConfig Developer
:D It's just too insecure. I don't know any mysql based application storing plain passwords. This is unreasonably dangerous.
8. falko
falko Super Moderator ISPConfig Developer
I second that.
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Jan 31, 2010
online high schools: a disappointment?
Initial results from Washington's online high schools, at first glance, seem disappointing:
According to a state report released last month, nearly half of the students taking online classes in 2008 failed with an D or F grade.
Also, online school is not a get-out-of-WASL-free card. Full-time online students must take the test in person at a testing site set up by the school. Part-time students who take one or two classes online still test at their home districts.
Statewide, several online schools have a hard time getting their students to show up for the test, which results in mixed performance reviews.
In the six online schools the state studied, fewer than half of sophomores passed the reading WASL last spring, compared to 81 percent statewide. Less than 20 percent of those sophomores passed the math WASL.
Online school officials say the report is flawed. Students who skipped the WASL counted as a zero, which dragged the school average down.
Take out the “zeros” at Washington Virtual Academy for example, and 77 percent of their sophomores passed WASL reading. In math, 31 percent passed compared to 45 percent statewide....
Online school students at those six schools took the WASL 64 percent of the time, compared to nearly 98 percent statewide, the report said.
I'm pretty sure that the results can mostly be explained by the way online school is currently employed: as a second chance for students who've struggled in a traditional environment. A 50% passing rate, then, might actually represent a genuine success. We'll have to see longer-term results from districts that have a mixed approach. From a cost-benefit perspective, the lower infrastructure and instructional costs, even if the passing rate stays flat at 50%, might still make the project worthwhile.
Jan 30, 2010
your homework, due April 4th
Baseball websites are bursting at the seams with statistics of every stripe. (Yes, I went there--twice.) And now, remarkably, you can find a series of the web's best intros to the various methods of sabermetrics all in one place.
Now you have no excuse.
[via Dave Cameron]
Jan 27, 2010
robots evolve altruistic behaviors
More fun in the field of evolutionary robotics:
In one experimental condition, the arena contained only large tokens, and the only way for robots to increase their fitness was to cooperate in pushing them [37]. Accordingly, robots readily evolved the ability to cooperatively push large tokens towards the white wall in all 20 evolutionary replicates that were conducted. However, when the arena contained both large and small tokens, the behaviour of robots was influenced by the group kin structure. In groups of unrelated robots (i.e., robots whose genomes where not more similar within than between groups), robots invariably specialised in pushing the small objects, which was the most efficient strategy to maximise their own individual fitness them (i.e., large tokens provided an equal direct payoff as a small token but were more difficult to successfully push). By contrast, the presence of related robots within groups allowed the evolution of altruism. When groups were formed of “clonal” robots all having the same genome, individuals primarily pushed the large tokens even though it was costly, in terms of individual fitness, for the robots pushing (Video S6).
Up next: robots evolve jealousy, petty rage, and scorn.
[via Reed A. Cartwright]
Jan 24, 2010
sanctions as "signals or gestures"
Regarding the sanctions resolution, reader Kevin sends along a link to an older CATO institute backgrounder on economic sanctions, which he says is excellent for the affirmative. Some highlights:
U.S. companies are harder hit by economic sanctions than are foreign governments. Although economic sanctions are rarely powerful enough to sway the policy of a foreign government (or to inflict much economic hardship), they can be very punishing or even destructive to specific domestic sectors or businesses, especially when competitiveness requires maintaining global market shares and access to foreign resources....
The nature of economic sanctions has several specific ramifications for policymakers. First, policymakers should recognize that sanctions are almost always signals or gestures rather than pressures that will force high-policy changes: they are congenitally weak policy levers, not effective "economic weapons" against foreign governments. Policymakers should not overstate the economic force of sanctions or their expected results.
That means that as policy instruments economic sanctions do not offer substantially different leverage to achieve goals than do "weak" diplomatic actions, and selections from options menus should not be based on the lingering misperception that they do. Alternative diplomatic signaling options should be reconsidered. In general, these may be expected to send the message with less economic cost to the implementor, and they are easier to control. (There is, of course, the possibility that less costly signals will be perceived as less serious responses than signals that involve more sacrifice.)
Readers should note that the article, written in 1989, can't consider "targeted sanctions" (which have taken hold in the last five years), and, for obvious reasons, doesn't cover the most recent evidence for the efficacy of sanctions, which I've covered elsewhere.
the Gandhi of global warming
What turns a climatologist into an activist?
As a fan of NFL Lincoln-Douglas value debate, it saddens me that science gets very little play in the event. Environmental ethics are marginalized, employed mostly by debaters seeking an out-of-the-box approach, or in the every-now-and-then resolution about valuing the planet over development, or vice versa. Yet the nature of our obligations to nature is a fascinating, complex, and highly debatable topic. How about a "Environmental concerns justify civil disobedience" resolution, eh, NFL?
Jan 20, 2010
I am not a gamer
But if I were, I would totally be addicted to Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Intense gameplay, ridiculously rendered landscapes, a likable protagonist, cheesy but fun plotting and dialogue, just the right balance of challenge and reward...
I'm not a gamer.
I am not a gamer.
no revenue stream too murky
Today's Olympian lauds outside-the-box thinking by Washington legislators. Two bills that receive a tentative "meh:" adding private vendors to rest stops, and allowing ads on school buses. Since this is an edu-blog, let's look at the latter.
Senate Bill 6466, allowing advertising on the side or inside a school bus, is bound to generate even more discussion and debate than the rest stop bill.
A school district could choose to participate in the program or not. A school district’s board of directors would have the final say on what advertising content or education material could be displayed on buses....
Finding consensus on what would be appropriate advertising on a public school bus will be difficult at best. But the program could have appeal in cash-strapped school districts.
Until all the earnings are wiped out by a lawsuit. Still... While we're, thinking outside the box, let's really think outside the box. Desperate times, etc. How about:
TV for Tots
Add back-seat televisions that run school-appropriate, mind-numbing, non-stop kid-centered commercials. Watch disciplinary incidents drop, and watch corporations compete for a shot at a captive audience. Parents know: TV works.
Principal for a Day
The highest-bidding community member gets to fill in for their local principal. Take calls from angry parents! Mediate political battles between departments! Meet with the union rep! Sign off on a "no freak dancing" policy! Take more calls from angry parents!
Bring Sugar Back
We lost the War on Obesity. Time to negotiate terms of surrender and take all the quarter(s) we can get.
Eliminate Busing in a Five-mile Radius
We're losing the War on Obesity. Time to call in the grunts. If you live within city limits, you might as well walk to school.
Legalize Pot
Unless a citizen initiative gets enough signatures to make the ballot and, miracle of miracles, passes, this one's just a pipe dream.
Jan 15, 2010
1-2-3 Chill
Debaters, you know the drill: in the van, exhausted, driving back to your school parking lot in the waning hours of the evening, your team celebrates the successes and commiserates over the failures. And there's a whole lotta judge hatin' goin' on.
Which is fine, to a degree. We all have to process. We all have to purge ourselves from time to time, to vent the aggression that we'd stored up for the week previous, trying to get our "edge." As a coach, I've endured my fair share of Ride Home Rants, and I've never condemned anyone for expressing their true feelings.
But I offer you a better way: a way to reduce your anxiety at the outset. A philosophy of relaxation, a balance between competitive fire and reflective calm, in three easy steps. Call it 1-2-3 Chill.
Your goal is to break to octas, semis, or what have you. Realistically, you're going to have to end with a 5-1 record, unless you can squeak in with a 4-2. So aim for 5-1.
One of your rounds, almost guaranteed, is going to be a loss. You're going to hit your circuit's third-year champion, the one who ought to be in grad school already, finishing up her degree in deontology, but instead has stuck around to clean up for year number four. Or you're going to get That One Crazy Judge whose paradigm is "distempered." Or you're going to drop the only contention that can sink your incredible Aff case. Whichever way, you're going to lose one round, and lose it badly. No biggie. You've got five to win.
Two of your rounds, almost guaranteed, are going to be wins, because you're on fire, and your competition, fresh up from Novice, is a gasoline-soaked rag.
Three rounds can go either way. They're going to be close, and if you come out thinking you're winning--or losing--you're probably wrong.
It's your job to do everything in your power to rope in the judge for these three rounds. You control your own destiny. These three rounds will determine your success.
So, as you drive up to the tournament, relax: you can lose one round without losing your dignity. And if you bomb your first round, relax: you can lose one round without losing the tournament. You still have five rounds. Two are yours. Three are gonna be close.
Look around you. Inhale. Exhale.
And chill your way to the elimination round.
Your van ride home will be a much more pleasant experience, even if you fare poorly--because you'll know that it's not your judge's fault, or your opponent's fault: you didn't win your three critical rounds.
But you will next time.
Jan 11, 2010
a taxing session
The Washington state legislature convened again today, facing a $2.6 billion shortfall that brought the entire usual cast of characters to the Capitol.
Washington's 147 state lawmakers returned to Olympia today and the Democrat-controlled House and Senate were quickly greeted by conflicting messages about taxation and spending at the Capitol.
Anti-tax crusader Tim Eyman filed another initiative — seeking to re-enact a two-thirds vote requirement for tax increases that voters last approved in 2007. Democratic lawmakers including Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown have signaled they intend to temporarily suspend or in some way alter I-960 to allow easier action on revenue increases in the face of a $2.6 billion budget shortfall.
On the other side, activists with the Rebuilding Our Economic Future Coalition handed about 14,000 petition signatures to Gov. Chris Gregoire in the morning. The petitions asked her to seek new revenues to blunt some of the $1.7 billion in cuts her first budget in early December spelled out to bridge a $2.6 billion shortfall.
Did I mention the $2.6 billion shortfall?
In (related?) news, pot may soon be legal. Make of that what you will.
Jan 10, 2010
economic sanctions as politics by other means
Regarding the economic sanctions resolution, I'm amazed by how many Affirmatives cite the definition of economic sanctions without considering its consequences--and, for that matter, how many Negatives get away with framing sanctions as a moral response to tyranny or proliferation.
For instance, I've heard sanctions defined as "economic penalties imposed for political purposes," or as "Restrictions upon international trade and finance that one country imposes on another for political reasons." These are great definitions for the Aff. Consider that the resolution says that economic sanctions "ought not be used to achieve foreign policy objectives." (And remember that the burden is to prove the resolution true, or false, as a general principle.) This means the Aff can lay a burden on the Neg to prove that foreign policy objectives, as a general rule, justify the use of economic sanctions. Yet I've seen few Negatives that address the overall objectives of foreign policy, other than preventing human rights abuses and nuclear proliferation.
Surely these are not the only objectives of foreign policy; not only is foreign policy a vast entity, but no single nation is implicated! In fact, it might be argued that for most nations, sanctions, for the most part, are a means of keeping their enemies in check. There are no guarantees that political goals are either legal or moral, especially when the Neg cedes to an Aff definition like the one cited above.
It gets worse for the Negative if trade sanctions aren't distinguished from economic sanctions. Then we have a much broader debate about how powerful players keep weaker countries in line. Then sanctions become a tool of economic oppression. (This also makes the free trade argument that much stronger.)
Much better definitions of sanctions, for the Negative, include...
The first and third make it a legal matter, rather than a political matter; the second makes it a moral matter. Either way, you're at least working to avoid the charge that sanctions are, like war, in Clausewitz's famous formulation, merely "the continuation of politics by other means."
it was the best of jobs, it was the worst of jobs
"Teacher" isn't in the top 50, but "Parole Officer" is. "Teacher" sits at 116, sandwiched between "Office Machine Repairer" and "Sewage Plant Operator." Make your own punchline.
("Philosopher" comes in at number 11, right after "Dental Hygienist," and just before "Meteorologist.")
[via Xeni Jardin]
Jan 6, 2010
the franchise for felons?
A little over a year ago, I blogged about an LD topic that led to quite interesting debates: whether felons should have the right to vote. In Washington, if an appeals court ruling holds up, they soon may.
The ruling, handed down Tuesday by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle, found that Washington's criminal-justice system was so "infected" with racial discrimination that a ban on felon voting violated civil-rights protections.
The state hoped to have the case heard during the U.S. Supreme Court's fall session, McKenna told reporters at a hastily arranged news conference at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
Meanwhile, the state also plans to file by next week a motion to stall enactment of the court ruling. McKenna said courts routinely grant such motions if a case is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
I used to think it was obvious that felons should be denied the franchise--after all, they'd abused the law, so why let them shape it?--but in a democracy, the law isn't perfect, and it's even possible that laws can be shaped with disenfranchisement in mind. At any rate, Vermont and Maine, the two states that allow felons to vote, haven't fallen into the sea... yet.
Jan 3, 2010
question time
I took a brief break from blogging about LD, and during my downtime, questions about the economic sanctions resolution have piled up. I'm going to answer them all here. (There may be minor edits for spelling or grammar.)
Anonymous said...
How would Kant's Perpetual Peace work for the Aff?
Kant's Perpetual Peace is based, among other things, on republicanism, sovereignty, and disarmament. It does require that nations do not interfere with other nations--the sovereignty aspect--which I suppose would preclude the use of economic sanctions. Yet this seems to presume the interaction of free, republican nations, not "rogue nations" gunning for nukes. It's an interesting idea, though, that might be more properly fleshed out by a Kantian expert.
Courtney said...
For Aff:
V: Morality
Cr: Contractualism/Deontology
Which one would work better...can't decide.
Also, I would really like to consequentialism as my criterion for an Aff case, but I don't know what value to do. Any ideas?
Contractualism works well with justice as a value, because it concerns apportioning rights and obligations; deontology will also, since it concerns moral rightness. (See below.) Consequentialism will work for the Affirmative with a value of societal welfare; the reasoning here is that the government, as the agent of action, is responsible to ensure the welfare of its citizens.
Anonymous said...
If you used deontology as your VC,and justice as your V on Aff, you would be essentially be arguing that we are preserving justice by doing what we are morally obligated to do, correct?
You certainly would.
Anonymous said...
Also, would constructive bilateralism work as a VC?
Constructive bilateralism consists of cooperative agreements between two nations; I suppose this is an Affirmative criterion, although there's no reason it would be limited to bilateralism as opposed to, say, multilateralism.
Anonymous said...
Overall, I think that a straight justice or morality argument must be made. Efficiency never has a place in LD, because we are talking about philosophical ideals. Therefore, the Neg has to show that sanctions are moral when used. (They do work sometimes, such as in South Africa, so inefficiency also doesn't work.) The Aff then has to show that, whether they work or not, they are a moral action. "Ought" could be a good link to morality.
You can definitely make that argument, but be aware that there are pragmatic and realistic strains in political philosophy--and consequentialism in general--that not only allow, but require efficacy as a condition of moral action.
lil' petey said...
On Aff I was thinking something simple but effective: How about valuing security (probably could be national but my case works better with individual), backing it up with a criterion of protecting innocence? Basically saying that economic sanctions hurt innocent people in society as much or more than the government they are directed at and that is not just.
That is certainly one of the arguments made against broad-based sanctions; just be ready for the "targeted sanctions" Negative approach.
Anonymous said...
Is there some way (like an RA or a framework or something) that can limit the Aff's disadvantage? It seems like Aff has to prove economic sanctions are always bad while Neg only has to find one example of how it is good to win.
"If I can name one example..." is the lazy route to winning, yet I hear people trying it all the time. The NFL LD ballot puts it clearly (and this language should be in bold at the top of your case in every debate!):
Unless the counterexample is large or generic enough to counter the prevailing arguments you've advanced, one example is not going to be sufficient to negate (or affirm, depending).
The Anarchist said...
Could I value Human Rights on the Aff with a criterion of Kant's Categorical Imperative? Or should I go with a value of Governmental Legitimacy?
Kant's second formulation of the categorical imperative is probably most apt here; it prohibits persons from using others merely as a means to an end. That might apply to broad-based sanctions, which punish civilians in order to pressure their nation's leaders to change policies. Using governmental legitimacy as a value isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it leads to the question, does the government have any moral obligations to noncitizens?
Jennifer said...
I'm wondering if you could argue that economic sanctions ought not be used because they promote the aims of capitalism (in many cases) and not the specific foreign policy aims of a specific country or countries. Although I suppose that capitalism and foreign policy aims of first world nations are inextricably linked. Still, could you argue otherwise?
If capitalism is bad, and sanctions are the balled-up fist of the "invisible hand," then I suppose you could make that sort of argument on the Affirmative. This is probably why some are advocating the "Cap K" (Capitalism Kritik) as an Affirmative strategy.
Alex said...
Since it seems that everyone is running Human Rights for their affirmative, I will give my opinion as of Human Rights. Running Human Rights for the Affirmative is a bit sketchy because when using economic sanctions usually aims at protecting the international community and every other nation. IE: the sanction against North Korea is aimed at stopping their nuclear program. Its citizens might be not getting their full potential of obtaining food and medication, but not having economic sanctions threatens the rights of everyone that could have conflict with North Korea considering the proliferation of their weapons. Thus, having Negative use the Affirmatives value of Human Rights as their own.
I agree; a Negative based on "maximizing rights" would be a way to co-opt any Aff running HR.
Anonymous said...
What social contract says that the government has the responsibility to only protect its own citizens?
I'll turn the question around: what social contract says that the government has the responsibility to protect noncitizens?
Anonymous said...
Hi, Im pretty new to debate, and I really like the idea of the "toolbox" metaphor and the National Security/Realism Value criterion pair. My question is, how do you link national security to the resolution? Also, at our school and tournaments, we are advised to put a verb before our criterion, such as "maintaining realism" instead of just realism. Could you explain how realism relates to the toolbox metaphor?
Economic sanctions, at least in the modern era, are related to national security in many ways. One of the foremost: nuclear containment. As to your second question, political realism is the view that prudence, not idealism, should be a government's modus operandi. (Wikipedia has a decent intro to the subject.) A political realist would thus argue that it's in a nation's best interests to keep its options open. Furthermore, a hardline realist will critique the very notion of governments having moral responsibilities--preserving their own power is their only goal. Legitimacy, human rights, and other values are only good insofar as they create or preserve internal and international stability.
Jenny said...
So far, I really can't think of much for NEG. So far all I've seen is how ineffective and devastating to humanity economic sanctions are; they're even compared to WMD. I'm thinking about running social welfare with prudence, but I can't seem to find anything good on prudence to use in my case.
Also, how do smart sanctions fit into the definition of economic sanctions?
I've partly answered your second question at this link. An intro to "smart sanctions" (via Google Books) is available here. As to prudence (realism; see above), it works best with a value of national security.
the sanctions dilemma
Regarding the 2010 Jan/Feb resolution, the U.S.'s potential response to the ongoing crisis in Iran is a perfect contemporary example of the sanctions dilemma.
U.S. and allied officials have been in discussions for months about how to impose economic penalties on Tehran to discourage it from continuing with a uranium enrichment program that the West believes is aimed at developing a nuclear bomb.
But as the Iranian government's crackdown has taken a growing toll on the opposition movement, officials are increasingly concerned that broad sanctions harming ordinary citizens would appear harsh to the outside world and would risk alienating parts of the population with which the West seeks to establish common cause.
The discussions are now aimed at making the sanctions "as narrow as they can be," said a senior State Department official who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the talks.
This points to a potential Negative line of argument against Affirmatives who base their advocacy on the harms of broad sanctions. (In fact, much of the literature against sanctions assumes broadly-imposed penalties--a fact that might be quite important to raise in CX.) How I've seen it done:
1. The Aff's harms are based on wide-ranging, broad sanctions.
2. 21st century sanctions, however, are targeted and narrow.
3. Thus the primary reason to deny the use of sanctions is obsolete.
The problem, though, is that narrow sanctions have a much lower chance of success (and, it could be argued, less valuable as a deterrent), not only because they are narrower, but because of a critical lack of information. Going back to the Iran example:
Ray Takeyh, who was an administration advisor on Iran earlier this year, agreed that it was now desirable to make the sanctions as "discriminating and selective as possible."
But Takeyh said that doing so would be difficult because the world has so little information on the inner workings of the Iranian economy that it is difficult to calculate the social effects of any economic sanction.
Targeting "surgically... may just not be possible," he said. "And if it isn't, you might want to rethink how you do it and whether you want to do it at all."
This is not an in principle objection, however; is there another line of attack?
One way is to argue that since the resolution doesn't specify "targeted" sanctions, that the Negative must defend broad sanctions as well, or otherwise they're "conditionally negating," adding words to the resolution and ignoring the general principle. After all, nothing limits the use of broad sanctions in the Neg world--especially if they're seen as a moral (or less immoral) alternative to war. (Usually it's the Aff who's accused of "conditional affirmation"--but this is one of those "ought not" resolutions where the Neg is really affirming the morality of sanctions.)
Another line of argument for the Neg is the "toolbox" argument: that the Affirmative would remove critical tools, including targeted sanctions, from the government's disposal. This would lead to a second dilemma, this time for the Affirmative: without the carrot and stick of economic sanctions, the government is left with a feather of noneconomic sanctions and the bloody spike of war. | <urn:uuid:c6530121-402b-4217-bce9-ddd58dc1fda1> | http://decorabilia.blogspot.com/2010_01_01_archive.html | en | 0.957365 | 0.073488 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Categories > Celebrities > Panic! At The Disco > Porcelain Doll
Bottoms Up
by MyNomDePlume 0 reviews
He wasn’t in the mood for the mind games he used to play with himself... He was just paranoid and he sort of loathed himself for it.
Category: Panic! At The Disco - Rating: PG-13 - Genres: Drama - Warnings: [!] - Published: 2012-09-22 - Updated: 2012-09-23 - 488 words
Brendon just needed a drink.
“I’ll be right back,” Ryan had told him, but the pumping music had muffled the man’s voice. Brendon had turned around to tell him something, but he was already gone. One more flash of panic had filled his brain. The strobe lights were hurting his eyes and the noise level was creeping into his mind as a horrible migrain. The party was too much for Brendon. Way to intense.
He pushed his way through the tightly packed crowd until he found the bar. It was dimly lit and very few people were actually sitting there, so Brendon decided to take advantage of it and dropped into a seat with a sigh.
“Need a drink?” Came the voice of the bartender. A small nagging in the back of his mind told him that it sounded oddly familiar, but Brendon pushed the thought away. He wasn’t in the mood for the mind games he used to play with himself; the ones where he told himself that a certain someone was right behind him and he would turn around and see nothing. He was just paranoid and he sort of loathed himself for it.
“Yeah. Give me the strongest you’ve got.”
As the bartender mixed his drink, Brendon tried to get a better look at his face. Even as his drink was handed to him, Brendon was unsuccessful.
”Weird,” he thought to himself before taking a sip. The drink tasted a like something he’d had before many times, but something seemed slightly off. Nevertheless, Brendon drank every last drop and asked for more.
Ten minutes and three glasses later, the side effects of the alcohol started to kick in. Brendon felt the room spinning and a jumbled voice in his head reminded him that Ryan would have to find him soon or he was going to pass out at the bar. An overwhelming chill filled him and caused him to shiver involuntarily. Just as he was about to stand up, a firm hand seated him once more.
“Stay a little longer, babe,” the all too familiar voice of the bartender whispered into his ear. The warm breath against his skin made Brendon squirm in his seat, along with the fact that this was no regular bartender.
Brendon tried to speak, but the words refused to form properly. All that came out of his mouth was a jumbled mess of sound, but the single name was all too clear in his mind.
He tried to speak once more, but the strain of trying to move his mouth correctly fatigued him.
“Hush, babe, I’m taking you home,” was the last thing that Brendon heard before he was scooped up in Derek’s arms and the room got very dark and very quiet very fast.
Gah! It's really short and I'm really sorry but there's a long chapter coming soon I promise. ;)
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If I had access to another suit, how would I know? Is there a menu somewhere or something? – agent86 Jan 25 '12 at 23:42
@agent86 Edited to add that information. :) – Ashley Nunn Jan 26 '12 at 4:01
@AshleyNunn Can you actually switch back to an undamaged Batsuit in the suit select, or are you stuck with the damaged one? – Alex Jan 26 '12 at 13:37
@Alex you are stuck with the damaged one, as far as I know. – Ashley Nunn Jan 26 '12 at 14:41
The costume menu is in the main menu (Catwoman campaign, Riddler challenges etc.). On Xbox and PS3, you can press these buttons on the main menu screen to access it for the campaign
left left down down left left right up up down
and then you can continue the campaign in a new suit
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On the Xbox or PS3 there isn't a way to fix the default Batsuit, unless you can find a way to covertly mod your Xbox (but that is REALLY hard).
As for the computer version you have two methods:
1. You can get into the game info and tweak it so that your suit won't take any damage.
2. You can use the mod where you can create you own custom Batsuit, and then once you finish the game you can choose the costume you created at the costume selection.
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And how would we do that? – kotekzot Jun 9 '12 at 11:23
Cheats and a new game for the new batsuit.But if you like the old and the busted don't use cheats and just play the game.
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protected by fredley Jul 30 '12 at 13:20
Would you like to answer one of these unanswered questions instead?
| <urn:uuid:dd5697fe-ccc7-47d5-bdbf-e5cd4543e609> | http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/48451/how-can-i-fix-the-batsuit/48453 | en | 0.933062 | 0.937393 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
HC Deb 04 July 1823 vol 9 c1434
On the order of the day for the third reading of this bill,
Mr. Calcraft
said that finding if he pressed the insertion of the compulsory clause, it might retard the bill, and being desirous to see it in operation, he should forego the intention he had formed of introducing that clause. As he was sure that, in the next session, the bill must be considerably altered, he should postpone until that period, his proposal for adding those provisions which were necessary to complete the measure.
Mr. M. Fitzgerald
said, that having been one of the first to bring the subject of Irish tithes before the Housed he could not resist the opportunity which was afforded him of expressing his exultation at the success of the measure. He thought the country was much indebted to his majesty's ministers, and he hoped that no alterations would be made elsewhere which could have the effect of defeating its wise provisions.
Sir J. Bridges'
objected to the bill in toto. For, what was it? Neither more nor less than an invasion and subversion of the rights of the ecclesiastical establishment, in violent opposition to the opinions of the clergy, who had not been heard. It had been said, that the hierarchy alone were in opposition to the bill; but such was not the case, for the whole diocese of Armagh was, with scarcely an exception, against the measure.
The bill was read a third time. | <urn:uuid:9bd83839-56d8-4607-99f4-01745dd605d8> | http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1823/jul/04/irish-tithes-composition-bill | en | 0.990249 | 0.02038 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
The Lonely Value Investor
The Lonely Value Investor
Contributor since: 2009
Company: Schacht Value Investors, LLC
Saying that GME is "making up sales" is quite an accusation. It seems the line the article is referring to is NOT the same as the "digital receipts" that the company is referencing. What "doesn't add up" is what smoking gun the author thinks he has found. Perhaps, just maybe, (sarcasm intended) a portion of "new video game sales" falls into the "digital receipt" category??? The author seems to not understand that the "digital" line item he was eager to highlight is a subsection of "digital receipts" NOT a GAAP representation of the same thing. You CAN'T make up a receipt. You either received it or you didn't. So there is no "gotcha" in this piece. So the number the company is reporting doesn't seem to be a non-GAAP number at all.
GME has been pretty straightforward about the risks to its retail business. They merely stated that they think the decline in traditional gaming retail sales is slower than folks may think, that GME's imminent death is greatly exaggerated, and that there is nothing preventing the company from being a player in digital sales. The company's balance sheet and free cash flow seem to support much of this argument. Meanwhile, this article doesn't seem to address the author's point... rather it seems to be an anti-GME piece in search of a point. I'm not GME cheerleader, despite owning a few shares, but the author's assertions are pretty damning, while his evidence is weak at best. Not sure it is worth their time, but perhaps their legal dept. should take a look at this article. At the risk of repeating myself, it is very dangerous to accuse a company of making up sales.
Perhaps BBY or WMT overpaid for your items? Maybe it is those companies who don't know what they are doing in the used game business? Not sure that your experience is any indication of GME's eventual lifespan and/or its future in selling used equipment/games. Either way, when my "days are numbered", I hope to be generating $9 billion in annual revenue. Perhaps this will be the first company that is net debt free with healthy cash flow to ever die? I could be wrong.
If you can find some of my OLD articles on here, it may illuminate some of the history on Mr. Cato. He holds a small equity stake and a huge voting stake. His rubber stamp board pays him enormously for "who knows what". Luckily, as I said, the staff is very capable. And I like the business... but I agree with your valuation and opinion. Fair value is my vote also.
It's about time... despite what 2Reb says above, I find John Cato to be a major impediment at the company. Horrible governance. But the numbers have always made sense and I like the business. Just not used to having to own a company in spite of its leader. CFO is excellent and it seems that rational minds have started to prevail at the company. Do you have a current price target?
Nice work, Nick... this idea is paying off for both of us! Congratulations.
The real beauty of KYO is on the balance sheet.
Take heart Geron shareholders: The company has not diluted your ownership in the last 12 months... probably just a short-term reprieve, however, since GERN is still burning cash. Market value when I wrote this piece... $650 million. And shares outstanding have risen from 100 million to 129 million in those 3.5 years. The market cap is slightly lower now. But shareholders have been diluted even further.
Keep up the good work, Holmes. I love the contrarian bent and I'm long HMY. I find it amusing that you hold to quaint old time ideas like actually reading annual reports (sarcasm intended) ;-) As a value investor, I guess it should be seen as a good thing that so few people look at or care about financial statements anymore.
Never been called politically correct before.... also never been called holier than thou. In any case, those who write articles for SA know that the author doesn't typically write the title. They made quite a few of mine into promotional materials. In any case, people looking for investment insights should be smart enough not to make any decision based on a headline. Part of the comment you posted was constructive and some of it was just gratuitously nasty. I'm sure you know which is which. I'll leave my comment stand. Interesting that I didn't mention any names.
So the author was wrong... most of us make mistakes every day. But there are those commenters who just can't leave anything alone. They have to get on here and spew insults. It is usually someone anonymous, who has not penned even one article. It is not healthy for the SA community and says a great deal more about the insulter than the insultee. Sad. I applaud the author for the effort and generating discussion. Everyone on this site is striving to improve their investing. How about we do it without the insults and personal attacks?
Price when I wrote the above $34+... price now? ouch.
VOD's sale of SFR to Vivendi was well timed and at a great price. This sale (should it happen) looks to be at a great price. The company has hardly been profligate with the VZ Wireless dividend money to date. I think management decision making in the recent past has been quite good. What shopping spree do you foresee? You level an accusation but don't do much to back it up.
Yes, the capital markets are wide open for the likes of DLR and rates are low. It will be forever thus? Sure. Hope springs eternal. Mr. Market registered his opinion again today. I think you are purposefully missing some of the salient points being made by those who disagree with you. I don't have a dog in this hunt, but I also don't believe that trees grow to the sky, at least not uninterrupted ;-)
Relax, Barribas... sold DLB at a tidy profit months ago... did you check the date of this article???
Buffett and other value investors have also warned investors about companies that have to constantly access capital markets. DLR clearly falls into this category. Are there risks in this? No?
It would be nice to have the experts address some of the very real questions being raised by skeptics. The effect rising interest rates will have on DLR. FFO and capex/depreciation have been mentioned by some commenters. FFO seems to imply that depreciation is not a real expense... true, it is not a cash expense, but it is supposed to approximate an actual cost... Do DLR's buildings not deteriorate with age? FFO seems to overestimate the long term earnings power of any REIT. Is DLR's success in recent years due to some inherent brilliance on their part or just a function of declining interest rates? Seems that all REITs, regardless of quality, have been levitated. Is DLR doing anything that can't be duplicated? Won't competition (lower cap rates) and rising funding costs have a long term negative effect?
It seems DLR has (at least according to Mr. Market) hit the first real speed bump in years, if not its history. It will be interesting to see how shareholders react to it. They have not had to deal with many clouds in the sky.
The Highfield's "short" can be called "foolish" but that hardly addresses the issues they raise. Perhaps to DLR bulls the criticisms are not valid, but DLR's undervaluation is far from self-evident either.
there are many reasonable arguments to be heard on both sides. It would be nice to hear more of them.
I agree with this... current management has royally screwed up and should be shown the door. My only point is that the market seems to only see the negative. They do have net cash and assets of value... it could be a LOT worse.
the recent conference call transcript speaks directly to your concerns... frankly given the balance sheet and the apparent lack of any interest in this article (as evidenced by the number of comments) makes me bullish. The bad contracts in its pipeline appear to be very manageable. And given the cash, assets, and lack of debt, the backlog issues need to be put in context. I think the market is overweighting them.
Extremely insightful, thank you!
I apologize... I misunderstood your previous post then.
At the end of the day, the debt and declining margins are largely due to the same thing... the purchase of the remaining stake in SFR. Vodafone took Vivendi to the woodshed on that deal. Well played. A stupid price that Vivendi played.
Even with that negative, the assets are there and we are starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Given the time that has passed, it will end up being a mediocre investment at best for me.
I'm sure not all of your investments have turned out as you planned. There really is no need for sarcasm. I still think that the Vivendi pieces are worth more than the whole... for some of the reasons you outline.
The P/E multiple at Loews is largely irrelevant... if you understand that Loews trades at a discount to the sum of its parts, why do you care about the P/E... especially when earnings are understated due to the Loews structure. Please read the article above again.
If Loews sells at a discount and it owns the majority of CNA stock... and CNA sells at a discount to intrinsic value then you are getting a double discount.
I get a double discount on CNA when I buy them using Loews as my vehicle.
Is the low valuation "masking" the "series of problems"? Seems like the market is all too aware. Perhaps the valuation is cheap BECAUSE of these problems. Anyone with a historical perspective on Cato knows that this company goes through periods like this. And it bounces back thanks to an incredibly loyal customer base and operating discipline.
I'm no fan of the CEO or Cato's corporate governance, but I hold the operating folks and the finance people in high regard.
What may look like inadequate expansion could be a prudent throttling back on capex in light of a weak operating environment.
I suggest that Cato bears take a longer term view on this company... fcf generation has be impressive (especially if one adjusts for new investment capex). Also, I'd suggest that it is dangerous to bet against any company with no debt and a pile of cash.
The last time I recall making this warning was in response to an article on Motorola Mobility (recommending a short when it was pegged at a 52 week low).
I suggest that all readers who don't know how that ended to Google it. Ha ha.
A lot of the cash flow mentioned is not necessarily "free". How do you get from $150m or so in net income to CFO of $300m plus? Answer: A lot of help from working capital (decreases in receivables and increases in payables). Better make adjustments for that before going any further because such changes are not sustainable.
The balance sheet is a thing of beauty and the capital allocation decisions seem intelligent. All the talk about this company's death seem premature... Revenue may be flattish but it has be growing if only slightly. Given the comments above about competition eating CHKP's lunch... I expected to see double-digit % declines in revenue.
Palo Alto is hardly an undiscovered gem. Revenue growth seems to be the only attraction so far. At current prices, CHKP seems to have more appeal... certainly the warts seem priced into the stock. Palo Alto seems priced for perfection. Perhaps the truth is somewhere in between.
I applaud Mr. Huber for saying that CHKP deserves a look.
certainly you would agree that their public holdings should not be valued at their carrying value but rather their market value, right? The NAV (adjusted book value) for Loews is closer to $55 a share. Given the structure of Loews, you can't just look at it like any insurance company. You have to value the parts. Pure BV is meaningless at Loews.
A sum of the parts gets you to at least that $55 per share number. In this market that allows for pretty respectible upside.
So just to be clear... there is no price at which SKUL is a buy? Companies can be in a commodity business and have declining margins, yet still have a value greater than zero.
The question remains... what is SKUL worth? Zero?
No good deed goes unpunished... writing on SA taught me that. When I wrote positively on Ebay some years ago, I was called a paid shill for the company. A bunch of disgruntled Ebay sellers had migrated onto the site. I was the village idiot being paid by CEO Donohoe to lure in the unsuspecting masses.
It was a horrible stock pick (sarcasm intended) ;-)
I'm rather new to the whole Skullcandy story.... are the nays here saying that SKUL unattractive at ANY price? If so, why? Without mocking the author, certainly you can see why someone would be attracted to the company at current levels?
So you disagree... fair enough. The question remains: why?
Brilliantly stated... thank you!
And yes, mc2406... so nice that the author refrained from drawing any parallels... none at all!
Wexboy, you are a true humanitarian... well said!
Excellent article, Thomas.... I am amused by the comments about goodwill. Perhaps someone needs to explain how it comes to be and that goodwill on a balance sheet is not always a bad thing. People do seem very animated when they see it though. They don't know what it is but they are pretty sure they hate it ;-)
Sorry for the side comment... not to detract. It is a great piece. As an NOV owner, I thank you!
It is a complete lack of intuitive understanding... the inability to read a cash flow statement is just a symptom. Sad. But don't bother trying to educate too many people. Most will just get mad and yell at you about how YOU don't understand. Those who learn the lesson will just be competition for the rest of us ;-) | <urn:uuid:3ec14751-7702-43c1-9125-b14455b587b4> | http://seekingalpha.com/author/the-lonely-value-investor/comments | en | 0.973913 | 0.046304 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
The bridge is yours.
-We’re getting a Sesame Street movie, apparently.
This show should only be allowed to happen if David Cronenberg hires Mary Roach to be in the writers’ room.
-James Poniewozik being typically smart on what people will and won’t pay for in a digital media environment.
-I like Jamie Weinman’s thoughts on Andrew Sarris.
-It’s been That Kind of Week, so you get Carly Rae Jepsen and Owl City because I’m in the mood to be happy: | <urn:uuid:75ec441a-cfce-4259-8253-47b5cea8a14a> | http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012/06/21/503834/intermission-217/ | en | 0.807332 | 0.416471 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
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Strains from North America and Europe share distinct genetic polymorphisms that are …
Biology Articles » Biogeography » Recent transcontinental sweep of Toxoplasma gondii driven by a single monomorphic chromosome » Results
- Recent transcontinental sweep of Toxoplasma gondii driven by a single monomorphic chromosome
Phylogenetic Analysis Reveals a Marked Separation Between Strains Common to NA and E vs. SA. To define the divergence among T. gondii strains, we analyzed the frequency of SNPs within eight introns of five unlinked loci that collectively constituted 3,780 bp per strain [supporting information (SI) Table 1]. We compared exemplars of clonal groups I, II, and III with isolates previously considered "exotic" because of their dissimilarity from the clonal lineages and a select group of strains from SA (central and southern Brazil and French Guyana) (SI Table 2) (7). Neighbor-joining and parsimony analyses of the intron sequence data grouped the 46 different strains into 11 distinct haplogroups (Fig. 1A). The haplogroups occupy strikingly distinct geographic distributions; most strains from groups 1–3 (previously defined lineages I, II, and III) occurred almost exclusively in NA and E, whereas groups 4, 5, and 8–10 occurred primarily in SA, and group 6 was widespread, being found in E, SA, and Africa (3). Very few exceptions to this geographic separation were noted. The genetic makeups of NA and E populations were highly similar [pairwise fixation index (FST) = 0.0524, P 0.05 overall and FST = 0.029, not significant, after removal of rare variants]. By contrast, SA isolates were strongly differentiated from both NA (pairwise FST = 0.211, P FST = 0.185, P same haplogroups predominate in NA and E, and that these differ markedly from those endemic to SA. Strains previously considered "exotic," turn out to be common lineages in SA, and appear unusual only by comparison to the well studied clonal lineages from NA and E.
Although sexual recombination would be expected to reassort allelic variation into many multilocus genotypes, the observed repertoire in NA and E is restricted to several lineages characterized by strong genome-wide linkage among physically unlinked alleles (SI Fig. 5). Certain multilocus genotypes endemic to SA were also repeatedly sampled, providing evidence that they also propagate clonally (Fig. 1A and SI Fig. 5). To examine linkage disequilibrium (LD) within and between loci, we joined the intron sequences end to end and analyzed pairwise associations of polymorphism across these sequences. LD was estimated by using the Zns statistic, which expresses the average correlation among alleles in all pairs of polymorphic sites (13). Zns was elevated not only for the clonal haplogroups 1, 2, and 3 from NA and E but also for SA groups 8, 9 (P SI Table 3). Other SA isolates (i.e., group 4) exhibited lower values of Zns (SI Table 3), as would be expected in lineages experiencing more frequent sexual recombination. A more conventional measure of LD, based on the D' statistic, which expresses the difference between actual and expected dinucleotide haplotype frequencies under the null hypothesis of random mating, supported similar conclusions (SI Fig. 5). Remarkably, some lineages (i.e., groups 1, 2, and 3) showed complete LD even between unlinked loci, whereas others (i.e., groups 5, 8, 9, and 10) showed high LD within a given locus, with less association among unlinked loci (SI Fig. 5).
Distinct Biallelic Polymorphisms Have Accumulated in the North and South Over Approximately Equivalent Time Periods. Previous studies have noted that NA and E isolates from type I, II, and III (haplogroups 1, 2, and 3) are mixtures of biallelic polymorphisms that were inherited as large blocks across the genome, indicating they arose from only a few genetic crosses between highly similar parental strains (6). With the notable exception of Chr1a (discussed below), SNPs found in NA and E were fixed in SA isolates. Surprisingly, the converse is also true; SA strains also show striking biallelic haplotypes, yet these polymorphisms occurred at distinct positions from those seen in the NA/E strains (SI Table 4). Collectively, these patterns indicate that northern and southern strains have mutually exclusive bialellic polymorphic haplotypes.
The most parsimonious explanation of these data is that northern and southern strains have a common origin but have accumulated separate characteristic mutations during an extended period of isolation. To test this model, we estimated the most recent common ancestry (MRCA) between strains from NA and E and those from SA based on the frequencies of SNPs in each population. Analysis of the frequency of biallelic polymorphism indicates that strains from both the North and South have a similar predicted MRCA of {approx}106 yr (SI Table 5) (Fig. 1B). The exception to this pattern was the strain COUG, which has a MRCA with other strains of close to 107 yr, indicating it diverged before the North–South split.
Recognizing that polymorphisms in clonal lineages are derived from a limited number of parental lineages, we then investigated the duration over which "new mutations" (i.e., those not already present in parental strains) have accumulated. Thus, we performed additional analyses excluding those polymorphisms exhibiting typical biallelic SNPs (but which, instead, appear sporadically in particular isolates). In both NA and SA, such clonal haplogroups coalesce {approx}10,000 yr ago (SI Table 5) (Fig. 1B). Collectively, these patterns indicate that northern and southern populations diverged {approx}1 Mya, and that much more recently, a small number of clonal groups have rapidly expanded within the past 10,000 yr.
Mixing of Four Ancestral Groups Can Explain the Current Population Structure. A Bayesian statistical approach was used to infer population structure from allelic variation in the intron sequences by using STRUCTURE (14). Because T. gondii appears to be composed of relatively few genotypes that have historically undergone limited but important admixture (68), we explored these data using a linkage model. The model most compatible with the current assemblage of strains suggests that they were derived from admixture of four ancestral lineages (SI Fig. 6). Eleven extant groups, corresponding closely to the haplogroups identified by phylogenic analysis (Fig. 1A), were identified using STRUCTURE (Fig. 2A). Each can be derived by limited admixture of the four inferred ancestral lineages, which most closely correspond to haplogroups 2, 4, 6, and 9 (Fig. 2B).
Most Strains of T. gondii Share a Monomorphic Chr1a. A recent comparison of whole-genome sequence of Chr1a and Chr1b from members of the three clonal lineages (1, 2, and 3) revealed they share a monomorphic version of Chr1a (8) (Mono-ChrIa). To determine how widespread this pattern might be, we sequenced 12 blocks scattered across Chr1a from 30 representative strains; these analyses revealed remarkably few polymorphisms for the majority of strains (Fig. 3A). Members of groups 4 (except strain CASTELLS), 7, 8, and 9 all contained a nearly identical Mono-Chr1a (Fig. 3A). Exceptions to this pattern included groups 5 and 10, which often contained a separate shared allele that differed from the Mono-ChrIa version by conserved biallelic polymorphisms ("Alternative"; Fig. 3A). Additionally, groups 5 and 10 also contained regions that differed substantially among each isolate ("Divergent"; Fig. 3A). Groups 6 and 11 had chimeric versions of ChrIa, in which approximately half of the chromosome was identical to Mono-Chr1a (Fig. 3A).
A neighbor-joining tree reconstructed from variation in the sequenced blocks depicts the divergence among strains based on Chr1a (SI Fig. 7). With the sole exception of COUG, strains in NA and E are characterized by Mono-Chr1a, as are isolates belonging to the SA haplotypes 4, 6b, 8, and 9. Notably, most groups characterized by Mono-ChrIa were also markedly clonal when analyzed at other loci in the genome (see Fig. 1 A and B). In contrast, groups 5, 10, and CASTELLS contained highly divergent versions of ChrIa (SI Fig. 7).
Inheritance of the Apicoplast Supports a Simple Recent Ancestry of Strains. Apicomplexans contain a 35-kb circular genome that is the remnant of a secondary endosymbiont: this organellar genome is inherited maternally (14) and therefore does not undergo genetic recombination. Coalescent analysis of polymorphisms in three regions of apicoplast genome sampled from 35 representative strains was used to infer the ancestral origin by using statistical parsimony (15). Network analysis of the apicoplast haplotypes showed a striking correlation between the Mono-ChrIa and inheritance from just a few matrilineages (Fig. 3B) (SI Table 6). Haplogroups 1, 2, 4, and 8 were derived from a single common matrilineage, whereas groups 3, 6, and 9 were descendant from a second distinct matrilineage (Fig. 3B). In contrast, strains that lacked Mono-ChrIa were spread across divergent nodes of the network (Fig. 3B). These results indicate that Mono-ChrIa may have arisen in a single genetic background and subsequently spread to the majority of haplogroups through very few genetic crosses.
Acute Virulence and Oral Transmission. The extremely widespread success of a small number of T. gondii lineages suggests they have a strong selective advantage. Previous studies suggested that improved transmissibility via oral transmission of tissue cysts between intermediate hosts may explain the predominance of types I, II, and III lineages (1, 2, and 3 here) (7). This trait favors clonal dissemination via carnivorous or omnivorous feeding between intermediate hosts. Additionally, recent studies have mapped genes responsible for acute virulence in the type I lineage in mice, and this trait may also constitute a selective advantage (16). We were therefore curious to understand how broadly such traits were distributed among strains representing greater geographic and genetic diversity.
Representative strains from each haplogroup (SI Table 2) were tested for oral transmissibility by feeding to mice tissue cysts that had developed in the brains of chronically infected mice, as defined previously (7). Efficient oral transmission proved to be a widespread trait in strains from all SA haplogroups, similar to the previously described clonal strains from NA and E (SI Table 2) (Fig. 1B). Rare exceptions occurred in specific strains from haplogroups 4, 6a, and 7 (* in Fig. 1B). In addition to confirming the lack of oral transmissibility of tissue cysts from several previously studied strains [i.e., CAST (group 7) and MAS (group 4)] (7), two additional isolates were thus identified [i.e., FOU (group 6a) and GPHT (group 6a)]. However, highly similar strains from groups 4, 6a, and 7 readily caused infection in mice fed tissue cysts (Fig. 1B) (SI Table 2). Our studies demonstrate that T. gondii tissue cysts of various ancestries (and not just those that have experienced clonal expansion) are infectious to mice upon oral ingestion, although mutation or genetic recombination may occasionally compromise tissue cyst development (17).
Type I strains are extremely virulent, and the effective LD100 is one viable organism (infection always leads to death) in outbred mice, whereas types II and III are relatively nonvirulent (4). We tested the acute virulence of select strains representing different haplogroups. Acute virulence, comparable to that of type I lineages, was widespread among SA haplogroups, including groups 4, 5, 6b, 8, and 9 (SI Table 2) (Fig. 1B). Given the ancient divergence of southern from northern strains, it appears, that acute virulence in mice is an ancestral trait, and it does not uniquely characterize recently evolved, clonally expanding T. gondii lineages.
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Jack Black has dismissed the notion all Hollywood actors hang out with each other, as he only has a handful of famous friends.
The Los Angeles-based SCHOOL OF ROCK star counts Tim Robbins and JOHN CUSACK among his well-known pals, but doesn't even get to see them often because they live so far apart.
Black says, "Like automatically we're all friends? No, the truth is I don't really have any famous friends except those I owe a debt to, or have worked with, like TIM ROBBINS and John Cusack.
"But I don't even hang out with those guys. Tim's a New Yorker and John lives in Chicago."
15/10/2004 09:18 | <urn:uuid:71120699-13f9-419c-8399-c53911bab2ca> | http://www.contactmusic.com/jack-black/news/black.-i-don.t-have-many-famous-friends | en | 0.974123 | 0.018785 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
I am going Contiki!
Vietnam Experience
3 7 days to go
Krista Krista
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27-year-old Female living in Brisbane, Qld Australia
I have done 3 contiki's and i feel like i haven't even scrapped the surface! I've seen East Coast of Canada, West and East of America, New Zealand and of course parts of my own country, Australia
Level 3 Traveler
3 tours
2 countries
Upcoming Contikis
Vietnam Experience
37 days to go
12 days | 1 country
Trips I've Done
Grand Explorer (Christchurch to Auckland)
0 countries
Wild Western
1 country \ 14 days \ from US$2399 per person
In the Outback, Mate
Outback Adventure (Start Darwin) 1 country \ 12 days
03 Sep 2014 - 13 Sep 2014 \ So what does one expect to find in the Outback? Let me tell you. ALOT of red dirt that contrast so well with the blue sky above. You'll do a lot of walking on this tour so I recommended a good pair of runners (tennis shoes) or hiking boots. It does get extremely hot out there (I went in Sept) so take a lot of sunscreen. September is Spring in Australia so it doesn't reach it's highest temp yet. I think the hottest day we had was about 36 degrees so bring sunscreen. Bring along a travel pillow, this is handy to have for when you're sleeping under the stars and also for those long bus drives from one place to another. I shared a room with 3 other girls for most of trip so I recommended buying a cheap power power from Kmart (I'm sure you can pick them up for about $3) I would bring a lot more clothes you can wear during the day (not nice ones, they'll get smelly and ruined) because I felt like I was going through 2 tops a day. If you plan to Visit the outback in Winter (June-Aug) make sure you bring something warm with you because it can get quiet cold at nights. So many hightlights on this trip I can't just pick one! Uluru was awesome! I did the helicopter flight over Uluru and the Olgas (did the 30min flight) as we felt that was enough time see all. Scenic flight over Kakadu was beautiful. it really does show you how small you actually are when you're up looking down at it. The hot air balloon ride was beautiful - it was cold that morning but be sure to wear something warm and comfortable so it's easy to get into the basket :) If you have some old clothes bring them as I went to a glow party and that paint stuff doesn't come out. we went to an op shop and bought some items there. the Kings Canyon Rim Walk was beautiful! make sure you pack at least 1.5ltrs of water (Depending on the time of year you go) it takes about 2-3 hours to walk but it's worth it. the walk around Uluru was long but good. it's about 10.6km around and we're given 3hrs to complete. we did it in 2hs and 40mins including stopping for photos. keeping in mind that you can't take photos in certain areas (there are signs to tell you) bring thongs (flip flops) to use in the showers :) Also you can't drink water in Kakadu so make sure you have bottled water with you and on that note I would buy 2 bottles and just keep filling them up when you can. cheaper than buying water all the time. Bring at least 1 or 2 good outfits :) sunset champagne was an awesome end for the trip :) The thermal pools are really pretty. little suggestion, wear your swimmers there because the bathrooms are not close to the pools. Edith Falls was nice, but the water was cold and Litchfield national park was great! just be careful if you climb the rocks to jump off! Accommodation wasn't that good in some places. Uluru is very small (2 lots of bunk beds) and that's it. you have to walk to the bath room. Food is expensive and so is the alcohol. you're given plenty of chances to buy alcohol so buy a little bit more for other nights too. I hope this helps! I can honestly say it was such a great trip and I'm glad I have seen more of my own back yard. if you have any questions I'll do my best to answer them :)
So what does one expect to find in the Outback? Let me tell you. ALOT of red dirt that contrast so well with the blue sky... read more
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• Australia
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• A cruise ship in the grand hotel tradition
• Harks back to an earlier era
• German-oriented but welcomes English speakers, too
Deutschland Entertainment
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The main venue for entertainment is the Kaisersaal (Emperor's Ballroom), one of the most beautiful rooms afloat. It's a two-story lounge with balcony seating all the way 'round. The ceiling is a painted mural of sky and clouds from which is suspended a huge crystal chandelier. Seating is arranged in small groupings around tables with hardwired, parchment-shaded lamps. The dance floor is on the stage, and it is quite large. Every evening there is dancing in the Kaisersaal, and there is often entertainment.
The ship's orchestra is Romanian and plays ballroom music with an emphasis on Latin numbers and foxtrots. There is a singer who is quite striking looking. When she sings in English, you are certain she doesn't speak the language because the words she sings don't make sense.
There are four bars on Deutschland. The main bar is the Lili Marlene, named for the World War II song that was popular among both Axis and Allied troops. This is a lovely room (there's that adjective again!) with small seating groups of comfortable chairs and a splendid bar. The room is separated from corridors by walls of small-paned beveled glass. Bar drinks are generous and fairly priced (under five euros). Patrons add their own gratuities to checks. My favorite bar was Zum Alten Fritz, a dark wood paneled space with leather chairs, lighted by brass torcheres. The other two bars, Lido Bar and Pool Bar, were open during the day.
On my crossing there were additional musical groups. There was a five man Dixieland jazz band, Addie Munster's Old Merry Tale Jazz band, that played music from the 20's to the 40's (think "Sweet Georgia Brown"). A trio played standards in the Lili Marlene, where there was also a small dance floor. A pianist played show tunes outside the Alten Fritz Bar. There were two Slovakians, the Pressburger Duo, who played piano and violin, performing light classical music, waltzes and polkas. (They also played Slovak folk instruments.) There was wonderful live music throughout the ship.
There were no shows, per se. There were reviews at which the various instrumentalists played, while the ship's two professional dance couples (who were excellent) demonstrated their skills. (The dancers also gave daily lessons for beginning and advanced students.) The Captain's wife, a professional singer, presented an evening of music that was highly enjoyable, mostly show music from the middle decades of the last century. On two evenings there was dancing under the stars to the music of one or more of the ship's bands.
Otherwise, entertainment was low-key. Movies (in German) were shown twice each day in the ship's small (but lovely) Kino that seats about 50. The ship's Lutheran chaplain had daily services here, accompanied by one or more of the ship's musicians. The chaplain also hosted book club meetings in the evening. There was a bridge expert, a Spanish teacher and a cooking teacher. The navigational bridge was open for tours by reservation. The sole English lecture -- remember, there were only three English speaking passengers -- was given by the cruise director with slides of the ship's around the world itineraries (so it was more of a sales job than anything remote approaching informational). Television programming included two movie channels in English and four in German, plus teletype news in each language. If this doesn't sound like a hectic round of activities, think how little time there was between meals!
Affinity gatherings were held for members of service clubs, doctors and dentists, military veterans and native English speakers (yes, we three saw each other often).
Because this was a point-to-point sailing with no intermediate ports, there were no shore excursions. The television, however, did show clips of former cruises with shore excursions, and the line organizes cruises around interests that suggest excursions, e.g. horseback riding, gardening, golf and classical music, in addition to standard, general-interest excursions.
Deutschland Public Rooms
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Public Rooms
At 22,000 tons Deutschland is a small ship. The Adlon library has a service bar for private parties and a (non-working) fireplace. There are bookshelves of German, French (not many) and English books. The English books run to classics. (For example, there are two copies both of Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Brothers Karamazov.) The Adlon also has the ship's Internet stations. There are two laptops whose only function is to send e-mails. You must use a shipboard account, opened with reception. There is no facility onboard to surf the Web or to check Web-based e-mail. (This is another of those anachronisms that is not attractive.) Rates for sending e-mails are high, depending on the volume of material to be sent and the time taken to send it: Figure 12 euros to say hi to grandma.
There are three shops: the photographers' shop at which photos are sold (4.20 euros); a branch of H. Stern, the Brazilian jeweler with their nicely set semi-precious stones; and a boutique that sells everything else from Mont Blanc pens to Swarovski crystal, and from women's clothing to perfumes and sundries. Items in the shops are not subject to V.A.T., so appear cheap to Europeans; they are not so to Americans (especially as the euro has appreciated against the dollar).
Deutschland Spa & Fitness
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Spa & Fitness
The ship has a small gymnasium located on Deck 5, aft of the Berlin Restaurant. It is accessible from the outside decks. Here there is a sauna with posted times for male, female and mixed use. The gymnasium, with views of the sea, is small with two each of the following machines: cross country skiing, rowing, treadmill, stair climbing and cross training. There are two benches for free weights. A trainer who supervises deck walks and (mild) calisthenics, and consults on use of the gymnasium is on hand.
There is an outdoor saltwater pool, little more than a dipping pool, really. There are shuffleboard courts, a Ping-Pong table, two putting greens and a driving range. Skeet was shot once during my crossing. There are numerous venues for playing chess. There is a large, outdoor set on deck, most cabins have an inlaid chess board on the credenza, and a couple of public rooms, i.e. the Adlon and the Lido Terrasse, have chess sets.
Surprisingly for this day and age, there is an indoor pool (fresh water) on Deck 3, part of the spa complex for both beauty and health conditioning. The pool is surrounded by marble columns with tile massage tables and wicker recliners. There is a Turkish bath and areas for Thalassotherapy, dry heat, tepidarium (cooling down pool), masks and massages. Rates for spa treatments are comparable to other ships, but there are several packages that combine treatments in economical ways. For example, a combination of wet heat, salt oil massage and tepidarium is $160; men's pedicure and foot massage, dry heat and classic massage (120 minutes total) is $155. A spa consultant supervised on-deck yoga and Pilates. A separate hair salon/barber shop is located on Deck 7.
There are teak decks that wrap around the ship, but there are sun loungers and deck chairs (all wood with pads, blankets and towels) that impede a serious walker's progress.
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| <urn:uuid:795f15ed-7295-41a2-8802-ed2c5a592952> | http://www.cruisecritic.com/reviews/review.cfm?ShipID=159&pgtype=Activities | en | 0.953359 | 0.028827 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
@techreport{NBERw16298, title = "Short-Run Subsidies and Long-Run Adoption of New Health Products: Evidence from a Field Experiment", author = "Pascaline Dupas", institution = "National Bureau of Economic Research", type = "Working Paper", series = "Working Paper Series", number = "16298", year = "2010", month = "August", doi = {10.3386/w16298}, URL = "http://www.nber.org/papers/w16298", abstract = {Short-run subsidies for health products are common in poor countries. How do they affect long-run adoption? We present a model of technology adoption in which people learn about a technology's effectiveness by using it (or observing others using it) for some time, but people quit using it too early if they face higher-than-expected usage costs (e.g., side effects). The extent to which one-off subsidies increase experimentation, and thereby affect learning and long-run adoption, then depends on people's priors on these usage costs. One-off subsidies can also affect long-run adoption through reference-dependence: People might anchor around the subsidized price and be unwilling to pay more for the product later. We estimate these effects in a two-stage randomized field experiment in Kenya. We find that, for a new technology with a lower usage cost than the technology it replaces, short-run subsidies increase long-run adoption through experience and social learning effects. We find no evidence that people anchor around subsidized prices.}, } | <urn:uuid:70f4838d-9fe8-47af-99b2-75c280315505> | http://www.nber.org/papers/w16298.bib | en | 0.917051 | 0.760495 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Mali: no rhythm or reason as militants declare war on music
Musicians performing at the Crepissage festival in Timbuktu, Mali, in front of the Sankore mosque
Musicians performing at the Crepissage festival in Timbuktu, Mali, in front of the Sankore mosque. Photograph: Alamy
Toumani Diabaté, Malian kora player in Bamako
Toumani Diabaté, Malian kora player, in Bamako. Photograph: Karen Robinson/ Karen Robinson
And yet that is the bland reality dawning on this once joy-filled land. International observers claim the leaders of the three armed Islamic groups who now control the northern Malian cities of Timbuktu, Kidal and Gao are motivated by money and power rather the dream of a caliphate in the Sahel. There are strong ties between these groups and the less than holy interests of major drug-traffickers and arms smugglers.
But many of the mujahideen who have zoned in on the conflict from all over the Muslim world are fired by an unquestionable religious zeal. The same goes for Iyad Ag Ghaly, a Touareg strongman and born-again Salafist, who founded the Ansar-ud-Deen movement at the end of last year.
"He believes in what he's doing," says Manny Ansar, director of the Festival in the Desert that has been taking place every January in and around Timbuktu and Kidal since 2001. "And that's what frightens me. I'm not convinced that he wants to kill everyone who is not a Muslim, like the people in al-Qaida do, but I've seen him giving up the fruits of this life for God."
Back in the 1990s, before he succumbed to the preaching of the Pakistani proselytising movement Tablighi Jamaat, Ghaly liked to smoke cigarettes and hang out with musicians from Tinariwen. He even composed songs and poems of love, rebellion and the beauty of his desert home. Now music, and with it a major source of communal cohesion and well being, has either disappeared or gone underground throughout the territory under his control.
The ban comes in the context of a horrifically literal and gratuitous application of Sharia law in all aspects of daily life. Militiamen are cutting off the hands and feet of thieves or stoning adulterers. Smokers, alcohol drinkers and women who are not properly attired are being publicly whipped. As one well-known Touareg musician from Kidal says: "There's a lack of joy. No one is dancing. There are no parties. Everybody's under this kind of spell. It's strange."
Tinariwen performing at the World Cup 2010 Kickoff concert in Soweto, South Africa
Tinariwen, seen here performing at the World Cup 2010 Kickoff concert in Soweto, South Africa. Photograph: Jon Hrusa/EPA
Ansar adds: "People think that the problem is new. But the menace of al-Qaida started to have an effect on us in 2007. That's when al-Qaida people started to appear in the desert. They came to the nomad camps near Essakane [the beautiful dunes to the west of Timbuktu where the Festival in the Desert used to be held] and at first they were pleasant and said, 'Don't worry, we're Muslims like you.' Then they began to say, 'We have a common enemy, which is the west.' That's when I understood that things were going to get difficult."
The Kel Ansar
Remarkably, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqim) never targeted the festival or any of the thousands of westerners who braved the journey to attend it. According to Ansar, some people put this down to the fact that his tribe, the Kel Ansar, are said to be descended directly from Muhammad and are highly revered. "Others even thought that we cast spells to block their route," he says with a wry laugh. In truth, Aqim knew that if they wanted to keep the locals sweet and compliant, they were well advised not to mess with the Kel Ansar.
Not all music events were so blessed. Returning from the Tamadacht festival near the eastern town of Anderamboukane in January 2009, a British tourist, Edwin Dyer, was kidnapped and sold to Aqim, who beheaded him four months later because the UK government refused to pay a ransom. It forced the Festival in the Desert to move into the safe confines of Timbuktu city limits in 2010.
U2 singer Bono attends Mali's Festival in the Desert music festival in Timbuktu
U2 singer Bono attends Mali's Festival in the Desert music festival in Timbuktu. Photograph: Serge Daniel/AFP/Getty Images
This year in January, no doubt the last festival to be held in Timbuktu for a while occurred in an atmosphere of high alert after recent kidnappings and the murder of a German tourist by al-Qaida. The event was attended by Tinariwen, a host of other Touareg and Malian musicians and Bono.
"I was impressed by Bono's courage and that of his team," Manny says. "He asked the soldiers who were assigned to protect him to leave him be and let him roam around the town freely or go and drink tea out on the dunes. But I wondered if I wasn't a bit mad myself to let him do that. I mean, Bono, kidnapped! Imagine that." La Maison, the hotel in Timbuktu where Bono and his entourage stayed, is now the headquarters of the city's Islamic tribunal.
Manny felt like giving up when the rebellion erupted a few days after the end of the festival. But after talking to many musicians, as well as friends and international backers, he decided to organise a Caravan of Peace and Unity that will tour west Africa and visit refugee camps in February next year. He will also be promoting the Festival in the Desert in Exile in Europe, the Middle East, the US and elsewhere. "It's my way of fighting back," he says. "Before our music was heard in Essakane. Now it'll be heard in all the big festivals in the world. So it's the opposite of what the Islamists want. It's our victory and their defeat."
Meanwhile, almost all the musicians in the north have fled the country like more than 500,000 of their fellow Malians, most of whom languish in refugee camps in Algeria, Mauritania, Niger or Burkina Faso. It is the biggest humanitarian crisis the Sahel has ever known. "There's no music up there any more," says Vieux Farka Touré, son of the king of the West African blues, the late Ali Farka Touré. "You can't switch on a radio or a TV, even at home."
The town of Niafunké just south west of Timbuktu, where Ali Farka Touré was mayor for many years, is now under Islamist control. "I know that if Ali were to awake from his tomb today," says Afel Bocoum, Touré's former sidekick and Albarn's partner on the 2002 Mali Music project, "he would just go straight back into it. He would die twice." Both Bocoum and Vieux Farka Touré have fled south to the safety of the Malian capital, Bamako, with their families.
But down south, music is also in crisis, for related reasons. The military coup that toppled President Amadou Toumani Touré on 23 March and kissed goodbye to one of Africa's most lauded democracies has left the capital, Bamako, fearful and economically depressed. "People just aren't used to meeting soldiers in the street, so they tend to stay at home," says Adam Thiam, one of Mali's leading journalists.
Many live music venues in Bamako, such as Le Diplomat, where Diabaté and his Symmetric Orchestra used to play every weekend, have closed. The same goes for hotels and restaurants, starved of their once plentiful foreign tourist clientele. Nightclubs and weddings are still thriving but the trend is to save money by hiring sound systems and DJs rather than live musicians. "People use what they earn to feed themselves, not to have fun," says Bassekou Kouyate.
But in west Africa, when the going gets tough, the rappers get going. Like Y'en A Marre, a collective that ignited nationwide debate during Senegal's election crisis last year, rappers in Mali have stepped up to denounce political skulduggery, Islamism and military rule.
Malian singer Rokia Traoré
Malian singer Rokia Traoré. Photograph: Simon Grosset/Rex Features
"I don't give a fuck what they say," is Malian rapper Amkoullel's terse answer to a question about the Islamist music ban. "We won't let them get away with it. We don't need them to teach us how to be Muslims. We're a secular tolerant country, where everyone declares their religion according to their feeling. And in any case, they know that a Mali without music is an impossibility."
Amkoullel set up his own pressure group of rappers, activists and friends called Plus Jamais Ça (Never Again). So far he has released a couple of videos, including one called SOS, which has become a YouTube hit. It has also been censored by the state broadcaster ORTM, which is still under the heavy hand of the military.
"We had this feeling that a heavy blow had been dealt to democracy," Amkoullel says of the 23 March putsch. "And it had been done in a period of popular disillusion. It's as if in the collective consciousness, democracy was a failure in Mali." Like Les Sofas de la Republique, the other rap collective raising the standard in rhyme for unity, democracy, peace and good governance, Amkoullel and his team have been organising demonstrations, debates and gigs. He has also received three death threats.
"I knew that our phones were being bugged," he says. "Then I got this call that was like, 'Yeah … we're watching you, so you'd better calm down or take the consequences.' The second message wasn't from the same person. 'You're talking too much,' they said. 'Shut up or you'll disappear and won't understand a thing.' That was much clearer!"
And yet, despite the twin-pronged threat to the culture they have made world famous, all the musicians of Mali agree it remains at the core of their identity. "I'm a Muslim, but Sharia isn't my thing," says Rokia Traoré, one of Mali's most famous international stars. "If I couldn't go up on stage anymore, I would cease to exist. And without music, Mali will cease to exist." | <urn:uuid:8dd40270-9dd3-4b64-ac10-1e92c7fb4c29> | http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/23/mali-militants-declare-war-music | en | 0.976882 | 0.07455 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
How the Iraq War made the US military greener
The cooling costs of running multiple computers to handle different classifications of data motivated the US military to seek out a specialized operating system to consolidate systems.
Photo courtesy of U.S. Air Force photo/Master Sgt. Trish Bunting
During the height of the Iraq War, the US military maintained hundreds of computers, which required it to produce a significant amount of power. Its solution was to deploy a specialized secure operating system to consolidate many tiers of classified information onto a single system.
My colleague Melissa Mahony’s story, “U.S. Army finds energy independence in their tents,” reminded me of a conversation that I had with a senior official in the Information Assurance Directorate (IAD) of the NSA nearly two years ago.
The official described how embedded systems maker Green Hills Software’s Integrity-178B operating system was deployed by the military.
Green Hills’ software is used in everything from hybrid cars to fighter jets and farm equipment. Its Integrity OS was also given a high security rating by NSA after nearly a decade long review process.
Integrity enabled information with different levels of classification (ranging from Internet access to top secret and classified) to reside on a single computer, thus requiring fewer computers. That is significant because running computers in the Iraqi desert requires a lot of cooling - not mention the logistical issues of space and weight.
However, the military still had to define roles for data access to sufficiently protect those different tiers, as well as the requirement to have separate networks to handle each classification of data.
While this is not exactly breaking news, it’s an interesting example of how necessity can drive innovation. I wonder how many cloud computing providers have taken similar steps to consolidate hosted sessions to save energy give how the cloud is turning heads as a form of greener IT.
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wow. so what’s a good excuse for not contributing anything delicious, colorful, temptingly delightful during the most vibrant time of the harvesting year?! i don’t have it. time feels like it moves forward so relentlessly, and suddenly may becomes…august? yikes. my life’s pace just keeps pushing forward. between getting a new job managing a garden downtown, running a relay across michigan, playing as a returning teammate in detroit’s neighborhood futbol league, things just move fast.
but today, dear friends. this grand wednesday, the seventeenth of august, i bring you stain pie.
prepped and ready, stain pie!
by stain pie, what i really mean is blueberry peach crisp. oh, the lovely and satisfying delights of michigan blueberries and peaches in summertime, swimming in a buttery, oaty crumbled topping! and, even better? doing it while wearing white!
this past sunday, i was invited to attend a diner en blanc–detroit’s pop up picnic in white, a la paris. asked to bring dessert for forty, i knew that crisp was the answer. clearly. and blueberries and peaches, saucing and mingling, would of course play the leads. but never did i really consider the danger of bringing gorgeous, purply, juicy blueberry peach crisp at a party with people all in white. HA!
oh, sweet crisp!
the night was enjoyed by all, and all came away a little stained. but, it was worth it. it’s worth it for some stain pie!
a little sunset, a little skyline, a lot of fun
stain pie
note: i used frozen ambrosia michigan peaches from last year, clearing out for this year, and thus added no sugar to the innards of this crisp
2 cups blueberries
2 cups peaches
1 tablespoon whole wheat pastry flour
1 lemon, juiced
1/3 cup oats
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
spoonful honey
1/4 cup roughly chopped nuts (sunflower and cashew for this one)
good sprinkling of cinnamon
6 tablespoons butter, cold
1. preheat oven to 375 and butter a shallow baking dish.
2. mix berries, peaches, flour and lemon juice, and pour into the buttered baking dish.
3. mix the topping ingredients, up to butter, till combined. then cut butter into 1/2 inch cubes and mix into the flour, using a pastry blender or clean hands to mash butter and flour et. al together.
4. pour over the peaches and blueberries, and place in oven to bake for 50 minutes, or until crisped and bubbling. | <urn:uuid:9f936296-bc1e-4cb4-ba93-b2f29d291f4c> | https://delicatasunshine.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/stain-pie/ | en | 0.917424 | 0.083919 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
One of the biggest movies of the fall so far is Contagion, which garnered strong reviews -- including from the science blogosphere -- and roared to a $23.1 million opening when it debuted a few weeks ago, easily beating out the other box office contenders. So it's understandable that a few hidden gems slipped under the radar. Case in point: many people missed the sleeper film, Warrior, whose cast of characters includes Brendan Conlon (Joel Edgerton), a.k.a., the Most Badass Physics Teacher E-VAH!
When we first meet Brendan, he doesn't look too tough: his two young daughters are gleefully painting his face during a family birthday party. But he's definitely hands-on in the classroom, instructing his students on the finer points of F=ma by means of a sledgehammer and concrete blocks. And then we see him lifting weights in the garage, and learn he moonlights as a bouncer at a local strip club to help make ends meet, since his salary as a public school teacher isn't sufficient to ward off the looming threat of foreclosure on their modest Pittsburgh house.
At least that's what he tells his wife Tess (House MD's Jennifer Morrison). In reality, he has re-entered the world of amateur mixed martial arts (MMA) to earn a bit of extra cash. A former UFC fighter, he makes quick enough work of the local "weekend warriors" with delusions of being the next Matt Hughes or Randy Couture. No doubt that physics background helps, too: martial arts is all about force, energy transfer, leverage, and momentum. (Perhaps the official motto should be, "Physics can kick your ass!")
But when the school board learns of his extracurricular activities, he is suspended without pay for the semester.
Principal: "We can't have one of our teachers cage-fighting in a strip club!"
Brendan: "Technically, it was in the parking lot outside the strip club...."
What's an out of work physics teacher gonna do to save his house and protect his family? He's gonna enter Sparta, the biggest, most brutal MMA competition out there, with a winner-takes-all purse of $5 million. That means coming out of retirement to take on a field of younger, powerful, highly skilled fighters like the undefeated Koba (played by real-life MMA fighter Kurt Angle). And it also pits him against another underdog, Marine Corps war hero Tommy Riordon (Tom Hardy) -- who just happens to be Brendan's estranged brother. I think we can all see where this is going, and if not, the trailer lays it all out for you:
Don't let the lackluster marketing campaign fool you: Warrior isn't just another tired retread of Rocky, despite the working-class background and underdog status of its heroes. For starters, most such films allocate a few days to film climactic fight scenes. But Warrior is so fight-intensive that director Gavin O'Connor spent an entire month filming those sequences. The pacing, cinematography, and realistic choreography of those scenes is astonishing -- it captures the beauty, not just the brutality, of this controversial sport (which, for the record, is nothing like professional wrestling, despite the cheesy trappings and scantily clad ring girls).
Those sequences took their toll on the actors, too. In an interview with Den of Geek, Edgerton revealed that he and co-star Brady trained "literally from seven in the morning until three in the afternoon. It was fighting all morning, eat a massive meal with the stunt guys and then come back to lift massive weights... Because at some point Tom and I knew we had to get our shirts off, stand in a cage... and look like we belonged there."
The film is also grittier, more thoughtful, and starts slow out of the gate, carefully building up the characters and complex, layered relationships, so that by the time the two brothers face off in the Octagon for the inevitable showdown, we understand fully what's at stake, and we're rooting for both of them. It's not a prize purse, or a thirst for macho glory. Each brother is literally fighting for his life, and for the lives of those who depend on him. You desperately want them both to win -- but there can be only one victor. Them's the rules.
So who will it be, the brute or the tactician? In one corner, you've got the pitbull ferocity and merciless efficiency of Tommy, a seething cauldron of pain and rage, who once tore the door off a tank in Iraq to save a fellow Marine, and who dispatches most of his opponents in the first round with a vicious knockout punch. (Announcer #1, musing on Tommy's chances before his first fight: "I dunno, sure, he's tough, but a tank doesn't hit back." Announcer #2: "Yeah, but.... HE TORE THE DOOR OFF A FRICKIN' TANK!".)
In the other corner, there's the steely, calm resolve of Brendan, the high school physics teacher with the big, big heart, who doesn't exactly dazzle with his technical prowess, and seems to lack the killer instinct. (Announcer #1: "Remember him from the UFC?" Announcer #2: "Yeah, I remember how unmemorable he was." He then compares Brandon to a harmless goldfish in a plastic bag.) But he's smart, and patient, and unbelievably tough. He can take a helluva beating and wait for an opening, a small mistake, that he can exploit to gain the upper hand and win -- if he doesn't get killed in the process.
Who wins? Go see the movie! Warrior deserves a bigger audience than it's managed to find so far -- which is why you should all run right out and see it while it's still in theaters. On your way home afterwards, perhaps you can take a moment to consider the plight of our woefully underpaid physics teachers, forced to engage in brutal cage-fights in the parking lots of strip clubs. Then again, is there anything more suspenseful than a physics class where the teacher might at any moment whip out a big ol' can of whup-ass to demonstrate Newtonian mechanics?
Okay, so Brandon is fictional. I know there are tons of hard-working high school physics teachers out there, laboring in the trenches to reach students who honestly can't see what possible use they could have for physics. I invite readers to nominate their favorite, most inspiring physics teacher in the comments, to be featured in a future blog post -- because they deserve the recognition! Right? And hopefully, one day, a pay raise.
FYI, I earned a black belt in jujitsu in 2000, and have been a fan of MMA since the early days of the UFC, although I don't practice anymore, nor do I follow the sport religiously. But I do write about it from time to time, particularly on the underlying science. Here's some of those prior posts:
"Band of Brothers" (3 Quarks Daily)
"Fighting the Forces"
"It's Just a Flesh Wound"
"Science Hits the Streets" | <urn:uuid:a0a37967-1692-4e48-86ae-21653957b868> | http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/physics-enters-the-octagon/ | en | 0.9641 | 0.046547 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Special Teams Analysis: It Starts With A Kick!
KO Feature Photo moore
Let’s face it – the game we love to watch and learn about starts with a position that we love to hate and hate to love, and that’s the kicker. The kicker is rarely thought of unless the game comes down to the final seconds and he is called on to either be the hero or the goat. My goal in this analysis is to get you to not only look at the kicker in a different light, but the special teams unit all together.
In case you have not noticed, we kick the ball off often. The Oregon special teams have to be disciplined athletes both physically and mentally to run up and down the field on kickoffs as often as we do. If you look at the picture above you can see they take pride in being on the kickoff. The players are in a sprinter’s stance, arms up and ready to fly down the field to make a play. The kick off is more than just kicking the ball and running down the field trying to find the ball carrier. The kick has a direct impact on how successful the coverage can actually be, as discussed below.
Since the game starts with a kick, then it is only fitting that my analysis starts with the kick as well. First and foremost, the majority of fans and coaches would want a touchback every single time the ball is kicked. There is nothing wrong with having a touchback every time because you guarantee the opponent will start on their own 25 yard-line at the start of each possession after a kickoff. Another positive of a touchback is if the other team has a playmaker as a kick returner you are eliminating them from creating explosive plays and taking him out of the game plan.
I, however, disagree with the desire for a touchback. I think the kick-off gives the fans a chance to witness the most momentum-changing play in football: a kick-off return for a touchdown or a bone-crushing big hit. If you look at the picture above, the return man for Arkansas State catches the ball at the one yard-line. The returner can’t settle for a touchback and is forced to make a play; this is where other factors come into play. First, the game plan for the week will already have laid out detailed information on who the team plans to avoid kicking to and the strengths and weaknesses of each of the returners. Second, the all-important kick needs to have enough altitude and distance to allow our team to get down the field in time to actually make a play. The kick itself dictates how well we will be able to cover. If the ball is kicked low and directly to the returner, he will have the advantage and cover more grass by the time the cover team arrives, and running lanes will open. The same thing occurs if the kick does not have enough power, as it will be fielded short and give the ball carrier enough time to make a nice return. The altitude of the ball has been our biggest struggle with Oregon special teams over the year because it simply does not allow coverage teams the amount of time needed to get down the field and make the tackle.
On every kickoff you typically have 10 players attacking the ball carrier and the kicker who typically ends up as the safety. Each player on the kickoff has a specific role. The first rule of their job is to stay in their lane. If a defender gets knocked off of his lane he has to “stack” the blocker and get back into position so no running lanes are created. The picture above demonstrates what “stacking” the defender should and should not look like and how important it can be. Number 33 (circled in green) does an excellent job of beating the blocker and “stacking” or getting right back into his running lane downfield. If the defender goes around the block to the outside and another goes inside (red circles) and neither “stacks” the blocker, nor gets back in their running lane, then they inadvertently create a cutback lane for the ball carrier (red slanted lines).
The red arrow in the middle (above) shows the track the defender needs to take to “stack” his defender and stay in his lane. The two players highlighted with the yellow circles are the two contain players who must keep outside leverage and funnel everything back into the meat of our coverage team. They are “force” defenders who force the kickoff return inside. The arrow in the middle is pointing out one of our wedge busters. These players are unselfish and typically first ones down the field. Their sole purpose is to take out the wedge or middle blockers made up of 2 or more players. The purpose of “busting up” these blockers is to free up some of the other defenders to make plays.
Finally, one thing that was evident throughout every kick-off against Arkansas State was hustle! Every time the ball carrier was tackled we had a plethora of defenders around to help make the play. Not every player may have actually been in on the tackle itself, but there were 6-7 defenders surrounding the ball carrier, forcing him into the mouth of the coverage team. I think this stat goes to show why football, in my opinion, is the greatest team sport there is. Before I finish, leaving everyone with a bad taste about our kicker, please recall my statement earlier regarding how the kickers are typically your safeties on the kick-off. Now, if you look at the picture above you will see number 41 Alejandro Maldonado, right there in the thick of the action. I believe that says a lot about our special teams and Oregon Ducks!
I may be in Texas, but like you…”Oh how we love to learn about our Beloved Ducks!”
Todd Moore
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Todd Moore
Todd Moore
Todd (Football Analyst) is a former high school defensive coordinator and current administrator in education. He is a football enthusiast of all levels and loves to talk ball to anyone who will listen. He has coached in a spread offense and while coordinating defense used a 4-3 and odd stack. He has coached the offensive line, wide receivers, linebackers and safeties. Todd currently reside in the great state of Texas with his wife and two beautiful daughters.
• fishduck
Todd, this is great information about how openings occur on kickoff returns and what is a “stack” on special teams. I love learning from other analysts and we really needed more special team coverage.
Your explanation in the beginning about the kickoff needing adequate hang time got me thinking about our new recruit kicker. Most think of him being used as a placekicker, but his role might be vital immediately giving us the high kickoff that allows us to pin them deep.
Great stuff-thanks!
• http://www.facebook.com/allen.jones.1291 Allen Jones
The thing is, if Wogan can kick the ball high enough, the Ducks have the athletes to get down in time and make tackles inside the 25 yd line. Look at the pic that Todd shows above? The returner has the ball before there are defenders within almost 30 yds of him, which is NO BUENO! It’s very difficult to not give up big returns when guys have this much room to work with
• fishduck
This is a good example of how us fans begin to learn and look for these things on kickoff return now. Thanks Allen.
• AugustDuck
I am looking forward to a season of better kickoff coverage, next year. I like the strategy of kicking high and right at the goal line, to give our special teams studs a chance to make a play. If it is the second half, and we are a few scores up, then I would prefer to just simply kick it out of the end zone.
• http://www.facebook.com/people/Keith-Dennis/1081164398 Keith Dennis
I think that kickoff and coverage stats are recorded incorrectly or at least misleadingly. A returners stats are recorded as yards traveled after catching. And a coverage team’s stats are also recorded as yards from where the returner caught it. But those numbers are mostly irrelevant to the actual playing of the game. The numbers should be recorded, or discussed, as yards +/- from the 25. If a returner averages 24 yards per catch, but the teams average starting position is the 23 yard line, then the returner would be better off taking the touchback because the team is starting -2 yards on average of field position. On the filp side, another returner might average only 15 yards per return, but if the team’s average starting field position is the 30, then the team is better off (though, obviously, in that scenario, touchbacks wouldn’t be an option).
Against USC last year, USC’s starting field position in kick offs was 36 yards. At that time, touchbacks weren’t an option, but Oregon would have been better off kicking it out of bounds and letting USC take it at the 35 every time both as a net gain in opponent’s starting field position and also it would have negated the long returns. Of course, that’s easier to conclude in hindsight. Though I always wondered why Kelly insisted on kicking off to Lee every time.
• http://www.facebook.com/krekelly Ken Kelly
Insightful information Todd! As a Special Teams Coordinator, I find that many people don’t truly appreciate the importance and/or skill that it takes to be a phenomenal, all around team. I’d like to chat with you some about defensive play out of a 3-4 under. | <urn:uuid:495e4382-c286-49c9-a621-e3628224aec4> | http://fishduck.com/2013/04/special-teams-analysis-it-starts-with-a-kick/ | en | 0.958263 | 0.035025 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
Map of the AVA
The McMinnville AVA sits due west of Yamhill County’s largest wine country town, McMinnville. It extends approximately 20 miles south-southwest toward the mouth of the Van Duzer corridor, Oregon’s lowest coast range pass to the Pacific Ocean. The AVA is a blend of geo-climatic factors that make it unique among Yamhill County’s AVAs. Specifically, the area encompasses the land above 200 feet and below 1000 feet in elevation on the east and southeast slopes of the foothills of the Coast-range Mountains.
For a downloadable map, please follow this link MacAVAMap.jpg
Website powered by LVSYS | <urn:uuid:d76146b5-1e99-41e3-8da5-593d100dcb5e> | http://mcminnvilleava.org/map | en | 0.829216 | 0.027782 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
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In New Girl season 3 episode 13, Nick makes a surprise birthday video for Jess. I want to know which soundtrack is playing in the background of the video. Thanks in advance.
The song in question is from the 17:40 mark in this video
share|improve this question
closed as off-topic by Andrew Martin, Ankit Sharma, default locale, wbogacz, Shevliaskovic Dec 9 '14 at 17:45
This question appears to be off-topic because it is about identifying a piece of music. – CGCampbell Nov 26 '14 at 0:36
@CGCampbell: These aren't off topic as of yet. It's been discussed but not finalised. Pure music video questions are off topic. Questions about soundtrack are loosely on topic, and very much on topic if more reason can be provided as to why the soundtrack is being sought. – Andrew Martin Nov 26 '14 at 8:55
@CGCampbell: The community decides the rules, not one person. Look at the post I put up. I would agree with you that it's off topic and there certainly seems to be some support for it. But there's also a heck of a lot of questions that have been asked in the last two months (linked to in my question) which have remained open and been answered that are no more detailed than this. We need to be consistent in our approach - whether that's closing them all or opening them all. Do please share your views on the discussion, as the more participants the better. – Andrew Martin Nov 26 '14 at 18:13
@AndrewMartin I am allowed to comment and vote-to-close and down-vote. Whether I chose to do one, two, or all three of these things is my choice as a supporter with reputation. Even if there was an explicit decision that this question was on-topic... I can still do any or all of those things, with the reputation I have. Whether or not there are others who agree would be determined by useful comments, flags, up/down votes or additional v-t-c's. I did not break the rules by doing any or all of the things allowed me by my reputation. :) – CGCampbell Nov 26 '14 at 18:20
@CGCampbell: Of course you can. It just doesn't make a lot of sense on a community website like the Stack Exchange, where the community has all the power and decides what's on topic. Rather than fighting your battles, discuss them on meta, decide on what's on or off topic and go from there. You can vote and close any way you want, but it saves the hassle of voting to close questions that will always remain open as the community wants it so, or answering questions the community will always vote to close. Still, do as you like - those are just my thoughts. – Andrew Martin Nov 26 '14 at 18:23 | <urn:uuid:cc7b705f-25ea-4da3-855c-911b8c56db49> | http://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/17826/name-of-soundtrack-from-new-girl-s3e13 | en | 0.963993 | 0.051135 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
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I have those arrays:
a = np.array([
b = np.array([1,2,3,4])
and I want them to multiply like so:
[[1*1, 2*1],
[3*2, 4*2],
[5*3, 6*3],
[7*4, 8*4]]
... basically out[i] = a[i] * b[i], where a[i].shape is (2,) and b[i] then is a scalar.
What's the trick? np.multiply seems not to work:
>>> np.multiply(a, b)
ValueError: operands could not be broadcast together with shapes (4,2) (4)
share|improve this question
The answer below uses a feature called broadcasting. You can read about it here, here and here. It's also more standard to use the operator * rather than multiply – YXD Apr 8 '14 at 11:20
up vote 5 down vote accepted
add an axis to b:
>>> np.multiply(a, b[:, np.newaxis])
array([[ 1, 2],
[ 6, 8],
[15, 18],
[28, 32]])
share|improve this answer
Perfect, thanks! I think I should spend some time figuring out what's the think with "axis" ... – wal-o-mat Apr 8 '14 at 10:35
Your Answer
| <urn:uuid:0cbcfefe-891a-4cb0-9a8e-80c6ccf2e9a0> | http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22934219/numpy-multiply-arrays-rowwise | en | 0.889105 | 0.864674 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |
[This story exists because I have a cold. Bleah. J And because something Alara Rogers said on RACMX triggered it. I think it was the idea that there weren't more Magneto stories. So this is dedicated to her (bet you wish you'd kept your mouth shut, don't you? *grin*) I'm going back to bed. *hack*]
[None of this is mine]
Lori McDonald
Quietly, with great personal dignity and pride, Erik Magnus Lehnsherr stepped from his office and started down the hall. Regal and majestic in his bearing, even though he was wearing a somewhat tattered blue robe, he was halfway along the passage when he suddenly bolted for the bathroom, reaching it just in time to grab a Kleenex and sneeze thunderously.
The lights went out.
"O, heb. Nob agaib," he moaned and blew his nose. Reaching for another Kleenex, he discovered to his dismay that the box was empty. "Oh no," he managed again as the lights flickered on around him and he sneezed again. The power went out completely.
"I hade it when I hab a colb."
Ever since his abilities manifested themselves, Magneto had been a name to be feared. Dedicated to preserving mutant life and helping them ascend to their well deserved position of superiority over normal humans, he had been labeled a terrorist, his magnetic powers on a level that threatened the entire world if he chose to use them. He had sunk nuclear subs, destroyed cities. He had defeated almost all who dared to challenge him in combat and his face was an image that haunted human childrens' nightmares.
Not all children. The place he lived now had never heard of Magneto, and had no reason to balk at the sight of him. Magnus had built his present house high on a mountain twenty miles from the nearest town, which was the only place for him to go within fifty to buy food. Not a gardener himself, he went there once a week for vegetables and meat, once a month for dry stock. He spoke to no one and was quiet and polite, his face hidden wide brimmed hat. No one had ever recognized him in it, but then, he wasn't normally trying to fight a cold that affected his powers when he came into town.
His head aching and his nose clogged, Magnus walked into the town, sniffing repeatedly as he headed down the sidewalk, very aware of how lightheaded and sickly he was feeling.
The lampposts bending over like pretzels behind him escaped his notice.
Kleenex, he thought to himself. All I want is Kleenex. And maybe some cold pills. They shouldn't affect my metabolism too badly. Headed for the local drug store, he walked around a corner and the mailbox he'd just passed started to imitate a car in a trash compactor, squeezing down on itself into a wheel that rolled after him almost gleefully, along with several manhole covers, a bicycle that had been chained to a bike stand, the bike stand itself and lots of change that had been dropped in the gutters and ignored over the years.
People began to realize something odd was going on.
Magnus walked towards the drugstore, crossing the road at the intersection, his eyes shadowed under his hat's brim so he didn't see the traffic lights reaching towards him, a few popping off and joining the rapidly growing scrap pile that trailed along behind him like a puppy. Several cars had joined the mess, some still with people in them. The sidewalks were getting remarkably empty. Magnus didn't care.
The drug store for the town was a tiny little shop tucked in beside the post office and a hardware store. Magnus paused at the door, noticing that the mailbox outside the post office was definitely leaning towards him. He eyed it. It leered at him. He put his hand on the door. It shuffled a few inches forward. Suddenly suspicious, he looked behind him to see enough metal to fill a foundry floating or crawling after him.
"O, rud," he managed with a sniff. Yanking the door to the store open, he ran inside and slammed it, just in time for the building to be buried in the wreckage.
The owner looked up, squinting through glasses thicker than blast shielding. "Did it just get dark?" he asked.
"Cloudy," Magnus told him with a sniff and dodged some amorous tweezers. The old man went back to his reading and the mutant stalked into the cold remedy aisle, cursing his powers. Grabbing a basket, he snagged a few boxes of Kleenex, aspirin, cold medicine and a heating pad. Detouring around the excited curling iron accessory aisle, he got some soft drinks as well and carried it all up to the front.
"Will that be all?" the old man asked with a smile as his glasses flew off his face to bean Magnus right between the eyes.
"Yes," he yelped, then cleared his throat and handed him the glasses back. "You dropped these."
"Goodness. Thank you. Can't see a thing without them." He put them on. They immediately flew off again and Magnus ducked, turning to see them take out the soda machine, which had been advancing on him from behind. "How will you be paying for that?"
Magnus stared at him, wondering if he were blasé, or just senile. "Debit card," he told him politely and handed him the card. He never did carry money.
Then he sneezed.
"Goodness," the old man said five minutes later, when all the power within two hundred kilometres had still failed to come back on. "I guess you'll have to pay cash for that."
Ten minutes later, he was still counting change scrounged from the junk pile outside. "Okay, that's five dollars and 16 cents worth of pennies," he told the old clerk, his voice briefly clear but his stomach doing flip-flops. "What can I get for that which includes Kleenex?"
"One small box of Kleenex and a bottle of 7-Up."
"What??" he thundered. "Who sets your prices??" The shelving units in the store trembled in excitement.
"I do," the old man told him proudly.
Magnus regarded him with a frown. "And how is you get away with such exorbitant prices?" he sniffed.
"By being the only shop in town that's open on a Sunday."
He had a point there. Magnus sniffed, then felt a sneeze coming on. Ripping open a Kleenex box, he grabbed a tissue and was bent almost double from the sneeze that erupted. Which also got him out of the line of fire when every shelf in the store went flying past his head and right through the back wall of the store.
Magnus stared open-mouthed at the great hole where the little old man had been standing. "Well, he won't be needing these," he said diplomatically and grabbed a bag for his purchases.
Outside, the streets were clear of people, though their cars kept trying to snuggle up and be friendly. Drinking a cough syrup right out of the bottle, Magnus tried to dodge them, understandably concerned about putting up a shield right at that moment. Above, he heard a low rumbling and looked up to see the Blackbird heading towards him.
"Oh, crap," he hiccuped, then blinked and hiccuped again. Suspiciously, he looked at the cough syrup bottle and threw it away. A trashcan leaped up and ate it quite eagerly. X-Men started to pour out of the hovering Blackbird, yelling at him to give himself up and assorted other crude insults.
Magnus didn't even try to hold in the sneeze this time.
Regally, the mutant pulled out a Kleenex and blew his nose, debating internally the pros and cons of actually trying the cold remedies he'd gotten as he picked his way through the remains of the Blackbird. Much of it joined his happy swarm of trailing metal as he went by the assorted stunned X-Men and headed for home.
Behind him, one of the mutants sneezed. Stopping for a moment, he fished in his bag for a box of Kleenex and tossed it to him. Then he kept going. | <urn:uuid:b49524f3-7876-4cd3-9943-0f7136f31a20> | http://www.alara.net/opeople/xbooks/cold.html | en | 0.990119 | 0.214276 | mlfoundations/dclm-baseline-1.0-parquet |