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During the 2010/2011 NHL season, Alexander Steen played left winger for the St. Louis Blues, wearing number 20. His salary for the time he spent on the ice that season was reportedly $2,750,000. The total team salary for the St. Louis Blues was reportedly $34,350,000, so his salary was about 8.0% of the team's total reported payroll. The median salary for a player on the St. Louis Blues was $885,000, while the average salary was $1,635,714. During the 72 games that he played that season, he scored 20 goals and had 31 assists - a total of 51 points. Dividing his reported salary by the number of games played, we find he earned $38,194.44 per game. Alexander Steen had a plus/minus of -3, 26 PIM (penalties in minutes), 1 PP (power play goals), 2 SH (short-handed goals), 5 GWG (game winning goals), and took 218 shots. He had a shooting percentage in the 2010/2011 season of 9.20%. If we want to evaluate his performance strictly on offense, we can divide his salary by the number of goals scored, as well as by the number of points (goals plus assists). His salary per goal scored was $137,500 and his salary per point was $53,922. What about taxes? The hockey season is split between two calendar years, however, with a annual U.S.-based salary of $2,750,000 he can expect to pay around $937,784 in federal income taxes. That is about the same dollar amount of tax as the tax paid by 115 median high school teachers, 131 median police officers, or 186 median fire fighters. After paying the IRS, he would have $1,812,216 left over, although he still may have to pay city or state tax. Author: Mark McCracken is a corporate trainer and author living in Higashi Osaka, Japan. He is the author of thousands of online articles as well as the Business English textbook, "25 Business Skills in English".
Add a Fake Magnifying Glass to a Photo Enlarge a detail in your photo by peering through a fake magnifying glass Once you take a photo with a digital camera, you can do pretty much anything you want with it. You can tweak the exposure, colors, and cropping. If you're feeling more creative, you can insert a UFO or shake hands with Elvis. A few readers have asked me how to add a magnification effect, as if there's a magnifying glass lying on top of the photo. It's pretty easy to do. The Photoshop Caveat I'll show you how to add a basic magnifying glass effect to a photo. We'll lay an image of a magnifying glass on a photo, and then enlarge the image in the lens. Unfortunately, to do some of the fancier stuff, like adding lens distortion and reflections to truly make it look real, require tools that you won't typically find in a photo editor like Adobe Photoshop Elements--for that, you need to step up to the Photoshop CS series. But that's okay; we can get a good result with Photoshop Elements--here's how. Find a Magnifying Glass For starters, you'll want to have a graphic of a magnifying glass that we can add to your main photo. You can search online for this--I just typed "magnifying glass photo" into Bing, for example, and found many dozens of usable examples. You can also look on a site like Flickr. If this is a photo you intend to publish somewhere, then be sure to use a royalty-free photo or something with a Creative Commons license. It's easy to search for photos like these on Flickr if you check the box at the bottom of the page for Creative Commons-licensed content. Clone Your Photo Now that you have a magnifying glass image saved and ready to go, let's take a look at the photo you want to magnify. We'll want two copies of the photo; a low resolution version and a high resolution one. The low res photo is the one that will form the basis of our picture, and we'll put a detail from the high resolution photo inside the magnifying glass lens. Open your photo in Photoshop Elements (or your favorite photo editor). I'll assume this photo is a high resolution original, and therefore has a lot of pixels in it. Choose Image, Resize, Image Size and enter a smaller value in the Width. In this example, I'm resizing it down to 1000 pixels across. Click OK. Then save this smaller photo, so you have both handy. Stack the Elements Launch Photoshop Elements and open the smaller version of the photo. Next, open the magnifying glass image in Photoshop Elements as well. You should see them both in the Project Bin at the bottom of the screen. If it's not currently the selected photo, double-click the magnifying glass. Select it by pressing Ctrl-A and then Ctrl-C. Now double-click the other photo in the Project Bin and choose Edit, Paste. You should see the magnifying glass appear as a new layer in your photo. Next, position the magnifying glass to suit your needs. Click the Move tool (the very first one in the toolbar at the top of the toolbar on the left side of the screen) and use it to position the magnifying glass over the part of the photo you plan to enlarge. You can also resize the magnifying glass so it's about the right scale for your photo. It's time for the magnified photo. Open the original, full-size image and add it as a layer just like you did with the magnifying glass (press Ctrl-A and then Ctrl-C, then switch to the other photo and paste it into a new layer). At this point, you'll want to finesse the enlarged photo so that the magnifying glass shows the desired part of the photo. Click the Move tool and use it to position and size the photo. Select the Lens We're in the home stretch now. For our next trick, we'll select the lens of the magnifying glass. Or, more specifically, the enlarged photo that's in the lens circle. Choose the Elliptical Marquee tool in the fifth cubby from the top of the toolbar, and then--making sure that the enlarged photo layer is selected in the Layer Palette on the right side of the screen--click and drag to create a round selection over the magnifying glass lens. You won't get it right the first time, so feel free to click and drag again until you get a selection that closely matches the lens. Now choose Select, Inverse to select everything in the layer except the lignifying glass area, and press Delete. Check out the photo--you should now see a magnified image in the lens. Hot Pic of the Week Get published, get famous! Each week, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo based on creativity, originality, and technique. Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG format, at a resolution no higher than 640 by 480 pixels. Entries at higher resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If necessary, use an image editing program to reduce the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photo along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal address. Before entering, please read the full description of the contest rules and regulations. This week's Hot Pic: "Alicia at Fantasmic" by Dwayne A. Taylor, Salem, Massachusetts Dwayne writes: "I took this at Disney's Fantasmic. The little girl is my stepdaughter, holding a spinning light toy. I captured the scene with an Olympus C2100UZ " This week's runner-up: "Geschnitztal Valley" by Alessandro Sacilotto, Oakton, Virginia Alessandro says: "I took this photo in the Geschnitztal Valley, south of Innsbruck in Austria's Tyrol Province. I was struck by the fields of rapeseed and maneuvered myself so that I could use them as a strong foreground for the mountains and village in the background. I used an Olympus E-510."
How to Use a Windows PC as an Internet Hotspot Aug 19, 2013 11:02 AM PT If you're like many, you're sprouting portable devices. Tablets, e-readers and phones are taking over our pockets and bags; add mobile games consoles and phoneless iPod touches for the kids, and that's a lot of Internet connections to maintain when out and about. It's a gaggle of device connections that's hard to sustain because each one needs configuring onto a hotspot. There are solutions, however. For some years Windows included an ad hoc WiFi network-creation tool as part of its OS. You hard-wire your computer to an Internet router and create an Internet-connected PC. You then use the PC's wireless card to create a WiFi network. The problem with this method was that you had to use a hard-wired connection for the Internet element -- no good for WiFi in hotel lobbies and other public places. You could have bought additional hardware like a second wireless USB stick and configured it, but that's complicated, more work and conceivably a point of failure. Microsoft dropped the ad hoc network feature altogether in Windows 8. I've been exploring solutions to this problem and have been looking in particular at ways to travel with numerous portable devices while only having to connect one of them to the public network, with the others connecting parasitically. Tools enabling such capabilities are called "virtual routers" or "hotspot creators." One freemium software solution I've used recently is Connectify Hotspot Lite, and it runs under both Windows 7 and 8. The setup uses a laptop as hotspot. Here's how to do it. Switch on your laptop and connect to the wireless network that you'd like to share. Connect as you normally would by choosing the network name and entering any network-provided password. Then open a browser window and agree to any network-specific terms and conditions or session payment options. Browse to the Connectify website and choose the Continue button within the Connectify Lite download panel. Step 3:Follow the prompts to save the file and allow it to download. Then run the file. Tip: Follow any prompts to install Microsoft.Net 4.5 and any Microsoft Visual C++ updates. Allow Connectify to pass through the Windows Firewall when the Firewall dialog appears on the screen. Tip: The Firewall defaults to allowing connections through Home and Office networks, but you should check the "Public networks" checkbox too. Choose the free Hotspot Lite option by clicking on the button. Connectify Hotspot Lite will let you create an access point, share the Internet and see which of your devices are connected. Tip: There are also paid versions that allow firewall controls, sharing 3G and 4G connections, creating a WiFi repeater and unlimited hotspot uptime -- among other things. Follow the setup tutorial to configure the software by first creating the hotspot name. Then choose the password that you'll use to connect the portable devices to the laptop hotspot. Step 7:Choose the Internet connection that you'd like to use. This is the hotel room or other network name that you're already connected to. Then press Start Hotspot. Tip: The already-connected network name will appear as the default. Open the WiFi network connections settings on your parasitic portable device. Scroll through the list of available connections and you'll see the hotspot that you created. Connect to this hotspot by choosing it and entering the password. Repeat with your other portable devices. Now, when you need to connect multiple devices to a public network, connect the laptop first and then the devices to the laptop. All of your devices will be online with minimal configuration and conceivably economically using one session. Tip: Check the "Clients" tab within the connected Connectify Hotspot Lite software for a list of currently connected devices. Restart the hotspot service with the Start Hotspot button if you encounter issues obtaining an IP address for your portable device. Want to Ask a Tech Question? Is there a piece of tech you'd like to know how to operate properly? Is there a gadget that's got you confounded? Please send your tech questions to me, and I'll try to answer as many as possible in this column. And use the Talkback feature below to add your comments!
Facebook announced the release of two new APIs today that allow "selected news organizations" to integrate posts and data from the social network directly into their content. The new tools allow these organizations to do anything from simply displaying a real time feed of posts related to a certain topic, to breaking down social conversations by demographics like age, sex, and location. Facebook provided some examples, like a certain program delving into how many people are discussing a certain topic on Facebook, where they're located, and the age and gender groups among which topic is most popular. Currently, only Buzzfeed, CNN, NBC's Today Show, BSkyB, Slate, and Mass Relevance have access to the new APIs, but Facebook said it will announce more partners "in the coming weeks." Tooting its own horn Facebook highlighted its apparent popularity in today's announcement. For example, the social network claims that the NFL season kick-off last week garnered 20 million likes, comments, and shares by more than 8 million Facebook users. In addition an infographic states that 88 million to 100 million Facebook users log in during the "primetime hours" between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. every day in the U.S. alone. And 245 million people discussed, shared, and liked the Super Bowl in February. Facebook's new tools should allow news organizations and the company's other partners to leverage and explore that activity in new ways. Surfacing the conversations Facebook said it's been rolling out products, tools and services "aimed at surfacing the public conversations happening on Facebook." These include hashtags, embedded posts, and trending topics, according to the social network, as well as the tools announced today. The tools available to Facebook's select partners today include the Keyword Insights API and the Public Feed API, though based on the language in the announcements it seems other, similar tools will become available in the future. Article continues below
Jeff Rowley cc On January 28, remarkable photo and video footage appeared that showed 45-year-old Hawaiian Garrett McNamara sliding down a mammoth peak at Nazaré, Portugal. That wave was generated by a barocyclonic low that swept across the Atlantic and focused powerful swells into Nazaré's deep submarine canyon. Within hours there were reports that the wave might have shattered McNamara’s own record of 78 feet to reach a sky-scraping 100. But how are record waves measured?
Baby's Day Out 1.0 for iOS - Fertility, Ovulation and Period Tracker August 15, 2013 in Medical [prMac.com] Bangalore, India - Peepal Apps today is thrilled to announce the release of Baby's Day Out 1.0, their new fertility, ovulation and period tracker for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices. 'Baby's Day Out' helps women plan for the future and pick the right time to have a baby. The app charts each monthly menstrual cycle so that a woman can anticipate the arrival of her next period and accurately predict high and low fertility days. The app comes complete with predictions, monthly calendars, and period history to help women understand each monthly menstrual cycle and ovulation period. Built for practicality and ease of use, 'Baby's Day Out' helps women quickly and easily computes their current cycle day and calculates when their next menstrual cycle will begin. The app also reports the number of days until high fertility levels and ovulation.'Baby's Day Out' also offers a calendar view so women can easily see at a glance their entire monthly cycle. A woman can select any day on the calendar to mark intimacy. 'Baby's Day Out' is the perfect tool for young couples hoping to start a family together. 'Baby's Day Out' was designed for growing families and built to help future moms plan for a pregnancy. Couples working to get pregnant can target high fertility days and record the intimate days. Boasting a colorful user-friendly interface, the app makes it easy for couples to input period data each month as they work to get pregnant. 'Baby's Day Out' is available as a universal iPhone and iPad app with retina display . Whether the goal is to achieve or avoid pregnancy, 'Baby's Day Out' can help a woman predict future periods and better understand the rhythm of her monthly cycle. * iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad * Requires iOS 5.1 or later * 4.4 MB Pricing and Availability: Baby's Day Out 1.0 is $2.99 USD (or equivalent amount in other currencies) and available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Medical category. Headquartered in Bangalore, India, Peepal Apps is an independent development studio of games and apps for the iOS and android platforms. Copyright (C) 2011-2013 Peepal Apps. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone, iPod and iPad are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.
I read that Facebook started out in PHP, and then to gain speed, they now compile PHP as C++ code. If that's the case why don't they: Just program in c++? Surely there must be SOME errors/bugs when hitting a magic compiler button that ports PHP to c++ code , right? If this impressive converter works so nicely, why stick to PHP at all? Why not use something like Ruby or Python? Note -- I picked these two at random, but mostly because nearly everyone says coding in those languages is a "joy". So why not develop in a super great language and then hit the magic c++ compile button?
The mapping between different character sets isn't guaranteed to be one on one in all cases; that is, not every glyph/letter sequence in one language maps to a valid sequence in another language. Multiple different sequences in one set might even map to identical sequences in another. Therefore such a functionality can not be automatic, you probably won't be able to enter a Hindi character sequence on signup and have it automatically create an account with a matching english name, which then also maps to arabic, hebrew or greek. Allowing the user to create additional login names in different character sets for their account might be an alternative, but this might lead to security problems by adding more valid login/password combinations, thus reducing the search space, or by creating ambiguities (different users suddenly having the same login). But using different character sets might create other problems: what happens when the password for such a login is entered? Must/can it be given in the same character set as the login, or in a different character set? How does the user know which character set is used when he types in his password? How would password rules be enforced?
Wolinski National Park MARINE PROTECTED AREA More info about Marine conservation Please take this quick survey so we can better understand how Protected Planet is used.X Please, login to help us Hey friend, could you provide us a wikipedia URL with a good description of this protected area? Please, be sure that you are suggesting an english language wikipedia URL (http://en.wiki....)mark it as wrong Wolin National Park (Polish: Woliński Park Narodowy) is one of 23 National Parks in Poland, situated on the island of Wolin in the far north-west of the country, in West Pomeranian Voivodeship. It was established on 3 March 1960 and covers an area of 109.37 square kilometres (42.23 sq mi). The Park has its headquarters in the town of Międzyzdroje. The Park contains a number of species of flora and fauna. Its attractions include the sea cliffs of Gosań and Kawcza Góra, and a wisent (European bison) sanctuary. Entrance to the park at Międzyzdroje beach Do you want to say something about this protected area? Start a thread The boundaries and names shown, and the designations used on this map do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations. Thanks friend, Could you tell us where you got this information? Sorry, it is not possible to edit this geometry online. In the next few months we will be adding tools to edit complicated boundaries. Please try again soon!
Mohd Tahir, Suraya and Ariffin, Ahmad Kamal and Anuar, Mohd Shamsul (2010) Finite element modelling of crack propagation in metal powder compaction using Mohr–Coulomb and Elliptical Cap yield criteria. Powder Technology, 202 (1-3). pp. 162-170. ISSN 0032-5910 Full text not available from this repository. Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.powtec.2010.04.033 In the modelling of the compaction process of particulate materials into a coherent green body, an appropriate yield criterion for the deformation process has to be selected. In this paper, two commonly used yield criteria for powder compaction, namely Mohr–Coulomb and Elliptical Cap are utilized in the finite element modelling of iron powder compaction process, which incorporates a fracture criterion of granular materials in compression. The simulated crack growth patterns obtained by using these two yield criteria were compared in terms of the influence of shear stress and relative density distributions. This work has shown that the application of the Elliptical Cap yield model gives a more realistic simulated Mode II crack propagation during the densification stage of the metal powder compaction process in comparison to the Mohr–Coulomb yield model. \|Keyword:\|\|Compaction, Crack propagation, Finite element, Mohr–Coulomb, Elliptical Cap, Shear crack\| \|Faculty or Institute:\|\|Faculty of Engineering\| \|Deposited By:\|\|Anas Yahaya\| \|Deposited On:\|\|27 Apr 2011 00:04\| \|Last Modified:\|\|27 Apr 2011 00:10\| Repository Staff Only: Edit item detail Document Download Statistics This item has been downloaded for since 27 Apr 2011 00:04.
Mohd Isa, Abd Majid (1994) Kajian Kesesuaian dan Keberkesanan Raven SPM untuk Mengenal Pasti Kanak-kanak Melayu yang Pintar Cerdas. Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 2 (1). pp. 63-68. ISSN 0128-7702 The objective of this study is to determine the suitability of Raven's SPM as a group intelligence test for the screening of gifted children. One hundred Form One Malay students from Sekolah Menengah Datuk Abdullah, Rembau were the respondents in the study. They were among the high achievers in the 1990 Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah at Tampin/Rembau District who qualified to be emplaced at residential schools. The Raven's SPM and WISC-R were administered. Students with IQ scores of more than 120 on the WISC-R are classified as gifted. The correlation between the Raven's SPM score and the IQ score derived from the WISC-R was high and seemed to share about 65 percent of the 'intelligence' costruct. From the regression equation, the giftedness construct could be drawn from a Raven's SPM score of50. However, the standard error for this equation was also notably high. Therefore, many of the gifted children may be among those with a Raven's score ofless than 50 and this is known as false negative. The effectiveness and efficiency indexes forwarded by Pegnato and Birch (1959) were used in determining whether a score lowe, than 50 on the Raven's SPM would reduce the false negative. As the lower score would increase the number of children to be tested, the score recommended must be cost effective. A score of 48 was recommeded as it reduces the number to be tested to 30 percent, and includes 85 percent of the gifted children. Also, the efficiency is high compared with other scores. Using this procedure, it is estimated that one among three children studied is gifted. \|Keyword:\|\|pintar cerdas, inventori, keberkesanan, ujian piawai, kecerdasan\| \|Publisher:\|\|Universiti Putra Malaysia Press\| \|Deposited By:\|\|Nur Izyan Mohd Zaki\| \|Deposited On:\|\|20 Nov 2009 07:56\| \|Last Modified:\|\|27 May 2013 07:05\| Repository Staff Only: Edit item detail Document Download Statistics This item has been downloaded for since 20 Nov 2009 07:56.
Scientific Investigations Report 2006–5264 U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2006–5264 By Thomas G. Goonan Download PDF file for SIR 2006-5264 (224 KB) This Scientific Investigations Report examines the flow of mercury through the mercury-containing lamp sector of the U.S. economy in 2001 from lamp manufacture through disposal or recycling. Mercury-containing lamps illuminate commercial and industrial buildings, outdoor areas, and residences. Mercury is an essential component in fluorescent lamps and high-intensity discharge lamps (high-pressure sodium, mercury-vapor, and metal halide). A typical fluorescent lamp is composed of a phosphor-coated glass tube with electrodes located at either end. Only a very small amount of the mercury is in vapor form. The remainder of the mercury is in the form of either liquid mercury metal or solid mercury oxide (mercury oxidizes over the life of the lamp). When voltage is applied, the electrodes energize the mercury vapor and cause it to emit ultraviolet energy. The phosphor coating absorbs the ultraviolet energy, which causes the phosphor to fluoresce and emit visible light. Mercury-containing lamps provide more lumens per watt than incandescent lamps and, as a result, require from three to four times less energy to operate. Mercury is persistent and toxic within the environment. Mercury-containing lamps are of environmental concern because they are widely distributed throughout the environment and are easily broken in handling. The magnitude of lamp sector mercury emissions, estimated to be 2.9 metric tons per year (t/yr), is small compared with the estimated mercury losses of the U.S. coal-burning and chlor-alkali industries, which are about 70 t/yr and about 90 t/yr, respectively. Lamp Stocks in Use Information: Thomas G. Goonan
Ganoderma lucidum (Lingzhi) (wikipedia) is a soft, corky medicinal mushroom that grows in Asia. In Chinese medicine, the spores have been used for more than 4,000 years. Now, scientific studies have shown that they have specific immunotherapeutic activities, making linghzi one of the most powerful medicinal ‘herbs’ in the world. Spores are reproductive structures of mushrooms. Each spore can produce a new mushroom, rather like a seed can produce a plant – so it is loaded with a diverse array of natural chemicals to help the mushroom grow and develop. That’s why the spores are far more potent than any other part of the mushroom. They are about 75 times more potent. Ganoderma spores and human health Chemical analysis has revealed that Ganoderma spores contain high levels of immunotherapeutic compounds. Laboratory studies with Ganoderma spore extracts and human blood, breast, prostate, colon and lung cells have revealed that compounds in the spores can cause unhealthy cells to round up and die (apoptosis), and inhibit unhealthy development of blood vessels around the cells. At Purespores, we supply Ganoderma lucidum spores that are living and organic. They are sourced from a leading research institute. The Academy of Science in China where research-grade purity is essential. We are confident that ours are the purest Ganoderma spores you can find anywhere. We commissioned an analysis of Ganoderma spore products from other suppliers, and found that they contained very few spores (much less live spores) and massive amounts of fillers, despite labeling. Beware also of labels that claim the spores are ‘wild’: since it takes 1000 kilos of Ganoderma mushrooms to produce just one kilo of spores, it is almost impossible to harvest very large quantities from the wild. Our Ganoderma is grown in field conditions that closely mimic those in the wild. The truth about broken spores We do not sell broken spores for ‘easier absorption’ - Chinese medicine shows that they lose much of their therapeutic value within hours of being broken, unless properly preserved in the cold. The results from scientific studies on broken spores are collected within hours of them being broken and maintained in the cold.
A HEN WITH ITS OWN INCUBATOR THE leipoa, the bird that is credited with having invented the incubator, to becoming rare. Once widespread through Southern Australia, where it is known as the mallee hen, it has dwindled in numbers as its eggs have been devoured by foxes, iguanas and aborigines. In Victoria its only refuge is the sanctuary known as Wonga Park.s October 11, 1931 Thank you for visiting The New York Times archive. New York Times subscribers* enjoy full access to TimesMachine—view 129 years of New York Times journalism, as it originally appeared. 99¢ for your first 4 weeks. Or, purchase this article individually for $3.95 and download a high-resolution PDF. * Does not include NYT Now or Premium Crosswords subscribers. Already a subscriber? Log in to view this article »
Why are Cyprus’s bank depositors scheduled to take such a big haircut when their banks are wound up? Not just because so many are Russian, but more simply: Their banks didn’t have enough equity to avoid losses when loans went bad. Cypriot regulators, eager to attract foreign money, let banks skate by with too little equity to absorb losses while paying a huge 5% interest on deposits. When the cookie eventually crumbled, the people lending to the banks—especially depositors—were the ones left without any crumbs. Stanford University finance professor Anat Admati says we shouldn’t be surprised. Her new book with Martin Hellwig, “The Bankers’ New Clothes,” examines the way bank funding made the 2008 financial crisis worse and keeps the financial system in ill health today. Post-crisis, regulators have been trying to increase the amount of equity funding for banks, and banks have pushed back, saying that this will reduce what they can lend to people and businesses. But the banks’ argument is misleading, Admati says. If you look at a bank like any other business, it quickly becomes apparent that banks are carrying far more debt than makes sense for their business model. Unless that business model is to get as many subsidies as they can. Side-note: Equity is not capital reserves The terms “equity” and “capital” are often used interchangeably, but they’re distinct. Banks don’t “hold” or “carry” equity, and the amount of equity that they have is not related to the capital reserves—i.e., the cash regulators ask them to keep on hand for liquidity purposes. Banks, like any businesses, make investments. Ideally, a bank’s investments are loans. It can fund those investments with equity—cash from investors or earnings—or with debt, by borrowing money. (This debt includes bank deposits, which are really just money borrowed from bank-account holders.) The ratio of equity to debt doesn’t affect how much money the bank has available to make loans. But if those loans go bad, banks with significant equity cushions can absorb those losses—their stock just becomes worth less. However, you can’t write down debt, outside of bankruptcy. If a Cypriot bank full of Greek debt (or a US bank full of mortgage debt) sees those assets become worthless, it can apologize to stockholders for their losses; but creditors must be paid, and that’s where the trouble starts. Economist John Cochrane offers a simple example: In order to make $100 of loans, a typical bank borrows $97—from depositors, from money-market funds, from other banks, or from bondholders—and sells $3 of stock, its “capital.” So if only 4% of the bank’s loans fail, the shareholders are wiped out, and the bank cannot pay its debts. Worse, if there is a rumor that some loans are in trouble, creditors may “run,” each trying to get his money out first, and force a needless bankruptcy. Think of Jimmy Stewart in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Banks used to be on the hook for everyone’s losses Banking has always been a debt-heavy business, predicated on customer’s deposits. In the 19th century—at a time when bankers were personally liable for their debts, including to depositors—banks were financed with more than 20% equity. By contrast, the average non-financial company today uses about 70% equity in its funding mix. Today’s banks, under the new Basel III accord devised to make the financial system safer, will triple their equity from current levels by 2019—to a mere 7%. (Update: That rule is based on the ratio of equity to risk-weighted assets; if you compare equity to all assets, the Basel requirement is closer to 3%.) Bank equity has declined so much in the past century because bank owners were granted limited liability for their debts. However, financial institutions have also been given a slew of subsidies, for good reasons and bad. These include deposit insurance, tax-deductible interest, and the expectation that the government will not allow large banks to fail. These all have the effect of making debt cheaper for the banks. And so the growing share of debt in the banks’ funding mix has served only to magnify the effects of these subsidies. With high leverage ratios and minimal equity, both the risks and the profits can be huge. And if those risks end up creating a problem, well, the government will make sure the creditors are whole, and that tiny equity stake can always be replaced. All of which makes banks less prudent than they used to be. Equity should not be more expensive than debt Admati says the banks would be much safer with a 20% to 30% equity share. As we’ve said, the ratio of equity to debt doesn’t affect how much money a bank can lend. But banks offer other reasons to resist raising more equity. First, they fret that a higher equity share will increase what they call “the cost of funds.” They say attracting new equity will be expensive compared to borrowing, so they’ll raise less money and make fewer loans, and the public will suffer. There’s only one clear reason, however, why equity should cost more to raise than debt. That’s the aforementioned subsidies. These make debt cheaper than it should be for companies that have already borrowed a huge amount of money. Bank managers are reluctant to give up that benefit. (Some independent analysts also say that if equity requirements go up, the costs to consumers could rise temporarily as markets adjust.) Admati’s position, however, is that as long the subsidies exist, raising more equity and less debt won’t actually hurt the public, since it’s the largely public that pays for the subsidies. Bankers also often worry that to raise new equity, they’d have to promise unreasonably high returns to new investors, because of how risky their stock is. But that’s a circular argument: The reason their stock is risky is because they have so little equity. Admati notes that simply issuing new shares would help reduce the risk. A related problem is “debt overhang”—the fear among equity investors that any money put into a bank will simply go to protect the claims of existing creditors when something goes wrong. The cheapest way to avoid these problems and quickly build up equity and reduce risk is for banks to keep more of their earnings instead of paying them out as dividends. Since raising equity is hypothetically part of America’s strategy for fixing the financial system, Admati is incensed that regulators have repeatedly let the largest banks pay out dividends. For instance, dividends paid in 2007-8, just before the financial crisis, amounted to half the value of the TARP bailouts. “Allowing the banks to pay dividends is completely and entirely catering to the banks ahead of the public,” she says. “The banks would be stronger and have more ability to lend if they retained their profits. They have to transition and the easiest way to transition is to keep their profits. When they pay it out, they go and borrow instead. They don’t tend to shrink when they make the payouts, they just maintain their high indebtedness.” Zombie banks can’t lend an economy out of recession A further reason banks don’t lend is that they still have unrecognized losses clogging up bank balance sheets—what Admati calls “a zombie bank lending to zombie borrowers.” That’s one reason that credit has been hard for businesses to find in America and Europe, slowing the economic recovery. “It’s actually the distress of the highly indebted banks that already distorts their decisions, including their lending decisions,” Admati says. “I want their lending decisions to be the healthiest lending decisions, not too much and not too little; they tend to have either credit booms or credit crunches.” The largest banks are still far weaker than many in the public imagine or regulators would admit. That’s especially true in Europe, where weak sovereign debt is all over bank balance sheets. Regulators say that their “stress tests” show the financial sector’s resilience; but Admati thinks the market would pass a harsher judgment, especially with bank balance sheets hiding so many surprises. Even Cyprus’ banks passed stress tests administered by an EU regulator in 2010. “Here is a sort of ‘stress test’ I would like to run: Can the banks raise new equity? Let them go to the market and see whether investors will give them money in exchange for new shares, not at a price that the banks like, but any price,” Admati says. She expects many banks would have a hard time selling shares. And that should be warning sign enough to regulators. “A bank that cannot raise equity at any price may not be viable, and in this case it should be wound down,” she says. “Maintaining unhealthy banks is very unhelpful to the economy. You need to face up to the weakness of the banks.” Would you buy common stock in a major bank today?
When participating recently in a sprint held at Google to document four free software projects, I thought about what might have prompted Google to invest in this effort. Their willingness to provide a hotel, work space, and food for some thirty participants, along with staff support all week long, demonstrates their commitment to nurturing open source. Google is one of several companies for which I’ll coin the term “closed core.” The code on which they build their business and make their money is secret. (And given the enormous infrastructure it takes to provide a search service, opening the source code wouldn’t do much to stimulate competition, as I point out in a posting on O’Reilly’s radar blog). But they depend on a huge range of free software, ranging from Linux running on their racks to numerous programming languages and libraries that they’ve drawn on to develop their services. So Google contributes a lot back to the free software community. The release code for many non-essential functions. They promote the adoption of standards such as HTML 5. They have been among the first companies to offer APIs for important functions, including their popular Google Maps. They have opened the source code to Android (although its development remains under their control), which has been the determining factor in making Android devices compete with the arguably more highly-functioning iOS products. They even created a whole new programming language (Go) and are working on another. Google is not the only “closed core” company (for instance, Facebook has also built their service around APIs and released their Cassandra project). Microsoft has a whole open source program, including some important contributions to health IT. Scads of other companies, such as IBM, Hewlett Packard, and VMware, have complex relationships to open source software that don’t fit a simple “open core” or “closed core” model. But the closed core trend represents a fertile collaboration between communities and companies that have businesses in specific areas. The closed core model requires businesses to determine where their unique value lies and to be generous in offering the public extra code that supports their infrastructure but does not drive revenue. This model may prove more robust and lasting than open core, which attracts companies occupying minor positions in their industries. The shining example of open core is MySQL, but its complex status, including a long history of dual licensing and simultaneous development by several organizations, make it a difficult model from which to draw lessons about the whole movement. In particular, Software as a Service redefines the relationships that the free software movement has traditionally defined between open and proprietary. Deploying and monitoring the core SaaS software creates large areas for potential innovation, as we saw with Cassandra, where a company can benefit from turning their code into a community project.
By Debbie Emery – Radar Reporter Even one of America’s most notorious criminals wants to stay in touch with old school friends, and while it’s understandably tough for Ted Kaczynski to chat on Facebook, the infamous ‘Unabomber’ was keen to update his Harvard alumni magazine with his current status. While most of his former classmates at the Ivy League University are well-aware of their former pal’s predicament, Kaczynski enlightened the rest with what has got to be the most bizarre posting the class of ‘62 has read. The 70-year-old’s colleagues list their roles in society as “working with inner city kids” or “writing literary essays,” but Ted’s occupation is stated simply as “prisoner.” As RadarOnline.com previously reported, the Unabomber carried out a deadly mail bombing spree that spanned nearly 20 years, killing three people and injuring 23 others. He dismissed his court appointed attorneys and insisted on defending himself at trial. However, a plea agreement was reached where Kaczynski was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole. His surprise entry into the magazine was tweeted by a fellow Harvard alum, Alex Taussig, who wrote, “Ted Kaczynski’s alumni update for his 50 year Harvard reunion. Morbidly amusing.” Instead of the usual penthouses in Manhattan or country homes in New England, under address Kaczynski provides his ID number and the details of the maximum security federal prison in Florence, Colorado where he is destined to spend the rest of his life. Not publically known for his sense to humor, the bearded multiple murderer wrote “eight life sentences,” when asked what awards he had won, and under “publications” he lists the infamous 50-page script against the modern world, which The New York Times and The Washington Post agreed to print in exchange for Kaczynski’s promise to end his bombing campaign. Before entering into a life of crime, Kaczynski was an exceptional student who was accepted into Harvard at the age of 16. After graduating in 1962, he went on to earn a PhD in mathematics at Michigan University where he specialized in a branch of complex analysis known as geometric function theory, before later becoming a disturbed genius recluse locking himself up in a cabin in the woods. In his campaign against the effects of advanced technology, Ted led authorities on the nation’s longest and costliest manhunt before his brother tipped off law enforcement in 1996 after recognizing his writing style in the manifesto. Jack The Ripper Was A Woman Claims Expert, They Were ‘Crimes Of Jealousy, Envy & Passion’ Steven Powell Guilty Of Voyeurism, ‘A Small Amount Of Justice Is Served,’ Says Son-In-Law Petit Family Killer Shows No Remorse, Has Nothing To Say To ‘Restore The Lives Lost’
Dueling is a gameplay element in both Red Dead Revolver and Red Dead Redemption. A staple of Western stories, duels involve opponents facing each other over a short distance and attempting to draw their weapon and shoot their opponent before their opponent can do the same to them. Red Dead RevolverEdit In Red Dead Revolver, dueling is a major gameplay element featured in ten of the twenty-seven story missions. In these missions, Red Harlow must duel from one to three opponents at a time. In some cases, the duel occurs as a single objective within the mission while in other cases the duel represents the boss battle that ends the mission. A dueling tutorial is presented to the player during the mission "Ugly Streetfight". Dueling consists of four stages: the grab, the draw, acquiring locks, and firing. In the grab, the player moves the right analog stick down to cause the character's hand to grasp the weapon. Prior to initiating the grab, the character's hand moves up and down. The quickest grab occurs when the character's hand is closest to the weapon. In the draw, the player moves the right analog stick back up to remove the weapon from its holster after the grab has been completed. The speed of movement is critical - the draw should be as quick as possible to beat the opponent to the targeting phase, but drawing too quickly can cause the player to overshoot the target. To acquire locks, the right analog stick is used to move the crosshairs over the opponent's body. During this phase, the crosshairs narrow and cycle colors between yellow (poor shot), dark red (hit), and bright red (critical hit). The right trigger is used to mark shots. Marking shots while the crosshairs are bright red will deal the most damage to the opponent, therefore requiring the fewest shots to drop them. Shots to the head deal the most damage. Multiple quickly-acquired critical hits are required for the toughest opponents in the later stages of the game. Up to six shots can be marked. Once six shots have been marked or the slow motion targeting phase times out, shots are fired. The player can manually start the firing phase early by clicking on the right analog stick. If the player has caused sufficient damage with sufficient speed, the opponent(s) will be killed. If one or more opponents are not killed, Red will be hit and fall to the ground. If his wounds aren't fatal, he will shortly stand back up and have a chance to finish off his opponent(s) with normal shooting. - Main article: Battle Royale - Main article: Showdown Mode In Showdown Mode, the multiplayer mode of Red Dead Revolver, the "High Noon" game option sets up a last-player-standing dueling contest between two to four players. Red Dead RedemptionEdit Marston may be randomly challenged to duels by either outlaws or vigilantes, depending on the player's current honor, while passing through a settlement. Marston will also be challenged to a duel if caught cheating while playing Poker. Occasionally, the player may also be challenged to a duel if they knock over an NPC while on horseback. After accepting a dueling challenge, press the Left Trigger (Xbox 360) or the L2 button (PS3) to draw Marston's sidearm when the "draw" prompt appears on screen. A player may choose to draw anytime either before or after the "draw" prompt. If the player draws early, the camera will be zoomed out farther from the target, making it harder to aim correctly. If the player waits and draws after the "draw" prompt, the camera will be closer to your opponent, making it easier to mark them in vital zones. Success in a duel means filling your "duel meter" faster than your opponent does his. Once Marston draws his weapon, the player must "paint" the target with a Dead-Eye type expanding crosshair reticle. The reticle will repeatedly grow and turn red, then shrink and turn white. Pressing the Right Trigger (Xbox 360) or R2 button (PS3) when the reticle is red will fill a miniscule portion of the meter, while marking a shot when the cross-hair is white will fill a larger portion of the meter. Shots to the chest and head will fill the meter quickly, while shots to the stomach or legs will fill less of the meter. Keep in mind that the player's meter doesn't need to be completely filled to win the duel, it only has to be larger than your opponents. Once your meter is filled, the R2 button (PS3) or the Right Trigger (Xbox 360) fires the shots. You may also win a duel by disarming your opponent. To disarm an opponent, the player must mark the NPC's arm or gun, and can still mark others spot on the body after. After the mark is placed correctly, the player's meter will fill by a large amount, likely winning the duel with only one shot. Killing an opponent generates Fame, while disarming an opponent will generate both Honor and Fame. Most opponents encountered throughout the course of the main storyline and Stranger side-missions cannot be disarmed and must be killed. However, while it is possible to achieve this feat, usually enemies will often produce another weapon such as a backup sidearm and continue to try and kill the player. On some occasions, if a weapon is successfully shot out of an opponent's hand, they will hold their hand in pain. They can still be killed or hogtied with the lasso (the player will receive no bonus for doing this) after the duel, but if not dealt with on the spot, the loser will often flee the scene. Marston can choose to refuse a duel. If the player chooses to walk away instead of walking to the marker after accepting the duel or shoots the challenger before the duel, honor may be lost. Killing the challenger at this time could also result in a Bounty. However, if the player battles out the challenger with their fists, the duel will be prevented and the player can walk away with no honor penalty. As with other Stranger tasks, there is no penalty to honor if a player chooses to ignore a random challenge entirely. - Marston will still fan the hammer of semi-automatic guns, such as the High Power Pistol, Semi-automatic pistol or the Mauser Pistol, which is a technique unnecessary on semi-automatic firearms because the action of the slide re-cocks the hammer each time the weapon is fired; in fact, trying to do so would result in the weapon's slide smashing the user's hand. Fanning the hammer is only useful on single action weapons because the hammer must be cocked every time, so slapping the hand against the hammer quickly is much faster than using the thumb. It could theoretically be done with a double-action revolver as long as it is not double-action-only, but would provide little advantage. - If the player has a wide enough camera view by drawing earlier, they can actually mark onlookers in the crowd and wound or kill them. After the duel, no bounty will be incurred for wounding or killing civilians in the crowd. However, when marking people in the crowd, it will not fill up Marston's meter, essentially making them wasted shots. - Even if an NPC is killed in a Duel, they will continue to respawn for future duels and minigames. - Killing a shopkeeper (such as Herbert Moon) in a duel caused by cheating in poker will not cause their shop to be unavailable for five days. - After killing a person in a duel, sometimes the same exact person can still be found alive; in some cases, they may even stare at their own corpse. This happens with characters like Herbert Moon. - Trying to disarm the opponent in any storyline duels the duel bar will not fill up, resulting in the opponent winning. - Sometimes at the start of a duel, the player's horse will wander in between the combatants, causing the player to only be able to aim at his own horse. The player will only be able to see their opponent's lower right leg and will not be able to fill the meter enough, and lose the duel. To avoid this simply make sure you dismount the horse before going to accept a duel. - Normally, a crawling NPC will eventually die but it is possible to make an opponent crawl and survive by shooting both his legs and his weapon during a duel, this still counts as sparing the challenger. - Sometimes you might even duel the target from a bounty mission that you have not completed.
Will Israel Blast the Iranian Bomb? Michael Karpin, The American Enterprise Online: The idea of nuclear weapons in the hands of a dangerous enemy like Iran is unacceptable to nearly all Israelis. There is no chance that Israel will reconcile itself to living with nuclear threats from the ayatollahs. If Iran continues on the path to atomic weaponry, is Israel capable of acting to eliminate that danger? READ MORE Israelis hope for a diplomatic solution leading to cancellation of the Iranian nuclear program. But what if negotiations fail? Israel would prefer American military intervention, yet the prevalent opinion among Israeli experts is that the U.S. would be very hesitant to use force against Iran. Meanwhile, political and military leaders in Israel have repeatedly declared that if and when Iran reaches the point of no return, Israel will not hesitate to take military action against their bomb-making capability. Before a military operation could be launched against Iran, there must be sufficient intelligence. Western intelligence agencies, especially those of Israel and the U.S., have increased their efforts to gather information about Iran’s nuclear activities, but this does not mean the results are good. Experience shows that locating nuclear activity carried out in secret is a complicated matter. Almost all the countries that have engaged in the development of nuclear capability managed to pull the wool over the eyes of intelligence agencies trying to track them. France, China, Israel, South Africa, India, Pakistan, and others surprised the world when they carried out test explosions. Iran started importing advanced centrifuge parts in the mid ’90s and used them to build an installation for producing enriched uranium. But it wasn’t until 2003 that the world found out. Western agencies completely missed the nuclear smuggling network run by Abdul Qadeer Khan from Pakistan. They overlooked Libya’s nuclear plans. Their assessments of Iraq’s program turned out to be way off. The U.S. operates spy satellites, planes, and drones over Iran, and also sends in agents from Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel also has two spy satellites, and according to non-Israeli sources, Israel uses the Kurdish territory in northern Iraq to put agents into Iran to gather data. It can be assumed that the two countries have accumulated some useful material on the defenses at known nuclear sites in Iran, especially the operational centrifuge installation at Natanz, and the reactor at Arak due to be completed in 2009 (and able to extract plutonium from spent uranium shortly thereafter). It is doubtful that attacks on Natanz and Arak would eradicate Iran’s nuclear plans. Learning from the bombing of Iraq’s Osirak reactor by the Israeli air force in 1981, Iran has no doubt dispersed other subterranean uranium enrichment plants across the country. If one were hit, another could be activated. Iran is a large country with some rough terrain and remote regions where military and scientific activity can be easily concealed. Israel is unlikely to ask the U.S. to approve any attack on Iran, unless its planes have to fly over Iraq while U.S. forces are still there. There is a shared apparatus for discussion on the way in which Israel may respond to the threat of weapons of mass destruction. On April 14, 2004, George Bush and Ariel Sharon exchanged letters on this subject. Sharon released a section of one American statement which declared that, “Israel has the right to defend itself with its own forces.” This was understood as a direct message to Tehran that the U.S. accepts Israel’s right to use its defensive capacity against Iranian development of nuclear weaponry. The destruction of Iraq’s reactor in 1981 was a historical precedent: For the first time, a regional power went on the offensive to prevent a dangerous neighbor from creating nuclear weapons. For the seven years prior to the attack, Israel had tried in various ways to stop Iraq from acquiring the installations and materials needed to build a bomb. Immediately after the attack, prime minister Menachem Begin declared that “Israel will not tolerate any nuclear weapons in the region.” THE MOSSAD IN OVERDRIVE If Israel launches an operation aimed at destroying the Iranian nuclear program, the man in charge of preparing it will be the head of the Mossad, Major General Meir Dagan, who was given this responsibility in November 2003. A military hero and political right-winger, Dagan is a natural leader and cunning thinker. Several defense experts use the word “creative” to describe Dagan’s ideas. Others call them “delusional.” A current Mossad operative says Dagan is one of the most resolute people he has ever known. “Once given a mission, he is simply unstoppable,” agrees Major General Amram Mitzna. A short man whose stomach goes before him, Dagan is certainly no James Bond. He is more reminiscent of George Smiley, John LeCarre’s anti-hero. Dagan took over the Mossad after a series of highly publicized failures, when its morale was at one of its lowest ebbs. The worst blunder took place in Amman, Jordan, in 1997, when an attempt to assassinate the political chief of Hamas, Khaled Meshal, went badly wrong. The Mossad also made errors gathering information on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Libya, and Iran. The failure to identify Libya’s nuclear program was described by the chairman of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee as “one of the gravest failures of Israeli intelligence.” Like the CIA, the Mossad invested a great deal of effort, money, and manpower in gathering information on Iraq, yet in the end Israel didn’t have the slightest idea whether Saddam Hussein’s forces had nonconventional capabilities. Under Dagan, the Mossad has taken on a different form, zeroing in on the war on terror and Iran’s nuclear plans, which Dagan has described as “the gravest existential threat to Israel since the founding of the state.” Before Dagan, the Mossad’s function was to gather information of all kinds from all over the world, be it security-related, military, political, economic, or industrial. Dagan narrowed the focus. Dagan has stressed the operational side over research, and channeled most resources to special operations that could be activated anywhere on the globe. If an al-Qaeda base were discovered in East Asia where terrorists were developing a dirty bomb or chemical or biological materials, the Mossad would have elite units tasked to eliminate it. If the prime minister approved a pinpoint operation against some nuclear installation, Dagan said, the Mossad must have a unit trained to carry it out. To prepare for its new missions, the Mossad has almost completely ceased dealing with classical intelligence evaluation since September 2003. Some 200 employees, mostly desk jockeys, were retired, and seven division heads were replaced. In 2004, the Mossad recruited three times as many field operatives as in previous years. The pattern is reminiscent of the early days of the Mossad when it was licensed by Ben-Gurion to kidnap and assassinate enemies, or when Golda Meir ordered the organization to hunt down and kill the terrorists who murdered members of the Israeli Olympic team in 1972. In recent appearances before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Dagan said an Iranian bomb would be a threat not only to Israel but to Europe too. Iran is developing missiles with ranges of up to 1,240 miles, and acquiring planes that could carry nuclear bombs long distances. In January 2005, he stated that Iran was “close to the point of no return.” Dagan did not give details on the Mossad’s intelligence work in Iran, or on its operational plans. But Israeli spokesmen have hinted more than once that a military operation is being planned. “We do not only rely on others,” said Lieutenant General Moshe Ya’alon. “We’ll rely on others until we have to rely on ourselves,” elaborated Lieutenant General Dan Halutz. Speaking in his mother tongue of Persian during a broadcast to Iran, Israel’s minister of defense, Shaul Mofaz, explained that, “If there will be a need to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability, the necessary steps will not harm Iranian civilians.” Israel’s options for military action are varied, and different units of air, naval, and land forces have trained to carry them out. A land operation would be very complex and dangerous; an air attack would be far less risky. It is doubtful Iran could stop bombers from reaching the critical facilities, which are around a thousand miles from Israel. The Israeli air force has F-15 aircraft with a range of 2,765 miles, and F-16s with enlarged fuel tanks that can fly 1,300 miles. Ordnance capable of penetrating deep into the earth would be required to destroy hidden facilities, like the kind the U.S. used to bomb the caves at Tora Bora in Afghanistan. In September 2004, it was reported that the United States was about to sell Israel 500 of these one-ton “bunker busters” that can penetrate 30 feet of earth or concrete. “This is not the sort of ordnance needed for the Palestinian front. Bunker busters could serve Israel against Iran, or possibly Syria,” an unnamed Israeli official told Reuters. It is doubtful that Iran has the ability to respond directly to an Israeli attack. Tehran would probably activate Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon with batteries of short-range missiles and rockets, which could severely disrupt life in northern Israel. Iran could also get Palestinian militia fighters to carry out terror attacks in Israel. From Israel’s point of view, though, neither of these threats would be existential. An Iranian bomb, however, would be. Michael Karpin is a veteran Israeli reporter and author of the new book The Bomb in the Basement, from which this is adapted.
Child corporal punishment: Spanking Results of studies: 2004 to 2006 As noted elsewhere, many studies into the effects of spanking have proven to be highly unreliable because they are largely based on the researchers' interpretation of children's behavior. Such interpretations are heavily subject to bias. However, there are a few studies in which research bias is minimal or non-existent. Four such investigations were reported on between 2004 and 2010. 2004: University of Michigan study of spanking and anti-social behavior Andrew Grogan-Kaylor of the University of Michigan's School of Social Work conducted a study to determine whether spanking children led to their anti-social behavior later in life. He accessed data from the years 1994, 1996 and 1998 of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The results of the study were published in the 2004-SEP issue of Social Work Information for more than 1,800 children were analyzed. Mothers were asked about incidences of cheating, lying, bullying, breaking things deliberately or getting into trouble at school. They were also asked how often, if ever, they had spanked their child in the previous week. Grogan-Kaylor said that: "Even minimal amounts of spanking can lead to an increased likelihood in antisocial behavior by children....This study provides further methodologically rigorous support for the idea that corporal punishment is not an effective or appropriate disciplinary strategy." 2 The Social Work Research Journal's abstract "This study was conducted to examine the effect of corporal punishment on antisocial behavior of children using stronger statistical controls than earlier literature in this area; to examine whether the effect of corporal punishment on antisocial behavior is nonlinear; and to investigate whether the effects of corporal punishment on antisocial behavior differ across racial and ethnic groups. The author used a non-experimental design and data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The analysis was conducted using fixed-effects methods to control for observed independent variables and unobserved time-invariant variables. Corporal punishment had a nontrivial effect on children's antisocial behavior in later years despite the strong controls introduced by the fixed-effects models. The analysis provides no evidence for differences in the effect of corporal punishment across racial and ethnic groups." You can view the entire article in your browser for $35.00 US. 3 2004: Johns Hopkins study of behavior problems in school: Eric P. Slade and Lawrence S. Wissow of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health conducted a study to explore whether a relationship exists between spanking frequency of infants before age 24 months and behavior problems at the start of their schooling. Earlier studies have found a correlation between spanking and school behavioral problems, but had been limited to children who were only spanked older than 24 They found that: "Among white non-Hispanic children but not among black and Hispanic children, spanking frequency before age 2 is significantly and positively associated with child behavior problems at school age." 4 2006: U.S. National study: based on a national survey on mental health, found that physical punishment in childhood is associated with an increased rate of major depression and alcohol abuse or dependence later in life. Physical punishment was defined in the study as minor assault such as being slapped, spanked, pushed, The study also found that physical abuse, defined as including being kicked, hit with an object, beaten up or choked, was also associated with these and other psychiatric disorders. 5 The PubMed abstract states: "Physical punishment, as a means of disciplining children, may be considered a mild form of childhood adversity. Although many outcomes of physical punishment have been investigated, little attention has been given to the impact of physical punishment on later adult psychopathology. Also, it has been stated that physical punishment by a loving parent is not associated with negative outcomes; however, this theory has not been empirically tested with regard to psychiatric disorders. The main objective of the present study was to investigate three categories of increasing severity of childhood adversity (no physical punishment or abuse, physical punishment only, and child abuse) to examine whether the childhood experience of physical punishment alone was associated with adult psychopathology, after adjusting for sociodemographic variables and parental bonding dimensions. METHODS: Data were drawn from the nationally representative National Comorbidity Survey (NCS, n=5,877; age 15-54 years; response rate 82.4%). Binary logistic and multinomial logistic regression models were used to determine the odds of experiencing psychiatric RESULTS: Physical punishment was associated with increased odds of major depression (AOR=1.22; 95% CI=1.01-1.48), alcohol abuse/dependence (AOR=1.32; 95% CI=1.08-1.61), and externalizing problems (AOR=1.30; 95% CI=1.05-1.60) in adulthood after adjusting for sociodemographic variables and parental bonding dimensions. Individuals experiencing physical punishment only were at increased odds of adult psychopathology compared to those experiencing no physical punishment/abuse and at decreased odds when compared to those who CONCLUSIONS: Physical punishment is a mild form of childhood adversity that shows an association with adult psychopathology. University of Toronto study of a link between child abuse and heart disease later in life: According to an article in the 2010-AUG issue of the journal Child Abuse & Neglect, physical abuse during childhood is coorelated with heavily elevated rates of heart disease during childhood. Professor Esme Fuller-Thomson said: "Individuals who reported they had been physically abused as children had 45 per cent higher odds of heart disease than their peers who had not been abused, despite the fact we had adjusted for most of the known risk factors for heart disease.: They controlled for: "... health behaviours such as smoking, obesity and physical activity level, as well as other adverse childhood experiences such as parental addictions, adult income and education level, diabetes, self-reported stress and a history of high blood pressure and mood disorders." These findings were based on data from a 2005 representative community survey conducted in two Canadian provinces and involving 13,000 respondents. Seven per cent stated they had been physically abused as children. The study left it up to the respondent to define whether they had been physically abused. Some would probably regard being spanked frequently was a form of child abuse, while other would consider only major physical punishment to be abuse. If a similar study were done that would differentiate among adults who reported that had not been spanked, had been been occasionally spanked, frequently spanked, or physically abused, the increase in heart disease would probably be much lower for those who had been occasionally or frequently spanked. Co-author John Frank, director of Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research and Policy, said: "This finding, if replicated in other studies, suggests that patients known to have experienced child abuse or neglect should have their cardiovascular risk factors managed somewhat more aggressively than other persons, since they are at greater risk. ... Like many previous studies linking early life characteristics and experiences with late life serious disease, this study does not explain precisely how such links operate, biologically; further research will be required to understand that process." The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today. - Andrew Grogan-Kaylor, "The effect of corporal punishment on antisocial behavior in children," Social Work Research, Vol. 28, # 3, 2004-SEP, Pages 153-162. - "U-M study: Spanking can lead to more bad behavior by children," University of Michigan News Service, 2004-SEP-08, at: - The abstract is online at: http://miranda.naswpressonline.org/ You can also purchase the article from the same URL. - E.P. Slade & L.S. Wissow, "Spanking in Early Childhood and Later Behavior Problems: A Prospective Study of Infants and Young Toddlers," Pediatrics Vol. 113, # 5, 2004-MAY, Pages 1321 - 1330. Abstract online at: - Tracie O Afifi, et al., "Physical punishment, childhood abuse and psychiatric disorders," Child Abuse and Neglect, 2006, Volume 30, Pages 1093-1103 - Ibid: Abstract at: - Joyann Callender, "U of T researchers find link between child abuse and heart disease. Odds of heart disease 45 per cent higher," News@UofT, 2010-AUG mailing. Copyright © 2004 to 2014 by Ontario Consultants on Latest update and review: 2014-APR-28 Author: B.A. Robinson
\| September 10, 1968 – December 21, 1988 United States of America Theo was the only child of Dan and Susan Cohen of Port Jervis, New York. A junior at Syracuse University's College of Visual and Performing Arts, she was returning home from a semester in London. Theo's all-too-brief life was marked by her talent as an actress and singer. In the fourth grade she got the lead in the class play and her life's work -and love- was launched. From that moment on acting and singing became the central focus of her life. She appeared in every high school and community production available. She never took a summer vacation. From her first year in high school she always worked in the summer stock, starting as an apprentice and finally in 1988 as the lead in the MacHaydn Theater production of "The Fantasticks." While in London with Syracuse University's DIPA program, Theo went to the theater twice a week and traveled to Greece, Scotland, the Netherlands and France. She took every theater course she could while in London and had plans to start an experimental theater, along with Miriam Wolf, another 103 victim, and other SU friends, upon her return to the United States. She was bright, articulate, and talented - she had everything to live for. Her parents describe her this way. "Theodora Eugenia Cohen - Theo everyone called her - could be loving and mean; logical and hysterical; cynical and enthusiastic. She made enemies as easily as she made friends. But one thing in her life never varied, her desire to act. In the sixth grade she announced 'theater is my life.' She was robbed of the opportunity to try and live that dream." Remembrance Scholars Representing Theodora Cohen Falk College of Sport & Human Dynamics
- IRVINE, California (AP) -- Following March's false alarm about an asteroid coming dangerously close to Earth in the 21st century and two Hollywood summer blockbusters about cosmic collisions, experts met Saturday to plan asteroid warnings that won't trigger mass panic. - "Collisions with the Earth is a topic that is so prone to sensationalism that we must be extremely careful about how we communicate new discoveries," said Richard P. Binzel, a planetary science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "It took the (March) event to wake us up." - A March 11 report that Asteroid 1997XF11 was headed to within 30,000 miles of Earth's center -- and could hit in October 2028 -- was front page news and the top story on evening TV news - The report from the International Astronomical Union was quickly debunked by astronomers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena who recalculated the asteroid's likely path and found it would miss the Earth by 600,000 miles. - "There's a great misperception in the public that for one day there was a possibility that the asteroid would hit in 2028," said Paul W. Chodas, the JPL astronomer whose calculations put those frightened by the report at ease. "According to our calculations, there never was a chance the object would hit the Earth." - Chance Of Possible Collision In Rare - In the aftermath, scientists began thinking about how they could avert another scare, although efforts to delay release of data could be difficult given the increasingly free flow of scientific information through the Internet. - Since that time, Hollywood has put killer asteroids and comets into the public mind with the "Deep Impact" and "Armageddon," as well as made-for-TV movies earlier this - In light of the heightened awareness, the National Research Council's Committee on Planetary and Lunar Exploration brought together astronomers who identify and track asteroids, experts in risk management, seismologists with experience in earthquake and volcano warnings and reporters. - The main problem in reporting new asteroid discoveries is that only a fraction that initially seem potentially hazardous turn out to be headed close to Earth once scientists refine orbital calculations. - "It is extremely unlikely that we're going to have an asteroid come with a real possibility of a collision," Chodas said, adding that 15 minutes after he had the XF11 data in hand, his calculations found "zero threat." - Scientists agree that peer review of initial observations -- standard procedure in science -- is essential. - In April, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration drafted "Interim Roles and Responsibilities for Reporting Potentially Hazardous Objects," which recommends consultation and coordination among experts before any public announcements. - NASA Wants Longer Delay Before Any Announcement - It might take up to 48 hours for experts to consult with each other, Chodas said. NASA wants an additional 24 hours before the information is released. - Chodas, who computes orbits for asteroids and comets, went into the meeting with an open mind about giving NASA the extra 24 hours, although he wondered what the agency planned to do during - But participants suggested eliminating the delay. They also suggested encouraging, rather than requiring, scientists to contact NASA. - An earthquake expert urged openness about any potential threat, as long as the uncertainty of initial observations is clearly explained. - "You can't control the flow of news but you can be as truthful as possible up front," said Allan Lindh of the U.S. Geological Survey. "The press, public and public officials seem to deal well with uncertainty, but they don't deal well with the suggestion you might hold out on them." - Controlling False Alarms - Binzel, who opposes mandating a set waiting period, suggested that NASA or the International Astronomical Union establish a code of conduct under which amateur or professional astronomers would seek verification from colleagues before going public. - Without that, false alarms will create "total loss of credibility among the astronomers." - Scientists have so far identified 123 potentially hazardous asteroids that could pass within 5 million miles of Earth. They've discovered 200 of the estimated 2,000 large asteroids that could pass within 30 million miles of Earth. - Chodas noted that just Friday, scientists using a radar antenna in Goldstone, California, observed that a 100-foot- wide asteroid discovered days earlier will pass within 476,000 miles of Earth on Monday. That's the closest future passage of any asteroid now being tracked, he said. - NASA is spending more money in the next decade to scan space for others. - One of the giant rocky chunks is thought to have slammed into Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula 65 million years ago, wiping out dinosaurs and most species. - Scientists know that in 1908, an asteroid exploded over Siberia, flattening nearly 1,000 square miles of forest. - Harry Y. "Hap" McSween, the University of Tennessee geologist who chaired the daylong workshop, said it was important that the event was getting U.S. scientists talking, but added that "this is going to have to be an international discussion."
Information technology, the change process, and customer service in higher education administrative services Over the past ten years, integrating technology into the previous labor-intensive model of moving people and paper through physical processes has transformed service delivery in higher education. Colleges and universities have implemented software to streamline activities supported on and off campus. An examination of two projects affecting human resources and research administration at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Carolina) provides an analysis of the change process and customer service element affected by integrating information technology. Concentration is focused on how successful technology integration relies on guiding principles of change and the degree of acceptance during the implementation of technology solutions in two critical service areas at Carolina. Through data collection involving individual interviews and focus groups, the researcher considers what degree the guiding principles were followed at Carolina and the level of consideration directed to excellence in customer service. Feedback collected from twenty-five administrators in human resources, research administration, and information technology along with input acquired from six focus groups of customers revealed differences between the two processes. Evaluating the implementation of the Human Resource Information System (HRIS) exposed several missing elements that affected the overall success of the project. The project lacked adequate resources, planning and communication processes were inefficient, and there was no evidence of a commitment to customer service. The implementation of the Coeus system to support research administration achieved greater success through acquiring the necessary institutional commitments and resources and securing effective leadership and training facilitators. The perception of customer service differed between the two projects, which affected the eventual outcome for each implementation project. The results generated through data synthesizing were not surprising but revealed how future projects must adhere to a prescribed format for implementation. Refining the guiding principles of change to incorporate the critical role of leadership is necessary for successful integration of technology. It is equally important to clarify excellence in customer service from the beginning to ensure customer satisfaction and subsequent use of the system. ^ F. John Case, "Information technology, the change process, and customer service in higher education administrative services" (January 1, 2003). Dissertations available from ProQuest.
Publications: Summers, Mark Volet, S. and Summers, M. (2013) Interpersonal regulation in collaborative learning activities: Reflections on emerging research methodologies. In: Volet, S. and Vauras, M., (eds.) Interpersonal Regulation of Learning and Motivation: Methodological Advances. Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group, Abingdon, Oxon, pp. 204-220. Williams, K., Kurz, T., Summers, M. and Crabb, S. (2012) Discursive constructions of infant feeding: The dilemma of mothers' 'guilt'. Feminism & Psychology, 23 (3). pp. 339-358. Summers, M. and Volet, S.E. (2010) Group work does not necessarily equal collaborative learning: evidence from observations and self-reports. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 25 (4). pp. 473-492. Volet, S., Summers, M. and Thurman, J. (2009) High-level co-regulation in collaborative learning: How does it emerge and how is it sustained? Learning and Instruction, 19 (2). pp. 128-143. Summers, M. and Volet, S. (2008) Students’ attitudes towards culturally mixed groups on international campuses: impact of participation in diverse and non‐diverse groups. Studies in Higher Education, 33 (4). pp. 357-370. Summers, M. (2007) Rhetorically self-sufficient arguments in Western Australian parliamentary debates on Lesbian and Gay Law Reform. British Journal of Social Psychology, 46 (4). pp. 839-858. Summers, M. (2003) Politicians' discourses of lesbian and gay law reform in Western Australia. In: 38th Annual Conference of the Australian Psychological Society, 2-5 October 2003, Sheraton Hotel, Perth, Western Australia.
So yesterday I alluded to the notion that you can’t coherently rebut arguments for the existence of God without either confronting them on their own turf (metaphysics) or challenging the whole concept of metaphysical fact. Ever since I finally rejected the argument from empiricism, I’ve preferred the latter. Crudely speaking, I’m a logical positivist. My view is that there is no such thing as metaphysical fact, since facts are statements about the word that are verifiable and either true or false. You can create a false statement pertaining to metaphysics if you claim a metaphysical force (like, say, the mind, a ghost, etc.) somehow interacted directly with physical objects, because such a phenomenon is logically impossible. However, statements that are of a purely metaphysical nature can be neither true nor false. So if you ask me if I think there exists an interventionist God who has agency in the real world, I’m going to give an emphatic no. But if you asked me if I think the God of Einstein and Spinoza exists — an impersonal, abstract intelligence who “reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists” — then I would say you’re asking the wrong question. When it comes to purely metaphysical claims about God, both the people making them and the people listening tend to mistake them for statements of fact about the universe. Instead, I see them as statements about the conscious state of the speaker, and the structure of her perception and cognition. “God is all around me” isn’t a factual statement like “the dog is brown,” but an expression of sentiment. A clearer way to phrase this expression of sentiment might be: “I am having the experience of being surrounded by an omniscient being.” Put that way, most forms of metaphysics might be better understood as wayward children of phenomenology, or the philosophical study of the structure of our experiences. This discipline is where philosophy overlaps most closely with good old-fashioned psychoanalysis. It also has a certain literary quality to it: phenomenology can illuminate the inner workings of the human psyche in a manner very similar to (but more direct than) that of brilliant first-person narration. It’s no coincidence that phenomenology overlaps quite a bit with existentialism, probably the one school of Western philosophy to have directly inspired more fiction than any other. The phenomenologist, the psychoanalyst, the existentialist and the fiction writer all share a common mission: to articulate what it means to want, fear, and feel like a living person. We remain fascinated by these efforts because they help explain us to ourselves and make us better at being what we are. Religious narratives do the same thing, although stylistically they’re obviously closer to fiction than phenomenology. This is why it’s disappointing to hear other atheists refer to them as “myth” and use the term derisively. Since when have myths been less than fascinating? Since when hasn’t pretty much everyone used some fictional narrative or another (whether they were aware it was fiction or not) as an explanatory tool for understanding the self? Even phenomenology is more or less a myth: it’s an ongoing attempt to put into words a structural understanding of our “mind” and “consciousness.” These things are purely metaphysical beasts, not real-world entities. Any attempt to articulate them can only end in crude metaphor. But if crude metaphor is all we have to go on, it suffices. It may not be capital-T true, but it still reveals something in us we couldn’t even catch a glimpse of otherwise. That’s why I compared it to literature, and that’s why I think religion still has something to teach to the atheist. Remember: When we want to commend authors like Herman Melville and Cormac McCarthy for the richness, beauty, purity, and sheer, awe-inspiring might of their fiction, we have a word that encapsulates all of that. We call their work Biblical.
Sending the wrong sort of files to the printers can have a pretty big negative impact on your finished article. We hope to explain it all a little so this won't happen to you. Is your file going straight to the printers? Or is just getting imported into another file, which is then going to the printers. This answer will affect how you choose to save your file. Ultimately your best option is to ask your printers how they like to receive their files. The likelihood is they will want PDFs. When we at The Media Collective work with Centreprint we send almost all our files as PDFs. They have the latest kit to handle the latest PDFs. However, sometimes we do send files in their native form. For example, the Print Handbook was sent as a PDF and a packaged Indesign folder. This tends to be how we work with them on more complicated jobs. It helps if anything needs tweaking their end. If your printers do want a PDF, ask them what type or version. There are many different types of PDF and some printers will have issues with certain ones so just ask. You are best off saving vector artwork (the sort of stuff from Illustrator) as an EPS, PDF or AI file. In this photo from the Print Handbook you can see why PDFs (bottom left) and EPSs trump TIFFs and JPEGs every time for vector stuff. Even at 300dpi the TIFF and JPG don't handle this vector graphic nearly so well. They have to convert it to pixels, and in this situation it shows. TIFFs, JPEGs and even PSDs are what you should be saving your bitmap files as (the sort of things created in Photoshop). TIFFs and PSDs are lossless. You don't lose any quality by saving a file as a TIFF or PSD. JPEGs normally lose quality when you save them but take up a lot less space on your computer. A very high quality JPEG is often not a lot different to a TIFF or PSD, but it does very much depend on the sort of image you're saving. A TIFF or PSD is normally a better option than a JPEG. But if you've been supplied with a JPEG, from a camera or stock photo website, and you're not modifying the image then you will gain nothing from saving it as a TIFF or PSD. A TIFF or PSD cannot create detail where there was none in the first place. But a JPEG can remove detail where once there was some. There's a couple of thing to notice in the pictures here related to JPEGs. Firstly, JPEGs can't handle spot colours. So when this JPEG was saved it converted the Pantone colour into a CMYK value. Secondly, the white space in between the red lines on the JPEG is filled with a very subtle yellow/grey tint. This is due to the compression. Files for your printers: Ask them but probably PDFs or native Creative Suite files (.ai, .psd, .indd) Vectors: EPSs, PDFs and AIs Bitmaps: TIFFs, PSDs and sometimes JPEGs We've all done it. Got something back from the printers and been a little disappointed by the result. It's a tricky thing getting things right for print. But the Print Handbook will help you. It's packed full of examples, tools & tips. Make those disappointed moments a thing of the past...Take a look – £5 / $8 / €6 Creating estimates & invoices isn't a fun job. But it is an important one. Salestastic makes it easy.Salestastic – Check it out
« Violin and Orchestra (1979). Morton Feldman \| \| beyond aworks :: promotion has expired, nothing to see here, move on » Robert Hurwitt in the SF Chronicle reminds us 2007 is the 50th anniversary of the stage version of West Side Story and maybe the 400th anniversary of a Shakespeare play. wikipedia: west side story coriolanus timon of athens December 30, 2006 in bernstein, leonard \| Permalink TrackBack URL for this entry:http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d83452087f69e200d8353b316353ef Listed below are links to weblogs that reference West Side Story (1957). Leonard Bernstein: This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted. The letters and numbers you entered did not match the image. Please try again. As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments. Having trouble reading this image? View an alternate. (Name is required. Email address will not be displayed with the comment.) Name is required to post a comment Please enter a valid email address
Organized in collaboration with artist Paolo Cirio, 2012 Fellow at Eyebeam. Inventing alternative forms of exchange for a fair economy is one of the most crucial creative challenges of our time. The current global economic models and monetary policy are intimating the collapse of the system itself, prompting a new understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of economic theory. The artists on the panel present distinct solutions to alter the way society shares wealth, exchanging resources, goods, and skills through visionary means of trade. In so doing, they propose revolutionary projects for social justice, countering the logic of profit and willful exploitation of instability and inequality. The panel addresses the deep rooted problems with the conventions and tools of international finance such as the Special Purpose Vehicles, High-Frequency Trading, and even the Bretton Woods system, which has influenced the daily reality of the global population. The artists reject such nonsensical rules and strive to fix the system with new strategies of innovation and subversion, beyond the notions of debt, capital, and even money. The panelists share their visions by discussing new local and digital currencies, barter schemes, fair finance instruments, and timeshare groups they have been involved in creating. An open debate with the audience follows the presentations. In this lively event, the audience gets involved in brainstorming, imagining, and finding solutions for a large-scale implementation of the models proposed by the artists. Speakers include Paolo Cirio, Mary Jeys, Jessie Reilly, Gregory Sholette, and Caroline Woolard. Paolo Cirio is an artist working around the idea of manipulation of information’s power. His artworks unsettled Facebook, VISA, Amazon, Google, and NATO, among others. He won several awards such as Ars Electronica, Transmediale, etc., and his controversial projects are often covered by global media such as CNN, The Age, Der Spiegel, Libération, Apple Daily HK, etc. Paolo is a fellow at Eyebeam Art and Technology Center for the current year, where he is developing a project about offshore business structures among others. Mary Jeys is a multi-media artist and activist. She founded the Brooklyn Torch Project, a local currency initiative for North Brooklyn in 2009 after receiving a small community grant from FEAST. The Brooklyn Torch Project has been featured in numerous media outlets including CNN, WNYC, NY Daily News, American Banker, and MSN Money. Jessie Reilly has worked in the intersections of community arts, education, and activism over the past ten years nationally and internationally. Recently, she has been working on forming a network with over six time-banks. As an artist she enjoys exploring all of the different ways the arts can strengthen and celebrate communities, campaigns, and direct actions for social justice. As an activist she enjoys building resources and coalitions that work to strengthen and form viable alternatives to capitalism. Gregory Sholette is an artist, curator, writer, a founding member of Political Art Documentation/Distribution and REPOhistory. His publications include Dark Matter: Art and Politics in an Age of Enterprise Culture, Collectivism After Modernism: The Art of Social Imagination after 1945, and The Interventionists: A Users Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life. He is the co-curator of the exhibition It’s the Political Economy, Stupid. He is a member of Gulf Labor Coalition, the Institute for Wishful Thinking, the Art & Labor Working Group of OWS, and adviser for the new Home Workspace Program in Beirut, Lebanon. From public seating and subway swings to collaborative projects with mycologists, architects, and designers, Caroline Woolard makes public projects that connect people. These projects have been supported by the Whitney Museum, the Walker Art Center, Cooper Union, a MacDowell Colony fellowship, a Watermill Center residency, MIT’s Center for Civic Media. Woolard is the co-founder of Trade School, a barter-based learning model that began in New York in 2010 and now running in ten global cities, and OurGoods.org, supported by the Rockefeller Foundation Cultural Innovation Fund. This program is free of charge and open to the public; seats will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis. This event is organized in conjunction with Creative Destruction on view at The Kitchen. 512 W 19th Street New York, New York NY 10011 United States of America
One am I, among six others: and two brothers. Who am I Europe. Europe is the one among six other continents. 2. North America 3. South America Asia is the largest, Australia is the smallest. Antarctica is cold, Africa is dark-skinned and the Americas are brothers. This was is said to be written by Lewis Carroll, the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, known for writing Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
May 2, 2011 Full of Possibilities I am always amazed by seeds. That these tiny, dry, sometimes strangely shaped bits can, with soil, water, and sunlight become the plants that feed and sustain us. Each seed is the potential for life and it is incredible to think of them in the dark cool earth doing what they do best, fulfilling their destiny to grow. Seeds are full of possibilities. The garden that will be, the flavors, meals, and sustenance that will be made from these minute beginnings. Each one becomes something so much bigger. I started planting my porch container garden this weekend. I have great hopes for the pots and boxes now filled with soil and seeds, but I'm not sure how it will all turn out. The spot, right outside our back door is south facing so it should get enough sun, but a lot of that light may be blocked by a tree whose leaves will soon make even more shade. We do have a sort of yard in the back of our building and, since everything is in containers, I can always move them to a sunnier spot if I need to. I have planted some herb seedlings, parsley, sage, and thyme. The basil seedlings are potted up, but I am keeping them inside until the weather gets warmer, probably later in May they will join the garden on the porch. I also planted seeds. I planted one window box with peas which are an early season crop, good in cool weather. I haven't grown them in a window box before, so I'm not sure how they'll do, but if they grow they way they are supposed to, I plan to trellis them up the the edge of the porch. The other box is planted with arugula and lettuce, which also grow well in cool weather. I'm not trying to grow all of my food in these containers, just focused on planting things that make good snacks right off the plant or, like herbs and greens, are great as small additions to meals or salads. I am especially hoping the herbs do well because it is so nice to have fresh herbs available whenever I need them. I'll be sharing more about my little garden here as things sprout and grow. I'd love to share ideas and tips, but this is somewhat new for me, too. I came across this urban/container gardening blog that seems like a great resource for those of us who are growing in very small spaces. Have you planted anything yet?
An Incremental Deployment Algorithm for Mobile Robot Teams An Incremental Deployment Algorithm for Mobile Robot Teams". In IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2849-2854, Lausanne, Switzerland, Oct 2002.. " This paper describes an algorithm for deploying the members of a mobile robot team into an unknown environment. The algorithm deploys robots one-at-a-time, with each robot making use of information gathered by the previous robots to determine the next deployment location. The deployment pattern is designed to maximize the area covered by the robotsâ€™ sensors, while simultaneously ensuring that the robots maintain line-of-sight contact with one another. This paper describes the basic algorithm and presents results obtained from a series of experiments conducted using both real and simulated robots.
I am not an Apple fanboy. I’ve never owned an Apple computer or an iAnything. But make no mistake, Steve Jobs had a significant, positive impact on my life. I am very sorry to see him go. The very first computer I ever learned to program on was an Apple II running BASIC at River Dell Senior High. My family ended up purchasing an IBM PC a few months later and I’ve used and owned DOS/Windows machines pretty much ever since. However, it would be the height of ignorance to fail to acknowledge that many of the developments in computer hardware and software over that time owe a deep debt to the innovations that Steve Jobs pioneered at Apple. Nevertheless, there is one piece of Apple software has made a more direct impact on my life – Quicktime VR. It was Phil Brown‘s QTVR Virtual Field Trip to Parfrey’s Glen that captured my imagination while I was a graduate student at UW-Madison and started me down the path of creating virtual field experiences, initially with QTVR, then Google Earth, and now GigaPan. Queens Garden Trail, Bryce Canyon National Park, June 16, 2005 Thank you, Steve. You will be missed.
thanks for sending me this, mike! Some quotes (please watch it for yourself): mediazation (something that has been reduced to a flat surface, a screen that allows you to partake in its own reality, and not the situation of the reality in which it exists, a frame, a box), direct experience, metaphor, the immediacy and actuality of the place and moment, this being like that, the intensity of the work as it exists in its’ place, curves: concavity, convexity – no one knows a curve until they experience it, until they walk it. the latter part of the 20th century was devoid of curves, it was the tyranny of the right angle, we are entering an era when the curve will predominate and the corner will evaporate, art evolves through misinterpretation of what came before, and to use it as their own ideological purposes, every new generation purposely misinterprets what has come before, if you are just re-articulating what has come before you are being academic and probably treading water, a lot of art that doesn’t reinvent form, it lays a new content on an old form, if you look at pop art it is just rehashed cubism with new commodities thrown in, form, to a certain degree negates value, and that remains interesting to me. Interesting. To me it’s not a question of either/or, it’s a question of integrating these experiences (in Serra’s words mediazation, and the experience of things as they really are in their place and moment), and understanding a given moment as a series of realizations that are built from a sequence of understandings embodied in different logical constructions (metaphoric, direct experience, etc.). He mentions simultaneity a few times, too, btw, and I’m not so sure we have any real ability to sense a genuine simultaneity in detail. I think our, or at least my, understandings often come down to sequence(s), anyway>> To me, any given, known moment seems to be a cubism of different, but related logical constructions, and the exciting discovery comes from acknowledging the different logics present (whether based in the mind, physically instantiated in objects, or somewhere in between), and exploring that moment via the specific, shifting light that each provides. Put another way, the experience of a given moment is derived from the interaction between different modes of understanding that reside equally between the external and internal worlds. the oscillation between expression/participation, and observation of the specific modes, and their concentration and collective sequence seems to be where the fun is. cultivating an ability to see things this way and to accurately express one’s experience in those terms strikes me as a promising practice for thinkers and mashup artists of any discipline today.
When Samantha Decker, a junior multimedia major, was approached by her biology professor, George Clokey, about a trip to Yellowstone Park, she hesitated. “I was really skeptical on going on the trip, considering I was a communication major,” Decker said. Decker talked to an advisor and found out she was able to use the trip as a part of an independent study opportunity, and she changed her mind. After the three-week travel study trip was over, Decker said she would go back to Yellowstone Park “in a heartbeat.” Decker was joined by 21 other biology and geology department students. Students participating in the travel study visited Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, the Black Hills of South Dakota and Makoshika State Park in Glendive, Mont. Decker’s responsibilities including taking pictures and recording video footage to create promotional material for the biology department. “I love the outdoors, so going to Yellowstone was perfect for me,” she said. “I’m a really big hunter and fisher.” At the beginning of the trip, Decker was counting down the days until the three-week trip was over. By the end of the first week, she wasn’t even thinking about the countdown, she said. “I had completely forgot how many days I had left, because you just get so absorbed in what you’re doing,” Decker said. There was a lot to keep Decker busy. Not only did she have to take pictures and video, but she had to participate in the science class, too. “I was just as much a student as everyone else,” she said. “It was a bit of extra work to take the images on top of being in the class, but I expected the work.” Decker said she didn’t mind the extra work. She said it was cool to take a ton of the pictures that other people missed, including candid shots of her classmates. “She did quite a few pictures of us as a group and us actually working in the field, and that was really cool,” said senior ecology major Jessica Greve. Greve had been to Yellowstone before but thought it was much more exciting when learning about it in the field study. Like Decker and the other students on the trip, Greve described her experience at Yellowstone as being awesome. Junior biology major Aaron King was also among the students on the trip. “It’s the best thing I’ve done so far in my college experience,” King said. Junior Nick Rudolph, a biology major who went on the trip, said it was too short, and he didn’t want to leave so soon. Rudolph and King’s favorite part of the trip was the last day the class spent in Yellowstone, where one of Clokey’s friends, who specializes in wolf biology, led the class to one of the wolf packs in the park. The class observed the pack and the handful of pups there for several hours. Decker said she was impressed by all of the wildlife in the park. She said just seeing Yellowstone in its entirety was a great experience, but one of highlights for her was seeing Jewel Cave in South Dakota. “The pictures and videos I was able to capture can give viewers a good idea of how amazing the trip was,” Decker said. A portion of Decker’s photos are going to appear on a slideshow on the biology department’s website, and the videos are going to be used in a promotional video for prospective students.
With Detroit set to go bankrupt by mid-December, one state legislator has suggested that Michigan’s largest city should be dissolved as a municipality and merge with a neighboring county. State officials have come up with numerous farfetched ideas as to how to confront the fiscal situation, with some suggesting Detroit to vote itself into bankruptcy and others preparing to temporarily lay off nearly all city workers to compensate for the financial losses. State Senator Rick Jones has emphasized that all options should be considered, including dissolving the city of 700,000 residents and merging it with neighboring Wayne County. “If we have to, that is one idea we have to look at,” he told WWJ Lansing, an affiliate of CBS News. “We really have to look at everything that is on the table. Again, if this goes to federal bankruptcy, every employee down there will suffer, the city will suffer and the vultures will come in and take the jewels of Detroit and they will be gone.” Out of desperation to solve the dire situation, even Gov. Rick Snyder said he wouldn’t count anything out. Jones said lawmakers outside of the City Council have grown frustrated with the lack of action from the Council and the delayed implementation of the financial consent agreement that was delayed in April. Many have blamed Detroit’s mayor, Dave Bing, for this delay. In order to release a $30 million deal, Bing needed to propose a financial advisor to the City Council. But Bing only provided one option – the Miller Canfield Law Firm, whose history suggests a conflict of interest in the security and stability of Detroit. The Council was therefore forced toreject the deal. “If the City Council doesn’t come to their senses and start working with the mayor and the governor for solutions, we have to explore every option,” Jones said. “I would be willing to consider dissolving the city, if that’s what it took,” he added. Many have ridiculed the senator for this proposition and even Jones believes the scenario to be unlikely. But the consideration shows how desperate city and state officials are to prevent financial catastrophe. With only two weeks left before Detroit is set to run out of money, lawmakers are desperately trying to come up with a solution before the holidays, leaving every option on the table. “With every step we get more and more fearful,” said Detroit’s ex-communications chief Karen Dumas.
Combat Capability [42%], Role and Missions, Structure of the Navy, in-service ships, surface ships, submarines, chronology. \|Tell a friend\|\|Print version\| Century-old traditions: Patronage for Russian NavyOne of the first demonstrations of benevolent organized indigenous help for the Russian Navy could arguably be considered the collection of donations for the creation of an all-voluntary fleet in the second half of the XIX century. Still far from being a full-scale social movement then, social support for the navy carried already in itself the traits of a modern social movement… The Russian-Japanese war was a serious challenge the Russian Navy had to face. The worry of the Russian society for the state of its navy translated into a huge drive for the collection of donations. So, a special committee for the support of the navy based on voluntary donations was created in February 1904. The committee included a half hundred governors, members of the government and the military, local authorities, members of the royal family, as well as famous naval architects… After the civil war, the movement was recuperated by the Komsomol, the Soviet youth movement. A most important side of the movement for the support of the navy became the rebuilding of warships. Through the komsomol, thousands of young men were dispatched to help reconstruct warships, the major part of which were in derelict conditions. Many warships, including the legendary Avrora, received a new lease on life, and the Red Navy received able and well trained professionals. From the first days of the civil war, a mass patriotic movement for the collection of donations for the defense of the country began. During the war, some 158,913,000 rubles were collected by young people and directed towards the construction of the Soviet Navy. This helped build 167 ships, including 16 submarines, 5 big and 30 small destroyers, 73 torpedo ships, and 38 armored boats. Even today, sponsorship is given serious attention in the Russian Navy. For over 10 years, an interregional association of subjects of the Russian Federation and towns for the support of divisions of the Northern Fleet has existed. The inclusion of delegations of parents of conscript sailors in such associations has become a good tradition. The naming of surface ships and submarines after cities has also become widespread. Under the invitation of the Moscow city government, with the support of the command of the Northern Fleet and the administrations of closed administrative-territorial entities of the Murmansk region, the children of the servicemen of the Northern Fleet spent their New Year holidays in Moscow. They were treated to a huge cultural-entertainment program. The first to arrive in Moscow were members of the youth theater Troubadour from the Polyarnyi garrison. The young artists gave a few performances for students of the military University. Children of the crewmembers of the nuclear submarine Daniil Moskovsky were welcomed in the Moscow region city of Orlenok. According to information released by the Information and Public relationship Service of the Northern Fleet, 10-14-year-old schoolchildren from different Northern Fleet garrisons visited the Kremlin, the Tretiakov Gallery, the dolphinarium, and the circus on Prospekt Vernadskogo during their stay in Moscow. The young people from the polar region were involved in four New Year presentations, including at Moscow City Hall and at the sports complex Olympisky. Such journeys have become a cherished New Year tradition for the children of seamen of the Russian Navy. The same is true for children of the seamen of the Baltic fleet. Thirty schoolchildren, mostly form big families, went on a trip in the Yantar, a house train of the Baltic Fleet. The delegation of young Baltic schoolchildren was led by Captain First Class (Ret) Valery Kolomin, and Irina Koroleva, the chief inspector of the medial service of the Baltic Fleet. The children had a full cultural program in Moscow. They took part in many New Year celebrations, in particular a presentation at the Kremlin Palace; they visited Music House; took part in a New Year tree celebration, where they received wonderful gifts from Santa Claus; and attended a spectacle on ice at the Olympisky. They had a special bus tour of nightly Moscow. Other fleets also stage many presentations for the children of seamen. For example, a New Year choir around a Christmas tree and competitions and entertainment for the children of crewmembers of the nuclear missile cruiser Pyotr Veliky (Peter the Great, NATO denomination), which is now sailing far from its native coasts, were organized in Severomorsk during New Year celebrations. The events were planned by specialists of the Severomorsk Officers’ Club, while Sberbank, which has been sponsoring the Pyotr Veliky, provided the gifts. The servicemen of the Baltic Fleet are deeply involved in the patriotic education of the schoolchildren of Kaliningrad. For example, recently a speech about courage was given by the servicemen to schoolchildren of School #49. The veteran marines of the Kaliningrad regional civil organization Black Berets talked about their experience in battle during the Chechen war. The vets mentioned that five of their comrades were awarded the title of Hero of Russia for the courage they showed in battle. Among them are Guard Colonel E. Kocheshkov, Guard Colonel A. Darkovich, Guard Mayor E. Kolesnikov (posthumously), Guard Captain S. Sheiko, and Senior Lieutenant D. Polkovnokov. The Green Berets awarded certificates and gifts to the best children. Here is an example of a sponsorship relation in another fleet, the Pacific Fleet. At the end of last year, a unit of Pacific Fleet diesel submarines turned 75. The event was celebrated in Vladivostok in a ceremony attended by representatives of civil organizations and the local government of the Mogochinsky district of the Chitinsky region. Siberians have been sponsoring one of the subs of the Fleet for about 7 years. The day before the celebration, the crew of the sub had returned to the base after successfully completing a mission with expertise and professionalism. During the visit, the resident of Mogochinskyi met with the commander of the Pacific Fleet, Vice Admiral Konstantin Sidenko and the commander of the unit, Captain First Class Vladimir Povorov. Many multiparty meetings with vets and seamen of the unit likewise took place. In a meeting with the commander of the Fleet, an agreement in principle was reached to name one of the subs of the unit after the city of Mogocha. Two other subs of the unit have already been named after the cities of Chita and Krasnokamensk. After that, this entire unit of the Fleet can be referred to as the Zabaikal unit. The sub will celebrate the 15th anniversary of its launching on March 15, 2009. It is clear that the various sponsors of the Fleet will not want to miss this event. Many warships and submarines of the Pacific Fleet today are named after our cities. For example, the Chelyabinsk Tractor Factory acts as a sponsor of the nuclear missile cruiser Chelyabinsk, which is based in the city of Viliuchinsk in Kamchatka. The seamen serving in the submarine attended the 75th anniversary of the factory, while a delegation from the factory visited the submarine. When talking about help for our Navy, it will be uncouth not to mention the Moskva-Sebastopol fund. The main thrust of its efforts at the moment is help to the Russian Navy under a sponsorship program extending from 2007 to 2009. It includes the improvement of the material-technological basis of the ships of the Navy, military-patriotic education of students of military institutes and young Moscovites, providing help to veterans of the Russian Navy and children of servicemen, cultural-instructive education, as well as scientific information activities. There are instances when the fund helped paid for expensive surgery for servicemen in need. This is just a glimpse of what the sponsorship program does for our Navy, developing and multiplying century-old traditions.
By Sarah Rolph After seven years of repeated National Park Service (NPS) allegations that Drakes Bay Oyster Farm harmed the environment, the multimillion-dollar NPS Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) created to support those claims was quietly abandoned by Interior Department Secretary Salazar and NPS Director Jarvis, raising fresh questions about the propriety of the process. Secretary Salazar claims his decision against the oyster farm was based on sound legal interpretation, yet he cited no legal opinion or analysis document. The Salazar decision was a complete reversal of established NPS policy. And it directly contradicted previous NEPA assessments of the very same oyster farm. Just fourteen years ago, in 1998, Point Reyes National Seashore (PRNS) officials supported plans to upgrade the shore operations of the oyster farm (then owned by the Johnson family). This was to be a major construction project, creating a new, modern visitor and education center that would also house the oyster processing facility. NPS held that a full EIS was not necessary for the upgrade, and instead created an Environmental Assessment (EA), pursuant to the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA). The EA was fully approved by Marin County officials, who jointly with the NPS issued a Negative Declaration under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) as being consistent with their coastal planning policy. The local community was supportive, including local environmental organizations. A Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) was issued by NPS, and the project was approved. Sadly, Mr. Johnson died before the project could be completed. The contrast between the NPS 1998 NEPA process and the NPS 2012 NEPA process could not be more stark. The NPS 1998 EA cited support for aquaculture in the NPS General Management Plan (GMP) for Point Reyes National Seashore, cited the county approvals as significant, stated that “no special-status species are found in the project site area,” and made no mention of a sunset date for the oyster farm—in fact, the EA cited as an issue to be addressed “the long-term status of the lease agreement past 2012.” The NPS EIS ignored the existing GMP, ignored the county, contained an entire section on endangered species it claimed would be impacted (most of which do not even exist in the estero), and alleged incorrectly that existing law required that the lease agreement not be extended past 2012. No public statements have been made about what, if anything, in law, policy, and science has changed since 1998 to justify the Park Service changing its position from strong support of the oyster farm to its current position that the law requires it to be shut down. While NPS was silent as to its reasons for the change, its new position was supported and promoted by a vociferous group of wilderness activists, often citing the same bogus science. For example, the National Park Conservation Association (NPCA), sent an online mass mailing to its members in October 2011 saying “Drakes Estero is home to several endangered plants and animals, including eelgrass, harbor seals, and birds including Black Brant and Great Egrets. Yet industry wants the waters for its motorized oyster boats…” The definition of an endangered species is, of course, a matter of Federal law. None of the species named here were or are actually endangered—the claim was fabricated. In fact, eelgrass has doubled in Drakes Estero during the past 20 years, and according to federal agencies, harbor seals are at near-carrying capacity in Drakes Estero. It’s a gross exaggeration and deliberate distortion to say that “industry wants the waters,” for motorboats or anything else. If the oyster farm did harm the environment, it would be a simple matter to report this to the appropriate authorities—the California Fish and Game and/or the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service (which is responsible for wildlife protection). This has never happened. National Academy of Science (NAS) reviews, directed by Congress, found NPS claims of harm to be without merit. In 2009, the NAS found that NPS scientific documents “selectively presented, over-interpreted, or misrepresented” data. In 2012, the NAS review of the NPS Draft EIS found “a high level of uncertainty” with the document’s impact assessments for harbor seals, the coastal flood zone, water quality, soundscapes, and socioeconomics. The NAS determined “there could be reasonable, equally scientific, alternate conclusions for impact intensity.” That’s a very polite way of saying that the document is not worth the paper it’s printed on. Nevertheless, groups such as NPCA relentlessly worked to claim otherwise with misleading advocacy campaigns, even going so far as to flood the public review process for the EIS with non-substantive comments. In November 2011, the NPCA and three other groups sent online mass mailings to their members encouraging them to “take action” by clicking to send a form letter to NPS. The form letter was sent directly into the Park Service comment database, thanks to sophisticated software from Convio, an Austin, TX firm that provides what it calls “constituent engagement solutions” to “help organizations translate their mission into online or integrated marketing programs that successfully acquire, engage, and convert individuals into lasting supporters.” While these programs may be appropriate for fundraising and some kinds of advocacy, the use of these systems to populate a NEPA public-comment database is troubling. The public comment process is meant for informed, substantive comments on pending federal activities. The NEPA guidelines state: “Commenting is not a form of “voting” on an alternative. The number of negative comments an agency receives does not prevent an action from moving forward.” Not only do NEPA guidelines specify that the process is not intended to be a vote, it also makes it clear that form letters must be treated differently from substantive comments. Yet the activists conducted a campaign to create thousands of form letters. What’s more, they did this with emails that were highly misleading. For example, one begins: “The National Park Service wants to hear from you! Should they preserve the only marine wilderness on the West Coast or commercialize it?” One would never know from this that the oyster farm in question already exists, and has for eight decades. Nor would one know from this pitch that this is a request for a NEPA comment. Significantly, the mass mailings do not even mention that the point of the solicitation is a comment on an EIS, much less suggest that recipients read and consider that document. Yet the results of the mailings were trumpeted as if they were informed, substantive comments. On March 1, 2012, NPS issued a press release saying it had “posted 52,473 public comment letters.” Minutes later, the wilderness activists issued a press release that said: “Of the 52,473 public comments submitted on the draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), 92% (48,396) supported ending the private commercial use of the estuary and designating full protection for America’s only marine wilderness on the West Coast.” Most of these 48,396 comments were exact-duplicate form letters sent via the Convio campaign. The Park Service and its allies did not act in good faith. As independent scientist Dr. Corey Goodman said when first interviewed by the author in 2009, “I just watch it evolve month after month and I realize my government—I’m sure there are a lot of fine individuals—but overall, my government doesn’t have any ethics when it comes to scientific data, and doesn’t actually care about scientific integrity; it just cares about winning and getting its way.” That Goodman statement was hauntingly prescient. The NPS falsified science, abused the NEPA process, disregarded its own policies and guidelines, and pretended that the 1998 EA—which should have been a baseline for the EIS—did not exist. DOI and NPS spent more than two million taxpayer dollars to prepare an EIS that was abandoned nine days before the Secretary made his decision to close the oyster farm. It is undeniably clear: Secretary Salazar’s misguided decision hides from real history and abandons responsible science. Sarah Rolph is a freelance writer based in Carlisle, Massachusetts. A California native whose favorite place is Point Reyes, she is writing a book about the Lunny family. Her website is www.sarahrolph.com John Hulls contributed to this article.
\|Welcome to Shield Of Islam. We hope you enjoy your visit.\| You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Join our community! If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features: \|Introduction To Perennialism\| \|Tweet Topic Started: Feb 21 2006, 03:12 PM (1,112 Views)\| \|abuturab82\|\|Feb 21 2006, 03:12 PM Post #1\| 1. What is Perennialism? Perennialism is primarily the belief that mankind possesses a body of spiritual truths, known as “perennial wisdom.” (Sophia Perennis) These truths are handed down by the various “traditional religions” such as Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism and even some ancient rites of Free-Masonry. The Perennialists distinguish between the exoteric (external, material) aspects of the “religions” and their esoteric (hidden, inner) meanings. For example, each “faith” has its own specific dogmas and rituals (exoteric) while all, according to the Perennialists, hold in common the deeper meanings hidden in those dogmas and rituals. Those who adhere to these “faiths” can, through specific ascetic processes, arrive at the knowledge of the “perennial wisdom” and a state of enlightened consciousness. This state is for the “initiated”, hence the term “Gnosticism” is often used to define Perennialism. Perennialism was a reaction against the rational, materialist spirit of the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution. Its founders rejected modern Western Civilization because of its departure from the traditional paths that led to “wisdom and enlightenment.” Thus, the central focus of Perennialism is a fierce adherence to natural, human traditions and a bitter rejection of “modernity,” all the Perennialists perceive to flow from the “modern spirit.” 2. Who were the “Fathers” of Perennialism? Rene Guenon was a French scholar of the early twentieth century. Rene was born to Catholic parents, but early in his youth he abandoned his Faith and turned to the study of the occult which was then in vogue in Paris. Rene became in turn a Free-Mason, an adept of Hinduism, and, finally, a Sufi-Muslim. Guenon wrote prolifically about his Perennialist theories and his most important book was “Crisis of the Modern Word.” The two other authors who contributed most significantly to the formulation of Perennialist thinking were Ananda K. Coomaraswamy and Frithjof Schuon. Coomaraswamy, an expert on Hindu art, was primarily interested in the role of art and craftsmanship in culture and their relation to industrialized labor. Frithjof Schuon was responsible for giving to Rene Guenon’s philosophical theories the more formal structure of a religious movement. Schuon was a convert to Islam. 3. Who was the “Father of Political Perennialism” and some of the authors who influenced him? The Father of Poltical Perennialism was Baron Julius Evola. 4. What are the main tenets of Perennialism? The main tenets of Perennialism are: a. Love of “Tradition” – Perennialists believe there is an original source of knowledge (Sophia Perennis) which is esoteric and attainable by observing the customs found in “traditional” religions and cultures. This love of “tradition” is the reason for their disdain for modernity. b. Hatred of Modernity – The Perennialists, in an effort to counter the modern philosophies, place an exaggerated importance on human custom or “Tradition”. This tendency is sometimes carried out to such an extent that the Perrenialists will oppose modern technology, medicine, universal literacy, etc. merely because these things are new and the product of human reason as opposed to being the product of traditional customs. For the Church’s teaching on modern inventions such as radio, telelvision and motion pictures read Miranda Prorsus. c. History is a Series of Cycles – History is considered as succession of cycles. Each cycle begins with the spreading of a new “ideal for civilization.” As the ideal becomes embodied in the culture, it losese its original purity, and the culture begins to decay. In order for a new cycle to begin, the old order of civilization must then disintegrate. This prepares the way for the next rebirth. Julius Evola remarked to his students concerning the modern world, ‘I am not talking about restoring society, I am talking about blowing everything up.’ This typifies the hope many Perennialists have, that the current decaying society will not be repaired but that an absolute cataclysm will bring it to an end. d. Crisis Mentality – The crisis mentality flows from the idea that society is now at the end of a cycle of decay which will lead to ultimate destruction before the next rebirth. Perrenialists appear almost gleeful in expectation during events such as the 9-11 terrorist attacks or the recent riots in France. e. The “New Man” – Each subsequent cycle begins with a new concept which is typified by the “New Man” who embodies this new salvific ideal. f. Exaltation of the Male Gender – The Perenialists, under the guise of rectifying modern feminism, raise the masculine gender to an exalted level and subsequently diminish the female nature to a subhuman level, sometimes going so far as to deny the intellectual nature of women. A concept of women and their relation to men is promoted which is akin to Islamic slavery and has nothing to do with the ideal presented by the Catholic Church; an ideal which has its origin in the exalted dignity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. For the Church’s view on this topic see: Casti Connubi 5. Why are Traditional Catholics attracted to Perennialism? Traditional Catholics may be attracted to Perennialism because they oppose some of the same errors as the Perennialists such as Modernism, Feminism, Materialism, and the effects of unchecked and excessive Industrialization. However, the analysis of and the solutions provided for these problems proposed by the Catholic Church are completely different then the analysis and solutions proposed by the Perennialists. For the Church’s teaching on the restoration of Society read Our Apostolic Mandate. 6. How is Perennialism distinguished from “Traditional Catholicism?” Catholics believe that the Faith and Sacraments provided by Our Lord Jesus Christ as well as the mediation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary will transform society. The Perennialists believe that the modern world is beyond saving; that its destruction must be hastened through revolution, “Fleeing to the Fields,” or a divine chastisement. After the fall of the modern governments, it is believed by some that truly virile men will rise up and restore civilization through their methods of education, the application of Distributism, and man’s proximity to the land. Some Catholics tainted with Perennialism go so far in their beliefs that they, at times, will distort the Faith in order to serve these political agendas. 7. What are examples of Perennialst thought found within the Traditional Catholic Movement? It must be remembered that, as there are various degrees of Modernism and Liberalism, there are also various degrees of Perennialism. Some who are infected with this ideology may only show some of the following traits while others might show them all. Some examples of Perrenialist thought within Traditional Catholic circles are: a. Rejection of Technology – Many Perennialist Catholics abhor technology and scientific advances. Unfortunately, when they wish to spread their own ideas, they do not reject the computers upon which they write, the printing presses they use or the electronic devices that tape their conferences. Most Perennialists make their writings against the use of the internet and computers readily available online! b. Rejection of Cities as Evil or Unnatural – Perrenialists argue that getting “back to the land” is the thing (“sine qua non”) without which a return to Catholicism is impossible. c. Love of Crisis and a Longing for the Destruction of the Modern World – Perennialists at times exibit an almost gleeful expectation of cataclysm. This was seen in their reaction to the 9-11 tragedy, the Columbine Shootings, and the French riots. d. Belief in Conspiracy Theories and Anti-Semitism – Examples of this are: “The Jews perpetrated the 9-11 Terrorist Attacks, the Holocaust never occurred, no one was ever killed in a gas chamber, the Jews have omnipotent control over all sectors of modern life, the Jews run all the banks and control all sectors of global politics and government.” e. Rascism – Some Perrenialists in Traditional Catholic circles accept the Evolian Aryan view that the white race is a master race chosen by God to lead and direct the other races towards Christendom. f. The Exaltation of Men and the Depreciation of Woman – Perennialists in Traditional circles exaggerate their response against feminism to the point that they suggest that ideas, schooling, and even the Spiritual Exercise of St. Ignatius are not for women. The world is seen as the “brotherhood of men” in which women are merely “mindless generatives.” 8. Who were some important figures influenced by Perennialist thought, held similar views or whose writings predispose Catholics towards Perennialism? Is Perennialism synonymous with Fascism? Some figures influenced by Perennialist thought or whose writings predispose Catholics to similar views were Eric Gill, Roberto Fiore, Derek Holland, E.F. Schumacher, Hillaire Belloc, and Dr. John Senior. Although many Perennialists have been Fascists, the ideology of Fascism is not always equivalent to Perennialsm. Perennialism is an erroneous ideology aside from the fact that some Perennialists were Fascists. There have been many “honest” Perennialists who were wrong despite thier sincerity and pious lives. 9. What connection does Derek Holland have to Traditional Catholicism? Derek Holland became friends with Roberto Fiore who was a student of Julius Evola. Holland adapted many of the ideologies put forth by Julius Evola and presented them in a manner meant for consumption by Traditional Catholics. His two main works designed to do this are The Political Soldier and Catholic Action, Uses Abuses, Excuses. Furthermore, Derek Holland is the co-founder of IHS Press with John Sharpe. IHS Press presents Distributism and the Back-to-the-Land Movement, two ideologies that apply Perennialist principles to economics. Books published by IHS Press often present Distributism as “THE Social Teaching of the Church” and insist that it is “the condition sine qua non” for the restoration of a Christian Civilization. 10. Who is Rama Coomaraswamy and how is he connected to Traditional Catholicicsm? Rama Coomaraswamy is the son of Ananda Coomaraswamy (one of the founding fathers of Perennialism). He converted to Catholicism because there was not enough of a Hindu presence in the United States for him to practice his traditions. He recounted that he found living outside a Traditional Religion repugnant and so became a Catholic, since, according to Rama, Catholicism fit perfectly with his beliefs as a Hindu. He later taught at St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary for five years and left with the sede-vacantists who were expelled by His Excellency Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Rama Coomaraswamy and Derek Holland are two poignant examples of how Perennialists and their ideologies are becoming associated with Traditional Catholicism. 11. How is Dr. Peter Chojnowski connected to Derek Holland and IHS Press? Dr. Peter Chojnowski is a public supporter of John Sharpe, who is a co-founder with Derek Holland of IHS Press. He has written extensively (i.e. book reviews and prefaces) for IHS Press whose books mostly center around the ideologies of Distributism. Many of these false ideas and principles are laid out in Derek Holland’s (a/k/a Liam Connolly) book Catholic Action, Uses, Abuses, Excuses. While living in St. Mary’s and teaching at St. Mary’s Academy and College, Dr. Chojnowski attempted to implement a plan very similar to that put forth in Holland’s book. He and his “Group of 8”, as he called it, attempted to devise their own currency, called “Bellocs” and a bartering system within the town. He claimed during a round table discussion entitled: A Look at the Present: How to Rebuild a Catholic Society in Pseudo Judeo/Christian America that everything was going according to plan until there was “a clerical intervention” which destroyed the project. The Traditional Catholics of St. Mary’s are indebted to that “clerical intervention”. \|1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)\| \|« Previous Topic · Perennialism · Next Topic »\|
Chapter XXX.—Further Refutation of the Pythagorean Theory. The State of Contemporary Civilisation. But what must we say in reply to what follows? For, in the first place, if the living come from the dead, just as the dead proceed from the living, then there must always remain unchanged one and the selfsame number of mankind, even the number which originally introduced (human) life. The living preceded the dead, afterwards the dead issued from the living, and then again the living from the dead. Now, since this process was evermore going on with the same persons, therefore they, issuing from the same, must always have remained in number the same. For they who emerged (into life) could never have become more nor fewer than they who disappeared (in death). We find, however, in the records of the Antiquities of Man, 1713 that the human race has progressed with a gradual growth of population, either occupying different portions of the earth as aborigines, or as nomad tribes, or as exiles, or as conquerors—as the Scythians in Parthia, the Temenidæ in Peloponnesus, the Athenians in Asia, the Phrygians in Italy, and the Phœnicians in Africa; or by the more ordinary methods of migration, which they call ἀποικίαι or colonies, for the purpose of throwing off redundant population, disgorging into other abodes their overcrowded masses. The aborigines remain still in their old settlements, and have also enriched other districts with loans of even larger populations. Surely it is obvious enough, if one looks at the whole world, that it is becoming daily better cultivated and more fully peopled than anciently. All places are now accessible, all are well known, all open to commerce; most pleasant farms have obliterated all traces of what were once dreary and dangerous wastes; cultivated fields have subdued forests; flocks and herds have expelled wild beasts; sandy deserts are sown; rocks are planted; marshes are drained; and where once were hardly solitary cottages, there are now large cities. No longer are (savage) islands dreaded, nor their rocky shores feared; everywhere are houses, and inhabitants, and settled government, and civilized life. What most frequently meets our view (and occasions complaint), is our teeming population: our numbers are burdensome to the world, which can hardly supply us from its natural elements; our wants grow more and more keen, and our complaints more bitter in all mouths, whilst Nature fails in affording us her usual sustenance. In very deed, pestilence, and famine, and wars, and earthquakes have to be regarded as a remedy for nations, as the means of pruning the luxuriance of the human race; and yet, when the hatchet has once felled large masses of men, the world has hitherto never once been alarmed at the sight of a restitution of its dead coming back to life after their millennial exile. 1714 But such a spectacle would have become quite obvious by the balance of mortal p. 211 loss and vital recovery, if it were true that the dead came back again to life. Why, however, is it after a thousand years, and not at the moment, that this return from death is to take place, when, supposing that the loss is not at once supplied, there must be a risk of an utter extinction, as the failure precedes the compensation? Indeed, this furlough of our present life would be quite disproportioned to the period of a thousand years; so much briefer is it, and on that account so much more easily is its torch extinguished than rekindled. Inasmuch, then, as the period which, on the hypothesis we have discussed, ought to intervene, if the living are to be formed from the dead, has not actually occurred, it will follow that we must not believe that men come back to life from the dead (in the way surmised in this philosophy). A probable allusion to Varros work, De Antiqq. Rerum Humanarum.210:1714 An allusion to Platos notion that, at the end of a thousand years, such a restoration of the dead, took place. See his Phædrus, p. 248, and De Republ. x. p. 614.
Hearty soups have always struck me as meals in themselves. They’re not only substantial, they’re easy to make. After all, you can toss nearly anything and everything into a broth and call it soup. My soups fall into the nearly-everything category. In each of them all the usual dinner food groups are present – protein, starch, and vegetable. The difference, of course, is that this time they’re not lying on a plate; they’re floating in a bowl of a flavorful broth. (The broth becomes flavorful as the soup cooks – it requires no extra time.) - Chicken Stock Makes about 8 cups Hands-on time: 10 minutes Total preparation time: 3 1/2 hours - Creamy Cauliflower Soup with Chorizo and Greens Makes 6 servings Hands-on time: 35 minutes Total preparation time: 45 minutes - Seared Beef in Autumn Broth with Wasabi Cream Makes 4 Servings Hands-on time: 15 minutes Total preparation time: 33 minutes Chicken wings make the best stock in my opinion because they have: - The fat from the skin which is a conductor of flavor. - The meat which contributes chicken flavor. - A ton of gelatin from the bones which adds body. When you are cooking every day, save vegetable scraps – the ends of the onions, carrot stems, leek greens, etc and put them in a resealable plastic bag in the freezer for that Sunday you decide to make stock. When cooking a steak or any other protein, season it before you cook it. It will taste more intensely like whatever it was to begin with (for example steak). If you season it afterward it will taste like steak with a salt hat. Even if you are going to serve a soup cold it is best to puree it while it is hot; it will come out much smoother. The best tool for this job is the blender. Years ago when the food processor was developed I retired my blender thinking that the food processor could do everything a blender could and better. I was wrong. You never get the same silky texture from a soup or pureed dish as you do when you put it in a blender. But you must be careful or you will end up wearing it. You should only fill the blender about one third full with hot liquid and then leave the lid very slightly ajar to allow for the heat to escape and cover the top of the blender with a kitchen towel. Let it rip for quite awhile to make sure you get that creamy texture and then, if you want, you can pass it through a strainer to get rid of any residual tiny lumps. When you have leftover stock, whether it is homemade or canned, you should freeze it. You can put it in resealable zip lock bags (just make sure you lay them flat until they freeze) or in ice cube trays or in this kitchen gadget called “food cubers” which I discovered when we were doing our annual “kitchen gadgets $20 or under” for Good Morning America. For more information or to order on line, go to foodcuber.com. When buying bay leaves look for the Turkish variety, not the Californian. California bay leaves are way too strong and will take over whatever stew/sauce/stock/soup you are making. I love many things from California but not their bay leaves. However, if all you have in house is their bay leaves, just use half the amount that the recipe calls for.
Type of Document Dissertation Author McGee, Michael K. URN etd-04102000-02150054 Title Integral Perception in Augmented Reality Degree PhD Department Industrial and Systems Engineering Advisory Committee Advisor Name Title Barfield, Woodrow S. Committee Chair Bohn, Jan Helge Committee Member Dingus, Thomas A. Committee Member Hix, Deborah S. Committee Member Kleiner, Brian M. Committee Member Keywords - augmented reality - augmented environments - integral perception Date of Defense 1999-09-24 Availability unrestricted AbstractAugmented reality, the superimposing of graphics or text onto an actual visual scene, is intended to enhance a user's understanding of the real world. This research examines the perceptual, cognitive, and human factors implications of combining integrally designed computer-generated imagery with real world scenes. Three experiments were conducted to test the theoretical and practical consequences of integral perception in augmented reality. The first experiment was a psychophysical study that had participants subjectively assess the integrality of 32 scenes comprising four different augmented reality object environments (computer, brain, text, and liquid dynamic model), projected at two transparency levels (opaque, and semi-transparent), and presented with four different graphic textures (color, grayscale, white, and wireframe). The second experiment expanded the psychophysical integrality assessment of augmented scenes to 32 different images composed of four new environments (housing development, computer lab, planetary photo, and trees in countryside), with multiple computer-generated graphics (two, four, six, and eight), at two levels of integrality as defined by experiment one (high, low). The third experiment was an applied study that had two phases: 1) learning tasks using three augmented environments; and, 2) assembly tasks using eight augmented video instructions. The computer-generated graphics for each phase of experiment three were presented at two levels of integrality (high, low) as defined by experiment one. The primary results of the three experiments show that augmented reality scenes with computer-generated imagery presented transparently and in color were perceived most integrally; increasing the number of graphics from two to eight decreased integral perception; and, high integral graphics aided performance in learning and real assembly tasks. From the statistical results and experimenter observation of the three experiments, guidelines for designing integrally perceived graphics in augmented environments were compiled based on principles of human factors, perception, and graphic design. The key themes of the design guidelines were: 1) maintaining true shape information in the computer-generated graphics 2) using highly realistic graphics for naturalistic augmented settings; 3) considering the hardware limitations of the augmented system, particularly the display; and, 4) designing appropriately for the task (simple, complex, hands-on, cognitive, dynamic, static, etc.). Filename Size Approximate Download Time (Hours:Minutes:Seconds) 28.8 Modem 56K Modem ISDN (64 Kb) ISDN (128 Kb) Higher-speed Access mcgee.PDF 1.98 Mb 00:09:09 00:04:42 00:04:07 00:02:03 00:00:10 If you have questions or technical problems, please Contact DLA.
Type of Document Master's Thesis Author Dem, Safiatou Berthe URN etd-06102004-132810 Title Environmental Study of Pesticide Residues in Soil and Water from Cotton Growing Areas in Mali Degree Master of Science Department Entomology Advisory Committee Advisor Name Title Mullins, Donald E. Committee Chair Cobb, Jean Committee Member Dietrich, Andrea M. Committee Member Pfeiffer, Douglas G. Committee Member Keywords - Mali West Africa - cotton growing areas - soil and water pesticide residues - farmer survey Date of Defense 2004-05-26 Availability restricted Abstract A study was undertaken to obtain information on farmers’ knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding pesticide usage and to determine the amount of pesticide in soil and water samples collected at four cotton producing areas of Mali. The results from a survey of 24 farmers identified various concerns regarding personal and environmental safety. Despite their training, sometimes growers did not use pesticides in an appropriate manner. Highly toxic pesticides are used by farmers with insufficient personal protective equipment. Sixty soil samples and eight water samples from four cotton growing areas in Mali were scanned for detectable levels of fifty pesticides in total. Pesticides were detected in 77% of the soil samples and the main pesticides were p,p-DDT and its breakdown products, endosulfan I endosulfan II, endosulfan sulfate and profenofos. Among the pesticides detected, p,p-DDT use in the study area had not been reported during the past ten years. The most common pesticide detected in the soil samples from cotton growing areas studied was endosulfan II constituting 65% of the detections with a maximum amount of 37 ng/g. Residues detected in soil samples were below the quantification limit for the newer cotton production region of Kita and for the intermediate region of San. Eight pesticides were detected in water samples: ã-BHC (lindane), endosulfan I, endosulfan II, endosulfan sulfate, dieldrin, p,p-DDD, p,p-DDE and atrazine. All detected pesticides in water had concentrations below the quantification limit except for atrazine. Even though pesticides were found at low concentrations in ground water samples, the fact that water from these wells is used for human and animal consumption is of concern. Also, soil pesticides may be taken up by plants and passed on to other organisms feeding on those plants. Further residues studies in the cotton growing areas of Mali are in order to monitor pesticides residues in Malian soils, water and living organisms. Filename Size Approximate Download Time (Hours:Minutes:Seconds) 28.8 Modem 56K Modem ISDN (64 Kb) ISDN (128 Kb) Higher-speed Access DEM.pdf 2.37 Mb 00:10:59 00:05:38 00:04:56 00:02:28 00:00:12indicates that a file or directory is accessible from the Virginia Tech campus network only. If you have questions or technical problems, please Contact DLA.
Type of Document Project Author Grisanaputi, Wipawee Author's Email Address email@example.com URN etd-121099-154240 Title Gender Discrimination in the Thai Workplace: a Case Study of Textile Company, Khon Kaen, Thailand Degree Master of Science Department Urban and Regional Planning Advisory Committee Advisor Name Title Edwards, Patricia K. Committee Chair Dyck, Robert G. Committee Member Fuller, Theodore D. Committee Member Keywords - GENDER DISCRIMINA - EMPLOYMENT PRACTICES - THAI WORKPLACE Date of Defense 1999-11-19 Availability restricted AbstractThe purpose of this study is to develop an understanding of the causes and effects of gender discrimination in the Thai workplace. The research focuses on gender differences related to recruitment, occupational segregation, compensation, pay raises, promotion opportunities, fringe benefits, and personnel policies and practices. Three hundred employees and ten supervisors of "Grarui and So Co., Ltd. participated in the study. Also, personnel policies and regulations were reviewed and evaluated. The findings showed female workers were more satisfied with fringe benefits and the practices of their supervisors, than were their male counterparts. Moreover, male workers perceived that their female coworkers were treated better by supervisors, especially in regard to compensation, pay raises and promotions. Traditional Thai social value and culture may be at the root of these unexpected findings Filename Size Approximate Download Time (Hours:Minutes:Seconds) 28.8 Modem 56K Modem ISDN (64 Kb) ISDN (128 Kb) Higher-speed Access paper2.pdf 261.55 Kb 00:01:12 00:00:37 00:00:32 00:00:16 00:00:01indicates that a file or directory is accessible from the Virginia Tech campus network only. If you have questions or technical problems, please Contact DLA.
Last month, everywhere I looked during NSBA’s Annual Conference, officials from Missouri’s Joplin Public Schools were talking about Bright Futures. The district won this year’s Magna Award grand prize for the program, which works to build partnerships among schools, community members, businesses, and agencies to serve students in need. Today, the immediate future is not looking as bright, and the entire Joplin community is in need. On Sunday, a massive tornado struck this town of nearly 50,000, killing at least 116 people and injuring more than 1,100. It is the highest death toll from a single tornado since 1953. The event was the latest in a series of devastating spring tornados that have pounded communities across the Southeast and through the Midwest. Just four weeks ago, 315 people were killed when a series of tornadoes struck in five states: Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, and Virginia. According to news reports, the late afternoon twister destroyed three schools, leaving two others and the central office seriously damaged as it ripped through the middle of this city 160 miles south of Kansas City. Graduation ceremonies for Joplin’s Class of 2011 were wrapping up at Missouri Southern State University when the tornado struck around 5:30 p.m. The high school itself was destroyed. Honoring the winners of the Magna Awards — the magazine’s biggest event at NSBA’s conference — is one of the favorite parts of my job. The program, sponsored by ASBJ and Sodexo School Services, recognizes school boards and district-level programs that go above and beyond the call to improve student achievement. Another highlight is talking to board members from around the country and learning more about their work. Each year, it seems, I meet someone new at the start of the conference and then continue to bump into that person throughout the event. This year, that person was Joplin board member Randy Steele. By the end of the conference, we had seen each other so often that it had become a running joke. Bright Futures, the program Joplin won for, is no joke. The 7,747-student district received the grand prize in the 5,000-to-20,000 enrollment category for a community engagement initiative that has helped reduce its dropout rate by more than 50 percent. Bright Futures also has resulted in the development of more than 230 community partnerships and brought in more than $300,000 in cash and in-kind donations. One unique aspect of the program is its use of social networking — primarily Facebook — in a “rapid response” system designed to meet the basic needs of students within a 24-hour period. The Bright Futures group has 4,800 people who “like” it; the district’s Facebook page has almost 3,000. “Whether it is providing comfort to homeless students, eating lunch with children of incarcerated parents, tutoring struggling students, or buying a pair of shoes for a child whose family can’t afford it, every single need is being filled as it is identified,” Superintendent C.J. Huff said in the district’s application. The needs are far greater today in Joplin, and in other districts and communities that have been devastated as well. Fortunately, the district has the infrastructure in place — an infrastructure that was being leveraged just hours after the tornado. Communication always is a struggle when disaster strikes. Phone lines are jammed or down. E-mail is non-existent. In the wake of such a devastating event, the greatest struggle can be just locating people amid the rubble. We have not spoken to the superintendent or to Randy Steele. Reaching people in the district via traditional methods has been impossible almost all day. Except through Facebook. Throughout the day, postings gave the district’s status on the Joplin Schools page. One, noting that the district was “in the process of accounting for the safety of our students, faculty, and staff,” had more than 275 comments in just six hours. “I can’t dial out, but I’m safe,” said one. “I pray for the safety of the rest,” said another. “Thanks for checking on everyone,” a third said. As the day progressed, postings were added to the Bright Futures page — requests for clothing, shoes, non-perishable food. A community conversation, in the middle of a town devastated, was starting anew. Glenn Cook, Editor-in-Chief
Welcome to the Birch Library Website! 3rd Grade Survey Click here for the Hour of Code! Check out what we do in the library! Looking for books? Click the picture below: What do we do in the library The Birch library is a busy place, and we do all sorts of fun things each week. A few of those things include: Ø Finding just right books to take home each week Ø Reading award winning stories Ø Voting on the CCBA nominees Ø Talking about stories Ø Using the Smart Board and other technology Ø Learning about technology skills and internet safety Ø Creating book trailers and making book recommendations to one another Ø Research skills Ø Learning library skills Ø Helping run the library by volunteering (4th and 5th grades)
Comparative investigation of the terrestrial and Venusian magnetopause: Kinetic modeling and experimental observations by Cluster and Venus Express Publication date: 06 May 2010 Authors: Echim, M.M. et al. Journal: Planetary and Space Science Copyright: ElsevierIn June 2006 Venus Express crossed several times the outer boundary of Venus induced magnetosphere, its magnetosheath and its bow shock. During the same interval the Cluster spacecraft surveyed the dawn flank of the terrestrial magnetosphere, intersected the Earth's magnetopause and spent long time intervals in the magnetosheath. This configuration offers the opportunity to perform a joint investigation of the interface between Venus and Earth's outer plasma layers and the shocked solar wind. We discuss the kinetic structure of the magnetopause of both planets, its global characteristics and the effects on the interaction between the planetary plasma and the solar wind. A Vlasov equilibrium model is constructed for both planetary magnetopauses and provides good estimates of the magnetic field profile across the interface. The model is also in agreement with plasma data and evidence the role of planetary and solar wind ions on the spatial scale of the equilibrium magnetopause of the two planets. The main characteristics of the two magnetopauses are discussed and compared.
NIH Scientists in a Spin Over Foreign Travel Alternating yes-no directives have confused biomedical staff members at U.S. agencies about whether they will be permitted to attend certain international scientific meetings. The muddle arises from an effort by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to set limits on foreign travel, a move that has met resistance at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In the past month, HHS issued last-minute orders for 34 NIH staffers to cancel plans to attend two scientific meetings in Canada. Then in mid-July, according to staffers, HHS lifted the limits on travel to another Canadian meeting. What happens next is not clear: "It's a complex situation and we're working with the department to smooth things out," says Michael Gottesman, NIH director of intramural research. HHS's Office of Global Health Affairs (OGHA), headed by William Steiger, has been concerned about international travel costs for 2 years. NIH responded by keeping to a total annual travel budget, says an NIH official speaking on background. Last summer, HHS also issued a policy requiring agencies to list foreign meetings with more than 20 expected attendees before each fiscal year began. Then this spring, Steiger restricted the number of U.S.-based HHS staff attending the XV International AIDS Conference in Bangkok to 50 (20 from NIH)--compared with 236 at the last global AIDS gathering. Since then, HHS has moved to cut participation at more meetings. In early June, OGHA ordered NIH to tell 13 scientists planning to attend a brain-mapping meeting in Hungary to stay home, then at the last minute allowed them to travel. Three didn't get the message in time and missed the meeting (Science, 9 July, p. 162). Then, just before a 26 to 30 June meeting of the Research Society on Alcoholism in Vancouver, OGHA told NIH to select 18 staffers to stay home out of 75 registered to go. The office then approved only 57 of 73 staff members planning to attend the American Society of Virology meeting from 10 to 14 July in Montreal. Responding to OGHA orders, NIH officials issued e-mails canceling trips 2 days before these meetings. Some staffers who were kept home had not planned to give talks or presentations. But alcoholism researcher Daniel Hommer says, "I felt terrible" that a student of his who intended to present a poster had to stay home. NIH was anticipating another big cut before this week's International Congress of Immunology in Montreal. But in the end, Steiger's office allowed all 101 who planned to go to attend. HHS spokesperson William Pierce-- observing that NIH scientists are "whiney" --says the cuts reflect the fact that, while it's not written down, the HHSpolicy issued last summer limits attendance at foreign meetings to 40 people, with occasional "exceptions." NIH erred, he says, by not including some of these meetings on its list last year and informing HHS "at the last minute." The NIH official acknowledges that some meetings weren't on the list but says they had not heard of the 40-person limit. NIHspokesperson John Burklow says that HHS officials have now made clear "that 40 is about the number that should be going."
The X-ray Astrophysics Laboratory conducts investigations of a broad range of astronomical systems through detection and analysis of their X-ray emission and other radiation they emit. Objects studied range from nearby solar system objects to cosmological structures. Researchers at the Laboratory investigate the physics of extreme environments?such as those near the event horizons of black holes?and the evolution of stars, galaxies, and large-scale structures. The Laboratory is the preeminent developer of state-of-the-art X-ray astronomical detectors and optical systems for performing precise spectroscopy, polarimetry, timing, and imaging. These instruments have been employed in numerous suborbital applications (sounding rockets and balloons) and orbiting observatories. Read a history of X-ray astronomy at Goddard.
Sure, the commercials love to people energized by the mere whiff of a steaming pot of coffee -- but new research shows that those commercials may not be far off the mark. Just smelling the aroma of coffee is enough to change the activity of several genes in rats, researchers report this week in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. The affected genes appear to help the animals deal with resistance to the stresses caused by sleep deprivation. In this segment, we'll talk with one of the researchers involved with the project about the team's findings. Produced by Karin Vergoth
The list of surnames that are on the verge of disappearing/presumed extinct include Bread, Relish, Birdwhistle and Miracle. The late jazz composer and musician Sir John Dankworth has fewer than 20 bearers of the name in the UK today, and his daughter, the singer Jacqui Dankworth) admits that it would be up to her niece to continue the name and uphold her father’s heritage. Some Scottish examples include (with under 20 bearers): There are only two examples of the surname MacQuoid in the British electoral records. It seems likely that the name is related to MacQuaid (a name still found in Co Monaghan). The meaning of MacQuoid is obscure, and no authority offers an origin (although in Scotland, the name would appear to be affiliated with the MacKay clan). Loughty is considered as a variation of Lochty, the name of two villages in Tayside (one a couple of miles west of Perth; the other about 6 miles west of Brechin). It is most likely that Loughty, Lochty (also Loughtie) are surnames from a place name. The word 'loch' is, of course, 'a lake or inlet'; and the suffix '-ty' usually signified the diminutive, the implied meaning being 'of, or by a small lake'. With under 200 bearers: MacMicking is just one of at least 40 variants, from MacMeeken and MacMichan to McMeikine and MakMakin. Its meaning is lost in the ancient mists, but its origins seem to go as far back as the first half of the Ninth Century to one Mahun, who led an invasion of Galloway. The coat of arms of the clan shows a naked - from the waist up! - warrior, above a shield clutching an arrow. The clan was (and maybe still is) associated with the county of Ayrshire. Slora seems to have several variations, including Slorra, Slorah, Slorach and Slorrance. There are currently 41 records of Slora, 5 of Slorah and over 200 of Slorach listed in current mainland electoral rolls (which thought to predominate in the Banff and Buchan districts of Scotland). The names are likely to have originated in the Gaelic 'sluagdach' ('leader') and may initially have referred to the clan elder. The names are associated with Clan Davidson. MacCaa has many clan associations; the most prominent being with the Stuarts of Bute, the Clan MacKay, the Clan MacFarlane, the Clan MacDonald and Clan Galloway. The name is a phonetic variation of MacKay, meaning 'son of Aoh (ie the champion)'. Other similar names in the group are MacCaw, MacCay, MacGaw, MacGee and MacKee. There seem to be over 900 holders of the name in the USA. I look forward to hearing from all of you MacCaa's...! :) (With thanks to Ruby Soave)
Hurry, hurry; get to a meeting or a seminar before everybody closes up and goes fishing for the summer. If you’re in New Jersey, you’re in particular luck. Check out the Spring Genealogy Seminar 2011 hosted by the Genealogical Society of New Jersey. It’s another full day of presentations, this time at the College of New Jersey campus in Ewing. Here’s the rundown: • Megan Smolenyak, Trace Your Roots With DNA: Learn how Y-DNA and mt-DNA testing can shed light on your family tree, as well as what newer testing methods can tell you. • Laura H. Congleton, Identifying and Researching Civil War Ancestors: How to best use federal, state and family records, and what common pitfalls to avoid. • Carol Sheaffer and Nancy Nelson, Don’t Forget the Ladies: Finding and Identifying the Women in Your Past: Enhance your understanding of family history by uncovering the female legacy in a variety of sources. • Laura H. Congleton, Welcome to the Club: An Introduction to Lineage Societies: A primer on things society-related, from membership requirements to record repositories. Genealogical Society of New Jersey, Spring Genealogy Seminar 2011. 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, June 4, 2011, The College of New Jersey Science Complex, 2000 Pennington Road, Ewing, NJ. Register by May 28 to ensure lunch and sessions choices. For more information and to download a brochure, see the GSNJ website. Do you have old family photos that help tell stories of New Jersey days gone by? Then check out MyJerseyRoots, a project being launched by the Rutgers University Libraries as part of Rutgers Day — Saturday, April 30, when all sorts of events run campuswide from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. According to Stephanie Bartz of the Genealogical Society of New Jersey list (and Rutgers University’s Alexander Library), MyJerseyRoots offers New Jersey citizens the opportunity to “document the everyday life of our cities, small towns and rural communities from past to present,” an excellent idea. Today’s family keepsake can be tomorrow’s historical treasure! If you think you can drop by the main campus in New Brunswick with some interesting old photos, read on. On Rutgers Day you can bring up to five images to the Alexander Library (169 College Ave., 4th floor), where Rutgers Library personnel will scan, digitize and record information that documents the photos. The library says the sorts of images they’re seeking include: - photos of people, families, and/or neighborhood groups - street scenes - pictures at street fairs, parades, and other events - pictures of houses/farms/office buildings/businesses - pictures in and of religious institutions - school photos – either of classes or activities - photos of clubs, organizations, and civic groups An added bonus: The first 25 participants in the digitization program will receive a free USB flash drive. There will also be brochures prepared by library staff, containing basic tips for photo preservation. For more information on MyJerseyRoots, take a trip on the New Jersey Digital Highway. Full press release on the photo-preservation event is here. And for other interesting programs at the Library on Rutgers Day, click here. I’m looking forward to April 16. You’re probably saying, “Who isn’t?” But not only is April 16 the day after Tax Day, it’s also the day for this: It’s taking place practically in my own backyard, at Drew University in Madison, N.J. Check out the speakers and topics. Excellent stuff! * Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak, “Right Annie, Wrong Annie” * Professor Christine Kinealy, “The Famine is only part of the Story. Why your ancestors came to America” * Dr Anne Rodda, CG, “Immigrant Imprints: American and Irish records that tell the story” * Claire Keenan Agthe, “Offbeat records for New Jersey, New York and Philadelphia” * Judy Campbell, “Family History Search Catches a Tammany Tiger” * Alan Delozier, “Family History from a Religious Perspective” * Julie Sakellariadis, “Imagining the Past: Using Historical Resources to Find Stories from the Past” * Dr Thomas Callahan Jr., “Looking For Katie: The McCormack Family in America” The link takes you to the website of the Genealogical Society of New Jersey, which is co-sponsoring the event with Drew’s Caspersen School of Graduate Studies. You can download a .pdf file of the conference brochure and registration form, if you are in the area and might like to attend. A great new aid for finding families in this record, and apparently it only just went up. Here is the link to the searchable index. This is an online name index only. To see an image you need to order the film from a Family History Center. If you find the name you’re looking for, you’ll also see the film number on the entry, along with the page number and family number. Or, if you’re in NJ, you could see it at the NJ State Library in Trenton at 185 West State Street. Here is a chart that explains the ins and outs of New Jersey censuses and tax lists since 1772 — what’s destroyed, what’s survived and where you can find it at the library or state archives. Very useful. h/t to Gary at the NJ-GSNJ list. Via Joan Manierre Lowry of the NJ-GSNJ listserve comes this announcement: The New Jersey State Archives has now added several more years to the death records available on microfilm at the Archives. Death records from 1941 through 1946 are now available in the microfilm search room! Another 9 years will be coming soon. These are provided as a public service to researchers and can be copied. (And, yes, they DO include the cause of Remember, however, that these records are available for in-person use only and the archives staff cannot assist with mail or email requests for these records at this time. (Archives staff can only provide copies from those records for which they hold originals. At the present time that includes up If you cannot get to the records in person, remember we provide a list of professional researchers on the GSNJ website: www.gsnj.org – then click on “Professional Researchers” in the left hand column. As Joan says — happy hunting! I missed this in the mad rush to Christmas Day! On Dec. 23, the New Jersey State Archives launched a new database: World War I Casualties: Descriptive Cards and Photographs. It includes 3,427 entries for New Jersey soldiers killed during 1917-1918. These entries reflect data cards issued to adjutant generals for recording details about soldiers killed in action (or who died of other causes while on duty). Often, they include a photograph as well. If you go to the link, you can search by surname. The list of results will tell you whether there’s a card there and whether it has a photo as well. I don’t have any NJ-based World War I soldiers in my own tree, but I pulled up an entry to see what can be seen. It included a service photograph plus a nice clear scan of the index card, which includes spaces for the soldier’s name, residence of record, birthplace, age, service record, engagements fought in, rank, date of service, date of death and name of the person notified of the death. Even if every space isn’t filled in (this particular card didn’t list the engagements fought), there is still lots of potentially useful information. And the photos are incredible. (H/t to the NJ-GSNJ mail list.) Having grown up in New Jersey, I’m an old hand at observing our bizarrely fractured PR image. You can be standing on a beautiful mountain trail or biking alongside a serene canal, and meet somebody who still can’t resist weighing in on how tacky Jersey is, seeing as it’s overflowing with Sopranos, Real Housewives and Jersey Shore punks, blah-blah-blah. “But you’re in New Jersey,” you’ll point out, gesturing at the peaceful, sublime landscape all around. “Oh, well, I don’t mean this Jersey.” Of course not. They never do. They never mean the New Jersey of New Jersey Churchscape, either. Well, their loss. However, if your genealogy path leads to New Jersey, or if you just love knowledgeable discussions of church architecture, you may well wish to pay this lovely site a visit. Want to see a picture of your ancestors’ church? Try searching the index of photographs of historic churches from all over the state. Interested in learning about a specific church architect? Check to see if there’s an entry in the Architects & Builders index, alphabetized by last name. There are regular articles on architectural topics. This month’s is “Twins,” all about buildings which share design influences. Or this article about two congregations whose church styles expressed their language of dissent in radically different ways. New Jersey Churchscape also keeps track of endangered buildings which face decay, redevelopment or worst of all, demolition. I tell you, I have ruined many a Lee Press-On Nail clicking through this site. Just kidding about the Press-On Nail part. The rest is on the level. The New Jersey Churchscape is a great place to visit.
What do you believe are the differentiating characteristics of a SAN virtualization appliance versus an external Fibre Channel RAID controller? Hmmm, I guess I'm wondering a little bit by what you mean by external RAID controller. External to what? I'll try to answer as best I can with what I have to go on and you can ask again if you want. For starters, virtualization can be done almost anywhere along the I/O path from the volume manager, through the device driver, in adapter firmware in a SAN appliance and down into the subsystem controller. There's a lot of hype behind doing it in a SAN appliance right now, but I have concerns about the recoverability of such installations and the complexity of layering virtualization translations. An appliance is a stand-alone unit that is external to hosts and subsystems. In fact, it is functionally between them. It can take the total available logical block address spaces available to it and present it in almost any fashion to "upstream" hosts. This can be as multiple LUNs or as a single LUN or, even as multiple targets - depending on the number of SAN ports in the appliance. Appliances can work with individual drives (in a JBOD cabinet for instance) or with exported storage from a subsystem. However, it cannot manage the individual disk drives within a storage subsystem because the appliance only sees what the subsystem exports. The block address translation and RAID functions are performed in the virtualization appliance as opposed to the host. This means the appliance has to be able to read in transmitted frames, interpret them and resend them to downstream storage. There can be a lot of communications to keep track of that are outside of the normal way of working. All this reading, writing and accounting for I/O activities is a potential performance bottleneck and certainly adds latency to I/O processing. Generally not a problem except with database access. Appliances can provide cache, but it needs to be pointed out that this is not file system cache and results and mileage of an appliance cache will vary by application. Care needs to be taken that writes into the cache will not be lost during a system failure. That's harder to do than just saying it. Host systems can be completely faked out by virtualization in a way that could potentially make it difficult to recover following a disaster. It is essential that the virtualization data in the appliance be stored in non-volatile storage as well as being able to be backed up and restored. In general, backup and recovery of appliances is a little dicier than it is for systems. A device driver/RAID controller in a host can do all the same things - except that it is limited to providing it to the host system where it is installed. Such adapters are often used to provide RAID functionality with JBOD disk subsystems. The block address translation is performed by the host CPU, which can potentially impact a CPU-bound system. Host memory caching is usually the most efficient way to cache, but again -writes need to be accounted for. Configuration information in the RAID controller must also be stored persistently and with backup protection. This might be done through driver config files that are backed up along with all the other stuff in the file system. But no assumptions should be made and full functionality needs to be checked. Finally a RAID controller can be in a storage subsystem. All virtual storage can be theoretically accessed by multiple servers. In a disk subsystem, the controller can access individual drives for whatever management purposes. This approach has some advantages for write caching, although the effectiveness of storing level cache is variable, the same as it is for the appliance version. Persistent config info and backup are still an issue same as the others. Hope this helps, I'm out of space and time. Dig deeper on Fibre Channel (FC) SAN Related Q&A from Marc Farley Mark Farley discusses the difference between iFCP and FCIP.continue reading Have a question for an expert? Please add a title for your question Get answers from a TechTarget expert on whatever's puzzling you.
Storage Wide area network mirroring and replication information: Wide area network mirroring and replication Wide area network mirroring and replication information Supporting WAN expansion mirroring and replication information. Buying Guide - WAFS products support the efficient exchange of data between remote locations over a WAN, allowing remote offices to access data from a data center as if it were local. WAFS can typically support a wide range of applications across virtually any WAN... Remote Data Replication E - In 2005, Hurricane Katrina underscored the vulnerability of local data and the importance of sending data offsite. Remote data replication duplicates data between remote servers or storage platforms across a wide area network (WAN). Remote replication...
It's more than an IT job -- it's a cloud career A comprehensive collection of articles, videos and more, hand-picked by our editors Microsoft recently posted an interesting item in its Born to Learn blog that highlights a survey about the current skills gap in cloud technology. The article notes the results of a recent IDC cloud computing survey that projected 26% annual growth for cloud-related IT positions but a shortage of cloud-savvy IT professionals. Cloud is a high priority for IT -- and it will only get higher. Why Microsoft wants in on fixing the cloud skills gap Microsoft wants IT pros to achieve cloud-related certifications. The Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA) course is available through many IT academy programs such as high schools, community colleges, technical schools and four-year undergraduate programs. It is also available to the general public through Pearson VUE testing. The elements of the MTA IT infrastructure track -- which includes OS, server administration, networking and security fundamentals -- help lay the foundation for cloud-related skills and knowledge in IT. The real traction in the cloud for Microsoft comes from its MCSE program, especially from the MCSE: Server Infrastructure and MCSE: Private Cloud certifications. These emphasize the infrastructure elements that support cloud computing. The latter private cloud certification puts emphasis on the Microsoft System Center 2012 platform and its abilities for configuring, deploying, monitoring and operating a private cloud using its capabilities, consoles, tools and utilities. Microsoft believes it's in its best interest to tout the emerging level of high demand for IT professionals with cloud skills to steer them toward its training, certification and technology courses. How IT professionals can get certified in the cloud Those who need Microsoft certification should look into the MCSE: Private Cloud, which is the best cloud-relevant certification in the Microsoft collection. But there are other great cloud-related IT certifications in today's marketplace that are above, beyond and outside of the Microsoft umbrella. Some certifications claim synergy with Microsoft tools and platforms, such as credentials from EMC and VMware. Others are more competitive, including the AppLogic offerings from CA and the combination of Red Hat Certified Virtualization Administrator and DataCenter Specialist (RHCVA and RHCDS) credentials. There are also courses from Citrix (primarily this means CCA for XenServer 6, but there will be more options in the cloud arena from Citrix soon), along with offerings from EMC, CA, HP, IBM, Oracle and others. There are also numerous vendor-specific cloud solution certifications available, such as those from HP, Oracle, Salesforce.com and IBM. You will also find good vendor-neutral credentials in programs from companies such as Arcitura, CompTIA and Exin. Check out Mirek Burnejko's excellent list of cloud certifications, which catalogs 52 credentials from 13 different sponsors for a complete rundown on the options available. For those just getting started in the cloud, I'd particularly recommend one or more of the following certifications: - Arcitura Certified Cloud Professional, followed by Arcitura Cloud Technology Professional - CompTIA Cloud Essentials - Rackspace CloudU certificate (not really an out-and-out certification, but still a good place to start) - EXIN Cloud Computing Foundation The platforms you know now will guide your choices of what you wish to learn and use in the future. But no matter how you slice it, there are many options to choose from as you start honing your cloud skills. Why do cloud-related positions go unfilled? Managers point to a few factors: - 57% are concerned about lack of cloud skills among current staff members - 61% are concerned about the availability of cloud skilled professionals in the marketplace - 53% cite a lack of appropriate training - 54% cite a lack of sufficient or appropriate experience with cloud technologies and platforms - 53% cite a lack of relevant IT certification credentials About the author Ed Tittel is a long-time computing industry guy who's been in and around the trenches for more than 30 years. He's also the author of HTML For Dummies, which first appeared in 1995, and for which a 14th edition is scheduled for 2013 release. In addition, Ed blogs on IT careers and certifications for TechTarget, Tom's IT Pro and PearsonITCertification.com, and on Windows topics for TechTarget as well.
Barefoot hikers get a toehold on the outdoors A Bellevue-based video-game developer who leads a club for barefoot hikers is an enthusiastic advocate for embracing the natural world with your bare toes. Seattle Times staff reporter Northwest Barefooters club does monthly hikes, rain or shine, usually at Paradise Valley Conservation Area in Woodinville, Discovery Park, Tiger Mountain or Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, and at Bellevue parks such as Coal Creek, Wilburton Hill and Kelsey Creek. To find out more about barefoot hiking or to join barefooters on a hike, contact club leader Matthew Medina at email@example.com. Hikes are free. Hiking sans hiking shoes. Someone thought this was a good idea? Bare feet sinking into mud, jagged acorns and even snow. I've heard about these folks. I think I ran into a few at a Grateful Dead campground a few years back. They rhapsodize about trails in peculiar terms, these barefoot hikers. They coo about wrapping toes around tree roots, massaging soles on sunbaked rocks and cooling feet on a carpet of moss. Intrigued, I met up with Matthew Medina, who leads barefooters up to Tiger Mountain or Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest every month. Their numbers range from two to 10 hikers. Their motivation varies. Some swear shoes weaken their foot-muscle development. Some believe feeling the terrain with every step enhances the hiking experience. Medina? He just likes being footloose. "It feels natural. It's innate to me," said Medina, a 39-year-old video-game developer who also goes barefoot in his Bellevue office. I met him at a Bellevue park to go over the barefoot basics. He was easy to spot: hopping out of his car, feet decorated with toe rings. The broken bottle nearby didn't faze him. His soles are leathery, but not freakishly so. I heard a solid tap, tap when I flicked with my pen at the sole of one of his feet. On my foot, the sound was muffled. Clearly, mine needed some toughening. We strolled barefoot on the grass first. "We've all taken our sandals off and gone barefoot at a picnic in a park at some point," he said. "It's familiar. It's a pleasant memory." You build on that to harder surfaces and longer walks until you can hike in comfort or without soreness, he said. The grass tingling my soles and in between my toes felt like a massage. The forest floor of dirt, mulch and evergreen needles was no bother. But gravel? Gravel was hell. I tiptoed as if I were dancing on hot coals. Did I mention you should pack shoes on your first attempt? Like many, Medina was inspired by Richard Frazine's 1993 book "The Barefoot Hiker." Frazine believes the abundance of sensory receptors on the soles serves as another sense. Just as you see butterflies, hear birds chirp and smell flowers, you should feel the trail with every step — the coarse dirt, the snowmelt stream. It makes you more in tune with nature. It's a more in-depth hiking experience, so the thinking goes. The cult book was a Kumbaya moment for many. It did for the barefoot-hiking movement what Christopher McDougall's 2009 best-seller "Born To Run" did for the barefoot-running movement. Thousands of hikers worldwide, including Medina, ditched their hiking shoes and formed or joined barefoot-hiking clubs. "On a trail, you map stuff in your head with your eyes and your senses. But when you take off your shoes and walk barefoot, you are mapping the trail in a different way," Medina said. "You're applying the senses from your feet. 'This part of the trail is muddy. This part of the trail is piney.' You're taking in more information with the soles ... info that you wouldn't have if you had shoes on." On the trail On a recent Sunday, Medina and two friends met for a hike in the evergreen forest at Paradise Valley Conservation Area in Woodinville. Up the trail they went, over grass and dirt, between the vine maples and western hemlocks. Their gaits were different from shod hikers: They methodically stepped straight down instead of shuffling or dragging. To avoid cuts, Medina said. The weight fell on the balls of their feet, not their heels — to better absorb the shock, he said. Barefooters hike at a slower pace, staring down to anticipate a couple of steps ahead, watching out for rusty nails or slugs and negotiating what texture to step on or to grip their toes with. "I want a bit of moisture, a bit of coolness," Medina said. "Mud is one of my favorites. I like the feel of it, the coolness of it. More than any other surface, it caresses your foot. Your foot sinks in." And he likes the feel of pebbles pressing against his feet. "Like a reflexology massage," he said. He even enjoys soft snow, except when the weather drops to 25 degrees, the breaking point between a tingling sensation and just downright cold. The threshold is different for every barefooter. Some can't stand asphalt on a hot summer day. Others find it soothing. The "Barefoot Sisters" from Maine, Susan and Lucy Letcher, even hiked the Appalachian Trail from Maine to Georgia and back in 2001, carrying 45-pound backpacks. The longest hike Medina has led is six miles. The camaraderie is more the point. Sometimes he doesn't even have to say anything. Those who go shoeless really get it, he said. Tan Vinh: 206-515-5656 or firstname.lastname@example.org. On Twitter @tanvinhseattle.
Background: I want to implement something like this in our websites, and I'm looking for advice and possibly APIs that allow this out of the box rather than re-inventing the wheel, but I can't even figure out the right search terms. As seen on my bank account: - When I registered, I was asked to pick a phrase that I would remember - Now, when I log onto my website, the process is as follows: - I enter my Username and click "next". - The bank site shows me this phrase. This helps me to be assured that I am actually on my bank's site, and not some fake site set up to steal my login credentials. - If the pass-phrase matches, I enter my password to complete the authentication process. - If the pass-phrase doesn't match, I know that either I entered my username wrong or I'm on a phishing site, and I go back to my bank's home page and start over. In my mind, this sounds like "multi-step authentication". However, when I search for that, I keep getting results for multi-factor authentication - authentication using a token, or two-step authentication as implemented by Google and other sites. While I'm a HUGE proponent of multi-factor authentication using tokens or codes sent to your mobile device, I also want to figure out how to do what my bank is doing. Is there a name or term for this authentication pattern?
November 19, 2010 Notable new publication on deterrence from The Sentencing Project Today I received an e-mail about a new publication about deterrence from the folks at The Sentencing Project. Here is the text: We are pleased to let you know of our new publication, Deterrence in Criminal Justice: Evaluating Certainty versus Severity of Punishment by Valerie Wright, Ph.D. The report addresses a key concern for policy makers regarding whether deterrence is better achieved by increasing the likelihood of apprehension or increasing the severity of sanctions. Overall, the report concludes that: At a time when fiscal concerns have propelled policymakers to consider means of controlling corrections budgets, the findings on deterrence suggest that a focus on examining harsh sentencing practices is long overdue. In many cases prison terms could be shortened without having any adverse effects on public safety. I hope you find this publication useful in your work. - Enhancing the certainty of punishment is far more likely to produce deterrent effects than increasing the severity of punishment. - Particularly at high levels of incarceration, there is no significant public safety benefit to increasing the severity of sentences by imposing longer prison terms. - Policies such as “three strikes and you’re out” and mandatory minimum sentences only burden state budgets without increasing public safety. - Evidence-based approaches would require increasing the certainty of punishment by improving the likelihood of detection. November 19, 2010 at 01:52 PM \| Permalink TrackBack URL for this entry: Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Notable new publication on deterrence from The Sentencing Project: When the Supremacy was in traffic court, there were several people addressed from there via closed circuit TV in the jail. They may have owed $2000 in unpaid fines and penalties. They were made offers of paying $25 a month. Without exception all took jail time. The severity of punishment in the US is too mild. They get up when they want. They can choose a variety of activities or choose to do nothing at all. All worries about the next meal and indoor living are over. There are no severe punishments in the US. Corporal punishment should be allowed again. Horrible pro-criminal lawyers on the bench have made prison time an upgrade in lifestyle for the underclass. Posted by: Supremacy Claus \| Nov 21, 2010 1:40:03 AM
Part 2—Explore Science on the Ice Step 1 Launch My World GIS, Open the Project File, and Explore the Map - Launch My World GIS by double-clicking its icon on your desktop (Mac or PC) or by clicking the icon in the dock (Mac) or the Start menu (PC). - From the Welcome screen, click the link titled "Get Started" at the bottom of the screen. - A new My World GIS project window opens in Construct mode. A Data Library, Layer List, and a blank Map will be visible. - If you stored Climate_Change_Greenland.m3vz in the Projects folder, access it from the Data Library. Use the drop-down Data Library menu to select All Projects, then click and drag the Climate_Change_Greenland.m3vz file into the Layer List. - If your project file is stored someplace besides the Projects folder, double-click its icon to load the project file into My World GIS. - The project loads with Greenland centered in the map window. - Explore the data of the different layers of the map by clicking the check boxes in the Layer List, turning them on and off as needed. Note: Visible vs. Active Layers: Clicking anywhere else on a layer will activate the layer, calling attention to it. If you activate a layer, its background will turn white. - Discover how the layers build the map by dragging layers up and down in the layer list. When you are done investigating the order, arrange the layers so that points are on top of lines, followed by areas, with images at the bottom. - Make sure the Greenland Ice Sheet layer is turned on. To get a sense of the size and shape of the Greenland Ice Sheet, choose the Pointer tool and click on several locations across Greenland, noting the thickness of the ice indicated by the arrow in the Legend below the map. Step 2 Explore the Greenland AWS layer to learn about Weather Stations and Scientists' Working Conditions - The Greenland Automated Weather Stations (AWS) layer shows the locations of Automated Weather Stations installed on the surface of Greenland's Ice Sheet. Koni Steffen communicates with the base station on the radio while Russell Huff works on the Weather Station. Thanks to Russell Huff and Jason Box for sharing their photos. The picture on the left is from SM2, one of the weather stations that scientists visit in order to monitor conditions on the ice sheet. The view looking away from this station is empty and white. - What do you observe about the weather station? - What kind of working conditions do these scientists have to endure to do their work? - Turn the legend for the Greenland AWS layer on and off by clicking the Legend symbol for that layer. With the legend on, use the pointer tool to select different stations in the list and highlight them on the map. Alternatively you can select them on the map to highlight them in the list. - Use the Pointer tool and your choice of highlighting modes to find each of these stations: - Swiss camp - Next, visit the Greenland Climate Network web page to learn more about the weather stations. - On the Greenland Climate Network web page, scroll down and read the paragraph about Automated Weather Stations (AWS) to learn more about what they measure and how they work. - Next, click the picture of the AWS on this page to see labels for the different parts of the instrument. Click your browser's back button to return to the Greenland Climate Network main page. - Last, click the Station Positions link in the upper-right corner of the web page. This link contains the rows and columns of data that were used to create the Greenland AWS layer with My World GIS. When you are done exploring, close the web browser window. To make a layer from a data table that shows positions in latitude and longitude, select and copy the rows and columns of data. Open a new spreadsheet document (in Excel, for instance) and paste the data into it. Once the data is inserted, use Data > Text to Columns to align the data in columns. Save the file as a .CSV (Comma Separated Value, also known as Comma delimited). To bring the data into My World and display it as a map, choose File > Import Layer from File... and navigate to where you stored the .csv file. Details for this operation are available in the Online Help Center under the Help menu in My World. - On your My World map, access links to view pictures of scientists at work on the ice sheet. Consider the following questions while looking at the image above: The working conditions are cold and windy. The scientists are wearing heavy clothes. - Select the Link tool to show where images are linked to the map. - Using the Link tool, click on the base of each flag to access the pictures. - Zoom in on the map as necessary so you can access all the separate flags. Step 3 Sort the Weather Stations by Elevation The elevation of a location is its height above some standard such as sea level. Locations with higher elevations generally have lower temperatures. - Make sure all selections have been cleared from the Greenland AWS layer. Alternatively, choose Highlight Mode "All (highlighting off)". Next, activate the Greenland AWS layer in the Layer List, and click the Table of Layer button, located just above the Layer List, to open the layer's data table. - In the table of the layer, sort the data according to any field by clicking its header. Successive clicks will sort the data in ascending order, descending order, then back to unsorted. - Sort the data, and then consider the following questions while looking at the data table: - What is the name of the station with the highest elevation? Which station has the lowest elevation? - In the U.S., elevations are commonly reported in feet above sea level. Use the estimate of 3 feet per meter to convert the elevation of the highest station into feet. Use an atlas or other resource to compare this value to the elevation of mountains in your state or region. - How many stations are at elevations above 2000 meters? - From the table, record the elevations of the three stations you located earlier: Swiss Camp, Summit, and CP2. - Examine the range of elevations as well as the spatial distribution of the stations on the map. What do you think scientists hope to learn by placing the weather stations in this pattern? The highest station is Summit at 3254 meters and the lowest station is JAR3 at 323 meters. There are 11 stations above 2000 meters. Some elevations include: Swiss Camp at 1149m, CP2 at 1990m, and JAR 1 at 962m. The spatial distribution of the stations allows for a variety of monitoring conditions.
A collection of resources related to field-based learning.Help Subjectshowing only Biology Show all Subject Research on Learningshowing only Affective Domain Show all Research on Learning Results 1 - 2 of 2 matches Designing Undergraduate Research Experiences for Nontraditional Student Learning at Sea part of SERC Print Resource Collection James E. Gawel, Cheryl L. Greengrove This article from the Journal of Geosceince Education summarizes two oceanography courses that involved students in ongoing research projects. By comparing these two course designs, the authors have ... Research on Learning: Ways Of Learning:In the Field, Adult Learners, Instructional Design:Incorporating Research Experiences, Teaching in the Field, Ways Of Learning:Active/Kinesthetic/Experiential, Affective Domain:Learning Environments 'Creative solutions' and 'fibbing results': Enculturation in field ecology part of SERC Print Resource Collection W. M. Roth, G. M. Bowen Abstract: This paper is concerned with enculturation in field ecology, where students are frequently required to spend long periods of time in the field with little or no contact with others. We ... Research on Learning: Affective Domain:Gender Differences , Ways Of Learning:In the Field, Affective Domain:Student Attitudes, Student Motivation
In the Halls of the Games that have strong educational content or have been used successfully in classrooms. A list of all our lesson plans. An index of how our games compare to the US National Education Standards. Our trifold brochure with overviews of the educational content of our most popular games. Conferences that teachers might be interested in. Connect with other teachers through the EDU Discussion Mailing List. A virtual "meeting place" where all teachers are welcome. with ideas, thoughts and comments you may have. The Teacher's Lounge Welcome to the Teacher's Lounge! It's where we can all sort of hang out, get rejuvinated, grab a few ideas and a cup of caffeine and go back to our classrooms, ready to teach again. I've been in many different schools in my career and they all have some place for teachers to kick back – one school I subbed at even had a couple of quiet rooms with cots and alarm clocks for when those nap-attacks would hit in the middle of the day. But most are places of noise, work, planning, discussion – a downright busy place. That's the sort of Teacher's Lounge I envision here. I'll be tossing things down out on the Table-o'-Stuff here in the Looney Academy Teacher's Lounge for your perusal – when you have time. That's part of the joy of having a monthly column – I get to leave stuff up here long enough that you busy teachers might be able to find a small chunk of time to read things through. Then, it will be archived back in the Academy Library for you to "check out" later. So, on to the first topic. Playing Games is Good for Students! My friend Judy, who is a physics teacher in Omaha, tossed something my way and I thought it makes a great topic for my first column. Recently, the National Science Teacher's Associaton (NSTA) reported that the Federation of American Scientists (FSA)and the National Science Foundation (NSF) support "Edu-Gaming" in schools. Their report is based on solid research into using video games in the classroom, but a lot of their findings can relate directly to using all sorts of games, such as EcoFluxx as the learning tools. In publishing their findings and recommendations, scientists said that: "... games require players to master skills in demand by today's employers – strategic and analytical thinking, problem solving, planning and execution, decision-making, and adaptation to rapid change. They can be used to practice practical skills and important skills that are rarely used, to train for high-performance situations in a low-consequence-for-failure environment, and for team building. Games offer attributes important for learning – clear goals, lessons that can be practiced repeatedly until mastered, monitoring learning progress and adjusting instruction to learning level of mastery, closing the gap between what is learned and its use, motivation that encourages time on task, personalization of learning, and infinite patience." Games are good for kids! Who knew? Well, to be honest, we knew. You, me, all of us. The right games, in the right circumstances, with the right teachers can be the best way for kids to aquire knowledge and skill sets they never knew they had to learn. How important is it for a doctor or pharmacist to read all of the directions? How much have skilled laborers (construction workers, auto manufacturers, electronic parts makers....) had to be able to adapt to new and rapidly-changing technologies? How much does team-building affect job performance in the corporate world? How easy is it to actually TEACH any of these skills? And how often do kids use all of these skills in games? By the way, in many teachers' opinions, Fluxx teaches all of the above skill sets. You have to read the card completely and follow all of the directions to be able to play the game. You have to adapt to new and changing environments. And you build a comraderie among students that rarely happens in a lecture Labs games are excellent choices for many teachers – we've seen Chrononauts, all it's variants), Treehouse be used in classrooms across the country. And of course we want to see the use of our games in classrooms increase. But not just for us – for the kids. We've seen this again and again as students learn best when relaxed. Playing games and having fun relaxes kids and lets their brains function in ways that stressed brains don't function. students rarely want to repeat lessons - but love to repeat games. How wonderful is it to see lessons being learned and reinforced without any effort on your students will also teach other students games, whereas they are rarely willing to teach their peers standard content. And we all know how much we learn by teaching what we know to someone else! Teaching others to play games help cement learning into a student's brain. If our goal is to build future citizens who are self-motivated, life-long learners, then we need to teach all the skills they'll need in their future lives. Games can help do that. Our games as well as other great games that are out there. Don't let nay-sayers tell you that games have no place in the classroom. Take a page from the NSTA, the FAS and the NSF and tell them that the games that you've picked for your classroom are simply some of the many high-quailty tools that you use to produce high-quality graduates. And then go play with your students!
News Release: Research Mar. 26, 2009 Study Focuses on Barriers to Successful Prisoner Re-Entry Into Atlanta Communities One out of every 100 Americans is incarcerated. One in 13 adults in Georgia is either in jail or on probation and parole, and the state holds the fifth largest prison population in the nation. Hundreds of prisoners are released and return to metro-Atlanta neighborhoods every month. For Emory's Office of University-Community Partnerships, which has worked with dozens of community groups, services organizations, policy makers and government leaders for nearly a decade, issues around incarceration are a big piece of the puzzle in developing strategies to build strong communities. "In many ways, the success or recidivism of former inmates has a tremendous impact on the communities where they settle, but given the stigma attached, it hasn’t exactly been a cause championed by many. But, positive reentry is a necessity, not an option, when it comes to public safety, preserving families and the development and stability of neighborhoods," said assistant professor of political science Michael Leo Owens, coauthor of the study "Prisoner Reentry in Atlanta: Understanding the Challenges of Transition from Prison to Community." View the prisoner reentry study (PDF). The report was recently completed by OUCP, and its authors hope their findings spark conversation and action among government leaders, service providers and community organizations to address the challenges of facilitating the positive integration of former prisoners back into communities. In addition to Owens, an OUCP senior faculty fellow, the study was compiled by Michael Rich, OUCP executive director and associate professor of political science, Sam Marie Engle, OUCP senior director, and Moshe Haspel, OUCP's director of research and Evaluation. The immensely detailed and comprehensive reentry report analyzes data showing where people go in metro-Atlanta when they get out of prison, what support services, such as job training, mental health and substance abuse counseling, are there for them, and the availability of affordable housing and jobs. OUCP's study is part of the Urban Institute's national Reentry Mapping Network, which covers a dozen metropolitan areas around the country. The study tracked nearly 5,000 people released from state prisons into probation and parole in 2004 and 2005 (as provided by the Georgia Department of Corrections and Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles) who took up residence in the five core metro-Atlanta counties: Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Cobb and Clayton. About a fifth settled in the city of Atlanta. While the greatest concentration was in and around Atlanta neighborhoods, prisoner reentry affects the entire metro-area. More than 80 percent of the former prisoners were non-violent offenders. Focus groups with former prisoners, service providers and faith-based and government organizations filled in the picture of what issues former prisoners and communities face. Surveys also provided insight on public attitudes toward former prisoners. Outside of access to services, securing jobs and affordable housing posed the biggest challenges to successful reentry for ex-offenders. Gaining employment was hindered by multiple obstacles: In addition to low levels of education and work experience, and the reluctance of employers to hire someone who has served time in prison, they also lacked the personal networks to help them identify and secure jobs. Those findings echoed the experiences of government and community-based reentry service providers. However, "housing was identified as the most central issue and need people faced immediately upon their return or move to Atlanta," said Owens. "For those released from prison without obtaining a guaranteed bed at a transitional house or shelter, and possessing only their $25 in 'gate money,' finding a place to stay that was secure, decent and accessible was often impossible." The study also found differences in the types of programs offered by secular agencies and faith-based groups but overall they were often not in the geographic area where they are needed most. "One thing we heard again and again from service providers was: 'I wish I knew what everyone else was doing,'" says Engle. "We hope that an outcome of this study will be a stronger network and coordination to provide the services that are needed."
Why is this a Big Deal? Passing-from-behind collisions kill more adult bicyclists than any other cause in California and in the US. When drivers give bicyclists more space as they pass, a leading cause of deadly collisions is minimized and more people feel comfortable about choosing to ride their bikes, which in turn promotes a more livable and economically viable community for us all. The law now requires motorists to give at least three feet of clearance when passing a bike in the same lane. If not enough space is available, the motorist must slow down and pass when no danger is present to the bicyclist. This is one step taken to end the epidemic of preventable deaths by car on bicycle crashes. The three foot law goes into effect in California September 16th, 2014. A person traveling by bicycle on a street is vulnerable. Similarly, road construction crews are vulnerable. As are pedestrians – nearly 4,300 people died when hit by cars in 2010, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data. Smile and Move Over What you can do: Pass people on bicycles safely when you drive, giving at least a three foot buffer zone between your car and a person on a bicycle. Help your friends and family understand that by doing so they help prevent crashes that kill more adult bicyclists than any other cause in California and the US. 3 Feet to Save Lives – More Information Victory for California cyclists: Riders get their three-foot cushion. LA Times. The state is beginning to catch up with the rebirth of cycling around the nation. Give California Cyclists 3 Feet–It’s Now the Law. KQED News. The law says that the distance will be measured between “any part of the motor vehicle and any part of the bicycle or its operator.” In many situations, that calls for 3 feet between the cyclist’s shoulder or handlebars and the vehicle’s side mirror. Momentum Magazine. “Too often cars and bicycles come precariously close to each other. Bicyclists need at least three feet between them and a passing car.” Article found here Other States. Twenty-one other states and the District of Columbia have already enacted a specified minimum passing distance for motorists, requiring 3, 4 or 5 feet buffer zones to protect people. Safely Passing Bicyclists Chart: Available here
Posts Tagged ‘puzzle’ Sometime this week, I reread the first Harry Potter book (after at least 10 years… wow, has it been that long?), just for contrast after reading Rowling’s adult novel The Casual Vacancy (on which more later). Anyway, in the penultimate chapter there is a puzzle: He pulled open the next door, both of them hardly daring to look at what came next — but there was nothing very frightening in here, just a table with seven differently shaped bottles standing on it in a line. “Snape’s,” said Harry. “What do we have to do?” They stepped over the threshold, and immediately a fire sprang up behind them in the doorway. It wasn’t ordinary fire either; it was purple. At the same instant, black flames shot up in the doorway leading onward. They were trapped. “Look!” Hermione seized a roll of paper lying next to the bottles. Harry looked over her shoulder to read it: Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind, Two of us will help you, whichever you would find, One among us seven will let you move ahead, Another will transport the drinker back instead, Two among our number hold only nettle wine, Three of us are killers, waiting hidden in line. Choose, unless you wish to stay here forevermore, To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four: First, however slyly the poison tries to hide You will always find some on nettle wine’s left side; Second, different are those who stand at either end, But if you would move onward, neither is your friend; Third, as you see clearly, all are different size, Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides; Fourth, the second left and the second on the right Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight. I became curious about whether this is just a ditty Rowling made up, or the puzzle actually makes sense and is consistent. It turns out she has constructed it well. Let’s take a look. This investigation can be carried out by hand, but we’ll be lazy and use a computer, specifically Python. The code examples below are all to be typed in an interactive Python shell, the one that you get by typing “python” in a terminal. So what we have are seven bottles, of which one will take you forward (F), one will let you go back (B), two are just nettle wine (N), and three are poison (P). >>> bottles = ['F', 'B', 'N', 'N', 'P', 'P', 'P'] The actual ordering of these 7 bottles is some ordering (permutation) of them. As 7 is a very small number, we can afford to be inefficient and resort to brute-force enumeration. >>> import itertools >>> perms = [''.join(s) for s in set(itertools.permutations(bottles))] >>> len(perms) 420 set is needed to remove duplicates, because otherwise itertools.permutations will print 7! “permutations”. So already the number of all possible orderings is rather small (it is ). We can look at a sample to check whether things look fine. >>> perms[:10] ['PNFNPBP', 'NPPBNFP', 'FNNPBPP', 'PPPFNBN', 'NPPNBFP', 'PFNNBPP', 'NPBPPFN', 'NBNPPFP', 'NPPFBNP', 'BNPFNPP'] Now let us try to solve the puzzle. We can start with the first clue, which says that wherever a nettle-wine bottle occurs, on its left is always a poison bottle (and in particular therefore, a nettle-wine bottle cannot be in the leftmost position). So we must restrict the orderings to just those that satisfy this condition. >>> def clue1(s): return all(i > 0 and s[i-1] == 'P' for i in range(len(s)) if s[i]=='N') ... >>> len([s for s in perms if clue1(s)]) 60 (In the code, the 7 positions are 0 to 6, as array indices in code generally start at 0.) Then the second clue says that the bottles at the end are different, and neither contains the potion that lets you go forward. >>> def clue2(s): return s != s and s != 'F' and s != 'F' ... >>> len([s for s in perms if clue1(s) and clue2(s)]) 30 The third clue says that the smallest and largest bottles don’t contain poison, and this would be of help to Harry and Hermione who can see the sizes of the bottles. But as we readers are not told the sizes of the bottles, this doesn’t seem of any help to us; let us return to this later. The fourth clue says that the second-left and second-right bottles have the same contents. >>> def clue4(s): return s == s ... >>> len([s for s in perms if clue1(s) and clue2(s) and clue4(s)]) 8 There are now just 8 possibilities, finally small enough to print them all. >>> [s for s in perms if clue1(s) and clue2(s) and clue4(s)] ['PPNBFPN', 'BPNPFPN', 'BPFPNPN', 'BPPNFPN', 'PNPFPNB', 'BPNFPPN', 'PPNFBPN', 'PNFPPNB'] Alas, without knowing which the “dwarf” and “giant” bottles are, we cannot use the third clue, and this seems as far as we can go. We seem to have exhausted all the information available… Almost. It is reasonable to assume that the puzzle is meant to have a solution. So even without knowing where exactly the “dwarf” and “giant” bottles are, we can say that they are in some pair of locations that ensure a unique solution. >>> def clue3(d, g, s): return s[d]!='P' and s[g]!='P' ... >>> for d in range(7): ... for g in range(7): ... if d == g: continue ... poss = [s for s in perms if clue1(s) and clue2(s) and clue4(s) and clue3(d,g,s)] ... if len(poss) == 1: ... print d, g, poss ... 1 2 PNFPPNB 1 3 PNPFPNB 2 1 PNFPPNB 2 5 PNFPPNB 3 1 PNPFPNB 3 5 PNPFPNB 5 2 PNFPPNB 5 3 PNPFPNB Aha! If you look at the possible orderings closely, you will see that we are down to just two possibilities for the ordering of the bottles. Actually there is some scope for quibbling in what we did above: perhaps we cannot say that there is a unique solution determining the entire configuration; perhaps all we can say is that the puzzle should let us uniquely determine the positions of just the two useful bottles. Fortunately, that gives exactly the same set of possibilities, so this distinction happens to be inconsequential. >>> for d in range(7): ... for g in range(7): ... if d == g: continue ... poss = [(s.index('F'),s.index('B')) for s in perms if clue1(s) and clue2(s) and clue4(s) and clue3(d,g,s)] ... if len(set(poss)) == 1: ... print d, g, [s for s in perms if clue1(s) and clue2(s) and clue4(s) and clue3(d,g,s)] ... 1 2 PNFPPNB 1 3 PNPFPNB 2 1 PNFPPNB 2 5 PNFPPNB 3 1 PNPFPNB 3 5 PNPFPNB 5 2 PNFPPNB 5 3 PNPFPNB Good. Note that there are only two configurations above. So with only the clues in the poem, and the assumption that the puzzle can be solved, we can narrow down the possibilities to two configurations, and be sure of the contents of all the bottles except the third and fourth. We know that the potion that lets us go forward is in either the third or the fourth bottle. In particular we see that the last bottle lets us go back, and indeed this is confirmed by the story later: “Which one will get you back through the purple flames?” Hermione pointed at a rounded bottle at the right end of the line. She took a long drink from the round bottle at the end, and shuddered. But we don’t know which of the two it is, as we can’t reconstruct all the relevant details of the configuration. Perhaps we can reconstruct something with the remaining piece of information from the story? “Got it,” she said. “The smallest bottle will get us through the black fire — toward the Stone.” Harry looked at the tiny bottle. Harry took a deep breath and picked up the smallest bottle. So we know that the bottle that lets one move forward is in fact in the smallest one, the “dwarf”. >>> for d in range(7): ... for g in range(7): ... poss = [s for s in perms if clue1(s) and clue2(s) and clue4(s) and clue3(d,g,s)] ... if len(poss) == 1 and poss[d] == 'F': ... print d, g, poss ... 2 1 PNFPPNB 2 5 PNFPPNB 3 1 PNPFPNB 3 5 PNPFPNB This narrows the possible positions of the smallest and largest bottles (note that it says the largest bottle is one that contains nettle wine), but still leaves the same two possibilities for the complete configuration. So we can stop here. What we can conclude is the following: apart from the clues mentioned in the poem, the “dwarf” (the smallest bottle) was in either position 2 (third from the left) or 3 (fourth from the left). The biggest bottle was in either position 1 (second from the left) or 5 (sixth from the left). With this information about the location of the smallest bottle (and without necessarily assuming the puzzle has a unique solution!), Hermione could determine the contents of all the bottles. In particular she could determine the location of the two useful bottles: namely that the bottle that lets you go back was the last one, and that the one that lets you go forward was the smallest bottle. >>> for (d,g) in [(2,1), (2,5), (3,1), (3,5)]: ... poss = [s for s in perms if clue1(s) and clue2(s) and clue4(s) and clue3(d, g, s)] ... assert len(poss) == 1 ... s = poss ... assert s.index('B') == 6 ... assert s.index('F') == d ... print (d,g), s ... (2, 1) PNFPPNB (2, 5) PNFPPNB (3, 1) PNPFPNB (3, 5) PNPFPNB It is not clear why she went to the effort to create a meaningful puzzle, then withheld details that would let the reader solve it fully. Perhaps some details were removed during editing. As far as making up stuff for the sake of a story goes, though, this is nothing; consider for instance the language created for Avatar which viewers have learned. See also http://www.zhasea.com/logic/snape.html which does it by hand, and has a perfectly clear exposition (it doesn’t try the trick of guessing that solution is unique before reaching for the additional information from the story).
The Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous During its first decade, A.A. as a fellowship accumulated substantial experience which indicated that certain group attitudes and principles were particularly valuable in assuring survival of the informal structure of the Fellowship. In 1946, in the Fellowships international journal, the A.A. Grapevine, these principles were reduced to writing by the founders and early members as the Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous. They were accepted and endorsed by the membership as a whole at the International Convention of A.A., at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1950. 1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity. 2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern. 3. The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking. 4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A.A. as a whole. 5. Each group has but one primary purposeto carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers. 6. An A.A. group ought never endorse, finance or lend the A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose. 7. Every A.A. group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions. 8. Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers. 9. A.A., as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve. 10. Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the A.A. name ought never be drawn into public controversy. 11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio and films. 12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities. While the Twelve Traditions are not specifically binding on any group or groups, an overwhelming majority of members have adopted them as the basis for A.A.s expanding internal and public relationships. Copyright © Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. In practicing our Traditions, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. has neither endorsed nor are they affiliated with Silkworth.net. Alcoholics Anonymous®, AA®, and the Big Book® are registered trademarks of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009 How to create a work of art Start with a neat dining room. Stand in the doorway and look around you. Take a few deep breaths as you peruse this glorious sight because you realize that this room is about to be altered. It is very likely that this room will not look this neat again until Easter. After all, who really eats in the dining room anymore? Cover the table that you have owned for more than 15 years with tablecloths and art supplies. Your husband isn't as enamored with the scratches and etches from earlier art projects as you and the children are - and he would rather avoid adding any more marks to the furniture. Whatever... Choose a few paints in colors you like and drip them onto the 5x7 canvas you have selected for your project. Admire the polka dots. Decide whether or not you have already completed the aforementioned project. Take a photo - just in case this is the best it looks. Stick your fingers in the paint and mix it up. Feel the cool, slippery slickness. Spread it all the way to the edges - and then panic because you haven't put newspaper beneath the canvas. Quickly, before it spreads across the tablecloth, grab some newspaper. Sit down and take a few deep, calming breathes. Then add more drops of paint. Spread it more. Get it under your fingernails. Spend the next two days admiring the paint under your fingernails. You are an artist! Follow Leonie's advice. Go for a walk. Collect stuff. Add that stuff to your artwork. Admire it. Smile. Rejoice that you have created something. Leave that stunning piece of collectible, museum-quality artwork on the table stuck to the newspaper for at least two weeks. Someone might show up at your dining room table and want to buy it. Then return to your dining room and look at your work of art again. Consider how much this colorful little thing looks a lot like your life. How neat it all looked for a while. Think about how you pulled a few things out and spread them around in hopes of creating something beautiful. Then things got mixed up and messy. You had to put your hands into the mess. You got some of the messiness stuck under your nails, in your heart, and in your soul. You remember the stuff you have collected along life's way. You add it to the work in progress. And then stand back and admire it. You examine your life. Take photos. Journal. Reflect. With tears flowing. With laughter billowing too. Then you leave it out for others to check out. Perhaps someone will put in a bid on it. The truth is that I'd never sell it. Whatever "it" is.
Simon's Rock faculty present their multi-media work in Florence, Italy GT BARRINGTON, MA - On March 14, Simon's Rock faculty members and other local artists presented their work in Florence, Italy. Wendy Shifrin and John Myers, together with Christine Gevert, Artistic Director of Crescendo, and Juliet Mattila, translator and writer for Crescendo, presented their collaborative work on a multi-arts performance of Hugo Distler's "Totentanz" (Dance of Death) in Florence, Italy. The presentation took place at the 14th international conference of the Europäischen Totentanz-Vereinigung, held at the Max Planck Institute in Florence, where scholars from the arts and humanities explored the theme of mortality as expressed in the arts and literature, from medieval times to contemporary culture. Conceived by conductor Christine Gevert, this performance was the first digital multimedia performance of the "Totentanz" by Hugo Distler, a brilliant young German composer who, after being persecuted by the Nazi regime, took his own life in 1942. The composition, written in 1935, was inspired by the famous "Totentanz" mural, a late Medieval/early Renaissance panoramic painting, which, like the composer, was also destroyed in 1942. In conjunction with the Crescendo chorus performance, Wendy Shifrin choreographed and coordinated a performance with dancers, while John Myers and his partner Alice Myers, a visual artist, used digital technology to create full color animations based on their research, including black and white photographs that had been taken before the mural was destroyed. The performances, which were given by Simon's Rock students, faculty and staff members, along with 50 singers, 12 narrators/actors, and other participants from Crescendo, an arts organization based in Connecticut, were held in Great Barrington and Lime Rock, Conn., on Nov. 9 and 10. The production led to the invitation to the European conference. For the Florence screening, Alice and John Myers had created a DVD, which combines live video of the November performance with Alice's images and full-screen animation. Wendy Shifrin is a Simon’s Rock faculty member in the divisions of Dance and Women’s Studies. Her areas of interest include choreography, improvisation, dance aesthetics, and creative writing. She studied at the University of Michigan and New York University (BA and MA) and taught at the New School for Social Research in New York and the Nancy Meehan School of Dance in New York City. She has studied with Nancy Meehan, Andre Bernard, Bonnie Cohen, Robert Dunn, Margie Beals, Erick Hawkins, and others. She recently studied at the Laban Institute in London, at the American Dance Festival at Duke University, and with Simone Forti and Sara Pearson in New York. John Myers, musician and ethnomusicologist, and Alice Myers, visual artist, often collaborate on mixed media projects. John Myers is Simon’s Rock faculty member in the fields of Music, Interactive Arts and Asian Studies. He graduated with his PhD in Ethnomusicology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore. In addition to performing jazz guitar regularly, Myers is involved in many digital multimedia productions. He has a background in jazz studies, interactive arts, Asian studies, ethnomusicology, and theory-composition. His audio CD, “Look In,” released on the Jungsoul label in 2004, features his original jazz compositions and performances on classical and electric guitars, clarinet, and electronic instruments. In 2003, working with Alice Myers and Swiss artist Etienne Delessert, he created a series of wide-screen digital animations for live performances by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. They also created an interactive DVD computer-based installation for an exhibit at the Visual Arts Museum of the School for Visual Arts in New York, and a cross-platform CD-ROM “Tabla-A Journey into Eastern Percussion,” exploring rhythmic techniques and form in the classical music of North India. The Totentanz was performed in Massachusetts and Connecticut before the team brought their presentation to Italy.
I hope all you Buckeye Three Percenters take a trip to the Ohio Historical Society Museum in Columbus to see Knight's Panorama of Andrew's Raid also known as "The Great Locomotive Chase. The Great Locomotive Chase or Andrews' Raid was a military raid that occurred April 12, 1862, in northern Georgia during the American Civil War. Volunteers from the Union Army commandeered a train and took it northwards toward Chattanooga, Tennessee, doing as much damage as possible to the vital Western & Atlantic Railroad (W&A) from Atlanta, Georgia to Chattanooga as they went, pursued by other locomotives. Because they had cut the telegraph wires, Confederate forces along their route had no notice of their arrival. The raiders were eventually captured and some were executed as spies. Some of Andrews' Raiders became the first recipients of the Medal of Honor. -- Wikipedia.The raid was not a skylark and had a specific strategic purpose (see Wikipedia link). As a commando raid, although it failed in its ultimate purpose through bad luck, it was brilliantly conceived and bravely executed and ought to be studied by Threepers for lessons learned.
From Abracadabra to Zombies \| View All The most potentially fatal flaws in a psi study are those that would allow a receiver to obtain the target information in normal sensory fashion, either inadvertently or through deliberate cheating. This is called the problem of sensory leakage. --Daryl J. Bem Sensory leakage is a term used to refer to ways information might be transferred by ordinary sensory means during a controlled psi experiment. A controlled psi experiment is supposed to measure transfer of information or energy in ways that are currently inexplicable in terms of known physical or biological mechanisms. Sensory leakage is the transfer of information by non-psychic means. There are various ways this can happen. Participants or experimenters could be unintentionally cuing subjects. Inadequate controls could allow participants to see or hear things by ordinary means. Since most psi experiments depend on statistical analyses of data—rather than direct observation of a subject, say, picking the winning numbers of the SuperLotto five minutes before the drawing—it is very important that there be a high degree of confidence that what is being measured is not the transfer of information by non-psychic means. For example, in a Zener card telepathy/clairvoyance experiment a sender may look at a card and try to send information about this card to a receiver by telepathic means. There are various kinds of sensory leakage that should be controlled for. The cards should not be visible to the receiver. If the receiver were able to see through the card held by the sender or were able to see a reflection of the card in a mirror or off a window or the glasses of the sender, information might be transferred. In a ganzfeld or remote viewing experiment, when the target and controls are shown to the receiver, they should not have been handled by anyone nor should they be dated or marked in any way that might convey information to the subject. Furthermore, the experimenter who presents the receiver with the target and controls should be blind to the actual target, lest he inadvertently give subtle cues to the receiver. As Jeffrey Mishlove says: Both judges and percipients may detect creases, marks, smudges, temperature differences or other artifacts that result if actual targets have been handled and then mixed in with targets from a pool for judging. Handling cues may also result when targets placed in envelopes are opened and then resealed or placed in new envelopes, as has sometimes been done. In some experiments it is essential that the rooms of sender and receiver be soundproofed to prevent transfer of information by known physical or biological mechanisms, such as overhearing a video being played or a conversation taking place. Mishlove notes that: As early as 1895, psychologists described "unconscious whispering" in the laboratory and were even able to show that senders in telepathy experiments could give auditory cues to their receivers quite unwittingly.... Ingenious use of parabolic sound reflectors made this demonstration possible. Many researchers in the early years of experimental psychology and psi research gave early warnings on the dangers of unintentional cueing....The subtle kinds of cues described by these early workers are just the kind psychologists have come to realize mediate experimenter expectancy effects found in laboratory settings. Mishlove lists a number of precautions that psi experimenters must take to prevent sensory leakage. In designing experiments to prevent sensory leakage, experimenters cannot assume that there are no tricksters present among the subjects. Precautions must be taken that would prevent the most skilled of tricksters or magicians from succeeding in obtaining normal sensory information about the targets. In short, the competent psi experimenter must take every reasonable precaution to prevent information from being transferred inadvertently or intentionally by either experimenters or subjects.
Acknowledging the annoyance factor, the FAA is forming a government-industry study panel and seeking public comment about the possible use of portable electronic devices — read Kindle, iPad, others — and more specifically voice over IP communications during flights. The study could potentially mean that one day soon that passenger next to you in the window seat may be loudly negotiating a business deal or gossiping with his girlfriend over Skype while you are trying to catch some sleep or are contemplating the universe. The use of cell phones for regular voice communications is not on the agenda, however. This is all part of an FAA initiative to possibly expand the use of portable electronic devices — tablets, smartphones, laptops — during all phases of flight without compromising airline navigation and communications systems. The government-industry group will study the issues over six months, and public comment is being sought over the next 60 days. Can you fire up that Kindle during takeoffs and landings? The public comments, review and any new FAA rules on the matter are designed to give airlines better information when they make decisions on which devices they deem kosher, and when they would be permitted to be used. The FAA says aircraft operators are permitted to demonstrate when radio frequency interference from a PED should not be considered a flight risk, and they can then authorize their use, although the vast majority prohibit powering up portable and mobile devices during takeoffs and landings. “With so many different types of devices available, we recognize that this is an issue of consumer interest,” states Ray LaHood, DOT secretary. “Safety is our highest priority, and we must set appropriate standards as we help the industry consider when passengers can use the latest technologies safely during a flight.” We’re talking flights Among other matters, the FAA would like the public to comment on whether “voice communications using other technologies such as voice over IP [should] be limited or restricted.” Recognizing the controversial nature of the issue, the FAA noted that it sought comments in 2005 on whether the use of cell phones during flights should be expanded. “One of the main concerns expressed by the public comment was the fear of passenger disruptions caused by cell phone use in a crowded public conveyance,” the FAA stated. The FAA is also seeking additional feedback on the technical, operational, safety and security challenges that airlines would face if they expand the onboard use of PEDs. The new Aviation Rulemaking Committee, as the panel will be called, will begin meeting this Fall and operate for six months. It will include representation from mobile companies, the aviation manufacturing industry, airlines, pilot and flight attendant groups, and passenger associations. “We’re looking for information to help air carriers and operators decide if they can allow more widespread use of electronic devices in today’s aircraft,” stated Michael Huerta, the FAA’s acting administrator. “We also want solid safety data to make sure tomorrow’s airdraft designs are protected from interference.” Here’s the FAA document outlining why it is seeking comment on the issues:
Benet Wilson is one of the 2.5 million Americans who have paid a yearly fee to skip security lines at airports and thinks it’s worth every penny she paid for a five-year membership in the Global Entry program offered by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection department. “It’s a beautiful thing,” says the 50-year-old frequent flier, who writes the AviationQueen.com blog. Earlier in June, Wilson was traveling back to Washington Dulles International Airport from a conference in Qatar, and walked right past an enormous customs line that had a wait time of nearly an hour. Instead, she was in a car on her way home about 40 minutes after her plane touched down. The value of spending $100 for Global Entry comes down to how often you fly. Adding $100 per person plus the application time and in-person interviews probably is not worth it for a one-time family vacation to Europe. But those who frequently travel abroad say participation pays off. As an added benefit, participants also have a better chance to minimize security delays on domestic flights. How it Works The Global Entry program’s automated kiosks require users to answer a couple of on-screen questions, scan passports, place their fingertips on a screen and get a printout to present at the exit. The process takes a couple of minutes. Kiosks are now available at 44 airports (including 10 in Canada and Ireland). The time savings can be significant. This year, the average wait time for customs has been about 20 minutes at six major U.S. airports. Yet a Reuters analysis indicates that waits of well over two hours are not unusual. Wilson raved about the program, which she said she has participated in since it was a pilot project in 2008. It became permanent in 2012. “This is one of the best $100 I’ve spent on travel,” she said. It can take time to get approved. There is a wait time for some applications for Global Entry. The process involves an in-person interview and fingerprinting. An applicant needs to provide basic personal information, plus passport number, driver’s license number, employment history, addresses going back five years and five years of international travel history. Fewer than 5 percent of applicants for Global Entry are denied. Issues that could disqualify an applicant include: criminal charges, customs violations and ongoing investigations by law enforcement. The government could also deny approval if it is unable to document where an applicant has lived, worked, or whether he or she has committed a crime. Joe Sobin, 47, a travel consultant who works in Denver and New York, said he was on a three-month wait list for an interview in Denver and instead went to John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, where he quickly got an appointment. Global Entry is one of several U.S. Trusted Traveler programs. There are also programs for expedited passage between the United States and Canada and the United States and Mexico. One obvious hitch with Global Entry comes when a person who is approved travels with others who do not have the same status. Children 12 or under need their own Global Entry identification. And while the program allows travelers to zip through customs, those who bring luggage on an international flight still have to wait at the baggage claim with everyone else. For Domestic Travelers In December, the Transportation Security Administration added its own $85 program aimed at domestic travelers called TSA PreCheck. It now has more than 300,000 members and is enrolling about 3,500 people a day, spokesman Ross Feinstein says. Anyone with Global Entry automatically qualifies. PreCheck gives participants access to boarding passes which give them a chance to skip the main security line and bypass some screening procedures such as taking off their shoes. But PreCheck does not guarantee a line-skip. Participants must wait until they receive a boarding pass to find out whether they have made the cut for that flight. If the program status is not noted on the boarding pass, a PreCheck participant must wait with everyone else. One upside: Children who are 12 under may zip through lines with a parent who has PreCheck approval. PreCheck has the same value proposition as Global Entry. If someone travels enough, it could be worth spending the time to apply and paying $85 for a chance to bypass the main security lines. Some frequent travelers lament that even the “special lines” get bogged down, because other travelers are selected at random to go through, as well. PreCheck participants must enter a Known Traveler Number when making reservations, or have it saved as part of a profile with the airline. Applicants for TSA PreCheck must schedule interviews 45 days in advance. PreCheck can be used at 118 U.S. airports on the following 11 airlines: Air Canada, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Hawaiian Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Southwest Airlines, Sun Country Airlines, United Airlines, US Airways, and Virgin America. (Follow us @ReutersMoney or at http://www.reuters.com/finance/personal-finance Editing by Beth Pinsker, Lauren Young and David Gregorio)
So, why all the fuss about Alan Turing having invented a machine that is the grand-daddy of all computers, past, present and future? Well, it's a bit like Einstein's E = mC2. This simple equation was the key to understanding that matter can be transformed into energy. But, between understanding the equation and being able to obtain energy from a nuclear reactor, a lot of hard work needs to be carried out. You might say poetically that the Turing Machine defines the "soul" of any imaginable computer in the real world. But, to move from the abstract "soul" to a real "flesh and blood" computer, you have to envisage a huge amount of design, engineering and programming... of both a hardware and a software kind. Funnily enough, although the Turing Machine can indeed carry out any imaginable task that might be performed by modern computers, it's greatest interest was that it enabled Turing and other logicians to discover that certain tasks could never be carried out by any imaginable computer whatsoever. For example, it is impossible for a computer to determine beforehand, when faced with certain algorithms, that it will indeed be able to reach the intended end of the algorithm and provide an answer. In this way, the Turing Machine appeared on the scene as a mechanical variant of the themes of incompleteness and undecidability elucidated mathematically by Kurt Gödel (seen in the following photo alongside Albert Einstein): Getting back to Turing, his most concrete claim to fame was surely the wizard-level code-breaking operations that he performed for the British government during World War II, at Bletchley Park. He was a practicing homosexual at a time in the UK when relationships of this kind were branded as criminal. The poor man, suffering no doubt from a form of autism (Asperger Syndrome) that made him socially awkward, was obliged to undergo ignominious chemical castration. In June 1954, a fortnight before his 42nd birthday, Turing was found dead in his laboratory, poisoned by cyanide, and clutching a half-eaten apple.
How to Get to Sleep \| Things to Help You Sleep Sleep is an important aspect of daily life. One cannot survive without it for long periods and a minimum of 6 hours is required for the proper functioning of the body. Many of you may find it hard to go to sleep at nights thus getting up and feeling tired the next day. You may have wondered how to get to sleep quickly to ensure that the next day you get up feeling fresh with lots of energy. In the following paragraphs you will find the answer on how to get to sleep and things to help you sleep. Answer to the question “how to get to sleep quickly?” When you ask a sleep specialist or doctor how to get to sleep quickly, a variety of methods and cures will be given. Every human being is different and thus all the methods may not work for you. You should try the various methods to find the perfect fit based on choice and preference. - Sleep Hygiene: Sleep hygiene is simply the environmental and behavioural factors that control sleep in humans. If your sleep hygiene is high then getting a goodnights sleep is very easy. Given below are the steps to increase sleep hygiene: - Food: Ensure that a minimum of 3 hours gap is given before sleeping How to get to sleep? Hopefully once you learn from this article you will sleep peacefully like this woman and a meal. Also make sure to avoid proteins and eat more of carbohydrates, fats and milk based drinks for dinner. These foods contain tryptophan a compound which is required by the body to facilitate sleep. - Exercise: Make sure to get at least an hour of exercise a day during the daytime this will ensure that you have high energy during the day, sleepy at night. Additionally make sure not to exercise 3 hours before going to bed. - Daytime Naps: Avoid sleeping during the day, this will make you feel tired and cause you to feel sleepy and drowsy at night. - Stress: Stress and tension in any form will prevent peaceful sleep. You can try techniques such as meditation and yoga to reduce anxiety, stress and worry. - Habit: One of the best answers to the question how to get to sleep quickly is to make sleeping a habit. If you can sleep at the same time and wake up at the same time for a period of three weeks, sleeping will become a habit. - Comfort: Make sure to wear comfortable clothing, find the perfect position on the bed to sleep peacefully. - Distractions: Do not watch TV or use the computer and avoid other such distractions for a minimum of 1 hour before sleeping. - Sleep Space Preparation: The area where you sleep is very important to achieve quality and peaceful sleep. The following factors should be considered in the sleep area: - Mattress: Choose a bed that will provide you with the best comfort. Whether it is soft, hard or a mixture of both, purchase the best quality mattress because it has a huge impact on the quality of sleep. - Room Temperature: Set the air conditioner to the perfect temperature that you like. The optimum temperature level is 16⁰C-18 ⁰C. - Surrounding Noise: Close all doors, windows of the room and consider soundproofing if required. Also ask family members to lower their sounds at night. - Lighting: Off all lights and make sure that the room is completely dark to sleep faster. Now that the question how to get to sleep has been answered. Let us take a look at the things to help you sleep. The Marpac SleepMate 980A device to help you sleep as seen on Amazon Various things to help you sleep: You can find a variety of things to help you sleep peacefully and things to induce sleep. Some of them are: - A cup of warm milk or tea with honey right before bed. - Foam Ear Plugs: If surrounding noise is a problem, then foam ear plugs are a cheap and easy option. They can be bought from anywhere and they will lower the noise levels of the environment. - Eye Masks: These will cut all lights by covering your eyes, thus even in a brightly lit room you can sleep in darkness. - Bath: A warm and relaxing bath will surely make you drowsy and induce sleep. - Sound Conditioners: These are electronic devices that will create their own sound to mask all other unwanted sounds. These devices will drown all the other sounds or at the least will filter the sounds to lower their level. Thus a peaceful surrounding environment will ensue. - Sleeping Pills: As a last and worst case scenario, you can contact you doctor for a prescription for sleeping pills. Marpac SleepMate 980A is one such sound conditioner which you can purchase to create a peaceful surrounding. A REVIEW of Marpac SleepMate 980A: Graph made from REVIEWS of Marpac SleepMate 980A on Amazon Marpac SleepMate 980A is a sleep conditioner that creates a smooth and consistent sound of rushing air that drowns out all surrounding noise thereby creating a peaceful and quite surrounding. In Amazon, the Marpac SleepMate 980A has gotten great reviews from the majority of people who have used it. Of the 1100 reviews only a hundred are below 3 stars, the rest 1000 are all above with 988 people giving it a 5 star rating! From my research I have come to the conclusion that everyone found the product to reduce the ambient noise of the surrounding but some people found the noise made by the machine itself to be annoying and this was the reason for the bad reviews. But the majority had no problem with the noise, so I would advise trying the product and then deciding. It is worth taking the risk since good quality peaceful sleep is a necessity for good health. Hopefully this article gave you a thorough answer on how to get to sleep quickly – happy sleeping!
The Earned Income Tax Credit is an IRS tax credit for taxpayers who earn lower than average wages. The tax credit is included in legislation to help support working individuals and families who pay, percentage-wise, more than higher wage earners. Your income will determine whether or not you qualify for the tax credit. However, if you also have a family, you may qualify with a higher income, too. To find out whether you qualify you need to file your tax return. Collect all the income documents related to your year-end wages. This is normally a W-2, if you work a traditional job, but it could also be 1099s (for miscellaneous work) or business bank statements if you are a business owner. Make sure you have documentation for all work in the past year. Collect all information related to your children, if applicable. The Earned Income Tax Credit is especially helpful for low-income families. You will need your children's full names, Social Security numbers and dates of birth. You will also need adoption or guardian papers if you adopted or took in a foster child. Add all income your earned in the previous year. This includes both your income and any other qualified wage-earner in the house, such as your spouse. Use the income limits chart in Resources to determine whether you are qualified for the tax credit. For example, if you and your spouse made $41,400 in 2009 and you have four children, you would qualify for at least a $5,657 tax credit as of June 2010. Fill out your 1040 tax return. If you fill out a 1040 online using the IRS or a private tax preparer, your tax credit will calculate automatically. If you file using a paper 1040 form, confirm your calculations with a certified public accountant. File your federal return. You will have two options. You can either collect your Earned Income Tax Credit in your federal tax refund, or you can apply the EITC toward the following year's taxes. - Year-end earnings statements (W-2s, 1099s) - Form 1040 - Information on children (ages, Social Security numbers) - tax forms image by Chad McDermott from Fotolia.com
Google has recently unveiled Media Tools, a new hub for journalists. The goal of this new initiative is to help members of the media make the most of the digital resources offered by the company. The site is divided into six categories. Each covers specific tools and includes advice on how to use them: - “Gather and Organize” – Search, Trends and Analytics, Consumer Surveys, Google Drive - “Engage” – Google+, Hangouts on Air, YouTube - “Visualize” – Google Maps, Crisis Map, Earth, Fusion Tables, Charts - “Publish” – News, Images, Analytics, Webmaster Central, Custom Search Engine - “Develop” – Google App Engine, Developers Live and Academy, Android developers, YouTube Partnerships, Google Web Toolkit - “Additional Resources” – Google Politics & Elections, Transparency Report, Google Crisis Response Whether it’s refining your advanced search capabilities, improving audience engagement through Google+, or learning how to visualize data using Google Maps, this website is intended to guide you through all the resources Google offers to journalists. (Source: Google Media Tools landing page)
Across the nation, federal, state, and city governments had assumed that rents would cover maintenance costs, but this was not the case. In Ward 6, unmaintained public housing projects were without heat (many families used kitchen ovens to heat their apartments) and functioning elevators, had collapsed roofs and ceilings, had broken sewage lines and flooded first floors, and other results of the lack of general maintenance. From 1979, the Marion Barry Administration made renovation of public housing a top priority. Throughout the 1980s, renovations were made through the city, but at a very slow rate, leaving people in horrible conditions. Public housing residents feared for the health and safety of themselves and their children. The lack of funds also meant a lack of security. Most public housing did not have functioning front doors or fences, which meant that anyone could enter their buildings anytime of day. At the 1200 Delaware Ave, SW building, there was "widespread fear among the tenants. This is apparently due to the fact that the building is totally open at all hours to anyone who wants to enter the building" (JA Wilson Papers, MS2190, Box 25, File 15). These outsiders continually broke all the lights, leaving residents in the dark. In 1988, Greenleaf residents in SW reported: At Greenleaf, front doors were installed for a brief period last summer, but then removed so they would not be vandalized. Security guards were hired for a brief period, but then left becuase they were unsafe without doors or a guard station...When residents met with Mr. Jackson about this, he said that residents had to take responsibility for reporting drug pushers before the Department would improve security. (JA Wilson papers, MS2190, Box 25, File 17)The city basically told residents that they would have to deal with the situation themselves. Residents across the city organized themselves. At Greenleaf public housing, a group of residents formed The Committee for the Betterment of 203 N St, SW and organized "Operation Fight Back" to drive out drug dealers in their building through regular resident patrols. A non-profit working with them asked the police for assistance in this terrifying endeavor: Can we have 24 hour police coverage for at least three weeks -- one week while we are patrolling the halls, and coverage later so there will not be retaliation?For those without the money to enter the private apartment market, public housing was all they had. There were thousands on the waiting lists for private apartment vouchers or other options. Yet, public housing is more than just housing. Public housing often provides community and social networks (and social capital) that poor people in particular need to survive. As one Potomac Garden resident told the Washington Post in 1983, "I like it here. I like the people. I don't like the problems. But the people are good people." Would four police be possible -- two for the front, two for the back?Could there be some undercover police? How can we be sure pushers won't hurt the children of residents who are patrolling? Is there some way the residents who are most active can have a call-in point, where they tell their whereabouts or where they are going?Is there any special equipment we need? What about walkie-talkies? What has been the experience of other neighborhoods who have tried to get rid of drugs? How did 14th Street get cleaned up?What other precautions should we take? (JA Wilson Papers, MS2190, Box 26, File 12) Many in the DC government sought to help and were successful in many cases in the late 1980s, but poor residents in general were abandoned to fend for themselves. The residents organized, but a basic level of security and maintenance would have helped them to realize their goals.
SEVERAL YEARS AGO, when I first began writing The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, I was taking a leap of faith—trusting that people of faith and conscience would have the same awakening I did, if they had access to the history and facts about the drug war and the myriad laws authorizing discrimination against people released from prison. I trusted people would begin to see the connections between slavery, Jim Crow, and the rise of mass incarceration in America. I clung to the belief that people could and would rise to the challenge presented by this paradoxical moment in U.S. history—a time when there are more African-American men under correctional control than were enslaved in 1850, and yet a black man is president. Take Action on This Issue I prayed, literally down on my knees, that if I could just finish the book, a seed would be planted next to the many other seeds of hope and justice; that people would begin to water these seeds; and that a vibrant, multi-ethnic movement for racial and social justice would emerge—a movement that would end not only mass incarceration but the cycle of caste creation in America. Many people, including a few of my closest mentors, called this foolishness. I was told I was “ruining my career” as a law professor, that I should stick to writing traditional law review articles and not marginalize myself as “some kind of radical.” I must admit that, after a while, I tried to quit writing the book. Writing it was so much more difficult than I had imagined; I started to think it wasn’t worth the effort. But the Spirit was working in my life in ways that I did not fully understand. Every time I told my husband that I was giving up, “for real this time,” a letter would show up from a prisoner or family member of someone released from prison, begging me to finish the book. I had given a few media interviews about my work-in-progress, and word had spread. One letter from someone trapped in the system began: “You’re probably thinking about quitting, as I’m sure many people are telling you not to write this book, but do it anyway. Do it for those of us who no longer have a voice.” I now see I would have been a fool not to finish. A faith-based movement to end mass incarceration has been born, and while my book may not have been the catalyst, it has become an important tool—one that would not have existed if I had not listened to the Spirit whispering in my ear. The Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference (SDPC), a network of several thousand progressive black churches, has launched a national campaign dubbed “To Be Free at Last.” The name recognizes the fact that Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream will not be realized so long as millions are locked up or relegated to a permanent second-class status—denied the right to vote, barred from juries, and legally discriminated against in employment, housing, education, and public benefits. The SDPC created a faith-based study guide for The New Jim Crow so church study groups can explore the connections between their spiritual beliefs, the crisis of mass incarceration, and the need to stand for justice. In a similar vein, The Veterans of Hope Project—through the leadership of Vincent Harding, one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s speechwriters—is creating an interfaith study guide for the book. Harding rightly sees the movement to end mass incarceration as an extension of earlier social justice movements’ spiritual commitment to the dignity, humanity, and value of all. PICO, the nation’s largest faith-based community organizing initiative, which represents more than a million families, has embraced ending mass incarceration among its core goals for its Lifelines to Healing Campaign. PICO recognizes that it is impossible to end the cycle of violence in urban communities without also ending the system of mass incarceration, a system that destroys families and eviscerates the hopes and life chances of millions of young people who are shuttled from decrepit, underfunded schools to brand new, high-tech prisons. Speaking to PICO’s national clergy gathering in November, I was blown away by their commitment to engaging ordinary folks, many with no prior organizing or political experience, in meaningful, collective action—acts of faith. Many people of faith have been working diligently for decades to reform the criminal justice system, some in prison ministries. No doubt many have been tempted to give up, wondering if real change was possible, or if their loved ones, locked in cages, would ever come home. This is not the time to give up. Listen to the whispers in the wind. Our time has come. In January, the United Methodist Church announced that its moral and spiritual commitments will not allow it to profit from the caging of human beings. UMC has divested from the largest private prison companies, Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group, and in the future will not invest in any corporation that has gross revenues of 10 percent or more from private prisons. Hopefully others will soon follow suit: No church, faith organization, or university in America should be profiting from prisons. Change is coming. Let us join together with the “fierce urgency of now” and build the movement of our dreams. Michelle Alexander is an associate professor at the Moritz College of Law and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University and author of The New Jim Crow.
Neptune Ring Arcs and Moons (Unannotated) This unannotated image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows five moons of Neptune, as well as ring arcs of the Neptunian ring system. Thalassa is the white dot on the left. Galatea, Despina and Larissa are the dots to the right. The faint dot in the upper right (above the three moons) is another moon of Neptune designated S/2004 N1. S/2004 N1 was discovered in July 2013 from images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope between the years 2004 to 2009.
Posted on December 24, 1999 at 07:58:04: Calling a letter he received from Governor Glendening December 23 “an early Christmas present for Southern Maryland farmers,” Maryland Senator Roy Dyson was cautiously optimistic that tobacco farming in Southern Maryland may not be dead after all. In the Governor’s letter, Glendening wrote to Dyson: “Thank you for bringing to my attention the research on genetically-modified tobacco being conducted by....[University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute (UMBI) in College Park]. I appreciate your ongoing interest in this issue and am certain that together, we can help tobacco farmers convert to alternative crops. My staff has reviewed the proposal by UMBI and believes that this is a fruitful endeavor.” The Biotechnology Institute is looking to remove the stigma of tobacco as a plant that produces unhealthy products such as cigarettes and turn it into one that is good for the environment and could also be used for medicinal purposes. “The University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute is conducting exciting new experiments with tobacco to produce heat enzymes for use in the production of ethanol fuels through biomass conversion,” Senator Dyson wrote the governor on December 5. “This genetically modified tobacco will provide heat stable enzymes for new industries, new agricultural and high technology jobs, preservation of rural land and sustainable farming and health benefits from cleaner burning fuels. “Imagine that -- tobacco products producing health benefits! “We’re finding out that this is a plant that for years has had untapped resources that can be used for the common good. It is after all, a most remarkable plant.” While throwing his initial support behind the UMBI project, Glendening made sure that he would not support the growing of tobacco for harmful purposes. “Provided such tobacco could never be used for cigarette, cigars or smokeless products, it is an avenue that should be considered for crop conversion program support,” Governor Glendening wrote Dyson. “This could be an 11th hour reprieve for our tobacco farmers from Governor Glendening,” Senator Dyson said. “His letter shows real support.” Senator Dyson wrote the governor on December 5 asking him to consider new, promising experiments conducted by the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute (UMBI) in College Park. The genetically altered tobacco would be rendered completely unable to be converted into a smoking product and would be used solely for the purposes I wrote to the governor about,” Dyson emphasized. “After the tobacco plant has been genetically altered, the potential for it to be also used as a smoking product will be impossible researchers assure me,” Senator Dyson said. The governor said he would direct Maryland Department of Agriculture Secretary Dr. Henry “Bud” Virts to gather further information about the UMBI experiments and to brief Glendening and Senator Dyson on what he finds out. Secretary Virts has already said he is deeply supportive of UMBI’s experiments and has passed his endorsement on to the governor.
Howie Richmond began working in the music business in 1935 as an intern for George Lottman, dean of Broadway press agents. Following this learning experience, Richmond set up his own press office, publicizing such soon-to-be legendary clients as Glenn Miller, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Shore, the Andrews Sisters, Woody Herman, Gene Krupa and bandleader, Larry Clinton. After serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II, Richmond worked for a time at The American Theater Wing. He then joined forces with Buddy Robbins operating Robbins Artist Bureau, a spin-off from parent company Robbins, Feist and Miller. Later, the firm was renamed American Artists Bureau and for a time represented the singer Sarah Vaughan, among others. Richmond decided to concentrate on music publishing and set up his own office, a one-room affair on West 57th Street, where Cromwell Music, his debut music publishing venture, first saw the light of day in 1949. Richmond was soon joined in the business by fellow song plugger, Al Brackman and Abe Olman, former head of Robbins, Feist and Miller. Working on the firm’s very first song, Richmond persuaded renowned bandleader Guy Lombardo to record the rhythm novelty, “Hop-Scotch Polka” for Decca Records. The record reached the number 16 slot on the best-selling charts. The tune was written by British music hall star, Billy Whitlock and Gene Rayburn with new lyrics by the American, Carl Sigman. The second song, “Music! Music! Music!” by Stephan Weiss and Bernie Baum and recorded by Teresa Brewer, brought Cromwell a number one hit only months after the company was founded. Songwriters soon flocked to the hot new publisher. With activities developing on many fronts, Richmond restructured his firm under the banner of The Richmond Organization (TRO). Mitch Miller and other top record producers turned to TRO for new material for their stable of recording artists hoping for the next big hit. In the 1950’s, the hits kept coming. “Goodnight, Irene” catapulted folk quartet, The Weavers, into stardom. Guy Mitchell’s recording of “The Roving Kind” was the next big success and when Phil Harris’ recording of “The Thing” topped the charts in December 1950, Howie Richmond was the hottest independent music publisher in the industry. One of the most important factors in Richmond’s early success was his unique style of song plugging and promotion which centered on radio exploitation via disc jockeys. While other music publishers plugged new songs via live performances, with recordings usually made after songs were established and on the best-selling sheet music charts, Richmond and company started songs on shellac singles and plugged them with disc jockeys in numerous cities until record sales took off. Airplay didn’t guarantee a hit, but it gave the song an immediate audience and TRO was able to witness many successes for its talented songwriters via the deejay network. Hot on the heels of his initial success, 1951 proved to be another banner year with Jimmy Rodgers hit rendition of “Kisses Sweeter Than Wine” and the Weavers’ “So Long It’s Been Good To Know Yuh” making the charts. Doris Day had a solid hit in 1952 with Oscar Brand’s catchy tune, “A Guy Is A Guy,” followed by Rosemary Clooney’s recording of “Botch-A-Me.” The decade played on with many more chart hits, including “I Believe,” “Anna,” “Band Of Gold” and “Tom Dooley.” With the momentum of TRO’s success in the United States, Richmond moved to set up international music publishing companies, hoping to develop new repertoire from every source possible. England was the first stop, with France, Italy and Germany to follow. By the early 1960’s, TRO had a presence in every major market around the world. The folk revival was sparked by the songs of The Weavers and the great reservoir of Lead Belly and Woody Guthrie songs. Richmond partnered with Pete Kameron, who was at the center of this exciting development and the folk catalog became the foundation for TRO's early acceptance and continued international success. Richmond acquired the vast catalog of Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly, who wrote hundreds of songs and attracted audiences with his powerful voice wherever he performed. Lead Belly’s songs were inspirational to young writers and musicians such as Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Oscar Brand. Over the years, Lead Belly’s music has become an important resource for many artists including the Beach Boys (“Cotton Fields”), Eric Clapton (“Alberta”) and Nirvana (“Where Did You Sleep Last Night”). Woody Guthrie, found a musical home at TRO. Richmond gave Guthrie a portable tape recorder which Guthrie used at home and wherever inspiration led him. His tapes often started with the phrase “Here’s another song for the Weavers”. While others were writing popular love songs, Guthrie wrote songs about common people and their struggles. “This Land Is Your Land”, “Deportee”, “So Long It’s Been Good To Know Yuh” and “Pastures Of Plenty” are only a few of the hundreds of songs Guthrie wrote. Less than a year after Gordon Jenkins’ arrangement of “Goodnight, Irene” reached number one, The Weavers’ meteoric rise to stardom ended. Their strong social and political beliefs resulted in blacklisting in 1951 as part of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Communist witch hunt. The Weavers waited five years before their triumphant return to Carnegie Hall in late 1955. The political activism of the Weavers, Woody Guthrie and others had already inspired the folk music revival lasting into the sixties. In 1954, Richmond teamed up with Bart Howard, who wrote “Fly Me To The Moon”. Originally titled “In Other Words”, the song was performed nightly in many New York cabarets. Soon after, a dozen artists including Portia Nelson, Kaye Ballard and Felicia Sanders had recorded it and at Peggy Lee’s suggestion, the title was changed to “Fly Me To The Moon.” Joe Harnell’s 1962 instrumental recording with the new bossa nova beat for Kapp Records produced immediate chart activity. The song quickly became TRO’s first classic pop standard. Over a thousand recordings have been made worldwide, most notably by Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Peggy Lee. In 1994, Bennett performed the tune live on MTV Unplugged, and to everybody’s surprise and delight, won over a whole new audience of young people. Over the years, “Fly Me To The Moon” has become one of his most requested songs. TRO expanded into the jazz field by signing pianist Bill Evans, who wrote “Waltz For Debby,” a standard performed and recorded by hundreds of singers and jazz instrumentalists. Richmond was always on the lookout for new and talented songwriters. He traveled overseas and worked closely with budding international songwriters like Tony Newley, Leslie Bricusse and Charles Aznavour, finding new and established artists to record their extensive repertoire. In 1960, London had become the new hot spot for popular music and Richmond was at the forefront. Musicals were the rage and TRO tapped the talents of Lionel Bart (Oliver!) whose output included show standards “Where Is Love?” and “As Long As He Needs Me” and Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley (Stop The World-I Want To Get Off and Roar Of The Greasepaint-The Smell Of The Crowd). Their memorable songs, “What Kind Of Fool Am I?” and “Who Can I Turn To (When Nobody Needs Me)” became hits for Newley, Sammy Davis Jr. and Tony Bennett. In 1964, Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray’s Broadway show High Spirits (based on Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit) opened and produced “You’d Better Love Me” introduced by Petula Clark. From France came the music of Charles Aznavour, whose 1969 hit song “Yesterday, When I Was Young,” (with a lyric by The United Kingdom’s Herbert Kretzmer) was recorded by country music artist Roy Clark and became a major international hit. Aznavour’s one-man shows continue to mesmerize audiences with appearances on Broadway and throughout the world. The sixties were a time of protest and “We Shall Overcome” became the rallying cry for the Civil Rights Movement. In tribute to the late Dr. Martin Luther King, TRO issued a special sheet music edition with Dr. King’s photograph on the cover. Other protest songs were also popularized, such as “If I Had A Hammer,” written by Lee Hays and Pete Seeger, which Trini Lopez and Peter, Paul and Mary recorded. Folk rock was born when the Byrds recorded Pete Seeger’s “Turn! Turn! Turn!” During this period, TRO had become the hub of an independent music publishing explosion. On both sides of the Atlantic, TRO was hot. When Paul McCartney was looking for a debut song for Apple Records in 1968, he remembered a live performance at the London nightclub Blue Angel by the American folk duo Gene and Francesca Raskin. Before long Mary Hopkin’s rendition of Gene Raskin’s “Those Were The Days” was on every radio play list around the world. TRO developed close and lasting relationships with many of the talented artists and songwriters. Notably, Shel Silverstein, a multi-talented artist, poet, playwright and songwriter. Silverstein, who early on penned “The Unicorn”, created such classics as “Cover Of The Rolling Stone” and “A Boy Named Sue.” Another was Anne Burt, wife of the late composer Al Burt who began The Alfred Burt Christmas Carols in the early forties as family greeting cards. Through the years the Burt Carols have been recorded by such stars as Nat King Cole and recently by pianist George Winston. Richmond was at the forefront of Skiffle music, a British interpretation of traditional American folk music, enjoyed major popularity in England in the mid-fifties and early sixties. Lonnie Donegan scored impressive hits with “Rock Island Line” and “Midnight Special” both songs identified with Lead Belly. With its vast folk repertoire as a vital source of music, TRO’s UK affiliate, Essex Music, attracted many young musicians, looking for new opportunities. In partnership with David Platz, Richmond’s Essex Music helped in the early development of The Who (“My Generation”), Procol Harum (“A Whiter Shade of Pale”), The Moody Blues (“Nights in White Satin”), T-Rex (“Bang a Gong”), David Bowie (’Space Oddity”), Joe Cocker (“Woman to Woman”) and Black Sabbath (“Iron Man”) among others. A spectacular brand of success came to Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon,” released in the USA in early 1973, and quickly rising to number one on the charts. The album remained on the Top 100 for a record 375 weeks and continues to this day on the Top Pop Catalog Album Chart, after an amazing 32 years. TRO was fortunate to work with Buck Ram on “Only You” and “Twilight Time” recorded by The Platters. Alec Wilder brought his standards to TRO, “I’ll Be Around,” “While We’re Young” and “It’s So Peaceful In The Country.” A little known but highly acclaimed children’s songbook Lullabies And Night Songs by Wilder and Engvick (with illustrations by Maurice Sendak) inspired Shawn Colvin to perform many of its songs in her 1998 Christmas recording Holiday Songs And Lullabies. Richmond recalled first hearing “September Song” performed by Walter Huston in 1938 in the musical Knickerbocker Holiday on Broadway. He never could have imagined Lotte Lenya, Kurt Weill’s widow, choosing him to be Weill’s American music publisher. Weill collaborated with many of America’s greatest lyricists of the time including Maxwell Anderson, Ira Gershwin, Alan Jay Lerner, Ogden Nash, Langston Hughes, Paul Green, Ann Ronell and Arnold Sundgaard. Even when the music wasn’t developed from manuscript, it found its way to TRO’s doorstep. In 1969, together with Johnny Mercer and Abe Olman, Richmond co-founded the National Academy of Popular Music and the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame to honor songwriters for their lifetime contributions to popular music. In 1983, Howie Richmond received the Songwriters Hall of Fame’s first ever Abe Olman Publisher of the Year Award. Richmond continues as Chairman of the Board of The Richmond Organization and The Essex Music Group, one of the largest and last remaining independent music publishing companies in the world. Johnny Mercer Award Abe Olman Publisher Award Howard S. Richmond Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award Howie Richmond Hitmaker Award Howie Richmond Hitmaker Award
Symptom: connections through SOCKS proxy fail when using multi interface - especially SOCKS4A. Problem: socket is being used by Curl_SOCKS4 before it is connected Solution: block on connect Seen on Windows. Patch to block on connect for SOCKS proxies See attached patch. Not all connections fail - some succeed. Your patch makes the connect phase blocking. I don't see why that is necessary. libcurl should simply proceed as usual until connected, why is using a (socks) proxy any different that any other proxy or connection? Better description of problem: I was seeing 75% of my Socks4a connections failing on setup with socket not connected. Now I see 0%. The flow I was seeing (before the patch) is the following: ConnectPlease calls Curl_connecthere which returns immediately in case of curl_multi, not waiting for connet to finish ConnectPlease calls Curl_SOCKS4 which (in the case of SOCKS4a) calls Curl_write_plain which calls send() which gets back socket is not connected The eventual solution is to make Curl_SOCKS support multi directly and not require blocking, but that will take a lot more time. In the meantime, there is bug on the known bugs list that says that curl blocks during proxy connect and multi, but it actually doesn't on Windows. Ah, yes thanks for clarifying! But instead of taking the route of making the behavior even more blocking, I would instead suggest that we make the socks proxy approach more similar to the http proxy one. It uses the asynch connection approch, so for the case when we use the multi interface and Curl_connecthost() doesn't complete the connect, we could instead make the socks negotiation magic get called when we reach the CURLM_STATE_PROTOCONNECT state in lib/multi.c. Wouldn't that work (better) you think? sorry, it should be at the CURLM_STATE_WAITCONNECT position, which happens at TCP connect Agree that not blocking would be the best solution but until that gets written, I suggest this patch as a stopgap. Since many SOCKS proxies are in the LAN i.e. low delay, blocking may not be that bad for the app. The current behavior is bad. Here are the states I see for SOCKS: - waiting for SOCKS connect - Send DNS request for final hostname (not 4a or 5_HOSTNAME) - waiting for DNS response - sending SOCKS request - waiting for SOCKS reply I suppose those states can get assigned states at the top level state machine or SOCKS could maintain its own substate under CURLM_STATE_WAITCONNECT. my take at doing the socks connect magic after the tcp connect Right, but my suggested approach is only a stop-gap take anyway, just less crude than yours. See my uploaded patch attempt for an explanation on what I mean. This approach waits for the TCP connect to be verified before it calls the socks-functions, and thus I hope it'll survive better. What do you think about this? I like your approach better. I will test it.
- Look hard enough, and you’ll find signs of hope - Following the trail of help to Haiti - ‘It’s a work of mercy to bury the dead’ - Suburban teen on mission to become a doctor - A window to unimaginable woe, hope - In Haiti, it’s one miserable place after another - He’s filling essential needs, one cargo container at a time - Haiti: Pockets of people fighting for a better world - Already alone, earthquake brought Haitian man friendship - Local ties in Haiti remain strong - This is one assignment that will stick with them - A newspaper that reports on your town, your world - ‘Sharing people’s misery and sorrow makes them stronger’ - ‘Haiti doesn’t need a hand out, it needs a hand up’ Updated: March 22, 2012 8:02AM Last month, a chartered DC-6 airplane flew 62,000 fish from Fort Pierce, Fla., to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Their destination? The Zanmi Beni Children’s Home in Port-au-Prince, where relief organization Operation Blessings International has built a new tilapia farm. The aquaculture facility aims to help feed its partnering children’s home while creating new industry and jobs. “All the fish in Haitian restaurants today is imported because the waters here have been overfished,” project coordinator Tim Morton said. “We wanted to create new opportunities for Haitians to eat locally grown fish, while also teaching them how to farm them.” The farm, which now consists of 25,000 fingerlings, is expected to have an estimated yearly output of up to 50,000 pounds, Morton said. It will help fund the children’s home, which provides rehabilitation therapy and assistance to special-needs kids, some of whom are live-in orphans; others are brought to the facility for care by their parents on a regular basis. The project challenges are incredible, but not insurmountable, Morton said. Supplies, particularly tools and parts, are difficult to find. The hot weather and rocky terrain also present obstacles. Morton said project workers also are mindful of the benefits of recycling, something Haitians embrace not because it is politically correct but because it is essential. Fish waste will fertilize the nearby gardens. Moringa trees will provide important shade and supplemental fish food. The grounds are an oasis of sorts, separated from the bustle and chaos of street traffic by just a 10-foot stone wall. Inside the iron gates, peacocks roam, chickens cluck and special-needs children find emotional relief through art and music. While Haitians learn the tilapia operation, another side industry is being cultivated: an ornamental fish hatchery. Boxes of angelfish, tiger barbs, swordtails and other freshwater aquarium fish also were flown down in the shipment. The plan is to create an ornamental aquarium industry. The Operation Blessings project is in conjunction with Haiti’s National School of Agriculture. The objective is to educate young Haitians in aquaculture techniques, leading to aqua skills training and jobs. Operation Blessings was founded in 1978 by philanthropist and businessman Pat Robertson. Under the direction of current president and CEO Bill Horan, the multimillion-dollar-a-year humanitarian organization provides disaster relief, medical aid, hunger relief and orphan care around the world. “This is so critical, so crucial, what this could provide to this country,” Morton said. “We’re deeply invested in Haiti. We’re here for the long haul.”
Learning a lesson of consistency; test scores are up in Boston, but some find district's approach to school reform a tight fit - When Thomas Payzant took over as superintendent of Boston Public Schools in 1995, he worried that some students were lucky enough to attend the "star schools," where the best teachers educated poor children with stunning success. But just some. He thought it wasn't enough to have a handful of schools and teachers beating the odds in struggling urban neighborhoods. He wanted to have a whole district that could do it. Payzant has come to epitomize a national movement that is also being felt in Milwaukee Public Schools and elsewhere. In the last decade, urban school reform has shifted from the notion of the valiant principal who revitalizes a school, but whose work cannot be duplicated, to focus on the heroic superintendent, often top-down in approach, who creates more consistent standards among schools. "There are a lot of stories about heroic and individual school change that are interesting but can't go to (large) scale," said Robert Felner, dean of the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Louisville. "You need something that is systemic, and that doesn't depend on the few heroic principals and the heavy lifting they are able to do despite the system." As school districts across the country, including MPS, experiment with school reform based at the system level, the experience and tensions in this New England city are instructive. The trick, in Boston and everywhere else, is to balance the more heavy-handed, top-down approach with a respect for the creative front-line skills of teachers and administrators. It's a delicate act: to become more consistent without becoming rigid; to be hierarchical without squashing grass-roots fervor; to elevate the worst schools without stifling the best. To pull it off requires nurturing what seem to be opposing philosophies, as articulated by Deborah Meier, who has started successful schools in Boston and New York, and Ellen Guiney, the executive director of the Boston Plan for Excellence and a big-time booster of Payzant. For Meier, education "is rocket science" that cannot be processed and packaged. She's not comfortable with what she perceives as a cookie-cutter approach to school reform. "Systems," she said, "want everyone to be alike." For Guiney, the classroom is not a place for individual experimentation. "I don't think innovation is what we need here," she said. "I know a lot of people think that is heresy. But education is like heart surgery. Do you want a heart surgeon to be innovative, to try something new?" Five years ago, South Boston High School, located in a working-class Irish neighborhood, was notorious for low performance and racial violence. Payzant divided South Boston into three separate schools, each housed on a different floor in the old building. Today, the three schools are slowly improving. "This is not just a restructuring exercise," said Payzant. "The reason we are betting so much on small is that it provides you with opportunities to do some things that being big does not." At Excel High School, which has the best test scores of the three small schools, scores in some subjects are on par with state averages. In 2004, for instance, 15 percent of Excel's 10th-graders failed the state's standardized math test, matching 15 percent of the state's 10th-graders. The challenge for Excel, and many other Boston schools, is to get more students out of the lowest passing category, the "needs improvement" designation. Rahshea Morgan, a 17-year-old who attends Excel, says she is glad the changes were made before she arrived. "They are more strict about us learning and making sure we are doing what we are supposed to do," she said. Her friend Shaneka Davis, 17, noted that her hardest class previously didn't exist. "This is the first year in South history that they have Advanced Placement English, so I guess the school is getting better." Now, several more high schools in Boston are being broken apart, some of them much more successful schools than South. And Boston is touted in education circles as an example of the incremental progress that accompanies stable leadership and systemic reform. Test scores have gradually improved districtwide, and the gap between city and state scores has narrowed. In 2001, 40 percent of Boston's 10th-graders failed the English language arts portion of the state's standardized test; by 2004 that figure had dropped to 25 percent. In math, the drop was from 47 percent to 27 percent. Payzant's unusually long tenure, made possible in part by a mayor-appointed school board, helped stabilize a district where school committee meetings were infamous for being raucous and unproductive. In October, the Council of the Great City Schools, which advocates for the country's largest, inner-city school districts, awarded Payzant its urban school leadership award, considered one of the highest honors in the field. In many respects, Payzant represents a more business-like approach to urban education, focusing on consistency, top-down decisions, and a relentless focus on standardized test scores. Critics charge that some key ingredients are noticeably absent - such as parent and community engagement. In Boston, the goal is for all algebra students to learn how to graph rational numbers on a number line on the same day. A few days later, the lesson will be dividing integers. Then, the students will learn how to find square roots. Mary Corkery, the math coach at West Roxbury High School, opens a thick book and points to the lessons that algebra teachers across the district are expected to follow. "There's a very strict scope and sequence that tells us where we should be basically every day," she says. Such consistency was not the case in the past, when decisions were left up to schools, or individual teachers. The theory is that urban children move around a lot and switch schools frequently - a factor that certainly is prevalent in Milwaukee. Therefore, it's best for every school to be on the same page. Literally. In Milwaukee, much of Superintendent William Andrekopoulos' approach is along the same lines as Payzant's, although not quite as extreme. He, too, emphasizes consistency between classrooms, smaller high schools, professional development and standardized testing. "The approach in the '90s was more laissez faire," Andrekopoulos said. "Now we are really zeroing down to make sure everyone is on the same page, using the same textbooks. There's more control from the district office in terms of what teaching and learning looks like." In many respects, the Boston experience shows that the skills of a strong system leader may be markedly different from those of a strong school leader. Consider Ed Donnelly, the assistant headmaster at West Roxbury High School, whose style is the opposite of Payzant's in some ways (even though he respects Payzant's reforms). Where Payzant is about consistency, priorities and following a system, Donnelly believes in flexibility, individuals, and creative multi-tasking. One morning, a scruffy looking 14-year-old named Briana wanders into Donnelly's office. She has been cutting the third and sixth periods of the day, claiming that she does it to go outside and smoke a cigarette. "I'm a good girl," Briana says. "Yeah. You just make bad decisions," Donnelly replies. "How many are you smoking a day?" "I'm trying to stop." "I didn't ask you that. I asked how many you smoked a day. There's no reason to miss two whole classes a day to smoke. If I let you smoke during homeroom, would you stop skipping?" "I don't like the teacher." "How can you not like her? She's like Bambi. She's like a crunchy granola person." Donnelly does some quick thinking. He remembers that Briana's older sister dropped out of high school. He senses that the 14-year-old - like many teen-agers - is short on attention span and cash. Instead of just lecturing Briana, Donnelly considers cutting her course load, figuring that she was skipping third and sixth periods because her mind wandered after a couple of hours of classes. He also calls a friend to get her a part-time job. "If you screw me and go out and have a cigarette, I will make your life miserable," he says, partly joking. His parting comment to the unkempt Briana: "Tie your shoes better so you don't twist an ankle." Students flock to Donnelly. His strategy is based on bending the rules, making snap decisions, and escaping the stiffness of the orthodoxy. Some fear that's not appreciated - or welcome - in the very deliberative and structured world of systematic reform. "I don't think (Payzant) is comfortable working out of the box," said Deborah Meier, who is famous nationally for creating strong schools in poor neighborhoods. Until recently, Meier ran Mission Hill School in Boston, a school with more autonomy than most. She is still involved with the school, but retired from her post as co-principal. The curriculum at Mission Hill is hands-on, distinctive and project-focused. The parents are required to volunteer at the school. Meier said she survived in Boston because she "changed the rules." Staffers in Boston's school administration criticize her for not attending mandatory meetings. Unlike Payzant, she looks down on consensus building. "Here, we confront issues early instead of pretending we all agree," she said. It's not just school leaders who raise questions about having such a rigid system. Some teachers feel as though Big Brother is watching over them. "There is completely no trust in teachers when they try to make it so prescripted," said one high school teacher, who asked that her name not be used because she feared job retribution. "If they want everyone to be on the same page, they should hire robots, not teachers." The teacher works at one of the small schools created as part of Boston's high-school reform effort. She said there is too much "teaching to the test," at the expense of finding creative ways to change students' attitudes toward education. "Getting kids to do their homework, raising the expectations, that has not been solved by the small-school model," she said. Payzant is undeterred. He said the standards-based movement - in which students are tested routinely to make sure they are all achieving the same set of core skills at the same time - "changed the way we think about the responsibility of public schools." Many say that change is rooted in the changing American economy, and the pressure of the global economy. Successful occupations for dropouts don't exist in the way they used to; if urban school systems ever could afford to fail, they definitely cannot today. "It used to be that you could have acceptable casualties in education who would not be casualties in society," Felner said. "But if you are a casualty in public education, the odds are you are not going to make it in society and democracy. The question everyone is asking: How do you re-engineer the school system to address this?" For someone such as Meier, any re-engineering cannot be legislated from the central office, and measured by a test. But for someone like Payzant, Felner's question is guiding the course of urban education. And if teachers have a particular approach outside the norm that works well on a particular lesson, they should share it - so that it can be implemented system-wide. Donnelly, at West Roxbury High School, describes the changes this way: "Since education started, if you had this amazing way of teaching the book `Billy Budd' by Herman Melville, no one could steal your idea. It was almost like copyright. Now, it's just the opposite. Now, you are asked to show that off. Your way of teaching is duplicated and celebrated now." Having said that, there may be less of a home in the future for the maverick principal or the renegade school that finds success through unorthodox means. In Boston, in Milwaukee, and in more and more districts across the country, the emphasis is clearly on the whole, not the parts.
Union fights for the working class September, 1899: Carpenters Local 599 formed February, 1950: Local 500 Women’s Auxiliary forms February, 1951: Current headquarters at 712 Highland St. opens September, 1960: Opened the Local 599 Credit Union October, 1961: Built Trade Winds on volunteer labor March, 1973: Northwest Indiana Apprentice Training School in Gary is opened. 1984: Local 599 Retirees’ Club started November, 1987: Mass march and picket of Amoco’s use of non-union labor October, 1996: Major labor rally at the Lake County Fairgrounds For more than 100 years the Northwest Indiana United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners Local 599 has been building the fabric of the region and improving the lives of its members. From infrastructure projects such as area highways and bridges to the public buildings where students learn and governments work, the union carpenters from Local 599 in Hammond have played their part in building Northwest Indiana. Retiree Harold Neil is part of that legacy. Neil has been a member of the carpenters union for more than 60 years following in his father’s footsteps. As Local 599’s historian, he has researched the local’s humble beginnings in 1899 and can recall more than six decades of its efforts from his own experience. “The thing I remember most of my early years in the local is how much members enjoyed coming for the meetings once a week to learn what was going on,” Neil said. Union leadership would provide details on what jobs were underway, what labor disputes were occurring and where people could find work. In those days members would gather at the union hall waiting for a call from a job supervisor that would put them to work. Making its mark Over the past century, Local 599 workers had their hand in building the fabric of the region, much of which is still used today, according to the local’s president, John Winarski. Local 599’s work can be seen in all of the massive bridgework in the region such as the Cline Avenue Bridge and the Borman Expressway. The foundations of many of the steel mills which formed a cornerstone of the region’s economy were built by Local 599 members. “It’s the work the average person will never see,” Neil said. All of the casinos on the lakefront and the marinas were the work of union carpenters. The local built most of the schools in the region and continues to do so today, providing labor for Lake Central High School, and the new Lowell and Hanover Central middle schools. Workers built the original Lake County Public Library on U.S. 30 in Merrillville and are performing the renovations today. “(Some of) these projects are so big and overwhelming, they could only be done with skilled trained labor,” Winarski said. Working class heroes While the physical work of the union can be seen in the roads and buildings around the region, the behind-the-scenes work the union has done to establish good wages, benefits and a safe workplace continue to benefit the working class today. The early days of the union were fraught with fighting for the rights of workers, establishing a good wage, health and life insurance benefits and improving the overall safety of the workplace. “This local, through the membership and leadership, fought for ideas of benefits, health care, pension and the credit union,” Neil said. From mass pickets and labor rallies, to lobbying for legislation that benefits workers, the union is behind the strides made for the working class. Neil described some of the early efforts of establishing benefits — which many of today’s union members take for granted — as a big fight, not only with employers and legislators, but with the union members themselves. At the time many members balked at pay check deductions for such benefits as pensions and health insurance. Neil said if the union did not prevail in establishing those benefits, things would be much different for workers and retirees today. A strong benefit package is one of the best things about belonging to the carpenters union, he said. “It all really began right here,” Neil said. Neil said the struggles to establish the benefit plan and the wage rate that keeps union members well paid and cared for is mostly forgotten by a lot of the members today. “It’s always been there, so they don’t know what it took to get it,” Winarski said. Those benefits have come back under attack when the Statehouse approved right-to-work legislation. “What people don’t understand is union labor isn’t about our money,” Winarski said. Non-union workers benefit from the efforts of the union as well. “We set the eight-hour work day, the 40-hour work week. We gauge what non-union workers get paid,” he said. Organized labor is also responsible for establishing safety standards in the workplace for all workers. Neil said the public has been convinced by anti-labor activists that organized labor is the enemy. That, both men say, is just not the case. They say they need their members to get active again and support the union’s efforts so no more ground for the working class is lost. “We do a lot not just for the union, but the working class period,” Winarski said. Provided by Custom Media Solutions for the United Brotherhood of Carpenters
On July 23, 2009, the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) received a complaint under state and federal special education law from XXXXX against the School District of Elmbrook. This is the departments decision regarding that complaint. The issues are whether the district, during the 2008-2009 school year: - properly responded to parental request for a special education evaluation; - properly applied eligibility criteria for other health impairment (OHI) and speech or language impairment during an evaluation of a child to determine a need for special education services; and - properly considered private evaluations provided by the childs parents in determining a childs eligibility for special education services. Referrals for special education evaluations must be in writing, include the name of the child, and the reasons the person making the referral believes the student is a student with a disability. Districts are responsible for informing parents about the districts referral and evaluation procedures. In November 2008, the parents met with district staff and expressed a desire to refer the child for special education services. In December 2008, the parents exchanged phone calls and left messages with a different staff member to request an evaluation for the student. District staff did not explain the districts referral procedures, including the requirement that referrals must be in writing. On January 9, 2009, the district began the paperwork to process the referral for the student. Although district staff ultimately initiated a referral for the student, the district failed to inform the parent about the districts referral procedures when the parent first contacted the district about a special education evaluation. Within 30 days, the district must convene an individualized education program (IEP) team meeting for the student to consider whether additional services are necessary as a result of this failure and submit the resulting paperwork to the department. Within 30 days, the district must submit proposed corrective action to ensure all staff appropriately inform parents about the districts referral and evaluation procedures. On April 24, 2009, the district conducted an IEP team meeting to consider the areas of speech or language impairment, emotional behavioral disability, specific learning disability, and OHI. The team determined the student was eligible for special education in the areas of speech or language impairment and emotional behavioral disability. There was proper documentation establishing eligibility. The district properly applied the eligibility criteria for a speech or language impairment during an evaluation of a child to determine a need for special education services. In evaluating each child with a disability, the evaluation must be sufficiently comprehensive to identify all of the childs special education and related services needs. During the April 2009 IEP team meeting, there was considerable disagreement over whether the student had additional needs as a result of OHI. The IEP team agreed the student has a chronic health condition, resulting in limited alertness, strength or vitality, but could not agree as to whether the students education performance was adversely affected as a result. On May 11, the district had an additional IEP meeting to develop the students IEP and determine placement. The IEP team could not reach an agreement as to whether there was additional special education and related services needs because of OHI, and, therefore, no decision was made, and no additional services were provided. The IEP team should work toward consensus, but consensus is not always possible. If the team cannot reach consensus, the school district has the ultimate responsibility to ensure the child receives free appropriate public education, a decision is made, the decision is properly documented, and the parents receive notice of the decision. Within 30 days, the district must conduct an IEP team meeting to determine whether the child has additional needs as a result of OHI, and, if so, to revise the IEP accordingly. The district must submit documentation to the department upon completion of this meeting. Once the district receives parental consent for evaluation, it has up to 60 calendar days to determine eligibility. Once the child is found eligible for special education and related services, the district must develop an IEP and determine placement within 30 calendar days. The parent signed consent for evaluation on February 23, 2009. The student was found eligible for special education on April 24. On May 27, the team developed an IEP and determined placement. The development of the IEP and placement determination took place 33 calendar days after the student was determined eligible for special education, which exceeds the required timelines. Within 30 days, the district must submit a proposed corrective action to ensure all staff understand and apply the required timelines related to eligibility determinations, IEP development, and placement determinations. In determining the students eligibility for special education, the IEP team must consider information about the student provided by the parents. On January 29, 2009, the parents provided two letters from private service providers who worked with the student. The parents and the district distributed this information to IEP team members and the contents of the letters were discussed at IEP team meetings on April 24 and May 11 to determine eligibility. Information from the letters was used to determine elements of the students evaluation for special education. The district properly considered private evaluations provided by the childs parents in determining the childs eligibility for special education services. All noncompliance identified above must be corrected as soon as possible, but in no case more than one year from the date of this decision. This concludes our review of this complaint. //signed CST 9/18/09 Carolyn Stanford Taylor Assistant State Superintendent Division for Learning Support: Equity and Advocacy
Statements about the independence legislation "Yesterday, Social Security turned 59 years old. Today, it is reborn as an independent agency. What a great birthday present for the American people. Mr. President, by making the Social Security Administration an independent agency, you are renewing the pledge made by Franklin Roosevelt in 1935--to 'give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-stricken old age.' . . Fifty-nine years from today we will look back at this day and know that our commitment to the American people has not faltered, but matured gracefully over the years." Secretary of Health & Human Services, Donna Shalala, 8/15/94 President, this bill comes to you from a unanimous Senate and a unanimous House of Representatives... There are 42 million people now receiving Social Security, and 135 million Americans pay into the fund. These are, in the truest sense, stockholders in this great enterprise, and they are entitled to the understanding that it is independent, vigilant and sound. This legislation, I believe, ensures this. . ." Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, (D-NY), Former Chairman, Senate Finance Committee, 8/15/94 independent Social Security Administration is the first step inrestoring public confidence in America's social security system. The new Social Security Administration will be a far more efficient, far more vigilant, and far more responsive agency for Oregonians and all Americans who depend on Social Security programs." Senator Bob Packwood (R-OR) Former Ranking Minority Member, Senate Finance Committee, 8/15/94 "Sixty years ago an infant was born here--Social Security. Today, it has become an independent institution. In all those 60 years, it has kept its word, it has kept to its mark, it is sound, it is solvent, it is independent, and it is as free as anything can be in a democratic society from political manipulation. And so we celebrate that. . ." Congressman Sam Gibbons (D-FL), Former Acting Chairman, HouseWays & Means Committee, 8/15/94 "I am extremely pleased to be here today, in support of the conference agreement... which represents the culmination of congressional action I helped initiate over a decade ago. Bringing soundness to the Social Security system has been one of my chief legislative priorities... We owe it not just to our senior citizens, but to our children and the obligations we leave them." Congressman Bill Archer (R-TX), Former Ranking Minority Member,House Ways & Means Committee, 08/11/94 "Now on this l1th day of August, 1994, A.D., the Liberty Bell can ring for the Social Security system. The House of Representatives, by what it is about to do, will take the final action in a 10-year effort ... to make a declaration of independence for the Social Security system." Congressman Andy Jacobs, (D-IN), Former Chairman, House SocialSecurity Subcommittee, 08/11/94 "I rise enthusiastically in support of (the independence legislation) and urge my colleagues to join me in once again approving this monumental piece of legislation to restore independence to the Social Security Administration." Congressman Jim Bunning (R-KY), Former Ranking Minority Member,House Social Security Subcommittee, 08/11/94
Genes influence a person’s appearance, characteristics and their susceptibility to disease. They can even help archaeologists identify long lost kings. Rapid advances in DNA sequencing are providing scientists with the ability to explore the human genome, or genetic code, in more detail. This is leading to new discoveries about the genetic causes of human disease and new ways to improve our health. See the scientists explain the science behind their exhibit in the video above, produced by students from Imperial College: Lin Lin Ginzberg and Chantal Chevailler How it works This exhibit demonstrates how the combination of expertise from science, technology, engineering and maths, utilising powerful computing, can uncover the changes in DNA that lead to a variety of human diseases. For example, the Cancer Genome Project compares DNA from tumour tissues to identify the changes that trigger the development of cancer. The UK10K project is sequencing 10,000 human genomes to identify the differences in DNA that can influence a person’s susceptibility to develop diseases such as obesity, autism, schizophrenia and heart disease. This technology can also be used to explore the genomes of other organisms, such as viruses, bacteria and parasites. Genomics is revolutionising our knowledge of pathogens that cause human diseases and identifying new targets for medical treatments. Genomics can now provide clinically relevant data quickly enough to assist in MRSA infection control and improve patient care in hospitals. It can also be used to map genetic variation and track the rise of drug resistant strains of diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis. But this ability to explores genomes faster and cheaper than ever also opens ethical questions. How should genetic information be used and who should be allowed to have access to it? Out Both Ends Game Play Out Both Ends, a biomedical puzzle game to identify a disease outbreak. Follow the instructions to install Unity web player (Windows or Mac OS X) if needed. You can play in full-screen mode by right-clicking in the game. Lead Image: Two girls in front of wall of DNA sequence
What happens when our religious freedoms are taken away? We’re seeing that begin to happen around the nation and around the world. Thankfully, we have a Savior who gives us true freedom. In our first segment, did you know that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a social conservative? At least that’s the way one of his surviving family members is characterizing him on the 25h anniversary of the holiday that bears his name. Dr. King,s nice, Dr. Alveda King, is the director of African American Outreach for Priests for Life. She says says advice columns her uncle wrote for Ebony magazine in 1957 and 1958 reveal a man who today would be regarded as a social conservative, and has a few thoughts to share about the big civil rights struggles of our day. - Alveda King on Michelle Obama and Ann Romney (illinoisreview.typepad.com) - Quotes: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (larahentz.wordpress.com) - ACLU spreading distorted definition of religious freedom (onenewsnow.com) - Americans stand again for religious freedom (onenewsnow.com) - If King were alive today - ‘Mrs. Obama Almost Makes You Forget That Her Husband Supports Killing Babies and Killing Natural Marriage. Almost…’ Says Alveda King (christiannewswire.com)
One of the most beautiful sights in all the night sky is the pairing of Venus and the crescent Moon. Venus looks like a brilliant white star, outshining all the other planets and stars in the night sky. And the crescent Moon is a thin sliver, although Earthshine allows us to see its entire disk. And the pairing is visible in the glow of twilight, adding some color to the scene. It’s a tableau that’s on display in the eastern sky early tomorrow. Venus will stand just below the Moon at first light. Venus is named for the goddess of beauty, and it’s a vision of loveliness in our sky. But Venus would not be a lovely place to visit. Its atmosphere is thick, hot, and toxic. Atmospheric pressure at the surface of Venus is about 90 times that here on Earth. That’s about the same as the pressure at a depth of 3,000 feet beneath the surface of the oceans on Earth — a pressure that only the sturdiest submersibles can withstand. And the temperatures on Venus hover around 860 degrees Fahrenheit, day and night. That’s hot enough to melt lead. So any shelter that humans might set up on Venus would need to be heavy, made of a material that wouldn’t melt or soften, and cooled enough to keep its inhabitants from roasting alive. That’s such a big challenge that engineers haven’t even begun to tackle it. So for now, we’ll have to keep appreciating Venus from afar. Script by Damond Benningfield, Copyright 2014 For more skywatching tips, astronomy news, and much more, read StarDate magazine.
Tuesday, 28 June 2011 Finland’s northernmost bear watching venues are in Kuusamo Lapland, in the deep forests close to the border to Russia. I will never forget the sight of the mighty brown bear in his natural environment. The bear’s are best sighted at night, so that is why the bright nights of Lapland serve very well in bear watching. I am told that it is 99% sure of seeing the fantastic brown bear during your visit to the wilds. Make sure to bring your camera and binoculars (there are a spar pair of binoculars at the hide), as the watch-out hides have large windows and provide a spectacular view of the wildlife. We started our wildlife experience by checking in to Isokenkäisten Klubi Wilderness Hotel Kortteeri. The wildlife guide met us at Isokenkäisten Klubi, we got a snack to bring to the watch-out hide. We will spend several hours watching nature’s own show in the light of the midnight sun. The last bit to the watch-out hide is done by foot. I had no thoughts of possible encounters with bears as we walked to the hide, I was enjoying the peaceful forest walk, we were asked to be quiet. That is the key: to be quiet, as bears will escape as soon as they sense humans nearby. The brown bear might look like a teddy bear, it has a round and a bit clumsy appearance, but it is a fast runner and a predator and like most animals, protective of its little ones. So it is wise to stay out of the way of the bears – stay safely in the watch-out hide. We had a nice show of five (yes indeed, FIVE) adult bears, the largest is about 100 kg, according to our guide. There were also a few White-tailed eagles; I was quite surprised to spot them here in the forests of Lapland as I thought they are coastal habitants. Apparently there are about 20 pairs of them here in Lapland, they live by large waterways and there is no lack of such in Kuusamo! Amazing! We all sat in silence, just watching these wild animals, listening to the sounds of the summer night. For many of us it was first time to see any wildlife in its natural environment. Shortly after midnight the wildlife had left us and we walked back to the car to return to Isokenkäisten Klubi. Even knowing that this walk is done safely every night during the summer season, I was looking around and hoping not to see anymore bears tonight. Actually, we had learnt during the night that silence is the most important factor in watching wildlife. Bears are shy of humans and will stay away if they can hear humans around. I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow and woke up to birds’ song late the next morning. Mmm, I look forward to a yummy breakfast and a large coffee on the terrace of Isokenkäisten Klubi. Actually, I enjoyed the peace and quiet so much, that I stayed one more night...
Mediaeval Studies is an interdisciplinary program encompassing all aspects of European culture from the fall of Rome to the fall of Constantinople, approximately 450 to 1450 AD. Through its courses in history, thought, literature and art, the Mediaeval Studies program offers students the opportunity to study subjects which are not only of value in their own right, but also sources of many things familiar to us, in a context sufficiently unfamiliar to expand our mental horizons and suggest new perspectives. St Michael's College has a long tradition of teaching and research in mediaeval disciplines, and its library has rich resources in the field. Mediaeval Studies may be taken as a minor, major, or specialist program. Mediaeval Studies is an undergraduate program only. Students in the Faculty of Arts and Science of the University of Toronto may enrol in the program at the end of their first year. All students in the Faculty of Arts and Science are welcome in the program and its individual courses. Why Mediaeval Studies The Specialist program, with its Latin requirements, is excellent preparation for graduate work at UofTs Centre for Medieval Studies. The interdisciplinary study of the European Middle Ages opens up other avenues as well. Like other mixed humanities programs (Classics, History, Languages), it can be a foundation for any career in which a critical memory of our cultural origins is valuable. It provides a particularly useful background for studies in law or theology, since the foundation of all our present-day legal systems ecclesiastical, common, and civil were laid in the Middle Ages. And those interested in pursuing theology should note that the mediaeval period is marked by the creation of a common theological inheritance that is, in a very real way, the foundation and starting point for all subsequent theological investigations. Mediaeval Studies Courses Include: Not all courses are offered every year \| See Mediaeval Studies Program Requirements and Courses - Mediaeval Civilization - The Early Mediaeval Tradition - The Later Mediaeval Tradition - The Middle Ages and the Movies - Viking Myths and Legends - King Arthur - The Mediaeval Book - Mediaeval Theology - Vernacular Literature of the Middle Ages - Mediaeval Law - The Monstrous Middle Ages - The Mediaeval Child - Mediaeval Latin Literature - The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages The program also includes relevant courses in other departments, e.g. History, Philosophy, Art, etc. Medieval Studies Undergraduate Society (MSUS) is a social and academic club dedicated to promoting enthusiasm for medieval studies at the University of Toronto. MSUS offers academic assistance and peer mentoring within the field of medieval studies and hosts campus-wide events such as an annual masquerade ball, seminars in medieval self-defence, medieval feasts, lectures, workshops and movie nights! University of Toronto students have the opportunity of applying for the third year Study Elsewhere program.
This charming little book is as ideal for Spanish-speaking children learning the alphabet as it is for English-speaking youngsters studying Spanish. Common, ready-to-color objects are paired with one of the 28 letters in the Spanish language it begins with, from avión (airplane) to zapatos (shoes). Plus, all translations — with gender-indicating articles included — appear in a glossary at the back of the book. \|Availability\|\|Usually ships in 24 to 48 hours\| \|Grade level\|\|3 - 5 (ages 8 - 11)\| \|Dimensions\|\|4 3/16 x 5 3/4\|
With this easy-to-follow guide, it's easy to master a host of mystifying maneuvers and clever conjurings. Includes clear diagrams and step-by-step instructions for performing 18 simple feats of prestidigitation: Strength Test, Untangled, Elastic Lock, Mystic Spinner, Rollaway, Heavyset, The Great Escape and many more, using such ordinary objects as coins, rubber bands and string. \|Availability\|\|Usually ships in 24 to 48 hours\| \|Grade level\|\|4 - 7 (ages 9 - 12)\| \|Dimensions\|\|8 1/2 x 11\|
The events surrounding the closing of the vast Cherkizovsky Market are fascinating. They present an intriguing illustration of the natural state in action, and the consequent intersection between the personal and the political. The New York Times has a story on the closing of the market that is worth reading. This paragraph was particularly illuminating: Government agencies quickly took up the theme of the market’s seedy side â€” which was hard to deny. The powerful director of the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor’s office, Aleksander Bastrykin, called the market a “hell-hole” that had become a “a state within a state” on the edge of Moscow. “It has its own police, its own customs service, its own courts, its own prosecutor and stand-alone infrastructure, including brothels,” he said. State-within-a-state. Bug or feature? ”Hell hole” or (relative) paradise? Well, it appears that the traders thought it pointless to rely on the officially constituted authorities for protection, or contract enforcement. So they created their own system of third party enforcement, much as did the operators of fairs in Medieval Europe. That is, the market not only served as a convenient way place for people to congregate to buy and sell, it also facilitated the creation of an institutional infrastructure to support trade–an infrastructure sadly lacking in Russia. No doubt this is one reason that it presented a daunting competitive challenge to more conventional Russian retailers and wholesalers; the traders’ costs were lower because they had a functioning system of third party enforcement conspicuously lacking in the formal economy. Thus, the market in a way was a living reproach to Russia’s institutional backwardness. Perhaps that is another reason it was the focus of such intense official antipathy and hostility. There are some other jewels in the article. Here’s one: Before the market was finally closed late last month, the authorities said that one in every 40 traders had an infectious disease like tuberculosis or syphilis. The authorities’ concern for public health is touching, and distinctly out of character. How come it seems that public health is trotted out as a justification for state action primarily when that action serves to protect some economic interest (e.g., the periodic rows over food safety with Poland, the US, and Belarus; the swine flu silliness; and now, the Market)? I am quite curious to know how the rate of infectious disease in the Market differs from the rate in Russia at large, and how many communities in Russia have similar rates of incidence. I am also curious to know the source of the 1 in 40 figure. From a purely scholarly perspective, it is very sad that the Cherkizovsky Market has closed. It would have provided a fascinating case study for institutional economists (and sociologists). A living laboratory to study the spontaneous evolution of self-enforcing rules and norms. I hope that before it closed, some enterprising Russian (or Central Asian, or Chinese) scholar had had the opportunity to study the market, its traders, the institutions that had developed, and the process of that evolution. Alas, that opportunity is now gone, another casualty of Putinism and the natural state.
This article from Der Speigel is a fascinating article on many levels. It describes how an environmental mandate-the German mandate to increase the power generated from renewables-is wreaking havoc on high tech German manufacturing: Sudden fluctuations in Germany’s power grid are causing major damage to a number of industrial companies. While many of them have responded by getting their own power generators and regulators to help minimize the risks, they warn that companies might be forced to leave if the government doesn’t deal with the issues fast. . . . . Behind this worry stands the transition to renewable energy laid out by Chancellor Angela Merkel last year in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Though the transition has been sluggish so far, Merkel set the ambitious goals of boosting renewable energy to 35 percent of total power consumption by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050 while phasing out all of Germany’s nuclear power reactors by 2022. The problem is that wind and solar farms just don’t deliver the same amount of continuous electricity compared with nuclear and gas-fired power plants. To match traditional energy sources, grid operators must be able to exactly predict how strong the wind will blow or the sun will shine. But such an exact prediction is difficult. Even when grid operators are off by just a few percentage points, voltage in the grid slackens. That has no affect on normal household appliances, such as vacuum cleaners and coffee machines. But for high-performance computers, for example, outages lasting even just a millisecond can quickly trigger system failures. One reason the story is interesting is that it demonstrates-as if further demonstration were needed-that regulatory Sorcerer’s Apprentices take (allegedly) well-intentioned actions that have perverse unanticipated consequences. Here the likely explanation is that said politicians and bureaucrats have a simplistic understanding of the industry they presume to regulate. They perceive that the output of the power industry has a single dimension-megawatts produced. They fail to understand that there are other economically crucial dimensions-such as voltage stability-so when they decree that Fraction X of Megawatts Shall Be Generated With Renewables, they fail to understand the implications of this decree for these other vital dimensions. Meaning that they underestimate the costs of their lofty dictates. (The electricity industry is particularly vulnerable to unintended consequences from attempts to structure it via legislation, cf. California. I wrote a book chapter some years back about the difficulties in choosing the balance between the invisible hand and the visible hand in power. The complexity of the power system, most notably the need to control its operation in real time, raises acute difficulties in relying solely on the invisible hand-the allocation of resources by price and contract-and makes it vulnerable to catastrophic consequences resulting from ill-considered interventions.) The other source of interest to me is the Coasean aspect of the story. Rather than a locomotive casting off sparks that sets farmers’ fields alight, here we have power generators producing random fluctuations in voltage that cause very sensitive-and expensive-machines to break down. So who is liable for this? That is a growing source of conflict in Germany: Although the moves being made by companies are helpful, they don’t solve all the problems. It’s still unclear who is liable when emergency measures fail. So far, grid operators have only been required to shoulder up to €5,000 of related company losses. Hydro Aluminum is demanding that its grid operator pay for incidents in excess of that amount. “The damages have already reached such a magnitude that we won’t be able to bear them in the long term,” the company says. Given the circumstances, Hydro Aluminum is asking the Federal Network Agency, whose responsibilities include regulating the electricity market, to set up a clearing house to mediate conflicts between companies and grid operators. Like a court, it would decide whether the company or the grid operator is financially liable for material damages and production losses. But, for now, agency head Jochen Homann wants nothing to do with the idea. He first plans to discuss the problem with experts and associations in detail. For companies like Hydro Aluminium, though, that process will probably take too long. It would just be too expensive for the company to build stand-alone emergency power supplies for all of its nine production sites in Germany, and its losses will be immense if a solution to the liability question cannot be found soon. “In the long run, if we can’t guarantee a stable grid, companies will leave (Germany),” says Pfeiffer, the CDU energy expert. “As a center of industry, we can’t afford that.” In a Coasean zero transactions cost world, the liability assignment doesn’t matter. So the situation in Germany raises the question of what are the transactions costs that preclude negotiations between power producers and power consumers that result in an efficient outcome. (I should actually say “constrained efficient”, the constraint being the renewables mandate, which is almost certainly not efficient.) There are only a few utilities to negotiate with, but there are many manufacturers adversely affected by the voltage variance. Can these manufacturers engage in collective action (through an industry association, for instance) to negotiate? Will free riders undercut these efforts? Are the affected firms too heterogeneous to engage in effective collective action? Does private information about value impede negotiation, either between the manufacturers and the utilities, or among the manufacturers in their attempt to organize collective action? One factor that affects value is the cost of mitigation. The article has some interesting detail about that: At other industrial companies, executives at the highest levels are also thinking about freeing themselves from Germany’s electricity grid to cushion the consequences of the country’s transition to renewable energy. Likewise, as more and more companies with sensitive control systems are securing production through batteries and generators, the companies that manufacture them are benefiting. “You can hardly find a company that isn’t worrying about its power supply,” said Joachim Pfeiffer, a parliamentarian and economic policy spokesman for the governing center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU). . . . . Even August Wagner, head of a textile firm with roughly 180 employees in Bavaria, is taking precautions against feared power interruptions. A stop in production would be catastrophic for him. “When we dye our materials, there are thousands of meters in the dye factory,” he said. “If the power goes out, all of the goods are lost, and we have huge losses.” Wagner now regulates the power supply of his production himself so that it doesn’t come to that point. What’s more, for a few months, he’s had an emergency power source standing in container next to the production facilities. Since then, other businesspeople in the area have been dropping by to take a look at his setup. Aurubis, a major copper producer and recycler in Hamburg, has also spent about €2 million to protect against unwanted power emergencies. “If grid stability doesn’t markedly improve, we’ll have to rely on emergency power supplies this and the coming winter,” the company say Presumably different companies, with different products and different technologies, incur different costs from a voltage fluctuation, and incur different costs to mitigate it. Moreover, they almost certainly have private information about these costs. Furthermore, utilities probably have private information about the costs they incur to address this problem. All the resulting heterogeneity and private information, combined with the free riding problems inherent in collective action, present challenges to private solutions to this problem. But they also present acute challenges to regulatory and legal solutions. Given information about the costs of voltage fluctuations, and the costs of mitigating them, one could theoretically design the right liability rule. But no one-not the politicians, not the regulators, and not the courts-have this information. All meaning that the resolution of this issue will probably be time consuming, and beset with errors and false starts. Especially when one considers the potential for political economy considerations to distort the process. So this will be interesting to watch going forward. A real world case study of how a big, heterogenous economy and polity deal with a (regulation-induced) technology shock that creates an “externality”. Pay attention, PhD students. There are thesis topics in there aplenty. Another unintended consequence, to be sure.
Satan is a source of fear (3:175). He uses fear to muddy our mental capacity and introduce doubt and hesitance to us. The result would be nothing but confusion, blurry vision, and inability to make the right decisions. Once we sense fear, we are in Satan's zone as easy targets for all forms of peer and social pressure. We compromise one or few of our Quranic values due to fear of rejection. The need of fitting in society and belonging to majority, irrespective of the cause, lead to violations. Our human weakness (4:28) and the huge gap between our Quranic ethics, as submitters, and the morality of the vast majority around us are catalysts for that. Fear: The Devil's Tool [3:175] It is the devil's system to instill fear into his subjects. Do not fear them and fear Me instead, if you are believers. [15:39] He said, "My Lord, since You have willed that I go astray, I will surely entice them on earth; I will send them all astray. [15:40] "Except those among Your worshipers who are devoted absolutely to You alone." Quranic knowledge, specially about our most ardent enemy (2:208), comes to our rescue from all forms of pressure. The more we worship and adhere to the teachings of Quran, the more we liberate our souls from fear. We become resistant to Satan, and we sense true strength, dignity, and serenity within ourselves that would eliminate any form of pressure. In Quran, God assures us that the ultimate victors in this life and in the Hereafter are those who know Him, love Him the most (2:165), and are certain about returning to Him (2:4) and about their accountability for everything they have done on earth (69:19-24). It is also stated by God as a matter of fact that those winners are always in the minority. He warned us that we should not get intimidated by the fact we are fewer in numbers. If we truly believe in God, we must believe His words and demonstrate our absolute trust in His promises even if we are a minority in a world full of chaos. [47:7] O you who believe, if you support GOD, He will support you, and strengthen your foothold. [3:150] GOD alone is your Lord and Master, and He is the best supporter. Guaranteed Victory; Here and Forever [40:51] Most assuredly, we will give victory to our messengers and to those who believe, both in this world and on the day the witnesses are summoned. The Ultimate Winners [28:83] We reserve the abode of the Hereafter for those who do not seek exaltation on earth, nor corruption. The ultimate victory belongs to the righteous. Guaranteed Victory [10:103] We ultimately save our messengers and those who believe. It is our immutable law that we save the believers. [5:100] Proclaim: "The bad and the good are not the same, even if the abundance of the bad may impress you. You shall reverence GOD, (even if you are in the minority) O you who possess intelligence, that you may succeed." The Majority of People Do Not Believe [12:103] Most people, no matter what you do, will not believe. [6:116] If you obey the majority of people on earth, they will divert you from the path of GOD. They follow only conjecture; they only guess. [3:160] If GOD supports you, none can defeat you. And if He abandons you, who else can support you? In GOD the believers shall trust. In Quran, God enlightens us through many examples of peer pressure. He has informed us about how our peers will always pressure us to let go of God's guidance and commit idol worship and how they will ridicule our faith. God's messengers and their believing communities have been mocked and persecuted throughout history. We must have an unshakable stand in the face of this social or peer pressure. Knowing the Quranic facts about the illusion of the material and social gains of this life helps us go through these tough situations. We are promised to be the ones who will rejoice eternally. Social Pressure: A Profound Disaster [29:25] He said, "You worship beside GOD powerless idols due to peer pressure, just to preserve some friendship among you in this worldly life. But then, on the Day of Resurrection, you will disown one another, and curse one another. Your destiny is Hell, wherein you cannot help one another." [4:89] They wish that you disbelieve as they have disbelieved, then you become equal. Do not consider them friends, unless they mobilize along with you in the cause of GOD. If they turn against you, you shall fight them, and you may kill them when you encounter them in war. You shall not accept them as friends, or allies. They Ridiculed the Believers [23:109] "A group of My servants used to say, `Our Lord, we have believed, so forgive us and shower us with mercy. Of all the merciful ones, You are the Most Merciful.' [23:110] "But you mocked and ridiculed them, to the extent that you forgot Me. You used to laugh at them. [23:111] "I have rewarded them today, in return for their steadfastness, by making them the winners." [83:29] The wicked used to laugh at those who believed. [83:30] When they passed by them, they used to poke fun. [83:31] When they got together with their people, they used to joke. [83:32] Whenever they saw them, they said, "These people are far astray! [83:33] "They have no such thing as (invisible) guards." [83:34] Today, those who believed are laughing at the disbelievers. [83:35] On luxurious furnishings they watch. [83:36] Most assuredly, the disbelievers are requited for what they did. All Messengers Must Be Ridiculed [13:32] Messengers before you have been ridiculed; I permitted the disbelievers to carry on, then I punished them. How terrible was My retribution! [85:10] Surely, those who persecute the believing men and women, then fail to repent, have incurred the retribution of Gehenna; they have incurred the retribution of burning. Traditions are also strongly used by Satan to pressure us to violate God's laws. We have to make a clear distinction between God's commands and any societal or cultural customs. Mixing up both is a very common practice that eventually leads to inventing new, man-made religions. Any inherited traditions that contradict God's laws must be discarded without the fear of being different. Examine All Inherited Information [7:28] They commit a gross sin, then say, "We found our parents doing this, and GOD has commanded us to do it." Say, "GOD never advocates sin. Are you saying about GOD what you do not know?" [54:3] They disbelieved, followed their opinions, and adhered to their old traditions. Inherited Traditions Condemned [43:22] The fact is that: they said, "We found our parents carrying on certain practices, and we are following in their footsteps." Choose Your Friends Carefully [5:77] Say, "O people of the scripture, do not transgress the limits of your religion beyond the truth, and do not follow the opinions of people who have gone astray, and have misled multitudes of people; they are far astray from the right path." [31:6] Among the people, there are those who uphold baseless Hadith, and thus divert others from the path of GOD without knowledge, and take it in vain. These have incurred a shameful retribution. Pleasing our families and friends or trying to fit into any specific group should never be at the expense of violating God's teachings and the moral standards He sets for us in the Quran, even if we end up as a minority. An example is given to us in the Quran indicating that Muhammad feared his traditions more than God. He was also enticed by Satan to join the crowd and discriminate among people based on their social status. He was corrected in Quran. On the other hand, Saaleh lost his popularity once he started preaching the message of God alone! He steadfastly persevered and debated with the disbelievers with great logic. Major Error Committed by Muhammad Muhammad the Man Disobeys Muhammad the Messenger [33:36] No believing man or believing woman, if GOD and His messenger issue any command, has any choice regarding that command. Anyone who disobeys GOD and His messenger has gone far astray. [33:37] Recall that you said to the one who was blessed by GOD, and blessed by you, "Keep your wife and reverence GOD," and you hid inside yourself what GOD wished to proclaim. Thus, you feared the people, when you were supposed to fear only GOD. When Zeid was completely through with his wife, we had you marry her, in order to establish the precedent that a man may marry the divorced wife of his adopted son. GOD's commands shall be done. [80:1] He (Muhammad) frowned and turned away. [80:2] When the blind man came to him. [80:3] How do you know? He may purify himself. [80:4] Or he may take heed, and benefit from the message. [80:5] As for the rich man. [80:6] You gave him your attention. [80:7] Even though you could not guarantee his salvation. [80:8] The one who came to you eagerly. [80:9] And is really reverent. [80:10] You ignored him. [80:11] Indeed, this is a reminder. [80:12] Whoever wills shall take heed. [11:62] They said, "O Saaleh, you used to be popular among us before this. Are you enjoining us from worshiping what our parents are worshiping? We are full of doubt concerning everything you have told us." The Disbelievers Always Losers [11:63] He said, "O my people, what if I have solid proof from my Lord, and mercy from Him? Who would support me against GOD, if I disobeyed Him? You can only augment my loss. God expects His servants to steadfastly persevere, trust in Him, set the moral standards of the Quran for everybody around them and feel confident and content being on God's path. They should never lower their wing to adopt values that contradict the Quran but rather stand strong and well-equipped with knowledge for others to catch up with their values. [11:11] As for those who steadfastly persevere, and lead a righteous life, they deserve forgiveness and a generous recompense. [19:65] The Lord of the heavens and the earth, and everything between them; you shall worship Him and steadfastly persevere in worshiping Him. Do you know of anyone who equals Him? [14:12] "Why should we not trust in GOD, when He has guided us in our paths? We will steadfastly persevere in the face of your persecution. In GOD all the trusters shall trust." Believers Versus Disbelievers (1) The Believers [13:19] Is one who recognizes that your Lord's revelations to you are the truth equal to one who is blind? Only those who possess intelligence will take heed. [13:20] They are the ones who fulfill their pledge to GOD, and do not violate the covenant. [13:21] They join what GOD has commanded to be joined, reverence their Lord, and fear the dreadful reckoning. [13:22] They steadfastly persevere in seeking their Lord, observe the Contact Prayers (Salat), spend from our provisions to them secretly and publicly, and counter evil with good. These have deserved the best abode. [29:43] We cite these examples for the people, and none appreciate them except the knowledgeable. On the Day of Judgment, those who used to pressure us and ridicule us will hope to join our camp or wish to go back to earth so they would make a better choice, follow our example, and side with us, the believing minority! The Worst Losers [57:13] On that day, the hypocrite men and women will say to those who believed, "Please allow us to absorb some of your light." It will be said, "Go back behind you, and seek light." A barrier will be set up between them, whose gate separates mercy on the inner side, from retribution on the outer side. [6:27] If only you could see them when they face the hellfire! They would say then, "Woe to us. Oh, we wish we could go back, and never reject our Lord's revelations, and join the believers." Peaceful Friday, salaam, and God bless.
House Democrats call on Interior to reform oversight & enforcement By Summit Voice SUMMIT COUNTY — A new report compiled by the Democratic minority membership of the House Natural Resources Committee suggests that the oil and gas drilling industry has run amok, primarily due to spotty enforcement of health and safety regulations. Committee Democrats said the Department of Interior must reform its oversight of drilling on public lands. Some companies started drilling before they had their final permits from the government. About 20 percent of the violations involved casing and cementing procedures intended to prevent leaks. In a letter accompanying the report, Reps. Edward Markey and Rush Holt asked Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to respond my March 9. The report highlights numerous violations during the past few years that posed risks to the health and safety of workers and the environment, including a 2008 well blowout in North Dakota that wasn’t reported to authorities immediately; an operator in Mississippi who did not install a blowout preventer or any other safety equipment to control the well in the event of a blowout; and an improper casing and cement job in Wyoming that led to leaks of water and gas through the cement of the well. The Interior Department collected less than $300,000 in fines during a 13-year period starting in the mid-1990s — a mere drop in the bucket compared to the enormous profits reported by oil and gas companies during that span. “It would be an overstatement to even call these fines a slap on the wrist. For oil and gas companies making billions from drilling on America’s public lands, this kind of inadequate oversight and enforcement is little more than a pin prick,” said Rep. Ed Markey, ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee. “This report indicates that confidence in the oversight of drilling on public lands should be limited, at best.” “It’s incomprehensible. In the past decade, oil and gas companies have committed thousands of drilling violations, yet they have faced a grand total of $300,000 in fines,” said Rep. Rush Holt, a New Jersey Democrat, “That’s roughly a single minute of oil company profits-the equivalent of levying a 10-cent fine against someone who earns $50,000 a year. Can anyone seriously argue that these fines are sufficient to deter wrongdoing or that they reflect the very real risks that drilling poses to the environment and public health?” Between 1998 to 2011, the Department of Interior found more than two thousand violation by oil and gas companies drilling on taxpayer-owned lands. Some were issued to companies for not installing blowout preventers. Some were for poorly protecting the walls of the well from potentially leaking gas, oil or fluids. In dozens of cases, oil and gas companies even started to drill on federal lands before their permit was fully approved. The report found that the total amount of fines issued for these years of violations to more than 300 companies in 17 states that put the health of workers, drinking water and taxpayer land at risk was only $273,875 — a tiny amount in relationship to the huge profits oil and gas companies make from drilling on public lands. Major findings of the report include: - There were a total of 2,025 safety and drilling violations that were issued to 335 companies drilling in seventeen states between February 1998 and February 2011, 549 of which were classified as “major” by committee staff. - DOI issues fines in an inconsistent manner, sometimes issuing monetary penalties to one company for a violation, and then does not do so with a second company for an identical violation. - In fifty-four instances, operators were given written citations because they began drilling on federal lands before the permit to drill was fully processed and approved. - Of the major violations, 53 percent (293 of 549 violations) were related to non-functional blowout preventers. - Twenty-one percent (113 of 549) major environmental or safety violations were issued because of deficiencies in casing and cementing programs. Appropriate casing and cementing is the first line of defense in protecting underground sources of drinking water. - Only 125 (six percent) of all the violations were levied a monetary fine. Although the violations that occurred were spread across 17 states, violators in eight states (AK, AR, LA, ND, NV, OH, SD, and WV) were never issued a monetary fine of any amount during the entire period examined. Due to the findings of the report, Reps. Markey and Holt today transmitted the analysis to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar asking him to reform and enhance his agency’s oversight of drilling on federal lands. The letter from Reps. Markey and Holt to Secretary Salazar can be found HERE. “As industry expands the use of hydraulic fracturing to tap into more oil and gas reserves across the nation, including on federal lands, it is imperative that the process is performed in a safe and environmentally sound manner that protect surface and subsurface resources,” write the two Congressmen to Salazar. “A strong and consistent approach to oversight and enforcement of drilling practices on federal lands is important in advancing that goal.” Filed under: Colorado, energy, Environment, gas drilling, oil drilling, Summit County news Tagged: \| Ed Markey, energy, Environment, gas drilling, Ken Salazar, oil drilling, United States House Committee on Natural Resources
An upfront deposit or retainer is a liability on your books even though you deposit the funds into your checking account. You should not record it as income when you get it. Note: Law firms might also use trust accounts to hold client funds. The difference is that with trust accounts, you must set up a separate bank account to hold your client's funds. Be sure to always follow the rules of your state regarding the professional and ethical conduct for handling client funds. Failure to abide by those rules and practices could result in administrative, civil, or criminal sanctions. Create a liability account for your upfront deposits or retainers. Create an upfront deposit or Record the upfront deposit or retainer as a liability. Apply the upfront deposit or retainer to an invoice. (Optional) Handle the upfront deposit or retainer for a cancelled job. Upfront deposit or retainer customer retention or retainage
Modadugu Gupta has spent 30 years creating a cheap and ecologically sustainable system of small-scale fish-farming using abandoned ditches and seasonally flooded fields and water holes smaller than the average swimming pool.This reminds me a bit of Louisiana rice farmers' introduction of crawfish into their flooded rice fields several decades ago. I'd be delighted if someone would further elaborate the "ecologically sustainable" element of this system -- on the surface, it sure seems like a winner... Thanks to my Dad for bringing this one to my attention (BTW -- Mom and Dad are back in Lake Charles, where the power is on...) The small ponds become tiny food factories, churning out protein and income for more than 1 million families in Southern and Southeast Asia and Africa. Gupta's work has multiplied freshwater fish production in those countries by three to five times, says Kenneth Quinn, president of the World Food Prize Foundation. In wet, low-lying countries such as Bangladesh and Laos, farmers routinely excavate soil to raise the level of their houses. This creates small ponds that fill with water in the rainy season. Roads also are built up with nearby soil, creating long, narrow ponds along roadways that can be used as fish farms. The farmers, most of them poor women and landless farmers, typically raise as few as 200 fish, feeding the carp and tilapia farm waste such as rice and wheat bran. This creates high-protein food for their families and a cash crop for their financial needs. UPDATE: Along the same lines, the Environmental Law Professor Blog points to an article from Science on making aquaculture more sustainable. Categories: food, prize, agriculture, fish, sustainable, innovation
IT Trends: Content Management Apr 1, 2006 12:00 PM, By Brent Harshbarger With changing data flow, flexibility is key to integration. Back in the '70s, they put a new identification plaque on the door of one of my favorite rooms at school. Three simple letters, IMC (standing for Instructional Media Center), replaced the name “library.” The IMC was no longer just a place to get books. It now included media items such as round, black vinyl disks called records, albums, or LPs. You could get films, film projectors, and filmstrip. The IMC also had microfiche to look up old magazine articles, and a real card catalog to find all of this cool media. Today, these devices have been replaced by .mp3, .pdf, .wav, .fla, .wmf, .avi, .ppt, and several other file types that make up our media. It is easier to create, edit, copy, transport, and present content than ever before; in some ways, it is getting easier every day — with the exception of the current state of digital rights management (DRM). The lines between specific physical media types are becoming more blurred every day. Books are becoming soft: You can download them from the Internet, and newer books include animations for illustrations. The local record shop has almost become extinct because you can search and download music from the Internet. Television networks are now adding their content to the Internet, creating new business models to retain viewers as more and more people shift from a discrete box like a TV to a network-based digital media system. The lines between computer technology and traditional AV have been crossed, and traditional AV is fast disappearing. After all, where would we be without our MP3 players, DVRs, and other digital devices? The changes in the past five years have been extreme. Has the AV industry kept up? In many ways, no: We tend to think of devices and system management as discrete system components. Media Retrieval Systems (MRSs) are still largely digital control of a discrete device, and the IMC card catalog is largely still a separate system to the media, meaning you can do a search for the media, but more than likely you still have to physically walk somewhere to get it, or take additional steps to consume it from the search. In a lot of ways, Google is trying to resolve this search issue, but not all archives, libraries, and media centers are open to the public. This is where the AV contractor of today can cultivate new business from current clients and add some new clients through closing the gaps with content management. MEDIA OR ASSET? There are two types of content management to consider for this discussion: media management and asset management. Media management deals with content and is defined by the equation content = essence + metadata. Essence represents video, audio, graphics, data, and images, and metadata represents information about the essence. Metadata is where the management information resides. Asset management is defined by the equation asset = content + rights. We have the definition for content already, so that leaves us with rights. Rights are the details of patent, copyright, or intellectual property and its usage. Educators will be primarily interested in media management; whereas, broadcasters and those with commercial concerns will be interested in asset management. Corporate marketing departments require a significant amount of asset management. They have to manage white papers, brochures, logos, advertising, and a host of other elements from a creation, editing, and distribution standpoint, but they need to archive it for historical and legal reasons, as well. Many corporations are converting their old analog content to digital for the benefits of easy search and retrieval from archive information and assets. The need to convert analog assets to digital requires ingest stations and modern databases to catalog the information. But these systems must support the growing need for Intranet access to all of the material. Metadata is the key to this solution. Most of the metadata schemes today are based on XML. The two media most popular with our industry are MXF and AAF because they were not only developed by our industry, they also share a common data model. DRM IN THE REAL WORLD The Adobe acquisition of Macromedia should provide a great deal of benefit in media and asset management in the future. However, DRM is still somewhat complicated, which should translate into dollars for you from all of the opportunities to resolve these issues for the customer and getting DRM vendors to be more consumer friendly. Here is an example: I was recently doing some research and needed some information, so I found a book and downloaded the electronic version at my office. I needed to continue working on it at home, so I emailed the PDF to myself to download on my computer at home. However, when I downloaded the file at home, I found it required that I sign into .NET Passport. The only problem was that I had to first authenticate my file via .NET Passport on the computer it was originally downloaded to, which was 30 miles away. You can see that this was going to take more effort than it really should. DRM is very important to the holder of the asset, so we will see more of the technology than less of it. Therefore, as you build media systems or digital media centers for education and corporations, you will need to become very astute to these technologies and their uses. You will need knowledge and tools for DRM systems from Adobe, Microsoft, and Macrovision. The opportunity for system integrators is now to do more soft integration — making the media database more usable by providing a means to ingest older technology, cataloging all media into central depository (yet making it flexible for the client to consume it in an interactive way), and keeping assets protected. The basic building blocks for this type of system are ingest stations, database or media/asset management systems, storage, servers, computer networks, and user interfaces. In the education and business world, Smart Boards with projectors are becoming the interface of choice. However, the experience for the user will be determined by how easily media can be searched, accessed, and incorporated with other media. The trend of moving discrete systems into a single digital media system continues. Simplifying discrete systems into a single digital architecture reduces cabling cost and hardware integration complexity, and provides a more flexible and fluid experience for the user. This can be accomplished by focusing on storage and database technologies built on XML technologies including MFX, AAF, MPEG-7, and MPEG-21, and the related asset management technologies will provide the foundation on which you can build your current and future business. The equations for media and asset management in this article are courtesy File Interchange Handbook: For images audio and metadata, by Brad Gilmer, editor in chief © Focal Press 2004. Acceptable Use Policy blog comments powered by Disqus
U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE Washington, DC 20590 Road Safety Audits (RSAs) are an effective tool for proactively improving the future safety performance of a road project during the planning and design stages, and for identifying safety issues in existing transportation facilities. To demonstrate the usefulness and effectiveness of RSAs for tribal road agencies, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Office of Safety and Office of Federal Lands sponsored a series of four tribal RSAs. The results of the tribal RSAs have been compiled in this case studies document. Each case study includes photographs, a project description, a summary of key findings, and the lessons learned. The aim of this document is to provide tribal governments with examples and advice that can assist them in implementing RSAs in their own jurisdictions. Questions? Contact Heather Rigdon at Heather.Rigdon.firstname.lastname@example.org.

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