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- A vote next week could be the next step forward for a fast moving mining bill.
Committees in both the state Senate and Assembly plan to meet next Wednesday to take up the bill.
The committee vote is planned just two weeks after a 12-hour public hearing on the measure.
The bill would ease environmental protections to make it easier for an iron ore mine to open in Ashland and Iron counties.
Republicans -who control the Legislature-- have said they want to pass the bill quickly to help promote job creation.
They say the scheduling of the committee executive sessions is a sign of that urgency.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said he hopes to have the full Senate vote on the bill around March 5th.
Democrats have proposed their own measure, which keeps the environmental protections.
(Copyright 2013 Associated Press - All Rights Reserved)
Story By: Associated Press
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How many years will it take the typical Gen - X, Y, Z'er to realize that the diversity mantra preached to them since Kindergarten does little to alleviate inequality in American society ? We are more unequal in terms of income than at any time in the last century. The model of a multi-cultural and diverse society of capitalists is not Left and it's time the Left stop pretending it is so. Almost no one is pro-racism anymore, and the Establishment hasn't been for decades. Capitalism is about selling to anyone, at any time; it has an international push by definition, and racism really doesn't fit in with that. The bourgeoisie incorporated the critiques of the past, adapted, and it's time for left-oriented folks to push for more.
from Emmanuel Saenz, "Income Inequality in the United States"; Updated to 2007 (2009)1
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Music award, gold record, 'I Just Want to Be Your Everything' by Andy Gibb, laminated board / metal / paper, made and used by Festival Records, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 1978
This award has significance as an illustration of the Festival Records success in generating sales of Australian artists who recorded for locally-owned independent labels. Usually these independent labels contracted and recorded the artists while Festival manufactured the records and handled their distribution, promotion and marketing.
ATA was an important independent label aligned with Festival. Founded in 1966 by Col Joye and his brother Kevin Jacobsen, ATA became home to members of the 'Bandstand family', including Judy Stone and Sandy Scott. Col Joye had a huge comeback hit on ATA in 1973 with 'Heaven is my Woman's Love'. Little Pattie recorded for ATA throughout the 1970s.
Like his older brothers the Bee Gees, Andy Gibb's recording career began when Col Joye saw his potential. In fact Joye produced Andy's first single 'Words and Music'. After an apprenticeship in the pub venues of Australia, Andy Gibb signed with Robert Stigwood's RSO label. He recorded his first album in Miami with Barry Gibb. In Australia his records were licensed to the ATA label, manufactured and distributed by Festival. The single 'I Just Want to be Your Everything' was awarded gold record status in 1978.
Festival Records manufactured vinyl discs in Sydney for 40 years. At the height of production in the 1980s Festival's factory was buzzing with 26 record presses pumping out 25,000 records per day. In addition there was a cassette duplicating plant, an art department, a printing department for album covers, plus a huge warehouse for packing and distribution.
Festival Records provided a home to a vast array of musical styles and many independent labels, not readily identified with the Festival brand. For over fifty years its existence as a major independent record company, competing with the multinationals, helped to create a healthy environment for Australian music.
The first gold record awards were presented by American record companies to their artists to acknowledge sales of 1,000,000 records. Various measurements have been used at different times around the world for album and single awards. Some were based on the value of retail sales and others on units sold. The Recording Industry Association of America established a standard for an official gold record in 1958. This was based on wholesale shipments to retail outlets, rather than actual retail sales. Australia follows a similar system. In Australia ARIA awards gold records for 35 000 sales and platinum records for 70 000 sales.
Made by Festival Records at their factory in Miller St Pyrmont.
When Festival Records prepared gold and platinum awards to present to its recording artists, the company sometimes made duplicates to display in the board room and the reception area of its premises. This award was also displayed in the Museum's exhibition 'Spinning Around: 50 Years of Festival Records', from 2001 to 2003.
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| 0.966545 | 607 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Although there are dozens of open source licenses, there is a general consensus in the IT community that the GNU General Public License (GPL) is the most appropriate for enterprise software development. Recently, however, Sun Microsystems has muddied the already murky waters of open source licensing with its Common Development and Distribution License, version one. In this face-off challenge, IT book authors and consultants Paul Murphy and Bernard Golden take different sides in the GPL versus CDDL debate. After reading both cases, be sure to use our 'Sound Off!' feature to make your opinions known.
Open source with IP protection: Have it both ways with Sun's CDDL
By Paul Murphy
Sun has been talking about OpenSolaris for some time and has actually made Dtrace source available as a first step toward opening all of Solaris 10. That's a great step forward for them, but the question for the rest of us is where to place our bets now that all three Unix genres: BSD, Linux, and Solaris will soon be fully open source productions.
Since the right answer depends on who you are, what you do with Unix, and what you believe is coming next, it's obvious that no single answer is appropriate for everyone. There is, however, a business consideration that does apply to just about every developer outside the computing research and defense sectors. That consideration derives from what Sun is doing with licensing. The whole
What's on the virtual mantelpiece is an anti-patent litigation condition, while what's missing is a GPL like a "viral" component affecting intellectual property. The operative section for the former is, of course, written in the usual turgid legalese. We'll have to wait until this is tested in the courts to really know for sure; but section 6.2, in particular, seems to make the intent clear. Here's an extract with much of the convolution choped out:
"If you assert a patent infringement claim... alleging that the Participant Software... directly or indirectly infringes any patent, then any and all rights granted directly or indirectly to You by such Participant... shall, upon 60 days notice from Participant terminate."
So, this clause is saying that you can't play in the CDDL community and sue other members at the same time. On the other hand, section two of the GPL says: "You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.'
That clause is functionally missing from the CDDL. In other words, a CDDL developer can have it both ways: working within the open source community while retaining full control of intellectual property.
From a developer perspective, there is one other consideration that makes the Linux versus Solaris decision an easy one: Solaris runs Linux code unmodified -meaning that choosing to develop under the CDDL on Solaris not only gets you access to the SPARC market, but lets you provide both run-time and source support for Linux from the same code base.
So what does a Solaris CDDL developer get: a bigger market, a unified code base, intellectual property protection, some protection from patent infringement claims, and all the benefits of the open source review process. Is that a no brainer, or what?
Why use the Sun CDDL driver's license?
By Bernard Golden
The Sun CDDL open source license looks good at first glance, but is it the big bang that will spawn the creation of an open source Sun community? I don't think so, but readers of Paul Murphy's article on CDDL will see that he does. Let's take a look at his argument and see if it holds water.
Murphy analyzes the Sun CDDL open source license (under which Sun's open source Solaris will be released) and concludes it offers a more attractive opportunity for developers than does Linux. His argument goes something like this:
- If a company using CDDL-licensed Solaris asserts a patent infringement against someone else using open source Solaris, the company forfeits its right to use Solaris. This is a positive, since it offers the using company protection against infringement suits because a patent holder will be unlikely to sue someone if it means giving up the right to use the software.
- The CDDL license does not call for user extensions to the Solaris code base to be made available to the larger community but may be held as proprietary intellectual property. In this way, the CDDL license more closely resembles Berkeley-style licenses which enable organizations to utilize the open source code as the basis for a proprietary product.
- Solaris will run Linux applications natively. Therefore, if you write a Linux app, you have access to a larger market, since it may also be used by Solaris users.
- You gain all the benefits of the open source review process. I'm not sure what this means; perhaps it is a reference to the fact that because the product community can examine the source code, higher quality products may result.
While all of his points make sense, I don't necessarily see how they'll motivate individuals to get involved with open source Solaris and thereby build a Solaris community -- which is the key achievement Sun needs to make the whole effort worthwhile. After all, Sun is having their lunch eaten by customers turning to Linux, so they need to figure out a way to remain relevant to open source-oriented users.
Let's look at each of these points in turn:
- So, a CDDL user would forfeit Solaris access if he or she brings a patent infringement action. This is a good thing. With the cloud of patent litigation hanging over the open source world, a license condition like this might dissuade an organization from pursuing litigation.
This CDDL requirement reminds me of the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) nuclear strategy that the US pursued during the Cold War, in which aggressors were motivated to avoid attacking by the knowledge that their societies would be destroyed in return.
On the other hand, I don't know how much this will mean to potential users in the real world. After all, a company that is going to pursue a patent litigation effort is hardly likely to be an open source consumer, is it? I don't see this significantly helping to build a Solaris community.
- CDDL does not require reciprocity of source code release. You can argue this one both ways. Berkeley-style licenses don't require releasing code modifications, while GPL-style licenses do. The *BSD Unix variants, which utilize Berkeley licenses are losing out to Linux in terms of adoption, so it's hard to argue that CDDL adopting this approach will build community.
In any case, the main point of Berkeley-style licenses is to enable companies to build businesses based on converting the open source code base to a proprietary product, which I am sure is not Sun's goal for Solaris. It's not clear this provision will help build a community.
- Solaris will run Linux apps natively. Anyone with a few years in the industry remembers this one from the first time around: OS/2: a better Windows than Windows. Sun won't be any more successful than IBM was with this approach.
- Open sourcing Solaris gives the benefit of the higher quality products that open source offers. True, but, again, how does this build a Solaris-specific community?
Sun has been too clever by half in their open sourcing of Solaris. They desperately need to build a vibrant user community for the OS, but creating a new license does not help that effort. They will spend the next year explaining it to puzzled users, who will be trying to understand what open source Solaris is, rather than building new apps for it. For a community that already is unhappy with the semi-open Java product, the CDDL is Act II.
I think Sun is in for a very disappointing experience with the CDDL. They haven't really provided any compelling reason to begin working with open source Solaris, and it's unlikely that people using or considering using Linux are going to change their mind. Open sourcing Solaris may appeal to the ever-shrinking band of committed Solaris users, but Sun is going to have to do better if it wants to regain its tech heavyweight crown.About the authors: Bernard Golden is CEO of Navica Inc., a systems integrator based in San Carlos, Calif. He is the author of Succeeding with Open Source (Addison-Wesley, August 2004) and the creator of the Open Source Maturity Model (OSMM), a formalized method of locating, assessing, and implementing open source software. Paul Murphy wrote and published The Unix Guide to Defenestration. Murphy is a 20-year veteran of the IT consulting industry.
Interview: Authors slam Sun's open source strategy
Send your feedback to the SearchEnterpriseLinux.com news team.
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Hover over the image for navigation and full screen controls
Sabras – The story of Wadi Fuqin
Wadi Fuqin, a small Palestinian village, carries the inconceivable complexities of the current Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The village is a well preserved model of a traditional agricultural way of life, developed thousands of years ago. The community has harnessed the water flowing from the valley’s eleven springs to nourish their fields. Kilometers of canals direct the spring water to storage pools and onwards to the many fruit and vegetable fields. Currently, the agricultural way of life and natural landscape is endangered by many threats. To the east, the massive development of the Beitar Ilit Settlement is posing an immediate danger to the springs, to the west, the planned separation wall threatens to harm more springs and close the village in between the wall and the settlement.
The villagers are not permitted to cross to Israel nor are they allowed to cross to the settlement. Some of the villagers, left with no other income possibilities work in the settlement’s (with special permission) construction site. Building the threat to their village themselves. As an Israeli I approach this story with great passion. A known saying in Hebrew determines that a person is the scenery of his childhood. Wadi Fuqin is part of the scenery of my childhood. The smell of the fresh vegetables, the clear water are a good part of my memories, I grew up in a country mixed with Jews and Arabs and no walls in between. Its true that the atmosphere was not always welcoming on both sides but is still part of my memories, part of who I am. I document the beauty of the place, the significance of the scenery and produce the land brings to its owners, the villagers. I pay close attention to the joy and love the place and produce bring to the villagers, it is important for me to document it, before it might change, for them and for myself.
Leeor is a filmmaker and a photographer. A graduate of the Tel Aviv University’s Film department and the International Center of Photography Documentary and Photojournalism program.
Leeor has worked on independent films and commercial television programs as a cinematographer, film editor and director. His short and feature length films were screened in film festivals and television channels world wide. Currently based in New York, working on film, photography and multimedia projects and teaching at the International Center of Photography.
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In the provence of Pisa, near the city of Santa Luce, sits a little village called Pomaia. While this little town may seem obscure, it is actually a very important point for Buddhism – The Lama Tzong Khapa Institute, one of the biggest Tibetan monasteries, is found here.
The place is magic! The monastery has incredible views of the Pisan mountains that hover over the Tuscan countryside. Beyond the rolling hills of the countryside, the sea is visible in the distance. Early in the morning, when the last whispers of fog are still lingering, you may be taken by surprise and think you are looking out over Tibet! In fact, the Dalai Lama has visited several times and Richard Gere is a regular visitor to the monastery.
The Institute offers a wide range of retreats to increase your physical, emotional and spiritual state of well being. While most of the activities are based in the study and practise of Tibetan Buddhism, the Institute also offers a large variety of classes based on other spiritual traditions. There is also the opportunity to study cognitive sciences, psychology, and even education programs for children. The institute also teaches courses on caring for the environment and alternative medicine. Beyond all that, the monastery also gives classes to help people suffering from disease or those preparing for passing away.
The Institute is always open to the public and also offers a shop. The amazing little shop sells spiritual items, books, CDs, Tibetan symbols, clothing and much more!
Love is compassion.
Istituto Lama Tzong Khapa (Buddhist Monastery)
Via Poggiberna, 15
56040 Pomaia – Pisa
Tel. 050 – 685654 www.iltk.org
Article provided by The Tuscan Magazine.
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Ross Valley school officials will ask voters in June to replace the district's existing parcel tax with one that is $149 higher. The district board unanimously approved the measure at a special meeting Friday.
District officials say the ballot measure — which would increase the annual tax rate from its current level of $309.66 to $458.66 — is necessary to cover the loss of state funds that would take place if voters reject a series of statewide tax measures proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown. The Ross Valley district is one of three in Marin County that relies on state per-pupil funding for much of its budget.
"Should the (governor's) initiatives fail in November, we will be in a deficit," Ross Valley Superintendent of Schools Eileen Rohan said at the Friday morning meeting. "Our immediate needs are real."
In fact, officials are so concerned about the possible loss of state funding that they're asking voters to put the new, higher parcel tax in effect as early as July — rather than waiting for the existing parcel tax to expire in 2014.
"We will have significantly low funds even if (the governor's) taxes pass," said trustee Heidi Weller. "If they don't pass, we'll have a loss of $700,000 to $900,000, effective immediately. We haven't budgeted for that, so we'd have to dip into our reserves. The thought of not doing what we can to protect ourselves from that decision — right now — is worrisome."
The $149 increase is about $50 higher than Godbe Research, a San Mateo consultant the district hired in January to survey Ross Valley voters, recommended. Yet trustee Annelise Bauer argued that circumstances required the higher amount.
"The consultant would have been more comfortable with $99," Bauer said. "So it's a little bit risky, but we were willing to tolerate the added risk given our needs, and because we feel the state will not be helping us much in the future."
The district's 19-year-old parcel tax has risen from an initial level of $136 per parcel in 1993 to $254.49 per parcel, a rate voters approved in 2005, and which has grown with inflation to its current level of $309.66. The tax generates about $2.4 million in annual revenue for the district's $18.5 million budget.
Should Ross Valley voters reject the proposed ballot measure in June, the current tax would remain in effect until 2014, giving the district two more years to change voters' minds.
The June 5 election could cost Ross Valley taxpayers as much as $40,000 — between $1.50 and $2.50 for each of the district's 15,813 registered voters, according to Marin County Registrar of Voters Elaine Ginnold.
The election comes just two years after Ross Valley voters approved a $41 million facilities bond to pay for the expansion of the district's elementary and middle schools. That bond measure required each property owner to pay an estimated $29 per $100,000 of assessed value a year for 30 years.
Contact Rob Rogers via e-mail at [email protected]
LANGUAGE FOR THE JUNE 5 BALLOT MEASURE:
"To provide local funding the State cannot take away, preserve high quality education in reading, writing, math and science, educationally sound class sizes, school libraries, and art and music instruction, and to help attract and retain highly-qualified teachers, shall the Ross Valley School District renew its existing parcel tax for another eight years, increasing it by $149 per year, with no funds used for administrators' salaries and an exemption for seniors, and requiring annual audits?"
HOW THE MEASURE WOULD WORK:
Existing tax of $309.66 per year would be rescinded.
New tax of $458.66 per year would take effect in July.
Tax would include 4 percent annual increase.
Senior exemption available for residents 65 and older.
Tax would benefit math, science, reading and writing programs, keep class sizes at current levels, protect school libraries and allow district to retain teachers.
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- You have to keep financial records for six years (including all receipts and expenditure, sales books, purchases books, cash book summaries, sales ledgers, wages books if you employ staff). If you do not keep these records and they are required by HMRC, you may be fined.
- You can keep records on paper or on the computer (make sure they're backed up).
- Employers need to keep PAYE records for the three years.
- Contractors in the Construction Industry Scheme need to keep records for the scheme for three years prior to the current one.
- You need to keep records relating to the registration of your company or formation of your business permanently.
- If you're self-employed and/or a sole trader (company directors are also sometimes asked) you pay your tax using a self-assessment tax return. You need to complete your tax return by 31st January.
- Limited companies pay corporation tax through a corporation tax return, and deadlines differ according to when you registered your company.
- If your turnover for the previous year was more than £70,000 (or you think your turnover for the ahead will be more) you need to register for VAT.
- You need to complete VAT returns (or you can join the VAT Flat Rate Accounting scheme).
- You need to keep VAT records for six years.
- Register as an employer with HMRC.
- Set up PAYE system to pay employees' wages, NICs and tax.
- Keep personnel records and PAYE records for three years.
- You deduct income tax and Class 1 NICs for employees who fall within state working age and earn above certain thresholds.
- Set up PAYE system to pay yourself and any staff.
- Pay tax through corporation tax returns.
- If you're self-employed, you need to pay Class 2 NICs (paid monthly or quarterly).
- You need to pay Class 4 NICs on top of Class 2 NICs if your profits are more than £5,715 (calculated as part of your tax return and payable at the end of the year).
- If you pay yourself through PAYE, you need to pay Class 1 NICs.
- You need to pay Class 1 NICs for employees.
Capital Gains Tax
- You need to pay Capital Gains Tax on the sale of any asset that has gained value since you bought it - such as shares, property (though not your home), goodwill, a business, plant and machinery.
- Capital gains tax is 18% for those earning less than £40,000 and 28% for those earning more than £40,000.
- If you are selling all or part of your business, you might qualify for Entrepreneurs' Relief, meaning you pay a discounted rate of CGT.
- You need to pay business rates on the property you operate out of, whether or not you own it.
- Business rates vary according to where you're located and the size of your business.
Importing and exporting
- If you are importing and exporting, you need to look into customs duty, excise duties and different VAT rates in different countries. These all vary according to type of goods and country.
- If you are a contractor working for only one client, you might be caught by the IR35 regulations that prevent tax avoidance. Make sure you follow these rules.
- If you are a contractor in the construction industry, you might qualify for the Construction Industry Scheme, which affects the way you pay tax.
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That was one message sent to workers and employers at the 56th annual NL Occupational Health and Safety Conference held last month (May) in Gander.
Loyola Power, manager of prevention services for the Workplace Health and Safety Compensation Commission of Newfoundland and Labrador (WHSCCNL), told the delegation more committees need to become active.
“We have 3,129 registered health and safety committees in the province. Fantastic,” he said. “Within that, we have 36,386 people trained. That’s the good news. The not-so-good news is our committee delinquency rate is 39 per cent.”
Mr. Power said while it’s by far not the worst it’s ever been in terms of delinquent committees, the number could still be lower.
“This is less than it has been in the past there have been phases in the past where we’ve had up to 60 per cent of our committees not active,” he said. “It’s still in no way, shape or form where we should be.”
Mr. Power said occupational health and safety standards are in place for a reason, and employers and workers should ensure they are met in their workplaces.
Mr. Power said when standards are developed, officials embark on an extensive process to make certain they are designed and delivered appropriately.
“We don’t just pull it out of the air,” he said. “We look first at stakeholder consultation, look at who the stakeholders are: employers, employees, government organizations, consultants, and trainers in particular.”
Mr. Power said officials go far beyond the shores of this province in order to set very high standards for safety in the workplace.
“We go through a research process where we look at best practices across the country, and in jurisdictions internationally,” he said. “We try to use that information to put together the best standards we possibly can.”
Those standards are put in place with the primary goal of preventing on-the-job injuries and deaths. In April of this year, the WHSCCNL released a report regarding workplace injury rates for 2011. During that year, 4,070 workers were injured on the job in the province. That number was consistent with the previous year, and organization officials were pleased to note only 491 of those injuries involved young workers.
“Young workers in this province, and those who work with and train our young workers, are to be congratulated for continuing to employ safe work practices, and improving their safety record,” said Commission CEO Leslie Galway. “This bodes well for the future. Safe work practices and attitudes of our young workers are critical for the continued development of a strong culture of safety in this province.”
Although there doesn’t appear to be an increase in workplace injuries, one incident from a couple of years ago made headlines last week when a company was charged with a number of violations.
Charges were laid against Barry Group Inc., a Harbour Grace-based company. An investigation into an August, 2010, incident on the Harbour Grace wharf resulted in the company being charged with four violations of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
The charges are in relation to an incident during which a worker was struck by a company forklift.
The charges regard the company’s alleged failure, as the employer, to ensure that mobile equipment was maintained in a safe working order, and to ensure a safe workplace and equipment was provided and maintained. The company is also accused of failing to ensure work was conducted so that bystanders were not exposed to health and safety hazards. A supervisor with the company has also been charged. A court date is scheduled for June 19 at provincial court in Harbour Grace.
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Check It Out at the Vermillion Public Library by Anne Marshall Showcased Book of the Week
Acclaimed nature writer Linda M. Hasselstrom sees herself as a rancher who writes. Now owner of the cattle ranch where she grew up in western South Dakota, she lives in daily intimate contact with the natural world. In her latest work, Between Grass and Sky: Where I Live and Work, one of South Dakota's favorite authors writes knowingly of the rancher's toil and of the intelligence and dignity of the animals she tends. Hasselstrom's voice rings with the ardent common sense of one who knows and loves the land, who appreciates the concerns of environmental activists, but also knows the role the responsible rancher can play in nurturing a healthy rural ecosystem. This book is located on the New Book Shelf behind the circulation desk.
New York Times Best Sellers
#1. Prey, by Michael Chrichton. In the Nevada desert, a team of scientists tries to undo an experiment involving nanoparticles � molecule-sized robots � that has gone disastrously wrong.
#2. Skipping Christmas, by John Grisham. A husband and wife discover that their decision to forgo Christmas comes with consequences.
#3. Four Blind Mice, by James Patterson. Detective Alex Cross and his partner, John Sampson, try to prove that one of Sampson's oldest friends has been framed for murder.
#4. The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold. A 14-year-old girl looks down from heaven as she describes what happens in the aftermath of her kidnapping and murder.
#5. The Christmas Train, by David Baldacci. A disillusioned journalist goes on a journey of self-discovery during the holidays.
#6. Hornet Flight, by Ken Follett. In 1941, as the Luftwaffe is shooting down R.A.F. bombers, a young Dane stumbles upon a German installation whose secrets he must try to convey to England.
#7. Red Rabbit, by Tom Clancy. In the early 1980's, when he is a C.I.A. novice, Jack Ryan acts to thwart a Soviet plot against the pope.
#8. Answered Prayers, by Danielle Steel. A sophisticated New Yorker who has applied to law school against her husband's wishes finds the possibility of true love with a childhood friend.
#9. From A Buick 8, by Stephen King. An abandoned Buick Roadmaster turns out to be a conduit to another, evil dimension.
#10. Life of Pi, by Yann Martel. An allegory on the high seas, in which a teenage boy and a 450-pound tiger are thrown together in a lifeboat as the only survivors of a shipwreck.
These best sellers are available at the Vermillion Public Library. If your selection is checked-out, please have a staff person reserve it for you.
Online Book Club
The Online Book Club Chapter-a-Day now offers 10 online book clubs to give our fans a wider variety of selections. Check out this service by registering at the library's Web site, http://vpl.sdln.net, and clicking on the book club logo. Selections for the week of Jan. 20-24 include Shark Trouble, by Peter Benchley; Paradise Bay, by James Michael Pratt; Reconsidering Riley, by Lisa Plumley; Candle in Darkness, by Lynn Austin; Telesales Tips From the Trenches, by Joe Catal; and Nature of Balance, by Tim Lebbon. The Teen Book Club selection is Eleanor's Story, by Eleanor Ramrath Garner. The Audio Book Club selection for this week is Red Rabbit, by Tom Clancy.
Adult computer classes are again being offered at the Vermillion Public Library. Training in Microsoft Word will be scheduled on Thursday, Jan. 23, from 1 to 3 p.m. Microsoft Word is a word processing program that will help you learn techniques to create documents such as resum�s and letters. Training in Microsoft Excel will be scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 1, from 10 a.m. to noon. Microsoft Excel is a spread sheet program that will help you learn techniques for organizing, manipulating, and charting numerical date. Class space is limited, and registration is required. Please call or stop by the circulation desk to sign up or for more information.
Celebrate Life, Literacy & Learning
In 2003 the Vermillion Public Library is celebrating its 100th anniversary. We have planned special activities and programs honoring the library and our patrons. Celebrating 100 Years stickers have been secretly placed on shelved materials located in the library. Upon check-out of materials the staff person will identify these special selections and our honored patron can choose from a basketful of goodies. This is just a small thank you from the VPL staff.
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Business Insider put together a list of statistics about how Americans are ridiculously overworked, and it's kind of depressing. Identifying the problem is important, but you won't be any less burnt out by knowing you're in good company. Here's how you can combat the most common symptoms of being overworked.
"39 percent of people work more than a typical workweek (40 hours)"
If you're working more than 50 hours a week, you may have a problem. Anyone in this situation is likely to feel this if they don't know it outright. If you're not doing it because you're passionate about your job, too many hours in the office is bad for you. So what do you do about it? Prioritize. If you're working too much, talk to your boss about how you can work less. This might involve taking a pay cut or losing vacation time, so figure out what you can sacrifice and bring it to the table. Don't present the issue like you're telling a loved one you have cancer—you want this to be a positive thing. You don't feel you're being as productive as you can be because too many hours are burning you out. Tell your boss you want to work out a plan for you to work less, feel better, and perform better. If you've got a boss you can trust and cares about your well-being, they'll at least be willing to entertain the idea. If not, you might want to consider looking for another job that understands more hours doesn't necessarily equal more productivity.
"The average American gets 90 minutes less sleep than they should, and the number of sleep disorders has skyrocketed in recent years"
Sleeping is tough. Even if you fall asleep easily, stay asleep at night, and wake up when you want to in the morning, you still have to manage to go to bed on time. I had such a problem with this that I had to institute a "no work rule" an hour before I wanted to be in bed. Because I'm utilizing Seinfeld's productivity secret to get more done, I don't get to check a box off on my calendar if I don't go to bed on time and I end up breaking my chain of productivity. If there's a consequence for going to bed too late—aside from feeling unrested and awful in the morning—it'll help you actual bother to try and fall asleep when you're supposed to. I leave an hour open because I like to take that time to relax.
But what if you're just not sleeping well? First of all, you have to figure out why. Sometimes it's stress-related and sometimes you have an actual sleep issue. Sleep technology can help, but you may need to see your doctor to help you figure it out. Once you know your issues, check out our guide to resolving common sleep problems so you can start getting the rest you need.
"69 percent of employees report that work is a significant source of stress and 41 percent say they typically feel tense or stressed out during the workday"
Stress sucks, and all of us suffer from it at one point or another. When you're overworked, it's hard to let go of that stress and it often tends to build up. First of all, it helps to understand how stress works, but ultimately you just need to figure out how to relax. Simple breathing exercises help. You can even do them with your computer (OS X-only). Meditation and yoga are also very helpful, and you don't have to adopt their associated lifestyles to participate. You may find that just taking a walk by yourself for a good 30 minutes can make a difference. The important thing is you find activities that help you relax and let your brain turn off—and don't involve watching television or mindlessly surfing the web.
"An astonishing 39 percent of employees feel rage at their coworkers - and 34 percent resent their coworkers for working less than they do"
Don't hate your coworkers. Just because you're doing more work doesn't necessarily better. If you're reading this post, it probably means you're worse off because you're burning out. If you have a truly problematic coworker who isn't pulling their weight, it's best to use compassion when dealing with them. If you need to complain to someone else, we've got a guide for that. Essentially what you want to do is try to talk to them about the issue yourself as calmly as possible, expressing concern that others might care about their lack of effort from what you've heard. If you don't get anywhere that way, talk to the least powerful manager above your coworker and let them take the issue up the ladder. In general, though, workers doing less than you doesn't mean they're necessarily slacking off. Just because you work really hard doesn't mean they're not doing enough.
"36 percent of Americans don't plan to use all of their vacation days"
The majority of Lifehacker readers feel guilty about taking vacation and nearly the same amount didn't use all the days they earned. For many of us, not using a vacation day means it just expires. Not everyone gets to cash them out and take money instead. The solution to this problem is pretty simple: take your freakin' vacation. Only you can get yourself over the guilt of taking time off—guilt you shouldn't be feeling, by the way—but that's not always the only issue. Many people avoid vacations because they can't afford them. What you can afford is taking time off and just not going anywhere. "Staycations" can actually be really fun. Sometimes the best time off is spent doing absolutely nothing, or exploring the city you already live in. Alternatively, there are plenty of ways to get cheap vacations. Free frequent flyer miles and clever thinking can earn you cheap travel. So can volunteering. Last year I planned a cheap last-minute vacation by mainly not being picky and renting out someone's apartment. I could've saved more by renting someone's room. You can still have a great vacation if you don't go the standard route. In fact, my favorite vacations have always been the non-traditional. So put in for your time off. Now.
"[T]he hours are making people fat: 44 percent of workers have gained weight from their jobs"
If the stress and sleeplessness isn't keeping you from exercising, chances are you're probably too busy. Whatever the cause, exercise is important and you want to find time for it—even if you only have 20 minutes. If you can't commit hours each week to get fit, try our 20 minute exercise plan. It generates a new routine every day so you don't get bored doing the same stuff and each routine can be accomplished in about 20 minutes. You'll form good habits by doing it every day and get fit a lot faster than you think. You'll still need to move around on a regular basis so you're not sitting down all day, as 20 minutes of exercise isn't going to fix a sedentary lifestyle, but just set a timer so you remember to get up now and again or just take a walk around the entire office every time you need to get up for any reason. Keep moving and you'll avoid the weight gain.
If you feel like reading more depressing statistics about how Americans are overworked, hit up the full post on Business Insider. If you want tips on how to solve more crappy job problems, read this, too.
14 Sad Facts About How Americans Are Ridiculously Overworked | Business Insider
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From: Sara R. Johnson ([email protected])
Date: Fri Apr 11 1997 - 14:16:45 EDT
I fear I'm about to introduce another one of those well-canvassed
Frequently Asked Questions, but I have searched the archives and explored
all of the usual resources on the web, and I still don't feel I've found a
satisfactory answer to this question.
I will be teaching NT Greek in the fall, and I would like to find one or
more good software tools for drilling Greek vocabulary and forms, with a NT
focus if at all possible. The U of R is heavily dominated by Macs, and I
have no access to a multimedia PC to test PC software, so I would prefer to
explore only Mac options unless there is some PC-only package which is an
absolute sine qua non.
I know that there are some software tools that accompany Mounce's Basics of
Biblical Greek, available for download on the teknia website. I've also
read about Parsons Technology's Greek Tutor, but from everything I can
discover Greek Tutor is PC-only. Surely there must be more out there,
especially for the Macintosh. What am I missing?
As a peace offering for introducing this tired old question, I can highly
recommend a couple of software packages designed for classical Greek. =)
There is a software package called Gramma (Centaur Systems) which is meant
to accompany Athenaze; this one is so good, and so easily customizable,
that I might end up using it even for an NT course. You can choose exactly
which forms you want to drill, and the vocabulary section can be customized
to add new vocab lists.
There is also a fairly good software tool written to accompany
Mastronarde's Introduction to Attic Greek, called the Electronic Workbook
(UC Berkeley Press). The main disadvantage is that this one is less easily
customizable, and unlike Gramma, it doesn't allow students to type in
Greek. But it has a good accent drill, and some of its drills can be
extrememly challenging -- a good test for the student who wants to stretch
his/her skills. And you can add your own vocab lists.
Both of these are based on Hypercard, and so are Mac-only.
Incidentally, I'd also be curious to hear about favorite Hebrew drills for
the Mac, but that's only for my own benefit -- I am constantly struggling
to improve my rather pathetic Hebrew. The Greek question is more pressing.
Thanks in advance!
Sara R. Johnson
Visiting Assistant Professor
Department of Religion and Classics
University of Rochester
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:38:12 EDT
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Yoani Sanchez's blog is one of Cuba's most popular
A dissident Cuban blogger cannot go to New York to receive a top journalism prize, after the authorities upheld a ban on her travel abroad.
Yoani Sanchez, 34, won the Maria Moors Cabot Prize for Generacion Y, a blog critical of Cuba's one-party Communist government.
The prize is the oldest international award in journalism.
It is given by Columbia University to journalists who have furthered inter-American understanding.
"The immigration office just informed me that the ban remains on my leaving the country," Ms Sanchez said on Monday via the social networking website Twitter, where she has 6,638 followers.
"I am going to celebrate on the night of the award with some friends. I am not going to let the refusal to travel ruin the happiness of the prize," she added.
"I dream of an island where nobody needs to ask permission to enter and leave."
Generacion Y has become a trusted source for news on Cuba, with the site receiving 14 million hits a month.
Nicholas Lemann, dean of Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism, released a statement expressing his disappointment over the Cuban government's refusal to allow Yoani Sanchez to travel to New York.
Generacion Y was also given an award by Spain's El Pais
"The Cuban government ought to value Ms Sanchez's work as a sign that young Cubans are ready to take Cuba into a better future - one that will have the free press the Cuban people deserve," Mr Lemann said.
Last year Time Magazine named Ms Sanchez as one of the world's most influential people, and this year it listed Generacion Y as one of the world's top 25 blogs.
But in Cuba readership is limited due to restricted internet access.
Only about 2.1% of Cubans have regular access to the global internet and 11.5% to the Cuban intranet, according to the Washington-based democracy and human rights organisation Freedom House.
"Bloggers can go online at government-owned internet cafes, at universities and hotels," it says.
This is not the first time Generacion Y has been given recognition - in 2008 Spain's El Pais newspaper gave it an award for overcoming limits to free expression.
Similarly, Ms Sanchez was denied an exit visa to attend the award ceremony in Madrid.
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Bibliobitch: We're Glad Jeanette Winterson Was Never "Normal"
Jeanette Winterson is one of those prolific authors, like Margaret Atwood and Joyce Carol Oates, who I can always rely on when walking into a used bookstore. Often I will just buy a different edition of one of their books that I already love, but if I want something new to read but am not in the mood for taking a risk there is a long list of titles I can choose from those old faithfuls. Jeanette Winterson is probably the most quotable author I have ever read, especially for those of us who live passionately, love obsessively, and believe that art can (and will) change the world. If you ever want a cool literary tattoo just read one of her books—you are sure to find some kind of quote that resonates.
Winterson, who was born in Manchester, England has written 10 novels, a comic book, a book of short stories, a collection of essays, children’s books, her fiction and poetry is featured in many journals and anthologies, and she has worked as a journalist; her writing is, thankfully, everywhere. Her first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985) written when she was only twenty-three, is perhaps her most well-known, winning the Whitbread Award for first novel and having been adapted into an award-winning BBC drama. Semi-autobiographical, Oranges is the story of a young woman, named Jeanette, who was adopted by a fanatically evangelical couple, and leaves home at 16 to be with another woman after her parents' church failed to exorcize the gay demon inside her. Fairy tales are inserted throughout the narrative; Winterson’s works as a whole have a fragmented, magical realist quality to them. The fact the main plot points overlap with Winterson’s own life experience has always been well-known, but with the release of Winterson’s memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? in October (in the U.K—official U.S release date is March 2012), the harsh reality of Winterson’s upbringing stand out even more starkly against the layers of her non-linear, heavily metaphorical, fictional work.
The image portrayed of Winterson’s adoptive mother, whom she calls Mrs. Winterson throughout Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is as looming and terrifying as the "fictional" Testifying Elsie from Oranges: “Mrs. Winterson was not a welcoming woman. If anyone knocked at the door she ran down the lobby and shoved the poker through the letterbox.” Jeanette was often locked outside, left on the doorstep for hours as a very young child. Apocalyptic Bible quotes were pasted around the house. Books were banned (except for the Bible) and Mrs. Winterson burned Jeanette’s secret stash of paperbacks (“it is probably why I write as I do,” Winterson writes when she picked up the leftover fragments of burnt pages the morning after her books were burned, “collecting the scraps, uncertain of continuous narrative.”) Mrs. Winterson was physically as well as emotionally abusive, and yes, subjected her fifteen-year-old daughter to an "exorcism" because Jeanette was in love with another woman. The title of the memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is a direct quote from Mrs. Winterson, hurled at Jeanette when she decided to leave home at 16 to be with the woman she loved.
While leaning heavily on her childhood experience split between an abusive home in a tiny, northern working-class English town, and the escape into books through her public library, Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal? moves in a steady linear fashion up until Winterson’s time at Oxford (and how she had to fight to get in). It then very consciously skips twenty-five years between Winterson being in college, writing her first novel, and becoming a famous author, into her present experience of seeking out her birth mother. This is done in a very Winterson-like way, with a small chapter titled "Intermission" in which she states “I measure time as we all do, and partly by the fading body, but in order to challenge linear time, I try and live in total time. I recognize that life has an inside as well as an outside and that events separated by years lie side by side imaginatively and emotionally.”
Although Winterson chooses to skip her twenty-five years as a professional writer her landing in the present in the last third of the book is not layered by fiction or a magic-realist narrative, it is a very stark and real account of a long-term relationship break up, Winterson’s subsequent mental-health breakdown and suicide attempt, and the painful process of finding her birth mother.
Whether or not one is familiar with Winterson’s fictional work, this memoir stands alone. Despite tough subjects it is warm, often funny, and like any great memoir, redemptive. While offering tremendous insight into the experiences that shaped this writer’s unique voice, this memoir is not about how to become a famous writer, or even really about Jeanette Winterson—it is a memoir about seeking identity, seeking love, seeking a mother, and the power of sharing words and stories. The life-saving quality of books is celebrated: “This is what literature offers—a language powerful enough to say how it is. It isn’t a hiding place, it’s a finding place.”
It’s all I can do to not quote all my favorite passages from Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? until I've quoted the whole thing. Here is another one: “Fiction and poetry are doses, medicines. What they heal is the rupture reality makes on the imagination.” Yet Why be Happy When You Could Be Normal? is nonfiction narrative that is medicinal as well, and here, quoting Winterson again, is why this fiction writer’s memoir is so effective: “Personal stories work for other people when those stories become both paradigms and parables. The intensity of a story releases into a bigger space than the one it occupied in time and place. The story crosses the threshold from my world into yours. We meet each other on the steps of the story.” I think those last two lines will be my next tattoo.
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Long Distance Lasering
Tania Elias Calles is one tough Laser sailor. In March she went to great lengths—about 300 miles—draw attention to the sailing in her native waters, and invite racers from abroad to train with her in Mexico on Bahia de Banderas in the run-up to the Pan Am Games, which will be held there in 2011.
Although Calles had a support vessel escorting her, she was otherwise entirely on her own, carrying her own food and water, and sleeping on deck as she sailed from the tip of the Baja peninsula to the mainland in 2 days, 17 hours.
If that sounds hard, the reality was even harder. “My escort boats could not keep up, and then 12 hours out my GPS went out, although I knew the compass course,” Calles said. “I was very tired at night, but I was in that area where the waters of the Sea of Cortez meet the Pacific. It was too rough to stop. Then my light went out too, so I couldn’t even read the compass in the dark. I had to just pick out a star and focus, focus, focus on that friggin’ star.”
Throw in some capsizes and 11 hours of light winds that left her with only one quart of water with 50 miles to go, and you begin to understand “hard.”
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A Dickensian sense of the interconnections of place, character, and fate and a powerful rendering of the experience and consequences of aging and bodily decay—such are the great strengths of this absorbing third novel from the Indian-born Canadian resident (A Fine Balance, 1996, etc.).
Mistry is a deservedly much-honored writer who has won Canada’s Governor General’s Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize. And he achieves a real triumph with this story’s wonderful protagonist: 79-year-old retired professor Nariman Vakeel, whom we meet in the lavish Bombay apartment (in a building called “Chateau Felicity”) he shares with his intemperate stepdaughter Coomy and her passive brother Jal. In lengthy flashbacks, Nariman recalls the great mistake of his earlier years: forsaking the Catholic woman he loved, and yielding to parental pressure to marry the Parsi widow who meant nothing to him—as her children (Coomy and Jal) have long known. When Nariman breaks an ankle, his stepchildren (a virtual Goneril and Regan) send him to live with the family of his natural daughter, Roxana Chenoy, in a crowded, filthy tenement—where Nariman slides into helplessness, and Roxana patiently bears this new burden. The King Lear–derived plot is handled beautifully (especially whenever Mistry enters Nariman’s consciousness). But efforts to broaden the story’s scope seem, by comparison, forced—especially in sequences detailing the desperate grasp for upward mobility made by Roxana’s husband Yezad, whose yearnings for a better life for his family propel him toward gambling and crime (a development ironically echoed by the schoolboy “career” of manipulative exploitation pursued by the Chenoys’ elder son Jehangir).
Nevertheless, a powerfully lurid picture of Bombay’s multiplicity, energy, and squalor is built up with masterly skill. And the characters of Nariman and the Gandhi-inspired Roxana (her father’s Cordelia) are not easily forgotten.
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We are no stranger to cellular carriers putting restrictions on their devices. It seems like every week a carrier somewhere is trying to limit how their customers use their devices. Of course, it seems like almost every week customers find a way around the silly, new restrictions. The latest one coming out of AT&T won't be so easy to hack around and it involves the iPhone and Facetime.
According to freepress.net, “AT&T has indicated that it will block customers from using FaceTime via mobile devices unless they subscribe to one of its new “Mobile Share” plans.” In other words, if you aren't using AT&T's new Mobile Share plan, no Facetime over a non-WiFi network for you. This includes iPads, which makes it particularly absurd because that means customers have to pay for cell service on a device that can't use it.
This has made a lot of people angry as customers don't believe they should have to switch their plan to a more expensive one to utilize Facetime over the data connection they pay for. Of course, they're absolutely right. It's their data, they should be allowed to do what they want with it. To counter AT&T, several public interest groups are filing formal complaints with the FCC to get this new policy overturned.
Inherently, it has nothing to do with Android. However, this is one of those rare occasions where Android fans should cheer for their iPhone nemesis. For now it's restrictions on Facetime. Tomorrow, it could be a new restriction for just Android devices. Imagine not being able to use Google Talk's video capabilities unless you're on a certain –and much more expensive– plan. Stopping the carriers at the border helps protect everyone's freedom to use their data as they see fit.
Do you think that these public interest groups have a chance at succeeding? Let us know in the comments!
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Toyota, Johnson & Johnson and Honda are the most "green" brands around the world, but display a mixed performance to communicating this with consumers, a study has revealed.
Interbrand, the branding consultancy, drew on its own survey research and data from Deloitte, the advisory group, to identify the most improved players in this area over the last year, and measured the "gap" between each firm's actual and their perceived performance.
Toyota, the Japanese automaker, headed the charts overall. The difference between its ratings from the public and the results of formal analysis, however, was –2.6 points, meaning consumer ratings were significantly stronger than those provided by the official assessment.
Johnson & Johnson, the healthcare group, was second, and logged +3.9 points in terms of a performance "gap", meaning shoppers awarded it lower scores than the expert analysis suggested.
Honda, another Japanese carmaker, claimed third, and posted –0.4 points. Volkswagen, its German rival, took fourth, yielding +4.2 points. Hewlett-Packard, the IT titan, made up the top five, and hit +11.7 points.
"It is crucial that consumers' impressions of a brand are in close alignment with that brand's actual environmental performance. Otherwise, a brand's efforts in this area could serve as an under-utilised asset, or, conversely, suffer due to accusations of 'greenwashing,'” said Jez Frampton, Interbrand's CEO.
As evidence, Nokia, the telecoms group, took the last spot in the top 20, but also posted the biggest "gap", of +18.5 points, suggesting the firm has not effectively communicated its green credentials to customers.
By contrast, McDonald's, the fast food chain, was in 45th place, and received –16.5 points, suggesting that consumer perceptions are considerably ahead of its real-life performance.
"Closing the gap between sustainability performance and market perception is an incredibly important part of taking and continuing the sustainability journey," said David Pearson, Deloitte's global sustainability leader.
Among the new entrants to the charts were Nissan, the auto manufacturer, falling just outside the top 20. H&M, the fast-fashion chain, and UBS, the financial services group, also both made their debut.
"When you talk about corporate social responsibility ... the product are the best way to prove it," said DeLu Jackson, Nissan's global head, digital marketing and social media. "That's really a brand committing to having an impact, and, more importantly allowing the consumer to have an impact, because you can actually participate."
More broadly, 22 of the leading brands featured in the analysis were manufactured and managed in the US. The country was followed by Germany and Japan on this metric, with each nation hosting seven firms.
Data sourced from Interbrand; additional content by Warc staff
For more information please visit http://www.warc.com/
New York - 28 June 2012
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AUSTRALIANS will be subjected to the longest election campaign in the nation's history after Prime Minister Julia Gillard took the extraordinary step of revealing that voters will head to the polls on September 14.
Ms Gillard dropped the bombshell at the end of her address to the National Press Club on Wednesday, arguing it would bring "transparency" and "good governance" to the chaos of an election year.
In doing so she surrendered what is considered to be one of the greatest tactical advantages of incumbency - the element of surprise.
The Prime Minister revealed will make the traditional trip to visit the Governor-General on August 12 to have writs issued for an election.
Ms Gillard said she was motivated by a desire to give "shape and order to the year".
"I have always said the Parliament would serve full-term," Ms Gillard said.
"I reflected on this over the summer and thought that it's not right for Australians to be forced into a guessing game and it's not right for Australians to not face this year with certainty and stability."
Ms Gillard said it was not her intention to kickstart the "nation's longest election campaign".
She hoped revealing the date would allow people and businesses to plan their year and have the effect of defining "which are the days of governing and which are the days of campaigning".
Noble though this might be the reality is bound to be different as voters face 226 days of campaigning.
Prior to Wednesday the most notice a prime minister had given of an election was three months - twice by Robert Menzies in 1958 and 1961.
Ms Gillard told the National Press Club she had consulted Treasurer Wayne Swan and a "few senior colleagues" prior to Wednesday's announcement.
But she also confirmed she had informed key independents Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor of the decision by phone on Tuesday night.
On Sky News Workplace Minister Bill Shorten said he had not been consulted.
The Labor backbenchers contacted by APN Newsdesk said they too had been taken by surprise.
Greens Leader Christine Milne told reporters her office was informed of the decision about 30 minutes before the speech.
In fact the independents were so prepared they had media releases ready to go straight after Ms Gillard's shock announcement.
Both men, who will face a struggle to retain their seats, welcomed the decision.
Part of their agreement with Ms Gillard was for the Parliament to run full-term, which will now be achieved.
Mr Oakeshott, who will announce in March whether he intends to recontest Lyne, said revealing the election date would "protect the economy from an election year".
The decision also drew praise from Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie and Senator Milne.
Earlier Ms Gillard used her speech to flag the government's priorities for the year, including the cutting of "wasteful programs", the implementation of the National Disability Insurance Scheme and education reforms.
She said she will use the Council of Australian Governments meeting in April to push for the Gonski reforms to be delivered.
"Across all our schools, over more than a decade, we have been slipping behind the education standards of the region and the world," she said.
"Changing that is the crusade which defines this term of my prime ministership."
Wondering how long exactly until the election is over? Someone has already created a countdown timer - see it here.
Do you think Julia Gillard made the right move in revealing the election date?
This poll ended on 30 March 2013.
This is not a scientific poll. The results reflect only the opinions of those who chose to participate.
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Mar. 11, 2013
Some things never change: the velvet flock
of the turf, the baselines smoothed to suede,
the ancient smell of peanuts, the harsh smack
the ball makes burrowing into the catcher's mitt.
Here in the Grapefruit League's trellised shade
you catch Pie Traynor's lofting rightfield foul
all over again. You're ten in Fenway Park
and wait past suppertime for him to autograph it
then race for home all goosebumps in the dark
to roll the keepsake ball in paraffin,
soften your secondhand glove with neat's-foot oil
and wrap your Louisville Slugger with friction tape.
The Texas Leaguers, whatever league you're in
still tantalize, the way they waver and drop.
Carl Hubbell's magical screwball is still
give or take sixty years unhittable.
Sunset comes late but comes, inexorable.
What lingers is the slender hook of hope.
In 1581, he published his most famous work, La Gerusalemme liberata, or Jerusalem Delivered, an epic poem about the Crusades. It was hugely popular across Europe, even as Tasso suffered from what is now thought to be schizophrenia — he was suspicious of everyone around him, and lashed out at friends and patrons. He started taking off in secret, traveling incognito around the countryside. He lost all his money and had to move from court to court, trying to get various noblemen to support him. One frustrated benefactor committed him to a madhouse, where he spent seven years. Despite his mental illness, Tasso continued writing love sonnets, plays, and epic and religious poems, and he was proclaimed poet laureate by the pope — but he died just days before he was to be crowned.
It was on this day in 1818 that Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein was published (books by this author).
Two years before she had spent the summer in a cabin on Lake Geneva with her lover, Percy Bysshe Shelley, her sister Claire, and Claire's lover, the poet Lord Byron. It rained a lot that summer, and one night, Byron suggested they all write ghost stories. At first Mary had trouble coming up with a story, but while lying in bed, claimed to have a waking nightmare, seeing a vision of a man reanimating a creature. She wrote: "I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion." So she set to work on Frankenstein.
It's the birthday of science fiction writer Douglas Adams (books by this author), born in Cambridge, England (1952). He was unemployed, depressed, living in his mother's house, when he remembered a night from years before. He was a teenager traveling around Europe with his guidebook The Hitchhiker's Guide to Europe, and that night he was lying in a field in Innsbruck, drunk, looking up at the stars, and he thought somebody should write a hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy as well. And so years later, he wrote the radio play The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, chronicling the adventures of the kindly and boring Arthur Dent, who is still wearing his dressing gown when he is whisked away from his suburban English home just in time to escape Earth being demolished by an interstellar highway.
In 1978, the radio broadcasts were such a success that Adams turned them into a series of five successful novels: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979), The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980), Life, the Universe and Everything (1982), So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (1984), and Mostly Harmless (1992).
He said, "I find that writing is a constant battle with exactly the same problems you've always had."
It's the birthday of children's book author and illustrator Ezra Jack Keats (books by this author), born Jacob Ezra Katz in Brooklyn (1916). The son of impoverished Jewish immigrants from Warsaw, he wanted to be an artist, and that worried his family — but he couldn't afford art school, so he got a job painting murals for the Works Progress Administration, and designed army camouflage during World War II.
Keats had no intention of illustrating children's books, much less writing them. He began to publish illustrations in magazines like Playboy and Reader's Digest. But one children's author saw his work and asked him to illustrate her book. The first book he wrote and illustrated on his own was The Snowy Day (1962), done all in collage, about a young black boy named Peter playing in his neighborhood after a new snowfall. It was one of the first children's books to feature a black character. He went on to illustrate more than 80 children's books, and to write and illustrate more than 20 books.
He said, "I love city life. All the beauty that other people see in country life, I find taking walks and seeing the multitudes of people."
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®
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We take questions after our podcasting 101 session and then talk about our favorite shows!
This week we cover how to start podcasting for your small to medium sized business. Want to know how to podcast? Learn how to podcast in this podcasting 101 episode!
No matter what you topic you are covering in your podcast, what you say is not the only thing you need to focus on. What you say in your podcast is very important and how you say it is equally important. If you have passion for what you are talking about this will come through naturally. We will be able to hear the energy and enthusiasm in your voice! But for some of us (me included), we have to work a little bit on HOW we speak in order to keep our listeners interested in the show.
Podcasting 101 – Part 1 – Choosing your genre >> Passion is the key! The Beginning – Podcasting Ain’t Easy So… your thinking about starting a podcast? That is awesome! Hopefully you’ve given a lot of thought to your topic and are passionate about your subject. Some people get into podcasting thinking they will make … Continued
If you enjoy listening to podcasts, chances are you’ll enjoy listening to books… so check out audible.com and get a free book by using our affiliate link! Another way to support the Bunker Project. Andrew has been enjoying his free audio book – “Crush It” by Gary V http://www.audibletrial.com/thebunkerproject Podcast Hero uses Blue Host to … Continued
Everything you need to know to get started podcasting. From equipment required to software and techniques… this is podcasting for newbies in a nutshell.
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|Sep 17||Fast Company|
Cheetah cubs and Olympic track & field athletes? The first thing you might think is that you wouldn’t dare race either of them -- and on that front you would be wise.
When U.S. track & field stars Carmelita Jeter (at right with "Lita the Cheetah") and Justin Gatlin arrived at the National Zoo on Thursday, Sept. 13, the small crowd that would have normally been gathered to see the young animals seemed to triple in size once the Olympians arrived. Stopping to pose with fans and sign autographs, Jeter and Gatlin then anxiously headed back to meet the cubs who would be named after them.
"If we raced them, we’d basically be eating dust?" remarked Jeter to one of the animal keepers at the National Zoo.
He responded with, "Basically. In the time that it took you and Justin to run and win 100 meters, that cheetah would have covered 300 meters."
To say Jeter and Gatlin did not hold back with the cubs would be an understatement. For the following 40 minutes, the two took it upon themselves to bond with their respective cubs, dubbing them "Lita the Cheetah" and "Gat the Cat."
Having cheetah cubs named after them is just one more example of the many ways that people around the country are saying thank you to the athletes for their hard work in London. To that end, the athletes continue to be humbled by the outpouring they continue to receive.
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Yesterday afternoon the Ohio Historical Center had several very special visitors.
The four original members of the band DEVO came to the Ohio Historical Center after a sound check at the State Fair to see the exhibit Q: Are We Not Men A: We Are Devo. The exhibit features several items from the band’s history including an iconic energy dome helmet, yellow jump suit, and an anti-evolutionary pamphlet “Jocko Homo Heavenbound” that was the inspiration for the band’s de-evolutionary theory.
The exhibit will be up at the Ohio Historical Center through August 28, and can be viewed on the third floor lobby on Thursdays from 10 am to 7 pm or Fridays and Saturdays from 10 am to 5 pm. For more information about the band and their tour schedule, visit ClubDevo.com
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So here we are, calling the last play of the 52 Neighborhoods game on a cold, windy Monday after Christmas. Pleasant Ridge is a neighborhood we’re familiar with, it’s just up the hill from where we live and we have friends who live here.
A little back story (grain of salt) from Wikipedia:
Its name, original legend has it came when a man named John Brewster had lost his wife and baby in childbirth and sought a spot for burial. Upon reaching “a grassy spot…on the brow of a hill overlooking the Mill Creek Valley” Samuel Pierson, a member of the party with him, said “Here is a pleasant ridge”…
In 1832, the year the post office opened, population was only 100. This was basically a farming community with a few businesses to serve farmers or travelers passing through the turnpike.
FYI – What is today the intersection of Ridge and Montgomery was back then a fairly major thoroughfare.
Pleasant Ridge was incorporated as a village in 1891 when its population exceeded 1,000. The village enacted certain improvements, such as board sidewalks and oil street lamps. The village had a council, policeman, a lamplighter and fireman.
And here’s the inevitable annexation part of the story:
The petition to be annexed by Cincinnati just 20 years later had a lot of opponents, but the proponents believed the added services would outweigh other disadvantages. Pleasant Ridge became part of Cincinnati on a vote of 260-174
Our breakfast spot was Pleasant Ridge Chili.
Here are a few FYIs – they’re closed Sundays, (which is why our trip was on a Monday) they’re open ‘till the wee hours other days, like 4:30am – and they’re cash only.
I opted for the classic ham and eggs and Debba went for the three-way (you gotta try the chili at a place with chili in its name).
My over-easy eggs were perfect, and I can’t remember the last time I had white toast with real butter and jelly – it was a treat. And while I haven’t commented much on the coffee over the past 51 weeks – this was some good coffee.
Debba’s three-way was definitely up to Cincinnati Chili standards, although just a touch on the mild side – certainly not the spicy “bite” that we experienced at Camp Washington Chili. But that’s Cincinnati Chili – it’s not all the same recipe.
I’d be remiss covering Pleasant Ridge without mentioning Molly Malone’s near the corner of Ridge and Montgomery – it is one of the probably five signature Irish bars in the tri-state. We’ve been there listening to friends’ music many times.
And on a final foodie note, the thing that drove me crazy is that I’ve been by the donut shop there near Ridge and Montgomery a million times over the years – never stopped in – and now they moved!
Actually, our personal interaction with the Pleasant Ridge neighborhood has been very much a walking one. We have friends in the area that we walk with on occasion and so from a walking perspective, I have to mention our fave street in Pleasant Ridge – Grand Vista.
Grand Vista is one of those streets that was built up back in the day when downtowners wanted to move up the hill to live the high life. There are some spectacular homes in a wonderful neighborhood on a fabulous street here.
I saw a few references online referring to Pleasant Ridge as the next Hyde Park, and to some extent, I can see that. There are some amazing streets and homes here, a friendly and inviting business district, all the makings of a great place to live in Cincinnati.
Pleasant Ridge was indeed a pleasant way to conclude our tour of Cincinnati’s 52 neighborhoods.
Zoom. Where did that year go?
Since we’re completely out of Cincinnati neighborhoods to visit, we’re going to post #53 with a bit of time reminiscing on the year and the neighborhoods and the people we met and of course, the food. I can read these posts and I’m right back there, and there, and there – winter, spring, summer, fall, and winter again.
So stay tuned for one more.
Written by Greg Haupert – writer, creative director (Call Greg Creative) and chief chef at the Haupert house. Blogged by Debba Haupert - entrepreneur, blogger and founder of Girlfriendology – the online community for women. Check out our 52 Breakfasts adventures on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
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View Full Version : Bow drills
I'm trying to work my way up the ladder of difficulty with bow drill woods...so far willow, sycamore, birch...Can anyone suggest a next step or two? :-D
Also any suggestions on a good wood to try a hand drill with? :-?
Not sure about the next step but from personal experience I'd put ash last. I spent week trying ash until I gave up and went back to sycamore.
From another Matt
Elder is my definate favourite for the handdrill. It is easy to find, and comes in nice straight shoots very often. This drill I like to combine with poplar.
Sorry Qweeg, that was too much like a challenge!
I got an ember from ash today in my lunch break - you need a fairly thin spindle and long strokes! Also the bearing block is a bit of a problem when drilling such a hard wood - I was using holly with plenty of green leaves packed in every time i stopped, but still the ash eats it pretty quick, and you have to keep thinning the spindle top.
Ok next...hand drill..elder....hmmm :wink:
I'll add another vote for elder for the hand drill. I used willow as the hearth which seemed to work well.
A useful tip I picked up for avoiding that annoying 'glazing' that can thwart your progress is to use a small amount of sand/grit in the hollow of the hearth.
I've tried using the dead stems of Teasels. They begin to smoke very quikly, though I haven't managed to convert that to an ember as yet.
Must go now - time to change the dressings on the blisters :lol:
I have been told that Sweet Chestnut is pretty difficult to get fire out of. Guy on the course I went on cut some by mistake, even the instructor struggled.
Mind you, I don't know if that is the right way to think about it. Wouldn't it be better to try things that you tend to find as fallen or dead trees. Most places you can find willow, sycamore or elder but there are places where they are harder to find. How about Black Thorn and Hawthorn, they are common and widely spread? Big Beech trees also tend to drop bits, have you given those a go?
I have only really started with the bow drill so haven't had a chance to work through all the woods around here yet.
Does anyone narrow their drills in the middle? Just a thought for getting more speed without making the bearing end/hearth end ratio too big.
There's an interesting variation of the bow drill on the primitive ways website http://www.primitiveways.com/e-fire.html which works really well. My 12 year old son who struggles to get smoke with a normal bow drill is almost at the point of getting an ember with this method.
As for hand drills I use an elder drill with a clematis hearth but mullein stem is also good for both hearth and drill
Chris, narrowing the spindle at the centre doesn't seem to have much effect.
You're right though, when out and about I'd use the easiest downed wood to hand, but while I have the luxury of being able to practice on other woods, I think its worth trying the tougher woods just to tighten up on technique.
Narrowing the spindle has a detrimental effect due to the fact that it reduces the spin and therefore means either more elbow grease or starting again.
I have seen students try numerous ways of 'improving' the technique but at the end of the day 1000's of years of evolution have improved it about as much as possible.
There is one new 'cheat' that I know of - but until Im sure its 100% Im not saying any more.
The spindle thing isn't something I have tried. I am lazy and it looked like a lot of work :wink: . I did see a guy do it and he said it worked for him, keeping the string more centred. The smaller spindle would give you more revolutions per stroke, but the cord might have to be tighter since you are giving up some mechanical force advantage. All interesting to speculate about....I guess I will have to give it a try and tell you if it truely is useless :-)
In most places if you take half an hour to carve the spindle you might as well have spent half an hour and found some better wood!
Personally I am going to try this stuff in the wet (as soon as we get some) using kit I know works in the dry before I go making it hard :-D
The bow drill does work and works well - it takes practice and determination to learn mind you but once mastered the worlds your oyster.
But top tip, as I say I have taught fire by friction for several years now, is to forget all your 'ideas' about spindle size and turns on the string or keeping it centred and too get yourself a good book - Ray Mears 'the survival handbook' I recommend and study this carefullly. Select the best wood you can find and then try and try again - eventually you'll get it.
It is hard work and so it should be, on courses I often tell students to think of learning the bow drill as 'personification' of their will to survive, those who want to - succeed and those who give up - fail.
Survival of the fittest isnt a race but a slow determined plod!
I'm still a newbie to bushcraft, so please forgive my ignorance, but, how can you tell what wood it is if it's not still attached to the tree?
I did the obvious and checked out those nearby, but there was quite a mixture of Ash, Oak and pines. I held the fallen branch to each and as it was a bit old and weathered, it seemed to be a match for all of them.
Anyway, made my bow and hearth etc, and got it smoking really quite quickly. So much so that after several attempts I got an ember, but then dropped it in my excitement and now only seem to be able to produce a high pitched shreaking sound from my drill and hearth. I'd kept it well lubed with leaves etc........but was it my choice of wood that was the problem?
Bark, buds, and branch shape can help in some cases. How the rings in the wood apear can give a clue, ash for instance has very porous, balsa like, early spring growth and very white later growth. Other woods tend to be more uniform. Some trees have heart wood that is a different colour and texture than the outer sap wood, yew, cherry and sweet chestnut are examples of that.
I don't know how to adequately discribe the characteristics of wood in words. I learned what little I know by wandering around picking up sticks from known sources, breaking them, peeling the bark and carving on them. Then when I met something that had bark like sycamore, cut like sycamore and weighed about the same as sycamore would, I could take a good guess that it was sycamore! :wink:
If it squeaks, lean on it HARD, at least that has worked for me. When it starts to get hot it stops squeaking.
Welcome to the best Bushcraft site in the world!!
Over the next day or two I will give you some basic tips on tree identification, just so you know your ash from your elbow!!......there is a joke in there somewhere!!
I have got to fly off line now but I will put something together that I give my students and that should get you on your way.
Thanks for the welcome folks, and thanks for the advice. I loook forward to the tree id tips. At the moment I'm nipping round picking up branches etc from trees while the leaves are still on them, and will now do what you suggested by carving and peeling etc.
Thanks once again.
A very good book for ID of Trees is,
TREES AND BUSHES OF BRITAIN AND EUROPE by OLEG POLUNIN - it was published in the 70's but is well worth a search for. Its the best book I know of Ray recommended to all his assistant instructors.
Is willow any good for the base board? As I am just about to fell tons of it and it would nice to do something different with it for a change.
Willow can be used for the base and the spindle. It will need to dry out though unless you have some standing deadwood that can be used.
I use only willow spindles on maple boards.
I got a newbie to try my kit, had to slow him down a bit, then coax him on.
Less than two minutes, Bingo!
Usually, I spin up an ember in about 30 secs. And I have to remember not to push too hard, as this will dead-press the hearthboard.
Also, I use the Egyptian setup (Knot and turns around the spindle).
Next time out, I might try Elder/Poplar.
Cattail and Great mullein worked NOT for me. Great way to make a drill, tho.
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Morning found us steaming into Phnom Penh, a city from whose ramshackle medium of corrugated iron shacks and French colonial architecture grow gleaming new buildings and the beginnings of a modern infrastructure. Phnom Penh is a city of the young, an unhoped for measure of how close a people can come to self-destruction yet still rebuild a working society.
Phnom Penh traffic is dense but not as crazy as Saigon, with many cycles towing trailers rather than having 2-4 people piled on a motorbike. Also, where the Vietnamese rely on helmets for fashion and protection, the Khmer seem to trust more in karma. The Khmer Rouge evacuation of cities left most cars and bikes destroyed; most vehicles on the street now were imported in the last 10-15 years. Phnom penh has two rush hours a day, because most people take a long lunch/siesta during the hot midday.
The Khmer seem very curious about foreigners. They smile at strangers more than the Vietnamese.
Our first stop was the royal palace, which we reached by pedal rickshaw. The old man who pedaled for me didn’t know English, but we exchanged a few words of French.
The palace is a sprawl of high, peak-roofed buildings — some royal, some Theravada — crisscrossed by gardens. For the abode of royalty, it didn’t feel terribly extravagant, except inasmuch as one might question whether maintaining a royal family at all makes sense for a country this poor. With the need to have some stability post-Khmer Rouge, though, I imagine it’s widely seen as a trade-of in favor of national unity. The royals do appear to be quite popular, although not to the same degree as the Thai royalty.
In the gardens, we saw a “Buddha’s tree,” unusual for flowing from its trunk rather than the ends of branches.
On the day we visited, a red carpet extended from a large audience hall for a diplomatic visit. Cambodia is a constitutional monarchy; King Nouradoum Sihanouk is head of state but has no power. A blue flag flying on the grounds indicated that the king was currently in residence.
The palace was built in 1886, then restored after communism in 1991. We viewed the royal regalia, the audience hall, and stupas holding ashes of past kings before moving on.
After the palace, we went to the Central Market. The ATMs there — and everywhere I went in Cambodia, actually — only gave dollars. Cambodian riel had to be acquired from moneychangers, who I’m pretty sure were all Chinese.
The Central Market isn’t much of a spot for Cambodian crafts. Mostly, you’ll find a shopping mall atmosphere, only consisting of dozens of little, tightly spaced stalls rather than stores. One think I noticed was that the Khmer seem to have taken with gusto to internet memes. We saw a “U MAD BRO?” Trollface shirt and a Lolcat tuk tuk.
Phnom Penh is a bit like Mexico City — whole neighborhoods specialize in a type of merchandise. Tools, pharmacies, etc. The Cambodian health care system is poor. Well off people go to Vietnam, Thailand, or even Singapore for treatment. Broken glass, barbed wire, and concertina are common atop roofs and fences. Phnom Penh feels fairly safe now, but an era of high crime looks recent.
In the afternoon, we headed out to see the killing field at Choeung Ek. On the way, I noticed people playing a game of beach volleyball — sitting. Wonder whether this is a thing over there.
The killing field was one of hundreds of such places, and once held 17,000 prisoners. Villagers in 1980 found it upon making their way home from the fields to which they’d been taken. Bones still litter the site; I found a molar embedded in the foot path. In the 100 mass graves on the site, 8098 skulls have so far been found. The victims are impossible to identify, but it’s known that 166 soldiers of the Republic of Cambodia were killed there by beheading.
It’s surprising that all of this happened, and so recently in history. Many factors combined to add to Cambodia’s misery, but Chinese support for Pol Pot, which continued even after he lost power, definitely complicated the responses of other nations. And Pol Pot’s sealing of the borders was extremely effective at keeping world from knowing what went on inside Cambodia.
Following the Choeung Ek, we headed back to the city and visited Tuol Sleng Prison, also known as S21. Tuol Sleng set my teeth on edge. It’s one of those places where the enormity of what was done there remains written in the walls and floors. Still present are the rusty rebar shackles, the hand tools used in beatings, and the abandoned American ammo boxes given to the prisoners as toilets. Still more discomfiting is that S21 was a high school before the Khmer Rouge boarded the windows up, added barbed wire, and turned it into their most notorious house of execution and torment. Some of the chalkboards are still covered with lessons, probably written in the days right before the Khmer Rouge deported the populace to the killing fields.
The tools of torture, the photographs of the victims — the Khmer Rouge, unlike the Nazis, documented their genocide for us — all combine to make one feel as if these atrocities, if one stands alone in a room and can’t see the drink stand below — could’ve happened not long ago at all. Which in fact they didn’t. In 1980, the prison still had a lot of blood and smell of decay.
Late in the day, we managed to squeeze in a visit to the National Museum, whose collection consists primarily of antiquities dating from about the 8th to the 17th centuries. Worth seeing, especially if you enjoy Buddhist and Hindu sculpture. It was also my first experience with an art/anthropology museum also being used by the locals as a shrine. There are little old ladies with jasmine and incense attending some of the Buddhas in the museum’s collection, and they’ll offer you incense to put in front of the statues. It’d be rather like if there were a bunch of pious Irish grannies offering you votive candles in the Renaissance wing of the Art Institute.
A lot of Phnom Penh’s nightlife is concentrated near the night market, where our ship docked. A large number of bars cater to westerners, and although I spotted more than one young local getting into a tuk tuk with a middle aged foreigner, the nightlife here is a lot more chill than Bangkok if you don’t fancy being pestered by carryout hostesses and dudes with signs hawking thirty different kinds of pussy show.
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This week the HPC Advisory Council announced a new university award program design to stimulate the dissemination of HPC research results.
“HPC is critically important to our economy and future, and its role is growing both in research and industry,” said Gilad Shainer, chairman of the HPC Advisory Council. “The University Award program is part of our ongoing effort to encourage and provide incentives for HPC education and advancement. We look forward to reviewing proposals, and working with the winners to highlight their research and further advances in HPC technology and education.”
“This is an excellent opportunity for students around the world to bring their research to life and highlight the end results to the HPC community,” said Hussein Nasser El-Harake at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre who serves as the Director of the HPC Advisory Council Center of Excellence in Switzerland. “As part of the HPC Advisory Council’s award submission review team, we look forward to reviewing what students have planned for utilizing the performance power of clusters to solve interesting and important problems.”
Proposals are due by Oct 30, 2010, and can be submitted from the Council’s website. Winning submissions will receive a grant of time on the Council’s computing resources, travel expenses to present at one of the Council workshops, and publication of results on the Council website.
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Jul 3 2007, 09:12 AM
I wuz wonderin which was better for school a laptop or a desktop because it would work out cheaper for me to have one built than to buy a laptop. I really need help choosing.
Jul 3 2007, 01:32 PM
i have a laptop and find it really convenient...
some good reasons to have a laptop...
- the chairs in the dorms aren't the most comfortable so it is easy to sit on your bed with a laptop
- if you feel like hanging out in the union there is a wireless hotspot so you could still use your own comp if it is a laptop
- if you want to go to study quad or library you could still have the comfort of your own comp while in a better work/study place (also wireless hotspot at library)
- laptop is far easier to travel with to go home and get to school
- laptop takes up less of the little available space in the dorm rooms
i'm sure there are more advantages but this is what i came up with right off the top of my head
Jul 5 2007, 12:50 PM
mathgeni is def right on. i wouldn't recommend a desktop just because it would be easier to take your files and stuff with you to class if need be. and you can still get a printer for the laptop and even though they are cheaper you will use them longer and more in the long run
Jul 12 2007, 05:50 AM
Yeah stick to a laptop (mac of course!) just so you can use it any time you want. nothing worse than falling asleep at your desk when you can be doing that in bed typing a word doc
Jul 12 2007, 12:35 PM
i agree... macs are the way to go
Jul 27 2009, 07:27 PM
I would agree a laptop is going to be the best option, it might be a good idea to get an external hard drive aswell though.
That way you can keep everything backed up incase something bad happens to the laptop. This is where desktops have an advantage,
they are much easier to fix if something breaks.
Mar 7 2011, 07:21 PM
I prefer laptops. The best reason to get a laptop is the comfort and ease of use. A lot of the problems that laptops used to have are no longer a factor. Prices have come way down (especially if you do not mind netbooks!) and they are just as powerful as a standard desktop.
Macs are good computers, but if you want something with lots of cool features for less money then get a computer with Windows 7. Mac users like to rag on Windows, but there is really no actual problem with them unless you are a complete noob and fill it up with viruses and stuff.
You could get a laptop with a Blue-Ray player, Windows 7, and a decent amount of power for a pretty light price. If you like gaming at all Windows is still your best bet too, although Macs are catching up pretty rapidly.
I have a Dell Studio 15 and am very happy with it. It has lots of nifty features and was pretty cheap. You can get Blue-Ray players in HP computers for sure, and Acer computers have recently begun gaining popularity.
Of course, if you want the ultimate mobility, lowest price, and do not care about performance, just get a netbook. All you can really do is get on the internet and use Microsoft Office, but if that is all you need then I suppose it is a legitimate option.
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here
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EPA takes the pain out of patching
Automated approach lets agency spread security patches far and wide
- By Alan Radding
- May 02, 2005
Like other federal agencies that are trying to avoid being victimized by the next onslaught of computer viruses and worms, the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Environmental Information is automating efforts to update systems with the latest security patches.
The time between the discovery of vulnerabilities in popular software products and attacks by hackers who create viruses or other malicious programs to exploit those weaknesses continues to shrink. In response, many government information security officers are realizing they need to speed the process of applying fixes to computers enterprisewide. Many of them, including the EPA, are turning to patch management solutions for help.
Cost of inaction
Not long after completing a migration to Microsoft's Windows 2000 software a few years ago, EPA officials began to see a rise in the number of company-issued security updates designed to fix holes that could allow hackers to compromise and, in some cases, take over the upgraded systems.
Unfortunately, applying patches was a labor-intensive process that required the EPA's information technology staff to go from computer to computer to properly install the software fixes, said Bill Sabbagh, security technical monitor at the EPA's headquarters in Washington, D.C. Software updates were complicated because the agency operates numerous regional offices nationwide, whose systems also needed patching.
Even when IT employees thought the job was finished, "it was hard to determine if all [the systems] had been done," Sabbagh said.
Manual patching was costly, but the alternative was even worse. Sabbagh does not have exact figures, but he said failing to keep systems properly patched meant that EPA IT staff would inevitably have to contend with losses of data, time and productivity while fixing infected systems.
Officials at the EPA's Computer Security Incident Response Capability (CSIRC), based in Research Triangle Park, N.C., evaluated about six patch management products. They wanted a solution that was easy to implement and could be deployed across a variety of computer systems.
For example, the agency operates a variety of operating systems, such as Windows 95, 98, 2000, 2003, NT and XP, Sabbagh said. The solution also had to be scalable to automatically update 24,000 workstations and 1,500 servers nationwide.
They selected PatchLink's PatchLink Update software because it offers both automated patching tools and reporting capabilities. So, for example, if the Slammer worm is infecting systems, the reporting function could tell information security officers at CSIRC if systems in different regional offices are compliant with necessary patches.
EPA officials have loaded the PatchLink agent software on thousands of workstations and servers nationwide, enabling those systems to be part of the automatic patch management system. In addition, they have deployed a PatchLink server and one proxy server at EPA headquarters, a server at CSIRC, and one server each at 10 regional locations.
The EPA's goal is to also install proxy servers for program offices that can accept patches distributed from headquarters. The proxy server could then cache the patches and apply them to other systems in the office at an appropriate time, Sabbagh added.
Besides eliminating the costly manual process for applying patches, PatchLink offers the EPA "a central point of consolidation for patches," said Chris Andrew, vice president of product management at PatchLink.
EPA officials can retrieve patches from PatchLink's repository, test them against the agency's standard desktop and application configurations and distribute them within minutes across the EPA's network, he said.
Sabbagh declined to say how much the EPA paid for the PatchLink solution. He said other less expensive patch management products are available but added that PatchLink provided the best value for the EPA's needs.
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Stop for a second and see if you can answer this: do you know what breast density is? Many women don't and it's not something your doctor has to tell you, but it can increase a woman's risk of developing cancer. There are four levels of breast density and the higher your level the harder it is to spot abnormalities on a mammogram. The Greensboro Commission On The Status Of Women is working to change this, and they're asking for your help tonight. They want a law in our state that legally binds doctors to tell women their level of breast density. Viola Fuller and Addy Jeffrey are with the Commission On The Status Of Women and stopped by to talk about this.
You can show your support by going to the City Council chambers on 300 West Washington Street at 5:30pm. Don't forget to wear pink to send a strong message to our State Representatives.
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Some background on the Massey Lectures. This year’s series marks the half century of the lectures whose purpose is to “enable distinguished authorities to communicate the results of original study on important subjects of contemporary interest”, so Coupland is a reasonable choice. He joins an illustrious group — the early lecturers included Northrop Frye (1962), John Kenneth Galbraith (1965), Martin Luther King, Jr. (1967) and Jane Jacobs (1979); recent luminaries include Michael Ignatieff (2000), Alberto Manguel (2007) and Margaret Atwood (2008). The program involves five public lectures in cities across Canada; they are recorded and broadcast on CBC Radio’s Ideas program — for those with accesss to CBC, Coupland’s will air nightly from Nov. 8-14 (more details can be found here).
I confess that I would not have picked up Player One had it not made the longlist. I tried his seminal work, Generation X (1991), and it just wasn’t for me — I have glanced at a couple since and they confirmed that view. While I finished Player One, described as “a novel in five hours” since each lecture is an hour long, I have to admit the experience only reinforced my impression. That conclusion comes with a caveat, however — Coupland has legions of fans internationally and I am simply not one of them. Dystopian futurists are not my cup of tea at all (from George Orwell through Nevil Shute to Margaret Atwood’s recent work, I just avoid them) and this is very much a futuristic dystopian work, even if it is set in the present.
The action takes place in the cocktail lounge at a Toronto airport hotel and, as the subtitle suggests, chronicles what happens over five hours. Each hour features the view from four characters who have wandered into the lounge and become trapped there (the sense of “nowhere” that surrounds airports is one of the book’s better touches); the fifth point of view comes from an avatar (the Player One of the title) who at the end of each chapter sums up that hour and offers a guide to the next one.
– Karen, a divorced Winnipeg housewife who works as a receptionist at a psychiatrists’ clinic, has flown in for an internet-arranged date with someone she first met on the Peak Oil Apocalypse chat room.
– Rick, a recovering alcoholic, is the bartender — he had a gardening business until all his equipment was stolen and is awaiting the arrival of a positive-thinking charlatan to present $8,500 in cash for his photo-op enrolment into the Power Dynamics Seminar System which will start him on his new life.
– Luke was a pastor in Nippissing until this morning when he stole $20,000 from the church renovation fund and headed off into his version of new life.
– Rachel is a beautiful young woman who suffers from a collection of neural disorders (she can’t recognize faces or music or metaphor, among other things), and who has decided to have a child to see if that would make her human. She is searching for a sperm source.
Let me offer an extended sample of Coupland’s oration/prose, part of his introduction of Rachel:
Rachel has never fit into the world. She remembers as a child being handed large wooden numbers covered in sandpaper to help her learn numbers and mathematics. Other children weren’t given tactile sandpaper number blocks, but she was, and she knows that she has always been a barely tolerated sore point among her neurotypical classmates. Rachel also remembers many times starving herself for days because the food that arrived at the table was the wrong temperature or colour, or was placed on the plate incorrectly: it just wasn’t right. And she remembers discovering single-player video games and for the first time seeing a two-dimensional, non-judgemental, crisply defined realm in which she could be free from off-temperature food and sick colour schemes and bullies. Entering her screen’s portal into that other realm is where her avatar, Player One, can fully come to life. Unlike Rachel, Player One has a complete overview both of the world and of time. Player One’s life is more like a painting than it is a story. Player One can see everything with a glance and can change tenses at will. Player One has ultimate freedom, the ultimate software on the ultimate hardware. That realm is also the one place where Player One feels, for lack of a better word, normal.
The disaster that drives the action involves a sudden global surge in the price of oil, accompanied by a series of apparently random explosions, trapping the four in the lounge. I am not going to try to describe the action — my fellow Shadow Giller juror, Trevor, has explored it at some length in his review here if you find Coupland’s premise of interest.
All of that left me cold, but as I said earlier none of those things are to my taste. Coupland uses this framework to explore concepts ranging from the notion of time and how humans experience it differently than other creatures; the powers of belief and the traps that they represent; what represents “reality” or at least what we think it is; and perhaps most importantly a notion of hope that the future will be better that we all carry.
He concludes all this with 31 pages of glossary called “Future Legend”, a catalogue of invented terms and descriptions, which offer depth to the ideas in the lectures/book. I’ll offer one as an example, since I think it does apply to me:
The isms that pose the greatest threat to inflexible religious orthodoxies:
Perhaps part of my problem is that I put religious orthodoxy and dystopian futurism into the same bucket — both are a load of bollocks as far as I am concerned. While I can appreciate the thought that Coupland puts into his constructs (and others obviously respond to it positively), the result for me is a volume of annoying self-indulgence.
Then again, I didn’t think much of Howard Jacobson’s Booker Prize winning The Finkler Question either (ironically, the two novels actually have quite a few comparisons). So take my distaste with a grain of salt.
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Hugh's Blue Day is a delightful rhyming story that will appeal to any child who has had 'the blues'. Geared primarily to 2-5-year-olds, it features a grumpy little boy and his fun-loving mum. When Hugh refuses to play, mum tries to cheer him up by making the whole day 'blue'. At first Hugh is doubtful, but he soon takes up the challenge, trying to outwit mum as she strives to make everything blue: his clothes, his food, even his toothpaste. Hodgson's quirky rhymes and the infectious enthusiasm of Collins' colour illustrations make this a classic picture book. Collins is one of the most acclaimed children's book illustrators and authors working today. He has illustrated more than 70 books, including The Elephantom (shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal), The Sea Hole (winner of the MacMillan Children's Book Prize) and Billy Monster's Daymare (winner of the Royal Mail Book Award). He lives in Glasgow, Scotland. Hodgson, a former journalist, lives in south-east England. She is also author of The Robot Who Couldn't Cry and The Teeny-Weeny Walking Stick, both published by Hogs Back Books.
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There was some big news over the weekend, with the People’s Bank of China announcing that it was going to allow some flexibility in its exchange rate. The statement from the BoC points to the global economic recovery and domestic growth as the background to pursue further exchange rate flexibility. Markets have reacted positively to the announcement, with corporate bond indices opening up tighter this morning.
This signals the end of a de facto peg to the USD that started in mid-July 2008. From July 2005 to July 2008, the Chinese authorities very gradually allowed the Chinese renminbi (yuan) to appreciate by around 21% against the USD. Any appreciation of the yuan this time around is likely to be similar to the period between 2005-2008 i.e. modest and consistent. We should highlight that there is still some uncertainty around the timing, nature and potential scope of the new flexibility in the yuan at this early stage.
For us there are a number of main implications of this move worth highlighting.
Firstly, by keeping the yuan pegged to the dollar, Chinese exports are cheaper than they would be if the currency was allowed to float. There are many critics, particularly in the US, that believe China should be penalised for keeping its currency artificially weak. These penalties would likely take the form of trade protectionist measures. By allowing greater flexibility in its currency, the Chinese are reducing the likelihood that other countries start to introduce trade barriers in an effort to protect local industries. On this point, the timing of the announcement is interesting given there is a G-20 meeting this week.
Secondly, any move to see the yuan appreciate in value versus the USD is likely to be bearish for US treasuries at the margin resulting in higher yields. The exact nature of the impact on US treasuries is difficult to analyse. If the yuan appreciates in value then China will have less USD to invest into US treasuries, suggesting a weakening in demand. That said, given the appreciation in the yuan is likely to be measured it is unlikely that this is going to have a huge impact in the demand for US Treasuries in the short-term.
Thirdly, there will be upward pressure on global inflation rates if Chinese goods become more expensive due to the rising currency. Import prices for developed economies are likely to increase, suggesting higher producer and consumer prices. Analysing the allocation of items in the UK CPI basket for instance, we can see that many of the CPI divisions use Chinese goods as an input for the final product. This is similar for the inflation divisions in Europe and the US. Additionally, have a think about how many goods you own are manufactured in China. We can now see how a rise in the yuan can lead to higher costs for inputs which may lead to higher consumer prices. Given inflation is already above target in the UK this is something the Bank of England will have to keep a close eye on.
Fourthly, if the yuan appreciates versus other currencies, the purchasing power of Chinese businesses and households is going to improve. This could provide a boost to growth for countries that export goods to China and something that would be highly positive for global growth.
Ultimately, the announcement by the Chinese authorities is a positive step. A more flexible yuan will allow some correction of the imbalances that have developed in the global economy in recent decades. Given that China is such a large economy it is likely that the appreciation of the yuan will have many more impacts on global trade and finance than those listed above. We believe that any currency move will likely be gradual, thereby avoiding the large disruptions that a one-off revaluation would have on the global economic recovery. Watch this space.
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Isaiah 571 Israel's Futile Idolatry 1 The righteous man perishes,
and no one lays it to heart;
devout men are taken away,
while no one understands.
For the righteous man is taken away from calamity;
2 he enters into peace;
they rest in their beds
who walk in their uprightness.
3 But you, draw near,
sons of the sorceress,
offspring of the adulterer and the loose woman.
4 Whom are you mocking?
Against whom do you open your mouth wide
and stick out your tongue?
Are you not children of transgression,
the offspring of deceit,
5 you who burn with lust among the oaks,[a]
under every green tree,
who slaughter your children in the valleys,
under the clefts of the rocks?
6 Among the smooth stones of the valley is your portion;
they, they, are your lot;
to them you have poured out a drink offering,
you have brought a grain offering.
Shall I relent for these things?
7 On a high and lofty mountain
you have set your bed,
and there you went up to offer sacrifice.
8 Behind the door and the doorpost
you have set up your memorial;
for, deserting me, you have uncovered your bed,
you have gone up to it,
you have made it wide;
and you have made a covenant for yourself with them,
you have loved their bed,
you have looked on nakedness.[b]
9 You journeyed to the king with oil
and multiplied your perfumes;
you sent your envoys far off,
and sent down even to Sheol.
10 You were wearied with the length of your way,
but you did not say, "It is hopeless";
you found new life for your strength,
and so you were not faint.[c]
11 Whom did you dread and fear,
so that you lied,
and did not remember me,
did not lay it to heart?
Have I not held my peace, even for a long time,
and you do not fear me?
12 I will declare your righteousness and your deeds,
but they will not profit you.
13 When you cry out, let your collection of idols deliver you!
The wind will carry them off,
a breath will take them away.
But he who takes refuge in me shall possess the land
and shall inherit my holy mountain.
14 Comfort for the Contrite 14 And it shall be said,
"Build up, build up, prepare the way,
remove every obstruction from my people's way."
15 For thus says the One who is high and lifted up,
who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:
"I dwell in the high and holy place,
and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly,
and to revive the heart of the contrite.
16 For I will not contend forever,
nor will I always be angry;
for the spirit would grow faint before me,
and the breath of life that I made.
17 Because of the iniquity of his unjust gain I was angry,
I struck him; I hid my face and was angry,
but he went on backsliding in the way of his own heart.
18 I have seen his ways, but I will heal him;
I will lead him and restore comfort to him and his mourners,
19 creating the fruit of the lips.
Peace, peace, to the far and to the near," says the Lord,
"and I will heal him.
20 But the wicked are like the tossing sea;
for it cannot be quiet,
and its waters toss up mire and dirt.
21 There is no peace," says my God, "for the wicked."
Top 10 sermons on Isaiah 57
- You have been around this mountain to long
- Experiencing A Word From God
- PROMISED BLESSING
- God's Promise of Spiritual Revival
- The Only Means of Revival
a. Isaiah 57:5 Or among the terebinths
b. Isaiah 57:8 Or on a monument (see 56:5); Hebrew on a hand
c. Isaiah 57:10 Hebrew and so you were not sick
Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. ESV® Text Edition: 2007. All rights reserved.
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The impact of homegrown, San Antonio-based, all-woman band Girl in a Coma stretches far beyond the borders of Texas. Its fourth album Exits and All the Rest, recently named to NPR’s 50 best of 2011, shows the band’s range of talents–from the Morrissey-inspired “Smart” to the rough-edged anthem:
Phanie Diaz, Nina Diaz and Jenn Alva bring renewed vitality and political charge to what have historically been labeled “girl bands.”
Don’t let their name fool you: GIAC is wide awake (their name is based on the song “Girlfriend in a Coma” from the Morrissey-led British band The Smiths), and its bluesy, rock sound gains tremendous force from Nina Diaz’s distinct vocals. These women are the real thing–and that’s probably why rock pioneer Joan Jett signed them to her Blackheart Records in 2006. “Joan really understands where we are coming from,” Phanie Diaz tells the Ms. Blog.
Despite being participants in The Sound Strike–a coalition of artists who have committed to supporting the international boycott of Arizona in the wake of SB 1070, GIAC did a December benefit concert in Tucson for the organization Voto Latino. A number of artists, including Mos Def, Lila Downs and Maroon 5, have boycotted Arizona to protest the ramped-up racial profiling and deportation of undocumented, mostly Mexican immigrants, and GIAC supports those efforts to interrupt the flow of dollars into the state. The band even toured immigrant-bullying Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s tent cities in Arizona’s Maricopa County and found the humiliating and inhumane conditions to be outrageous. And that’s why they chose to tour in the state again despite The Sound Strike: “[We] wanted to come back and not alienate our fans by supporting a nonprofit organization that supports Latino/as in the community,” says Phanie. Adds Jenn Alva, the bandmates identify with Tucson as it reminds them of their home, containing a vibrant arts scene and multicultural community.
Before I listened to “Hope,” the Girl in a Coma song about the Arizona situation, I expected a soft, melancholic reflection. Instead, my ears were nearly blown off by the hard-hitting bass riffs that open the recording, along with Nina Diaz’s painful narration of the state as a failed promised land. “I am not a political person,” says Diaz, who wrote the song, “but when we went to see the tent cities, something changed.”
Making a political statement is something the band does effortlessly and almost accidentally, says Phanie: “We just love music, not really thinking about the fact that our band is two-thirds queer, all Latina and all female. We are doing the best that we can with what we have.”
Feminists, give a listen to Girl in a Coma. You may hear something unexpectedly beautiful, or discover a bit of yourself in their songs. At the very least, you’ll want to support women using sound to make change in the world.
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Filed under: Mormon Church, Mormon Families, Mormon Prophets and Apostles
In one of the last Mormon General Conferences Elder Ballard during the priesthood session talked about the relationship that should exist between fathers and sons.
Tonight I want to talk to you fathers and sons about how you talk to each other. There is no other relationship quite like that which can and should exist between a boy and his dad. It can be one of the most nurturing, joyful relationships in life, one that can have a profound impact on who boys become and also on who dads become. Now, I understand that some of you young men do not have fathers with whom you can have these kinds of conversations. And some of you men do not have sons or have lost your sons to accident or illness. But much of what I say tonight will apply to uncles and grandfathers and priesthood leaders and other mentors who sometimes fill the gaps for these significant father-son relationships. You see, we're all on a journey. Dads are a little further down the road, but none of us has yet arrived at our final destination. We are all in the process of becoming who we will one day be. Fathers and sons can play a critical role in helping each other become the best that they can be. (Fathers and Sons: A Remarkable Relationship)
More recently Mormon Messages launched this video about how a father and a son were able to improve their relationship. In this case the story is about a step son and a step father, and those relationships are usually fraught with more challenges, but the principles taught by Elder Ballard apply to every father and son relationship.
I have found this very interesting article about a “new generation of Mormons“.
I quote a few passages from the article: (link to the full article: The rise of a new generation of Mormons)
… the Mormon church is the outstanding religious success story of the past hundred years. Approximately 1.7 per cent of the US population are LDS members, just slightly fewer than describe themselves as Jewish. Global membership rose from 250,000 in 1900 to one million in 1948, to 13 million today. The church is probably the world's richest per capita religious institution, too, with assets estimated at between $25bn and $30bn. (That's £16bn-£20bn; the Church of England's portfolio in 2009 was £4.4bn.)
Religious sociologist Rodney Stark, at Baylor University in Texas, has predicted that the LDS will in the latter half of this century become the first new world religion since Islam - just one reason that Smith, who founded the church in the 1830s, is sometimes described as the "American Mohammed". There is something special about Mormons, but what is it? The most fashionable theory regarding religious success at the moment comes from economics, drawing on approaches developed by the University of Chicago's Gary Becker. Becker, a sociologist and economist, argues that American church pews are kept full - while those in Europe empty out - because the US is unencumbered by religious monopolies (such as the Church of England or the Catholic Church), leaving plenty of room for competition and choice. And indeed, one-quarter of US Mormons are first-generation converts. The US's National Council of Churches data from 2008 rank the LDS fourth among church membership in the US, with 5.8 million members - a rise of 1.56 per cent from the previous year.
Yet growth alone doesn't explain why some religions break into the boardroom and why some don't. American Jews and Hindus stand out in socio-demographic surveys for their exceptional incomes and professional accomplishment, but this flows not from growing membership, rather from heavy investment in education and, in the case of Hindus, successive waves of immigration by highly trained elites such as doctors and engineers. Mormon success is different: unlike Hindu immigrants, the newest LDS members in America - converts - tend to be poorer and less educated than those with longer heritage in the church. ..
Perhaps the most telling sign that Mormon success springs from different roots is this fact: the church's most successful members, in terms of education and wealth, are also its most fervent. In most religions, piety and professional success mix badly. Devout Jews earn less, and tend to be less educated, than their less-orthodox brethren. American Christian evangelicals save and earn less than those from more moderate traditions.
According to the Financial Times (and my experience) it is generally true that the most successful members are also the most fervent, characteristic that is not usually found in other religions, where many of the most successful people become skeptic of their religion and distance themselves from it. But why does this happen?
An easy answer from a convert to the Church (myself) is that the reason is because what the Church teaches is true, and when we apply its teachings to our life over a period of time, our life become successful, and this success confirms and strengthen our faith, and do not destroy it.
On the other hand, those who are members of the Mormon church but do not apply the principles of their religion to their lives, are usually less successful, and they tend to lose faith in their religion because they do not receive the support they were hoping for. The problem is that some of them do not realize that their lack of success is in part due to their actions, and therefore they do not make the corrections that are needed, and end up accusing the church for their failure.
But why is that in other religions more educated and wealthy people tend to be less devout then?
I have always been interested in what we should expect to see happen right before the beginning of the Millennium, since it is the time we are living now. However, what is the purpose of the Millennium and what will happen after it? What about the “little season” after the Millennium? How long is that going to be?
Mormon Apostle Bruce R. McConkie explains:
After the Millennium-what? Is this great day when there shall be peace on earth and goodwill in the hearts of men-is it an end in itself? Is this the day of rest and righteousness, when there is neither sorrow, disease, nor death-is it the summun bonum of all things? When Israel triumphs and wickedness ceases and the Lord Jehovah lives and reigns on earth-will we then reach the great end and goal toward which all things point? Or is the millennial era but a way and a means to prepare most of the spirit hosts of an Almighty Elohim for even greater heights of joy and peace, of glory and exaltation?
... The Millennium is simply a means to an end; it is that portion of the earth’s temporal continuance during which billions of our Father’s children will so live as to gain eternal life. Out of the millennial era will come, without question, more saved souls than will result from all the rest of the ages combined. And after the Millennium will come celestial rest and glory.
This earth is destined to be a celestial sphere. It is now in a telestial state and will return to its Edenic or terrestrial state during the Millennium. Its final destiny, in John’s language, is to be “a sea of glass like unto crystal” (Rev. 4:6), which our revelation identifies as “the earth, in its sanctified, immortal, and eternal state.” (D&C 77:1.) The inspired word also says: “The angels do not reside on a planet like this earth; but they reside in the presence of God, on a globe like a sea of glass and fire. . . . The place where God resides is a great Urim and Thummim. This earth, in its sanctified and immortal state, will be made like unto crystal and will be a Urim and Thummim to the inhabitants who dwell thereon.” (D&C 130:6-9.)
During the Millennium, Satan is bound. Because of the righteousness of the people, he has no power over them. “And when the thousand years are expired,” John tells us, “Satan shall be loosed out of his prison.” (Rev. 20:7.) This means that once again men will begin to give heed to his enticements. Satan was bound among the Nephites during their golden era. None of the people were then subject to his wiles; all lived in righteousness, and all were saved. But in A.D. 201, “there began to be among them those who were lifted up in pride, such as the wearing of costly apparel, and all manner of fine pearls, and of the fine things of the world. And from that time forth they did have their goods and their substance no more common among them. And they began to be divided into classes; and they began to build up churches unto themselves to get gain, and began to deny the true church of Christ.” (4 Ne. 1:24-26.) Soon there were persecution, crime, murder, and evil of every sort. So shall it be at the end of the Millennium. Men will begin again, gradually, to partake of the things of this world; pride and carnality and crime will commence anew; true believers will be persecuted and false churches will arise. Satan will be loosed because he is no longer bound by the righteousness of the people.
“And when he [Satan] is loosed again he shall only reign for a little season, and then cometh the end of the earth.” This “little season” is presumed to be another thousand years. The reasoning is that Christ came in the meridian of time, which means both the high point in time and the middle of time. The millennial era will be the seventh period of one thousand years of this earth’s temporal continuance; thus an added thousand-year period is needed to place the meridian of time in the midpoint in history. But be that as it may, “he that liveth in righteousness”-at the time of the actual end of the earth-”shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye, and the earth shall pass away so as by fire.” This will be a second day of burning, the day when this earth becomes a celestial globe. “And the wicked shall go away into unquenchable fire, and their end no man knoweth on earth, nor ever shall know, until they come before me in judgment.” (D&C 43:31-33.)
“And again, verily, verily, I say unto you,” saith the Lord, “that when the thousand years are ended, and men again begin to deny their God, then will I spare the earth but for a little season.” The language here bears out the concept that apostasy and its consequent evil way of life will be the key that opens the prison in which Satan is bound. “And the end shall come, and the heaven and the earth shall be consumed and pass away, and there shall be a new heaven and a new earth.” There was a new earth and new heavens when the Millennium commenced. This is a second new heaven and new earth; it is the celestial earth and its heaven. The language in each instance is similar, but the meaning is different. In one instance the new earth is the paradisiacal earth; in this case it is the celestial globe. “For all old things shall pass away, and all things shall become new, even the heaven and the earth, and all the fulness thereof, both men and beasts, the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea; and not one hair, neither mote, shall be lost, for it is the workmanship of mine hand.” (D&C 29:22-25.) All forms of life shall then be immortal; all shall come forth from death and live in a resurrected state forever; the resurrection applies to men and animals and fowls and fishes and creeping things-all shall rise in immortality and live forever in their destined orders and spheres of existence. (Bruce R. McConkie, The Millennial Messiah: The Second Coming of the Son of Man, p.693-696)
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There is more to life than increasing its speed - Mahatma Gandhi
TAKE IT SLOW
Patience and concentration on the thing in front of you, or the moment you are waiting for an innovation to become real is such an amazing beauty. This is similar to the creation of art or handicrafts which may bring about a sense of calm and concentration amid the fast rotation of the earth. More importantly, it triggers you to apply tool skill, visual skill, precision, and fine detailed orientation in creating a satisfying output.
Satisfaction level depends on the waiting period. The longer you wait, the more emotional value you get. We often find ourselves having an unusual enthusiasm due to rapid and efficient communication system. It seems like this fast-pace life gradually reduces our own space. Anyhow, people are smart enough to resume slowness of life and put it above technological advancement. This is because we may need to handle errors from rapid technology as well.
Recently, Time magazine has reported a news related to China which reflects a great contrast to the trend of the world. Since the end of last year, the army of Chengdu, Sichuan province, has been seriously training pigeons so as to support the conventional communication of the army in the case where modern communication systems are suspended due to the wars of the present time. The 10,000-pigeon army will be dispersed to communication units across the country, including remote areas. The pigeon army is the first important force for the People’s Liberation Army. So, although China is now secretly developing its own military aircrafts, the training of the pigeon army is implying that whenever there is a problem in modern technology, they are ready for communication even though it may need a bit of waiting.
The virtue of waiting is an emotional value which is hard to be quantified. Amid the fast-pace world, people certainly look for tactics to slow down the acceleration in order to ensure balance for themselves. Of course, in the business world, it creates new opportunities to capture this demand. So you may see that people travel to the remote area in order to spend enough time enjoying the missing feeling.
It is surprising though that many people who seek for tranquility often ask the receptionist at the lobby of their hotel whether internet connection is available…That, I think, is the tricky part of our life.
• Cover Story…TAKE IT SLOW
• Object…Bridal Cabinet
• Insight… Alabama Chanin “The Labour of Love”
• Creative Entrepreneur…Bangklangtung Organic Home : “a simple business of a community that lives harmoniously with the nature”
• CreativeCity...Seasonal Japan – “Beauty of seasonal lifestyle”
• The Creative…Wallapa van Willenwaard “Knowing how to be slow, and how to be fast”
Translated by Thaya Wichayathian
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Competitive Enterprise Institute | 1899 L ST NW Floor 12, Washington, DC 20036 | Phone: 202-331-1010 | Fax: 202-331-0640
Though the FDA believes that Plan B is safe to sell to underage women without prescriptions, HHS overruled them.
"I don’t have access to the scientific research that the FDA considered in making its decision, so I can’t comment on the wisdom of either choice. And no one should be so naïve to think that potentially controversial decisions by scientific agencies, including the FDA, have not been subject to political pressures for as long as agencies have been making such decisions. After all, back in 2003, an FDA advisory panel recommended changing Plan B’s status from prescription only to over-the-counter. And it was widely believed that the decision was being held up by the White House , which only relented three years later when faced with Senate opposition to the administration’s new FDA Commissioner nominee."
In the new CEI Podcast, Vice President for Policy Wayne Crews talks about the House's vote to pass the REINS Act.
Listen here .
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- Arts & Entertainment
- Photo and Video
Go to Admin » Appearance » Widgets » and move Gabfire Widget: Social into that MastheadOverlay zone
PREVIEW Columnist and the Library Staff
Local author Zhena has written a new cookbook called “Alkaline Cuisine” that offers multiple health hints and more than 200 recipes that are nutritious, easy to prepare and will counter the overly acidic foods so prevalent in our society today.
Zhena has been helping people to eat according to their particular needs for the past 33 years. She is the former chef/owner of Zhena’s Cuisine, a fine vegetarian restaurant in Amherst, Mass. Having moved to Pagosa Springs 15 years ago, she teaches cooking classes and offers nutrition consultations.
“Alkaline Cuisine” includes advice on healthy eating, food stories from family and friends, a herb and spices list with suggestions for their use, tips on fruit canning, a how-to for making yogurt, a guide to drying foods, advice on wood stove cooking, a special chapter on dental health and a list of fun foods for children. She also offers a section with alternatives to sweeteners, calling the wrong choices a “recipe for mood swings,” and three gluten-free dessert recipes.
The book’s 246 recipes are divided into helpful sections including morning foods, appetizers, salads, entrees (mostly vegetarian), wok cooking, desserts and breads, and more. Many of the recipes feature personable notes that impart useful advice, especially for novice cooks.
Observant Pagosans will notice in the Acknowledgments the names of several locals including Randall Davis, Kelly Evans, and Jackie Welch and the staff of your library.
Zhena has donated a copy of “Alkaline Cuisine” to the Sisson Library.
Sports gaming for teens
Seventh to 12th graders are invited to join us for free fun electronic sports gaming and snacks from 2–3:30 p.m. tomorrow (Friday, Feb. 22) and the fourth Friday of every month.
Free high-tech training
We are at the end of our highly popular free high-tech learning sessions with Cody, as he and his equally talented wife, Tiffany, are leaving Pagosa to return to librarian jobs in the Denver area. Catch his last informal session today (Thursday, Feb. 21) from 3–5 p.m. Cody’s replacement will start work April 1 and tech training sessions will resume at that time.
Memoirs and biographies
“My Beloved World” by Sonia Sotomayor is a memoir by the first Hispanic and third woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. “Dinner with Lenny” by Jonathan Cott chronicles his last long interview with music icon Leonard Bernstein. “Bruce Springsteen and the Promise of Rock ‘n’ Roll” by Marc Dolan follows the life of this great musician and strong cultural voice.
“The Fall of the House of Dixie” by Bruce Levine chronicles the Civil War and the social revolution that transformed the South. “The World until Yesterday” by Pulitzer Prize winner Jared Diamond looks at human societies over tens of thousands of years. “A Higher Call” by Adam Makos is the true story of combat and chivalry in the war-torn skies of World War II. “China Goes Global: The Partial Power” by David Shambaugh is a sweeping account of China’s growing prominence on the international stage.
Mysteries and thrillers
“The Kashmir Shawl” by Rosie Thomas is a romantic mystery epic set in India after World War II. “Enemy of Mine” by Brad Taylor is the third thriller in the series featuring terrorist task force head Pike Logan. “Standing in Another Man’s Grave” by Ian Rankin is a suspense story featuring former detective John Rebus.
“The Road to Cardinal Valley” by Earlene Fowler follows a woman who returns to her home town to help her alcoholic brother. “Home by Dark” by Marta Perry is a romantic suspense story set in an Amish community. “Big Sky River” by Linda Lael Miller is a western romance set in Montana. “The Lawgiver” by Pulitzer Prize winner Herman Wouk tells the story of Moses via people making a movie about him today.
Other new novels
“The Aviator’s Wife” by Melanie Benjamin is a fictional account of the life and love of Charles Lindberg’s wife. “Fear of Beauty” by Susan Froetschel is the story of women in a small Afghanistan village after the death of a young boy. “Until the End of Time” by Danielle Steel is the story of two couples four decades apart and their love.
Thanks to our donors
For books and materials this week, we thank Scottie Gibson and several anonymous donors.
“Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work.” — Horace (65–8 B.C.), leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.
For more information on library books, services and programs — and to reserve books from the comfort of your home — please visit our website at http://pagosa.colibraries.org/.
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Honky Tonk Angel
Source: Sounding Board Newsletter Vol 13 - Jul.. 2002
HTA (Kitty Wells)
As sung by Kitty Wells, "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels" caused a Country Music revolution in 1952. The song became the first in the genre by a woman to sell a million copies and reach Number One on country charts, opened the doors wide for women in country, and launched Kitty Wells as the "Queen of Country Music." To celebrate the 50th anniversary of this landmark record, and the careers of Kitty Wells and Johnny Wright, her partner in music and life, Martin is proud to introduce the HTA Honky Tonk Angel Signature Edition guitar.
The HTA Signature Edition blends distinctive design, unique appointments and timeless Martin quality. The body marries traditional Dreadnought contours with more slender 000 depth for powerful, balanced tone and uncommon player comfort in a big guitar. A modified low oval 1 11/16" neck adds to the comfort quotient for smaller players. The polished black ebony headstock overlay features a stunning art nouveau "honky tonk" angel inlaid in green ripple abalone pearl. The headstock art is complemented by an abalone crown bordered in Mother Of Pearl at the 5th fret - to honor the "Queen of Country Music" - amid Style 45 "diamond and squares" fingerboard inlays, Schaller tuners with pearloid buttons, and an abalone pearl Style 45 rosette.
The HTA Signature Edition's solid tonewoods are selected to optimize the instrument's distinctive voice. Martin craftspeople utilize East Indian rosewood for the two-piece back and sides for rich resonance. The top of Engelmann spruce adds string-to-string clarity and impressive responsiveness, elements enhanced by Martin's scalloped "Hybrid" X bracing.
Vintage toner on the top accentuates the fine pattern herringbone purfling, grained ivoroid binding, and beveled and polished tortoise-colored pickguard. Grained ivoroid back binding surrounds black/white purfling, while the matching end piece is framed by black/white/black inlay. The beauty of the HTA Signature Edition is heightened by the finish: polished gloss on the body and headplate and satin lacquer on the neck.
Born Muriel Ellen Deason in Nashville, Tennessee, Kitty Wells became a professional musician in 1935, singing with two sisters and a cousin as the Deason Sisters. At age 18, she married Johnny Wright, and the two joined forces to become country music stars. Taking the name Kitty Wells in 1943, she sang backup with several of her husband's groups, most notably Johnny and Jack, a pairing with Jack Anglin that became one of the most popular country duos of the 1940s and 1950s. She also recorded on her own in the late 1940s and appeared on the Grand Ole Opry.
In 1952, Hank Thompson had a big country hit with "The Wild Side of Life," and Wells was asked by her record label to record a woman's answer, "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels." The resulting record quickly topped the charts, and Wells became an overnight country music sensation. She went on to record 24 Top Ten country hits in the 1950s, including "One by One" with Red Foley, "Lonely Side of Town" and "Three Ways to Love You." In the 1960s, she had 11 more Top Ten hits. She also recorded several duets with her husband, and in 1969 the couple launched The Kitty Wells/Johnny Wright Family Show on television, a program that lasted several seasons.
While the hits slowed in the 1970s and 1980s, Kitty didn't. She toured in the United States and Great Britain, joined her husband in establishing Ruboca Records and opened a gift shop in Nashville. For her own accomplishments, and for blazing the way for women in country music, Kitty was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1976 and received a Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1991. After more than 60 years of marriage, Kitty Wells and Johnny Wright remain one of music's great love stories.
Delivered in a hardshell case, each Martin HTA Honky Tonk Angel Signature Edition will bear an interior label signed by Kitty Wells, Johnny Wright and Martin Chairman and CEO C.F. Martin IV, and numbered in sequence with the edition total. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of each HTA model will be donated in support of MusiCares, which was established by the Recording Academy in 1989. The mission of MusiCares is to ensure that music people have a place to turn in times of need, focusing the resources of the music industry on human service issues which directly impact the health and welfare of the music community.
Martin will accept orders for the HTA Honky Tonk Angel Signature Edition until September 18, 2002. After the ordering period concludes, the size of the edition and the names of participating dealers will be posted on the web at: www.martinguitar.com.
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"The mystery is solved. We have experienced an earthquake here in Clintonville," City Administrator Lisa Kuss told residents at a city meeting last night. The USGS backed up its "claim" with "evidence" showing that a 1.5 magnitude earthquake struck the central Wisconsin city around noon on Tuesday.
Residents, who began hearing strange rumbles this past Sunday, challenged the city's explanation, saying quakes had previously been ruled out. Kuss admits that it was "by fluke" that the USGS's traveling portable arrays happened to be in the area when the tremors occurred.
For now, this is the best answer the city has to give, though officials acknowledge they aren't sure it's the only answer, so Graboids are very much still on the table.
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Originally Posted by funetical
Islam is a violent and delusional religion that supports and demands fanaticism from it's members.
There are fanatics in all religions. There are fanatical Catholics that think that homosexuals should be killed. Those same Catholics will protest at the funerals of fallen American soldiers, claiming that God is punishing America for being accepting of homosexuals.
Westboro Baptist Church - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
There are other fanatics in other religions that won't let their children have blood transfusions even to save their lives because of their interpretation of the Bible's writings.
I think that whenever you turn to a 2000 year old book to provide answers to modern problems you're gonna run into difficulty, whether you're catholic, muslim or jew.
It's the fanatics on all sides that give religion a black eye. I would rather live in a world with religion than without, but I cannot accept that any religion would condone violence against people that have done no harm, but that's exactly what some people seem to find in their holy books.
There was a Jewish scholar who lived at about the time of Christ named Hillel. He was asked to sum up all of the Torah while standing on one foot. He raised one foot and said: "Do not unto your neighbor what you would not have him do unto you; this is the whole Law; the rest is commentary."
If the religious fanatics on all sides recognized that this principle is the more important one to live by, and outweighs any statement condemning homosexuality or the infidel, we'd all get along so much better.
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WASHINGTON — Among the treasure trove of information captured after Saddam Hussein's fall were tape recordings of the Iraqi leader discussing weapons of mass destruction with top aides.
Transcripts of Saddam's tapes reviewed by NBC News show him ruminating about future terror attacks in the United States using weapons of mass destruction.
"We shouldn’t be surprised to see a car bomb with nuclear [material] explode [in] Washington, either germ or chemical," Saddam tells aides. "So this is coming,” Saddam says on the tapes, “but not from Iraq," he adds, seeming to indicate that Iraq would not be the source of any such attack.
An unidentified Saddam aide replies that biological weapons are easy to construct: “… any biologist can make it in water tank and kill 100,000 person … so you can’t accuse a country, one person can do it. One American person can do it in a house, next to the White House.”
On another tape, Saddam says future terrorism will be with WMD. "It is possible in the future to see a booby trap and the explosion turns out to be nuclear, germ or chemical."
U.S. intelligence analysts have confirmed to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that Saddam’s voice on the audiotapes is authentic. The analysts believe most of the tapes were recorded in the ’90s, after the first Gulf War.
“What the tapes show is that between the first gulf war and the second gulf war, Saddam Hussein had not lost his appetite for, or interest in, weapons of mass destruction,” says Gary Milhollin of the Wisconsin Project, an advocacy group working to slow the spread of weapons of mass destruction. “To the contrary, he was almost obsessed by them.’’
Importantly, though, many U.S. intelligence experts say the 12 hours of tape does not solve the riddle of whether Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction before the 2003 U.S. invasion.Video: Saddam says he’s on hunger strike
“It certainly shows that he was trying to deceive the U.N., but it doesn't show that he actually had weapons in his possession at the time of the invasion,” says Bill Harlow, a former CIA spokesman and an NBC News analyst.
In the transcripts, one of Saddam’s aides discusses filling missiles with germs. “Yes, the intention is that the missile will be filled with chemical or germ, and when it comes down it will cover a wider circle than the traditional missile,” the aide tells Saddam. Saddam replies: “That’s good, they are teaching us things that will be useful in the future.”
Other aides seem to discuss hiding weapons from U.N. inspectors. “We have not told them the truth about the imported material,” one says. He adds, “Where was the nuclear material transported to? A number of them were transported out of Iraq.” He also says: “We will confess, but not to the biological program.”
The debates over Iraq’s WMD will likely continue. The House Intelligence Committee is pressing U.S. intelligence officials to publicly release more than 35,000 boxes of documents recovered in Iraq after the U.S. invasion. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., does not believe the documents have been fully translated and analyzed.
John Loftus, an author and former federal prosecutor, obtained the Saddam audiotapes through a former U.S. military intelligence analyst, he says. Loftus tells NBC News he will play the tapes this weekend at an intelligence summit he is hosting in the Washington area.
NBC News has not listened to the tapes and has not been able to independently confirm the accuracy of the translations.
Lisa Myers is NBC's senior investigative correspondent.
© 2013 NBCNews.com Reprints
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What if your startup was trying to position itself as an online gateway for the world’s news outlets to find user-generated content?
How do you vet, distribute, and monitor an Internet’s worth of that material without losing focus on accuracy ? How do you keep your company above the editorial fray? How do you do all of this at the pace of the news itself?
Carefully, very carefully, said Storyful’s Erica Berger.
Berger, director of product partnerships for Storyful, spoke at the first fall installment of Content Conversations on Oct. 8 at Contently’s New York headquarters.
User Content: Fact-Checking
Storyful delivers user-generated content to news outlets in two ways: Content is provided in front of its paywall and content is supplied through its subscription service: Storyful Pro. You get the one via platforms such as Twitter (two accounts, actually) and YouTube. You get the other content by buying in as a subscriber.
As for how it works on the curation end of things, Berger suggested one scenario in which Storyful might vet a piece of information that came in from a (hypothetical) source.
“All right, ‘Nick’ found this, who’s Nick?” she said, running through the steps she would take with a submitted photo. “He took this photo here, at this time, on this day. How long has he had a social-media account for? Is he sharing this information in the correct language?”
The next steps are almost like forensics: Google is used to check images against street-view mapping, and weather reports are consulted to match conditions in an image. Even the shadows thrown by the sun can be telling. Ideally, sources are backtracked. E-mails and phone calls are made.
But what happens when the news is coming too fast for all of this verification?
Vetting User Content at the Pace of News
However deep the fact-checking process, Storyful’s methods, at times, can stand in opposition to the speed and intensity at which online stories are in demand. Where’s the threshold between fact-checking and supplying wanted content to a client, quick?
Take for instance the Aug. 24, 2012 Manhattan-sidewalk firefight between a gun-wielding suspect and several police officers. Video and photos and tweets, these things flooded the Internet during and after the fatal drama outside the Empire State Building.
“With the Empire State Building example,” Berger said, “We were uploading a bunch of stuff in realtime and we were indicating to our clients that this is pending contact information; we haven’t been able to get in touch with these people, yet. Here’s the witnesses willing to talk to right now.”
Impartiality and Indemnity in Front of the Firehose
Another question that came up: What editorial impact might Storyful have upon the news agencies that use it? Is their curation something like pre-editing?
“We want media companies to make their own editorial decisions,” Berger said. “We don’t want to make those decisions for them. We try to present every side possible of an argument by putting up content, even when we’re not sure what” the argument will develop into.
Storyful provides context along with its content, from a few sentences to thousands of words.
“We acknowledge, however, that content can be inherently political,” she said, speaking of a case in point — material emerging from the conflict in Syria: “These people have a stake in this civil war, if that’s what we’re going to call it. How do you present that to your clients? Well, that’s the New York Times‘ job, and that’s the Wall Street Journal‘s job.”
On its website, Storyful posted this: “Storyful accepts legal responsibility for the editorial guidance provided to clients. It will not be liable for any legal difficulties arising from the use of content in a manner which contravenes that guidance.”
Another question was about liability. Which organization carries the burden of a copyright infringement, should rights and clearances prove a complication after a client has taken and purposed a piece of content?
“If we know that something is public and or cleared, and our client gets in trouble, then we’ll take the blame for it,” Berger said.
It all depends on the circumstances. Berger and others said during the discussion that when it comes to content and the news, it’s still a bit like the Wild West.
Meetup images courtesy of Erica Swallow.
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Last modified: January 17, 2002 8:50 AM PST
Gates memo: 'We can and must do better'
From: Bill Gates
Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 2:22 PM
To: Microsoft and Subsidiaries: All FTE
Subject: Trustworthy computing
Every few years I have sent out a memo talking about the highest priority for Microsoft. Two years ago, it was the kickoff of our .NET strategy. Before that, it was several memos about the importance of the Internet to our future and the ways we could make the Internet truly useful for people. Over the last year it has become clear that ensuring .NET is a platform for Trustworthy Computing is more important than any other part of our work. If we don't do this, people simply won't be willing--or able--to take advantage of all the other great work we do. Trustworthy Computing is the highest priority for all the work we are doing. We must lead the industry to a whole new level of Trustworthiness in computing.
When we started work on Microsoft .NET more than two years ago, we set a new direction for the company--and articulated a new way to think about our software. Rather than developing standalone applications and Web sites, today we're moving towards smart clients with rich user interfaces interacting with Web services. We're driving the XML Web services standards so that systems from all vendors can share information, while working to make Windows the best client and server for this new era.
There is a lot of excitement about what this architecture makes possible. It allows the dreams about e-business that have been hyped over the last few years to become a reality. It enables people to collaborate in new ways, including how they read, communicate, share annotations, analyze information and meet.
However, even more important than any of these new capabilities is the fact that it is designed from the ground up to deliver Trustworthy Computing. What I mean by this is that customers will always be able to rely on these systems to be available and to secure their information. Trustworthy Computing is computing that is as available, reliable and secure as electricity, water services and telephony.
Today, in the developed world, we do not worry about electricity and water services being available. With telephony, we rely both on its availability and its security for conducting highly confidential business transactions without worrying that information about who we call or what we say will be compromised. Computing falls well short of this, ranging from the individual user who isn't willing to add a new application because it might destabilize their system, to a corporation that moves slowly to embrace e-business because today's platforms don't make the grade.
The events of last year--from September's terrorist attacks to a number of malicious and highly publicized computer viruses--reminded every one of us how important it is to ensure the integrity and security of our critical infrastructure, whether it's the airlines or computer systems.
Computing is already an important part of many people's lives. Within ten years, it will be an integral and indispensable part of almost everything we do. Microsoft and the computer industry will only succeed in that world if CIOs, consumers and everyone else sees that Microsoft has created a platform for Trustworthy Computing.
Every week there are reports of newly discovered security problems in all kinds of software, from individual applications and services to Windows, Linux, Unix and other platforms. We have done a great job of having teams work around the clock to deliver security fixes for any problems that arise. Our responsiveness has been unmatched - but as an industry leader we can and must do better. Our new design approaches need to dramatically reduce the number of such issues that come up in the software that Microsoft, its partners and its customers create. We need to make it automatic for customers to get the benefits of these fixes. Eventually, our software should be so fundamentally secure that customers never even worry about it.
No Trustworthy Computing platform exists today. It is only in the context of the basic redesign we have done around .NET that we can achieve this. The key design decisions we made around .NET include the advances we need to deliver on this vision. Visual Studio .NET is the first multi-language tool that is optimized for the creation of secure code, so it is a key foundation element.
I've spent the past few months working with Craig Mundie's group and others across the company to define what achieving Trustworthy Computing will entail, and to focus our efforts on building trust into every one of our products and services. Key aspects include:
Availability: Our products should always be available when our customers need them. System outages should become a thing of the past because of a software architecture that supports redundancy and automatic recovery. Self-management should allow for service resumption without user intervention in almost every case.
Security: The data our software and services store on behalf of our customers should be protected from harm and used or modified only in appropriate ways. Security models should be easy for developers to understand and build into their applications.
Privacy: Users should be in control of how their data is used. Policies for information use should be clear to the user. Users should be in control of when and if they receive information to make best use of their time. It should be easy for users to specify appropriate use of their information including controlling the use of email they send.
Trustworthiness is a much broader concept than security, and winning our customers' trust involves more than just fixing bugs and achieving "five-nines" availability. It's a fundamental challenge that spans the entire computing ecosystem, from individual chips all the way to global Internet services. It's about smart software, services and industry-wide cooperation.
There are many changes Microsoft needs to make as a company to ensure and keep our customers' trust at every level - from the way we develop software, to our support efforts, to our operational and business practices. As software has become ever more complex, interdependent and interconnected, our reputation as a company has in turn become more vulnerable. Flaws in a single Microsoft product, service or policy not only affect the quality of our platform and services overall, but also our customers' view of us as a company.
In recent months, we've stepped up programs and services that help us create better software and increase security for our customers. Last fall, we launched the Strategic Technology Protection Program, making software like IIS and Windows .NET Server secure by default, and educating our customers on how to get--and stay--secure. The error-reporting features built into Office XP and Windows XP are giving us a clear view of how to raise the level of reliability. The Office team is focused on training and processes that will anticipate and prevent security problems. In December, the Visual Studio .NET team conducted a comprehensive review of every aspect of their product for potential security issues. We will be conducting similarly intensive reviews in the Windows division and throughout the company in the coming months.
At the same time, we're in the process of training all our developers in the latest secure coding techniques. We've also published books like "Writing Secure Code," by Michael Howard and David LeBlanc, which gives all developers the tools they need to build secure software from the ground up. In addition, we must have even more highly trained sales, service and support people, along with offerings such as security assessments and broad security solutions. I encourage everyone at Microsoft to look at what we've done so far and think about how they can contribute.
But we need to go much further.
In the past, we've made our software and services more compelling for users by adding new features and functionality, and by making our platform richly extensible. We've done a terrific job at that, but all those great features won't matter unless customers trust our software. So now, when we face a choice between adding features and resolving security issues, we need to choose security. Our products should emphasize security right out of the box, and we must constantly refine and improve that security as threats evolve. A good example of this is the changes we made in Outlook to avoid email borne viruses. If we discover a risk that a feature could compromise someone's privacy, that problem gets solved first. If there is any way we can better protect important data and minimize downtime, we should focus on this. These principles should apply at every stage of the development cycle of every kind of software we create, from operating systems and desktop applications to global Web services.
Going forward, we must develop technologies and policies that help businesses better manage ever larger networks of PCs, servers and other intelligent devices, knowing that their critical business systems are safe from harm. Systems will have to become self-managing and inherently resilient. We need to prepare now for the kind of software that will make this happen, and we must be the kind of company that people can rely on to deliver it.
This priority touches on all the software work we do. By delivering on Trustworthy Computing, customers will get dramatically more value out of our advances than they have in the past. The challenge here is one that Microsoft is uniquely suited to solve.
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Get flash to fully experience Pearltrees
Increasing Maternal Age Is Associated with Taller Stature and Reduced Abdominal Fat in Their ChildrenBackground Maternal age at childbirth continues to increase worldwide. We aimed to assess whether increasing maternal age is associated with changes in childhood height, body composition, and metabolism. Methods 277 healthy pre-pubertal children, born 37–41 weeks gestation were studied. Assessments included: height and weight corrected for parental measurements, DEXA-derived body composition, fasting lipids, glucose, insulin, and hormonal profiles.
Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on Twitter Astronaut Ronald J. Garan. Photo Credit: NASA The debate on why humans should or should not return to the Moon has been ongoing for years.
Beaming into the Rat World: Enabling Real-Time Interaction between Rat and Human Each at Their Own ScaleImmersive virtual reality (IVR) typically generates the illusion in participants that they are in the displayed virtual scene where they can experience and interact in events as if they were really happening. Teleoperator (TO) systems place people at a remote physical destination embodied as a robotic device, and where typically participants have the sensation of being at the destination, with the ability to interact with entities there. In this paper, we show how to combine IVR and TO to allow a new class of application.
Table of Contents Introduction The body’s trillion or so cells face formidable threats, from lack of food to infection with a virus. Another constant threat comes from nasty chemicals called free radicals.
Background and Aims Questions over the clinical significance of cannabis withdrawal have hindered its inclusion as a discrete cannabis induced psychiatric condition in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV). This study aims to quantify functional impairment to normal daily activities from cannabis withdrawal, and looks at the factors predicting functional impairment. In addition the study tests the influence of functional impairment from cannabis withdrawal on cannabis use during and after an abstinence attempt. Methods and Results A volunteer sample of 49 non-treatment seeking cannabis users who met DSM-IV criteria for dependence provided daily withdrawal-related functional impairment scores during a one-week baseline phase and two weeks of monitored abstinence from cannabis with a one month follow up.
Men with divorced parents are significantly more likely to suffer a stroke than men from intact families, shows a new study from the University of Toronto. The study, to be published this month in the International Journal of Stroke , shows that adult men who had experienced parental divorce before they turned 18 are three times more likely to suffer a stroke than men whose parents did not divorce. Women from divorced families did not have a higher risk of stroke than women from intact families. "The strong association we found for males between parental divorce and stroke is extremely concerning," says lead author Esme Fuller-Thomson, Sandra Rotman Chair at University of Toronto's Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work and Department of Family and Community Medicine.
Pressure in Mount Fuji is now higher than last eruption, warn experts -- when will Mount Fuji EXPLODE?The pressure in Mount Fuji's magma chamber is now higher than it was in 1707, the last time the nearly 4,000-metre-high Japanese volcano erupted, causing volcanologists to speculate that a disaster is imminent. The new readings, taken by the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention, reveal that the pressure is at 1.6 megapascals, nearly 16 times the 0.1 megapascals it takes to trigger an eruption. This, lead volcanologist on the case Eisuke Fujita told Kyodo News , is "not a small figure".
LG Chem, a member of the LG conglomerate/chaebol and one of the largest chemical companies in the world, has devised a cable-type lithium-ion battery that’s just a few millimeters in diameter, and is flexible enough to be tied in knots, worn as a bracelet, or woven into textiles. The underlying chemistry of the cable-type battery is the same as the lithium-ion battery in your smartphone or laptop — there’s an anode, a lithium cobalt oxide (LCO) cathode, an electrolyte — but instead of being laminated together in layers, they’re twisted into a hollow, flexible, spring-like helix. LG Chem’s battery starts with thin strands of copper wire, which are coated with a nickel-tin (Ni-Sn) alloy to create the anode. These strands are twisted into a yarn, and then wrapped tightly around a 1.5mm-diameter rod. The rod is removed, leaving a strong spring.
Drugs are already available that reduce PGD2 levels, as it has been implicated in asthma, holding out the hope that developing a related product for baldness could be speedy. About four in five men will experience some degree of baldness by the age of 70. In bald patches follicles are still making hairs, but less well than before.
Regardless of how much a high school student generally studies each day, if that student sacrifices sleep in order to study more than usual, he or she is more likely to have academic problems the following day. Because students tend to increasingly sacrifice sleep time for studying in the latter years of high school, this negative dynamic becomes more and more prevalent over time. Those are the findings of a new longitudinal study that focused on daily and yearly variations of students who sacrifice sleep to study. The research was conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and appears in the journal Child Development. "Sacrificing sleep for extra study time is counterproductive," says Andrew J. Fuligni, professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences and a senior scientist at the Jane and Terry Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, who worked on the study.
Video: Watch this bonobo go to all ends to get food Kanzi the bonobo continues to impress. Not content with learning sign language or making up "words" for things like banana or juice, he now seems capable of making stone tools on a par with the efforts of early humans.
Brain scans have revealed distinctive features in the brain structure of karate experts, which could be linked to their ability to punch powerfully from close range. Researchers from Imperial College London and UCL (University College London) found that differences in the structure of white matter – the connections between brain regions – were correlated with how black belts and novices performed in a test of punching ability. Karate experts are able to generate extremely powerful forces with their punches, but how they do this is not fully understood. Previous studies have found that the force generated in a karate punch is not determined by muscular strength, suggesting that factors related to the control of muscle movement by the brain might be important.
A bioengineer and geneticist at Harvard’s Wyss Institute have successfully stored 5.5 petabits of data — around 700 terabytes — in a single gram of DNA, smashing the previous DNA data density record by a thousand times. The work, carried out by George Church and Sri Kosuri , basically treats DNA as just another digital storage device. Instead of binary data being encoded as magnetic regions on a hard drive platter, strands of DNA that store 96 bits are synthesized, with each of the bases (TGAC) representing a binary value (T and G = 1, A and C = 0). To read the data stored in DNA, you simply sequence it — just as if you were sequencing the human genome — and convert each of the TGAC bases back into binary. To aid with sequencing, each strand of DNA has a 19-bit address block at the start (the red bits in the image below) — so a whole vat of DNA can be sequenced out of order, and then sorted into usable data using the addresses.
Gaia Vince watches the construction of the world’s biggest fusion energy reactor and wonders whether this ambitious and expensive project will actually work. Cadarache: In the dusty highlands of Provence in southern France, workers have excavated a vast rectangular pit 17 metres (56 feet) down into the unforgiving rocks. From my raised vantage point, I can see bright yellow mechanical diggers and trucks buzzing around the edge of the pit, looking toy-like in the huge construction site. Above us, the fireball Sun dries the air at an unrelenting 37C.
A strategic social initiative in Russia is making waves with its cybernetic immortality project. (2045.com) If Dmitry Itskov's 2045 initiative plays out as planned, humans will have the option of living forever with the help of machines in only 33 years. It may sound ridiculous, but the 31-year-old Russian mogul is dead serious about neuroscience, android robotics, and cybernetic immortality. He has already pulled together a team of leading Russian scientists intent on creating fully functional holographic human avatars that house artificial brains which contain a person's complete consciousness - in other words, a humanoid robot.
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Catholic-Muslim Group Prepares Meeting With Pope
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VATICAN CITY, DEC. 16, 2008 (Zenit.org).- A group of 24 Catholic and Muslim experts -- a dozen from each creed -- are meeting in Rome about the responsibility of religious leaders in times of crisis.
The meeting is the 11th encounter between the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and the World Islamic Call Society. The experts will have five sessions, and meet with Benedict XVI on Wednesday. The encounter began Monday.
The World Islamic Call Society was founded in 1972 to promote Islamic civilization and culture, and is based in Tripoli, Libya.
With the pontifical council, the society has had a dozen meetings. It also has contact with the World Council of Churches.
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- How do I apply for financial aid?
Simmons College has a very simple process for applying for financial aid. You only need to complete two forms.
The first is the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). You can find this information at:
- Simmons Federal School Code: 002208
You will also need to fill out the 2012-2013 Simmons College Student Information Form, available on the Student Financial Services website.
Once your forms are received, they will be reviewed by your Financial Aid Counselor and if needed, additional documents will be requested.
- How do Simmons financial aid counselors work with me?
Each student is assigned to a Financial Aid Counselor based on the first letter of their last name. Here is a list of each counselor and their caseload:
A-E Mehrdad Kermani F-L Jean Jeffers M-R Leslie Czwakiel S-Z Heather Patenaude
- When is the best time for me to contact my Simmons financial aid counselor?
We counsel both prospective students on the financial aid application process and what aid is available to our students, and accepted students who have completed the required forms about their actual aid. We want to hear from you with all of your questions. We know this can be a complicated process, and we want to make sure your concerns are addressed.
- What is the time table for applying and receiving financial aid?
You must apply for financial aid each year you are enrolled. We recommend the FAFSA be completed by February 15th, but you can apply at anytime during the academic year as long as you are enrolled in at least two courses.
- What advice would you give a Dix Scholar seeking financial aid?
If a Dix Scholar makes a change in the number of credits she is taking, then she should contact her Financial Aid Counselor to notify the College of this change. The counselor will then inform the student on how it will affect her financial aid package.
- Will I still qualify for aid if I am seeking a second bachelors degree?
Dix Scholars can still qualify for Financial Aid even if they are seeking a second bachelor's degree. Your Financial Aid counselor can give you further details on how this might affect your financial aid package.
- Is financial aid available for the summer sessions?
We package aid for the summer, fall and spring terms.
- Does my financial aid change from year to year?
Each student's Financial Aid Package is based on her FAFSA for the given year. If the information on your FAFSA changes, then that can affect your aid. Changing the number of credits you take can also affect your aid.
- Does Simmons allow appeals to financial aid?
Students are allowed to appeal their Financial Aid award. Please contact your financial aid officer to begin this process.
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Student’s coffee creation captures attention
by Katrina Phelps
Your coffee shop experience could change soon thanks to a UniSA industrial design student who has re-designed the coffee-making process.
Master of Design (Specialisation) student Tom Pyrzakowski (pictured filming for The New Inventors), has created the ‘vacuum bin’, a radical re-design of the current knock-out bin that is used to literally and noisily, knock out used coffee beans from the portafilter of coffee machines.
“To get a better grasp of the situation, I did some work experience in a café and spent a lot of time watching and talking to baristas. This was essential in helping me to understand what needed to be looked at,” Tom said.
“The current knock-out bin used in almost every café worldwide has many shortcomings such as baristas getting stressed wrists caused by the banging motion, noise creation and damage to the machine’s portafilter over time.
“With my design, that banging noise you hear in coffee shops would be gone."
The vacuum bin uses a small foot pump to pull air away from the top of the unit, removing all used coffee beans from the portafilter in one large clump.
“One of the trickiest components was the latch at the bottom of the unit,” he explained. “It needed to be light enough to let the coffee grounds drop but also strong enough to spring back up when the waste was removed and create an airtight seal. This has given me issues since day one.”
Tom's design earned him a spot as a finalist in the recent 2011 Australia Design Awards - James Dyson Award. This award is Australia’s top student design award and aims to discover and nurture young industrial design talent. And he has also been selected as one of Australia’s representatives in the global James Dyson Award, which will see him compete internationally against other student designs.
“The Dyson competition has always been a very prestigious award and is often recommended by our lecturers as a great opportunity, so why not give it a go,” he said.
“I have always enjoyed making new things and seem to be in my element when I’m in the workshop.”
Tom also captured the attention of ABC’s The New Inventors program. Tom was filmed at the City West campus in July and was featured on The New Inventors on August 10.
See The New Inventors website for more details.
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The Mountain Goat race is something people find they just have to compete in. Not just long-distance runners or athletes, but regular people from all over Central New York.
Race director Ed Griffin thinks the inclusiveness of the event is why the 32-year-old race sees a growth in competitors every year.
“That’s the big reason. People out there are more fitness-minded now,” Griffin said. “They start out running and they build up to this. The Goat becomes a personal accomplishment for them.”
About 2,750 runners are predicted to compete on the streets of Syracuse on Sunday in the Mountain Goat Run, a 15 percent increase from last year’s field. In addition to the 10-mile run, which starts at 10:15 a.m. in Clinton Square, there is a 3-kilometer run (approximately 300 runners) and a half-mile kids race (100).
There are other reasons for the steady growth in participation. The training runs that take place six weeks prior to the race are a great step-by-step way for runners to gauge their aptitude. The training runs start out at 5½ miles before gradually increasing to 6½ and then 8 miles.
“People don’t think they can make it at first, so the training runs are an opportunity for them to test themselves,” Griffin said.
And then there’s the high-struggle factor of the Mountain Goat race, which, Griffin said, offers more of a “net elevation gain” compared to the Boilermaker Road Race in Utica every July. That, and the cooler temperature.
“We’re just on this path,” said Griffin, who added that it was only as far back as 10 years ago when only 1,000 participants took to the sloppy Syracuse hills. Back then, only 700 or so finished the race; almost the same number of runners who completed the training runs in the past weeks. This Sunday, organizers are expecting 2,000 finishers for the first time.
In addition to prize money for the first three runners, commemorative medals will be awarded to runners who meet notable time standards. Gold medals for any male runner who finishes under 60 minutes, silver for 60-70 minutes and bronze for 70 to 80. For female competitors, the times slide up 10 minutes for each medal.
The medals bare the names of the Mountain Goat’s greatest winners — Jerry Lawson, who Griffin calls “King of the Mountain Goat,” Kevin Collins, and Michelle LaFleur.
“It’s a way of honoring the folks who have made the race what it is today,” Griffin said.
Along with Lawson, Lefleur and defending champions Abraham Ng’etich (male) and Soleme Kosgei (female), a number of other prominent names are set to run this year. Max King, a former Cornell track star and USA World XC Championship team member, is making his way back to Central New York from his hometown of Bend, Ore., to compete for the first time. Fred Joselyn, who has won various regional races and trained with an Olympic Development team, will also be making his Goat debut.
Adding to the competitiveness of the event are the Syracuse Fire and Police departments, who will contest as a team (10 on each side) for the “Syracuse’s Finest” award, a trophy that Griffin and the organizers have made specially for the challenge.
“We’re going to score the top five from each side and the team with the lowest times wins,” Griffin said.
The 10-mile race course begins on Clinton Street and climbs into the Strathmore neighborhood, up the Stolp Avenue hill — where Griffin says will be actual goats — near the Woodland Reservoir and later Thornden Park near Syracuse University. It finishes on South Salina Street in Clinton Square.
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In 2002, Bei Bei Shuai, 33 weeks pregnant, attempted to kill herself after her boyfriend left her. The Indiana woman didn't succeed — but her daughter was born early as a result, and died shortly thereafter. Now, the state's used laws that were allegedly designed to protect pregnant women from violence to imprison Shuai for murder and "attempted fetal homicide." She's finally been granted bail today, after being incarcerated for over a year.
Her case is pretty heavy for a Friday afternoon, but it highlights just how easily laws designed to "protect" the fetus can be flipped to target pregnant women. So-called "fetal harm" laws allow the state to charge assailants who target pregnant women with greater crimes if a woman's pregnancy is harmed, but in Shuai's case, it's been applied to treat her as chattel. Thirty-six states currently have fetal harm laws on the books.
Shuai, a Chinese immigrant, consented to every medical procedure medical professionals suggested to save her baby after her suicide attempt. She named her baby "Angel" and was devastated when the child was taken off of life support three days after her birth. As a result of her baby's death, Shuai suffered a mental breakdown and remained in the hospital for a month, and after she was sent home, she was arrested for attempted feticide and murder.
Attorneys have fought tirelessly to get Shuai out of jail and clear her of these clearly bullshit charges, arguing that Indiana's law defining feticide is so broad that it could feasibly be used to charge any pregnant woman with murder or attempted murder for pretty much anything they did— even if the action wasn't intended to end their pregnancy. Think that sounds far-fetched? Consider the case of Iowan Christine Taylor, who was thrown down a staircase by her abusive husband and subsequently suffered a miscarriage. As a result, Christine was charged with attempted fetal homicide.
NPR reports that organizations that are usually the first to rush to the defense of fetuses have been completely mum on the case of Shuai — it's almost as though groups that fight the hardest for "fetal harm" laws they don't care about the women enclosing the fetuses at all! Excuse me while I take a nap of surprise and shock!
For more hypocrisy: lawmakers and lobbying organizations that aim to make it a crime to harm zygotes or whatever aren't often the same lawmakers who are trying to ban fracking, which can release chemicals into the water supply that can lead to devastating or deadly birth defects. They're not the same lawmakers trying to funnel more money into anti-domestic violence programs so that pregnant women are able to escape potentially dangerous situations. They're not trying to compel chemical manufacturers to thoroughly vet all pesticides and fertilizers to make sure that no chemicals sprayed on food could possibly harm a pregnancy.
Shuai was finally granted bond today, but can't afford to pay it the $5,000 it will cost to spring her from prison. She's now penniless — she's been out of the workforce for a year, with no chance to earn any money. A defense fund has been set up on Shuai's behalf, and there's a petition to be signed as well.
But don't put those debit cards away after making a contribution to Shuai's fund — as long as laws designed to "protect" pregnant women can be flipped to target them, this is far from the last time we can expect to see something like this happen.
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Nintendo's Game Boy classics on the TV screen!
In the mid-90s, Nintendo released the Super Game Boy, a special SNES cartridge that allowed players to play their favorite Game Boy games on the TV and use the SNES controller as a main control option. At the time it was a unique idea as no other console was able to play handheld games like the Super Game Boy did. With the Game Boy lacking a lit screen, this allowed players to see the games clearly and made them fit to play with an audience.
In 2003, the successor to the Super Game Boy was released: the Game Boy Player. The Game Boy Player is an adapter for the GameCube that connects to the bottom of the console using the high speed parallel port. The adapter also came with a GameCube disc that was required to play the games. Once everything was set up, it would play Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance games.
The Game Boy Player used embedded technology similar to that of the Game Boy Advance, meaning that no emulation software was needed to run the games. On the front of the device, players could insert their Game Boy or GBA cartridges. It also featured a link cable port in order to access connectivity features in some games. Players were able to control the games using either a GameCube controller or use the GameCube to GBA link cable in order to use the GBA as a controller and retain the original controller layout.
Compatibility wise, the Game Boy Player did have some issues. Motion controlled games like Kirby Tilt ‘N’ Tumble, Wario Ware: Twisted!, and Yoshi Topsy Turvy would present issues when using the player. It would require the player to hold the system and shake it around. GBA Video cartridges (which hosted sample episodes of several TV shows like TMNT) were also incompatible with the player due to copyright issues.
Despite these drawbacks, the compatibility of the Game Boy Player was impressive. The e-Reader, a GBA card scanner released in 2002, and the Game Boy Advance wireless adapter, worked fine with the Player and its compatible games. The Game Boy Player also featured rumble for some games. If players turned the feature on, they could experience rumble feedback on their GBA games through the GameCube controller. Some of these games include Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 and Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga.
With the Nintendo DS and Wii generation, Nintendo didn’t release a system that allowed the Wii to play DS games. The upcoming Wii U and its controller, however, could mark the return of displaying handheld games on a console should Nintendo further expand their Virtual Console plans.
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Archive for September, 2008
What is it about family? I don’t even know most of these people but they are family. Ok and now they are talking about old prison sentences.No comments
It seems that we have two primary functions for computers these days. Creating content, design, movie making, bogging, creating reports for school or work, etc. Then you have the consumer functions of computers, browsing, watching videos, listening to music and so on. I do believe these functions will be more greatly separated in the near future. The iPhone and Kindle are a prime example of content consumption devices, there isn’t much you can create with them. OK OK yes you can blog and take photos with your iPhone but these are light weight functions. That is you don’t use an iPhone as your only blogging tool. An SLR camera is a good example of a content creation device and it does that job very well. The more specialized the device the better at it’s job. A TV is a much better place to watch a video than on your computer or iPhone.
I could be completely wrong on this. It may well be that as devices get more smarts they again will become content creators and consumers like computers have always been. However I do think more specialization and separation of the creators and consumers will be coming along. With products like the iPhone and 8 core Xenon MacPro it’s much easier to say one is primarily for creating content and the other for consumption. Do you really want a Mac pro for watching porn! really? Would you make porn with your iPhone? well I suppose it will happen if it hasn’t.No comments
An important note about the constitution of the United States of America. Nowhere in that document can you find a definition of the rights of individuals. (OK the “free persons” thing is a little embracing but it was fixed by the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments.) The document does go to great detail about what the rights of the Government are limited to. You might then think that the Bill of Rights defines what rights are granted to people but you would be wrong. The Bill of Rights only enumerates some of the rights of the people further defining what the government can’t do. In the 9th amendment it specifically says that rights not listed are “retained by the people.”
And if you don’t believe that then why would you need a 18th amendment to keep people from drinking? (fixed by the 21st).No comments
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For a breakdown of key points about ASCE Policy Statement 465, click for a fact sheet (PDF) prepared by the Committee on Academic Prerequisites for Professional Practice.
Approved by the Committee on Academic Prerequisites for Professional Practice on February 15, 2007
Approved by the Policy Review Committee on March 9, 2007
Adopted by the Board of Direction on April 24, 2007
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) supports the attainment of a Body of Knowledge (BOK) for entry into the practice of civil engineering at the professional level. This would be accomplished through the adoption of appropriate engineering education and experience requirements as a prerequisite for licensure.
ASCE encourages institutions of higher education, governmental units, employers, civil engineers, and other appropriate organizations to endorse, support, promote, and implement the attainment of the Body of Knowledge for individual civil engineers. The Body of Knowledge includes (1) the fundamentals of math, science, and engineering science, (2) technical breadth, (3) breadth in the humanities and social sciences, (4) professional practice breadth, and (5) technical depth or specialization. Fulfillment of the Body of Knowledge requires additional education beyond the bachelor's degree for the practice of civil engineering at the professional level. The implementation of this effort should occur through establishing appropriate curricula in the formal education process, appropriate experience guidelines for the workplace, and related education and experience standards by the 55 engineering licensure jurisdictions.
Admission to the practice of civil engineering at the professional level means professional engineering licensure requiring attainment of a Body of Knowledge through appropriate engineering education, experience and examinations. Fulfillment of this Body of Knowledge will typically include a combination of:
- a baccalaureate degree in civil engineering,
- a master's degree, or approximately 30 coordinated graduate or upper level undergraduate technical and/or professional practice credits or the equivalent agency/organization/professional society courses providing equal academic quality and rigor, and
- appropriate experience based upon broad technical and professional practice guidelines which provide sufficient flexibility for a wide range of roles in engineering practice.
The practice of civil engineering at the professional level means practice as a licensed professional engineer.
The Body of Knowledge prescribes the necessary depth and breadth of knowledge, skills, and attitudes required of an individual entering the practice of civil engineering at the professional level in the 21st Century. This Body of Knowledge exceeds today's typical civil engineering baccalaureate degree, even when coupled with the practical experience gained prior to licensure.
The civil engineering profession is undergoing significant, rapid, and revolutionary changes that have increased the Body of Knowledge required of the profession. These changes include the following:
- Globalization has transcended the historically recognized worldwide geographic boundaries primarily as a result of enhanced communication systems.
- Information technology continues to make more information available; however, the analysis and application of this information is becoming more challenging.
- Complex systems are requiring integration of our knowledge and skills outside of traditional sub-discipline focus.
- The diversity of society is challenging our traditional views and increasing our need for improved interpersonal and communications skills.
- Many clients are searching for leadership in new management approaches that equitably manage risk as well as improve cost, quality and safety performance.
- New technologies in engineering and construction are emerging at an accelerating rate
- Enhanced public awareness of technical issues is creating more informed inquiry by the public of the technical, environmental, societal, political, legal, aesthetic, and financial implications of engineering projects.
- Civil infrastructure support within the United States is rapidly changing from a focus on development and operation, to the innovative renewal, maintenance, and improvement of existing systems, and the visionary development of new systems.
These changes have created a need for civil engineers to have simultaneously greater breadth of capability and specialized technical competence than that required of previous generations. For example, many civil engineers must increasingly assume a different primary role from that of designer to that of program, project or team leader. The knowledge required to support this new need is found in the combination of an appropriate baccalaureate education, additional education, and experience.
Requiring education beyond the baccalaureate degree for the practice of civil engineering at the professional level is consistent with other learned professions. The Body of Knowledge gained in the formal civil engineering education process is not significantly less than the comparable knowledge and skills required in other professions. It is unreasonable to believe in such complex and rapidly changing times that we can impart the specialized Body of Knowledge required of professional engineers in just four years of formal schooling while other learned professions necessitate seven or eight years. Four years of formal schooling were considered the standard for medical, law and engineering professionals 100 years ago. While the education requirements for physicians and attorneys have been increased with the growing demands of their respective professions, the requirements for the practice of engineering have remained virtually unchanged. Today, many other professions beyond medicine and law require education beyond the baccalaureate degree including pharmacy, architecture, occupational therapy and accounting. Most likely, the retention of a four-year undergraduate engineering education has contributed to the lowered esteem of engineering in the eyes of society, and prospective students and the commensurate decline in the perceived value brought forth by engineers relative to other professions.
Current baccalaureate programs, while constantly undergoing reform, still retain a nominal four-year education process. This length of time limits the ability of these programs to provide a formal education consistent with the increasing demands of the practice of civil engineering at the professional level. There are diametrically opposed forces trying to squeeze more content into the baccalaureate curriculum while at the same time reducing the credit hours necessary for the baccalaureate degree. The result is a baccalaureate civil engineering degree satisfactory for an entry-level position, but becoming inadequate for the professional practice of civil engineering. The four-year internship period (engineer-intern) after receipt of the baccalaureate degree cannot make up for the formal educational material i.e. the expanded Body of Knowledge that would be gained from additional education.
The implementation of this concept will not happen overnight. While ASCE cannot mandate that it be done in a specified time period or manner, ASCE will be an active partner with other groups and organizations to accomplish this policy. The ultimate full implementation may not occur for 5 to 15 or more years. Appropriate grandfathering for existing registered and degreed engineers will be part of the implementation process. This concept is a legacy for future generations of civil engineers. However, perhaps the most important aspect of the implementation of this policy is already in place. Within the U.S. system of higher education, high quality, innovative and diverse master's degree programs currently exist in colleges and universities to support this concept. A growing number of government agencies, public and private organizations, and professional societies now offer high quality on-site and distance learning educational opportunities that can support attainment of the Body of Knowledge outside of college campuses and as adjuncts to employee development. The active support of this policy by all of the stakeholders such as the educational institutions, the registration boards, and the various employers of civil engineers will be required for the implementation of this concept.
ASCE Policy Statement 465
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M-Gary Seawright has a confession to make. "I'm probably an entrepreneur in scientist's clothing, and have been all along."
The experiences of the former virologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory demonstrate both the perils and pleasures of moving technological discoveries from the laboratory to the marketplace. That subject was the topic of discussion at a congressional hearing and a two-day conference here.
Seawright left Los Alamos in 1984 to join fellow scientists Randy Brown, Jeremy Landt, Al Koelle and Paul Salazar in forming Amtech Corporation. The company, with a staff of 13, will manufacture electronic identification systems to keep track of trucks, railroad cars, ships and cattle. Its projected sales this year, its first, are $500,000, and Seawright foresees annual sales of $28 million within five years.
The technology behind the product was developed at the National Laboratory. "It was a classic spin-off," said Seawright, "one of the first in this field to involve a national laboratory." But the taste for business and promotional talents that were needed to bring the technology into the commercial sector, he noted, are foreign to most scientists.
The Amtech story began in 1973, when Seawright went to work for the Department of Agriculture and also became a technical liaison with Los Alamos on a project to develop an electronic tracking sys tern for livestock. In 1978 he joined the Los Alamos development group full-time.
Then Seawright and his partners embarked on "a low-level, hand-to-mouth approach. Every year," he recalled, "we spent one-fourth of our time getting money for the next year. It was very inefficient." The Agriculture Department provided most of the funds, although the Department of Energy showed interest in applying to transportation.
When development was completed, in 1983, the patents were offered to private industry. There were no takers, however, so Seawright and his colleagues formed their own company.
Despite its shortage of capital, Amtech began with the knowledge that both the livestock and transportation industries were interested in its product. The company also benefited from the institutional support offered by Los Alamos, which included assistance with patent acquisitions, equipment loans and a liberal leave-of-absence policy.
Not every national laboratory is as cooperative as was Los Alamos, despite the Reagan administration's professed support for improving the country's economic competitiveness and obtaining a better return from federal research dollars. Some laboratories are still subject to restrictions that make such a transfer of technology difficult.
Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories, also located here, cannot serve as outside consultants and cannot collect royalties on inventions. Irvin Welber, president of Sandia, testified at the hearing of having received "mixed signals" from the government on such issues. He said the patent-waiver process is a particular burden, and suggested that it be streamlined.
The current policy allows such federal agencies as the Department of Energy and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to take title automatically to any invention created under contract to them. The title can be given back to the inventor only through a lengthy petition process.
The process was also attacked as cumbersome and unnecessary. Frank Lukasik, chiefpatent consul for the Air Force Systems Command, describes it as "elaborate, costly and a waste of paper." He estimated that as many as 90 percent of requests for waivers are ultimately approved.
The current method is designed to protect national security. But Welber and Hecker noted that the labs have successfully carried out their responsibilities to ensure lab security and said the waiver process could be simplified without raising any threat to security.
On October 7 Congress approved and sent to the President legislation to open up federal labs to industry, universities and other interested parties. The bill reconciled differences between legislation approved last December by the House and in August by the Senate as an amendment to the Stevenson-Wydler Technology Innovation Act of 1980. It would allow labs to offer cash award programs as an incentive for federal scientists to participate in the transfer of technology and would give all federal labs the authority to set up co operative agreements with businesses.
Other witnesses at the hearings suggested the use of advocates for commercialization within federal labs, and more frequent exchanges between industry and the labs, as additional ways to improve the transfer of technology.
Louis Weisberg is a financial writer in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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Swinging Into Action
It was a scene out of a 1940s movie.
Benny Goodman's "Time on My Hands" was playing, men and women were twirling around to swing tunes, and the chandeliers were hung in the fashion of many a fancy dance hall.
But this Wednesday night scenario was hardly a sophisticated nightclub, with neither low lights nor continuous music.
Nor were Ginger Rogers or Fred Astaire among the dancers in the brightly lit Lowell House dining hall. In fact, the dancers were far from the tap greats of the silver screen, but students swinging for the first time. The students had put on their dancing feet to prepare for the annual Swing Dance Lowell House will host tomorrow night.
The 30 students attending the course shared one thing in common: a genuine desire to learn how to swing dance. But there the similarity stopped. Motives varied, skill varied as did personal style.
Some students were future Lowell House residents seeking to mask foolish freshman ignorance at this weekend's soiree.
"I'm so glad I know how to do the swing now," said Louisa Oliver '90. "Otherwise I'd make such a fool out of myself on Saturday--I took dance lessons in seventh grade, but we never learned the swing."
"Thank God for the lessons," said Linda Rottenberg '90. "Otherwise we'd make fools out of ourselves at the dance, and they'd all point at us and say, 'Freshmen!'"
Current Lowell House residents attested, however, that knowing how to do the swing is not a prerequisite for entering the house. In fact, many also confessed to complete ignorance of the dance.
"I have no sense of rhythm," said Diane Ahmann '89, "I came because I know absolutely nothing about this and want to do it right on Saturday."
And, Dick Listeraud '87, a member of the Lowell House music committee, which is sponsoring the dance, said that many house residents come to the lessons each year to "learn the steps and to just have fun."
But some of those in attendance were not concerned with perfecting their swing ability so much as perfecting the moves of a swinger.
"I just came to meet girls," said Matt Brown '90. "I already know I have a budding natural ability to swing. It's genetic--my grandfather was good at it, so I should be too."
Other students at Wednesday's crash course agreed that they had come in part to pay homage to their grandparents' way of life.
"This kind of thing went out of style with our grandparents, so it's traditional and kind of fun to do," said Nina Castro '90. "And, the music, well, that's a blast from the past, which makes it kind of interesting."
While everyone said they found the trumpet blaring music of Benny Goodman and other Big Band directors to be interesting, not everyone preferred it to jazz or rock and roll. Although some more intrepid dancers confessed to their partners "Oh, I love this song, this is really cool," more confided with somewhat disappointed expressions, "This is O.K., but I can't get too enthused about it."
But even if students were not overly excited about the swing music itself, the majority of those in attendance said they enjoyed learning the new skill. Wook Lee '83, a former Leverett House resident, taught the students the fancy steps and twirls.
"Learning to do the swing is really awkward at first," Lee said. "But you'll be surprised. If you isolate each part and teach the men and women separately, then there should be no problem."
The only problems that Lee could foresee impeding a student's progress would be medical ones. "You should always wear comfortable shoes--not heels," he told his students. "The way I look at it is if you ladies step on the guys' feet at this tempo, then they just won't be there any more."
To prevent the students from "initially killing each other," Lee separated the men and women, sending each sex to opposite sides of the room. He taught the men the basic steps, and then repeated the demonstration for the women using a brave volunteer.
"Now try it with a partner--someone you don't know," he urged. "The more people you dance with the better you'll learn." Lee told everyone to introduce themselves, cautioning "but no last names, phone numbers, or partners' addresses--save that for afterwards."
Some students found themselves dancing with partners they will probably not dance with on Saturday. Because more women than men attended the class--"the only time you'll ever experience this phenomenon at Harvard," Lee said--several all female couples graced the dance floor.
After Lee assured himself that each couple knew "the basic step," he had them move on to "the close position." "Now this position is called 'the close position' because that's what you are--close to your partner. Just don't get too close to your partner," he warned.
Lee told the women to place their hands lightly on the men's shoulders and the men to put their hands on the women's backs. And, while he emphasized "lightly" to the women--saying that in this day of equality they could hold their own arm's weight--he had stricter advice on "close position" etiquette for the men.
"Men, I said backs, not butts, not anywhere lower on the body. You keep your hands on their backs," he cautioned.
One advantage to learning the swing, Lee said, was cultivating the art of leadership. "Men, this is your chance to learn how to lead," he said. "Many of you will have to plan ahead for the first time in your lives."
To teach the concept of leadership, Lee relied on the ancient rule of chance. "Now, pick a number between one and five. Got it? O.K., guys, that's how many basic steps you're going to do before you change to the open position again," he said.
Lee apologized to the women for the swing's inherent male chauvinism. "Well, you know, this is an old time thing. When they made this up, including leading, it was a male world. It's harder to lead, though, so you women should actually be glad," he said.
After the students perfected some of the basic swing steps, Lee increased the dance's tempo, to make the situation "more realistic." But faster did not mean better for the majority of the dancing neophytes.
"This is way too hard and complicated," complained a biochemistry concentrator who said she has no trouble handing in lengthy problem sets but just couldn't get the steps right.
"I just can't do this," said a second, as the tempo increased.
And others gave up, preferring to watch their fellow swingers make mistakes. Some groups decided against the "old time stuff" and tried to slam dance instead. A few even attempted the Virginia Reel and began skipping and "do-si-doing" around the room.
But others quickly picked up the swinging moves. Some couples, in fact, even added twirls and loops to their "one--two--three, back/forward" routine.
By the end of the two-hour session, in fact, even those who were inclined to just stand and laugh were showing improvement, although some were still confusing the swing with the tango or the rhumba.
"I don't know why we can't have a sexier dance," complained one Lowell House man to his partner. "This is hard and not that great." His partner, however, who was picking up the swinging moves faster than he, returned, "Well, you just have to fake it, you know."
To spice up the swing for those looking for fancy moves, Lee taught the group "the Pretzel." "It was so hard," Oliver said. "You were with your partner and had to twist up and turn around about ten million times--well maybe only a few, but it was very complicated. Fun, though."
"I'm definitely glad I went," Oliver said. "Now, at least I'll know what to do. The dance will be fun, because swinging is so funny, but I don't like it all that much."
Lee, however, had a word of encouragement for all those who were somewhat disappointed with the swing. "Just remember," he said. "Even if you don't like it, it's always good aerobic exercise."
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Special Report: How Libya is a showcase in the new arms race
PARIS (Reuters) - The photograph shows a French Rafale warplane at the Mitiga air base outside Tripoli. A small crowd of men, women and children mill around the fighter, its tail fin lit up by the North African sun.
Taken at an air show in October 2009, the picture is one of several grabbed by military aviation photographers from Dutch website scramble.nl that highlight one of the ironies in the West's enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya.
To take out Muammar Gaddafi's air defenses, western powers such as France and Italy are using the very aircraft and weapons that only months ago they were showing off to the Libyan leader.
French Rafales like those on show in 2009 flew the western alliance's very first missions over Libya just over two weeks ago. One of the Rafale's theoretical targets: Libya's French-built Mirage jets which Paris had recently agreed to repair.
The Libyan operation also marks the combat debut for the Eurofighter Typhoon, a competitor to the Dassault Rafale built by Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain. An Italian Air Force version of that plane was snapped at the 2009 show hosted by Libyan generals. Two weeks ago, that base - to which arms firms including Dassault returned last November - was attacked by western bombs.
Times change, allegiances shift, but weapons companies will always find takers for their goods. Libya won't be buying new kit any time soon. But the no-fly zone has become a prime showcase for other potential weapons customers, underlining the power of western combat jets and smart bombs, or reminding potential buyers of the defensive systems needed to repel them.
"This is turning into the best shop window for competing aircraft for years. More even than in Iraq in 2003," says Francis Tusa, editor of UK-based Defense Analysis. "You are seeing for the first time on an operation the Typhoon and the Rafale up against each other, and both countries want to place an emphasis on exports. France is particularly desperate to sell the Rafale."
Almost every modern conflict from the Spanish Civil War to Kosovo has served as a test of air power. But the Libyan operation to enforce UN resolution 1973 coincides with a new arms race --a surge of demand in the $60 billion a year global fighter market and the arrival of a new generation of equipment in the air and at sea. For the countries and companies behind those planes and weapons, there's no better sales tool than real combat. For air forces facing cuts, it is a strike for the value of air power itself.
"As soon as an aircraft or weapon is used on operational deployment, that instantly becomes a major marketing ploy; it becomes 'proven in combat'," says a former defense export official with a NATO country, speaking on condition of anonymity about the sensitive subject.
A spokesman for the Eurofighter consortium said it had "never been involved in talks to sell the aircraft to Libya" and its presence at the Lavex air show outside Tripoli in 2009 was part of an Italian delegation organised at government level. Defense sources tell Reuters that Britain and Germany had vetoed any sale of Italian Typhoons to Libya, but the amount of other Italian military hardware on display demonstrated warm relations at the time between Tripoli and the government of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
France has been less timid about announcing arms talks with Libya which briefly held an exclusive option for Rafale jets. A French source, who asked not to be named, declined to comment in detail on past negotiations but said arms sales were handled at a government-to-government level.
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Once upon a time, there were two serpents, Jormungand (Midgard) and Julunggul (Rainbow), who slithered between two worlds, “the old world that needed and revered them and the present which has shunned such monsters as fears metamorphosed into mythical form.” Dark and with the power of fire, Jormungand winds it way through the landscape. Bright and with the light of the earth, Julunggul slithers to meet with her dark twin. Their synchronized dance is a gorgeous sight to behold:
Lovingly hand-built by makers Jon Sarriugarte and Kyrsten Mate, each 4-foot-wide, 50-foot-long serpent has a huge display of LED lights the length of its body capable of creating rainbows, plasma fields, water drops, fire, and video, made possible by an array of over 15,000 individually addressable LEDs. Add to this a soundtrack of serpent calls designed at Skywalker Sound by Kyrsten, played on the 2000-watt sound system built into each head.
Jon and Krysten have brought amazing projects to each Faire since the first in 2006, including The Boiler Bar and The Golden Mean snail car. Accompanying them is their talented and adorable daughter Zolie. At the 2006 Faire, Jon and Krysten had made custom hoodies that read “Maker” on the back, while Zolie’s read “Made.”
Come slither with the Serpent Twins at Maker Faire Bay Area this weekend at the San Mateo Fairgrounds.
Maker Faire Project Profile
The Jormungand (Midgard) and Julunggul (Rainbow) Serpents sit between two worlds; the old world that needed and revered them and the present which has shunned such monsters as fears metamorphosed into mythical form. Dark and with the power of fire, the Serpent Jormungand winds it way through the landscape of Coachella. Bright and with the light of the earth, the Julunggul serpent slithers to meet with her dark twin. They both have a function within mythology. The earth was shaped by Julunggul, who later swallowed it and all it contains in a fit of anger; then regurgitated it to restore Read more →
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The Federal Reserve on Wednesday said risks to the outlook for the U.S. economy and job market had eased since last fall, but it said it would keep buying $85 billion in bonds per month given the still-high level of unemployment. Full Article | Instant view
Confused while buying stocks? Get buy, sell or hold recommendations from VantageTrade. Full Coverage
Inflation a threat to sustained Asian recovery - ADB
MANILA/HONG KONG |
MANILA/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Some of Asia's emerging economies are showing signs of overheating, underscoring the need for further policy tightening and more flexible foreign exchange rates to tackle growing inflationary pressures, the Asian Development Bank said on Wednesday.
Developing Asia, a diverse group of economies including China, India, Azerbaijan, Thailand and Fiji, is expected to grow 7.8 percent in 2011 and 7.7 percent in 2012, robust rates albeit slower than the 9 percent seen in 2010, the ADB said in its latest Asian Development Outlook report.
At the same time, inflation is expected to quicken to an average 5.3 percent this year from 4.4 percent in 2010, before easing to 4.6 percent in 2012, the ADB said. Some countries such as Vietnam and Pakistan could see inflation rates climb well into the double digits.
"There is some sign of overheating, some need for more policy tightening in future," ADB chief economist Changyong Rhee said at a media briefing in Hong Kong, speaking generally of Asian inflation.
"Developing Asia is home to two-thirds of the world's poor and it is they who are most vulnerable to the effects of price increases," he said. "Policymakers must therefore consider preemptive action to control inflation before it accelerates."
Higher interest rates alone may not be enough to tamp down price pressures, Rhee added, urging policymakers to use a variety of measures to curb inflation, including allowing greater flexibility in their currencies and capital controls.
"The region's outlook is for continued strong growth in 2011- 2012, but with the threat of inflation looming closer," the ADB said in its report.
"When weighing their macroeconomic policy choices, many of developing Asia's policy makers see that the balance has tipped toward avoiding overheating."
Besides rising food and fuel prices, other risks to regional growth included soft job and housing markets in the United States, Europe's debt problems, and the economic impact of last month's massive earthquake in Japan and nuclear crisis, the ADB said.
The ADB, which said its report was generally based on data available up to March 16, said the impact of Japan's disaster was hard to quantify, but was likely to impact negatively on the country's economic growth for the next two quarters, with minimal spillover disruptions to other Asian economies.
"The impact on Japan in the short run will be large in the next two quarters for example, but I think the long run economic prospects will be less dire and the impact on other regions will be contained. I don't think there will be a very significant threat to other regions at this moment," said Rhee.
China, in particular, could do more to tighten monetary policy, the ADB said, even after Beijing raised interest rates on Tuesday for the fourth time since October. Inflation in China is running at around 5 percent and could accelerate further in coming months.
"Unless the Chinese government sees the stabilization of inflation in a short period of time, I think they may have to consider more tightening," Rhee said.
A surge in inflation, particularly food price inflation, could pull down those who are currently just above the poverty line, making it a social as well as economic concern, the ADB said.
The report said recent estimates showed a 10 percent rise in domestic food prices would raise the number of poor in developing Asia by about 64 million, or more than 7 percent.
"High inflation is a direct threat to stable and inclusive growth since rising domestic prices can lead to social tensions," the ADB said, singling out Vietnam as among the most at risk from rising prices.
Inflation in Vietnam could reach 13.3 percent this year, the second highest in the region after Pakistan, which could see inflation of 16 percent, the ADB said.
But tackling inflation driven by global and supply-side factors can put policymakers in a difficult position.
Steps such as tariff cuts and export bans have varying success, and there could also be problems with local infrastructure or domestic supply chains that exacerbate price pressures.
Raising interest rates can also attract more foreign inflows, which adds to pressure from currencies to appreciate and creates greater liquidity in domestic money supply, compounding problems for policymakers.
Allowing currencies to appreciate was effective when dealing with a sustained surge of inflows, but could cause problems if the inflows are temporary, the ADB said.
"Unfortunately, distinguishing between permanent and temporary capital inflows is difficult, so countries will have to decide on the nature of problem while taking the necessary actions."
(Additional reporting by James Pomfret in Hong Kong; Editing by Kim Coghill)
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WESTPORT — On August 27, the Westport Board of Health passed a regulation entitled, "The Sale and Use of Tobacco Products and Nicotine Delivery Products". The regulation was supported by student members of the Westport High School Chapter of the84.org; Marilyn Edge, director of the Western Bristol County & Foxborough Tobacco & Alcohol Program Collaborative; Judith Coykendall, program manager of the Seven Hills Behavioral Health Tobacco-Free Community Partnership; and members of VOICES for a Healthy Southcoast.
There were several issues addressed in the regulation. It banned the sale of tobacco products in pharmacies now defined as Health Care Institutions under the regulation. Prior to the passage of the regulation the Westport Apothecary owned by Roger LeClerc had made the decision to voluntarily discontinue selling tobacco products. Therefore, the only pharmacy affected by the new policy was the CVS in Westport.
Another part of the regulation addressed the sale of Nicotine Delivery Products such as electronic cigarettes known as e-cigarettes. Prior to the implementation of this regulation people under the age of 18 could legally purchase these products in Westport. With the implementation of the new policy, e-cigarettes must be treated similarly to tobacco products, be kept out of reach of customers, and only be sold to those 18 years of age and older. In addition, e-cigarettes must be sold only by those vendors with a Tobacco and Nicotine Delivery Product Sales Permit issued annually by the Westport Board of Health.
The regulation banned the sale of blunt wraps in Westport. Also, as of February 4, 2013, loose cigars sold individually at a price under $2.50 must be sold in packages of at least four cigars. This part of the regulation was designed to discourage youth from buying flavored small cigars that range in price from 69 cents to $1.50.
Judith Coykendall explained that "Price matters with kids. When youth can buy tobacco products with flavors such as grape, chocolate, mango, and pineapple for less than the cost of a bag of chips, then it makes it more affordable for them to do so. This sets them up for nicotine addiction and eventually they will become cigarette smokers".
Marilyn Edge agreed, "The tobacco industry has developed these cheap, flavored products to target our youth. Restricting the sale of these products such as Black n Milds to packages of four will help reduce the number of youth becoming life time smokers".
Ms. Edge further stated, "We need to restrict the sale of cheap individual cigars to our youth because we have seen the rate of cigar and other tobacco product use increase among Massachusetts youth from 13.3% in 2003 to 17.6% in 2009 for the first time in history".
Lauren Roderigues from the SADD/the84.org chapter at Westport High expressed her concerns about how the tobacco industry targets her age group through advertising and displays in pharmacies and other stores. She gave testimony at one of the Board of Health meetings that "when tobacco products are sold in pharmacies it gives a false impression to youth that tobacco use may be healthy". The84.org is a Massachusetts youth movement that stands for the 84% of Massachusetts youth who choose not to use tobacco products.
The new regulation went into effect on October 1, 2012.
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In the trucking business, uptime is of utmost concern, says Shawn Thobe, information systems manager for Cheeseman LLC : “It’s hard in this industry to keep drivers and to get new ones. If drivers aren’t driving, they’re not making any money.”
For that reason, like IT managers everywhere, Thobe has led Cheeseman’s efforts to establish a disaster-proof infrastructure . What that has meant for the Fort Recovery, Ohio, company — with a fleet of more than 300 drivers and 75 office employees — is a progressive shift toward services hosted elsewhere.
Making sure workers have access to the corporate assets they need to do their jobs is just as critical for small and medium-sized businesses as for large ones, particularly as data increasingly is available in electronic formats only, says Justin Jaffe, research manager at IDC.
“Roughly three-quarters of U.S. SMBs have at least some sort of data backup policy,” he says. And offsite storage options are gaining traction over more traditional solutions. “Survey data shows that although most SMBs still store data onsite, an increasing percentage [about 25 percent in 2011] are now storing data remotely,” Jaffe says.
Anything from windstorms to equipment failure can bring a company to its knees, choking revenue streams to a trickle. Smart companies are increasingly reviewing the potential for disruption and then planning accordingly. Here’s a look at how Cheeseman and two other companies created DR setups so that they can continue business no matter the circumstances.
The first move for Cheeseman took place four years ago when it switched to a hosted Voice over IP solution that lets employees make and receive calls from home when they can’t come into the office. Then three years ago, the company began virtualizing its production data center. Thobe began to look at disaster recovery planning on a wider scale; he realized that virtualization alone wouldn’t provide the desired uptime for his users.
“Virtualization helps us if we have one server that goes down — one virtual server or even our physical server — but it doesn’t help us if we have an entire disaster here,” he says.
Ultimately, the Cheeseman DR plan called for the ability to support employees as well as drivers no matter where they were located. To achieve that, Thobe set out to create a main data facility and a mirror site that could be activated quickly to provide remote access for everyone.
Today, Cheeseman has a pair of hosted sites, with IBM servers and EMC storage area networks, built on a Cisco Systems network backbone. The mirror DR site is located an hour away from the production facility, in part to protect the corporate communications pipeline.
Cheeseman relies on its Internet connection for critical day-to-day operations, which involve significant mobile communications between trucks, customers and employees in the office.
“Virtualization helps us if we have one server that goes down — one virtual server or even our physical server — but it doesn’t help us if we have an entire disaster here.”
– Shawn Thobe, Information Systems Manager for Cheeseman LLC
The Internet gateway at the remote site gives us extra protection in a different region than the production data center, Thobe says. Should a severe incident sweep the region where the production facility is located, “the DR facility and that generator-protected power can be running versus this one, which might not be.”
Between the VoIP phones and remote access to the mirror facilities, Thobe says he’s now confident that business can continue even if disaster strikes.
Disaster had already struck a Midwest glass manufacturer when Jason Young came on board to run the IT team. Among his first marching orders: Find a way to back up and restore data fast.
Before Young’s arrival, the company had suffered a corrupted Active Directory database. “Data was lost,” he says, “and the downtime was probably three or four days of production time because of these issues.”
Restoring services turned out to be an expensive process. After adding in the costs from lost manufacturing days, upper management was keen to see Young implement a new DR plan.
Young deployed Paragon Drive Backup Server . The software lets the glass company capture and store a weekly copy of its data on an external drive, which is then stored offsite in a fireproof safe. If need be, Young would be able to recover and restore images from Paragon on a virtual machine on a new physical host, he says. The offsite storage solution is simple to manage, and recovery can be accomplished at any location if the primary facility is inaccessible.
Today, a potential disruption won’t mean lost production days, Young says. “If that situation were to arise, I’d have no problem getting this organization back up and running in a few hours, or at least getting them up to the point where they can function and work and minimize downtime,” he says.
Young is interested to see what sorts of options cloud storage might offer the company going forward. Although budget restraints keep that from being an option right now, he hopes to revisit a move to the cloud within the next 12 months.
Every good reporter knows the story comes first, and that’s how the 125 employees at The Advocate approached DR planning. Published by Capital City Press in Baton Rouge, La., the daily newspaper began investigating its DR options during a corporate relocation.
When was the last time your company updated its disaster recovery plan?
29% Less than six months ago
26% One to three years ago
22% Six months to a year ago
17% We don’t have a disaster recovery plan
6% More than three years ago
SOURCE: CDW poll of 352 BizTech readers
“We were moving into a new business office and building a new printing press facility at the same time,” says Richard Shurley, chief technology officer for operations. “New distribution centers were also being built. Of course, all of these had to be networked.”
Unfortunately, building a new IT facility was cost prohibitive.
“At that point, we began looking at outsourcing alternatives,” Shurley says. “We knew we needed our provider to be a company with a local presence who would let us be hands-on.”
The newspaper now stores mission-critical data offsite at a nearby business continuity center. It backs up data daily to the remote location, which will let the newspaper quickly recover from any type of interruption in daily operations.
“If there is ever any damage to our physical location, we know that we can conduct business at the offsite location,” Shurley says. “We have enough space at the business continuity center to move half of the newsroom there if need be.”
Hurricane Katrina gave The Advocate an unexpected opportunity to put its DR plan into action.
“Hurricane Katrina hit the day our staff was supposed to move into our new administrative offices in Baton Rouge,” he says. “The hurricane impacted our move timeline but not our servers at our offsite location. Our network continued to run, and we were able to get the paper out and our online edition stayed up.”
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By Edward Krudy and David Lawder
(Reuters) - Exit presidential elections. Enter looming budget crisis. And once again, a disconnect between how Washington and Wall Street see the world could cause pain for investors if the two get their signals crossed.
At the beginning of next year, $600 billion in tax increases and spending cuts - known as the fiscal cliff - will automatically become law unless Congress acts. Such dramatic moves could hammer consumer and business spending, push the U.S. economy back into recession and send markets reeling.
However, there is a sense that neither the financiers and investors in New York nor the lawmakers in Congress are taking each other seriously enough. Many in Washington believe Congress could do nothing, and the market reaction would be relatively sanguine. Plenty on Wall Street say the fiscal cliff, one way or another, will be dealt with. It raises the possibility that Congress will sail over the cliff, and markets will freak.
"The markets have been way too sanguine on the fiscal cliff," said Greg Valliere, chief political strategist for Potomac Research Group, which tracks Washington for institutional investors.
The fiscal cliff's automatic triggers were built into law as a way to force lawmakers to tackle huge U.S. budget deficits.
Wall Street banks, investors, and financial industry lobbyists have coalesced around the view that after the elections Congress will reach a short-term deal to avert the worst of the cliff. In short, they believe Congress will kick the can down the road for several more months.
"They'll have to do some sort of short-term extension to buy some time to develop the larger component of addressing the fiscal cliff, which is a large-scale fiscal plan," said Ken Bentsen, head of the Washington office for financial industry group SIFMA, who sees that happening.
As SIFMA's chief lobbyist, Bentsen is essentially Wall Street's eyes and ears in the nation's capital. He was a congressman himself - a Texas Democrat who served in the House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003.
But Wall Street and Washington have misread each other in the past, and it has not been pretty for markets. One of the ugliest examples of that was in September 2008, not two weeks after Lehman Brothers collapsed, when the House rejected a $700 billion financial bailout plan. Markets plunged; that shock was enough to galvanize lawmakers to pass a revised plan a few days later.
There is some concern that poor assumptions are being made about each side. In Washington, there are Tea Party-backed Republicans who anticipate a market shock but believe the pain is worth it if it changes what they see as a culture of spending in Washington.
While none of them are saying this publicly in the pre-election environment, lobbyists in close contact with Capitol Hill say there are enough members with such an outlook to create headaches for leaders like House Speaker John Boehner just as they did during debt ceiling negotiations in 2011.
In addition, there is a growing group of Democrats and center-left policy wonks who say that going over the cliff may be a viable tactical option to force revenue increases on Republicans, who have resisted them.
The theory is simple: no one has to cast a potentially career-ending vote to raise tax rates, and lawmakers can easily blame the other party for the impasse.
The tax rates snap back to pre-2001 levels, to the levels prevailing before the tax cuts brought in by President George W. Bush, and $109 billion in automatic spending cuts start to bite - half military and half domestic programs.
Senator Patty Murray, the second-ranking Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee and a top player in last year's debt limit and deficit reduction negotiations, was among the first lawmakers to voice willingness to pursue a previously unthinkable tactic.
"If we can't get a good deal - a balanced deal that calls on the wealthy to pay their fair share - then I will absolutely continue this debate into 2013 rather than lock in a long-term deal this year that throws middle-class families under the bus," Murray said in a speech at the Brookings Institution in July.
A spokesman for Murray said her views on the topic have not changed since then.
Other Democrats also say that going over the cliff, while painful, would be better than simply extending all tax rates and delaying the spending cuts for six months or a year. They argue this will incur another debt downgrade from ratings agencies.
"We have the leverage, we should use it," said Vermont Democratic Representative Peter Welch. "In the past, when we had leverage, we've blinked."
Welch said Democrats did not use their leverage in 2010 when Obama agreed to a two-year extension of Bush-era tax cuts, and did not push hard enough for revenue increases in the debt limit deal in August 2011.
Welch also voiced a belief among many Democrats and liberal-leaning policy analysts that there will be some wiggle room to go over the cliff in January but still reach a deal early enough in the new year to spare the economy serious damage.
According to this line of thinking, not all of the $600 billion in gross fiscal tightening happens immediately - the drag on the economy builds up over time, prompting comparisons to a steep slope, rather than a deadly drop.
"It's not a Wile E. Coyote moment for the economy," said Chad Stone, chief economist for the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, referring to the devastating plunges suffered by the hapless cartoon canine.
MISREADING THE TEA LEAVES?
But if lawmakers think they will get an easy ride from markets should they choose the cliff, they are in for a surprise.
"If that's the sense in Washington I think they're sorely mistaken," said David Joy, chief investment strategist at Ameriprise Financial in Boston, where he helps oversee $655 billion in assets.
Joy is optimistic. He expects a short-term deal by the end of the year. He said he has increased his contact with the firm's Washington's representatives and is now talking to them at least once a week and sometimes several times.
"The sense that I'm getting from some of the readings that we get on the ground from Washington is that they're starting to wake up to the idea that it is serious and that it would unnecessarily harm the economy starting in January," said Joy.
Indeed, Boehner on Sunday told CNN that he expected a temporary deal that would push resolution to 2013.
"Lame-duck Congresses aren't known for doing big things and probably shouldn't do big things, so I think the best you can hope for is a bridge," he said.
There are influential voices on each side of the political divide that abhor the idea of going over the cliff.
Bentsen said he has been speaking to many lawmakers during the recess, including Democratic Senator Mark Warner and Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss, both part of the bipartisan so-called Gang of Six senators dedicated to budget issues. They told SIFMA's annual conference in New York in October that Congress would get this done, Bentsen said.
For now, investors are buying it.
Billionaire investor Ken Fisher is so convinced a deal will be done he says any market trepidation - or short-term selloffs later in the year - should be used as a buying opportunity. Fisher was in Washington in June and has talked to three legislative aides since then. He believes the fiscal cliff will be punted far into the future, perhaps after the next midterm elections in 2014. In his read, it is a non-issue.
"I don't think the fiscal cliff is anymore of a reality than the concern once was about swine flu and Y2K," said Fisher. "My view is that this issue is a cause for bullishness, because fear of a false factor is always a bullish factor," he said.
Still, as well as the 2008 debacle, many investors are all too familiar with the lengthy, drawn-out negotiations involved in raising the debt ceiling in August 2011. That resulted in a selloff on Wall Street and the battle over what for years had been a procedural move was partly responsible for the downgrade of the pristine U.S. credit rating by Standard & Poor's.
Until there is more clarity, Joy recommends paring back riskier investments such as stocks and says low-quality, high-yielding bonds, popular with investors seeking higher returns, could get badly hurt if the fiscal cliff is triggered.
Valliere notes that this Congress is the same one that stumbled its way through the debt limit mess, triggering a credit downgrade, and could barely agree on a short-term extension of payroll tax cuts before Christmas last year. Investors should be cautious in believing that things are different this time around.
"I think the markets are not focusing on the possibility that talks could totally break down in December," Valliere said.
(Editing by David Gaffen and Mohammad Zargham)
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Alpher discusses what PM Netanyahu's secret indirect peace negotiations with the Bashar Assad regime tells us about Netanyahu's readiness for peace, what's been going on with the first week of electoral preparations for the Israeli elections, Republican attacks on the Obama administration's handling of the 9/11 attack in Libya, and the revelation last week that the Israeli military calculated the minimal number of calories that Gazans should be allowed to consume daily as a means of determining what foodstuffs to allow into the Strip from Israel
Q. It was recently revealed that PM Netanyahu conducted secret indirect peace negotiations with the Bashar Assad regime in Damascus during 2010 and 2011, prior to the outbreak of revolution in Syria, using US good offices. What does this tell us about Netanyahu's readiness for peace?
A. First of all, we learn from these reports something about President Barack Obama's potential influence over Netanyahu. Back in 2010, Obama confronted multiple obstacles with Netanyahu: the breakdown of talks with the Palestinians, Netanyahu's evident evasion of US pressures on that issue, and Netanyahu's clearly stated public opposition to a peace deal with the Assad regime involving the Golan. Yet the Israeli prime minister nevertheless apparently felt obliged to accept Obama's offer to have State Department emissary Fred Hof engage in shuttle diplomacy between Jerusalem and Damascus. I know and respect Hof; he would not have engaged unless he was persuaded that Netanyahu was in some way or form a candidate for serious talks with Syria.
Netanyahu, we recall, negotiated indirectly (through the good offices of Ronald Lauder) with Bashar Assad's late father, Hafez, between 1996 and 1999, during Netanyahu's first stint as prime minister. He apparently came close to offering up all of the Golan Heights in return for peace with Syria. In the present case, the imperative of breaking or weakening Syria's enhanced ties with Iran by means of a peace agreement was presumably paramount in both American and Israeli thinking.
One way or another, in this instance the principle of exchanging the Golan for peace with Syria wasn't put to the test, apparently because both Netanyahu and Assad hedged their bets and delayed until revolution in Syria ended tripartite contacts. Hof reportedly continued, even after the Syrian revolution began, to suggest to Assad that a peace breakthrough with Israel could help him turn the tide internally and rally the Syrian public around him.
It remains to ask why Yediot Aharonot, an anti-Netanyahu paper, leaked the story once it became known that Israel was headed for January elections. Ostensibly, the report portrays Netanyahu as more dovish and peace-oriented than his own Likud party and his right-wing coalition, thereby embarrassing him. In fact, the leak could also serve Netanyahu's interests by demonstrating to undecided centrists that he too is interested in territories-for-peace.
For its part, Netanyahu's entourage could now explain that he managed to negotiate, at least up to a point, without actually making any substantive concessions. It's almost superfluous to add that, as usual with Netanyahu, no peace deal was concluded or apparently even contemplated.
(Possibly) to be continued if Netanyahu, Assad or a reasonable successor, and Obama are around next year . . . .
Q. Speaking of Israel's elections, has anything dramatic happened during the first week of electoral preparations?
A. In the course of the past week, we witnessed a lot of political streamlining. Kadima decided not to hold primaries among party members in an effort to cherry-pick a more attractive electoral list and rescue itself from what the polls predict will be a resounding defeat. The two right-wing national religious and settler parties, the National Union and HaBait HaYehudi, decided to join forces in a single electoral list in the hope of creating a large enough bloc--they confidently predict as many as 15 mandates--to ensure their influence in the next coalition. And Shas' spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef negotiated the creation of a leadership triumvirate for the party that includes Aryeh Deri. This arrangement prevents the charismatic Deri from running against Shas. Correspondingly, it potentially enables Shas to siphon off votes from the Likud--assuming the three newly anointed leaders in this unusual arrangement manage to get along.
Finally, the Likud was shaken by the resignation from politics, at least temporarily, of Communications and Welfare Minister Moshe Kachlon, its most popular and successful minister and the primary Sephardic representative in the leadership of a party that prides itself on attracting Sephardic voters. Kachlon offered no real explanation for his decision to drop out of politics; it may be connected to his reported grievance that he deserves a more senior portfolio in the next government than Netanyahu was prepared to promise him.
Q. Still on elections--this time in the United States--what do you make of Republican attacks on the Obama administration's handling of the 9/11 attack in Libya that killed four American emissaries, including the US ambassador?
A. This controversy will undoubtedly resurface during the October 22 presidential debate, which will devote considerable time to Middle East issues. Republican candidate Mitt Romney obviously believes that by focusing on Benghazi he can demonstrate mistakes in the administration's understanding of sensitive issues involving the aftermath of Arab revolutions.
From everything I've gathered, the administration's errors of judgment and reporting regarding this incident are neither more nor less than can be expected in view of the "fog of war" enveloping decision-making that involves post-revolutionary Libya and ongoing violent events there. Indeed, the intelligence picture of what happened in Benghazi on 9/11 is still evolving--through no fault of the administration--as "noise" is separated out from "signals" in a very difficult collection environment.
A candidate with extensive experience dealing with international strategic issues, like John McCain in 2008, might have understood this, cited vital national interests, and backed off from confronting Obama over the Benghazi tragedy. Not so Romney, not only because he totally lacks that experience in his resume, but because no issues, no matter how sensitive, appear to be immune to savage criticism in this election. Even McCain of 2012 has joined the attack on Obama in this regard.
The other strategic issue emerging from or implied by the Benghazi attack--how the US should deal with Islamist-dominated revolutions in Arab countries--is by comparison fair game, even if we sometimes hear distressingly simplistic policy prescriptions.
Q. Finally, what do you make of the revelation last week that in the course of the Gaza blockade in recent years, the Israeli military calculated the minimal number of calories that Gazans should be allowed to consume daily as a means of determining what foodstuffs to allow into the Strip from Israel?
A. There is absolutely nothing new here. The Israel Ministry of Defense official in charge of political-security affairs under Ehud Barak, General Amos Gilad, repeatedly (and proudly!) declared, at the height of the blockade prior to the Mavi Marmara flotilla affair of May 2010, that he was "counting calories" for Gazans; he intended his remarks to indicate that no one would be allowed to starve in Gaza but also that no one would eat well as long as Gilad Shalit was in Hamas' captivity. Since Mavi Marmara, the blockade has been progressively relaxed.
Not only is this old news, and not only was the blockade a strategic mistake insofar as it punished the Gazan public and incurred international condemnation without in any way softening Hamas' rule. But events in Gaza are currently moving so fast that the abortive blockade would be completely forgotten had not American Jewish activist Noam Chomsky visited Gaza last week and called piously for Israel to "end the blockade". Of far greater significance, Chomsky will be followed this week in Gaza by none other than the emir of Qatar, who is opening up a Qatari diplomatic representative office in Gaza City and investing more than $250 million in developing the Strip's economy. Not to be outdone, the Saudis, too, are reportedly opening up a diplomatic bureau in Gaza.
This new Gazan reality of widespread access has been made possible by Egypt's readiness to progressively open the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Sinai. From Chomsky to the Qatari leader, that's how everyone and everything is entering Gaza these days, thus rendering what's left of the Israeli blockade largely meaningless.
Despite the obvious affinity between Egypt's new Muslim Brotherhood rulers and Gaza's Hamas rulers (Hamas began life as the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood), the Egyptians have their hesitations about opening up the border too far. Not only do they wish not to let Israel "off the hook" regarding the blockade; and not only do they seek to discourage Hamas from declaring the independence of Gaza without coordinating such a step with Fateh in the West Bank. They're also concerned that jihadi Salafists sheltering in Gaza are entering Sinai and launching terrorist acts there. And they tend to look upon their Gazan brethren as seeking a free economic ride at Cairo's expense. But they can hardly say no to the Saudis and Qataris, upon whose largess Cairo, too, is currently dependent.
The real issue here is not the obsolete Israeli economic blockade and its calorie counts, mistaken as they were. The real issue is the emerging nature--particularly the military nature--of the four-way relationship among Israel, Egypt, Gaza and Sinai. In recent weeks, Hamas has permitted Gaza-based Salafists to fire dozens of rockets into Israel. Not surprisingly, last week a first anti-aircraft missile was fired (abortively) from inside the Strip at an Israeli aircraft, as the flow of sophisticated weaponry from Libyan stockpiles across the Egyptian Mediterranean coast and Sinai into Gaza has continued apace. In parallel, under President Morsi, Egypt has actually enhanced its military coordination with Israel regarding Salafi terrorists in Sinai. Separate Egyptian and Israeli efforts to pressure Hamas to crack down on the Salafists in Gaza have thus far produced decidedly mixed results.
Here, then, are the two most immediate questions at stake in this complex relationship. First, can Israel and Egypt, each in its own way, persuade Hamas to crack down on the extremists in Gaza? And second, if they fail, how will Egypt respond if Israel makes good on its threat to launch heavy military retaliation into Gaza in the hope of compelling Hamas to maintain peace and quiet?
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FRANKFORT—Kentucky’s special taxing districts would be required to submit data about who they are and how the money they raise is spent under legislation approved Wednesday by the House Local Government Committee.
House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, the sponsor of House Bill 1, told the panel that his legislation is designed to bring transparency to how taxpayers’ money is being spent while ensuring continuity of services to Kentuckians. He has worked on the legislation and presented the bill with State Auditor Adam Edelen, who has reported that Kentucky has over 1,200 special districts that spend $2.7 billion of public money per year.
“If you look at the magnitude of these special districts… it is remarkable that we’ve had so few problems with them. That’s a testament to the fine Kentuckians who serve all across the Commonwealth on the library boards, the water boards, and all the special district boards,” Stumbo said.
“This is not something that is a reaction to bad conduct,” Stumbo said, adding that a special district may not be completely aware of what is expected of them by the state. “This is an attempt to clarify (by law) to make sure that they have a clear path as to what reporting requirements they need to make…and just a way to simplify this very complicated and convoluted series of laws that have developed in our statutes dealing with special districts over the past number of years.”
Public libraries, EMS boards, water districts and fire districts are all examples of special districts, which are found in 117 counties statewide. Edelen said taxpayers in those counties pay more to special districts than they do in local property tax. He also said special districts in Kentucky hold twice the amount of cash reserves as the state’s 174 public school districts, or approximately $1.4 billion.
HB 1 would define special districts and similar entities as “special purpose government entities” for reporting and auditing purposes. The entities would be required to report who they are, what they do, and their finances to the state Department for Local Government, which would put that data online in a centralized registry for public viewing. Entities that do not submit the required data would be subject to an audit at their own expense, Edelen said.
The legislation would also establish education and ethics rules to ensure that the newly-defined special purpose government entities are putting taxpayer money to good use, and make it easier for defunct or inactive entities or entities that “choose to go outside the process,” as Edelen said, to be dissolved by law.
Special districts and similar entities would have to register with the Department for Local Government by the end of this year under HB 1, Edelen said. The centralized registry would go online in the fall of 2014.
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DURHAM, N.C. — Doctors say a 2-year-girl is making progress in the fight of her life.
In May, WRAL had a story about 2-year-old Annabelle Green, who was diagnosed with a rare and deadly health condition that can cause brain damage if not treated.
Annabelle spent more than a month at Duke Medical Center, where she had a stem cell transplant. Now, 40 days after surgery, her body has not rejected any transplanted cells.
Doctors believe Annabelle is even doing well enough to be released.
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By Kelsea Stahler, Hollywood.com Staff
Pictured (from left to right): Jennifer Lawrence in 'The Hunger Games,' Kathryn Bigelow, Lena Dunham, Jessica Chastain in 'Zero Dark Thirty,' and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer
If you have eyes, the ability to read, and Internet access, you've probably read an article at some point this year about The Magnanimous Excellence of The Female Species and How Women Shall Inherit The Earth As Men Go Running Scared Into Oblivion. You'd think some Amazonian tribe of women was running rampant, snatching up cities across the U.S. and claiming the land for all possessors of lady parts. Sometime in the past 12 months, we decided that 2012 was the year of women, especially in the entertainment industry. But that's not exactly true.
What 2012 actually is, is a year of some women. But our oversimplification of the status of women this year is understandable, however inaccurate. When our discourse is dominated by proclamations of women "dominating" the Senate after a record 20 women won their respective elections, the "high" number of female showrunners in television, Marissa Mayer's corporate domination as a working mother and CEO of Yahoo, Lena Dunham's ability to project all of our neuroses on national television in a thoughtful and powerful way, and the notion that film characters like The Hunger Games' Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Zero Dark Thirty's feminist-dream Maya (Jessica Chastain) signal girl power as the new norm, it's no wonder we feel that women in 2012 hold more weight than ever. But perhaps it's not the events themselves that are noteworthy, but rather our great proclivity for the discussion.
GALLERY: 15 Kick-Ass Cartoon Babes
"I think 2012 is a year in which women have a really powerful appetite to celebrate powerful women and our questions about where and when women are not powerful," says Clare Winterton, Executive Director of the International Museum of Women. "The rate at which we've given due to those issues is very high. Whether or not that visibility is matched by concrete signs of advancement for women across the board is a big question," she adds. The discussion around women and women's progress, in Hollywood and elsewhere, has been given great wings in 2012, but it certainly doesn't mean that suddenly, just before the Mayans predicted the downfall of civilization, women have "done it." It's still a work in progress, but one that saw a few significant boosts this year.
It's something co-producer and co-screenwriter for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Philippa Boyens, has experienced firsthand. "I just did a producers roundtable, which was fantastic, and there were lots of female producers there was once a time when there wouldn't have been any women at that table, but now we make up half the table," she says. And Boyens' moment isn't a singular piece of evidence for women advancing in entertainment.
Hollywood in 2012 boasts a laundry list of lady-led accomplishments. More and more women, like New Girl's Liz Meriwether, Don't Trust the B in Apartment 23's Nahnatchka Khan, and of course Girls' incomparable Dunham, are running things behind the scenes of some of pop culture's most talked about shows. Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow's follow-up to her Oscar-winning film The Hurt Locker, and its impressive heroine are wowing critics as the film quickly rolls towards yet another Best Director nod for Bigelow. The Venice Film Festival made headlines this year because unlike Cannes which failed to qualify a single female director for the illustrious Palme d'Or award it offered up four main competition spots to female directors (albeit out of a whopping 17 spots). USC film school, one of the top in the world, cites an undergraduate class that is almost half women (41 percent, to be exact), suggesting the promise of more and more great women behind the camera. Even film critics like AP's Christy Lemire and LA Weekly's Karina Longworth continue to be significant voices in a male-dominated conversation, and Emily Nussbaum has just completed her first year as the voice of TV criticism for The New Yorker and as one of the top voices in the field itself. And while this lineup may be enough to send some of us into the streets crying, "We've made it, ladies!" it's not time for that. Yet.
"The field is so much bigger now," says independent filmmaker and NYU film school professor Christine Choy. "But I can still count the great female directors on one hand and in general, they don't last too long," she adds. For every Dunham and Bigelow, we find a handful of forgotten directors like Winter's Bone director Debra Granik, whose name faded into the background after they rolled up the red carpet at the 2011 Academy Awards. And while folks like Bigelow and Dunham certainly seem to be standing the test of Hollywood time which tends to move even faster than that speedy New York minute they can't single-handedly change the face of the unarguably male-dominated entertainment industry. "One director is not enough," says Choy.
Next: Why Marissa Mayer's and Kathryn Bigelow's success doesn't mean we've won.
Follow Kelsea on Twitter @KelseaStahler[PAGEBREAK]
And that's because progress doesn't simply manifest itself like a Hollywood happy ending. The reality is a little more complex, as is the goal of equalizing the positions of women and men in entertainment. Our infatuation with the progress made by our real-life heroines doesn't change the fact that they're just starting to get the ball rolling.
"It's a fair assessment to say women aren't progressing as fast as some of the popular representations of women would like you to believe," says Winterton. Successes on the scale of Mayer's outside of entertainment and Bigelow's in Hollywood obfuscate the indicators of the work that's left to be done, like the fact that 2012 saw almost no growth in women holding top positions at Fortune 500 companies or the fact that for every woman who's a noteworthy director or showrunner in entertainment, there are legions of men outnumbering her.
GALLERY: A History of Real Sex in Movies
While 2012 delivered us throngs of powerful female characters even Twilight's Bella pulled ahead of her brooding lover as a hero in the series' final installment this November and powerful real-life women, it came with the pall of the realization that the world hasn't exactly caught up. Body shaming was rampant in coverage of some of the most successful women on the planet: Lady Gaga, Jessica Simpson, and even Adele were subject to chatter about their weight, completely undermining the level to which all three of these women are dominating the music and fashion industries. Acclaimed author Bret Easton Ellis brought the discourse down several notches when he claimed Bigelow's work was only acclaimed because she's "a very hot woman." Brenda Chapman, the woman who pioneered the concept of the female empowerment tale Brave, was ousted as the film's director due to "creative differences" a change many critics fear will mar the progress of female animation directors. And even if those sexist issues weren't a problem this year, the fact of the matter is that successful women writers and directors in Hollywood are still the minority. "I think more women need to start writing and directing," Boyens says. And she's right. The work is not done, though the conversation has ignited.
But if 2012 isn't (angels singing as rays of sunlight break through clouds) The Year of Women, then what is it? If we must give it a name, The Year We Became Obsessed With Those Women would be more accurate. But this is actually good. Slapping 2012 with a resolute title isn't going to ensure that the progress we seek manifests itself suddenly. It simply signifies that we're satisfied with only a few women breaking into the top tiers of the male-dominated industry, when we should focus on continuing to seek more balance. We can celebrate the successes made by powerful women in 2012, but rather than patting ourselves on the back and proclaiming "We've done it!" now's the time to keep up the momentum.
Neil Armstrong didn't stick a flag in the moon's surface and think he'd conquered all of Space and women didn't rake in 2012's major successes and forever fix entertainment's imbalance. This year was simply a good start: one giant leap for woman kind.
Follow Kelsea on Twitter @KelseaStahler
[Photo Illustration by Hollywood.com; Photo Credits: WENN (2); WireImage; Lionsgate; Columbia Pictures; Disney/Pixar]
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The name Prakash Padukone is not one that would be instantly recognised by cricket fans. Not unless they come from India. There may be others who are familiar with the man or who have heard of him but I wouldn't put my money on it. No more mystery about it: Padukone is the best badminton player India has produced. But that is not why his name figures here.
Badminton, like every other sport in India, was run for generations by a bunch of people who knew little of the game, cared only for the power and privileges which the posts brought them, and, as a result, generally brought the game into disrepute. It became difficult to attract people to the sport and though Padukone won the All-England in 1980, there was nobody to follow his act. It was a disgusting scenario. The same could well be said of every sports federation in the country.
The attitude of sportsmen is to blame the system and the structure for their lack of achievement. Some do manage to go abroad and achieve something; others fight hard and manage to reach at least half of their potential. But the sports administrators are like a millstone round their necks. They do not help, they hinder. They take credit for any achievement and blame every shortcoming, every failure on the lack of governmental support and funds. But no sportsman has ever dared to fight back and take these blokes on. The few who have walked out in anger have never returned to continue the fight. They have paid the price for these indiscrete acts.
The difference with Padukone is that he has struck back. He formed his own badminton federation and boldly announced that he was doing it because the existing body stank. If anything, he was understating the problem. He was tired of complaining and decided to do something. And he is likely to win. The secretary of the existing body has thrown in the towel, his cronies are running scared. Padukone has no financial stake in this; he is rich enough to care a damn about money. The difference is that he is seriously interested in the game, enough to be willing to stretch his neck out for it. Sportswriters have a different name for it: love of the game.
And so to the point of this example. Why is it that India has so many ex-cricketers who criticise the board no end and then also eat from the same bowl? Why are big names like Gavaskar and Kapil Dev -- who do not have to bother about funds for the next four generations at least -- staying on the sidelines and carping? Why are they willing to run with the hounds -- and then find fault when a hare is hunted down? This is the bane of Indian cricket, not any selection policy, nor any structure.
These are people who are what they are today because of the game. Else they would be nobodies. No-one would even glance at them. Yet they are terribly loath to give something back, to get involved and sort out the sorry mess that Indian cricket has become. Ask Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, a man who cares deeply about Indian cricket, but one who has been sidelined no end, whether he would sup at the same table with Gavaskar and see what he says. That would say a lot about Indian cricket.
India's ex-cricketers are merely interested in reaping the benefits which the game can give them, be it commentary, foreign travel, wine, women or song. Giving something back? Nothing could be further from their minds. And before someone can fling this business of cricket camps back, it would be instructive to find out exactly how much these prima donnas charge for half-baked coaching. Brijesh Patel has become a multi-millionaire just by coaching kids in Bangalore; one has yet to see any talent he has spotted. The men who can do something are sidelined by those in power; people who actually want the system changed are a danger, for if that happened all the freeloaders who currently enjoy positions of power and gorge themselves at the public trough would have to find ther collective ways back home.
When Mohinder Amarnath had the courage to call the selectors "a bunch of jokers" did any of his teammates stand by him? No, they were only too eager to dissociate themselves from the man and left him to face the music. The ex-cricketers who fall in line with the board's dictates are periodically invited to enjoy a piece of the action -- be it as a selector, coach or manager. And about the only thing that these men who have had their day in the sun are interested in is their bank accounts. There is no love of the game in Indian cricket; nobody but the players of the past and the present can cleanse the system and it is time they quit complaining and did something. That is if they are interested in anything beyond match fees and advertising jingles.
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Incidental non-commercial lotteriesLast updated: 25 January 2011 09:59 UK
An incidental non-commercial lottery is:
· Not promoted for private gain; and
· Is incidental to a non-commercial event.
Such examples may include a lottery held at a school fete or at a social event such as a dinner dance. An event may be regarded as non-commercial if all the money raised at the event, including entrance fees, goes entirely to purposes that are not for private gain. For example a fundraising social event with an entrance fee would be non-commercial if the profits went to a society but would be commercial if the profits were retained by the organiser.
The Act also specifies that:
1. the promoters of the lottery may not deduct more than £100 from the proceeds in respect of the expenses incurred in organising the lottery, such as the cost of printing tickets, hire of equipment and so on
2. not more than £500 can be spent on prizes (but other prizes may be donated to the lottery)
3. the lottery cannot involve a rollover of prizes from one lottery to another
4. all tickets must be sold at the location during the event, and the result made public while the event takes place.
NOTE: The Licensing Act 2003 permits prizes of alcohol to be offered in lotteries without the need for a premises licence under the 2003 Act.
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JUDY WOODRUFF: Finally tonight: a PBS documentary about the inner workings of President Ronald Reagan's White House, as seen through the eyes of his secretary of state, GEORGE SHULTZ. Shultz's six years in office included major diplomatic breakthroughs with the Soviet Union.
We begin with this excerpt about an unplanned, but pivotal dinner.
NARRATOR: During a gathering winter storm, George Shultz returns to Washington from a trip to China. He's lucky to be able to land at Andrews Air Force Base before the snow becomes a major blizzard.
GEORGE SHULTZ, former U.S. secretary of state: So, we got home on a Friday, and it was snowing. It had been snowing. And it kept snowing. So, the Reagans were not able to take a chopper up to Camp David or a car, nothing. They were stuck in the White House for the evening.
So, our phone rings, and they said, "Why don't you come over and have supper with us?"
So, my wife and I went over. The four of us had a very nice supper.
NARRATOR: After supper, Shultz and the president have coffee and talk about Chinese leaders the secretary has met on his trip. With more coffee, the topic begins to shift. Reagan presses Shultz for information about Soviet leaders.
GEORGE SHULTZ: I knew the Soviet leaders because, when I was secretary of the treasury earlier, I had met with them and done a lot of negotiation with the Soviet leaders.
And I began to see, this man is dying to interact with these people and to try to work them over in his way of thinking.
NARRATOR: Given Reagan's stand on communism, no one on his team has ever recommended that he meet a Soviet leader. Shultz has other ideas.
GEORGE SHULTZ: So, I said to the president: "Ambassador Dobrynin is coming over next Tuesday, 5:00. What if I bring him over here and you talk to him?"
He said, "Oh, that would be great." And he had said to me: "It will be a very short meeting. Just, all I want to say is that if his new boss, Andropov, wants to have a constructive dialogue, I'm ready."
NARRATOR: Reagan and Shultz agree that the meeting must be kept secret. Over the next several days, Shultz develops a plan, and the meeting at last takes place.
GEORGE SHULTZ: So, we go over. And the meeting went on and on and on and on. We discuss every conceivable subject.
NARRATOR: Reagan quizzes Dobrynin on a number of issues, from arms control to the sensitive topic of human rights in the Soviet Union. The meeting is viewed as a success by both sides.
Shultz's initiative has just provided Reagan with a lesson on the value of direct talks. It is a lesson others in the White House are not ready to accept.
GWEN IFILL: Jim Lehrer spoke with Secretary Shultz on Friday about that dinner and other key moments during his years working for President Reagan.
JIM LEHRER: Mr. Secretary, welcome.
GEORGE SHULTZ: Thank you.
JIM LEHRER: Before that snowy dinner in 1983, what had been President Reagan's view about talking directly to the Russians?
GEORGE SHULTZ: Well, there was an atmosphere around the White House that there should be a stiff-arm. And, of course, we inherited from President Carter the cutting off of all contacts. I thought that was a mistake.
And I remember my good friend the chancellor of West Germany, Helmut Schmidt, had come to me and said: "George, the situation is dangerous. There's no human contact."
So, I thought we should rebuild that.
JIM LEHRER: Nobody knew that Dobrynin was coming and going to talk to President Reagan, right, besides you and the president?
GEORGE SHULTZ: Well, his staff knew it. Some of them tried to stop it. But he -- he was a strong-minded person. When he decided he wanted to do something, he was going to do it. So, it went through.
JIM LEHRER: Was there a serious attempt to keep that meeting from happening by the other members of the Cabinet and other people on the Reagan staff?
GEORGE SHULTZ: I don't think other members of the Cabinet knew about it.
And I was told that some members of his immediate staff tried to stop it. You know, people had a funny feeling. They -- they didn't have confidence that he could hold his own in one of these conversations.
And I knew him very well. And I was confident that he could hold his own and then some. He was terrific.
JIM LEHRER: Now, on Iran-Contra, how serious were you when you offered to resign as secretary of state?
GEORGE SHULTZ: Well, I always felt, Jim, that, no matter how much you were privileged to have a job like secretary of state -- because you could make a big difference -- you shouldn't want the job too much.
And there were these constant tensions between me and others in the administration. And I felt that he would be better off with an administration where people were pulling together more.
And so I said that to him. And, in his diary, he writes that: Cap Weinberger and Bill Casey want me to get rid of George, but -- because of what he's doing. But, actually, what George is doing is what I want him to do.
So, I was more in synch with him than they were.
JIM LEHRER: Finally, let me ask you this, back to 1986, the summit meeting in Iceland with Chairman Gorbachev and President Reagan. How close -- looking back on it now, how close do you believe those two leaders were to deciding to eliminate nuclear weapons?
GEORGE SHULTZ: Well, first, there was a genuine agreement on positions that President Reagan had proposed early on, namely, to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear weapons and to cut strategic weapons in half.
The idea of eliminating all nuclear weapons had not been on the table before, although President Reagan had spoken publicly about it many times. So, it wasn't as though it was out of the blue as far as he's concerned.
I think, if that had been agreed to in Reykjavik, there would have been a storm of protests, but, nevertheless, it would have pushed the ball strongly.
I remember, when we came back from Reykjavik, I was practically summoned to the British ambassador's residence by Margaret Thatcher, who said to me, "George, how could you sit there and allow the president to agree to eliminate nuclear weapons?"
I said, "But, Margaret, he's the president."
She said, "Yes, but you're supposed to be the one with his feet on the ground."
I said, "But, Margaret, I agreed with him."
GEORGE SHULTZ: And -- but her -- her reaction was typical.
But it is striking. As -- recently, as you know, a group of us, Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, Bill Perry, and I, and many others, have been working again on this effort to get to a world free of nuclear weapons. The reaction has been entirely different, much more favorable.
Still, there are plenty of people are opposed, but it's a different atmosphere now.
JIM LEHRER: Yes, sir.
GEORGE SHULTZ: But Ronald Reagan's ideas are often -- you see, he's very prescient. And this idea, I think, has staying power. And, sooner or later, we're going to get somewhere.
JIM LEHRER: All right.
Secretary Shultz, thank you very much.
GEORGE SHULTZ: Thank you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The documentary "Turmoil and Triumph" will air tonight and the next two Mondays on many PBS stations. There is a book of the same name accompanying the series.
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Last month we talked about starting a business on very limited resources. This time, I would like to think about the problem of having too much time or money.
Having too many resources can distract you. In contrast, when money is tight, you’re focused on just doing what is truly important. In any start up situation, you should only care about discovering two things:
Cracking the above two points and then becoming cashflow positive is the surest route to business success. Failing to focus on this is the surest route to failure, whatever the bank balance. I speak as someone who has not only started their own company, but who has invested in a variety of start ups, some with tremendous success, and one that has been an abject failure.
Two of my investments (actually the ones with the most potential and both of whom have raised millions), are also teetering on the brink of failure. The reason? Too much money, with one having raised more than £10m over several funding rounds. Having too much money encouraged both to try and tackle multiple markets before they had fully established themselves in one. It made them feel that becoming cash positive was an optional extra. After all, they could always raise more capital. And they seem to pay enormous salaries, far above what I pay for higher caliber staff in my own business.
In my opinion the lesson is simple. Focus your efforts on providing what is wanted. Then deliver it at a profit. Don’t do anything else. Becoming profitable as fast as possible makes long term success much more likely.
Margin is probably the most crucial figure in any business. Tell me your turnover, your margin and your running costs and within seconds I can tell broadly whether your business is a triumph or a disaster.
In the past, I was obsessed with mark up. It sounds great saying product X is marked up 1,000 per cent and this one 500 per cent, but it doesn’t provide the immediate overview that margin does.
Margin is basically your gross profit as a percentage. This means you can quickly work out your gross profit on any amount of sales – which you should do every day.
How do you calculate margin? First work out your gross profit, which is selling price minus costs. Then simply divide this figure by your selling price and you’re left with your margin.
I run Karacha.com, an online shop that sells musical instruments. So, as an example, if I sell a violin for £200 that costs me £110 to buy from the manufacturer, my gross profit is £90. If you divide this by my sales price (£200), my margin is 45 per cent.
So what makes this margin number so important? Well let’s assume your margin is the same across all products and the business costs £200 to run per day, that includes a wage for yourself, rent, electricity, etc. Secondly, let’s assume your business sells £300 on Monday and £650 on Tuesday. This is where the margin comes in.
Whatever your margin figure is, stick a zero and a decimal point in front of it, so for 45 per cent it would be 0.45. Now grab your calculator and hammer in 0.45 x £300 and you should get £135.
This is your profit for the day before daily costs. Previously, I said the business costs £200 a day to run, so unfortunately you have a loss. But do the same for Tuesday 0.45 x 650 = £292.50. On Tuesday you can pay your £200 bills and have £92.50 profit left over.
By knowing what you make on a daily basis you can make the necessary adjustments to ensure you make a good profit every day.
Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity
Too many people are scared off by the calculator – and businesses suffer because of it. As long as you know your margins, you’re always just 30 seconds away from a quick and accurate assessment of your business.
You could be selling £10k a day, think you’re the absolute dogs you-know-whats, but be making no profit. Every day, multiply that sales figure by your margin and see what you’ve actually made (don’t forget to take away your costs). It’s absolutely crazy, the amount of people who do not know their margin and therefore their daily profit, but can quote their turnover for the past 12 months.
Final thoughts. High costs and low margins lead to disaster: high margins and low costs could lead to a lovely yacht in the Caribbean. Good Luck.
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Anti-Cheese Campaign is...Ahem...Cheesy
A new outdoor campaign in Albany New York from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine uses images of fat people to argue cheese is unhealthy to eat. Jezebel writes, "The first and most obvious problem is that these ads look crappy and play on the weak and tired premise that fat people are disgusting."
We couldn't agree more. We'd venture to guess there are just as many skinny people who love and eat cheese as well. The PCRM claims the fact that cheese consists of 70 percent fat, mostly saturated, which they say, can lead to heart desease and diabetes.
Countering the campaign, Honest Weight Food Co-Op Manager Tom MacGregor counters that claim and the campaign saying it is "insane" and, "I think there are much bigger things to worry about than people eating cheese."
Of course eating pounds of cheese a week can't be good. But an anti-cheese campaign doesn't have be so terribly cheesy.
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I think the Asolsa Lucida, or glossy buttonhole (the example above being from a Tom Ford garment), originated in the Abruzzi region of Italy as it is most commonly seen on garments made in this area. It is also very common in Paris, where it is known as the boutonnière Milanaise, though likely for the brand of gimp that was commonly used and not the city; it is worth noting that most of the grand tailoring houses of Paris also trace their lineage back to Italy. The gimp itself, which is a key element of the buttonhole, I believe is now only available from Guterman and is known as Agreman; I will be in Italy in June and will dig around to see if there are any other manufacturers still producing the stuff and will report back if I find any (and if anybody else will be at Pitti and feels like meeting up for a drink, drop me a line).
A while back, Matthew was kind enough to share a method he learned at Cifonelli for making these buttonholes, his with a purl underneath the gimp. The ones made by what I shall call the Abruzzi method, for want of a better term, do not have this purl under the gimp and the stitch is made differently- I will attempt to explain it now that I have figured it out.
In addition to the previously mentioned gimp (and do not be tempted to use what most other companies sell as gimp but is really intended for machine-made buttonholes) you will need some fine silk twist- to get a really smooth, glossy finish, a thread finer than the 40 size typically used now, and much finer than the U size that some still use, is needed, and unlike ordinary buttonholes, the twist should not be waxed.
Because this buttonholes is more fragile than the regular knotted one, it is typically only seen on the lapel, not on the lower buttonholes.
I start by running two rows of machine stitching to hold everything in place while I overcast the edges- it might also be a good idea to stitch even closer to the cut line than I have done and instead of ripping them after overcasting, just work the buttonhole over the stitching. A very narrow bite is required and this helps keep things from shifting, but also means that cloth that frays very easily is unsuitable.
The mechanics of the stitch are actually quite simple but may take some getting used to if you have done lots of traditional buttonholes.
Working from the underside, pass the needle up through the hole- I find it easiest to poke the eye end through to avoid catching anything with the sharp end. I come up through the hole and then work the twist under the gimp, but for the sake of clarity I have shown the needle passing directly under the gimp. Do whatever is easiest for you.
Come up and over the gimp, then insert the needle a millimeter from the edge- tight, close stitching is the key to a smooth appearance. You want the gimp to sit right on top of the stitch to conceal it, and by tightly spacing the stitches you will completely encase the gimp.
I've pushed everything to one side so you can get an idea of how the stitches are forming.
Pinch the gimp before working around the end of it the continue down the other side.
The completed buttonhole. You can see some of the stitches poking through beyond the gimp where my bite was a little too wide- I need to practice some more (and really have to think more seriously about a macro lens...)
And thanks again to Matthew and Franca for inspiring this post.
EDIT- In response to a question, I made a few phone calls. In the U.S. Agreman gimp can be bought from B. Black and Sons (1-800-433-1546), Oshman Brothers (1-212-226-7448) and Ely Yawitz (1-800-325-7915) It is not listed on their websites so you have to call and ask for it.
In the U.K. it can be bought from Richard James Weldon 44 208 300 7878. I know there is at least one store in Paris which stocks it (ask for milanaise), though the name of it now escapes me. It is also available all over Italy (ask for vergolina).
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San Francisco's Pacific Heights neighborhood is home to the haves, and the have-lesses.
It is a distinction that may seem like a comparison between a Ferrari and Lamborghini to residents of Cleveland, Detroit or the Occupy Wall Street crowds. But it matters to the housing market.
The neighborhood's stretch of Broadway Street is lined with multimillion-dollar mansions with killer views of the San Francisco Bay. Their sweeping vistas are so prized that homeowner Larry Ellison, the world’s fifth-richest man, earlier this year sued his downhill neighbors for letting their redwoods grow tall enough to obstruct the panorama previously visible from his backyard windows.
Just one block uphill, though, where the views may be even more spectacular, sits an unassuming three-story condominium building. It’s graced by a classic awning flanked by sconces, four bay windows, and a metal fire escape painted to blend in with the taupe exterior.
It's inhabited by homeowners of a slightly less wealthy variety — those whom the nation’s lawmakers on Oct. 1 pushed out of the arms of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration, and into the embrace of private lenders.
Residents of the 12-unit Marina-style building also inhabit the rocky territory Congress carved out almost four years ago when it increased the conforming loan limit as part of an effort to rejuvenate the housing market and stabilize prices. Conforming loan limits represent the upper dollar value of loans the government-sponsored enterprises can accept into their portfolios or that the FHA can back.
The decision affected 204, or 6.5%, of the nation's counties, which saw the loan limits rise from as low as $417,000 to as much as $729,750 for FHA loans. Two counties in Hawaii experienced even higher limits for agency-backed loans: $793,750 for Honolulu and $790,000 for Maui County.
That move means homebuyers seeking loans of as much as $729,750 could purchase homes with down payments as low as 3.5% of the purchase price and access the lowest interest rates offered by mortgage lenders, instead of paying the elevated rates associated with higher-value jumbo loans that can’t be resold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
It also meant when Charles Thies, a portfolio manager at Fisher Investments, bought his two-bedroom condo up the hill from billionaire row in November 2010 for $701,500, his mortgage lender could move the loan off its books by selling it to a GSE. Having access to financing from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac allows lenders to offer purchasers like Thies better terms and makes consumers more willing to pull the homebuying trigger.
Today, though, if Thies wanted to resell his unit for the same price — or even for a discount of as much as $75,000 — the buyer would have to get a jumbo loan, make a larger down payment and pay a higher interest rate.
And the lender would likely need to hold the loan on its own books, since the debt would be ineligible for purchase by a GSE and an unlikely candidate for securitization, as the market for jumbo residential mortgage-backed securities is moribund. As of late October, just two such securitizations had come to market this year, both issued by Redwood Trust.
It's the have-lesses — those who are potential buyers of Thies's condo and other homes in the same price range — that some economists say must be kept in the housing market via access to conforming loans. Without that access, they argue, many of these buyers will simply sit on the sidelines, prompting sellers to slash their prices and harm an already ailing market.
PRIVATE MARKET REJUVENATION?
One question market observers disagree on is whether the private market can absorb the potential increased volume.
Even though just 1.3% of home purchases and refinance loans are expected to be cut out of the government-backed market by the change, it would still have a significant effect, according to a study from the Federal Reserve.
If the expiration of conforming loan limits had taken place on Jan. 1, 2010, and all the loans made that year still closed, the jumbo market for home purchases would have increased by 50% and the refinance market by 63%, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association. Such a change would have boosted banks' portfolio holdings of mortgages by 20%, said the lobbying and research group for the mortgage finance industry.
As of late October there was early evidence the change in loan limits increased the volume of jumbo loans, as MBA research and the central bank study predicted.
Bank of America's third-quarter jumbo loan volume rose by 20%, in part because of the return to lower conforming loan limits, said spokesman Terry Francisco.
"Some of the volume that would have been conforming (loans) got rerouted to jumbo loans," he said.
Proponents of the return to earlier loan limits would see that as a good thing, as they want to see the housing market regain its balance, with private lenders taking on more risk and reducing the government's share of the mortgage market, which currently stands at more than 95% of loans.
The biggest banks already make roughly 80% of the nation's jumbo loans. And with the returns on such loans much higher than what they can earn on the reserves they're required to keep deposited with the Federal Reserve, they're motivated to expand their jumbo loan portfolios as much as possible, says Mike McMahon, managing director at Redwood Trust Inc., a real estate investment trust that packages and sells nonagency residential mortgage-backed securities.
"There's a perception out there that banks aren't buying any loans over $625,500 anymore," he says. "That's not true."
Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Citigroup originated $14 billion of jumbo loans in the first quarter, and McMahon sees their lending activity in that area increasing.
Loan applications for "near-jumbo" loans, or those in the $625,500 to $729,750 price range affected by changes in the conforming loan limits, surged more than 40% in April and were up again in June and July, according to MBA data, showing lenders and homebuyers were anticipating the Oct. 1 change.
Because it typically takes 30 to 45 days from the time of application to close a loan, by August most lenders had stopped accepting applications for conforming loans in the "near-jumbo" slice of the market. Total loan applications in this segment fell more than 30% in August, the MBA data show.
Still, McMahon estimated that with jumbo loan rates of 4.5% and costs around 60 basis points, banks are raking in 390 basis points of income on nonconforming loans.
"With a normal upward sloping yield curve, the spread is less than 100 basis points, so banks are loving mortgages right now, especially high quality mortgages," he said.
NOW NOT THE TIME, OPPONENTS SAY
Opponents of the conforming loan change, however, have argued the economy and the housing market are still too weak to allow for an experiment in handing the lending reins back over to the private sector.
The National Association of Home Builders lobbied against the expiration of increased loan limits, arguing that in combination with the qualified residential mortgage standards being proposed by federal agencies, it would keep ownership out of reach for most first-time homebuyers and middle-class households. Under the QRM's 20% down payment requirement, it would take a typical family 12 years to save enough for a down payment on a median-priced single family home, according to the NAHB.
"The housing market is still considered quite fragile," said Mark Willis, a research fellow at New York University's Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. "Why would you do anything that could possibly weaken the market?"
He pointed to data from Altos Research of Mountain View, Calif., that show home sellers in the highest-priced segment of the market started lowering their asking prices as early as March in anticipation of the adjustment in conforming loan limits.
In the markets tracked by Altos, the share of sellers with high-priced homes who dropped their asking prices started rising in March, climbing from less than 30% of such listings to about 32.5% in late August, the data show.
"Folks wanted to get ahead of the changes," said Scott Sambucci, vice president of data analytics for Altos.
Skeptics of the reduction in conforming loan limits say such price declines are bad news for the economy.
"By reducing demand, these loan-limit changes could lower the value of many homes, sinking more homeowners underwater and making it more difficult for many borrowers to refinance into today's lower rates, the same conditions the federal government has sought to address with other recent policies," said Willis and colleague Josiah Madar in a commentary for HousingWire in late September.
The Mortgage Bankers Association said letting the temporary limits expire would make financing more difficult and expensive for many borrowers and jeopardize the economic recovery in major housing markets.
High-cost areas like California and New York are expected to be the hardest hit by the higher limits, should they remain.
The California Association of Realtors warned in June that more than 30,000 families in the Golden State would face higher down payments, elevated mortgage rates and stricter qualification requirements if the temporary increase in loan limits was allowed to expire.
MBA data from the Pacific region showed it was more affected than any other region, as the number of loans in the price range affected by the loan limit changes jumped to about 4% of the total in August, up from a little more than 2.75% of the total in July.
Monterey County — which includes the wealthy enclave of Carmel, just down the road from the famed Pebble Beach golf course, as well as the depressed farming town of Salinas — suffered the biggest reversal in the nation when the limits changed Oct. 1. The county's FHA and GSE loan limits fell by $246,750, to $483,000.
"No one is hysterical about this yet," said Linda Dorris, president of the Monterey County Association of Realtors. "You're not hearing the hue and cry because the banks have known about this for six months," she said, so lenders and borrowers have had time to adjust.
With interest rates at record lows, even jumbo mortgage rates are at affordable levels for many borrowers. The spread between jumbo and conforming mortgage rates in September had fallen to less than 30 basis points from more than 50 in February, according to data from the MBA.
"Once interest rates go up, prices are going to have to come down," said Dorris, who added that as of October, she hadn't seen much impact on the market. Sales of homes priced over $483,000 were still closing, she said, but buyers were putting more cash into the deals.
SOME SAY PRICES WILL HOLD
Several housing market data research firms, though, say prices are unlikely to be affected by the conforming loan limit change.
"Even in markets that are designated high-cost, sales in the price band between the old elevated limits and the current limits make up only a small percentage of total sales," said an October report from Radar Logic, a New York-based real estate data and analytics company.
Of the 25 metropolitan areas tracked by Radar Logic, the markets with the largest percentage of sales in the “reduction zone” between the old and current limits are New York, San Francisco and San Jose, Calif., and less than 10% of sales in each of those markets will be affected by the reduction in conforming loan limits, the firm said.
Just 24,500 housing units, or 1.1% of the national active housing market, are affected by the conforming loan limit change, according to a report from Discern, an investment analytics firm. Discern's data covers 64% of U.S. ZIP codes; it used those figures to estimate the total impact nationwide of the reduction in conforming loan limits.
And even for those properties, an increase in mortgage rates will have less of an effect on prices than a substantial rise or fall in the amount of homes on the market, according to Brett Kornfeld, an applied strategist with Discern.
"Whether we're looking very local, or MSA city level or nationally, supply is the overwhelming factor affecting home prices in those areas," he says.
REPEAL EFFORTS PUSH FORWARD
Still, federal lawmakers are taking warnings about the economic impact of the conforming loan changes seriously.
Congressmen John Campbell (R-Calif.) and Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) introduced a bill this summer to extend the increased limits and, although it did not pass, their counterparts in the Senate were keeping the effort alive this fall. Senators approved a measure in October that would push the extension out to the end of 2013. Passed as an amendment to a spending bill, the measure had to clear two additional hurdles before it could take effect: passage of the underlying bill and a vote to approve it from the House of Representatives.
Amendment co-sponsor Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.Y.) summed up the reasoning and the urgency behind the measure during the floor debate: "If we want to get the economy moving, the housing market has to be part of it."
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You've no doubt seen or heard about the Holmes and Rahe stress scale without knowing its name. It's the list of the life events deemed most stressful to humans, ranked on a relative scale.
It was developed in the '60s and refined in the '70s — by two guys named Holmes and Rahe, natch — to attempt to correlate measures of various stressful events with illness.
Their judgement was that if you have a score greater than 300 'life change units' in any given year, you're at risk of illness.
So, like, my score as of today is 321. What do I win?Read More
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Dover Chemical Corporation has agreed to pay $1.4 million in civil penalties for the unauthorized manufacture of chemical substances at facilities in Dover, Ohio and Hammond, Ind. The settlement resolves violations of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) premanufacture notice obligations for its production of various chlorinated paraffins. Dover Chemical produces the vast majority of the chlorinated products sold in the United States. As part of the settlement, Dover Chemical has ceased manufacturing short-chain chlorinated paraffins, which have persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) characteristics. PBTs pose a number of health risks, particularly for children, including genetic impacts, effects on the nervous system, and cancer. Dover Chemical will also submit premanufacture notices to EPA for various medium-chain and long-chain chlorinated paraffin products.
“Assuring the safety of chemicals is one of EPA’s top priorities,” said Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “Today’s action reinforces the need for chemical manufacturers to follow the law and protects Americans from chemicals that could be harmful to their health.”
“This settlement will require Dover to participate in an EPA review of all types of chlorinated paraffin products sold by the company and bring Dover into compliance with the Toxic Substances Control Act,” said Ignacia S. Moreno, assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the Department of Justice. “By halting production of short-chain chlorinated paraffins, this settlement will reduce undue risks to human health and the environment.”
Chlorinated paraffins are a family of chemical substances with different properties depending on their carbon chain lengths and are generally identified as short, medium, or long-chain. Chlorinated paraffins are used as a component of lubricants and coolants in metal cutting and metal forming operations, as a secondary plasticizer and flame retardant in plastics, and as an additive in paints. Short-chain chlorinated paraffins, however, have been found to be bioaccumulative in wildlife and humans, persistent and transported globally in the environment, and toxic to aquatic animals at low concentrations. EPA has developed an action plan for these chemicals based on the potential for significant impacts on the environment. The environmental and health concerns relating to medium-chain chlorinated paraffins and long-chain chlorinated paraffins may be similar to those associated with short-chain chlorinated paraffins. Those chemicals may also be persistent and bioaccumulative based on their physical-chemical properties, bioaccumulation modeling, and because they are also found in the environment.
In 1978, EPA compiled the initial TSCA Inventory of chemical substances from industry submissions and those substances were grandfathered onto the TSCA Inventory without additional human health or environmental review. Chemical substances not on the TSCA Inventory constitute “new chemical substances” for which a premanufacture notice (PMN) must be submitted to EPA at least 90 days before a company begins producing the substance. A PMN includes information such as the specific chemical identity, use, anticipated production volume, exposure and release information, and existing available test data. EPA identifies risks associated with new chemicals through the PMN process. In the PMN process, EPA can require additional testing or issue orders prohibiting or limiting the production or commercial use of such substances.
The proposed settlement agreement, lodged in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, is subject to a 30-day public comment period and approval by the federal court.
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Federal govt blames weak jobs data on Qld
- From: AAP
- January 17, 2013
ACTING Employment Minister Kate Ellis has blamed an increase in the national unemployment rate on Queensland's conservative government.
Queensland's unemployment rate rose to 6.2 per cent while the national rate climbed to 5.4 per cent, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported on Thursday.
The unemployment rate in Queensland stood at 5.5 per cent when the Liberal National Party's Campbell Newman came to power in March 2012.
Mr Newman's time as premier has been marked by massive public sector job losses.
Ms Ellis said the data told a very sad story about Queenslanders.
"Regrettably, more than 22,000 Queenslanders found themselves out of a job this Christmas (while) across the rest of the country, jobs grew," she told reporters in Adelaide.
"Were it not for the Queensland job losses, the unemployment rate today would have actually fallen to 5.2 per cent rather than slightly rising."
Since the election of the Newman government, 65 jobs losses have been lost each day, Ms Ellis said.
"In contrast, since the federal government came to office, we have created more than 800,000 jobs. We've grown the economy by 13.2 per cent and labour productivity has risen by 6.5 per cent."
The minister acknowledged the national unemployment rate was expected to rise further but that joblessness in Australia would remain low by international standards.
"What we are seeing is that the Australian economy has bucked the trend which has impacted on most of the developed world since the GFC and we expect that to remain the case," she said.
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61 votes Vote story as "Fresh"
0 votes Vote story as "Stale"
Forex trading involves money, nothing more. Oh, and a speedy computer with fast internet connection. Plus a working knowledge about trading forex. Trading skills can be acquired by reading through the BabyPips’ Pipsology School. Also, a good forex trader must develop certain character traits to become successful.
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Author: Melissa Dymock
As they enter adulthood, many LDS women face a challenging question: should I serve a mission? This deeply personal choice becomes even more complex in light of other opportunities such as advanced education, employment, and starting a family. Inside Sisters: The Modern Girl’s Guide to Serving a Mission is what every prospective sister missionary deserves: a thoughtful “older-sister” to help her find the right answer to that vital question of whether to serve a full-time mission—and, if the answer is yes, to help her understand how to prepare both spiritually and temporally, what to expect, and how to succeed. Returned missionary Melissa Dymock leads readers step by step through the transition into mission life, from packing bags to surviving the MTC to thriving in the field, and offers insights from a variety of experienced missionaries on how to make the most of missionary experience. There’s even a glossary of mission terms, a collection of recipes for easy eating on the job, and advice on making a smooth transition back home once those “best eighteen months” draw to a close. This comprehensive resource will enlighten and encourage any LDS woman who stands at the crossroads of missionary service.
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Did you forget to include income on your tax return or perhaps missed some deductions? If so, you can correct your return by sending an amended return to the IRS. When you amend a return, you're sending a revised return to the IRS.
While the IRS generally will automatically correct your return if you've made calculation errors, some of the most common reasons for filing an amended return are if you have any additions, corrections or changes to the following:
- Your filing status (if you filed married filing separately, you can amend your return to married filing jointly, however you cannot switch from filing jointly to filing separately once the due date for filing the return has expired)
- Your dependents
- Your income
- Your deductions or credits (such as the first-time homebuyer credit)
To correct a previously filed return, you will need to mail in a Form 1040X, Amended U.S. Individual Income Tax Return. If your changes involve other schedules or forms, be sure to attach them to your Form 1040X.
To claim a refund, you must file a Form 1040X within three years of the tax filing due date for the tax year being corrected (for example, a tax year 2008 return has a tax filing due date of April 15, 2009, therefore a claim for refund must be filed by April 15, 2012) or within two years from the date you paid the tax, whichever is later.
Filing an amended return doesn't increase the likelihood of your return being audited; however the IRS will be looking at your return a second time. To make sure that your amended return is done correctly, you may want to consult with a tax professional.
For more information and resources on amending a tax return, please see:
Every effort has been taken to provide the most accurate and honest analysis of the tax information provided in this blog. Please use your discretion before making any decisions based on the information provided. This blog is not intended to be a substitute for seeking professional tax advice based on your individual needs.
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Angels All Round Us
Are angel’s fictitious? Do they protect us, or is it just wishful thinking? Although we can’t see these protectors, it doesn’t mean they’re a fairy-tale says author Anthony DeStefano.
BY: Corine Gatti
5. What do you mean by the “invisible power” of suffering?
Very simply, this: God is the source of all power. When we’re in union with Him, that’s when we’re at our strongest—because we’re literally “plugged into” the power source of the universe. Well, God suffered a lot, in the person of Jesus Christ. In fact, when God saved the world, He didn’t do it by preaching a sermon or writing a book or donating money. He did it by being nailed to a cross and dying a painful death. That’s the method He chose to overcome evil, and to overcome death, itself. So when WE suffer, we’re in union with God in a very special way. We’re being Christ-like in the most intimate and poignant way possible. And that’s powerful. When we’re in pain, and we patiently and prayerfully offer that pain up to God, it’s more powerful than any verbal prayer we can utter, because at that moment, we are most in union with the suffering Christ; we are most “plugged in” to the source of all power.
6. What was the most significant chapter to you?
I would say that this chapter on invisible suffering was the most significant for me. The reason is that I feel one of my main callings as a writer is to use whatever gifts I have to try to bring consolation to people who are suffering and grieving. In all my books I try to do that, but I think that in this particular chapter I may have been most successful. At least that’s what people have told me. Beyond that, I think this chapter was also the most personal in the book. In it, I relate the story of how my grandmother came to America from Italy back in the early 1900s, and all the suffering she went through—including the deaths of three of her children. It’s such a sad story—like an Italian version of the book, Angela’s Ashes—and yet there’s so much hope in it. So much good came out of her suffering, and it was very meaningful for me to put it all down in writing. I really hope it can inspire others who are suffering.
7. How do you want your book to minister to the people in Staten Island, who’ve endured such loss from Hurricane Sandy?
This book is about the invisible world—the spiritual realities that surround us which can’t be seen or touched. So many people don’t pay any attention to that world. And yet, that world is just as important and in some ways more important than this world. What I hope my book does is help to re-focus people on that reality. My goodness, we’re all just a hair’s breath away from death. Whether it’s a car accident, cancer, a heart attack, or a hurricane that finally does us in, none of us has any guarantee that we’ll be here tomorrow. Never was a more accurate line written than the one in Scripture that says the same God that gave us the morning does not promise us the evening. Life is just so fragile. There’s an old, Latin phrase that bears much repeating: Memento mori—“Remember, you must die.” To admit this does not make you a cynic. Nor does it make you an unhappy, depressive person. It makes you a realist. It makes you sane. It’s the healthiest perspective you can have.
That hurricane caused so much suffering. But if any good can possibly come out of it, let it be that we finally get our priorities straight. We can’t ever allow the illusions of this world to blind us to the fact that the most important things in life are still Love and Honor and Kindness and Faith and God. Like the wind itself, these things are invisible—but they’re more real than anything we can see. And best of all, they can never be wiped out by any natural disaster. That’s the lesson of Sandy, and that’s the lesson I hope my book serves to underscore.
8. How do you explain to them that it wasn’t God that caused this?
I wish there was a short, sound-byte answer for this question, but there’s really not. The most important thing to say is that God does not purposely cause anyone to suffer. He’s not some sadistic puppeteer, sitting up in Heaven thinking of ways to inflict pain on us. He hates when we suffer, just as much as we do. But He allows pain—sometimes a lot of it—because the kind of world He has created is not robotic and computerized, but rather, one of free will. The mystery of human suffering—including this recent Hurricane—is tied to the story of the Fall of Man, and the fact that when God created us, He gave us free will and we turned away from Him. Death and suffering were not part of the original plan. Now course, it’s difficult to talk about “theology” during times like this. When you’re going through a storm, you’re usually not that concerned with all the meteorological reasons for why the storm occurred. The important thing to do is get through the storm first. And when you’re trying to get through any kind of suffering, the crucial thing is to try to trust that God has a bigger plan in mind—a plan that we’re not yet in a position to see. Remember, God sees everything from the perspective of eternity. And eternity is a long time! We have trouble seeing past this coming Wednesday! We have to trust that somehow, some way, God will be able to pull some kind of “good” out of the pain we experience.
After all, the worst thing that ever happened in human history was the crucifixion of Christ. Christians believe that Christ is God, so when He was killed, it wasn’t a homicide, but rather a deicide—the murder God. What could be worse than that? And yet, God allowed it to happen because He knew that three days later, there would be a Resurrection. Now, the Resurrection was the best thing that ever happened in human history, because it opened up the gates of Heaven for us, and made it possible for us to experience eternal life. So God was able to turn the worst thing that ever happened—the crucifixion—into the best thing that ever happened—the Resurrection. If He was able to do that, then we just have to trust that he can bring good out of all the bad things that happen in our lives.
9. Do you feel angels were around the people in the Hurricane?
Yes I do. Because while there was certainly a lot of suffering in the aftermath of the hurricane, there were also a lot of very miraculous stories—stories of people who were in great danger but were somehow saved; people who should have lost everything but somehow didn’t. I’m sure that was due—at least in part—to angelic intervention. But more than that, I think angels probably played a role in prompting people to do good. After all, that’s what Christianity teaches that angels do best—they “tempt” us to do good things by making suggestions to our minds. Most angelic activity is actually psychological in nature. And during the past few weeks in New York and New Jersey, we’ve certainly seen a tremendous number of good deeds being done. It’s really been amazing to watch. The closest thing I can recall is what happened immediately following 9/11: All the acts of kindness and generosity. All the examples of bravery and sacrifice. All the instances of cooperation and camaraderie. All the incredible and poignant stories of personal heroism—thousands of them. And there continue to be food drives, clothing drives, people opening their homes to complete strangers, churches setting up special kitchens to serve coffee and food, businesses opening their doors to anyone in need of free wifi service or power strips to charge their phones. In a word, there’s been a marvelous outpouring of love in so many ways by so many people. I’m sure God’s angels had something to do with that.
10. Why was it important for you to write this book?
I wanted to write this book because when I look around today I see so many people caught up in this whole absurd superstition of materialism. That’s the belief that the world is made up of physical objects and nothing else; that everything in life—all our thoughts, our emotions, our ambitions, our hopes, our dreams, our passions, our loves, our hopes, our virtues, our kindnesses, our philosophies, our art, our culture, our poetry, our literature, our politics, our history, our deepest feelings about God and Love and Salvation and Redemption and Eternal Life—that all of this is purely the result of biochemical reactions and the random movement of atoms in an impersonal and meaningless universe. Well, to me that’s just ridiculous. To say that this sublimely beautiful and meaningful life of ours really has no meaning beyond what we can detect with our senses, is contrary to logic and common sense. To me, it’s obvious that the most important things in life are invisible. We can’t see God. We can’t see Love. We can’t see Honor. We can’t see Angels. And yet, all of those things are very real. I wanted to write a book that made these invisible realities more “tangible” and more “visible” to people. My hope was that such a book might help give people a greater sense of the richness of life, and also show them that no amount of suffering—physical, mental, or emotional—can ever destroy the profound sense of inner peace they can experience on a daily basis.
Anthony DeStefano is the bestselling author of A Travel Guide to Heaven, Ten Prayers God Always Says Yes To, Angels All Around Us, and the children's books, This Little Prayer of Mine, Little Star, The Donkey that No One Could Ride, and gift book, I Just Can't Take it Anymore. He has received many prestigious awards from religious organizations worldwide for his efforts to advance Christian beliefs in modern culture. In 2013, two new children's books by DeStefano will be published: A Travel Guide to Heaven- For Kids! and The Sheep that No One Could Find.
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Women in Apprenticeship
Working in the building construction trades can be very rewarding. It is tremendously empowering to use your hands, brain and heart to build a building, road or bridge. To be able to look at what you have done at the end of the day and say, “Look what I’ve accomplished” Is great. Meeting physical challenges that others may assume you cannot accomplish gives you a sense of pride, and the pay and possible benefits are generous. Additionally, being part of a team, working outdoors, and working with tools or large equipment all have their appeal, if you are so inclined.
If you are interested in this line of work, follow these guidelines:
- Visit www.dir/das/ibuiltit/opportunities.asp to find apprenticeship programs in your county
- Contact the the apprenticeship program of your choice and inquire as to how to apply.
If you are not sure which trade you are interested in, browse the website http://www.calapprenticeship.org/ ". and check out the crafts. Also, explore pre-apprenticeship programs in your area that offer a chance to try a variety of trades. If you currently know someone in the trades, ask questions about what it is like for them. Do your research. Apprenticeship might be just the right fit you have been looking for.
Construction is non-traditional work for women, and along with the benefits come some challenges. Many women working in the trades before you, have met these challenges and enjoyed fulfilling, lifetime careers, supporting their families and retiring with pensions. In 2006, the California Apprenticeship Council conducted a survey of 400women at journey and apprentice levels. The results are contained in a report at the following link, www.dir.ca.gov/das/women%20in%20apprenticeship%20final.pdf.
Learning how to use the equipment, meet expectations and become familiar with the culture on the job site are all hurdles others have overcome. One significant fact revealed by the CAC survey was the importance of having another woman as mentor for women in the trades. Finding support is key to prevailing in this line of work. The following links are organizations which can be helpful and supportive resources for women in the trades.
Tradeswomen Inc. is a California organization that hosts a conference every May, along with being a wonderful resource for women in construction in California. www.tradeswomen.org/
These sites have additional links that can put you in touch with information and women around the country living their career dreams in the building and construction trades.
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library is a location in the episodes " The Real You" and " Paper Pete."
Finn and Jake first use the library while searching for knowledge in the episode "The Real You," but were forced to leave when they made too much noise. The library is run by
Turtle Princess. There is a secret area in the library, which is the Moldo Secret Lair.
Princess Monster Wife," Turtle Princess' bedroom can be seen.
Gotcha!," Lumpy Space Princess added a book she wrote for Turtle Princess in the library.
Finn was in the library during his dream in "
King Worm" for a short while as the third place he is transported to at the beginning of the episode.
The library has large sections with bookshelves containing books. A secret war between the
Pagelings and the Moldos was enacted here. Outside, the Library is seen to be half sunken in the ground.
Chairs with what appears to be the Cosmic Owl on top of them can be seen. This is likely a reference that owls are a symbol of knowledge.
Some of the books seem to be organized by rhyme, such as the "-itties" shelf.
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| 0.983427 | 248 | 1.695313 | 2 |
TOKYO -- One year after a devastating earthquake and tsunami claimed some 19,000 Japanese lives, people like restaurant owner Murakami Yuko are still trying hard to rebuild their lives.
Before the tragedy, Yuko's Sushi restaurant was a popular eatery in town, attracting patrons from hundreds of miles away.
But business has not been good because so many people are still concerned about the effects of radiation leaks from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
"In some ways I wish we skipped this weekend and moved straight into April," Yuko lamented.
Find out how you can help CBN's Operation Blessing International meet the needs the people of Japan and others around the world.
Yuko's restaurant sits 25 miles from the tsunami-wrecked plant.
"I've realized this year just how fragile life can be," he told CBN News. "In a split second everything turned upside down and sometimes you've got to wonder whether it's all worth it."
Suicide, Joblessness on Rise
Murakami joined his countrymen Sunday in remembering the moment when the magnitude-9.0 earthquake hit on March 11, 2011 at 2:46 p.m. It killed roughly 19,000 people and changed the lives of hundreds of thousands more.
The three most devastated regions of Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima are slowly getting back on their feet.
The debris has gone, the roads are cleared, and the shops, hotels, and restaurants are open for business. But there's also a dark side to the boom. The suicide rate, illnesses, and unemployment are rising.
A newly released survey shows that 20 percent of those living in the tsunami zone are suffering from insomnia and other psychiatric problems.
Hundreds of thousands of people are still living in temporary shelters.
"And the sad fact is that we could lose it all again," one Japanese man said.
On the streets of Tokyo, there's growing anxiety as residents believe the city is long overdue for a powerful shaking. Japanese scientists are warning of a mega-quake hitting one of the most populated places on Earth.
Since the last 9.0 quake, there have been close to 10,000 to hit the nation of Japan -- an average of one earthquake every hour.
"We are used to it, but I get afraid all the time. It is the unknown that's scary," another Japanese resident said.
Tokyo may be one of the most earthquake-proofed places in the world, but experts are warning against complacency. There's been a three-fold increase in tectonic activity since last year's earthquake.
"There is a tendency to take things lightly, and I fear people are not prepared enough," one Japanese man said. "We have to do better to get ready for the next big one."
His words are not what the people of Japan want to hear after just observing the worst natural disaster to hit in nearly 100 years.
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by M. B. Dassanayake - Daily News Saturday April 13, 2002
"Dudley" the second Prime Minister of Sri Lanka died on April 12, 1975, after a brief illness and was laid to rest on April 21, 1973. Dudley Senanayake was a man for all seasons, even homage to him like reminds us sadly that we ourselves are a Nation only seasonally; always in the winter of some personal tragedy.
On April 12, 1973, we lost a great leader, guide and philosopher. During the long years I knew him, I found him a fully integrated personality. There was no conflict in his spiritual and political values.
History stands between man and oblivion. And history is no cold marble slab carved with fine, decorative lettering. It lives and moves. History is composed as much by what a leader had given to his people as what the generation make of what is given. In the end, all our greatest leaders have stood for few essential things, although each one of them may have emphasised one at the expense of the other, although each left the struggle unfinished.
Dudley Senanayake, by the light of his own political vision, stood for the unity of this country, for an open society and for the economic emancipation. No monument to him can possibly be finer or more enduring than our own renewed dedication to these ideals.
Those who knew him to be a deeply religious man. Certainly, not in the conventional manner. He died without achieving one purpose in his life. His desire was to retire from politics and enter the Sangha.
As a child he had his religious training under the great scholar Palane Sir Vajiragnana Nayake Thera. In latter life he had read widely books on Buddhism and Buddhist Philosophy. On one occasion he had shocked Kalukondayawe Pannasekera Maha Nayake Thera.
The two of them were returning from a ceremony at a Buddhist Temple and on the way they had entered into a discourse of Buddhism. On a later date the Nayake Thera had told a friend of 'Dudley', "If Dudley Hamu goes on like this, we of the Buddhist Clergy may have to stop giving sermons, I am amazed at his knowledge of Buddhism and Buddhist Philosophy".
He was a reluctant politician; therefore a most forceful one. He did not seek office, fame or popularity. These things pursued him.
After the death of his father, Right Honourable D. S. Senanayake, the first Prime Minister of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, at the age of 41, when he became Prime Minister, in fact, it was thrust on him. He named others for the office but it was the Government Parliamentary Group that demanded his choice.
When he retired from politics in 1953 and absorbed himself in the Temperance Movement again it was the Party that sought his leadership. He had no false airs. There was a simplicity and modesty which endeared him to us. Late in the evening wearing a sarong and a banian when he lounged in the small office-room upstairs at 'Woodlands' that was the greatest moment in his life. Thence he was at ease, whether he was discussing a complex, political problem or just gossiping.
He liked golf, he liked his food, he liked the company of his friends, all these things he enjoyed with zest.
Perhaps the years he enjoyed most were the years out of office. His camera and his car were his fondest worldly goods, but in office his leisure loving man worked like a precision machine. There was no day he worked less than 12 hours. Often his schedule extended to 16 - 18 hours.
Whatever he did he was a dedicated man. There was one thing that he would not forgive - not keeping appointments. He timed everything, his day as well as the nation's economic endeavour.That is how within three years he succeeded in raising Sri Lanka's self-sufficiency in rice from 40 to 75 percent.In 1961 after the land-slide victory by the 'Mahajana Eksath Peramuna the Kandy Municipal Council Elections were held and I was nominated by him to contest the 'Deiyannewela Ward' against an M.E.P., stalwart in late Mr. T. B. Tennekoon, who was the Minister of Social Services, and the sitting Member for well over 20 years. He was an intimate friend of mine and a person who was respected by the rural masses as he moved freely with them. There were five candidates but Mr. Tennekoon won comfortably.
Soon after Elections I wrote to Mr. senanayake and pointed out the difficulties I faced due to the misdeeds of some of the candidates and he replied by letter dated 3rd March, 1961, stating - "I am sorry to hear about some of the misdeeds of some of the candidates and about the difficulties you suffered, but I am however, encouraged by the fact that you have not lost your faith in the Party. Please remember that we deal with human beings, and as such, they have their weaknesses. In all Parties we find individuals with these human weaknesses. Whilst trying our utmost to correct these we have in certain circumstances in the greater interests to try to put up with some of these weaknesses. I thank you for bringing these matters to my notice. He possessed these human and straightforward qualities which the present day politician do not possess.
The lasting monument to him would be Gal Oya Scheme. I have heard from Mr. Senanayake that when the blue-prints were presented to him the American Engineers had told him that there was a thousand and one risk regarding the height of the dam."Do not take the risk, raise the dam", he said. It did not take thousand years. But for his foresight, in the unprecedented floods of 1958, the dam would have been washed away bringing disaster to a greater part of the Eastern Province.
If Gal Oya Valley today produces a quarter of Sri Lanka's rice his dream was to, in the great tradition of Mahasen, Parakramabahu and other great Sinhala Kings, to make Sri Lanka self-sufficient in food.
He was denied this opportunity by his defeat in 1970. But he lived to see his polices vindicated. His very opponents were forced to accept his policies. The Mahaweli Project, World Bank Aid - these things, decried a few years ago, are acclaimed today.
If I was a devoted follower of him, it was not blind faith that made me tread his trail. In politics he was a pragmatist. While he abhorred the concentration of wealth in a few individuals he equally refused to contribute to theories of regimentation. With his associates and friends he discussed matters. He listened to them, he debated, and therefore, at the end the convictions were our own.
He was shy, sensitive but a proud man. The whole nation knows how he carried himself with dignity and majesty. Most of us are still benumbed by the shock of his death. The way he died - the design was certainly not a human creation. He passed away bothering none. The nation was on holiday. The greater part of the nation had with his free measure of rice, the Sinhalese New Year's first meal - on April 12, 1973, the day this patriot passed away.
Mr. Senanayake's death, coinciding as it did with the Sinhala and Tamil New Year and with Easter, saw a vast mass of our people dressed in a common colour, in the simple, immaculate and neutral white. This immense concourse and its countenance have provoked various portentous speculations ranging from, it seems to us, the weird, the fancifully far fetched and the downrightsilly.
Not all the tears which were shed when he died nor all the hymns and hosannas that were recited are of much used to him and to us unless we pluck from his own life, from the nettle of things said, done and half-done, of achievements and failures, some flower, some meaning, something which can endure
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I am so pleased to bring you day 20 of the Creative Christmas Countdown! Today I am sharing one of my family's favorite traditions.
Our family has a lot of traditions for the holiday season and it seems like we add another with each new year. But one that we look forward to the most is also one of the easiest. We spend one night sleeping under the beautiful, twinkling tree.
We start the night off by reading our favorite Christmas stories. This could simply take the place of our usual bedtime story, but usually it's a marathon of all the classics. We curl up around the tree and read together as a family. My little boy could read and look at books for hours and he delights in having us all together, but eventually it's time for bed. You won't hear him asking for five more minutes on this night though!
We lay out lots of blankets, pillows, and stuffed companions. We turn off all the other lights and lay under the decorated branches. We play "I Spy" and talk about our favorite ornaments. We gaze at the lights. We sing Christmas songs. It's a magical and special night for all of us. Eventually, we all sleep, but I stay awake long enough to see one of my favorite sights.....
This is easily adaptable to fit your family. You can make a big production out of it, or keep it simple. And I can only imagine the sweetness of siblings whispering under the tree! I hope that you can experience the magic by adding this to your list of traditions. It's an easy way to make the night a special memory for you all. And don't forget to take pictures! They are a lovely way of seeing your child's growth from year to year and beautiful keepsakes of the cherished memories.
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All writers have their quirks — some pen their first drafts entirely by hand. Some use only Number two pencils and yellow legal pads. Others use spiral notebooks only, and only use blue ink. Some outline relentlessly before putting pen to paper, others just plunge right in and see what happens.
My obsession as a screenwriter has always been page count. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as the people who read screenplays for a profession are just as obsessive about it as I am. You hand them a script, they will do three things:
1. Look at the title.
2. Feel the weight of it
3. Turn to the last page
The number at the top right of the last page will color their impression of the script before they even read the first page. You see, in this biz, page count is everything.
Say you finish your script and it’s a lean and mean 98 pages. There’s no fat, less wasted space — it’s a remorseless killing machine, always moving, never stopping. You’ve been to both ends of the spectrum and find that 98 is the perfect length.
But 98 is too short, man. It’s too lean. There’s n meat to it. No fat. No room to breathe. No character. No drama. No emotion.
That’s what they’ll think, seeing its only 98 pages (99 with the cover). Notwithstanding the point that a producer or studio would be THRILLED to have a finished product be 98 minutes with credits, a screenplay cannot be 98 pages and be expected to be any good. That’s the attitude the reader will bring to the script before they read a word of it, and their response to it will be gauged against those preconceived notions.
So let’s look at the other end. You’ve written and written and written and finally finished your work — your best ever. It clocks in at 117 pages — well within the range that makes readers happy. Anything over 120 is a problem, unless you’re an A-list guy with a couple Oscars on his mantle, and several 100 million plus movies on his/her CV. The rest of us mortals have to deal with life below 120 pages.
Now, you are thinking 117 is a perfectly good number. And you’re wrong there too.
Because 117 pages tells the reader “this guy didn’t cut enough” — there’s fat, there’s flab. The tension’s not there. Good lord, it’s poorly paced. Too many characters. Too many scenes. “Too many notes,” as Emperor Leopold tells Mozart in Amadeus. “Just remove a few — don’t ask me which ones — and it’ll be perfect.”
See, again, it’s that goddamn page count fucking everything up. As they read it they’re going to be reading it as someone looking for the fat, the flab, the stuff you should have cut. And at the end, they’ll think you’re a good writer, but not disciplined to cut enough from their work. They’re too beholden to their words, and will be difficult to work with on this. Sorry but we’re passing.
So what is the ideal length, you’re screaming at me now. Well, it depends on the genre, on the subject matter, on a lot of factors.
Actually I haven’t the slightest idea what “ideal” is.
But for me, I aim for somewhere between 105-110 pages. I’ll slide, at most, 5 pages north or south of that number, but never more and never less than that. I also like nice even numbers. I’ll do 112, 114, 108, 106, but not 109,111,107,113. Don’t ask me why, it’s just a thing.
105 or 110 are nice number. The guy who flips to the back of your script and see that number will automatically say two things;
1. Not too long
2. Not too short.
There’s less inclination for him to look for things to cut now, and even less inclination to add things, because adding will put us closer to that worrisome 120 pages. With those two weapons denied the reader, he’ll have to read and assess the work honestly. He may still pass on it, but he won’t pass on it because of something as silly as a page count.
That said my best received screenplay was a gargantuan 128 pages — but I let the page count slide because I knew it was good work, top to bottom. I also indicated on the Title Page that it was based on a true story. True stories have latitude to go over 120 pages, and the fact this one was 128 (and based on a real person) told the reader that length-wise the writer was “being true to the real story.” Even though that script hasn’t been produced it has, to date, landed me many paying jobs that did get produced. And I’m sure someday, it will find a home.
So … do your best to reach that magic number. And I do recommend cheating it as much as you can. If you’re a little under, pad it. A little over, trim it. But don’t let them gain the upper hand and judge your work based on a number. Make the bastards work for it
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Your account already exists. Please login first to continue managing your settings.
KSG#64 (KPL-B), the last well of the seven well Phase-III development drilling campaign in the oil producing Kharsang Field, Arunachal Pradesh, has been successfully tested for oil and has been put on production at an initial gross rate of 226 b/d of oil, Jubilant Energy announced.
The seventh development well KSG#64 (previously referred to as KPL-B) was proposed as a step-out development well in the southern part of the Kharsang Field with the primary objective of S-00 sand and the secondary objectives of M-00 and T-00 sands. The well was spudded May 31 and successfully drilled to a target depth of 1,557 m (5,108 ft) and completed July 15 as planned. The well KSG#64 was tested with the smaller capacity work-over rig which commenced Aug. 3.
Based on the wireline log interpretation, mud log shows, and formation pressure data from the Reservoir Dynamic Tester, the consortium has identified the interval of 1,483 m (4,865 ft) to 1,486 m (4,875 ft) measured depth (MD) in the S-00 reservoir sand for testing. Detailed testing was carried out in this zone and presently the well is producing at a rate of around 226 b/d of oil on self-flow mode.
In addition to the currently producing S-00 reservoir sand, one potential hydrocarbon bearing zone in the bottommost T-00 sand in the interval 1,529 m (5,016 ft) to 1,532 m (5,026 ft) MD also has been tested and produced gas with FTHP 425 psi and CHP 853 psi through 7 mm choke. Further, an up hole hydrocarbon potential of around 60 m (197 ft) net thickness, out of which 19 m (62 ft) is of net oil bearing sands, have been identified in this well and will be taken up for testing in future.
This brings to a conclusion a successful seven well development drilling campaign, with six of the seven wells testing oil and producing approximately 550 b/d. The sixth well (KSG-63) of the campaign tested gas and has been kept shut for future gas utilization, as may be commercially viable. The consortium plans to drill six more development wells under the Phase III Extension program after receiving necessary approvals.
GeoEnpro Petroleum Ltd., a joint venture of GeoPetrol and Jubilant Enpro (a member of the wider Jubilant Bhartia Group), is the operator of the Kharsang field. Jubilant holds a 25% interest in the block through its subsidiary, Jubilant Energy (Kharsang) Pvt Ltd. The other members of the consortium are Oil India Ltd. and GeoPetrol.
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Minister applauds web celebration of Scotland's historic sites and great characters of the past
22 July 2009
Link-up with National Library of Scotland & Oxford Dictionary of the National Biography, National Trust for Scotland and Historic Houses Association
Minister for Culture, External Affairs and the Constitution, MSP Michael Russell has applauded Historic Scotland’s launch of a web-based celebration of the country’s people and past as part of its contribution to the 2009 Year of Homecoming.
MSP Michael Russell said: “This collection of material and information is a fantastic resource for people looking to tap into their family history. The echoes of people past are held within the sites which Historic Scotland care for. Their teaming up with the National Library of Scotland, Oxford Dictionary of the National Biography, National Trust for Scotland and Historic Houses Association creates a great partnership which provides people with a real starter to trace and discover where and when their forefathers once trod. It provides inspiration to follow in the footsteps of some of Scotland’s most famous families and characters.”
The project has seen the creation of web pages which give brief but informative introductions to some unusual aspects of our history. It includes downloadable guides to the Following in the Family Footsteps heritage trails developed earlier this year by Historic Scotland in conjunction with the National Trust for Scotland and the Historic Houses Association for Scotland. There will be 100 costumed character performances taking place at properties to support the family trails throughout summer 2009.
Then there are thumbnail biographies of heroes, villains and quirky characters linked to each of the 15 famous Scottish surnames highlighted in the heritage trails. There are free links to the fuller accounts of their lives contained in the Oxford Dictionary of the National Biography (Oxford DNB).
Centuries-old maps and engravings held by the National Library of Scotland Map Library are used to reveal more about historic buildings and places. These include a plan by a Jacobite sympathiser showing the Battle of Culloden.
Rebecca Hamilton, Historic Scotland Marketing and Media Manager, said: “The Homecoming area of the website is a fun and informative way to discover a little more about Scottish history and some fascinating people of the past. We hope it will encourage people to come along and enjoy Scotland’s historic sites and have a look at some of the properties included in the family trails, and enjoy some of the events and activities we are running during the Year of Homecoming. And especially for the year of Homecoming, we have been promoting Historic Scotland membership as a way of getting out to visit Scotland this summer – year round days out solutions for all the family from only £6.16 a month for a family.”
It is also hoped that the Homecoming area of the website will give people an idea of the enormous wealth of Scottish historical material available online. By using the links to the NLS website there’s the chance for Scots, or those with Scottish ancestry, to find out what the area they came from was like in the past.
Christopher Fleet, NLS temporary map collections manager, said: “Historic maps are a fabulous way of discovering more about what Scotland was like in the past. And if you know where your ancestors came from, they can offer all sorts of insights into the communities they were from. This project gives people the chance to start exploring the past for themselves, and we hope it will be their route into all sorts of new discoveries.”
The Historic Scotland pages feature images from an NLS website dedicated to the remarkable pictorial survey of Scotland by John Slezer in the late 17th century and include engravings of places like Melrose Abbey and Linlithgow Palace.
The thumbnail biographies include people from Robert the Bruce’s grandfather to the Stuart princess who became queen of Bohemia. There are also the Gordon who was dubbed Australia’s Poet and the Hamilton who provided one of the best records of early colonial life in the Americas.
Dr Philip Carter, publication editor of the Oxford DNB, said: “We were very pleased to take part in this project. Scots and the descendants of Scottish families have done a huge amount to shape British history worldwide. This small selection of people gives a flavour of the remarkable range of characters, and the unusual lives they have led, who appear in the Oxford DNB.”
Elsewhere there’s the chance to read what travelers from bygone ages, such as Dorothy Wordsworth, had to say about places they visited like Dumbarton Castle.
Notes for editors
Visit the Year of Homecoming area of our website at www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/homecoming. Once there you will find:
Following in the Family Footsteps
- Downloadable guides to our Follow in the Family Footsteps heritage trails – these complement free leaflets already available at the sites taking part.
- A guide to the events Historic Scotland has lined up for 2009.
- Routes to Your Roots – see where your family came from in Scotland, and what it was like there in the past.
- Thirty fascinating historical characters – heroes and rogues – who had the 15 family surnames featured in the family trails. Many of the people are featured in the Oxford DNB and there are free links to their fuller accounts.
- Details of how some of the attractions in our care are linked to great innovations and what visitors of the past thought of places like Edinburgh Castle.
- Extracts from the Treaty of Perpetual Peace – which aimed putting a final end to the history of conflict between Scotland and England, and which was commemorated at the recent Party at the Palace 1503 event at Linlithgow Palace.
- A gallery of images that Historic Scotland hope will capture some Homecoming family moments throughout 2009.
The 15 heritage trails created by Historic Scotland, the NTS and HHA involve historic sites linked to the following famous Scottish surnames: Bruce, Campbell, Douglas, Forbes, Fraser, Gordon, Graham, Grant, Hamilton, Lindsay, Macdonald, Maxwell, Murray, Scott, Stewart/Stuart.
Examples from the pages
- Early travellers views on Scotland’s historic buildings
After her visit to Dumbarton Castle in 1803, Dorothy Wordsworth wrote: “I never saw rock in nobler masses, or more deeply stained by time and weather; nor is this to be wondered at, for it is in the very eye of sea-storms and land-storms, of mountain winds and water winds.”
- Firsts and innovations at Historic Scotland sites
Among the sites included is Kinnaird Head, which was transformed from a cliff-top tower house into a revolutionary lighthouse that helped transform the safety of mariners at sea. When the original light was lit in 1787 it was the most powerful in the world and visible for up to 14 miles.
Princess Elizabeth Stuart was born at Falkland Palace in 1596. Intelligent and pretty, she seemed to lack nothing. Elizabeth married Frederick V, Count Palatine of the Rhine and Elector of the Holy Roman Empire. He became king of Bohemia and Elizabeth was queen. Yet her low-cut dresses, irregular hours and pet monkeys offended locals. Worse was to come as the couple’s fortunes nosedived – losing their kingdom and much more besides. To read the Oxford DNB biography click here http://www.oxforddnb.com/public/dnb/8638.html.
Maps as politics – one of the images on the website is of detail from a battle plan by John Finlayson showing the battle of Culloden. It clearly displays the Jacobite sympathies of its maker showing a unicorn, royal symbol of Scotland, with its horn broken. For the whole map go to http://www.nls.uk/maps/military/placename.cfm?keyword=Culloden.
Dumbarton Castle by John Slezer. The website includes detail of this image. To see the whole image visit http://www.nls.uk/slezer/engraving.cfm?sl=4&t=1.
The Year of Homecoming
- Homecoming Scotland is a Scottish Government initiative managed by EventScotland, the national events agency, in partnership with VisitScotland, the country's national tourism agency.
- Robert Burns is the inspiration for Homecoming Scotland as 2009 is the 250th anniversary of the birth of Scotland’s national poet.
- Historic Scotland is delighted to be supporting the 2009 Year of Homecoming with a series of initiatives including family trails, spectacular events and the creation of a Homecoming Pass for heritage attractions in association with the National Trust for Scotland and the Historic Houses Association.
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Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Jumper: Griffin's Story (Jumper) (original 2007; edition 2008)
by Steven Gould
References to this work on external resources.
Wikipedia in English (1)
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0765357852, Mass Market Paperback)
What if you could jump? Go anywhere in the world in the blink of an eye? What would you do? Where would you go?
What if you were only five years old?
Griffin O’Connor jumped for the first time in front of a busload of tourists in Oxford; there was no hope of keeping his ability a secret. He was hunted from that day, on the run with his family, and then without them. His only hope is to stay alive and free until he can become the hunter himself.
ANYWHERE IS POSSIBLE
Jumper is a major motion picture from 20th Century Fox/New Regency Productions, starring Hayden Christensen, Samuel L. Jackson, Diane Lane, and Jamie Bell.
(retrieved from Amazon Thu, 21 Apr 2011 04:31:48 -0400)
Griffin has a secret. It's a secret that he's sworn to his parents to keep, and never tell. Griffin is a Jumper: a person who can teleport to any place he has ever been.
(summary from another edition)
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Have a Question?
Ask the Graduate
College at our new
Doctoral Dissertation Announcement
Candidate: Sam Striker
Doctor of Philosophy
Department: Educational Leadership, Research, and Technology
Title: Highly Qualified Public School Teacher: Its Status, Distribution, Determinants, and Relationship with Job Commitment and Satisfaction
Dr. Jianping Shen, Chair
Dr. Sue Poppink
Dr. James Muchmore
Date: Friday, November 11, 2011 10:00 a.m. to Noon
3208 Sangren Hall
Highly qualified teacher (HQT) has been promoted as a policy instrument to improve our public education. This study investigated the quality of public school teachers by examining the distribution pattern of highly qualified teachers across school level, urbanicity, minority student population, and core academic fields. The research investigated what teacher characteristics (age, gender, ethnicity, total years of teaching, certification, bachelor’s degree in mathematics and sciences vs. in other areas, teaching level) predict highly qualified teacher status after controlling for school characteristics (% of minority students, % of free and reduced-price lunch, school size, and school location). Finally, the relationship between highly qualified teachers and the composite variables of job commitment and job satisfaction was investigated.
In this study, a highly qualified teacher holds a bachelor’s degree, a full state certification, and teaches at least 50% of classes within his or her major. The researcher analyzed data from the 2007-2008 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) for public school teachers. Descriptive statistics were used to identify teacher characteristics. Chi-square tests were used to examine the distribution of HQTs. Logistical regression was used to determine the predictability of HQT status based on teacher characteristics. Lastly, hierarchal linear modeling (HLM) was used to study the effect of HQT status on job commitment and job satisfaction.
The following were the major findings. First, results revealed secondary teachers had a significantly lower proportion of highly qualified teachers than elementary teachers. Suburban teachers, teachers of English and language arts, natural sciences, and mathematics and computer science, had high rates of HQT. The lowest HQT rate was in the vocational, career, and technical area. Second, the status of HQTs was associated with older teachers, male teachers, experienced teachers, teachers having a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and sciences, and teachers with advanced, regular or provisional certification. A surprising finding within the category of school characteristics is related to the percent of minority student enrollment—the higher percentage of minority students corresponds with a higher percentage of HQTs. Finally, HQT status was not significantly predictive of teachers’ job commitment, but the relationship trended such that unqualified teachers were somewhat less committed. HQT status was a significant, positive predictor of teachers’ overall job satisfaction. Policy implications were discussed based on the findings.
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December 8, 2008
W. Somerset Maugham: The Moon and Sixpence
Having read and enjoyed a couple of Somerset Maugham’s less celebrated novels, I thought it was time to turn to the more famous ones. The author blurb on these new Vintage Classics editions of his works tell us that “with the publication in 1919 of The Moon and Sixpence, [Maugham's] reputation as a novelist was established.” The only other thing I knew about it was that it was inspired by the life of Paul Gauguin, and that the story as described on the back cover seems reminiscent of Philip Larkin’s ‘Poetry of Departures’ (“He chucked up everything / And just cleared off“), a theme which Maugham would return in his last major novel, The Razor’s Edge.
One of the attractions of Maugham for me is his position as a sort of literary guilty pleasure: his books are comforting in their conformity to traditional literary form, a sort of dilute – or at least less bleak – essence of Graham Greene. However, The Moon and Sixpence is a little more daring in its structure than we might expect.
The story is told by a narrator who, to all purposes, is Maugham himself: a writer, a watcher and an occasional agent of intervention. He makes no attempt to endear himself to the reader, revelling in the sort of sexism which, whether or not deliberate, emphasises Maugham – writer or character – as just as ‘old-fashioned’ as I had thought his books to be. “I do not suppose she had ever really cared for her husband,” he says of one character, “and what I had taken for love was no more than the feminine response to caresses and comfort which in the minds of most women passes for it.”
Women in the book feature only in the context of their relationships to men. First among these is Mrs Strickland (she gets no name of her own), who wants to become part of cultural society by hosting soirées for literary and artistic figures, including ‘Maugham’. He is not surprised that she wants to stretch her social circle, for her husband, Charles Strickland, a stockbroker, is
just a good, dull, honest, plain man. One would admire his excellent qualities, but avoid his company. He was null. He was probably a worthy member of society, a good husband and father, an honest broker; but there was no reason to waste one’s time over him.
Strickland, however, is about to surprise even our world-weary narrator when in his forties he chucks up everything, and just clears off to Paris – not for a woman, but to become a painter. “To my mind,” says Maugham (I’ll dispense with the inverted commas but let’s imagine they’re there) at the beginning of the story, “the most interesting thing in art is the personality of the artist; and if that is singular, I am willing to excuse a thousand faults.” There are a number of artists’ personalities in this book, but the one we learn most of is that of Maugham himself, and the writer’s willingness to cannibalise the tragedies of others for their own muse. When Strickland leaves his wife and children, our narrator arranges to go and see her:
I was torn between the fear of hurting a nice woman’s feelings and the fear of being in the way. I felt she must be suffering, and I did not want to see a pain which I could not help; but in my heart was a desire, that I felt a little ashamed of, to see how she was taking it.
In the end Maugham’s writer-as-vulture instincts win out, and to compound his cynical use of her, Mrs Strickland fades into the background as he discovers the infinitely more fascinating personality of her husband to write about. Strickland, whose talent as an artist is assumed from the first page, but never satisfactorily demonstrated to the narrator or the reader, has no qualms about abandoning his family. “The absurd little man enjoys doing things for other people. That’s his life.” Maugham (without inverted commas this time, the author not the character) succeeds in getting across the charisma of what we might call the single-minded bastard. Maugham the character, however, struggles to come to terms with what we would probably now call a psychopathic personality.
It was impossible to make him understand that one might be outraged by his callous selfishness. I longed to pierce his armour of complete indifference. I knew also that in the end there was truth in what he said. Unconsciously, perhaps, we treasure the power we have over people by their regard for our opinion of them, and we hate those upon whom we have no such influence.
Alongside Strickland appears the character of Dirk Stroeve, an artist who is the first to recognise Strickland’s greatness – but his tragedy (or his first tragedy – there are more to come) is that his ability to perceive and process beauty is not attached to an ability to produce it: he himself is a lousy artist. In the end Maugham’s attempt to understand Strickland comes undone, because there is nothing of him to understand beyond his paintings and his effect on those whose trust and love he has abused.
He cared nothing for those things which with most people make life gracious and beautiful. He was indifferent to money. He cared nothing about fame. You cannot praise him because he resisted the temptation to make any of those compromises with the world which most of us yield to. He had no such temptation.
What’s refreshing about The Moon and Sixpence is that Maugham himself never succumbs to the obvious temptation, to seek to explain Strickland’s actions in abandoning his family and career. He tells us, with a wink, that “if I were writing a novel, rather than narrating such facts as I know of a curious personality, I should have invented much to account for this change of heart.” By then, two-thirds of the way through the book, Strickland has made his final appearance in Maugham’s story, and there is no denying that the remainder of the story, set in Tahiti and relying on third-hand accounts of Strickland, is less compelling for his absence. But if Strickland’s decisions seem alternately brave, foolhardy and selfish, Maugham’s decision – to write a novel which pretends not to be a novel, which begins at the ending and ends in the middle – is entirely justified.
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The goal of the thinc Program is to inspire students to think about their future. We immerse students in a variety of learning experiences to help them begin to see their futures.
Hear what they have to say about the thinc Program:
- My favorite project was the hot air ballon because we all worked together as a group.
- I would not change anything because it was perfect this year, and next year the students will love it.
- I enjoyed the green screen videos because we got to express what was on our minds about the colleges and what we are going to do later in life.
- My favorite trip was going to Cabrini College because we did a lot of cool stuff and that looks like very good college. Also, we had a good feeling of what it will feel like being in college.
- My favorite project was the college research at Villanova because I learned things that I never knew, and I learned what colleges I want to go to.
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SAN JOSE -- The line, which began at the Sacred Heart Community Service entrance, kept growing in the cold and damp early morning hours, snaking around the building, down South First Street and eventually taking a turn at Floyd Street.
About 250 people, including parents holding hands of small children, were waiting when the doors opened at 7:30 a.m. Friday just so they could register for Sacred Heart's annual Holiday Food and Toy distribution program.
This is what they were willing to do to make sure there is food on the table for Thanksgiving and Christmas as well as holiday presents for their kids. First in line was Corina Lopez, huddled beneath a blanket, who had been camped out since 11 a.m. Thursday.
"This is such a blessing," said Lopez, a San Jose single mother with three children who also takes care of her mom. "We just don't have enough to say, 'Well, we can get gifts this year.' We have to count pennies just to have gas in the car."
Sacred Heart expects to distribute food boxes to 4,000 families at Thanksgiving and 3,200 more at Christmas as well as hand out 16,500 toys to 5,500 children. Sacred Heart officials had discouraged people from lining up in advance -- trying to assure them that everyone would be able to register. But Executive Director Poncho Guevara also understood why some were taking no chances.
"They don't want to feel like they're risking not getting something," he said.
While there are indications the
Reina Vertiz said she often made donations to Sacred Heart when she worked. But she has been unemployed for two years and her husband, a painter, has seen his job slow. Friday, she was second in line.
"I supported them when I could, and now I'm very grateful that they can help now that I'm in this situation," said Vertiz, who has a 6-year-old daughter. "Trying to find a job has been very frustrating. And if I do get a job, then I would be handing my paycheck to the day-care center at the end of the week."
The poverty rate in Santa Clara County is 10.1 percent, and 12.6 percent for children under age 18, according to the 2009-2011 American Community Survey. County Supervisor Dave Cortese, who watched the registration process begin, described "a great paradox" between the inherent wealth of the region's high-tech industry and the everyday struggles of the working poor.
"Folks in this line might not have jobs, but they sure want them," Cortese said. "Anybody who would stand out here all night long waiting just to register for food is a hardworking person in my mind. Programs like food baskets are a good stopgap. But we have to find jobs to match their skills."
Sacred heart has assisted about 60,000 people this year.
"We're seeing record numbers of people and hardship every day," said Lydia Guel, director of self-sufficiency programs. "I keep hearing about things getting better, and yet we have people lined up around the building. If the community doesn't care of each other locally, then who is?"
The community will have to help. Jay Pecot, the director of development, said they had four turkeys in their freezer. Anyone interested in assisting can visit www.sacredheartcs.org/holidays to make a donation, volunteer or arrange food and toy drives.
"This program helps so much," said Lopez, who visits Sacred Heart twice a month. "They put food in my cupboard, whether its canned peaches or SpaghettiO's. All I ask for is that my kids have full tummies."
Contact Mark Emmons at 408-920-5745.
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What next for Infosys?
The Indian technology giant grew from a $250 loan to annual sales of $7 billion. But, over 30 years on from its inception and after years of headlong growth, what next for Infosys?
Infosys is an Indian business legend. Justifiably. Its story is so fantastic that if it had happened in Silicon Valley it would now be a movie. The story of the $250 loan to Narayana Murthy in 1981 bears repetition. The loan came from his wife. The IT engineer set up the company in Pune with six other engineers. It reached annual revenues of $100 million in 1999; $200 million in 2000; $400 million in 2001; $500 million in 2002; $1 billion in 2004; $3 billion in 2007; and $5 billion in 2010. Now, the first Indian company to be listed on the NASDAQ has over 150,000 employees, a market value of $26 billion and annual revenue of $7 billion.
To the uninitiated in the ways of the company colloquially known as Infy, this feels like an archetypal dreams-to-reality Indian story. It isn’t. Infosys’ first stroke of genius was one of optimism or bold ambition, depending on your perspective. It began life with a global view. The world was its market from the very start. India’s domestic market was of little attraction — for the simple reason that, in the early 1980s, there simply weren’t enough Indian corporations to buy the services Infosys offered.
“Posterity will not excuse you if you did not dream big,” says Narayana Murthy, who retired from his role as chairman and chief mentor in 2011 and is now the company’s chairman emeritus. “You owe it to your customers, your colleagues, your investors and society. Every major civilisation, every great advance in science and technology, and every great company is built on a big dream.”
The vision of Infosys today remains the same as from day one: “We will be a globally respected corporation.” It has a compelling simplicity, a built-in narrative which makes the company’s success appear all but inevitable. (Perhaps the most obvious comparison is with Thomas Watson Senior’s renaming of the Computing Tabulating and Recording Company as International Business Machines when it didn’t have a customer outside the United States.)
Infosys’ first client was the Data Basics Corporation in New York and it opened its first international office in Boston in 1987. Now India’s second largest software company with offices in 32 countries, Infosys’ footprint is truly global. The United States and Europe account for 85 per cent of the company’s sales; India a mere two per cent.
While Infosys’ global ambitions remain a constant, what it actually does to deliver its revenues has evolved over the 30 years. In the beginning it was in the vanguard of outsourcing, but over recent years has shifted its emphasis towards consulting.
Sanjay Purohit is Senior Vice President and Global Head of Products, Platforms and Solutions at Infosys. He joined the company in 2000 and describes the company’s first 15 years as Infosys 1.0. “It was all about establishing the global delivery model,” he explains. “So we first focused on establishing trust with clients and invested a lot in quality. A better quality product at a lesser price is a very powerful value proposition.”
In Infosys 1.0 the company began to invest heavily in developing its people — Infoscions — and in creating a world-class environment for them to work in. Says Sanjay Purohit: “The first 15 years were about setting the base, laying down the founding stones. The next 15 years — Infosys 2.0 — saw the model being proven and very good traction as we grew.”
During Infosys 2.0, the company identified four axes to drive its expansion. The first lay in expanding into other industries. It invested in building industry knowledge.
The second route forward was to expand the suite of services it offered. In its first incarnation Infosys was essentially an application development and maintenance company. Then it started the suite of services it offered to include enterprise solutions, infrastructure management, testing, as well as business process outsourcing. “Suddenly we were operating in multiple industries with both industry specific and bespoke solutions. So that was a genetic transition of the company from being services-oriented to being solutions-oriented,” says Purohit.
The third important axis was geography. Initially, Infosys’ global view led to it becoming US centric so that, at one point, almost 75 per cent of its revenues came from the US. It then expanded into Europe starting with the UK, and then subsequently Switzerland, Germany, France, and then Eastern Europe.
It also expanded into the South and Latin American markets, Australia, Japan and China — by the end of 2012 Infosys will have a 5,000-person strong development centre and is building its own campus in China.
The fourth focus was on clients. Astonishingly, 95 to 97 per cent of Infosys’ business comes from repeat clients. It identified a group of clients that it wanted to work with in order to build credibility and then went after them.
It worked. After a relatively quiet start, Infosys’ growth accelerated. Of course, for most companies, rapid growth carries a heavy burden of risk. Corporate history is littered with high growth companies which flew too close to the commercial sun and fell to earth. Infosys has always viewed growth differently. It does not seek bigness for its own sake. Size is not its objective. Instead, for Infosys, growth is seen as constant proof of its credibility. Growth makes the company credible and the more credible it becomes the more it can grow.
B G Srinivas, who heads Infosys in Europe, provides his take on the company’s approach to growth: “We have always built a culture that’s emphasised not getting bogged down by constraints, but looking at ways of driving ambitious growth plans.
Behind that is the core of what we build on, our core values and ethics. We have robust internal processes which help sustain growth. If you look at our vision, it says we want to be a globally respected corporation. We are not saying we want to be the biggest.”
Infosys did not blow its own trumpet to establish its credibility. It didn’t have extensive ad campaigns but relied on word of mouth recommendations. Credibility trumps credulity. “Growth creates the space for people to try and do different kinds of things and explore different kinds of possibilities for clients,” says Purohit. “I came from an environment [at Tata] where 5-6 per cent growth was a source of happiness and then at Infosys we grew at 8 per cent, then it settled at about 30 per cent and then at about 20. So it was a very high growth environment and there was a lot of space to reach out, to try to do things.”
Growth brings more revenue and more people. Infosys has become a melting pot of talent. Every year brings an influx of new people — next year it will add 35,000 people to its existing 150,000 people. “There is an annual cultural infusion,” says Purohit. Along the way, the culture is inculcated into newcomers and subtly refreshed. “In a small company you can always get together and understand and learn the culture together, but if you are 150,000 people then your system has to be capable of inducting people and helping them cope with the culture of the organisation. The company has become increasingly democratic.”
Purohit argues, counter-intuitively perhaps, that in a high-growth business, executives tend to be more client focused. “Your eyes are always on the client 24/7. If you’re in a low growth industry then half of your time is spent managing your back end — your costs and efficiencies — because somehow you have to survive.”
For Purohit, fast growth also paradoxically fosters a focus on future planning. He was charged with setting up the company’s planning function at the beginning of the decade. “When you’re growing very fast you face constraints on the supply side and sometimes even on the demand side, but you can’t get into that because there is not time. What happens is that you start thinking how do I want this conversation to go in six months or nine months? That we are going to grow is a given, so you are constantly thinking ahead in a very practical way, everybody says you should be short-term and long-term focused. I had read the theory, but this is where I learned about how to practice it.”
Of course, growth becomes expected, routine, at least to those outside the company. Amid worldwide economic turmoil and recessions in many of the markets where Infosys operates it still anticipates 8-10 per cent growth in 2012. Analysts expressed disappointment at this and the share price fell as a result. Success can, sometimes, be double-edged.
Even so, in Europe in particular Infosys remains highly optimistic. It plans to hire an additional 500 people in Europe over the next year and B G Srinivas anticipates potential growth of up to 40 per cent — “a very aspirational number, but that’s my target. So we are rapidly expanding, we are investing.”
Infosys now describes itself as an IT consulting and services firm — as such, its closest competitors are the likes of Cap Gemini and Accenture. Infosys 3.0 is taking shape. The inspirational founder Narayana Murthy has left to be replaced as chairman by Kundapur Vaman Kamath, a former banker.
The future shape of the company is built around three pillars. “Our strategy is to make ourselves relevant. We’ve seen how we bring consulting led transformation capabilities to our clients, how we bring technology driven optimisation and how we bring innovation,” says Purohit. Transform, innovate, optimise is the mantra.
Currently, the balance of Infosys’ business — 65 per cent — remains on optimisation, essentially the roots of the business’ growth. Around 30 per cent is consulting-led transformation type and then about 5 per cent falls under the banner of innovation.
The company’s goal is to split its revenue streams more equally. This demands growth in the area of innovation in particular. In the optimisation space, the advent of cloud computing will also signify major changes in the way Infosys’ clients consume technology.
Geographically, Infosys is aiming to split its revenues so that the US accounts for 40 per cent; Europe, 40 per cent; and the rest of the world, 20 per cent. Currently the American market accounts for a meaty 65 per cent; Europe a fast growing 21 per cent; and the rest of the world, 14 per cent.
As technology relentlessly commoditises, Infosys is repositioning itself with more focus on intellectual property and solution development, as well as on reusing technologies. “The old model was very lenient, you add more people, you get more revenue, you add more people, you get more revenue. You can’t do that ad infinitum, it’s not the way to build a sustainable business which will last for hundreds of years,” anticipates Purohit. “The next five to seven years will be fun to watch as we create a new business model for the industry once again.” The world is Infosys’ market; and the world is watching.
The Infosys way ahead
The Infosys way has been examined from an array of angles. Its management of people has been justly celebrated as has its commitment to ethical business and its global aspirations and character. (Its mission is: “To achieve our objectives in an environment of fairness, honesty, and courtesy towards our clients, employees, vendors and society at large,” and its stated values are: “We believe that the softest pillow is a clear conscience.”)
“The factors that differentiate a corporation from its competitors are: an enduring value system, open-mindedness, a pluralistic and meritocratic approach, and practicing speed, imagination and excellence in execution. Leaders have to focus on creating such an environment,” Narayana Murthy has observed.
Talking to Infosys executives two other things are eye catching. First, there is an air of thoughtfulness to the company and its people. You would expect in such a fast growing company there would be a derring-do air of opportunism. Instead, the company’s leaders are actively cerebral rather than blindly active.
“If you look at the motto of the company and our business cards it says powered by intellect and driven by values. Both of those lines are extremely serious for the company because we really think hard about what are we doing and why? You can do all the training and all the good stuff but when you hit the field and the gunshot is fired you run like hell,” quips Purohit.
Second, despite its headline grabbing growth, Infosys manages to juggle the short-term and long-term adroitly. Its leaders appear skilled in zooming in to tackle the nitty gritty of delivering complex projects and zooming out to look at the broader picture.
To better understand client needs, Infosys carried out research to identify some of the key issues which would shape the growth of Infosys and its clients in the years ahead.
Infosys believes that there are seven key areas that are rapidly increasing in influence and present great scope for IT-led innovations which will help build tomorrow's enterprise. These are:
• Digital consumers
• Emerging economies
• Healthcare economy
• New commerce
• Pervasive computing
• Smarter organisations
• Sustainable tomorrow.
Purohit observes: “These are the seven themes around which we started building what we call client relevance, because we said if we have to grow in the future then we have to focus on what will be relevant for our clients in this new world given the severe stretch that we were going through. We knew that this is not something that will be elastic and people looking back, it will change the way people do business for many years to come. That investment led us to rethink our entire strategy.
“In the end, we are a $7 billion company in an $850 billion industry; it’s all about how much value you can create.”
Infosys is established by Narayana Murthy and six engineers in Pune, India, with initial capital of $250; signs up its first client, Data Basics Corporation in New York.
Relocates corporate headquarters to Bangalore.
Opens first international office in Boston, US.
Introduces Employee Stock Options (ESOP) programme; acquires ISO 9001/TickIT certification; goes public.
Moves corporate headquarters to Electronic City, Bangalore; opens a development centre at Fremont.
Opens first European office in the UK and global development centres at Toronto and Bangalore; sets up e-business practice.
The Infosys Foundation is established.
Opens office in Toronto, Canada; assessed at CMM Level 4.
Starts Enterprise Solutions practice.
Revenues reach $100 million; listed on NASDAQ; becomes the 21st company in the world to achieve a CMM Level 5 certification; opens offices in Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Australia, and two development centres in the US; Infosys Business Consulting Services is launched.
Achieves revenues of $200 million; opens offices in France and Hong Kong, a global development centre in Canada and the UK, and three development centres in the US; re-launches Banks 2000, the universal banking solution from Infosys, as Finacle.
Revenues reach $400 million; opens offices in UAE and Argentina, and a development centre in Japan; Narayana Murthy is rated among Time Magazine/CNN's 25 most influential businessmen in the world; Infosys is rated as the Best Employer by Business World/Hewitt.
Revenues of $500 million; 2003 Nandan M. Nilekani takes over as CEO from Narayana Murthy, who is appointed Chairman and Chief Mentor; opens offices in the Netherlands, Singapore and Switzerland; launches Progeon, offering business process outsourcing services.
Establishes subsidiaries in China and Australia; expands operations in Pune and China, and sets up a development centre in Thiruvananthapuram.
Revenues reach $1 billion; Infosys Consulting Inc. is launched.
Records the largest international equity offering of $1 billion from India.
Infosys celebrates 25 years; revenues cross $2 billion; employees grow to 50,000+; Narayana Murthy retires on turning 60. He continues as Chairman and Chief Mentor.
Infosys exceeds revenues of US$ 3 billion; employee numbers grow to over 70,000+; Kris Gopalakrishnan, COO, takes over as CEO; Nandan M Nilekani appointed Co-Chairman; opens new subsidiary in Latin America; reports Q2 revenue of over $1 billion.
Infosys crosses revenues of $4.18 billion; annual net profits of $1 billion.
Infosys opens its first development centre in Brazil and second Latin American development centre in Monterrey, Mexico; selected as a member of The Global Dow; 100,000+ employees.
Infosys passes the $5 billion revenue mark.
Narayana Murthy hands over chairmanship to K V Kamath; Infosys crosses $6 billion revenue mark; over 130,000 employees.
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Well, it’s over, and after easing past the deadline, the US government reached a bipartisan deal to avoid the near-term effects of the fiscal cliff. As far as made-up crises go, it was a pretty good one: markets didn’t panic during negotiations (thanks to timing the whole mess for a holiday weekend) and the talks achieved their main goal of raising short-term public borrowing to avoid a recession. Taxes are staying low on most Americans, with the notable exception of a modest income tax hike on the wealthiest and the expiration of a 2% cut in the payroll tax (which pays for social security). Spending cuts were delayed two months, and a year of fully-funded unemployment insurance was added; America has made a fairly significant fiscal adjustment. If the US government resolved not to screw up the economy in 2012, well, it just barely kept its promise.
But lawmakers had a lot of different hopes for the deal, and like us, they’re making ambitious promises to themselves for 2013. Here how some of Congress’ most obvious resolutions are already playing out:
I resolve to cut public spending. If you’re really excited about cutting US spending right now, this was a disappointing deal. Then again, there’s no single economic reason why the US should start on an immediate path to fiscal consolidation at the moment, so there’s that silver lining. Luckily, the fiscal cliff spending cuts, the need to appropriate money for the rest of 2013′s government spending, and the US debt limit will all come before Congress in two months, giving us another opportunity to watch Barack Obama, John Boehner (assuming he is reelected Speaker of the House), and all your other favorites from the past two weeks enter a new round of deadline-focused fiscal talks. Obama has said he will not negotiate over America’s borrowing limit, but expect spending cuts to be included in any new package that resolves the government’s funding plan.
I resolve to lower taxes. The most unsatisfying resolution of all! While the merits of the cliff bill can be argued, it undeniably raised taxes on the wealthy. The upside is that it permanently locked in the rest of the Bush administration’s tax cuts, meaning that any future revenue changes will be driven by political calculus, not their carefully-timed expiration. President Obama has said that future spending cuts will be linked to tax revenue increases, a stance Republicans have rejected but one that could be a realistic starting point for talks. A comprehensive tax code overhaul is favored by many in Congress and could be a vehicle for lower tax rates, but it’s hard to imagine overall revenue going down anytime soon.
I resolve to grow the American economy. On the fiscal side, economists have recommended for years now that the US government combine some smart near-term spending on infrastructure with a long-term fiscal consolidation plan focused on managing US health care costs. That white whale of government policy would boost growth in the short term and provide some long-term fiscal stability, but don’t count on the Congress executing that kind of far-reaching vision. After the further fiscal carnage expected post-February, lawmakers might find time to focus on immigration, education, tax reform, intellectual property or climate change, all policy sectors where reform could unlock more prosperity.
I resolve to avoid gridlock all the time. Politicians who are sick of the last two weeks of drama might think about some simple rules changes, when the new Congress starts on Jan. 3, to make it easier for them to do business and make it home in time for the weekend. In the Senate, filibuster reform is gaining ground, which could make it harder for Republican opposition to force a sixty-vote majority on every vote. That, in turn, could make it easier for Republicans and Democrats to pass legislation together, dialing up pressure on House leadership the same way they did to resolve the fiscal cliff. House members have less leeway to change their rules, but they will vote for their leadership, too. While it remains unclear if Boehner will be re-elected Speaker, there’s always the chance that new ideas at the top could create change—or that Boehner, once reelected, will begin to rely more explicitly on Democrats in the House, as he did in order to pass all of the last Congress’ major fiscal bills.
Bonus resolution for the American people:
I resolve to panic less about economic crises. This will be a hard one to keep. All those new deadlines come to the fore in late February or early March, and unlike the fiscal cliff’s austerity trigger, a failure to raise the US borrowing limit could result in a default and real economic chaos in the world. While Americans were nervous about the fiscal cliff’s recessionary tendencies, imagine how they’ll feel when they are reminded about the consequences of overrunning the debt limit, which could paralyze the global economy.
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BillGuard is a personal finance security service powered by the collective knowledge of millions of people. The family of data scientists, mathematicians, security experts and industry leaders below have come together to protect consumers by facilitating the sharing of that knowledge.
BillGuard is a financial protection website that analyzes your bills for fraudulent charges, which it pinpoints by crowdsourcing from its users. If one person flags a charge, similar ones on other people's bills will be alerted as well. It's a simple process that serves as a basic level of protection for your credit and debit cards.
Users can analyze and mark their own transactions as questionable or OK, with email notifications sent out if BillGuard discovers something worth a second look. After registration, users essentially don't have to do anything except check in occasionally; it's foolproof. However, simplicity can also be a detriment. There's little sense of interaction or customer service, and user alerts feel like they're sent into a void.
Still, BillGuard does its job reliably, and it definitely feels secure. We hope to see a true mobile app soon.
Pros Cons Easy registration and website navigation No true mobile app Review all transactions at a glance Lack of in-depth analysis of questionable charges Free of pushy ad/editorial content Difficult to discern how influential my marked charges are
Sign-up is easy, and you can register up to three cards for free. You can add more cards by referring friends or upgrading to the family account, which is $79/year for up to 10 cards. BillGuard doesn't have a mobile app, but iOS 6 users can add it to their Passbook to get mobile updates on their iPhones or iPads. As far as security goes, BillGuard automatically logs off after 20 minutes of inactivity, and it doesn't offer to remember emails or passwords. The personal information it asks for is sparse, further protecting your identity.
Payments show up on BillGuard pretty soon after they appear on your credit card account. The dashboard is a streamlined two-column layout, with transactions on the left and the overall scan report on the right. All pertinent information is easily captured with a glance, providing a quick check to set the mind at ease. Clicking on a transaction reveals a pop-up with a few additional details.
From there, you can change the labels of your transactions. Marking something as "Unsure" gives you the option to send a question to the BillGuard admins; while it's not immediately clear what this accomplishes, BillGuard will then send you an automated email the next day to basically remind you to do something about it (flag the charge, contact the merchant, or designate as OK). I suppose it's an extension of BillGuard's simplicity, but I couldn't help wondering if they couldn't offer something a bit more useful. I'd like to see what other customers have experienced, for example.
At the end of every month, BillGuard sends a scan report that summarizes your transactions for the month. It includes useful information such as how much money you've spent and received, the highest amounts paid, new merchants and recurring charges.
After initially signing up, I had one "Unsure" charge, a purchase I made at a local artisan pudding shop. (Turns out other Billguard customers are not fancy pudding eaters like moi.) I made another purchase there three weeks later (for research purposes, of course), and Billguard marked it as OK, showing that it learns quickly.
The majority of my transactions were marked as 100% OK, with a few (such as Staples and Megabus) coming up as 99% OK and 1% Unsure. As with the aforementioned email, BillGuard doesn't offer any further information, like why other customers thought it was fishy or how many of them thought so.
Billguard's categorization system is generally accurate. Lesser-known merchants might show up as Unknown, but categories in BillGuard aren't extremely important unless you really can't remember the names of places where you've been spending money. You're free to add your own information under individual transactions, from category to location and website, and BillGuard will update the information for all other transactions under that merchant.
There's no editorial content on BillGuard; the site focuses on inspecting credit/debit card charges and nothing else. In this age of ceaseless marketing and time-sucking link bait, the simplicity is refreshing.
Overall, BillGuard is an easy-to-use website that provides an extra layer of spending security and doesn't clutter your inbox with incessant emails.
Your opinion matters!Post a Review
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Jonathan Edwards once said that godly people can, as it were, smell the depravity of an act before they can explain why it is evil. There is a spiritual sense that something is amiss. It does not fit in a world permeated with God. Ephesians 5:3 says that some things “are not fitting” among saints.” “Fitting-ness” is not always easy to justify with arguments. You discern it before you can defend it. That’s good, because we have to make hundreds of choices every day with no time for extended reflection.
But from time to time we need to pause and give rational, biblical expression why something is not fitting. Some years ago I came to that point when, week after week, a local newspaper put scantily clad women on the second page of Section A in order to sell underclothes. I wrote a letter to the paper with nine reasons why they should stop using this kind of advertising. Perhaps my reflections will help you deal with the hundreds of abuses of God’s good gift of sexuality in our culture. Here is what I wrote.
As a 14-year subscriber and reader of the [name of paper omitted], I am writing to express the persuasion that your sexually explicit ads that often turn up in Section A are increasingly offensive and socially irresponsible. I mean that the effectiveness of catching people’s attention by picturing a woman in her underclothes does not justify the ads. The detrimental effects of such mercenary misuse of the female body are not insignificant. The harm I have in mind is described in the following nine persuasions.
- This woman could not go out in public dressed like that without being shamed or being mentally aberrant. Yet you thrust her out, even in front of those of us who feel shame for her.
- This portrayal of a woman sitting in her underclothes at a table with a cup of tea disposes men to think of women not as persons but mainly in terms of their bodies. It stimulates young boys to dwell on unclothed women’s bodies and thus lames their ability to deal with women as dignified persons. I have four sons.
- The ad stimulates sexual desire which in thousands of men has no legitimate or wholesome outlet through marriage. In other words, it feeds a corporate, community lust that bears no good fruit outside marriage, but in fact many ills.
- The ad makes sensibilities callous so that fewer and fewer offenses against good taste feel unacceptable, which spells the collapse of precious and delicate aspects of personhood and relationships.
- The ad makes thousands of women subconsciously measure their attractiveness and worth by the standard of rarefied, unrealistic models, leading to an unhealthy and discouraging preoccupation with outward looks.
- The ad feeds the prurient fantasies of ordinary men, lodging a sexual image in their minds for the day which can rob them of the ability to think about things greater and nobler than skin.
- The ad condones the proclivity of males to mentally unclothe women by reminding them what they would see if they did, and by suggesting that there are women who want to be publicly unclothed in this way. This reminder and this suggestion support habits and stereotypes that weaken personal virtue and jeopardize decorous relationships.
- The ad encourages young girls to put excessive focus on their bodies and how they will be looked at, adding to the epidemic of depression and eating disorders.
- The ad contributes to dissatisfaction in men whose wives can’t produce that body and thus adds to the instability of marriages and homes.
I realize that the bottom line is big bucks for page two, and lots of attention for [name of department store omitted]. But please know that at least one assessment of your standards of fitness for print is that it is part of a tragic loss of modesty and decency that may, for now, feel like mature liberation, but in generations to come will reap a whirlwind of misery for all of us.
From John Piper, A Godward Life, published by Multnomah Books.
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| 0.956724 | 844 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Brace yourself, Star Wars fans – 7 minutes of previously unseen behind-the-scenes footage taken during the production of Return of the Jedi has hit the web. Specifically, the footage reveals the cast and crew working on the sequence that took place on Jabba the Hutt’s sail barge on Tattooine (although it turns out the scene was actually filmed in Buttercup Valley, California on Earth).
The clip (which has no sound so don’t bother turning the volume up) is pretty remarkable, and shows an era of sci-fi filmmaking that has long since passed. You know, when people actually built stuff instead of filming everything in front of a green screen and using CGI.
It’s quite likely that George Lucas is working on unnecessary edits to the video as we speak, so you better check this out while you have the chance.
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| 0.95669 | 178 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Father: John GRAY
- BIRTH: 12 APR 1827, Schoharie,Schoharie Co,NY
- DEATH: 24 FEB 1906, Dimock,Susquehanna Co,PA
- BURIAL: Dimock Cem,Dimock,PA
Mother: Betsy SEARS
- MARRIAGE: 16 AUG 1862, Brooklyn,,PA
_John GRAY ___|
|--Jonas Abisha GRAY
| _Silas SEARS ___
|_Betsy SEARS _|
|_Sally ROBERTS _
!S.P. May handnotes Is a farmer and lives near Dimock, PA, has 10 children
!Rev Garford F Williams, letter 20 Sep 1993 - Jonas Abisha Gray was born at
Schoharie, PA and when he was one year old his parents moved to Bradford co, PA
and at the age of twelve, he with his parents, and one brother moved to the
farm in Dimock, PA where he has since resided.
He lived with his parents until he was married, learned the trade of a
and worked on the farm. At the time of his marriage, he bought a farm in
Dimock Township, at parkevale, west of the Meshoppen Creek, and spent the
remainder of his life here. The farm remained in the family for seventy-five
years. His ten children were born here. Obit- Jonas died suddenly at his home,
Saturday afternoon, 24 Feb 1906, of paralysis and heart trouble. All of his
children lived nearby and were present at the funeral, excepting Charles P, the
oldest who for nineteen years has been traveling in New Zealand and Australia,
and is at present in Bolivia, South AMerica; and Will C, of DeKalb, IL, and
Mollie E, of Philadelphia. Three daughters are married. Uncle Jonas was a
kind and obliging friend and neighbor and will be greatly missed by his
sorrowing family, friends and neighbors in the community.
The funeral was held from the Methodist church, Monday afternoon at 2:30
o'clock. The Rev John W Price of Springville officiating. Several selections
were rendered by the choir and a comforting sermon delivered by the pastor.
The pallbearers were: Henry D Johnson, P D Burdick, Ahmos H Button, L H
Gregory, James Greenwood, and Fred Deans. Interment was made in Dimock
A precious one from us has gone / A voice we loved is stilled;
A place is vacant in our home, / Which never can be filled.
God in His wisdom has recalled / The one His love had given,
And though the body slumbers here / His soul is safe in heaven.
GED2HTML v2.4a-UNREGISTERED (1/1/96)
Thu Jul 25 12:37:45 1996
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| 0.967718 | 623 | 1.507813 | 2 |
The men behind Pittsburgh's New Year's Eve ball
Rob Gratton, of Integrated Theater Systems, puts the final touches on preparations of "The Future of Pittsburgh" ball. It weighs approximately 1,000 pounds and is 6 feet, 7 inches in diameter and will touch a height of 74 feet above the roof of Penn Avenue Place in the 60-second countdown to the New Year of 2013.
Share with others:
When you're watching "The Future of Pittsburgh" ball rise tonight at the Highmark First Night Pittsburgh Celebration, send some thanks to Chris Ruffner and Rob Gratton.
It'll be their job to push the button that sends the 1,000-pound globe aloft -- and that button is on the snow-covered roof of Penn Avenue Place, beneath the 74-foot pole. They'll have been on duty since 5:30 p.m.
Don't worry -- they have hot chocolate.
This is the sixth year of the ball's ascent, the capstone to Pittsburgh's New Year's Eve celebration. Built by Technique Architectural Products in Wilkinsburg, the sphere features 48 surface strobe lights, 72 inner lights and 1,100 LEDs.
At 11:59, the ascent of "The Future of Pittsburgh" hits cruising speed at just under 1 mph -- a decent pace for a metaphor that is unabashedly intentional.
"It's a positive outlook -- rising as opposed to falling," Pittsburgh Cultural Trust marketing manager Derek Scalzott said.
The ball's rise will be followed by fireworks fired from Penn Avenue Place's roof. Beforehand, visitors can see magic shows, several brass bands and a parade led by YouTube's "Pittsburgh Dad."
Built in 2006, the ball is partially constructed from recycled aluminum and repurposed plastic Coke bottles. The two halves of the sphere spend most of the year in twin storage lockers on the roof.
This year, workers found the sphere had developed faulty wiring, Highmark facilities manager Wayne Malovitz said. Since the globe is too heavy to move downstairs for repairs, welders set up a tent on the roof to make the modifications.
It's now back in working order, capable of displaying 64 billion different colors.
So enjoy. Before long, Mr. Ruffner and Mr. Gratton will be wrestling it back into its case -- another task they've found is better done by hand.
First Published December 31, 2012 1:36 pm
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| 0.931065 | 498 | 1.710938 | 2 |
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