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Upload & Sell: On
| p.1 #11 · Lightroom 4 Out of Gamut Warning softproofing |
Of course, the problem with the gamut warning from Adobe has always been that it's an on or off thing. It never tells you how far out of gamut a particular color might be, only that it is. For that reason alone, the gamut warnings are pretty much useless, but back in the dark ages of Photoshop, that's all they had and they kept it.
If you have good quality profiles - and that IS the key - then soft proofing is not a big deal at all. The quality of the profile and which application built it, in conjunction with the chosen rendering intent plays a huge part in both the soft proof and the final print.
For most prints, a small to moderate amount of out of gamut colors are of simply no consequence. Use Relative Colorimetric in converting to profile and you'll be fine. The out of gamut colors get clipped and you never even know it.
For areas that are much farther out of gamut, Perceptual rendering intent will sometimes give a better result, compressing all the colors in an effort to maintain separation between them. Less accurate, but often more pleasing.
If you do have access to real output profiles and have Photoshop instead of Lightroom, then you can use the Convert to Profile command and your Info Palette to read the actual RGB pixel values to see just when and where you're going to have a problem, and how big that problem might be. As soon as the pixel values in the converted file start hitting close to 255, you're going to be running out of gamut.
Most online printing services that cater to consumers assume every file they get is going to be sRGB. That's not the same as their printers BEING sRGB. They're not. They just assume every file is sRGB and their printing software makes an automatic conversion to their internal (and often never accessible) paper profile. You, the consumer, unfortunately, never have any control over silly things like rendering intent and have to rely on crude moves like desaturation. But that's the price you pay for 9 cent prints. And unfortunately, even the much maligned sRGB color space is far too large for RA-4 chemical printers and papers that many labs use. | <urn:uuid:eac14661-6806-41ce-af3b-d219f007101e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1172427 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952552 | 483 | 1.578125 | 2 |
SEVERAL pampered pooches are going from homes in Port Elizabeth to police training school in Pretoria.
This after residents responded to a call from the Port Elizabeth K9 Unit to donate dogs.
The unit has received more than 200 calls from dog owners wanting to donate their pets, but so far only seven dogs have made the grade.
Kennel manager Warrant Officer Lindy Steen said they were still responding to offers.
"Some pets we simply can't take as they do not fit the criteria we need for them to be a working dog in the police.
"The seven we have so far are German shepherds, Border collies and a labrador. These dogs all passed the basic assessments and will be sent to the Pretoria K9 training centre next week," she said.
The unit's trainer, Warrant Officer Denzil Dirk, said they hoped to have 10 dogs to take to Pretoria by the end of next week.
"There they will be taught everything they need to know and divided into their specialist categories.
"Some will be trained in narcotics and explosives, while others might fit into the other criteria such as tracking dogs," he said.
"Each dog is taken on individual merits and we work with them to determine their skills and personality."
Dirk said the unit specifically sought pure-bred dogs for training.
"We really appreciate the public's support and donations of animals. At the end of the day the more dogs we have the more dog handlers we can train and the more we can tackle crime," he said.
Grant Rudman is among those who donated his pedigree Border collie, Stitch, to the unit.
"I moved from Uitenhage to Beachview and just simply did not have a place with a garden. The house I moved into was just too small and I only want the best for him," he said.
"I spoke to all my friends and family to try to find another home but then someone suggested the dog unit. They are very nice people and you can see they will take good care of him."
A woman, who declined to be named, donated two German shepherds to the unit but would not say why. "They do call me once a week and keep me up to date with how they are doing. I know they are being well looked after," she said.
Kay-Lyn Oelofse, who also donated a Border collie, felt her animal's potential was being wasted by being a home-bound hound.
"She is really so full of energy and she is just such a good dog. It was heart-breaking but unfortunately it also took a tremendous amount of time to keep her occupied," she said.
"We would get home from work and take turns playing with her. Then all the other stuff we must do falls by the wayside. I just feel that she would adapt far better having someone around her all the time and exercising her nonstop," Oelofse said. | <urn:uuid:ac666bbb-3b83-408d-9ddd-b74b3afa9d79> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.peherald.com/news/article/13000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98784 | 620 | 1.625 | 2 |
Wonderful subway and annoyances
A few weeks ago, the Korean media noticed a music video about the Seoul subway that had become a hit on YouTube.
Produced by an American songwriter, known as Michael, living in Seoul, the lyrics praise the Seoul subway, comparing it favorably with its famous counterparts in New York, London, and Tokyo. The video is a good example of how content produced spontaneously by foreigners living in Korea has more appeal than dry promotional content produced by government agencies.
The Seoul subway wins high marks from foreign residents and visitors. It is clean, safe, and inexpensive. The nine lines cover the entire city, leaving only a few areas dependent on buses. Indeed, the Seoul subway has become one of the world's leading subway systems, ranking third in annual ridership and fifth in length of passenger routes.
But nothing is perfect. For all its strong points, the subway has several grinding annoyances. One of the most obvious to trained subway riders from London or Tokyo is the escalators. People in those cities divide themselves neatly into two rows: one for walkers and one for standers. People who want to stand move over to let hurried walkers move by quickly. Blocking the way is a social taboo that results in gruff orders to move aside. For all the talk of how hurried Koreans are, the sight of escalators full of patient (or frustrated) standers is an oddity.
Another problem with the escalators is the speed. Most move at a brisk, but safe speed, but some are terribly slow. Some of the slow escalators are also narrow and do not permit two rows of traffic. One of the worst offenders is the escalator at Exit 3 of the Seoul National University Station. Students have complained for years, but to no avail.
The second problem is that some riders still do not understand that people on the train need to get off first. Standing in front of the flow of people leaving the train causes unnecessary confusion. Likewise, sneaking in on the side of the door narrows the exit and makes it harder for people to leave the train. These problems sometimes cause trains to get backed up during rush hours, making for longer waiting time and excessive crowding.
The third problem is panhandlers and beggars. The subway has signs stating clearly that panhandling is not permitted. Announcements from time to time ask riders to discourage panhandlers by not buying from them. Poles at the entrance to escalators have been put in to make it harder for panhandlers to move their goods. And yet the panhandlers remain. Most riders ignore them, but they wouldn't be there if there were no sales.
Compared to more aggressive panhandlers elsewhere, Korean panhandlers are very polite. They give their spiel and move on, but remain an annoyance. The cart blocks space and the loud spiel can be distracting. Those selling golden oldies CDs fill the car with music, which is usually too loud. Music on the subway can be pleasant, of course (confession: I enjoyed humming to ``Hotel California" on a tired evening not too long ago), but for most, it is an annoyance.
Then there are the beggars. Like the panhandlers, Korean beggars are polite. Many distribute a short note explaining their situation. They take money when collecting the note, and quietly ignore those who do not give money. Others walk (or ride, in the case of a wheelchair) through carrying a bowl and playing sad music as they go through the cars. Most riders ignore the beggars and let them go about their business.
Budget permitting, the speed of escalators is easily fixed, but the other issues are more difficult because they involve people. Who teaches people to wait for people to exit the train before getting on? Where do the panhandlers and beggars go if they can no longer use the subway?
The subway carries 8 million people a day safely and in (relative) comfort, so why bother with the details of human behavior? The answer is clear: the practices make Korea look bad. Foreigners new to Korea are often surprised to find beggars on the subway, which prompts questions about poverty in Korea. The seeming lack of public order adds to the impression that Korea is ``not there yet."
Dealing with these problems requires will that is often in short supply in public organizations, but leaving them alone affects Korea's image negatively. As a start, subway authorities should begin enforcing the existing ban on panhandling by increasing police presence. A ban on begging should be adopted and enforced. The number of assistants on platforms should be increased so that they can remind riders to stay clear of the doors when passengers exit.
Over time, the message will go out that the subway ― the most public of spaces ― has a set of rules based on consideration of others.
The writer is a professor at the Department of Korean Language Education at Seoul National University. He can be reached at [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:ab607cde-7c1b-4b6c-8be5-bf1f42edd1da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2012/05/314_95491.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960443 | 1,027 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Anyhow, I'm currently trying my hand at some rendering at home for the first time, so I have to beg your pardon for the junior-ish question.
I'm building the tutorial from http://g3d-cpp.sourceforge.net - G3D's an OpenGL/SDL based Graphics Engine.
I got the tutorial working largely, however when I tried scaling out the ground plane (a quad) to near-infinity, it all looks fine until I move the camera. Then triangles start to flicker, and if I stop moving the camera, it's a random chance that the triangles will show up or not.
Anyhow, some of the things I've tried:
- Flipped Culling to none
- Played around with enable2DClip
That's about it, because that's all i know how to do. :blush:
Anyhow, I realize this is hard to visualize without screenshots - pardon me but I still have to rig that up. I'll post them in a follow up when I get the chance. I'm more interested if people have any idea what's going on?
All I've got is a skybox and this infinite ground plane... Could it be z-fighting? Not sure.
Anyhow, like I said, it's a shot in the dark: I'll see if I can illuminate with some screenshots and additional research.. | <urn:uuid:f136f1bc-f1f0-4f31-85d4-666bfaa0250a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://devmaster.net/forums/topic/3569-shot-in-the-dark-flickering-triangles/page__pid__21813?forceDownload=1&_k=880ea6a14ea49e853634fbdc5015a024 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955984 | 290 | 1.648438 | 2 |
The following data is extracted from Biographies of Croydon, Sullivan County, New Hampshire.
THOMAS WHIPPLE, son of Daniel Whipple, and greatgrandson of Moses Whipple, an intelligent farmer and practical surveyor, has long taken a deep interest in the cause of education, and for many years has had the general charge of the schools in Charlestown, N. H., his place of residence. He has a well educated family, some of them graduates at Meriden. He is a correct business man ; was a candidate for County Treasurer in 1856, receiving the full vote of his party.
Source: Biographies of Croydon, Sullivan County, New Hampshire | <urn:uuid:bf4ef8e7-bfd8-41e1-a1da-9e31a7688566> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.accessgenealogy.com/scripts/data/database.cgi?file=Data&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=0013321 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968606 | 143 | 1.671875 | 2 |
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HomeSpotlight on Alumni
For more than 40 years, Georgia Tech has produced computing graduates who went on to define the new face of the field. Since 1990, these graduates have been called proud alumni of the College of Computing. In this section we share with you the stories of those graduates—often in their very own words. You can learn about their careers, their lives, their memories of Georgia Tech and their thoughts on the world of computing. Whether you’re an alumnus reading about the life of an old friend, a current student looking for inspiration in the stories of those who came before you, or a prospective student wondering if your life might resemble any of those presented here, we hope you’ll enjoy getting to know some of our graduates and hearing what they have to say.
Spotlight on Alumni
|Jason Ardell and Tim Dorr|
B.S. Computer Science, 2005
"Feedscrub launched on Jan. 14. More than 1,200 users have signed up for the free service, which filters three feeds per user. Unlimited feed filtering is available by upgrading to a premium account."
Ph.D. Computer Science, 2000
"People are much more likely to accept ubiquitous computing and these tools if they can somehow explain their behavior. If users don't understand why something is happening, they are more likely to reject it."
Ph.D. Computer Science, 2007
"I focused my research on record-keeping in everyday life, a focus I have continued here in Irvine. The College of Computing prepared me well to move on to a faculty position."
M.S. Information and Computer Science, 1974
"After 30 years supporting the Intelligence Community, I am now supporting the Missle Defense Agency's project to expand our missile defense capabilities into Europe."
Ph.D. Computer Science, 2008
"The focus of my research was on designing, building and evaluating technologies for caregivers of young children and individuals with autism, which is both interesting and socially meaningful."
Ph.D. Computer Science, 2006
"I was a non-traditional student, returning to graduate school for a second career, and found the College of Computing provided the advising and resources I needed to succeed."
B.S. Computer Science, 2007
"In my job interviews, I was able to talk about things that are actually relevant to my profession because many of the courses I took were project courses, and I had experience doing things."
B.S. Information and Computer Science, 1978
"I draw daily on the foundation of critical thinking that I developed at Tech."
B.S. Computer Science, 2005
"When I entered Tech, computer crime stories were 'fringe' news. Now, words like identity theft, cybercrime and recently cyberwar are common in mainstream news media and casual conversation."
|Charles Brian Quinn|
B.S. Computer Science, 2003
"I love using new technologies to solve complex problems with simple solutions. Our motto at Highgroove is 'Keep it Simple'."
B.S. Information and Computer Science, 1982
"I love my coworkers. I love the work I do and the freedom and flexibility I have here. Someone would be hard pressed to recruit me away from this job." | <urn:uuid:68b995a1-d626-4210-a7ec-421d7c5c32ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cc.gatech.edu/features/spotlightonalumni | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946035 | 681 | 1.664063 | 2 |
UN-HABITAT Pristina Office
Ministries Building "Rilindja" 10th Floor
10000 Prishtina, Kosovo
Phone: +381 38 20032611
Fax: +381 38 224 122
17 June 2013
The UN-Habitat Programme in Kosovo, the Municipal Spatial Planning Support Programme (MuSPP), funded by the Swedish Government through Sida, has for several years been deeply involved in spatial planning, development control, environmental issues and sustainability in Kosovo at both central and local level. MuSPP interacts with and provides support, advice and capacity building to a number of municipalities. Support and advice is also provided to the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning and to related ministries, to the Association of Kosovo Municipalities and to other relevant role players in the development sector. Throughout the many years, substantial experience has been acquired regarding the administrative, legal, managerial and practical areas within the sector. Good access to international best practice has been an advantage and this has been applied in various projects and activities.
05 June 2013
In the effort to establish a framework for capacity building, technical assistance and investments, the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning, OSCE and UN-HABITAT joined forces and have organised a number of parallel activities, including roundtable debates, guidelines and cross-border co-operation and exchange for the transfer of successful initiatives. In this context, UN-Habitat has brought together housing and urban management specialists from Kosovo to conduct a study visit in Thessaloniki, Greece from the 29th to 31st of May.
31 May 2013
Schoolyard improvements have been selected as a priority by Rahovec/Orahovac Municipality through the municipal participatory planning process. Clear terms and objectives for sustainable schoolyards have been established, and a competition for all the schools in the municipality has been carried out. Two schools were selected as winners, the secondary school "Xhelal Hajda-Toni" in the city centre, and the primary school in the big village of Xerxe, "Hamez Thaci". They are awarded by getting their schoolyard proposals implemented, after careful detailed design and a number of other considerations. Both CIPs (Capital Investment Projects) will be financed on a co-shared basis 50/50 by the Municipality of Rahovec/Orahovac and UN-Habitat's Municipal Spatial Planning Support Programme (MuSPP), funded by the Swedish Development Corporation.
22 May 2013
UN-Habitat's Municipal Spatial Planning Support Programme (MuSPP), together with the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning, the Ministry of Local Government Administration, the Agency for Gender Equality within the Prime Minister's Office, the Association of Kosovo Municipalities, and Friedrich Ebert Foundation, organised a roundtable debate on "The Planning Process and Gender Perspective - Challenges and Practices". The RTD was held on 21st May 2013, in Prishtina.
17 May 2013
Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning, Ministry of Local Government Administration, Agency of Gender Equality within the Office of the Prime Minister, Association of Kosovo Municipalities, Municipal Spatial Planning Support Programme (MuSPP) financed by Swedish Development Corporation and implemented by UN-Habitat and Friedrich Ebert Foundation, organise the round table debate on " The Planning Process and Gender Perspective - Challenges and Practices".
16 May 2013
UN-Habitat's Municipal Spatial Planning Support Programme (MuSPP) financed by the Swedish Development Corporation organised the "SymbioCity Seminar and Workshop". The seminar was held on 14th of May 2013, where planners and environmental officers from all Kosovo municipalities had an opportunity to learn more about a conceptual framework for sustainable urban development - The SymbioCity Approach.
09 May 2013
The municipality of Hani i Elezit/Elez Han, together with MuSPP (implemented by UN-Habitat and financed by the Swedish Development Corporation), organized a one day design workshop with the purpose of developing a Capital Investment Project (CIP) for the regulation of the northern access to the primary school in Hani i Elezit. In order to have an inclusive, participatory and transparent planning process, the workshop involved representatives from school students and administration, representatives from the neighborhood, municipal administration, municipal Assembly and UN-Habitat. The workshop took place on the 8th of May 2013, in Hani Elezit Municipal Assembly Hall. | <urn:uuid:2afcb8e3-c298-455a-aded-a1fc28401577> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://unhabitat-kosovo.org/?cid=2,346 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939168 | 927 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Observations of distant supernovae have provided evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating rather than slowing down. The most straightforward explanation for these results is the existence of a nonzero cosmological constant; I will review the observational evidence pointing to this conclusion, and some of its theoretical ramifications. A nonzero cosmological constant seems unnatural in a variety of ways, which leads us to consider more dramatic alternatives to explain this puzzling result. I will speak about some of these alternatives and how we can hope to constrain them observationally.
ANL Physics Division Colloquium Schedule | <urn:uuid:c405c59c-efc2-42b2-8394-7264c941a5cd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.phy.anl.gov/events/Colloquium/classified/abstracts-1999/jun9.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942005 | 119 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Have you read Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events yet? If not, you've got time before the new series.
"I can neither confirm nor deny that I have begun research into a new case, and I can neither confirm nor deny that the results are as dreadful and unnerving as A Series Of Unfortunate Events. However, I can confirm that Egmont will be publishing these findings," Snicket, the pen name of San Francisco author Daniel Handler, said in a statement.
The Michigan State Fair is going on now through Labor Day. See www.absolutemichigan.com for a schedule of events.
Check out www.Michigan.org for the many festivals and fairs available in just about every city.
Visit our large selections of materials on festivals and fairs. Some to check-out are:
You can now see all of our participant's entries in our image gallery. We had almost 70 people enter this year, and with so many of the entries being really fantastic the judging was very tough. Thank you to everyone who entered! We enjoyed seeing everyone's art, and hopefully you will too! Included below is the list of winners only:
Calvin Coconut in Trouble Magnet (Salisbury) is about a nine-year-old boy who catches the attention of the school bully on the day before he starts fourth grade, while at home, the unfriendly, fifteen-year-old daughter of his mother's best friend has taken over his room.
Celebrate Poet's Day on August 21st. Take the time to honor your favorite poet, especially if it's yourself! Write a poem, read a poem or perform a poem. You could even comment on this post with one of your favorites.
Did you notice that a lot of new books feature stories about the environment? Even some of our favorite characters are "going green". Check out these titles to see what I mean:
SpongeBob goes green!: an earth-friendly adventure by Molly Reisner; illustrated by Stephen Reed
OK go by Carin Berger
Cam Jansen and the green school mystery by David A. Adler; illustrated by Joy Allen
Just Grace goes green by written and illustrated by Charise Mericle Harper
Enter the earth by Lee Welles; illustrated by Ann Hameister
Scat by Carl Hiaasen
My life in pink & green by Lisa Greenwald
Thank you to everyone who entered our Manga Drawing Contest! We had an impressive 68 entries this year. Because we got so many we decided to divide it into three catagories: 5-6 grade, 7-9 grade, and 10-12 grade. We have included a few 'honorable mentions' the judges gave out, even though they do not win a prize, but if truth be told many more deserve 'honorable mention'; the drawings were amazing this year and judging was really tough. Later this week we will post a proper gallery with all participants' entries for people to see. Without futher ado, the winners are:
Does your bedroom need a fresh look for the new school year? Have no fear, we have a interior decorating book just for you. For help with making over your bedroom, check out:
I wanna re-do my room by Clea Hantman; illustrated by Azadeh Houshyar
Bedroom makeover crafts by Kathy Ross; illustrated by Nicole in den Bosch
Room crafts: add some simple style to your space by from the editors of American Girl | <urn:uuid:8ba3d679-463d-43e3-9038-e57e0455bd1b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cantonpl.org/tween?page=45 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963875 | 722 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Yes, the process involved in audio book could be more expensive when compared to paper. In the process of recording if you make mistake, it can only be corrected by reading it all over again, then consider the time used in going to the studio and you can also be assured that it cant be a day job.
I know a couple of authors who always talk about how fun it is to do the recording sessions for the audio books and have never complained about them as being hard work. They seem to enjoy them. TV production takes more time and work.
Now I am really intriguided with this issue and would like to know what is behind the price of the audio books and ebooks when there is not creative process involved, just technology, unless the original version is electronic. Do you know what I mean?
I am not familiar with audio book production, but having worked for a television company in the past, I know that it does take time and good recording systems to produce good audio quality. The post-production editing work requires also some amount of time.
Yes, a paper book demands more resources, more work and more people involved in the process. From the environmental point of view, though, having the possibility of producing electronic and audio books I am not completely sure of the need of proucing paper books other than the romantic factor of how a paper book feels. I still have mixed feelings about this.
Yes, that's true. The author has scheduled times for the readings and it has to be repeated if something goes wrong. An audio book demans work. But why is it more expensive than the paper book? Is the process more expensive?
EBN Dialogue enables and encourages you to participate in live chats with notable leaders and luminaries. Not only editors and journalists, but the entire EBN community is able to comment and ask questions. Listed below are upcoming and archived chats.
Thailand Stages a Comeback Join EBN contributor Jennifer Baljko on Thursday August 23, 2012, at 11:00 a.m. EST for a live chat on how electronic manufacturers in Thailand have shored up their supply chain to reduce the impact of future natural disasters.
Microsoft Surface: Potential Winners & Losers What are the implications for the electronics industry supply chain of Microsoft Corp.'s decision to launch its own tablet PC? Join industry veteran and EE Times' systems and OEM expert Rick Merritt on Tuesday, July 3, at 12:00 pm EDT for a Live Chat on this subject.
Join EBN contributor Jennifer Baljko on Thursday August 23, 2012, at 11:00 a.m. EST for a live chat on how electronic manufacturers in Thailand have shored up their supply chain to reduce the impact of future natural disasters.
Peter Drucker famously said "Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window." Yet in the razor's-edge world of electronics—with a lean supply chain and just-in-time demands—the need to know the future is vital.
While no one really can accurately predict the future, we can take guidance from another Drucker saying which is the best way to predict the future is to create it.
You've heard the saying "the No. 1 supply chain risk is your people." That hasn't always been the case. But today's complex global supply chain requires a new type of multitalented employee. It's one who understands, finance, marketing, economics, is savvy with technology, graceful with relationships and can think analytically.
Where are these people? Are universities properly preparing the next generation supply chain professionals? How do train your existing workforce for these new, demanding positions?
Brian Fuller, editor-in-chief of EBN, will lead a 60-minute Avnet Velocity panel discussion that will ask and answer these and other questions swirling around today's supply-chain talent challenges. | <urn:uuid:d7bf4c83-d9fc-4131-89a7-32959bd55822> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ebnonline.com/messages.asp?piddl_msgthreadid=247737&piddl_msgid=640793&piddl_msgtocontent=yes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954734 | 807 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Mahmmon Majeed, a young and eager farmer, wanted to expand his Dahuk feedlot business to add a butcher shop for the residents of Dahuk. This wasn’t an easy operation for Mahmmon to create the Blann Butcher Shop. The skills involved in breaking down carcasses takes time and effort in order to have the types of products consumers want to buy.
Before Mahmmon first started the butcher shop, he used outdated tools and various knives to cut the meats to the specifications of his customers. However, he soon discovered that his cutting method was wasting a large part of the carcass. He needed help, so he turned to USAID-Inma for guidance.
Prior to opening and throughout the first months of operation the USAID-Inma meat processing specialist conducted five intensive technical trainings for Blann Butcher Shop employees, which included carcass fabrication, sanitation, safe storage, pricing meat cuts and customer service. USAID-Inma also helped the owners select new equipment for processing meats, such as sausage makers, and will provide technical assistance on operating the equipment.
After opening for business, the butcher shop began processing the livestock and now sells 80 to 110 lamb carcasses and six beef carcasses per week. The average monthly production is 9,856 kilograms of beef and 16,970 kilograms of lamb. The shop averages 60 customers per day.
Success is also being seen with the shop’s clientele. The company has proved the value of differentiating meat cuts in their butcher shop, which doubled their sales volume. The shop now offers western style steaks, chops and roasts to customers, allowing for less waste per carcass. The shop has also established wholesale accounts with nine restaurants and two hotels in northern Iraq.
Last updated: June 06, 2012 | <urn:uuid:2360ebe4-b06c-4d36-b3a9-d298b97faef9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.usaid.gov/results-data/success-stories/dahuk-butcher-finds-grade-%e2%80%9ca%e2%80%9d-success | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962049 | 366 | 1.632813 | 2 |
FAQ for Professors
What does the WORD Studio help students with?
Deciding on a thesis, developing ideas, strengthening organization and transitions, using and citing sources, deciding on research strategies, planning and rehearsing oral presentations, laying out visual projects (such as PowerPoints or handouts)—just to name a few areas. We are also happy to help students who want to improve their grammar and punctuation and can target specific problems they’re having in those areas; however, we do not see ourselves as “proofreaders” who are simply trying to “fix” students’ mistakes. We believe that if we simply copy-edit papers for students, they won’t really learn how to improve their writing themselves.
When should I recommend that a student visit the WORD Studio?
Whether it’s one of your best students or one who needs extra help, any student could benefit from feedback from a peer tutor. The earlier a student comes in the assignment process, the more useful feedback will be. Stress to your students that, for example, coming to the Studio at 8:30 a.m. with a paper that is due at 9:00 will only lead to a conference that’s rushed and frustrating for both tutor and tutee.
Why should students come to you instead of to me?
Sometimes students are intimidated by professors—even though we know how nice you really are! A student might want to get a first read from a peer tutor to fix major problems before submitting a draft to you for your feedback. Also, while students aren’t always able to make your office hours, we’re open 75 hours a week, including early mornings, late nights, and Sundays.
Who will be working with my students in the WORD Studio?
Sophomores, juniors, and seniors from a variety of majors and minors who have been recommended by professors, submit writing samples, and test out their communication skills in both individual and group interviews. Tutors go through rigorous training each fall and reinforce that training in weekly meetings. In addition, all new tutors are now required to take a one-credit course, Rhetoric and Communication for Peer Mentors.
What are the guidelines for a conference?
We try to make conferences student-centered; therefore, tutors ask students what they are looking to improve in their papers and presentations, and the conference is usually based around that discussion. Tutors make suggestions only—we do not rewrite papers or presentations, nor can we guarantee what students ultimately do with our advice once they leave the Studio.
Will I be notified if a student comes for a conference?
Yes, you will receive a conference record form (what we call a “white slip”) in campus mail; we usually send out white slips at the end of each week. However, students are allowed to indicate that they don’t want you to receive a copy of the form, so occasionally you won’t receive any notification.
How do I recommend a student to work in the WORD Studio?
Contact the Interim Director, Claire Plagge at [email protected]
How can I be of help to the WORD Studio?
By contacting the WORD Studio ahead of time if you are requiring a large group of students to come for an assignment, by encouraging students to make appointments for oral presentation rehearsals, and by providing us with copies of assignments for our files so that we can review your expectations for your students.
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...but we now know what was. According to the internet search engine True Knowledge, the most boring day in modern history was Sunday, April 11, 1954. The front page of the New York Times on the next day (a review of the news...or lack of it...from the 11th) seems to bear that out. The headline includes such shockers as: "PALM SUNDAY THRONGS FEEL PRE-EASTER TINGE OF SPRING" and the classic "WORLD'S RELIGIONS SURVIVE STRESSES OF CLASHING IDEAS," as well as the old chestnut "ANTI-SEMITISM FOUND IN GERMANY; SURVEY HAILS EFFORT TO COMBAT IT."
Here's that front page, and here's how they determined the most boring day ever. Post your own nominees below.
We are having anything but a boring day. As a light rain falls over Midtown Manhattan, crowds are already gathering outside our building for the lighting of the Christmas Tree here at 30 Rock. There are spotlights, police, barricades and at least one fire truck. It's exciting. It always is. | <urn:uuid:2ae44186-9a7f-41ec-87f8-2188fad932d7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dailynightly.nbcnews.com/_news/2010/11/30/5554225-this-is-not-the-most-boring-day-ever?lite | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930286 | 244 | 1.570313 | 2 |
(Reuters Life!) – British sculptor Antony Gormley wants to leave more of his artistic legacy in Asia and particularly in China which he says stands to play an increasingly vibrant role in the contemporary art world.
Lifestyle | China
Gormley is best known for public works such as “Habitat,” a giant humanoid sculpture in Alaska, “Event Horizon,” a group of 31 sculptures in his own likeness scattered about New York, “Asian Field” of 180,000 clay figurines, and “Drift,” a suspended geometric lattice in Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands casino. He spoke to Reuters in Hong Kong on the sidelines of the city’s leading contemporary art fair, ART HK 10, which saw Asian collectors swoop for works such as Damien Hirst’s “The Inescapable Truth,” a formaldehyde work of a dove and skull for 1.75 million British pounds.
Q: How important is Asia to you and what do you make of attempts by Asian cities like Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai to get on the international art map?
A: “At a time of globalization, it’s very important to me that we have that dialogue with the East, and particularly with China. Obviously Hong Kong and Singapore are important financial centers and I would like to hope that if we take the Medici model, the relationship between groundbreaking art and finance has always been there in Western culture anyway. And I think it’s just beginning to happen (in Asia). We’re beginning to see more and more intelligent, involved patronage from Chinese collectors. I hope that things like this art fair will open their interest more widely. I think there are important Chinese artists playing on the world stage. ”
Q: What do you make of the ascendancy of Chinese contemporary artists on the world stage?
A: “In China there is no doubt that the opening up of China to more liberal, socially just ideas is absolutely reflected and in senses created by, a growing voice among contemporary artists. It’s a shame that Ai Weiwei has been silenced, that his blog has been closed but I think he represents exactly the kind of self defining individual voice that has the courage to stand up against bureaucratic cruelty. I think art is a very, very important arena for the discussion of ideas way beyond its commercial exchange … Artists, as I understand it prior to 1989, the terrible year of Tiananmen, were by their nature dissidents and by their nature unheard by the majority. I think there’s an extraordinary change abroad that the voices of (Chinese) artists and the work that they’re producing is far more commonly seen and understood and therefore of course it’s an agent of change.”
Q: What other Chinese artists have struck a chord with you?
A: “There’s a fantastic show (in Shanghai) by Cai Guo-Qiang at the Rockbund (museum) which is … called “Peasant Da Vincis.” … Basically Cai over the past eight years has been collecting flying saucers, submarines and flying machines that have been made spontaneously by farmers from all over and he’s brought them together in a very provocative and beautiful way where he’s kind of saying ‘we all have dreams,’ how have these people who have actually been the engine for the great economic development being recognized or being given the opportunity to fulfill those dreams. It’s a beautiful show, very raw.”
Q: Would you like to bring an installation like “Event Horizon” from New York to an Asian city like Hong Kong?
A: “In New York, the context of the city becomes part of the work. Hong Kong is very interesting in the dialogue between the mountain and the high rise. And thinking about the total cityscape as a raw material, what I’m interested in is the relationship between water, mountain and building. And I think one would have to do something very different here to investigate what the characteristics of this human habitat are in relation to the ecosystems on which it is based.
I see these (Hong Kong) buildings all as characters. They’re like my bodies in “Asian Fiel.” They’re all sitting, looking out to the world at large. It’s really lively … I’ve always wanted to find a place where “Asian Field” can be shown. I’ve always wanted to show it in Hong Kong. “ | <urn:uuid:226b3271-125f-4089-a5dd-a29d0e539c2b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://silverscorpio.com/tag/damien-hirst/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968614 | 954 | 1.6875 | 2 |
What the Olympics Teach Us About the Rise of Social Media
Published on: July 30, 2012 | Written by: Clay Travis
The 2012 Summer Olympics is the latest evidence that sports are immune to DVRs. Even when, interestingly, the network is effectively a DVR airing taped events. Since Friday's tape-delayed debute of the opening ceremonies NBC has been catching social media heat for its decision not to carry those ceremonies and other events live on its family of networks. Yes, you can stream all the events live online, but a tiny fraction of sports fans are actually doing this.
(Raise your hand if you've been consuming the Olympics live online at the expense of on television. If you are, you're an extreme, extreme minority).
Instead, every night, tens of millions of us are sitting down in front of our televisions -- even when many of us know the outcome -- and tuning in to the Olympics in record numbers.
I think the reason is simple -- American society craves shared experiences. That's because increasingly, our shared experiences are rare. How many of you watch a favorite television show live? I don't. I can't tell you the last time I watched one of my favorite shows as it aired live. I watch everything on my DVR. How many times have you had a conversation with a friend, a friend that you know watches the same show as you, and began it like this, "Have you seen the newest "Mad Men" yet?"
I guarantee you every single person reading this column right now has begun a conversation like this.
Yes, we can control our media time, but it's at the expense of a shared discussion. Yes, the media revolves around us, we're each in our own consumption world, the masters of our own networks, but that often leaves us alone in our experience. That's great for overall consumption numbers -- I just watched the first season of "Homeland" six months after it completed its airing and I've caught up on "Deadwood" and "Mad Men" this same way -- but it delays our conversations about those shows.
We aren't sharing much in real time.
When it comes to the water cooler effect of media, we each bring our own bottles to work now.
How many times have you asked thsi question of a friend who is finally watching a show that you also love, "What season are you on?" That's our fishing expedition to find out what's fair game to discuss, we want to avoid spoiling it for others. Woe unto you on Twitter or Facebook if you spoil a storyline in advance. It's almost unheard of to ruin someone else's viewing experience intentionally, the cardinal sin of social media. We all want to share what we like, but we've all learned the necessity of protecting plot reveals for others. That's why, "What season are you on?" is so often followed by, "What just happened?" Your friend -- who will definitely know the season he or she is watching -- will give you a quick rundown of the story and you'll pick up there, careful to discuss only what's happened up to that point.
These conversations happen all the time now, yet were unheard of a decade ago. Back then no one said, "What season are you on?" Fifteen years ago, the question would have provoked a furrowed brow and a quizzical look. How many years of "Dallas" had there even been? No one knew the season back then. You watched an episode live or you caught it on reruns. You didn't watch entire seasons of shows that you'd never watched before to catch up with a new show that was still on television. Now gorging on a show, episode after episode, season after season, from start to finish, is one of life's great entertainment joys, a red badge of TV honor. How many times has a bleary-eyed friend returned to work to tell you that he or she spent the entire weekend locked in on a show? "I watched three seasons of "Breaking Bad" this weekend. I just couldn't stop."
If you already watch "Breaking Bad," what's guaranteed to be your next question?
"What season are you on?"
And so the cycle begins anew.
Yes, we all consume more media than we ever have before, but we consume it in our own time. Granted, big fans of shows may watch them close to the air date, but generally this is to avoid the spoiler. Initially television executives feared the rise of the DVR, because that freedom threatened large viewerships. That was a valid fear, that we'd all spiral off into our own worlds and shared media experiences would become rare. Television has always relied on massive audiences to fuel its big events. Just when splintering audiences seemed to spell the end of the networks and send us spiraling off into our own separate media universes social media came onto the scene, the so-called two screen viewing experience. We all sit with our iPhones or laptops or iPads and comment in real time.
Now sporting events, award shows, and, increasingly, stunt spectaculars like the crossing of Niagara Falls are incredible ratings beneficiaries of the second screen experience.
It turns out we want to share the experience of watching live events on television. We want to be part of a big audience all watching the same thing. And we all want to share our opinions of the live event. With Twitter and Facebook even if you're watching the event by yourself, which we often are, you've got a crew sharing the experience with you online.
And where do those massive audiences come from most frequently?
Every single one of us has asked, "What season are you on?" for a television drama before. How many times have you asked, "What game are you on?" for a friend watching sports?
I bet this conversation has never happened. No one saves sixteen NFL games and watches it on his or her own time.
With the rise of the DVR our shared experiences are almost exclusively sports now. That's one reason sports rights fees are increasing so quickly -- advertisers know that most sports are DVR proof. After all, 99.8 percent of ESPN programming is viewed live. That's the highest percentage for any network.
We consume our sports live.
Which brings me, in a roundabout fashion, to this year's Olympics and a fascinating question: How would American sports fans react when NBC brought us the Olympics on tape delay in primetime? It's been four years since Beijing -- the first real test of social media meeting the Olympics -- and I wanted to follow this year's Olympics closely to see whether the rise of Twitter and Facebook -- with their ability to immediately share live event results -- would serve to undercut the overall viewing experience. To find out whether social media would fragment the audience, with millions of us preferring our own unique live Olympic experience over the one produced by the network, or whether fans would still crave the shared experience.
After three days, the rating results are in, fans have tuned in to a tape-delayed Olympics in droves, setting viewership records for a foreign Olympics and often challenging the viewership numbers for the past two Olympics on American soil, 1984 in Los Angeles and 1996 in Atlanta.
So what have we learned about sports and social media for the 2012 Olympics?
1. Twitter firestorms sometimes don't cross over to the general public.
Sports fans on Twitter are the elite of the elite, a small percentage of the most technologically astute and plugged in American sports fans. Everyone on my feed has crushed NBC for not showing big events live on television. Then what have those same people done?
Watched it on tape delay and Tweeted about it.
This is an important lesson -- the network still has the power. When you look at the ratings numbers, NBC's decision has been validated. Viewers are watching a tape delayed Olympics in record numbers. The lesson: We'd rather share tape delayed Olympics than watch alone in real time.
Would showing the events live on a smaller network have poisoned the overall viewer numbers? We don't know for sure. Given that NBC has posted huge numbers so far, I'd be inclined to use a few popular events later in the second week as a trial balloon. What happens if you show Michael Phelps swimming live on NBC Sports Network, for example, and then re-air it later that night on NBC?
Do the numbers actually decline?
Given that NBC has the next several Olympics, I'd be interested to have that data, especially since the network has already overdelivered on ratings points for advertisers this year.
I suspect that so long as the video wasn't released online, the numbers wouldn't change much at all. Which means you could sate the bitching and moaning without actually detracting from the overall audience. Or you could just ignore the Twitter firestorm content in knowing that the masses don't really care.
2. NBC programs for the masses.
The masses are not yet on Twitter.
There's a lesson here for NBC and other media companies -- a Twitter firestorm may appear to be all-encompassing, but it might not have crossed over to the general public at all. Facebook is the megaphone of the masses, Twitter is still more elite. NBC has been ripped on Twitter, but that ripping hasn't hurt business. In fact, you could even argue that the ripping about not showing the live events has actually worked to NBC's benefit because then people are even more anxious to tune in and watch the events.
Think of the bitching as free advertising for the top events.
When I read Facebook, I tremble for our country's future, when I read Twitter, I'm optimistic. Basically, Twitter is Facebook for people with IQ's of over 100.
But lots of people aren't plugged in to sports all day on social media.
They work their asses off and want to come home, sit on the couch and be entertained.
NBC probably has this data and I'd love to see it because I think we'd all be shocked -- but what percentage of viewers have no idea that what they're watching is tape-delayed? It's high.
Especially because NBC really only mentions that its events are tape-delayed at the opening of the evening telecast. Otherwise, lots of people get lost in the coverage and don't even think about the time delay.
NBC executives had to be nervous about the firestorm of Twitter criticism. Up until they saw the ratings results. Either the bitching had no impact, or the bitching actually increased viewership. Either way NBC wins.
3. Lots of us still prefer NBC's mixtape of the best Olympics coverage.
Because NBC captures the story for us and lets us know what the stakes of a particular performance are, why what we're watching matters. Live sports without a story is like opening a book and reading random chapters. Yes, you may know how chapter five ends, but you lack the context to understand why what happened in chapter five matters.
Context is everything when it comes to an event as massive as the Olympics.
Plus, lots of the Olympics is boring and predictable.
Unlike say, the NCAA basketball tournament, when we can put one bracket in front of us and see all the games and know what the impact of a win or a loss is, good luck trying to figure out what a particular swimming match or water polo event means in the overall context of the sport or the games.
The Olympics are so massive none of us can watch them all.
So we trust NBC -- or whoever is airing the Olympics -- to put them in front of us in a way that makes sense.
Sure, we could make our own mixtape of events, but it's probably going to suck compared to what NBC prepares.
Put it this way, you don't go to a fancy Las Vegas club and pass them your iPod, you trust the DJ there to do a better job than you could.
Ratings suggest NBC is the mix master.
4. Online is still a very poor substitute for television.
I know online video is supposed to be the future, but that future is still a long way away when it comes to competing with actual television. Sure, Mikey bites his finger on YouTube is fine, but if that aired on network television no one would watch. YouTube works because it gives us something we can't find on regular television. Online video that actually competes with the best of television is so far away from being a reality that pretending otherwise is foolish.
I've pulled up NBC's streaming of live events. It's great if you're a hard core fan of a particular sport and absolutely have to see it for yourself live. But what if you're a dunce like me and know nothing about how the top women's gymnasts are selected? Or you need scoring explained? Or you need the results in context? Then watching online is curiously devoid of emotion, there are results but no stakes. The announcers are our storytellers, they set the scene.
Ratings for this Olympics suggest it's better to have a tape-delayed sporting event with a good announcer than it is to have a live event without an announcer.
Yes, we know the result quicker with live streaming, but we lose the drama, the sense of story, the Olympic experience of an HD broadcast.
This isn't just me saying it, this is advertisers as well. While digital may very well be the future, do you know what NBC's making for digital ad sales of this Olympics? Sixty million dollars. That sounds like a lot, but it's pennies on the TV dollar. NBC has done $1.2 billion in total ad sales. This digital number looks even smaller when you consider that all digital buys were paired with television buys.
That is, digital wasn't sold separately, it was sold as a package deal.
Television is still where the eyes are.
Online video is a poor, poor substitute for television and I don't see this changing anytime soon.
5. You can make an argument that a tape-delayed Olympics is better television than a live Olympics.
This way you don't miss the best stories. Let's face it, sometimes live sporting events are duds. How many times have you built your night around a sporting event that's never a contest?
As it airs on delay NBC is able to piece together the best of the day's events and bring it to you in ordered and narratively linear segments. In terms of production quality and viewer experience, having several hours to curate the best content is actually a better experience for the viewer than hustling from one event to another when they're all simultaneously occurring.
Bottom line: NBC is getting ripped on Twitter for not showing enough live events, but the rating results are proof that the network struck a perfect balance in its airing of the 2012 games. Enough live events to quell the protest, but not enough live to kill the broadcast. The only real question that remains is this, could NBC have shown everything live without cannibalizing the evening audience? That's why I'd love for NBC to run some experiments later in this Olympics to gauge the results.
My best guess is that we'd still want to share the Olympics.
And that would mean that viewers would tune in together even if the results were already known.
Meaning that Olympic sports, perhaps unique in the television universe, isn't a slave to time.
And that over 100 years after they started the 2012 Olympics on television has taught us a renewed truth: We want to share the experience of the Olympics, even more than we want to know the results of the games.
Here are the top 20 markets for Olympic TV viewing:
1. Salt Lake: 25.2
2. Sacramento: 24.7
3. Kansas City: 24.2
4. San Diego: 24.0
5. Milwaukee: 24.0
6. Columbus, OH: 23.8
7. Denver: 23.8
8. Norfolk: 23.0
9. Indianapolis: 22.9
10. Richmond: 22.9
11. Fort Myers: 22.7
12. West Palm: 22.6
13. Washington DC 22.3
14. Oklahoma City: 22.2
15. Nashville: 22.0
16. Austin: 21.7
17. Boston: 21.6
18. Portland, OR 21.2
19. Jacksonville 21.1
20. (Four way tie) | <urn:uuid:f7875665-ddf9-4cb3-8824-396695ed14f6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://outkickthecoverage.com/what-the-olympics-teach-us-about-the-rise-of-social-media.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965464 | 3,409 | 1.75 | 2 |
During my vacation last week to Panama City Beach, Ian Tench and I rode through Apalachicola National Forest into Tate's Hell State Forest. I will discuss Tate's Hell in an upcoming post and will concentrate on ANF here. Thursday, Ian and I headed southward via SR 12 from Bristol Florida later accessing SR 379 and SR 69. This route is classified as a scenic byway and offers excellent views of Longleaf Pine Savannahs and swampy areas. We also visited Camel Lake and hiked a mile or so around it checking out the forests there. I was astounded by the Longleaf while Ian was astounded by the size of the biting flies! This trip gave me my really first good look at the Longleaf Pine and it's forest type. I discovered its growth stages. Grass, Bottlebrush, Sapling and Mature. While I have seen Longleaf Before ( Planted specimens at the Biltmore Estate ) and Lowland Larry Tucei gave me one of those huge cones from one in Mississippi, this was the first intimate look at them in their real homeland. I also found the openness of the forest unique. Here we have Longleaf, and in some areas Slash Pine, with an occaisional hardwood tree thrown in with a nearly open understory. Wiregrass and Palmetto dominate the forest floor. They are also numerous wildflowers. The NPS has controlled burns here since this is supposed to be a fire controlled type of forest. I am sure nature occasionally has a hand in it too.
Many areas in the forest had a very natural appearance but some areas of Longleaf has been planted plantation-style. That is in long rows. While I agree in re-planting longleaf and getting the species to a more prominent position again, I just wonder if they can find a way to plant trees more at random? Planting them in straight lines is probably easier but can be hardly called natural.
Camel Lake has quite a few small cypress trees along it's shores. I suspect them to be Pondcypress. By what I have read they are more common than Baldcypress in this part of Florida. I don't really know how to tell them apart.
Here are two Longleaf Pines I measured near Camel Lake. The first is 79.2 feet tall and 5' 6" cbh. The second 56.1 feet tall and 5' 11 1/4" cbh. It seems that few trees here reach 100 feet and I would say that only a rare one would exceed 110. At least in the small amount of forest I visited. The forest is very young in many places, but according to sources on the web the forest dates back into the 1930s so they have to be some trees around dating to that time.
It's still cool seeing pines with cones nearly the size of footballs!
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The Bayshore Tea Party and 38 others Thursday filed a lawsuit in state Superior Court challenging the constitutionality of the newly adopted map that sets the boundaries of New Jersey’s 40 legislative districts for a decade.
The plaintiffs, who come from all of the state’s 21 counties, charge the map violates the state and federal Constitution because South Jersey districts generally have larger populations while North Jersey districts have smaller ones.
“This lawsuit is crucial to protect the longstanding ‘one person, one vote’ principle,” Barbara Gonzales, the Bayshore Tea Party founder, told The Star-Ledger. “I hope our diligence will raise voter awareness of the voters of New Jersey to recognize the value of their vote.
The map was adopted on April 3 after a two month long redistricting process. Democrats and Republicans created competing maps, and the appointed tiebreaker, Rutgers professor Alan Rosenthal, voted in favor of the Democratic version.
The Bayshore Tea Party offered a map it called “The People’s Map,” but neither the Republicans nor the Democrats agreed with its proposed districts.
The law claims that reducing the number of times Jersey City and Newark are split – from 3 to 2 – “dilutes and nullifies the voices of the voters there.”
Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Middlesex), the Democratic co-chairman of the redistricting commission, Thursday said he believes the map will withstands the court challenge.
“We are extremely confident in the constitutionality of the recently adopted map, which underwent a through review by not only our attorneys, but former Attorney General John Farmer, who served as counsel to the 11th member of the commission,” Wisniewski said. “This is a map that not only met traditional redistricting criteria but improved upon compactness, competitiveness and one-person, one-vote standards and will ultimately be found constitutional.”
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Few places in this world evoke images of faraway splendor quite like Australia. Perhaps it’s the thought of pristine beaches, prolific wildlife, or the unspoiled Outback. Or, it could be pure curiosity of what there is on the flip side of the Earth. Whatever the reason one has for visiting the land "down under", I can guarantee that there are surprises for even the most jaded traveler.
The port of entry for most international visitors is also Australia’s most famous city—Sydney. Located on a wonderful natural harbor along the Parramatta River, this former prison outpost has certainly come into its own. The city’s most identifiable landmark is of course the famous Opera House, situated on a promontory along the water’s edge in the lovely Botanical Gardens. While one can indeed enjoy a performance inside, just circling this uniquely designed building and snapping photos is enough for most who come calling. From here there is a panoramic view of the downtown area with its modern skyscrapers, and an area called The Rocks near the base of the climbable Sydney Harbor Bridge. Here was one of the original settlements, back when visitors were much less happy to be arriving. Today it is a quaint area of boutiques and souvenir shops for the many cruise passengers that disembark nearby with regularity.
Just a bit inshore is the Queen Victoria Building—an elegant stone edifice that houses a modern shopping mall while retaining much of its gilded colonial history. A short monorail’s ride to the west is happening Darling Harbor, a waterfront district with more shopping malls, lots of busy restaurants, and a variety of street performers. My take on it was that it is an Aussie version of New York’s South Street Seaport, with all the same energy on a summer’s night. All in all it’s a great place to meander around and soak up the surprisingly cosmopolitan scene that Sydney delivers, though it must be admitted that few people come to Australia for it’s urban landscapes. No worries, the Australia people come for begins just outside of town. | <urn:uuid:6dcbede0-3d98-4d1f-8324-fec256b83a97> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.igougo.com/story-s1388164-Sydney-Sydney_Opera_House_and_Environs.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958745 | 443 | 1.539063 | 2 |
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry says the Obama administration does not oppose moves by the United Kingdom and France to arm opponents of embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The United States already cooperates with Arab allies arming the Syrian opposition, so Kerry said Washington has no objection to Europeans doing the same.
"President Obama has made it clear that the United States does not stand in the way of other countries that made a decision to provide arms, whether it is France or Britain or others," said Kerry.
Kerry said there is a military imbalance in Syria, with President Bashar al-Assad receiving help from Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia. That imbalance is creating what he called a "global catastrophe" of Syrian refugees fleeing to Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey.
Kerry said there is no change to the U.S. position of providing only non-lethal aid to the armed opposition, though, as he said the Obama administration continues to work to change Assad's calculation.
"The longer the bloodshed goes on, the greater the prospect that the institutions of the state of Syria implode. And therefore the greater the danger is to the region and the world that chemical weapons fall into the hands of really bad actors. We do not want that to happen," he said.
France and the United Kingdom want the European Union to lift its arms embargo on Syria and both are considering providing weapons to the opposition unilaterally if the European Union does not.
Germany and other EU members echo U.S. concerns that more weapons will only lead to more fighting. Kerry said the Obama administration is leaving the door open for Assad to find a political solution.
"If he believes he can shoot it out, Syrians and the region have a problem. And the world has a problem," said Kerry.
Kerry leaves Tuesday as part of Obama's trip to Israel, where the war in neighboring Syria will be high on the diplomatic agenda. It also is a trip to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, in which Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr, who met Monday with Kerry in Washington, said American leadership is required.
"I believe we are at a historic moment where there is a convergence produced by the thinking in Ramallah and the result of the recent Israeli election," said Carr.
Following the formation of his new government, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he is extending a hand in peace to Palestinians, vowing that "Israel will be ready for a historic compromise that will end the conflict with the Palestinians once and for all" with a Palestinian partner "that is willing to hold negotiations in good will."
At the State Department, Carr welcomed the prime minister's offer. Kerry said he hopes those words become a reality. | <urn:uuid:f3418a4d-2768-4c02-ad55-32eac222d473> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2013/03/19/2013031900377.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95886 | 550 | 1.609375 | 2 |
The age old question of how to effectively measure the value of lobbying deliver seems to have been answered by a US index which has been published in this week’s Economist. Developed by a firm called Strategas the index focuses on the intensity of lobbying—expenditure as a percentage of assets—to create an index of 50 firms that is revised quarterly.
The results speak for themselves with the index outperforming the S&P 500 by 11% since 2002.
At a time when corporate budgets are squeezed and value is constantly questioned businesses at the forefront of the public policy debate facing new legislative and regulatory threats can be confident that an effective lobbying campaign will pay dividends and ROI is assured.
So looking ahead to 2012 with many businesses planning their budgets for next year, companies would be wise to ensure that they continue to invest in public affairs activity. | <urn:uuid:445923d0-d4ff-432a-b098-96d13fec3077> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mhpc.com/blog/measuring-value-lobbying-results-speak-themselves/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977713 | 173 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Allegations of child sexual abuse have been made against 97 Georgia men who were in leadership roles from the '60s through mid-80s. They make up a small portion of the total number of men -- over a thousand -- recently outed by documents released Thursday by the Boy Scouts of America.
The number of boys molested by these men is over 4,000.
Forty-four Scout leaders from the metro-Atlanta area were named, including men from Stone Mountain, Lithonia, Woodstock and Marietta.
These men were not reported to authorities, but kept in a file to prevent them from volunteering with the organization again. Some, however, continued in the roles.
The files are known as the "ineligible volunteer" files. After one Pennsylvania man admitted to "acts of perversion" with scouts, he resigned. An executive with the organization wrote the following, as first reported on NBCNews.com:
“If it is acceptable with you, I would like to let this case drop. [He] is undergoing professional treatment in an effort to stabilize his emotional stability. He recognizes that he has had a problem and he is personally taking steps to resolve this situation. The community involved is rather unique and one father has threatened legal action which could only injure the Boy Scouts of America.
Therefore, I would suggest that we let it drop. My personal opinion in this particular case is, ‘if it don't stink, don't stir it.’"
The man was later re-admitted as a leader within the Boy Scouts organization.
In Other News
A New York appeals court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, an act that "bars federal recognition of [same-sex marriages] and says other states cannot be forced to recognize them," according to CNN.com.
The decision comes after 83-year-old widow Edith Windsor sued the federal government who was charged for estate taxes after her wife passed away and she was "denied the benefit of spousal deductions," according to CNN.
Windsor and her partner of 44 years, Thea Spyer, were married in 2007, according to the New York Times. Spyer passed away in 2009.
The court determined that America's gay population has suffered a "history of discrimination."
(Gay marriage is illegal in Georgia. The Constitution of the State of Georgia added a Defense of Marriage Amendment in 2004. It was struck down in May 2006, then reinstated by the Georgia Supreme Court on July 6, 2006.)
A 96-year-old man in India claims to be the world's oldest after his wife -- no longer a spring chicken herself -- gave birth to their second child. Ramjit Raghav, a farmer, and his wife, Shakuntala Devi, 52, have only been married for ten years. Raghav, a former wrestler, claims to have been celibate up until that point.
His secret to success? Sex three times a night and a diet of fruit and dairy products, according to Ninemsn.com.
There are a few inconsistencies in media reports about the couple, including what Raghav eats. The Sun reports that he lives off of a diet of milk, almonds of butter. His wife, Shakuntala, was reported to be 60 two years ago in the same story.
Whatever the case, congratulations to the new parents.
Share your opinion on these top national stories in the comments. | <urn:uuid:b3efb8ef-33e2-45e7-b1b7-8fc8bc1ec6bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://duluth.patch.com/groups/editors-picks/p/georgia-cases-among-boy-scout-perversion-files-b35d9e18 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985039 | 710 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Struan Stevenson: There’s plenty of gold in them there gills
Scottish aquaculture is a success story that we can all be proud of. Our climate allows a variety of fish and shellfish species to be reared by a highly-trained entrepreneurial base and we have set rigorous quality standards that have led to huge advances for the sustainability of the industry.
This means Scotland is now the largest producer of farmed Atlantic salmon in the EU, with sales of £400m per year, accounting for more than a third by value of Scottish food exports.
Yet there is much more that can be done to help the industry flourish. Overall, the EU still imports some 1.65 million tonnes of farmed seafood products annually. Scotland is in the perfect position to help turn this around, but in order to do so, the industry must not be hampered by unnecessary red tape. In Brussels, steps are being taken to sweep away some of the most egregiously unnecessary EU regulation that has been holding back the industry. Disappointingly, those efforts are being undermined here in Scotland by the government’s new Aquaculture and Fisheries Bill.
It proposes no obvious benefit for producers or the environment, while threatening to reduce competitiveness, undermine workers’ morale and put development of the sector at risk. There is no evidence that the proposals will lead to improvements in the industry but every sign that its punitive liability measures could force environmental problems underground.
Moreover, the imposition of a risk-based, centralised system in which civil servants duplicate many of the checks already carried out would merely drive down numbers of skilled, well-paid jobs in areas of Scotland where there are few other job opportunities.
The government should think again. Instead of hammering aquaculture with red tape, it should be working with the industry to seize the very real opportunity offered by Common Fisheries Policy reform to push for the proposed Aquaculture Regional Advisory Council to be headquartered in Scotland.
That way, we can be at the centre of wider efforts to make Europe a world leader in fish farming once again.
• Struan Stevenson is a Conservative Euro MP for Scotland and senior vice-president of the European Parliament’s fisheries committee
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Weather for Edinburgh
Sunday 26 May 2013
Temperature: 9 C to 16 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: West
Temperature: 8 C to 12 C
Wind Speed: 18 mph
Wind direction: South | <urn:uuid:864f63ce-c9fb-4704-a511-66d02c7ce738> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scotsman.com/news/struan-stevenson-there-s-plenty-of-gold-in-them-there-gills-1-2210431 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938675 | 512 | 1.6875 | 2 |
NEW YORK, N.Y. - The price of oil fell below $92 a barrel Thursday, giving back gains from the day before.
Traders awaited a solution to a financial crisis in Cyprus that has raised fears of a destabilizing exit of the country from the euro.
By afternoon in New York, benchmark oil for May delivery was down $1.52 to $91.98 a barrel. On Wednesday, oil gained 80 cents as the Federal Reserve reaffirmed its commitment to continue its monetary stimulus program.
European jitters have escalated since the government in Cyprus rejected a bailout plan Tuesday that would have taxed bank deposits. Without a bailout deal, some of Cyprus' banks could collapse, devastating the country's economy and potentially forcing it to exit the euro currency.
Brent crude, used to price many kinds of oil imported by U.S. refineries, was down $1.16 to $107.56 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.
In the U.S., the average price for a gallon of gasoline dropped a penny to $3.69. That's 17 cents below a year ago, when oil was trading at $107 a barrel.
In other energy futures trading on the Nymex:
— Wholesale gasoline fell 5 cents to $3.05 a gallon.
— Heating oil dropped 3 cents to $2.97 a gallon.
— Natural gas fell 5 cents to $3.91 per 1,000 cubic feet.
Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report. | <urn:uuid:7b73cc31-ab09-47ea-92ef-096083658421> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.canada.com/business/energy-resources/prices+drop+below+barrel+uncertainty+over+cyprus/8132974/story.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934027 | 318 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Having just implemented this, I have a pretty basic question about how authentication and oauth work together. I have a sample web app client (ckclient) that accesses a REST API (commitapi) for managing their commitments. This follows the model of having an app like LinkedIn displaying a user's Tweets (via Twitter) as described in: http://www.slideshare.net/coldfumonkeh/oauth-demystified-hopefully
In my simple app, a user goes to the web app client and asks to see their commitments. I am using Restlet and the user is redirected to a page where they can choose their OpenId provider and login. They are they redirected to a page where they can approve access to their commitment resources. Everything works fine.
But, the web app client doesn't know who the user is! All the authentication is done with the REST API, not with the web app client.
So my first question is... is this a bug or a feature?
My guess at the answer is that this is a "feature" - that is the way Oauth works - you don't WANT the web app client to know the userid/email address stored with the resource server (commitkeeper in my case, Twitter in the slideshare above).
If that is correct, then if I want the web app client to know who the user is, the web app client should provide user authentication. Since I am using Google's UserService on the server side, I also implemented UserService based authentication on the web app client. And now, if the user also does the web app client authentication, then the web app client has the identity of the user. So that is all good.
Combining these two also works - but I can't quite understand why.
- On the web app, I login through Google's userService (technically with a GaeAuthenticator, that only uses Google accounts). Now the web app knows who I am and can display my email address.
- From the web app, I ask the server for my commitments. The server responds by giving me the login page where I can pick my OpenId provider.
2a. If I pick Google, the UserService seems to know that I have already logged in through the web app and shows me my commitments.
2b. If I pick Yahoo (or something else), I have to authenticate with Yahoo and then I am shown the commitments for that Yahoo user. This all seems fine to me - except for how does the UserService know that I already logged in? The webclient is at x.appspot.com and the server is at y.appspot.com. Is the answer as simple as the UserService is integrated across all of appspot.com?
In any case, thanks to anyone who can answer these two questions - or just confirm that I am on the right path.
(Note: I am using Google's UserService to create the login urls, my web app client and resource server are on appspot, using Federated Authentication, and all this is Java). | <urn:uuid:27e4797d-87e9-4558-a9a5-d68607fccc3e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://facebook.stackoverflow.com/questions/11337369/handling-authentication-openid-with-oauth-on-google-app-engine-two-questions | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939488 | 643 | 1.5 | 2 |
[talk-au] mapping data on the NSW north coast, and a request for road designation clarification
ericr at wamble.net
Thu Jan 31 22:48:06 GMT 2008
On Friday 01 February 2008 07:56:53 Brent Easton wrote:
> Hi Eric,
> Great work. I love that part of the world!
> Have a look at the tagging guidelines here:
> Remember, these are just guidelines, but give a general plan to follow.
Yep. I based my tagging on that page.
> I would generally mark the major 'smaller country roads linking towns' as
> Secondary rather that Tertiary. Tertiary roads are through roads that
> aren't necessarily a direct route between two roads. They may be the
> flood-free back route, or the road out to popular lookout, or a scenic
> drive. I use secondary for all the main connecting routes between towns
> that are not major highways or state routes.
My guiding principal was that the roads which were signposted as "lismore
44km" etc. were part of the tertiary network ie. the rosedale road, since it
is the main back road, but roads like Binna Burra Road and Coorabell Road are
really for local access.
> But there is room for discretion here since NSW does not have a very
> developed numbering system. For example, I would probably mark the
> Summerland way from Grafton to Casino as Primary.
I guess there's a case for that, but I'd reserve primary for marked highways
like the Bruxner and Pacific, rather than Summerland Way and Orara Way. In
the latter case, people travelling between Grafton and Coffs Harbour will
take the Pacific Highway as their primary/preferred route unless they're
sightseeing or have a more local interest, in which case Orara Way would be a
> By The Way, there is a problem with tracks you have uploaded around
> Mullumbimby - they have way too many points. It looks like you have loaded
> a GPS track into JOSM, converted it to a track and directly uploaded it.
> Please don't do this as it adds a huge burden to all of the editing and
> downstream processing tools. It makes editing with JOSM extremely
> difficult, and makes rendering of that area very slow.
Nope. I uploaded tracks via the OSM interface, and then hand-traced over them
to create the data. Some of the GPS traces are dodgey since I was using an
Garmin Edge 305 on the bicycle, and it drops out more frequently under trees.
Eureka Road and Wilson's Creek Road in particular suffer here, but for the
latter I also drove over it using my Nokia N800 and a bluetooth GPS receiver
to get better traces.
Because a lot of that road (and others in the area) are quite twisty (my uncle
calls it a goat track :) ), I took pains to try and capture that, so I use a
resolution in JOSM of about 35 metres when placing data points. Further
south, where the roads are longer and straighter, I was working with a
resolution of about 100 metres to do the same.
> A good compromise is to use the 'Simplify track' button in JOSM which
> removes unneccessary nodes in sections of the track that have no bends, but
> leaves them alone on the curves. For example, on the Coolamon Scenic Drive
> it removed 2/3's of the nodes with affecting track definition.
I'll have to look more into that. Thanks.
> *********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
> On 31/01/2008 at 11:24 PM Eric Rose wrote:
> >I've been gradually creating data from the GPS traces I took over
> >on the NSW North Coast, and have filled in some of the region around
> >and from Lismore down to Grafton via Casino. If someone wanted to look
> >what I've done and suggest any improvements, or mis-tagging, I would
> >appreciate the feedback.
> >Part of what I would like comment on, is the road types. From what I've
> >highways such as the Pacific and Bruxner are tagged as primary, major
> >are secondary (for instance Bangalow Road connecting Lismore and
> >Below that, smaller country roads linking towns are tertiary and the rest
> >marked as unclassified, with no other designation accepted. Is that a
> >understanding of the system?
> >The question arises because, I see that some of what I would call
> >have been marked as minor (cf. an example south of Eureka, on the above
> >while some of what I would call tertiary (Lawrence Road north of Grafton)
> >been marked as secondary, and some that whould be unclassified as
> >in the same area.
> >There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious --
> >you so sick at heart that you cannot take part. You cannot even passively
> >take part. And you?ve got to put your bodies on the gears and upon the
> >and levers, upon all of the apparatus and you have to make it stop and you
> >have got to indicate to the people who run and own it, that unless you are
> >free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.
> > Mario Savio
> >Talk-au mailing list
> >Talk-au at openstreetmap.org
> >No virus found in this incoming message.
> >Checked by AVG Free Edition.
> >Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.17/1253 - Release Date:
> > 31/01/2008 9:09 AM
> Brent Easton
> University of Western Sydney
> Email: b.easton at uws.edu.au
There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious -- makes
you so sick at heart that you cannot take part. You cannot even passively
take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies on the gears and upon the wheels
and levers, upon all of the apparatus and you have to make it stop and you
have got to indicate to the people who run and own it, that unless you are
free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.
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More information about the Talk-au | <urn:uuid:662a3ef1-985c-4780-8a2b-5457af800a81> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-au/2008-January/000545.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934669 | 1,451 | 1.507813 | 2 |
I started learning today using a free programme online designed for kids, but ah well, you gotta start somewhere! I learned about the ‘home row’. lol.
Sarah's Life List
1. lose wieght
2. Become fluent in German
3. Become fluent in French
4. Save money
5. Learn to type without looking at the keyboard
6. finish reading War and Peace
7. Learn to kickbox
8. live in Sweden
9. get a first in my degree
10. Become more Self disciplined
11. Improve my grammar
12. become a diplomat
How I did it: I learned German for 2 years at uni and during this time we were supposed to read German novels as part of the course but I normally read the English translation as I felt that my German was not at the appropriate level. However I then realised the only way to get it to the appropriate level is to just read and practice. So my advice would be stop makin excuses to yourself and just do it! Start with children's books and work your way up. Read how I did it…
4 pounds lost! I have been cycling LOADS which is the main reason why I have lost weight. As I haven’t really changed my eating habits. Which I think it is time to do, otherwise it will take me forever to lose weight. So diet starting tomorrow as well as more excercise! | <urn:uuid:d78788ea-c20f-4623-8023-949066a92bc3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.43things.com/person/0605609h | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971971 | 297 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Mumba, Rachel (2008) Class, nation and localism in the Northumberland art world, 1820-1939'. Doctoral thesis, Durham University.
This study examines county identity in the art culture of Britain between c. 1820 and 1939. In doing so it tests the validity of the prevailing historiography of culture. This historiography emphasizes the growth of the state, homogenization of class identity and the importance of 'Britishness'. This thesis examines the historiography in relation to the artistic community of Northumberland between the establishment of the Northumberland Institution for the Promotion of the Fine Arts in 1822 and the Second World War. It argues that county identity, its forms and its survival, were as much due to internal factors as nationwide trends. It also asserts that much of the relevant historiography needs to be adapted to take into account the continuing strength of county identity and needs to see this county identity as often being as important as class in all areas of the art world. Furthermore, it demonstrates that the progression towards a 'nationalization of culture' was not always smooth or one way and that the idea of a growth in 'Englishness' and class identity needs to be reviewed.
|Item Type:||Thesis (Doctoral)|
|Award:||Doctor of Philosophy|
|Copyright:||Copyright of this thesis is held by the author|
|Deposited On:||08 Sep 2011 18:28| | <urn:uuid:b31a22b8-8fa9-41e6-b55f-e3d45d973184> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2243/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944533 | 302 | 1.640625 | 2 |
looking at the Victory Library tech papers on engine displacement, i understand .100 oversize is the biggest size piston, if a builder was to use a indian scout piston with a .130 oversize and fit the wrist pin etc what will happen to the cylinder casting if this engine is raced ?? in the literature it has a notation quote "will have temperature problems" does the thin cylinder wall cause overheating??
has any builders out there run the scout pistons for a few more cc when you already have stroker flywheels??
I guess there is no way to make a 45 WL cylinder "big bore" ?? is that correct.
I understand the K model top end on the WL, can the k model cylinder be bored bigger??
Just trying to map out a engine plan for the biggest CC i can get from a WL engine, from the Tech paper literature it looks like with the special 4 13/16 stroker flywheels the biggest we can go is 60.00" . | <urn:uuid:e2fa0739-bb66-4083-997d-671e941fbc45> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sscycle.com/tech/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11634&p=88329 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937261 | 206 | 1.625 | 2 |
310 Washington St, Boston, MA 02108 617-482-6439
Description: DOWNTOWN. Built in 1729, this venerable meeting house is Boston's second-oldest church. A number of heated town meetings that led to the Revolution were held here, including one called by Samuel Adams to protest dutiable tea and get it returned to England. Old South was also site of the pre-party assembly that set the mood for the Boston Tea Party. Today, visitors can take guided tours of the building and learn from exhibits and interactive displays what took place during those historic meetings.
Apr-Oct Daily 9:30am-5pm, Nov-Mar Daily 10am-4pm
Visa,Master Card,American Express
Visit Old South Meeting House Online | <urn:uuid:e2735777-e9e7-41f5-bc8c-a2fbfe4043df> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eliothotel.com/boston-travel-tourism-attractions/index.cfm?cat=17&subcat=400&biz=1523 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957645 | 160 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Madan Lal, one of the heroes of the 1983 World Cup, was born on March 20, 1951. Abhishek Mukherjee looks back at a competitive cricketer who was a giant at the domestic level.
There was a standing joke among the Indian cricket lovers of the 1970s and 1980s: Madan Lal apparently ran in faster than he bowled!
It was a fact that Madan Lal’s Test averages were virtually the inverse of his First-Class numbers (1,042 runs at 22.65 and 71 wickets at 40.08 in Tests, 10,204 runs at 42.87 and 625 wickets at 25.50 in First-Class cricket).
However, the fact was that ‘Maddi Pa’ was actually a giant of domestic cricket, and his nippy swing bowling, handy lower-order batting, and top-notch outfielder had made him one of the best utility cricketers of his era.
Madan Lal was not one of the glamorous stars of Indian cricket. Instead, it was the rather mundane story of an ordinary cricketer’s ascent to the top through hard work, diligence, and patience. There have been many more talented cricketers, but few have been as committed to the sport. In Kapil Dev’s words, “’Maddi Pa’ was a hundred times earthier than me.”
Early days: Playing for Punjab
Based on some excellent performances at school and university level, Madan Lal broke into the Punjab Ranji Trophy team in the 1968-69 season as a teenager. He took eight wickets in his third Ranji match against Jammu and Kashmir, and then in the big match against Delhi, he impressed everyone with match figures of five for 73, and wrecked Delhi with a spell of seven for 53 in 1971-72.
After a few series of commendable performances in Ranji Trophy, he shifted to Delhi in the 1972-73 season, and after several impressive performances, he was selected for the Duleep Trophy squad for North Zone. He did well enough to be selected for a series of unofficial Tests in Sri Lanka.
Opening bowling with Pandurang Salgaoncar, Madan Lal took 10 for 102 in the match, compared to Salgaoncar’s seven for 121. Between them, they blew away the Sri Lankans. As a result he was selected to tour England in that fateful tour of 1974. He started well, picking up seven for 95 against a very strong Worcestershire batting line-up. After two more decent performances against Yorkshire and MCC, he was selected to make his Test debut in the first Test at Old Trafford.
Bizarre dismissal on debut
Few people have encountered a dismissal on Test debut as strange as Madan Lal had. He began the Test well, taking two for 56. Then, as Sunil Gavaskar scored a masterpiece of a hundred on a green pitch, the English bowlers ran through the Indian batting line-up. Bob Willis bowled two beautiful deliveries to hit Srinivas Venkataraghavan’s off-stump, and then Farokh Engineer’s leg-stump. The two blows might have loosened the stumps at their bases.
When Madan Lal walked out, Mike Denness brought back Mike Hendrick for a fresh spell. Hendrick bowled one well outside the off-stump, and with the aid of some wind, the ball swerved back awkwardly, flattening the off-stump of a stunned Madan Lal. It then brushed against the middle-stump, and proceeded to knock the leg-stump out of the ground. One can easily imagine the poor debutant’s reaction when he turned around to see only his middle-stump standing. He performed rather poorly, and India were whitewashed 3-0, reaching a nadir at Lord’s when they were bowled out for 42.
After the disastrous tour, Madan Lal was not in the squad for the first two Tests against West Indies at home. Trailing 0-2, India picked Madan Lal for the third Test at Calcutta. He began with a power-packed 48 with 10 boundaries. After India were bowled out for 233, Tiger Pataudi gave the new ball to Madan Lal.
In a fascinating display with the new ball, Madan Lal removed Gordon Greenidge and Alvin Kallicharran, followed with the wicket of Roy Fredericks, and eventually finished with figures four for 22. He also picked up Viv Richards in the second innings, and India won. After going wicketless in the fourth Test at Madas (where India levelled the series), he was dropped at Bombay, and West Indies took the series 3-2.
His all-round performances were good enough for the selectors to pick him for the 1975 World Cup. As things turned out, Madan Lal bowled the first ball in the history of the World Cup, but did nothing of note barring a three for 15 against a very weak East African side. The next season, he took his first five-for against New Zealand at Christchurch.
Back to domestic cricket
For a while Madan Lal was a regular in the Indian team, especially due to his success with the bat. He was picked for the 1977-78 Australia tour, and took five for 72 in Australia’s second innings. However, he played only one more Test in that series. Kapil arrived on the scenario the next year, which meant that only one more seamer would be selected for India. The selectors opted for Karsan Ghavri, and Madan Lal was left out for four years — a span during which he missed 35 Tests. He went back to domestic cricket to hone his skills, and also played League Cricket for Enfield.
He began his comeback with a 223 against Rajasthan in the 1977-78 season. A year later, he took eight for 80 in the final against Karnataka to bowl Delhi to victory. However, he bettered that against Haryana next year, when he took a career-best nine for 31, followed by four for 33, to lead Delhi to an easy win against Haryana. Delhi won the Ranji Trophy for the second consecutive time. In the two seasons he scored 506 runs at 46.00 and 517 runs at 47.00 (with two hundreds), and took 35 wickets at 18.40 and 52 wickets at 14.57. He followed this with 498 runs at 67.72 with four hundreds and 42 wickets at 18.02 in 1980-81, and it was evident that a recall was on the cards.
The second innings
Sure enough, Madan Lal was recalled for the 1981-82 home series against England. He started the second phase of his international career in spectacular fashion: England were set a target of 241 in the first Test at Bombay, when he (five for 23) and Kapil (five for 70) bowled almost unchanged to bowl out England for 102. He followed this with five for 85 at Delhi, and it was evident that he was now the forerunner in the contest to open bowling with Kapil.
The 1983 World Cup
One of the most important reasons that India won the 1983 World Cup was the fact that they had several all-rounders. Not only did they have a champion of the stature of Kapil, but they had several utility cricketers like Madan Lal, Roger Binny, Ravi Shastri and Kirti Azad, along with Mohinder Amarnath. Their bowling attack was also suitable for the English conditions, with Kapil, Madan Lal, Binny, Balwinder Sandhu and Amarnath in their side.
Madan Lal began his campaign well. In their opening match against West Indies, he scored a very crucial 21 not out, and picked up one for 34 in his 12 overs, helping India to a narrow victory. He followed it up with three for 27 against Zimbabwe. Thereafter, he did not do anything impressive till the second Zimbabwe match, where he helped Kapil add 62 for the eighth wicket, and then picked up three for 42.
The last league match was against Australia at Chelmsford, and it was a match where the winner would face England in the semifinal. India scored a below-par 247 in 60 overs, and needed something special from their bowlers. Madan Lal led the attack with four for 20, with splendid support from Binny (four for 29), and Australia were bowled out for 129. After a convincing win in the semi-final, India met West Indies in the final.
The final is too well-known to Indian supporters to be elaborated here. To India’s credit, they did not give up even after being bowled out for 183. Sandhu deceived and clean bowled Gordon Greenidge, but at 50 for one, West Indies seemed to be cruising.
It was then that Desmond Haynes holed out to Binny at cover off Madan Lal. Then came the famous wicket — the wicket that has been televised, and viewed at least a million times by Indian viewers. Madan Lal pitched one slightly short outside off-stump, and Viv Richards pulled it powerfully. However, the ball rose a bit higher than expected, and the top edge flew towards heaven. Kapil ran a long distance and took probably the most famous catch in the history of Indian cricket.
The dismissal is typically remembered for the catch, and it is almost always forgotten that it was Madan Lal had actually taken the wicket. When the issue came up in the 2008 reunion of the World Cup-winning cricketers, a fed-up Madan Lal blurted out: “Bas karo yaar, I bowled the damn ball!”
Madan Lal did not stop there. He curved a ball beautifully away from Larry Gomes, and from 50 for one West Indies had collapsed to 66 for four. They never recovered, and were bowled out for 140, Madan Lal taking three for 31 in his 12 overs. He took 17 wickets in the tournament at 16.76 — next to only Binny’s 18 wickets — along with 102 runs at 34.00.
Madan Lal did well in the home series against Pakistan that followed. In an unofficial day-night match at Delhi, India were 101 for seven chasing 198 for a victory. The two Delhi men, Azad and Madan Lal, guided India to an unexpected victory. Madan Lal’s fine batting form continued when he scored 74, and added 155 with Binny (83 not out) for the seventh wicket from a hopeless 85 for six.
His bowling went on a steady decline, though. He scored an unbeaten 63 at No 10 against a fearsome West Indian attack on a fast pitch at Kanpur, but did little with the ball to retain his place. One poor series followed another, and Madan Lal became an irregular member of the side at best.
The third stint
Gavaskar was appointed the captain for the World Series Cup in 1984-85, and he insisted on Madan Lal. There was a general voice against “OT” (Over-Thirty) cricketers due to their lack of fitness, but Madan Lal proved them wrong with his fitness. He bowled brilliantly throughout the tournament — picking up seven wickets at 16.57 at an economy of 3.34. In the next tournament at Sharjah, he took three more at 14.00 and an economy of 3.23.
Soon after the ODI season, Madan Lal led Delhi to the Ranji final to meet Gavaskar’s Bombay. Though he scored 78, and took four for 42 and two for 57, it was a lone cause as Bombay romped to a 90-run victory. In the next year, though, he led Delhi to a Ranji Trophy victory, scoring 255 runs at 42.40 and picking up 21 wickets at 24.52.
The surprise recall
With his international career virtually over and restricted to ODIs, Madan Lal was playing for Ashton in the Lancashire League in the summer of 1986. However, Chetan Sharma was injured after the first Test at Lord’s, and Madan Lal had a surprise recall for the second Test at Headingley.
He scored a crucial 20, adding 54 for the ninth wicket with Kiran More; then, opening bowling with Kapil, he removed Wilf Slack, Chris Smith, and Bill Athey, taking three for 31 from 11.1 overs — almost identical to his figures in the World Cup final. Still not content, he scored 22 in the second innings, and India won by 279 runs, sealing the series. The Test turned out to be Madan Lal’s last. He did play a few ODIs, and his career came to an end after the 1986-87 home series against Pakistan.
He led Delhi to another Ranji Trophy victory in the 1988-89 season, taking two for 33 and two for 72 in the final against Bengal at the age of 38. Even at that age he picked up 27 wickets at 24.88.
Coaching and other responsibilities
After quitting cricket Madan Lal coached United Arab Emirates in the 1996 World Cup. He then took over the charge of the Indian team when Sachin Tendulkar was appointed captain. After a short stint, he became a member of the Selection Committee in 2000, and later shifted to politics.
(Abhishek Mukherjee is a cricket historian and Senior Cricket Writer at CricketCountry. He generally looks upon life as a journey involving two components – cricket and literature – though not as disjoint elements. A passionate follower of the history of the sport with an insatiable appetite for trivia and anecdotes, he has also a steady love affair with the incredible assortment of numbers that cricket has to offer. He also thinks he can bowl decent leg-breaks in street cricket, and blogs at http://ovshake.blogspot.in. He can be followed on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ | <urn:uuid:a98877e3-2a40-4546-9838-bb775b928d7a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cricketcountry.com/cricket-articles/Madan-Lal-One-of-the-best-utility-cricketers-of-his-era/24256 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98203 | 2,954 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Libraries & Archives in South Asia (LASA) is a collaborative effort to compile a guide to South Asian libraries and archives for academics and researchers in the humanities and social sciences. LASA contains detailed information about libraries and archives in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It aims to become a full-fledged portal to research in South Asia, for the scholarly community and by the scholarly community.
Many of the more than 900 entries in LASA have been submitted by users themselves. Previously, new entries and additional information for existing entries could be added by users directly through the website. We hope to return to that model in the future. However, for the time being, if you would like to have a library or archive included in LASA, or would like to suggest additional information or an edit to an entry, please email us at [email protected] | <urn:uuid:4a55bf5c-4571-4009-acf4-09071093e000> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dsal.uchicago.edu/lasa/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943126 | 195 | 1.679688 | 2 |
N.C.Center for Health & Wellness Making Connections Across the State
In its first three years, Project EMMA had impressive results in encouraging older adults to improve their healthy livestyles. Now, UNC Asheville’s N.C. Center for Health & Wellness is joining forces with Project EMMA organizers to ensure this successful effort can be replicated across the state. A recent training session held on campus was the first step.
Project EMMA, (Eat better Move More Age well), is a collaboration among the Council on Aging of Buncombe County, the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project and the YWCA of Asheville-Buncombe County. The project provided exercise classes and nutritious, locally grown food at six county nutrition sites, two senior housing facilities, and a home food-delivery system.
At the conclusion of its very first year, its funder, Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation, decided to renew its support based on its success—74 percent of participants noticed an improvement in their overall health, and 58 percent reported a change in a specific behavior that affected their health.
But one problem remained—how could Project EMMA be used as a model for other agencies across the state to establish similar programs.
Enter the N.C. Center for Health & Wellness, a new center at UNC Asheville that is focusing its efforts on becoming a state hub for the promotion of healthy living initiatives. The center wants to use its network of health and wellness contacts across the state to identify or develop tools for evaluating programs and replicating successful efforts in healthy living. Focus areas will initially be on healthy aging, prevention of childhood obesity and the enhancement of workplace wellness.
Project EMMA training was held at UNC Asheville in June with 16 participants from five counties across the region. The participants included leaders from senior centers and health care and fitness organizations for older adults. A panel of experts spoke about the logistics of Project EMMA and shared resources that will enable other groups to implement the project in other areas.
Laurie Stradley, director of state and community collaboration at the N.C. Center for Health & Wellness said, “Project EMMA has changed lives in Buncombe County for nearly four years, and it has the potential to do so much more if we can work together to replicate it in other areas. This training program is the first of many efforts by our center to foster opportunities for collaboration among community-based organizations to encourage healthy living, and prevent chronic disease and injuries among all North Carolinians.”
Wendy Marsh, executive director of the Council on Aging of Buncombe County, said, “The genuine interest in using Project EMMA as a prototype for improving health and wellness programming in senior service sites really impressed me. The questions were excellent, the creativity was encouraging, and I think people left talking about how to collaborate and make these changes happen.”
Another training session participant from the Council on Aging Cyndy Wallhauser, said, “Project EMMA’s success is centered around the collaborative efforts of our partners, like the YWCA, ASAP, the N.C. Center for Health & Wellness, and of course, the support from Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation. It is very exciting to take this replicable model to the next level by sharing Project EMMA with other communities and having a greater reach to older adults in North Carolina.”
To learn more about the efforts of the N.C. Center for Health and Wellness, visit http://ncchw.unca.edu/. | <urn:uuid:7e4a8b8f-7596-4b5d-b8c8-10ad4df76935> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.unca.edu/features/helping-ensure-healthy-lives-older-adults | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957994 | 731 | 1.585938 | 2 |
The subject of her talk will be “Voice of the Faithful: Next Steps,” and her question for conference attendees will be, “How do we inform the laity that it is their responsibility to become leaders and equal partners in the administration of Christ’s Church?” She is scheduled to speak at about 7:15 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 14.
For more than two years, serving as interim chair, Justice Burke directed the efforts of the National Review Board of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops investigating the causes and effects of the clergy abuse scandal and helping to establish guidelines and policies for effectively responding to this scandal.
Justice Burke began her judicial career as the first woman appointed to the Illinois Court of Claims. During this time, she also led the reshaping and improvement of the Illinois juvenile justice system. She then served on the Illinois Appellate Court and was appointed, then elected to the Illinois Supreme Court.
Before her appointment to the judiciary, she was a leading advocate for Chicago’s most vulnerable young people. As a Chicago Park District physical education teacher, she worked with children with disabilities and went on to found the Chicago Special Olympics in 1968. She later served as a director of that organization as it grew to become the International Special Olympics represented in more than 160 countries.
Justice Burke has served on several boards and foundations impacting the civic, cultural and educational life of Chicago. She also ran a neighborhood law practice that included representing the interests of children and families involved in neglect, abuse, delinquency and parental custody. In addition, she developed a very diverse practice that included criminal trial work and defense advocacy.
Justice Burke will join other conference speakers who have in-depth knowledge and keen awareness not only of the Church’s clergy sexual abuse scandal and its effects, but also of the clericalism in the Church’s hierarchy, theological and doctrinal underpinnings of Church teaching, the effects the reform movement has had on Catholics and the Church and what the future may hold for these issues. Speakers include:
• John Morgan, chairman, National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland;
• Rev. Donald Cozzens, author, international commentator and lecturer on religious and cultural issues, especially on the Church’s sexual and financial crises, and writer in residence, John Carroll University;
• Prof. Thomas Groome, theologian, author and Department of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry chairman, Boston College;
• Rev. James Connell, canon lawyer, pastor in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and advocate for clergy sexual abuse survivors;
• Jamie Manson, lay minister and award-winning columnist for National Catholic Reporter; and
• David Clohessy, executive director, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
Conference information is available at http://www.votf.org. | <urn:uuid:8236c8ec-6f36-40c5-b280-5df12bc4b942> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.prlog.org/11958089-illinois-supreme-court-justice-anne-burke-to-speak-at-voice-of-the-faithful-10th-year-conference.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967589 | 596 | 1.5625 | 2 |
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The New Jackals: Osama Bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism
On 26th February 1993, a massive bomb devastated New York's World Trade Center resulting in more hospital casualties than any event in American history since the Civil War. Ramzi Yousef, the Kuwaiti-born, British-educated terrorist who masterminded the attack, had been seeking to topple the twin towers and cause tens of thousands of fatalities. The attack was linked to the Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden. On 11 September 2001, Simon Reeve's book proved to be tragically prophetic. Yousef's original aim to destroy the twin towers of the World Trade Center was finally fulfilled when two passenger jets were hijacked and flown into the two buildings. A third plane crashed into the Pentagon, a fourth went down outside Pittsburgh, killing all on board but avoiding the wholesale slaughter of the previous three planes. During their extensive investigation FBI agents discovered that Yousef was being funded and sent on some of his attacks by Osama bin Laden, a mysterious Saudi millionaire. By the mid- 1990s a small group of extremists supported by bin Laden were found to dominate international terrorism. When bin Laden's followers attacked American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on 7 August 1998, killing 224 people, the US finally launched cruise missile strikes in an attempt to destroy his highly mobile secret organization. Highly detailed and yet immensely readable, The New Jackals sheds fresh light on the world's most notorious terrorist: bin Laden. Tracing the FBI investigation through interviews with FBI and CIA agents, this book reveals the painstaking process that will be going on now. It also sheds light on the kind of networks that exist across the world, that could implement such a horrific terrorist attack. In this book, Reeve warns that Yousef and bin Laden are just the first of a new breed of terrorist whose acts of violence know no restriction and whose motivation is to maximize casualities of their enemies, this prediction has come tragically true. He also offers evidence that bin Laden's organization my already have chemical and nuclear weapons and explains why the world could soon face attacks by terrorists with weapons of mass destruction.
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Archive for the ‘Health Products’ Category
Ever since it’s inception in 2003, electronic cigarettes have been steadily gaining popularity with smokers. This is because most of its users do consider electronic cigarettes as a much more healthier choice than the conventional cigarettes. With this smoke free electronic vaping device, both smokers and non-smokers won’t be inhaling any harmful smoke from the carcinogen that’s normally found in normal cigarettes. They will only be inhaling vapor mist that’s harmless and even environmental friendly.
The electronic cigarettes or e-cigs as it’s normally called are made to feel and look like the traditional cigarettes. While the conventional cigarettes contain tobacco, the e-cigs comes with a cartridge that contains liquid nicotine. That’s great news for the smokers who don’t like nicotine patch! An atomizer that’s fitted in the e-cig will turn the liquid nicotine into vapor mist that will just vaporize into thin air. The liquid nicotine, when inhaled, has a faster effect on the smoker as opposed to nicotine patch or even nicotine gum.
To help smokers to quit smoking the conventional cigarettes, the nicotine in the refillable cartridges for the e-cigs comes in different levels of strength e.g. 16mg, 11mg, 6mg and 0mg. The smokers can gradually reduce the strength of the nicotine until they are able to quit the habit of smoking and are able to wean their addiction to nicotine.
Since the e-cigs are definitely cheaper in the long run, it is no wonder that many people choose to try the e-cigs to help them with their effort and attempts to quit smoking. With the e-cigs, the smokers will not need to go ‘cold turkey’ when they try to start the process of quitting smoking. Instead, with the alternative to smoking, the smokers will be able to enjoy smoking the e-cigs while knowing that they are NOT actually smoking. It is definitely a win-win situation.
The modern society has facilitated us no doubt but on the other hand it has created many problems and the result is stressed out and depressed people. Even though in olden times it was difficult to survive as the technology was not that advanced and people have to work real hard and follow long procedures to get things done but they do not suffer from mental health diseases to be specific. read more
Herbaceous and grassy things are overwhelming the human minds now days. Markets are engulfed with natural and herbal items. Though usage of herbal medicine is getting popularity in these days but it is not new in human history because thousands of years ago, herbal medicines were introduced and used by ancient people. Ancient people were used to find solution of almost all type of diseases by using the herbs and they got marvelous results at that time. Herbal medicine history is also remarkable which actually belongs to or started by China in near about twenty eight hundred BC. Natural and herbal remedies are always useful for human being and they are not harmful and in this scientific era it has been proved that herbal treatment is a safe way as compare to unnatural and factitious drugs. There are many advantages of herbal medicines and some of them are being described here. These medicines are always affordable as they are not very much costly as compare to constructed medicines. One can purchase herbal medicines comfortably. Herbal medicines can be purchased easily without any doctor or practitioner’s prescription from any place. Herbal medicines carry good results with them but the main problem with human being is that he usually trust on artificial medicines rather than herbal medicines. read more
For those who are unaware, Probiotics are known to be those friendly microorganisms that are beneficial for our bodies. A large number of people go for Probiotics specifically for health-oriented purposes. The friendly microorganisms play an important role in developing our body’s proper immune system. Not only does it protect its host from the disease causing bacteria, but also comes in handy in body’s internal systems of digestion and mixing of nutrients and other food articles in the body.
Probiotics are also used by many to overcome the side-effects of anti-biotic medicines. Anti-biotic medicines quite often lead to cramping of muscles, gas in the stomach and even diarrhoea in some cases. The best use of a Probiotics therapy comes in the treatment of diarrhoea. Furthermore, it is also being experimented at present if Probiotics could also stop the ill effects of “non-friendly” microorganisms that include not only disease causing bacteria, but also parasites and yeasts. These “non-friendly” microorganisms often lead to greater upsets in the body such as vaginal infections, skin infections, diarrhoea and tooth decay as well. Small children are more prone to allergies and consumption of Probiotics can help in delaying the effects of allergies in children. Furthermore, Probiotics also comes in handy in curing the urinal infections in women, specifically.
Probiotics are not known to have any such harmful side-effect and are generally measured as safe. This is because of the fact that certain Probiotics are already situated within the digestive system of a human being. In various countries, Probiotics are also sold as health supplements. The health benefits of consuming Probiotics are strain-specific and all the strains are not considered as useful and therefore, consulting a practitioner who is well-aware about the use of Probiotics before consuming any Probiotics is advisable.
Modern lifestyle where renders great amenities, the same lifestyle becomes a curse when it comes to health and this is the prime concern for most of the people these days regardless of age and gender. Fast-paced life offers challenges every moment and one has to strive hard to meet these challenges successfully. This has changed the way we live, we eat and we treat us and as an aftermath we have to face health issues which has made the pharmaceutical and nutraceuticals industries a huge success. Wrong dietary habits have made fast food the popular choice that is no good except for complementing the fast lifestyle. Then there is issue of nutritional value of food as many of the essential nutrients are lost by the time it reaches our dinning table; some for the unhealthy farming practices and some for the processing. Even after food is in our body we lose so many essential nutrients for excessive use of caffeine and carbonated drinks. Then we have to fight against the stress and strain of this busy life that not only lowers our energy level but also greatly affects our memory and mental health. It is also found to be the underlying reason for most of today’s disease like high blood pressure, depression, memory loss and even heart diseases; beauty and fitness being the other badly affected domains. read more | <urn:uuid:d5822549-1cb2-4060-9a84-09c69d56f9e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.healthsafetytips.com/category/health-products | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963198 | 1,380 | 1.585938 | 2 |
When President Obama became President of the United States, something got triggered in Congressional Republicans. They all decided that this particular president must not succeed. Before Mr. Obama’s moving truck drove up and delivered the Obama’s personal merchandise to the White House, Republicans had already began their game plan – to fight, to argue and to disrespect the office of the President like no other time in this nation’s history.
So they fought and continue to fight. And they set new records for filibusters. And they criticize President Obama, for everything from the price of gas and oil – that has everything to do with market speculators and nothing to do with the president – to jobs lost in a recession that began primarily because of Corporate greed and the policies of Mr. George Bush.
Yes, the Republican’s game plan was, and is, in full effect. Every time they succeed in stopping a jobs plan, and every time they filibuster tax cuts for businesses, and every time they try to cut American’s rights, or manage to take away benefits that Americans have paid into, Republicans believe that Americans would blame the President.
Well Republicans, your game plan is flawed. Yes, you’ve managed to create an atmosphere in Washington of no coorporation and no compromise, but your expectation that the public would blame the president is not working out the way you planned it.
This new poll shows the disgust Americans are feeling about the job both Democrats and Republicans in Congress are doing.
Only 10 percent said they approved of the way Congress was handling its job, down from 13 percent in January.
The previous all-time low from Gallup was 11 percent in December of 2011.
Congress’s approval rating averaged 17 percent in 2011, peaking at 24 percent in May — it has been slowly declining since.
But don’t expect Republicans to stop now. Don’t expect them to do the job of the American people who sent them to Congress. Republicans would continue pushing against and fighting this particular president because there is something inside them that commands them to do so. And what ever that something is, Congressional Republicans are prepared to go down with the ship if it means Americans might think the president is a failure.
But their game plan is not working. We the people are paying attention… | <urn:uuid:9349cb2a-0806-421e-a792-881510d8ad9a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ezkool.com/2012/02/an-almost-impossible-new-low-for-congress-and-we-have-republicans-to-thank/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968518 | 474 | 1.609375 | 2 |
By Alan Sorensen
Work is progressing on the new Lincoln-McKinley Elementary School roof with just one hitch so far.
The architects and contractors were unaware that the facia around the perimeter of the roof was anchored by rebar, because it didnt appear in any of the drawings used to bid the job. The facia hangs down about a foot and a half or so from the roof and curls back in to the buildings faade.
When workers demolished the stucco covering the facia, they found no actual facia structure upon which they could attach the new structure.
As a result, a new design was worked up to attach 2-inch by 12-inch conduit-type fasteners to the rebar. The added cost to the project is estimated at $11,300. That cost includes $7,245 in labor, $2,350 in materials, and $1,600 in overhead and bonding costs.
Superintendent Kirk Miller assured trustees Tuesday night that the total cost of the project remains below the dollar amount the district approved because of the winning bid was so low.
The work must be done and is under way, Miller said in his written recommendation that the board approve work. If you recall, the bid for the project came in under the building reserve balance, therefore, the revenue is available in the building fund to cover the change order.
Jim Heberly, co-chairman of the board and an electrical engineer, said it isnt unusual for contractors to run into such problems on a job and that they have to be allowed for.
Miller said that Sunnyside was erected at nearly the same time and with a similar design as Lincoln-McKinley in the mid 1950s and that the problem didnt exist in the Sunnyside School reroofing project that was completed about four years ago.
The board of trustees unanimously approved the work. | <urn:uuid:1d90c83b-15e6-49e1-ac0d-af3fbbaa97d2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.havredailynews.com/cms/news/story-79953.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969971 | 391 | 1.59375 | 2 |
A stretch of Theatre Road waterlogged after the afternoon rain on Thursday that Met officials say could be the first in a series of scattered showers over the next 48 hours. A Telegraph picture
Monsoon is receding but the rain clouds that promised much and delivered little through the season might yet hold a surprise shower or two to make October seem like the July Calcutta didn’t have.
Thursday afternoon brought one such spell of lashing rain that lasted around an hour and tapered off to a steady drizzle till sundown, dragging down the Celsius to a notch below normal for the first time in a fortnight.
More rain has been forecast for the next 48 hours because of a low-pressure trough stretching from Bihar to the Bay of Bengal. “This trough is sucking in a lot of moisture from the sea, resulting in the formation of thunderclouds. That is why today’s rainfall was accompanied by thunder,” said G.C. Debnath, director of the Alipore Meteorological Centre.
The drainage network in parts of the city crumbled as usual on Thursday — Alipore recorded 48.7mm and Dum Dum 19mm of rain till 5.30pm — but the effect of the rain on the Celsius compensated for it. “I didn’t mind the rain at all, although I wasn’t prepared for it. It was getting very hot for this time of the year,” said engineering student Anirban Roy Chowdhury, who got drenched on his way home.
The maximum temperature, which had been in the 34 to 35 degrees Celsius range over the last few days, dropped to 32.3, a degree below normal.
The rain was heaviest in and around Kalighat — 80mm between 2.30 and 4pm — but it was Ballygunge that bore the brunt of waterlogging. Knee-deep water at Deshapriya Park, Lake Market, Ballygunge Place, Camac Street and Panchanantala slowed down traffic.
Parts of Southern Avenue, Rashbehari Avenue, Triangular Park, Sunny Park, Dover Lane and Chetla were also flooded but the water drained out within an hour of the rain receding.
It poured less in the northern part of the city, with Ultadanga and Palmer Bazar receiving 33mm of rain to Topsia and Dhapa’s 60mm. A few inbound flights were forced to hover over the airport for around 10 minutes because of low visibility.
The Met office said Thursday’s downpour wouldn’t be counted as monsoon rain. “Monsoon has not withdrawn yet (it is regarded as active from June 1 to September 30 in the entire country) but today’s rainfall was primarily caused by the low-pressure trough,” a weather scientist said.
The Alipore centre has recorded 51.6mm of rain in the first four days of the month, which is already more than double of last year’s October count of 23.5mm.
“Debasish had started his career as a contractual engineer with Bridge and Roof (a central undertaking) and was posted in Haldia. After his marriage in 2008, he took a new job and shifted to Punjab with wife Madhurima. We learnt about the differences between them after they came in January 2011 on a holiday,” said Debasish’s sister Sraboni.
According to her, Madhurima had gone straight to her parent’s house in Shyambazar, while Debasish came to Howrah. “A month later she sent a lawyer’s letter seeking mutual divorce. My brother went back to Punjab hoping things would settle down. But in March, Madhurima came to our house with Chaitali and a few others and demanded divorce,” recalled Sraboni.
Debasish came back to Howrah after quitting his job and met Chaitali to request her not to interfere in the family affairs. The discussion — in April 2011 — turned ugly.
While Debasish took up a job in Paradip and left in May, Madhurima lodged a complaint with Chatterjeehat police station under IPC Section 498A (torture) on September 29. Two days later, the Deys surrendered in court. Sraboni and her mother got bail but Debasish had to spend 26 days in judicial custody. The case is pending.
“Chaitali ruined our family but my brother did not get her killed,” said Sraboni.
• Thursday’s rainfall exceeded the entire October count of 2009 (47.9mm) and 2011 (23.5mm)
• June and July are rainier but October has already beaten the two in terms
of highest rainfall in a | <urn:uuid:16dd962b-0bca-4c76-af50-e301966cda64> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.telegraphindia.com/1121005/jsp/calcutta/story_16054448.jsp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975727 | 1,008 | 1.578125 | 2 |
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: ‘What are you doing for others?’”
With an emphasis on the slain civil rights leader’s commitment to service, a group of about 20 volunteers showed up to help clean Fred Moore Park on Saturday morning. Their work helped kick off local Martin Luther King Jr. Day observations, which continue Monday.
“I feel it’s really important for our community to be involved,” said Ericca Cordier, a Denton resident of three years. This is her second year to participate in the MLK festivities.
“These important events are always so under-attended and I think these positive events should have larger turnout, hopefully encouraging our youth to get out and be involved,” Cordier said while cleaning the park.
This message of service is just what Denesha Factory wanted when she proposed the idea to the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center advisory board.
“Since we weren’t going to have a parade, I suggested a day of service — because that’s what the day was mandated as, not a day of rest as we know it today,” said Factory, a recreation specialist at the center.
She thought the cleanup was a success.
“Volunteers were very excited and already making suggestions for next year,” Factory said.
After the park cleanup, residents headed down the road to the King recreation center for a celebration that included a candlelight vigil, gospel hymns and a dance performance.
Keynote speaker Alma Clark, a longtime member of the community, concluded the celebration with a heartfelt message that summed up the reason for the holiday.
“Our opportunity is now,” said Clark, who worked for 25 years at the University of North Texas. “Now is the time to sow the seeds of kindness and the seeds of service, volunteer … even if it’s just for an hour at your local school.”
Denton City Council member Kevin Roden said he was happy to be part of a celebration that’s rich in cultural significance.
“This is what King would want, to bring people together,” Roden said. “MLK Day continues to be a good time to educate the public.”
Loud applause broke out after Clark ended her speech by saying, “The dream is still alive. God bless America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, because you made it that way.”
MEGAN GRAY can be reached at 940-566-6885. Her e-mail address is [email protected].
MLK DAY EVENTS
Martin Luther King. Jr. Day observations continue Monday:
9 a.m. to noon — Community service project at Fred Moore Day Nursery School, 821 Cross Timber St., led by the Denton Faith Alliance. Volunteers will help with projects on the school grounds.
11 a.m. — Free flag football for youths at Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center, 1300 Wilson St. Call 940-349-8575.
3 p.m. — Rally at the University of North Texas Union, 1155 Union Circle. March begins at 4 p.m.; marchers will meet up with community members at Fred Moore Park at 5 p.m., then continue to Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center for the concluding celebration. | <urn:uuid:177b9568-e920-49d4-9776-2f222016c722> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dentonrc.com/local-news/local-news-headlines/20130119-to-serve-and-reflect.ece?ssimg=862502 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947888 | 733 | 1.757813 | 2 |
The recent move by Congress to extend unemployment benefits drew a heavy response from bewildered readers who have been hearing conflicting stories about who is eligible and who isn’t.
That’s not surprising. The current program involves multiple layers of extensions for 50 separate state-run programs. To make matters worse, the latest round of extensions took so long to approve, the program is now running up against a Dec. 31 expiration created by an earlier round of extensions.
The hope is that Congress will extend that deadline and keep benefit checks flowing to the millions of people. Here is what you need to consider if you’re trying to apply for an extension of your benefits.
My husband … has been laid off since Dec. 19, 2008. He was told by the state that although his previous extension was set to expire this week, he will receive another 13-week extension. I am confused between the state and federal extensions. Could you tell me exactly when his benefits with all of the current extensions will expire?
— Dina M., Tuscon, Ariz.
The simplest way to untangle how the programs work is to start at the beginning.
Unemployment insurance is just that: Workers and employers pay into state-managed funds that provide benefits to people when they lose their job. All workers get regular unemployment benefits for 26 weeks. Eligibility requirements may vary somewhat, but in general you need to show that you are available for work and actively looking for a job.
Returning to school to train for a new job, for example, may eliminate your eligibility if your schedule doesn't allow you take a full-time job.
Once you've exhausted the initial 26 weeks of payments, you can qualify for additional benefits under various extensions and programs enacted since the recession began. There are now four "tiers" of extra benefits that provide 34 to 53 weeks of benefits. There’s also a separate "extended benefits" program that provides another 13 to 20 weeks of benefits.
The original Emergency Unemployment Compensation extension was enacted in July 2008 and expanded in November 2008. Under this program, anyone who had exhausted their initial 26 weeks of benefits was able to get an extra 20 weeks of payments. Workers in all states are eligible for these so-called “Tier I” extended benefits.
The law also created a separate “tier" for workers in states where the unemployment rate was higher than 6 percent. That “Tier II” program provided up to another 13 weeks of benefits in those states.
So far, so good.
Much of the current confusion arises from changes that were made as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the "stimulus package") in February 2009. Under ARRA, Tier II benefits were expanded to include 14 weeks of extended benefits to workers in all states, regardless of the unemployment level. As a result, workers in all states became eligible for a 34-week extension (Tier I and Tier II).
But ARRA also included a provision ending all emergency extensions on Dec. 31, 2009. If you’ve applied for Tier I or Tier II by the deadline, you can continue to collect that tier for the full extension. But new applications for the next tier aren’t eligible after that deadline.
Fast-forward to this fall. With unemployment still rising, the House moved to extend benefits again in September. A lengthy Senate debate delayed enactment until November.
This new law created two new tiers. Tier III extends benefits for an additional 14 weeks in states with a jobless rate of 6 percent or higher. Currently workers in 20 states qualify. Tier IV should pay another six weeks of benefits to workers in states with an unemployment rate of 8.5 percent or higher. That would bring the total available to 20 additional weeks for workers who have exhausted both their regular benefits of 26 weeks and extended Tier I, II and III benefits of up to 33 weeks. All told, the hardest-hit workers could be eligible for 79 weeks.
But because the latest extension, originally written in September, didn't become law until November, many workers who sign up for Tier III benefits won't have exhausted that tier before that Dec. 31, 2009, deadline kicks in — ending all extended benefits. To become eligible for the next tier, you have to have begun collecting before Dec. 31, 2009.
Congress is working on a fix to extend that deadline.
Finally, there’s a separate, extended benefits program that’s currently available in 39 states. This program pays an additional 13 or 20 weeks, depending on factors that include the current unemployment rates.
To pay for this extension, most states are relying on federal funding provided in the ARRA package that expires Dec. 31, 2009. Unless Congress extends that deadline before year-end, workers collecting under this program may lose their benefits.
To compound the confusion over eligibility, many states are so swamped with applications and claims that readers are reporting major delays in collecting benefits when they move from one tier to the next.
“How long it’s taking to get these benefits out the door is a whole other can of worms,” said Maurice Emsellem, co-director if policy at the National Employment Law Project, which has been tracking the various benefit extensions. “We have an infrastructure for the unemployment insurance program that was totally falling apart before this recession. And this recession has pushed them over the brink.”
Wait times in California, for example, are among the longest in the country, said Emsellem, up to six weeks. Other states, like New York and Connecticut, have already begun making payments under the November extension, he said.
© 2013 msnbc.com Reprints | <urn:uuid:4e11a0b8-e564-4949-a133-7b06adccf087> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbcnews.com/id/34068716/ns/business-answer_desk/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962867 | 1,175 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Special Report: State Department's computer crime investigations go global
- By Patience Wait
- Nov 03, 2005
Over the past three years, the Computer Investigations and Forensics unit has grown from three people to 25 full-time staff members. Ten of them are State department employees; the other 15 are contractors.
Forensics is 'becoming more high profile. ... They [department chiefs] have made significant investments, in both money and manpower.'
'CIF Branch Chief David Trosch
In 2003, in a former Soviet republic, several people were tried and convicted of terrorism, and two of them received the death penalty.
For national security reasons, many details of the case are not available. But what is known is that the State Department assisted in gaining the convictions, thanks to the work of its computer crimes unit.
'There was an attempted terrorist attack and the target was U.S. interests,' said David Trosch, branch chief for the Computer Investigations and Forensics (CIF) unit in the Diplomatic Security Service, a division of the department.
The country caught a man with a bomb and learned from him the location of the terrorist safe house, he said.
'As they were going through the door, [a] co-conspirator smashed the computer on the floor,' Trosch said. 'Their security service tried to work it over,' but it was too damaged for their expertise and the country asked the U.S. embassy for assistance.
Analysts from Trosch's unit went there and tried to duplicate the contents of the hard drive, but could not because it was so damaged.
The case was urgent, so the embassy arranged to divert a military airplane to the country, so the CIF agents could bring the drive back to the U.S. and use a 'clean room' to dismantle the drive.Recovery led to convictions
'We never were able to mirror the drive, but we replaced the damaged head and mechanically manipulated the drive to recover about 75 percent of the data,' Trosch said. 'Based on that re- covery, the foreign government convicted several people.'
Much of the work that CIF carries out is not as urgent as that example, but the unit is on track to handle more than 200 cases this year.
Trosch estimated that a quarter of those cases involve counterintelligence, another quarter are criminal cases investigating passport and visa fraud, and a quarter are miscellaneous investigations.
The remaining 25 percent are related to internal affairs matters'Diplomatic Service employees using government computers for illegal or unethical activities, he said.
When a State Department employee turns on his or her computer, the first thing they see on the screen is a warning that the machine is the property of the U.S. government and everything on it is subject to search at any time.
But people forget that all the time, said Anthony Adkison, the former branch chief for CIF, who recently moved on to another assignment in the department.
'It's not that they use computers to do something they wouldn't otherwise do,' he said. 'It's that the computer is a new venue for them to indulge habits they already have,' whether it's gambling over the Internet or conducting personal business.
Over the past three years, CIF has grown from three people to 25 full-time staff members. Ten of them are State Department employees; the other 15 are contractors, Trosch said.
That mix is necessary in part because of the expense of finding trained analysts, but in part because the Diplomatic Service rotates staff to new posts, overseas and stateside, every two years. Adkison stayed in his post for three years to help the unit take shape, but he had to request a one-year extension to do so.
Trosch has been brought in to head the team from the Defense Department. As a civil-service employee, he's not subject to the rotation rule.
'I'll be here for a while,' he said. 'It's becoming more high profile. ... They [department chiefs] have made significant investments, in both money and manpower.'
CIF is broken down into two lines of work, Trosch said. Several agents provide support services for search and seizures, going on-scene to handle the securing of computers and other digital devices, while the remainder provide the forensic analysis to support cases.Network protection
As the terrorism example shows, the unit provides its services to many outside interests, including other governments and other U.S. agencies. CIF also handles the computer forensics examinations for schemes against the State Department's computer networks, such as phishing, where the department itself is the victim, he said.
In passport and visa fraud cases, CIF is not the lead investigating unit. Overseas, personnel in the embassies and consulates conduct the investigations, and in the United States, field offices handle the investigations. But CIF can provide appropriate language for search warrants, log in the evidence and handle media analysis.
CIF creates a CD or DVD with hyperlinks that is turned over to the case agent, Trosch said.
The department is making a significant new investment in its computer forensics capabilities. CIF is scheduled by the end of the year to move into much larger offices, with dedicated lab space for analysts' workstations, juiced-up cooling capabilities to deal with the heat generated by all the equipment, and even 'safe' access to the Internet, so connections can't be traced back to the State Department, he said.
'It's several million dollars' of investment, Trosch said. 'I'm in the process now of trying to project lifecycle replacement costs' for the unit's very high-end computers.
At the same time, he has to look ahead to new technology challenges.
'There are several areas we're going to have to pay attention to,' such as RFID. The department has mandated that passports'both American and those of other countries'will have to include microchips to facilitate checking individuals' credentials.
Fortunately, 'there's always a bit of lead time when new technology comes out,' Trosch said. | <urn:uuid:5bfdb452-4043-4fb3-846d-0654754fb5e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gcn.com/Articles/2005/11/03/Special-Report-State-Departments-computer-crime-investigations-go-global.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969821 | 1,280 | 1.507813 | 2 |
High Court, Decision of 17 November 2010, Football DataCo Ltd & Others v Sportradar GmbH, EWHC 2911 (Ch)
In this recent decision, Mr. Justice Floyd held that the act of copyright infringement by making a work available to the public by online transmission is committed only where transmission takes place (and not where reception occurs). In doing so, Floyd J has gone against precedent cases in Canada and the United States, which held that the permission of the copyright owner was required in the country where works were accessible on a website even where the website is hosted in another country. The approach also varies from that taken in UK defamation cases, where accessibility in the UK is sufficient to found jurisdiction, even if the content is hosted in another jurisdiction.
In this case, the plaintiffs are the various English and Scottish football leagues and Football DataCo Ltd, which is a company owned by the FA Premier League and which exploits intellectual property rights related to matches organized by the Leagues. The plaintiffs brought an action against Sportradar in relation to its competitor website, which provides live scores, results and other statistics relating to UK football matches, for infringement of copyright and database rights in a database belonging to Football DataCo comprising the statistics (goals scored, penalties, substitutions etc) from UK football matches. Sportradar stored the data on web servers in Germany and Austria but the website could be accessed from anywhere, including the UK.
The judge had to decide whether the claimants had a good arguable case in order to determine whether the English court had jurisdiction. The judge held that there was a good arguable case for authorization and joint infringement by Sportradar with UK customers but that there could be no primary liability for UK copyright infringement by Sportradar for communication to the public as no act of making available to the public had taken place in the UK. The act of transmission had taken place in Germany. The judge applied the same theory as is applied to broadcasts within the EU, which is that the place where the act of broadcasting takes place is the place where the signals are introduced into an uninterrupted chain of transmission: the so-called "emission theory."
The decision is good news for website operators who, if the approach is followed in other jurisdictions, will only need permission to make available copyright works from copyright owners in the country in which the transmission is made and not in every country in which the works are available. However, the judge's reasoning does seem to have overlooked some potential problems with this approach.
The WIPO Treaties and the EC Information Society Directive do not specify where the making available of an online transmission takes place, leaving a great deal of uncertainty and complexity in cases involving cross-border internet transmissions. Difficulties arise in determining the place of transmission, in particular, where there are multiple transmission points and many interlinked sites with servers in various jurisdictions. Floyd J's approach means it will become more difficult for copyright owners to bring action against infringing websites. If the "emission theory" for internet transmissions is adopted more widely, website operators will be likely to take advantage of being able to operate in their jurisdiction of choice but host content and make transmissions from foreign jurisdictions with unsophisticated and slow legal systems and laws which provide copyright owners with a lower level of protection.
UK copyright owners will be faced with complex issues of jurisdiction and applicable law when attempting to tackle website operators who could be based in the UK and targeting UK consumers but simply hosting the website on servers based in a foreign jurisdiction. The issue needs to be decided ultimately at international level so that a common approach applies globally. It is disappointing therefore that the Judge decided not to refer the issue to the Court of Justice of the European Union for a decision at European level at the minimum. However, the decision has been appealed. | <urn:uuid:9695e53d-b6cc-4500-9408-6ea1c50abca8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=3d1d66ec-1080-48d9-9611-45b538e38605 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965845 | 773 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Check the message box for Morbo's election vermin of the week, there's an interesting debate there (we may have to change the subtitle of the blog, you never know). The issue of Respect and the Greens is an interesting one.
The tug of war over the anti-war vote and the continuing heritage of the movement is actually between the Socialist Workers Party and the Greens, Respect is a medium in this case.
My opinion is that what is at stake, in terms of Respect, is bigger than two small 'left-wing' parties (we'll get onto the politics later). Respect is the best attempt sofar to constitute a new left in Britain. The anti-war movement is the big success story of the British left, so it makes sense to constitute a new political platform round the movement. In France (where the stakes are currently higher) you'd want something along the lines of the anti-cpe and anti-EU constitution movements.
The SWP understood this and chose to involve itself in the new party that was being formed around late-2003/early 2004. After taking a quick look, the Greens chose not to, and have been actively hostile to the newleft project ever since.
In so far as this is discussed, this fact is put down to Green sectarianism. But, that doesn't tell the whole story. The SWP went through a period of sectarianism during the 80s and early 90s, based on an analysis of the period of political and economic "downturn" in the working-class movement. It was able to come out of that period and relate to the outside world around the time of Seattle and the anti-war movement.
The question is, where does the Green's sectarianism come from. I think its something more deeprooted.
The first, and most obvious problem with Green politics is one of agency (that age old Marxist complaint!). By what means are Green politics brought to life? There's a variety of answers, from electoralism (by the way, is there a Green international) to direct action and advocacy. While the working class movement has secured various gains at various stages, the Green movement, though young, it has to be pointed out, hasn't made much headway. Has the electoralism of the Green parties shifted states decisively toward eco-friendly policy? Have the stunts of Greenpeace radicalised any significant sections of society to any great effect?
At the heart of Green politics is a contradiction. One wing of Green politics points to the left, to a democratically planned economy with redistribution of wealth in order to decrease mankind's impact on earth while sustaining standards of living. The other wing points to the right. Deep ecology, for example, maintains that industry and civilisation in themselves are the problem. Deep ecology essentially looks to turn the clock back. It is a reactionary philosophy with dangerous implications. A philosophy that can attract both Martin Heidegger and Prince Charles.
Whether or not the Greens decide to throw their lot in with the new left project in Britain depends upon which strand of Green politics wins out. As things stand the Green leadership know they have a left flank to cover. If the Greens move to the left they are likely to be subsumed by a more coherent and consistent left philosophy. While this might elevate left politics it would negate Green politics.
The definition of sectarianism is putting your organisation before the movement. This suits the Green party to a t. | <urn:uuid:76206cf9-e739-4120-b70e-f58cf6a27040> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://throughthescarydoor.blogspot.com/2006/05/green-issue.html?showComment=1147516020000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958779 | 701 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Making our Way to the Jewel in the Desert - Phoenix International Raceway
49 years ago the Phoenix International Raceway started as an open-wheel racing venue tucked away in the desert mountains. Through the years there have been a number of updates and improvements to the track and facilities, making the Phoenix International Raceway a favorite destination for NASCAR drivers and fans. Even though the first NASCAR Sprint Cup races weren’t held at PIR until 1988, there is almost a half century worth of racing history tucked around the beautiful Estrella Mountains. From the first "Polish Victory Lap" to Arie Luyendyk's one-lap world record for speed on a true one-mile oval, PIR holds a special place in racing history.
The Arizona heat and mountain climate have created drastic changes in temperature and weather at the Phoenix International Raceway. Extreme weather coupled with the nearly 200 major races wreaked havoc on the track's racing surface, necessitating a pavement overhaul in 1999. After the "Great Pot Hole Fiasco" at the 2010 Daytona 500, the Phoenix International Raceway recognized the need for another repaving job. This repaving was also accompanied by the first major redesign in Phoenix International Raceway history. In order to increase the level of competition at PIR, the engineering team and leadership at the track discussed their plans with a number of drivers and Goodyear tire experts. Through their experience and expertise, coupled with the foresight and passion of the PIR team, the Phoenix International Raceway was redesigned to create a better racing surface for drivers and an enhanced view for fans! The Jewel in the Desert now boasts side-by-side racing views for fans going into Turn 1 all the way through and out of Turn 4; Spectators in the grandstands get a better view of the race, something PIR is very proud of.
Though Clint Bowyer's last trip to the Phoenix International Raceway was an eventful one, we’re hoping for less time in the garage and more time in Victory Lane in 2013! Whether you've got a trackside seat at PIR for the upcoming Subway Fresh Fit 500 or you’ll be tuning in from home, take some time to appreciate the track and soak in all the amazing landscape and racing history that comes with an event at the Jewel in the Desert! Best of luck to Clint and the entire 5-hour ENERGY® Racing Crew!
Labels: 5-Hour Energy Racing | <urn:uuid:0305a4ba-bb20-497b-8ff3-6ad43dcf0d06> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.5hourenergy.com/2013/02/making-our-way-to-jewel-in-desert.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930279 | 499 | 1.5 | 2 |
Several big banks have reported their earnings over the past week, and the results aren’t pretty: JP Morgan Chase & Co. had a 23% drop in profits, Citigroup’s fell 11% and regional bank PNC Financial Services Group suffered a 40% drop. While this kind of news primarily gives heartburn to investors and bank executives, consumers also have cause for concern: They may have won a significant victory over fees in last year’s disastrous attempt by Bank of America to implement a $5 debit card fee, but will banks’ poor earnings turn 2012 into the Year of the Fee?
“A lot of the earnings problems are coming from weak revenue on the investment banking side of the business,” says banking consultant Bert Ely. “I don’t think much of the pain there is going to transfer over to the retail side of the business.”
That’s the good news. The flip side of that is that banks are at the same time grappling with a continued streak of record-low interest rates, which impacts the side of the business that handles customer deposits. “They will attribute value to those deposits that bears a relationship to market interest rates. The problem is that it’s not going to end anytime soon,” Ely says.
This could drive banks to raise fees, says Mike Moebs, CEO and economist at financial research company Moebs $ervices. ”We are going to see and we have already seen in our research that prices for fees have gone up, in some cases appreciably,” he says. Overdraft fees are one example. After rising steadily for the last several years, overdraft fees shot up by $2.50 in the space of just five months last year, an unprecedented rate of increase, Moebs says.
Overdraft fees now average $30 a pop, and other fees are on the rise, too. Moebs says costs for less-visible services like cashiers checks and safe-deposit boxes have recently climbed.
“We’ve seen application fees for loans get to where they’re mandatory, and nonrefundable in some cases,” Moebs says. In some cases, he warns, these fees are folded into the loan processing documents, a strategy designed to earn more for the bank without ratcheting up the APR — and potentially scaring off customers. In this case, a consumer just focusing on the interest rate could miss an expensive part of the picture. Moebs says consumers are going to have to be extra vigilant to avoid these fees and read the fine print of their loan documentation to unearth fees buried in the paperwork.
Both analysts say banks will be continuing to explore tactics some began implementing last year, such as raising minimum balance requirements or requiring customers to have more than one deposit or loan account in order to have fees waived. They’re more likely to charge for higher-priced options such as paper versus electronic delivery of statements.
Ely says banks also will respond with cost-cutting measures such as closing branches. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reported last week that Bank of America might pull out of some markets, calling the move a “possible geographic retrenchment” in light of the lower earnings potential of smaller towns or cities compared to larger metropolitan areas.
“The number of branches has dropped a little bit over the past couple of years, and I think we’re going to continue to see that,” he says. So even if you manage to avoid being nickel-and-dimed by your bank this year, you might have a longer trip to get to a branch. | <urn:uuid:fe61f1eb-4fb3-437e-9e82-95be0d619420> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://business.time.com/2012/01/19/more-fees-fewer-branches-as-banks-cope-with-lower-profits/?iid=pf-main-lede/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964026 | 756 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Note: The Ads that appear
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control of Google Ads,
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Can Buy a Required "Hands-free" Headset For Your Cell Phone
for $1 -Fiction!
Summary of eRumor: This
email warns that cell phones used in cars will be required to
"hands free" after January 1, 2001. It comments on
the high cost of headsets then offers to sell you one for $1.
It also includes an attached picture.
email is a joke and that is obvious if you look at the
picture. Copies of the email are being circulated without the
picture, however, so the reader is left with the impression that
everybody in the U.S. is going to be required to use hands-free
phones after January 1, 2001, and that there is a really inexpensive
This is complicated by the fact that there are some localities that
are outlawing cell phones in cars without hand-free devices, but
there is no blanket regulation that will affect everybody on January
The picture that is supposed to be attached is of a man with a cell
phone jammed against his ear and that is being held in place by a
A real example of the story as it has
Subject: cell phone notice
I donít know if youíve heard, but starting Jan 1, 2001 you will no
longer be able to use a cell phone while driving unless you have a
"hands free" adapter. I went to Circuit City and they wanted $50 for
a headset with boom microphone for my cell phone.
I have come up with an alternative, working through Office Depot.
These kits are compatible with any mobile phone and one size fits
all. I paid $0.08 each for buying in quantity. Iím selling them for
$1.00. I tried them out on Erickson, Motorola, & Nokia phones and
they worked perfectly. A photo is attached. Take a look and let me
know if you want one. (See attached photo)
2 For 1
Special! SUBSCRIBE to
Our Email Alerts, Advisories, and Virus Warnings!CLICK HERE | <urn:uuid:cd32b052-1654-4ee6-8487-65b36d69333f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/h/handsfree.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955591 | 467 | 1.5 | 2 |
In the Winter 2011 issue, they bring us up-to-date on the latest news of the Society, and on page 2 there is a lengthy article about the "Missing Link: The Ancestry of John Spinney" by Brian Smith.
It is interesting to see how Brian took a few clues from the "History of Barrington Township" about Spinney's ancestry, and by using classic research in land petitions, and research at the New England History and Genealogical Society, Smith was able to go back three generations.
There is also a transcription by Ann and M. Edward Butt of the notes by Walter E. Abbott in "Surveying the Canadian United States Border as found in Stories and Reminisces of Walter E. Abbot" as how he talked about the boundary as it affected the fishing industry.
There are a couple of projects of the Society that may interest the readers of this blog, and they are -
The Society will soon issue a publication on the doctors and dentists of Shelburne from 1783 to 1965, and
The "Women of Shelburne County",which is an oral history project. It will be released on a DVD, and will be released early in the summer.
To look at the website, please visit them at http://nsgna.ednet.ns.ca/shelburne or contact them at [email protected].
Disclaimer: I am from Shelburne, and am a descendant on my paternal side of Andrew Barclay, a Port Roseway Associated Loyalist, one of the founders of the town in 1783. | <urn:uuid:7243f697-c640-4101-8b66-eeec388e98a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2011/04/shelburne-county-archives-genealogical.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948887 | 337 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Welcome to the bcda Induction Pack
The induction workbook and guidance documents have been written to assist care staff and managers in carrying out their duties and is meant to complement the new Skills for Care Common Induction Standards.
The induction workbook and guidance were designed to support an Induction Training the Trainer programme that was commissioned by bcda and delivered by Bordesley Institute, to managers and staff in supervisory roles, responsible for the induction of new staff. Birmingham Care Development Agency promotes and supports qualifications and career progression within the social care sector. bcda is dedicated to supporting workforce development within the independent, voluntary and private sector in Birmingham.
The social care sector faces many challenges, particularly, in relation to up skilling the workforce to meet the requirements of registration as directed by the Department of Health and through legislation, such as, the Care Standards Act 2000. Providing a high quality induction programme to all new care workers is just the first step in meeting the needs of staff and people who use the services and their carers.
The Induction Workbook files are listed below and can be to be downloaded from this webpage. Please note the guidance notes, workbook and six induction standards are as separate pdf files so will need to be downloaded separately. | <urn:uuid:f6dbce83-79c7-47b1-9d8a-57249a21d703> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://birmingham.gov.uk/cs/Satellite?c=Page&childpagename=SystemAdmin%2FCFPageLayout&cid=1223092710668&packedargs=website%3D4&pagename=BCC%2FCommon%2FWrapper%2FCFWrapper&rendermode=live | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966309 | 254 | 1.617188 | 2 |
An email is effective only if it is successfully delivered to the recipient. Moreover, getting the email to the inbox, versus the spam or junk folder, increases the chances of the message being read.
Deliverability is a crucial element in the overall success of an email program. It can also be frustrating, since Internet service providers continually change rules and algorithms that ultimately affect your email reaching the inbox. In this article, I will address email deliverability basics, offering four tips on reaching the recipient's inbox, which will lead to higher open and click rates.
Understand the Domain Breakdown of Your Subscribers
Every subscriber list is different. Depending on the ecommerce business, you may have a higher representation of a certain domains in your list than another. For example, if you sell school supplies, you will like have a larger number of school and organization-based domains, such as the .edu domain. For the majority of consumer products, however, most subscribers likely have email addresses from Yahoo!, Hotmail, Gmail, and AOL.
Your email service provider may have a function that allows you to analyze your database by domain. If not, simply export your database to an Excel spreadsheet. Then separate the email address at the @ symbol, and sort the domains alphabetically. You can quickly get percentages for each domain.
Knowing how your database breaks down is very important. It’s good to have diversity of email domains. This is because if one Internet service provider changes rules or algorithms and you are blocked or bulked with that provider, then at least the rest of your email was received by the other various domains. The lower percentage each domain accounts for in your database, the better. In my experience, however, the top domains — Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo!, and AOL — can total 60 to 80 percent of your file, with a Yahoo! or Gmail taking up almost 30 percent each.
Understand How Each Domain Performs
Determine what reporting is available with your email service provider. Some ESPs can produce reports to analyze performance by domain. This is extremely important to monitor. After every send, you should look at this report and see which domains perform above or below average. Those that perform far below the average open rate typically indicate an issue with deliverability to that domain. Once you identify the domains that are not performing, find out why.
How Domains Classify Mail
Many ISPs now look at a recipient's behavior when classifying mail as bulk or inbox. ISPs want a good email experience for their users. ISPs seek to minimize junk mail. The problem for marketers is that email our recipients asked for and opted into can be sent into junk mail. Yahoo!, for example, checks when a user last opened or clicked an email. If it’s been awhile, Yahoo! will automatically place that email into the user's junk mail folder. Many of the ISPs do this, and they are continually tweaking the algorithms that make this determination. Thus, as marketers, it becomes extremely difficult to get through some of these filters, unless your recipients have been actively opening and clicking emails for a long time.
In addition, when an email is being sent, ISPs will throttle the number of emails that are allowed in. It is important, therefore, for senders to also throttle their mailing process if you are sending a high quantity — 25,000 or more. When the email is being received, ISPs will also monitor abuse complaints. If a higher than acceptable number of people complains that the email is spam, the ISP will simply block or bulk the remaining messages. Thus it is vital to ensure your subject line is not misleading and your email is representative of your brand and company and what the recipient originally subscribed for.
Check your Sender Score
Your IP address is like your credit score. ISPs will look at this when accepting and filtering mail from you. Use tools such as Return Path’s sender score to see how you rank. It issues a number from 1 to 100, with 100 being the best. Anything over an 80 indicates a strong sender score. But it will also explain reasons that may have impacted your score. These scores change with every email you send. So check the score often and make sure yours is acceptable.
The less credit you have, the bigger impact a single email will carry. Meaning, if you do not send much email, and you hit a few spam traps or have a higher than acceptable abuse complaint on a particular send, that will have a much bigger impact than a high volume sender with a longer baseline that can withstand fluctuations better.
Note that smaller companies using ESPs such as Constant Contact and MailChimp likely do not have dedicated IP addresses. Instead, they use a shared IP from the ESP. These shared IPs likely maintain a high reputation and sender score, because the ESPs monitor them closely. If one sender is bringing down the score, ESPs will typically investigate and potentially block the sender's email.
What ultimately will impact your sender score is the quality of your subscriber list. Clean up your database often, make sure unsubscribe and change of email addresses are being processed timely. Then you should have no issues maintaining a strong sender score. | <urn:uuid:73c7c069-f625-47f3-a7a3-f267009b1f9a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/3880-Email-Marketing-4-Tips-for-Sending-to-Hotmail-Gmail-and-Yahoo- | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942973 | 1,057 | 1.8125 | 2 |
by Alfred Scott
This article appeared in the June 1997 Falco Builders Letter as part of "Goings On at Sequoia Aircraft"
All of you have spent many hours poring over the Falco drawings, often marveling at the detail and quality of the drawings. Over the years, I've probably spent at least 10,000 hours bending over the drawing board while producing these things. It's painstaking, slow work, and it's often physically painful as well because of eyestrain and back-aches.
Throughout this process, we have always had some sort of electronic devices around the office. First there were simply electronic, programmable Hewlett-Packard calculators. Then we bought an IBM System 6 word processor, a $20,000 machine the size of a desk with an integral daisy-wheel printer and a tiny six-inch screen on which you could see three lines at a time, and it also had a simple database capability for storing names and addresses.
To use it, you had to be trained by IBM, and I was never able to do the database stuff. On occasion, if I wanted to copy and paste a large section of text, I would get Jean Bowen to do it for me, and while the process was going on, I would retreat to my office in fear and hope the whole document would be preserved. I kept hoping that we could somehow use the machine for our drawings, but it was never to be.
We subsequently bought some Apple Macintosh computers and put them to work for word processing and the mailing lists. It was an easy-to-use machine with superior graphics, and I kept hoping that I would be able to do drawings on the computer and somehow use them with our construction manual. That was always the promise of the machine, but whenever I tried any of the programs, I was struck with the feeling of being defrauded-even when the programs were free, beta-test copies. While you could draw some things, there were always so many 'parts of the puzzle' that were missing.
Over the years, I bought, tested and looked at every CAD or illustration program I could find. In every case, they were always long on promise and short on delivery. You were always led to believe that somehow this program was the best, and that you could 'do it all' with the program. Yet when you actually tried to use it, you were left with a feeling of wanting to line every person at the software company against a wall and mow them down with a machine gun-so intense were your feelings at the distance between the promise, the possibilities and the actual thing that resided on your machine.
Frank Christensen, of Christen Eagle fame, was similarly interested in the subject of drawing on a computer. He bought an IBM FastDraft system and used it for some of the Eagle drawings and all of the Christen Husky drawings. When he moved to a Macintosh, he looked at all of the various CAD and illustration programs, and he settled on a program called PowerDraw-now known as PowerCADD-that was produced by a small family business in North Carolina. I became a beta tester for the software, later wrote some macros, and when they developed the ability to write your own external tools, I was the only one outside the company involved in the process.
We would make suggestions for improvements in the software, and I would write tools which would solve various problems, but in time it became evident that the little software company had neither the interest nor intention of refining the software to the point that it would become a really useful thing to have. Yet it contained an element of genius in the way the basic program worked, and it was clear that they were doing a lot of things very well.
To put it mildly, I finally threw up my hands and gave up on the idea of suggesting, cajoling or screaming at software companies. I did something which, in retrospect, was an act of madness and passion. I wrote my own.
Not the whole program, mind you, but I used PowerCADD as the base and wrote a complete set of drawing tools called WildTools which adds to the base program. I began by duplicating all of the basic drawing tools that come with the program, adding a minor improvement here, and another there. Over time, it became obvious to the coterie of CAD fanatics who hovered about the program that I was adding features at a faster rate than the software company, and people began making suggestions to me.
I would incorporate the suggestions and over a period of time, WildTools grew to an enormous stack of paper-now over 2500 pages of programming and larger than the base program. While many people were involved, Frank Christensen and I were the two principal co-conspirators, and in the process of working on this, I became aware of the enormous benefits of opening yourself up completely to criticism and seeing it as a friend of the product. Often wars would break out, and I would get screaming e-mail insults from people who felt strongly about something that I didn't yet grasp.
In programming, I found it easy to see the product that was something completely removed from myself, and I came to see the rain of insults and flame mail as a virtue. Whenever I'm on the receiving end of it, I always remind myself that criticism is a form of showing interest in a subject and that you can learn a lot more from your critics than you can from your good buddies.
WildTools began as a process of eliminating frustrations. When I began, I wanted to put my fist through the computer screen every ten minutes or so. But when we came out with the first version of WildTools a couple of years ago, the business of drawing on a computer was dramatically easier and all of the basic frustrations were gone. You could draw pretty much anything.
Then over the next year, I continued to add to the tools and somewhere in the process something magical happened. Everyone involved in the process describes it in essentially the same terms-that somewhere in the course of that year the business of drawing on a computer crossed a threshold. Drawing on a computer started to be simply wonderful. It became fun. People routinely report productivity gains of 25, 50 and 100% over the course of a day. Falco pilots and WildTools fanatics have in common the same sense of enthusiasm and haughty arrogance that no one else has what I have.
Then in February, I was working on an isometric drawing for the Falco brake system using WildTools, which has some specialized tools for isometric drawing. In some ways the process was easy and in other ways it was difficult, and I began to analyze why and how these things might be made easier. In this process, something 'snapped' in my brain, and I suddenly realized how to 'do 3D in a 2D program', and over the next three weeks I created the basics of WildTools 3D, a set of over 60 tools which makes child's play of drawing isometric and axonometric drawings.
But programming is an obsessive activity, and it involves long periods of intense mental activity. The ability is both a strength and a curse, and you spend entirely too much time living in your own head. As you get better at it, the more intolerant of error you become, and as you push yourself you become more difficult for others to deal with. In time, I was aware that I was becoming increasingly difficult, irritable and dismissive of other people. I would have flashes of anger, and it became difficult to sleep. At times I would wake up at 4:30 in the morning, tormented by some programming problem that was eating at my brain, and I would be at the office by 5:30 banging away on the solution-sometimes on Sunday morning.
During much of last year, I was aware that I was developing a low-grade depression problem, but I would bounce back by exercising and slowing down on the work. Then in early December, I found myself in deep trouble. I knew I was really burned out, and I felt completely aimless and hopeless. Nothing really interested me, and I began to drink more than I should.
I began to read articles about depression, and I started asking friends who had been through it about what they did, and what worked. Some were quite open about it, and others would talk about it only with their office door closed. I finally realized I was in a hole that I couldn't get out of on my own.
In some ways, men are their own worst enemies. It's difficult to admit weakness, and men routinely drown without calling for help. We're supposed to be 'John Wayne', and tough enough to take care of ourselves. If we have a problem with our hand, we'll readily go to a hand doctor and say "fix it". No problem with stomach, foot, lungs or liver. But our brain is the most important organ in our body, yet it's difficult for a man to walk into a psychiatrist's office and ask for help.
But that's what I did, and it's been a life-changing experience. There's something wonderfully empowering about admitting that you can't do it all yourself-you start picking the people who will help you.
At the outset, I knew little about depression, but it's a very common malady. At some point in their lives, depression hits one out of every four women, and one out of every eight men. It can occur for any number of understandable reasons such as a death in the family. The chief causes in women are hormonal (typically after childbirth) or low self-esteem that rises out of a lack of appreciation of the enormous burdens of child-rearing. In men, the typical cause is from excessive work, which was the case for me.
But whatever the cause, the effect is that there is an organic, chemical change in the brain. Often mental illnesses are a mental manifestation of a chemical problem. That's the case with manic-depression, and every mother knows what will happen to her children if she lets them have too much sugar. There's a chemical in the brain called serotonin, and depression is when you don't have enough of it. You become irritable, ornery, exasperated with other people, listless and sink into dispair. Brainwashing is nothing more than stress-induced depression, and then they have putty to work with. If it goes too far, you have a 'nervous breakdown' in which your nervous system shuts down completely.
And what's ironic is that it's one of the most treatable maladies around, 65% of cases are cured by medication alone, and it rises to 85% when the treatment includes some counseling-simply talking about how this happened to you and how you can avoid it in the future. There are a wide range of medications, Zoloft, Prozac, Luvox, etc., and they all work to increase the levels of serotonin. My doctor put me on Luvox and that night I slept like a baby and when I woke up I hadn't felt better in 20 years.
I've been on the stuff for about 6 months now, and I will not work nights and weekends anymore. I sleep like a baby, have much less interest in alcohol, don't have flashes of anger, and generally feel like a real human being again. The sun is shining, even on rainy days.
You begin to see your former self in a different light, and it's not always a pretty picture. I now realize this is a problem that's been 20 years in the making, and I had the problem for much longer than the past year. In some ways, it's like waking up from a 20-year drunk, and you look back at some of the things you've done with a sense of wonder, and others with a sense of shame.
Some people can hardly bring themselves to talk about this sort of thing, but I don't care who knows. I suspect there are many of you who are reading this who have been through the same thing, or are going through it now, and I hope reading this will help you deal with the problem.
It's easy to spot the symptoms of a glassy redness in the eye and a tendency to snap at your spouse. What made it easy for me was the realization that this is a problem of chemical balance, like getting the pH of your pool right, and when you get your head clear, you can get a lot more work done in the course of a day, and you have a much better relationship with everyone around you.
What the heck, all of you have known I had a crazy streak all along-if not, you wouldn't all be building a Falco! But I thought you might be interested in hearing a bit of how the Falco plans have led to this other activity. With this newsletter, we're enclosing some literature on WildTools and PowerCADD, and if you want to do some drawing on a computer, I can assure you that you need to look no further.
Go back to CAD & WildTools Welcome to WildTools | <urn:uuid:b51e67f7-b335-481e-b11b-665fe38bf1d2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.seqair.com/CADArticles/Programming.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984753 | 2,706 | 1.6875 | 2 |
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F. H. A. Scrivener (1813-1891) was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and published a variety of works of New Testament scholarship while working as a clergyman and headmaster. At a time when new manuscripts of New Testament texts were being discovered, his skills as a transcriber and collator of these texts were greatly respected. This volume is his critical examination of the King James Bible which chronicles the history of the Bible's various editions and the evolution of the text. Scrivener reviews the various groups involved in translating and revising the Bible. A detailed discussion of the use of grammar and punctuation is included, as well as appendices listing all variations and amendments occurring between the different editions. Considering the King James Bible from both historical and linguistic perspectives, this volume provides a valuable overview of a translation that has been influential for four centuries. | <urn:uuid:aee8df37-e1f1-4384-a864-91a4b709059c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ecampus.com/authorized-version-english-bible-1611-its/bk/9781108024631 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945396 | 469 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Koch Cash: As American Income Decreased, Billionaires' Brothers' Wealth Skyrocketed
The billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, richest men on earth #7 and 8 (but together with more wealth than #1) have been in the headlines all summer thanks to their pouring funds into SuperPACS designed to unseat President Obama and the Democrats. Oh, and as of recently they're also funding a bogus "astroturf" anti-Occupy protest.
But how have they been doing personally? Is all that SuperPAC and fake-protest spending making a dent in their massive family fortune?
Sadly the answer is no.
The lastest Forbes numbers, which are slightly different from the Bloomberg billionaire's index above, indicate that the brothers' have increased their wealth yet again by another quarter, from $50 billion to $62 billion.
That means more money to keep funding the attack on workers, environmental safety, regulations and the politicians who support these things.
How did they get so rich?
The International Forum on Globalization offers us a chart showing us the effect of oil derivatives on their fortune.
But there's a lot we don't know, the IFG reminds us:
Since Koch Industries is a private corporation, no one but David and Charles really know how they managed such high rates of return during today’s deepening recession. Since the economic recession began in 2008, the Kochs have exponentially increased their wealth by 58% while median family net worth dropped 40%.
“Koch Cash” has skyrocketed amidst increasing American poverty, rising gas prices, as well as record temperatures and drought due to increased carbon emissions.
Sure, the Kochs “built” it, but on all of our backs. The biggest burden will be born by young people, especially if the Kochs get their wish from a Romney-Ryan regime: to remove all carbon regulations from the EPA, and to deregulate oil derivatives. | <urn:uuid:1395183e-6ecb-46fb-9d64-3075e445d2fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alternet.org/hot-news-views/koch-cash-american-income-decreased-billionaires-brothers-wealth-skyrocketed?qt-best_of_the_week=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96194 | 403 | 1.546875 | 2 |
"Tony Pagoda, the protagonist of Hanno tutti ragione, is a character that stays with you, lingering long in the mind." L'Espresso
"An astonishing baroque first novel." Le Monde
Even literary critics dream. They dream that the best is not in the past. Paolo Sorrentino’s first novel, Hanno tutti ragione, is that dream come true. It is the story of Tony Pagoda, a Neapolitan singer with a colorful past. We meet him in the early 1980s, in a blooming and wildly happy Italy. Tony is a picaresque hero: he has talent, money, women, and an extravagant lifestyle – but he is not superficial. Among his friends are both extraordinary and miserable specimens, all of whom teach him something along the way. With his exuberant and restless wisdom, Tony is like a contemporary Falstaff, comically revealing the true substance of humans, winners and losers alike. When life gets complicated, Tony seeks silence on a short tour in Brazil. The new setting appeals to him and he decides to stay: first in Rio, then Manaus, where he feels himself crowned by a new freedom (not to mention obsessed with cockroaches). He lives eighteen years in humid, Amazonian exile – and then someone offers to sign a check for an outrageously high sum to bring him back to Italy, where yet a new life awaits. | <urn:uuid:fb086ea6-4468-44f1-b97b-a4c335f048a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.feltrinellieditore.it/foreign_rights/SchedaLibro?id_volume=5001384 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9549 | 296 | 1.515625 | 2 |
June 30, 2012
Let’s hear it for the Red, White and Blue. As the economy continues its sluggish recovery, millions of Americans are hitting the road (or the skies) this weekend in advance of the July 4th holiday. Some 42.3 million will travel 50 miles or more, according to a new AAA survey. That would be a 4.9 percent increase over the 40.3 million people who traveled last year – and tie a decade-high total set in 2007.
Falling gas prices are driving some of the wanderlust. But when July 4 falls in the middle of the week, Americans can “add vacation days to the weekend before the midweek holiday, after it, or even both this year, giving them a lot of options,” says Martha Mitchell Meade, manager of public and government affairs for AAA Mid-Atlantic.
Median spending on travel is estimated at $749, a 7 percent drop from last year’s $807. Travelers say they’ll spend more time with family and on sightseeing, as opposed to wallet-busting activities like shopping and entertainment.
As the holiday heats up, here are some fast and furious Fourth of July figures, courtesy of the Census Bureau:
In July 1776, the estimated number of people living in the newly independent nation
The nation’s estimated population on this July Fourth
Value of fireworks imported from China in 2011, representing the bulk of all U.S. fireworks imported ($223.4 million). U.S. exports of fireworks, by comparison, came to just $15.8 million in 2011, with Australia buying more than any other country ($4.5 million).
Value of U.S. manufacturers’ shipments of fireworks and pyrotechnics (including flares, igniters, etc.) in 2007
Dollar value of U.S. imports of American flags last year; the vast majority ($3.3 million) was for U.S. flags made in China
Dollar value of U.S. flags exported in 2011; Mexico was the leading customer, purchasing $80,349 worth
Number of places with “eagle” in their names; most populous is Eagle Pass, Texas, with a population of 26,248
Number of places with the word “liberty” in their names; the most populous one as of April 1, 2010, was Liberty, Mo. (29,149). Iowa, with four, has more than any other state: Libertyville, New Liberty, North Liberty and West Liberty.
Number of places with “independence” in their names; most populous: Independence, Mo., with a population of 116,830
Number of places with “freedom” in their names; most populous: New Freedom, Pa., with a population of 4,464
Just one lone location has “patriot” in its name, unbelievable as that seems: Patriot, Ind., population 209
Ranking of the frequency of the surname of first president George Washington, among all last names tabulated in the 2000 Census; other early presidential names on the list, along with their ranking, were Adams (39), Jefferson (594), Madison (1,209) and Monroe (567)
Dollar value of trade last year between the U.S. and the United Kingdom; that makes the British, our adversary in 1776, our sixth-leading trading partner today
7.2 billion pounds
Total production of cattle and calves in Texas in 2011 – so chances are good that the beef hot dogs, steaks and burgers on the backyard grill came from the Lone Star State, which accounted for about one-sixth of the nation’s total production. If the beef didn’t hail from Texas, it may well have come from Nebraska (4.6 billion pounds) or Kansas (4.0 billion pounds).
Number of states in which the value of broiler chicken production was estimated at $1 billion or greater between December 2010 and November 2011. So there’s a good chance that one of these states — Georgia, Arkansas, North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi or Texas — is the source of your barbecued chicken.
Almost 1 in 3
The chance that hot dogs and pork sausages eaten on July Fourth originated in Iowa. The Hawkeye State was home to 19.7 million hogs and pigs on March 1, 2012, representing almost one-third of the nation’s estimated total. North Carolina (8.6 million) and Minnesota (7.6 million) were also home to large numbers of pigs. | <urn:uuid:fdb104d5-582f-46be-a45d-2426e8a31c4a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/06/30/4th-of-July-Extended-More-Fun-Flags-and-Fireworks.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94997 | 957 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Red Green is a bearded Canadian carpenter who's really handy with his hands, and can find great uses for duct tape. He hosts "The Red Green Show", where he and his nerdy nephew, Harold, teach the viewers how to make excellent and useful crafts, as well as give marriage advice, from their home at Possum Lodge. Also, he plays games with Dalton Humphries where he must try to get him to guess a word by giving examples of it or saying a sentence it would be used in. Red also appears in a black-and-white series with the bungling Bill Smith were they show young viewers things like how to hunt and the existence of gravity. Other characters who frequently appear are the deprived Ranger Gord, who lives on top of a 100-foot tower on top of a 200-foot hill, has been guarding the watch tower for 16 years without a vacation and has no friends; the golf-obsessed loser Bob Stuyvestant who knows nothing about women; Buzz Sherwood, a daredevil pilot; and Winston Rothschild III, a loyal! Written by
Did You Know?
"Red Green" was the first Canadian television show watched in space, when a copy of the "Best of Red Green" video was brought to the Russian space station Mir. The video was trapped in the Spektr module following a Progress collision, and thus was never recovered. The videotape is now presumably at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, along with the rest of Mir. See more
Dalton's last name changes from Humphries to Humphrey over the course of the series. See more
I thought "Chariots of Fire" was a remake of "Ben Hur" with flame throwers.
Women can bear children. Men can't. See more | <urn:uuid:056d6479-7631-4881-85d2-276c46a6164a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101177/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964147 | 363 | 1.523438 | 2 |
How to make phone calls using iPad?
Making phone calls using iPad is possible using VOIP applications like TruePhone, Yahoo Messenger, Skype, etc. Viber won’t work as there is no iPad version, but I did try installing the iPhone version on iPad and I could activate it.
Now let us talk about a real application for iPad to make phone calls, but this will work only if you have your iPad Jail broken. I hate Jail breaking, but I had done earlier where there was no copy paste and some basic features missing.
Make Phone calls using PhoneIt-Ipad
This application is costing US$ Cydia and to use it you have to Jailbreak your iPad. You need a data connection to make phone calls and send SMS. This does not work with iPad 2, so make sure that you are not trying to activate the account for an iPad 2. You need to use headphones or speaker phone, does NOT support bluetooth headsets.
Problems with such applications are that when you go for an upgrade to a better version of iOS, you will have to wait till the update is Jailbroken and the software is updated for that version. iOS 5 is coming and if you are planning for an upgrade, then you may have trouble using this software.
Anyway, if you desperately need an application on your iPad to make phone calls, then you can go for this. | <urn:uuid:5050af95-ee0e-47c9-82fc-41f8cc778011> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kish.in/how-to-make-phone-calls-using-ipad/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948484 | 284 | 1.53125 | 2 |
This month is Torture Awareness Month, and so I have been making an extra effort to write articles that keep the issue of torture in reader’s minds. Of course, I also write about torture throughout the rest of the year, not just in June.
In 2007, I received a great deal of satisfaction writing about the issue of torture as it related to one of the Democratic presidential candidates in particular: Chris Dodd. Dodd ran for President largely on the issue of overturning the Military Commissions Act, a corrupting law that legalized torture and effectively ended the right of habeas corpus.
- John McCain voted for the Military Commissions Act. Barack Obama voted against it. -
In addition to his central presidential campaign web site, Chris Dodd established Restore-Habeas.org. That web site focused Democrats on the issue of the Military Commissions Act in a way that no other web site related to the presidential campaign did.
Sadly, Senator Dodd’s legislation to repeal the Military Commissions Act did not pass. The Military Commissions Act remains in effect.
Now, in the summer of 2008, I have discovered that the Restore-Habeas.org web site does not remain in effect. The web site has been dismantled, taken off-line.
One thing we’ve all learned over the last seven years is that standing up against attacks on American liberty is not a short-term project. It isn’t something we deal with in just one month, or even just one year.
With the Military Commissions Act still in place, torture remains legal, and habeas corpus remains defunct.
Please, Senator Dodd – restore Restore-Habeas.org | <urn:uuid:34c4e791-404a-40d2-b08f-0f475b8ab0b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/archives/2008/06/12/restorerestore/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950269 | 349 | 1.71875 | 2 |
STATEPOINT -- More seniors than ever before are living healthy independent lives well into their golden years. And a vast majority want to remain in their homes as long as possible, according to National Aging in Place Council.
However, most houses were not built to adapt to our changing needs as we age.
By 2030, Americans 65 and older will make up 20 percent of the population. For those wishing to make aging-in-place easier, there are several things to consider.
Eliminate clutter that could get in your way, such as planters and small console tables.
Pay attention to area rugs and other tripping hazards. And if you have wood floors and carpeting, install transition strips where they adjoin.
Evaluate your entryway
To ideally accommodate a wheelchair, the doorway to your home should be at least 32-inches wide. Even without a wheelchair, a wider opening can be beneficial when entering and exiting.
There are different doors you can install to meet your mobility needs and personal style. For example, Therma-Tru offers 42-inch wide entry doors in its Classic-Craft Rustic Collection and Classic-Craft Oak Collection, to allow for easier access and for dramatic and elegant curb appeal.
Also consider how the door swings. A door that swings in may be easier to operate than one swinging out. A remodeling contractor can help determine what your home can accommodate structurally, provide recommendations for styles and handle installation.
Tweak Bathrooms and Kitchens
Lowering countertops in your kitchen and bathroom can make using them easier. And consider grab-bars for showers and bathtubs. For their part, curbless showers and bathtubs with entrances that open can reduce the possibility of falling.
Get a Grip
According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 67 million adults will have doctor-diagnosed arthritis by the year 2030. For them, just turning a doorknob can be painfully difficult. Consider installing lever-style handles on exterior and interior doors.
Upgrade patio doors
Patio doors tend to receive more traffic than front doors. If your patio door is due for an upgrade, you can choose the classic elegance of a hinged door or the modern convenience of a sliding door. Both are available in two-, three- or four-panel configurations to ensure a wide opening.
Above all, when adapting your home, keep an eye on making your daily life easier. | <urn:uuid:8022ef0d-ff9a-4b0d-8685-7014cc3f0123> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.toledoblade.com/Homes/2012/06/15/Tips-for-making-your-home-senior-friendly.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933615 | 497 | 1.53125 | 2 |
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On Air Staff and WPM Interns
Wed August 3, 2011
Study About The Intelligence Of Internet Explorer Users Likely A Hoax
It turns out the ones with a below average IQ are a number of people in the news media — including us — who were fooled by an elaborate hoax that claimed users of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser were slow. We fell for it and so did others like the BBC, CNN, Forbes as well as the IT publication The Register, which we quoted.
The BBC reports that AptiQuant, the "company" that put out the study, had only recently set up its website and some of the staff images on the site were copied from a business in Paris, which denied any connection with AptiQuant.
NPR's attempts to contact AptiQuant have been unsuccessful.
In a Wired piece today, the magazine points out that if you looked at the data carefully, it doesn't add up. First of all, in a chart provided by the company, IE users have an IQ of 80, which is below average, yet Opera users were given a superior IQ of about 150. In an interview with the BBC, Cambridge statistician David Spiegelhalter noted something smelled fishy, saying "these figures are implausibly low – and an insult to IE users."
Also, Wired points out, the street address printed on AptiQuant's study is in "middle of an intersection in downtown Vancouver." A quick search on Google Street View would have a yielded a parking lot, a general store, a cafe or a bookstore, not a "psychometric consulting company."
In its story today, CNN spoke to Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant with web security firm Sophos, who said he thought the hoax might be "performance art," or come from a "mischief maker who gets a laugh out of all of this."
So with egg on our face, we say sorry to all the Internet Explorer users we offended out there. | <urn:uuid:8a9845ea-2a4f-4309-aae2-99def21cc450> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wyomingpublicradio.net/post/study-about-intelligence-internet-explorer-users-likely-hoax | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960307 | 485 | 1.726563 | 2 |
The Hours (film)
Theatrical release poster
|Directed by||Stephen Daldry|
|Produced by||Robert Fox
|Written by||David Hare|
|Based on||The Hours
by Michael Cunningham
|Music by||Philip Glass|
|Editing by||Peter Boyle|
|Distributed by||Paramount Pictures (US)
Miramax Films (worldwide)
|Running time||114 minutes|
The Hours is a 2002 drama film directed by Stephen Daldry, and starring Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore and Ed Harris. The screenplay by David Hare is based on the 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same title by Michael Cunningham.
The plot focuses on three women of different generations whose lives are interconnected by the novel Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. These are Clarissa Vaughan (Streep), a New Yorker preparing an award party for her AIDS-stricken long-time friend and poet, Richard (Harris) in 2001; Laura Brown (Moore), a pregnant 1950s California housewife with a young boy and an unhappy marriage; and Virginia Woolf herself (Kidman) in 1920s England, who is struggling with depression and mental illness whilst trying to write her novel.
The film was released in Los Angeles and New York City on Christmas Day 2002, and was given a limited release in the US and Canada two days later on December 27, 2002. It did not receive a wide release in the US until January 2003, and was then released in UK cinemas on Valentine's Day that year. Critical reaction to the film was mostly positive, with nine Academy Award nominations for The Hours including Best Picture, and a win for Nicole Kidman as Best Actress.
With the exception of the opening and final scenes, which depict the 1941 suicide by drowning of Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) in the River Ouse, the action takes place within the span of a single day in three different years, and alternates among them throughout the film. In 1923, renowned author Woolf has begun writing the book Mrs Dalloway in her home in the town of Richmond outside London. In 1951, troubled Los Angeles housewife Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) escapes from her conventional life by reading Mrs Dalloway. In 2001, New Yorker Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) is the embodiment of the title character of Mrs Dalloway as she spends the day preparing for a party she is hosting in honor of her former lover and friend Richard (Ed Harris), a poet and author living with AIDS who is to receive an award for career achievement. Richard tells Clarissa he has stayed alive for her sake, and the award is meaningless because he didn't get it sooner, until he was on the brink of death. She tells him she believes he would have won the award regardless of his illness. Richard often refers to Clarissa as "Mrs. Dalloway", due to her distracting herself from her own life and self the way the Woolf character did.
Virginia, who has experienced several nervous breakdowns and suffers from bipolar disorder, feels trapped in her home, intimidated by servants and constantly under the eye of her husband Leonard (Stephen Dillane) who has begun a publishing business, Hogarth Press, at home to stay close to her. Woolf both welcomes and dreads an afternoon visit from her sister Vanessa (Miranda Richardson) and her children. After their departure, Virginia flees to the railway station where she is awaiting a train to central London when Leonard arrives to bring her home. He tells her how he lives in constant fear that she will take her own life. She says she fears it also, but argues that if she is to live she has the right to decide how, and where, as much as any other.
Pregnant with her second child, Laura spends her days in her tract home with her young son, Richie. She married her husband, Dan (John C. Reilly), soon after World War II. On the surface they are living the American Dream, though she is deeply unhappy. She and Richie make a cake for Dan's birthday, but it is a disaster. Her neighbour Kitty (Toni Collette) drops in to ask her if she can feed her dog while she's in the hospital for a procedure. Kitty pretends to be upbeat, but Laura senses her fear and boldly kisses her on the lips. Kitty then pretends as if nothing happened. Laura and Richie successfully make another cake and clean up, and then she takes Richie to stay with Mrs. Latch (Margo Martindale). He is terrified of being left without her and she insists she will be back, but instead of running errands she checks into a hotel where she intends to commit suicide. Laura removes several bottles of pills and Woolf's novel from her purse, and begins to read Mrs Dalloway. She drifts off to sleep, and dreams the hotel room is flooded, awakening with a change of heart, and caresses her belly. She picks up Richie and they return home to celebrate Dan's birthday.
Clarissa appears equally worried about Richard's depression and the party she is planning for him. She frantically cleans and cooks while Louis Waters watches, before finally crumpling in tears. Although Clarissa herself is a lesbian who has been living with Sally Lester (Allison Janney) for 10 years, she and Richard were lovers during their college days, and he has spent the better part of his life in gay relationships, including one with Louis Waters (Jeff Daniels), who left him years ago but returns for the festivities. Clarissa's daughter, Julia (Claire Danes), comes home to help her prepare. Richard has taken all sorts of pills but tells Clarissa she is the most beautiful thing he ever had in life, before he throws himself out a window to his death. Later that night Laura, who is Richard's mother, arrives at Clarissa's apartment. It is clear that Laura's abandonment of her family was a profound trauma for Richard, but Laura reveals it was a better decision for her to leave the family after the birth of her daughter, rather than commit suicide. She has led an independent, happier life as a librarian in Canada. She does not apologize for the hurt she caused to her family (Dan and their daughter are also both dead), and suggests that it's not possible to feel regret for something over which she had no choice. She acknowledges that no one will forgive her, but offers an explanation: "It [her life] was death. I chose life." When Julia hugs her, she looks stunned and surprised, then moved by the demonstration of compassion.
- Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf
- Stephen Dillane as Leonard Woolf
- Miranda Richardson as Vanessa Bell
- Lyndsey Marshal as Lottie Hope
- Linda Bassett as Nelly Boxall
- Julianne Moore as Laura Brown
- John C. Reilly as Dan Brown
- Jack Rovello as Richie Brown
- Toni Collette as Kitty
- Margo Martindale as Mrs. Latch
- Meryl Streep as Clarissa Vaughan
- Ed Harris as Richard "Richie" Brown
- Allison Janney as Sally Lester
- Claire Danes as Julia Vaughan
- Jeff Daniels as Louis Waters
- Julianne Moore as Laura Brown (old)
Critical reception
The Hours currently has 81% positive reviews on the movie review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, with 150 of 186 counted reviews giving it a "fresh" rating and an average rating of 7.4 out of 10 — with the consensus that "the movie may be a downer, but it packs an emotional wallop. Some fine acting on display here." On Metacritic, the film holds an average score of 81 out of 100, based on 39 reviews. The four main cast members were praised, especially Nicole Kidman who won numerous of awards for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf including the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Stephen Holden of The New York Times called the film "deeply moving" and "an amazingly faithful screen adaptation" and added, "Although suicide eventually tempts three of the film's characters, The Hours is not an unduly morbid film. Clear eyed and austerely balanced would be a more accurate description, along with magnificently written and acted. Mr. Glass's surging minimalist score, with its air of cosmic abstraction, serves as ideal connective tissue for a film that breaks down temporal barriers."
Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle observed, "Director Stephen Daldry employs the wonderful things cinema can do in order to realize aspects of The Hours that Cunningham could only hint at or approximate on the page. The result is something rare, especially considering how fine the novel is, a film that's fuller and deeper than the book ... It's marvelous to watch the ways in which [David Hare] consistently dramatizes the original material without compromising its integrity or distorting its intent ... Cunningham's [novel] touched on notes of longing, middle-aged angst and the sense of being a small consciousness in the midst of a grand mystery. But Daldry and Hare's [film] sounds those notes and sends audiences out reverberating with them, exalted."
Richard Schickel of Time criticized its simplistic characterization, saying, "Watching The Hours, one finds oneself focusing excessively on the unfortunate prosthetic nose Kidman affects in order to look more like the novelist. And wondering why the screenwriter, David Hare, and the director, Stephen Daldry, turn Woolf, a woman of incisive mind, into a hapless ditherer." He also criticized its overt politicization: "But this movie is in love with female victimization. Moore's Laura is trapped in the suburban flatlands of the '50s, while Streep's Clarissa is moored in a hopeless love for Laura's homosexual son (Ed Harris, in a truly ugly performance), an AIDS sufferer whose relentless anger is directly traceable to Mom's long-ago desertion of him. Somehow, despite the complexity of the film's structure, this all seems too simple-minded. Or should we perhaps say agenda driven? The same criticisms might apply to the fact that both these fictional characters (and, it is hinted, Woolf herself) find what consolation they can in a rather dispassionate lesbianism. This ultimately proves insufficient to lend meaning to their lives or profundity to a grim and uninvolved film, for which Philip Glass unwittingly provides the perfect score — tuneless, oppressive, droning, painfully self-important."
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone awarded the film, which he thought "sometimes stumbles on literary pretensions," three out of four stars. He praised the performances, commenting, "Kidman's acting is superlative, full of passion and feeling ... Moore is wrenching in her scenes with Laura's son (Jack Rovello, an exceptional child actor). And Streep is a miracle worker, building a character in the space between words and worlds. These three unimprovable actresses make The Hours a thing of beauty."
Steve Persall of the St. Petersburg Times said it "is the most finely crafted film of the past year that I never want to sit through again. The performances are flawless, the screenplay is intelligently crafted, and the overall mood is relentlessly bleak. It is a film to be admired, not embraced, and certainly not to be enjoyed for any reason other than its expertise ... Glacially paced and somberly presented, The Hours demands that viewers be as impressed with the production as the filmmakers are with themselves ... Whatever the reason - too gloomy, too slow, too slanted - [it] is too highbrow and admirably dull for most moviegoers. It's the kind of film that makes critics feel smarter by recommending it, even at the risk of damaging credibility with mainstream audiences who automatically think any movie starring Kidman, Streep and Moore is worth viewing. The Hours will feel like days for them."
Phillip French of The Observer called it "a moving, somewhat depressing film that demands and rewards attention." He thought "the performances are remarkable" but found the Philip Glass score to be "relentless" and "over-amplified."
Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian rated the film three out of five stars and commented, "It is a daring act of extrapolation, and a real departure from most movie-making, which can handle only one universe at a time . . . The performances that Daldry elicits . . . are all strong: tightly managed, smoothly and dashingly juxtaposed under a plangent score. I have to confess I am agnostic about Nicole Kidman, who as Woolf murmurs her lines through an absurd prosthetic nose. It's almost a Hollywood Disability. You've heard of Daniel Day-Lewis and My Left Foot. This is Nicole and her Big Fake Schnoz. It doesn't look anything like the real Virginia's sharp, fastidious features . . . Julianne Moore gives [a] superbly controlled, humane performance . . . Streep's performance is probably the most fully realised of the three: a return to the kind of mature and demanding role on which she had a freehold in yesterday's Hollywood . . . Part of the bracing experimental impact of the film was the absence of narrative connection between the three women. Supplying one in the final reel undermines its formal daring, but certainly packs an emotional punch. It makes for an elegant and poignant chamber music of the soul."
Box office
The Hours opened in New York City and Los Angeles on Christmas Day 2002 and went into limited release in the United States and Canada two days later. It grossed $1,070,856 on eleven screens in its first two weeks of release. On January 10, 2003, it expanded to 45 screens, and the following week it expanded to 402. On February 14 it went into wide release, playing in 1,003 theaters in the US and Canada. With an estimated budget of $25 million, the film eventually earned $41,675,994 in the US and Canada and $67,170,078 in foreign markets for a total worldwide box office of $108,846,072. It was the 56th highest grossing film of 2002.
The film's score by Philip Glass won the BAFTA Award for Best Film Music and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score. The soundtrack album was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.
Additional awards and nominations
- "The Hours". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2010-07-01.
- "The Hours". Metacritic. Retrieved 2010-07-01.
- Holden, Stephen (2002-12-27). "''New York Times'' review". Nytimes.com. Retrieved 2010-07-19.[dead link]
- Mick LaSalle, Chronicle Movie Critic (2002-12-27). "''San Francisco Chronicle'' review". Sfgate.com. Retrieved 2010-07-19.
- By RICHARD SCHICKEL Monday, Dec. 23, 2002 (2002-12-23). "''Time'' review". Time.com. Retrieved 2010-07-19.
- Rolling Stone review
- "''St. Petersburg Times'' review". Sptimes.com. Retrieved 2010-07-19.
- Phillip French (2003-02-16). "''The Observer'' review". London: Guardian. Retrieved 2010-07-19.
- Peter Bradshaw (2003-02-14). "''The Guardian'' review". London: Guardian. Retrieved 2010-07-19.
- "BoxOfficeMojo.com". BoxOfficeMojo.com. 2002-12-27. Retrieved 2010-07-19.
- "BoxOfficeMojo.com". BoxOfficeMojo.com. Retrieved 2010-07-19.
- London Academy of Media, Film & TV,Nicole Kidman
|Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The Hours|
- Official website
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- The Hours - filming the railway sequences | <urn:uuid:63a2e25e-9453-4ab3-9f4f-f4c6a216d27b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hours_(film) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952585 | 3,401 | 1.546875 | 2 |
So you want to be an entrepreneur?
Now you might say that being an accountant is boring, well I would argue otherwise. As an accountant I get to work with some of the brightest and innovative entrepreneurs and trust me, it is very inspiring and exciting.
Right now is a great time for budding entrepreneurs. Consumers and businesses are receptive to new technologies that make their life easier and are more cost effective. And it’s the entrepreneurs who are coming up with genuinely valuable products and services that can penetrate the market quickly and are more likely to succeed.
From what I see there is great opportunity in particular for new web-based businesses. In most cases there are relatively lower costs and less time associated with getting a website up and running which then allows you to get traction or runs on the board much faster. It’s in this sector that I see some of the most creative and impressive ideas.
Let me give you an example, I work with a company called Viocorp. Set up in 2002 they are known as one of the leading online broadcasters in Australia. Viocorp is a great entrepreneurial example of how to take an innovative idea and transform it into a successful business. They began with making internet communications simple by offering an online video content management product. This idea has exploded and they now offer a whole range of online video and audio solutions and work with a swag of major international companies like AMP, ING and Tourism Australia both in Australia and overseas. Among all of this success they continue being innovative as they know their market demands it.
That is an example of success, but there are always bumps along the road, and I think two key phases where many entrepreneurs go astray. Firstly in the product development phase where they can spend too long refining their offering only to find out that it’s not relevant anymore or someone else has beaten them to the punch. Secondly in the commercialization phase where they spend too much money trying to grow the business and bled the company dry.
There’s no special formula that will guarantee you success. It’s mostly a determined belief in your product that will see you through. However, my three tips for entrepreneurs are:
- Be realistic. It takes most businesses five years to gain any momentum and start earning profits. Are you and your family prepared for the long haul
- Do some research before jumping in. You need to understand if your product is going to be relevant to the market. I’ve seen many good ideas fall over because the market just didn’t accept it
- Surround yourself with advisors to advise and mentor you to help you realize your goals. | <urn:uuid:c6b4069d-29ee-40da-b9ab-2230c885df31> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dynamicbusiness.com.au/blogs/so-you-want-to-be-an-entrepreneur-1234.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965455 | 541 | 1.5 | 2 |
A San Mateo fifth grade student was one of the top 10 winners of a Northern California creative-writing contest for fifth graders in San Francisco Wednesday night.
The Northern California "Celebrate America Creative Writing Contest," now in its 10th year, challenged fifth graders to write essays or poems on the theme, "Why I Am Glad America Is a Nation of Immigrants."
Melanie Kramer, taught by Carol MacKenzie at Meadow Heights Elementary School, came in fourth out of the top 10.
Taking first place was Aedra Li of Miraloma Elementary School in San Francisco, who went on to represent Northern California in the national contest, where she received an honorable mention. The third-place winner in Northern California was Kenyamarie Mahone of Hall Middle School in Larkspur.
The top three winners recited their entries at the awards ceremony Wednesday at the San Francisco Public Library, and all 10 were honored on stage with certificates and awards from Bay Area notables.
Among those acknowledging the honorees on the program were Congresswomen Nancy Pelosi and Doris Matsui and state Assemblyman Tom Ammiano. The three are among this year's 21 judges, which also included four other members of Congress – John Garamendi, George Miller, Barbara Lee and Jackie Speier.
The regional contest – which drew more than 350 entries from 17 schools this year – is organized by the Northern California chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association in cooperation with the national contest sponsored by the nonprofit American Immigration Council.
KQED and the San Francisco Public Library also co-sponsored the local ceremony.
A full list of the top 10 winners and awards ceremony program is attached to this article. | <urn:uuid:64637f15-255f-41ec-8c41-f5f2e146f94f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fostercity.patch.com/groups/schools/p/san-mateo-student-in-top-10-northern-california-writia2ebd97e60 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961321 | 348 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Smartphones make it easy to run a mobile office, but carrying your practice in your pocket carries additional security concerns.
Make sure you spend some time setting up and understanding the security functions (and limitations) of your smartphone.
Passwords are a must
If your phone is laying around with no password protection, anyone could pick it up and start rummaging around. If you have client information on there, that is not good. Depending on what type of phone you use, there are different security settings.
If you use an iPhone the default setting is a 4 digit passcode, which is better than nothing. Fortunately, you can switch off “simple passcode” and use an “advanced” passcode if you are running iOS 4.0 or higher. You can also tell your iPhone to erase all data after ten failed attempts, which provides a nice backup. For Android users, you can either use a swipe pattern or a standard passcode (if you are running Android 2.2).
Some apps, like Dropbox for iPhone, also allow you to setup a passcode to use the app. I love that feature. Like the iPhone itself, you can also elect to have Dropbox erase all Dropbox data after ten failed attempts to login.
Remote wipe provides another layer of protection
If you use an iPhone or Android device, you may have the option remotely wiping your phone. While this is a nice feature, it is not an excuse to leave your phone unlocked or ignore password protections.
One, you have to get to a computer to tell your phone to wipe itself. Two, not all remote wipes take place immediately—there can be a bit of a lag. In other words, if your phone is unlocked, by the time you order a remote wipe, whoever has your phone may have already found what that they were looking for.
Be practical with your phone
The biggest security risk with your smartphone is if you lose it. Treat your phone like your wallet—keep it on you at all times when you are out and about.
If you have a work smartphone that you are not required to carry at all times, don’t carry it at all times. Stick with your regular cell phone and leave your work phone at home when you venture out. If you are a solo attorney and use your smartphone for both, you need to keep your head on a swivel.
Avoid getting into the habit of putting your phone on a table while at lunch. Keep your phone in your pocket—like your wallet. One thing that helps keep me tabs on my phone is that I always carry it in the same pocket. If it is not there, I will notice almost immediately. | <urn:uuid:3c379d1e-b9ea-4af2-95f7-01e1223d4632> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lawyerist.com/smartphone-security-tips-for-attorneys/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945026 | 551 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Current region > Poland
Ourselves and Our Community
We promote safety, welfare, training, non-discrimination and charity to support confidence and moral across a healthy diverse community. John Sisk & Son is acutely aware of the impacts of construction projects on the local environment. We engage with all stakeholders including the local community, clients, end-user groups, regulatory and professional bodies at an early stage as part of project design and throughout construction. Our contribution to social progress ranges from our inclusive recruitment and career development opportunities, safety system, training and recruitment of apprentices, donations of time and finance to charitable causes, providing training to local schools, providing local employment & trade and supporting local community organisations. | <urn:uuid:cb8db3a9-532a-49b7-b816-e75670038f50> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sisk.co.uk/pl/sustainability/sustainability-action/social | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932154 | 138 | 1.515625 | 2 |
What do you do if you’re the lead singer of a huge rock band at a huge rock concert, and you notice an audience member has lost consciousness? Some people would say, “The show must go on.” But Thom Yorke of Radiohead clearly believes that caring for people that need it is more important than the sanctity of the show.
In the clip1 below from 2003, Radiohead is playing a concert in Toronto when Yorke notices an audience member has passed out. He stops the band mid-song (considered a huge no-no by many in the music business), instructs security to take care of the man, then deftly starts the band back up, picking up mid-song.
Doing the right thing rocks.
(via sandpaper suit)
The embedded video is actually an hour long, but this clip picks up at the 27:26 mark, just before the incident begins. ↩ | <urn:uuid:084696cb-6d54-4c39-bb49-ca23ce160327> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jasonclarke.net/non-tech/music/yet-another-reason-to-like-radiohead/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956537 | 195 | 1.570313 | 2 |
« on: April 30, 2013, 06:26:40 pm »
What about the impish bastard son of fermentation chiller:
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This is actually a very tricky topic to get into..... I'm in the HVAC business as well as I work on small appliance such as chest freezers. the biggest problem is that the compressor and system in general is meant to be run at below 32 degree f. It contains a what is called a low temp compressor which means that above that 32 degree ( or actually lower ) you are in essence making the unit work harder which you would think the exact opposite as you would think higher temps would equate to less work. the short answer to your question without getting into thermodynamics and the actual amount of cooling capacity of a compressor based on cubic footage is to #1 insulate to a ridiculous amount around the collar if you have a keezer #2 try to keep the ambient outside air as close to the temperature of the internal temperature without going below the compressor oil tolerance and #3 get the unit serviced like call someone in to check the refrigerant charge and to clean the evaporator coil etc... as the old saying goes proper prevention prevents poor performance. best of luck !!!
Well, I'm not going to run the regressions, but it sounds like you have, so you tell us.
This might help: http://alcoholjustice.org/campaigns/charge-for-harm/450-neglected-and-outdated-state-beer-taxes.html
Maybe legislators in some states are just lazy? | <urn:uuid:8de20cbc-2a44-4a48-8edb-1c53d5ad0f90> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?action=profile;area=showposts;u=552 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958926 | 352 | 1.773438 | 2 |
This is a solid reference work, and expands and updates on the earlier work that was itself a classic. It examines structured corruption in which organized crime, organized politics, and secretive corporate conglomerates, all help one another become wealthy at the expense of the public.
There are a number of fine points across the book that merit emphasis here, and one of the earliest is that of how the CIA and the Army G-2 deliberately nurtured Japanese criminal organizations during the occupation, because they were "anti-communist."
There is an excellent section of the book that focuses on how the US government fostering of political corruption in Japan in turn led to US corporate corruption, to include the funding of separate US corporate foreign policies anti-thetical to those Congress was trying to foster in the days before Congress abdicated its responsibilities.
Lee Kuan Yew would like this book. He says the only antidote to organized crime is strong extended families--natural families whose kinship equates to ethics. The book documents the spread of crime in Japan to every aspect of life, and one can only be saddened to see how the concepts of samurai honor and loyalty have been turned upside down.
Three ideas keep running through my mind as I read the book, two of them from the author and the third my own. First, the authors focused on the importance of following the money. He knew and wrote about this in the mid-1980's, but today the US Government is still marginally able to follow money, especially informal money that the FBI only discovered in the late 1990's with help from Dick Clarke (see my review of "Against All Enemies"). Following the money is *the* intelligence challenge of the 21st Century, and it is not something CIA can do--we have to find means of integrating all seven tribes, and especially business and banks as well as law enforcement at every level. Second, the author documents the weakness of Japanese law enforcement in a manner that highlights the weakness of US law enforcement at the state and local levels. Think of this book as traveling back in time to Japan, and then forward in time to the US, where we are now suffering many of the same problems. Finally, being a fan of Special Operations properly done, I realized that 21st Century warfare is going to be about man-hunts. It is going to be about tribal and criminal orders of battle, and about decapitating terrorist and criminal gangs without mercy.
The book spends some time on how US forces overseas are in fact a major stimulant and catalyst for crime, especially drugs and trade in women and children. By sending our forces and their money into austere conditions, we have actually created 750 "crime magnets" all over the world. And if you think our secret bases overseas are secret from anyone other than the US public, think again--one has only to ask the prostitutes. There is another important aspect of GI (Government Issue) life overseas: too many of our naive GI's get sucked into crime, first from small loans, then being asked to smuggle small things, then big things, to pay off the loan, and then being tracked down, after returning home, to be brought into international crime within the USA. I realized from this that DoD needs a crime counterintelligence and amnesty program, and we need to out-brief every GI on how to handle criminal blackmail when they encounter it, both overseas, at home, and post-service.
The book ends with a fascinating and thoughtfully-selected series of vignettes on the spread of Yakuza crime to 21 countries. The study of their passports is especially interesting, and makes us wonder why the US Treasury is still spending most of its time, two years after 9-11, trying to harass those trading with Cuba, instead of going after terrorist and criminal money.
Toward the end of the book there is a useful professional discussion of how inept governments are at identifying correct names and name variants when trying to spot and monitor criminals. This is a real problem. Within the US Intelligence Community, there is no standard for international names, each agency doing its own thing, with the result that even if we were to connect all the databases, the decades of unstandardized data entry across the archipelago makes many of our records too hard to use--almost as if we have to start from scratch.
One final point that really jumped out at me: the authors do a great job of identifying the real experts on Yakuza, across many countries, and what struck me was that they exist but no one has figured out how to create a virtual community of interest with the Internet such that all of them are security in touch with one another, sharing name databases, libraries, photograph archives, etcetera. The obsession with secrecy and national control remains the greatest obstacle to actually doing well against crime, and we appear to need regional information sharing systems that are NOT secret (just secure), and multinational regional "stations" against crime.
Closing comment: the book documents the incompetence of the US approach to manning its Embassies, especially in the law enforcement arena, where individuals are not language qualified, have no idea of the culture or history, and rotate every two years just as they are finally getting wise. We need a "long haul" manning strategy, and in my view should start thinking in terms of 10-year assignments with every second person coming in at the 5-year mark for solid continuity of intelligence and counterintelligence against these clear and present threats to national security and prosperity.
Outstanding book. A classic relevant to any country, any business, any government, at any level. | <urn:uuid:a35819cc-8aa7-4378-8ceb-2b245c54b831> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.amazon.co.jp/Yakuza-Criminal-Underworld-David-Kaplan/dp/0520215621 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955415 | 1,146 | 1.742188 | 2 |
President Barack Obama is set to unveil his ideas on Tuesday for tackling immigration, but Monday federal lawmakers from both parties launched their own plan in Washington, D.C.
Immigrants rights supporters in Jackson are calling on Obama to take action, saying the federal lawmakers' measure goes too far, while others say it doesn't do enough.
Democrats and Republicans came together in Washington Monday to unveil a plan that would tighten border security and allow more guest workers. Undocumented immigrants could get temporary status, but would have to pay fines and back taxes.
"People who are here living in the shadows would get a legal right to stay here and work," said Democratic New York Sen. Charles Schumer.
"I like the part about securing our borders," said Republic Rep. Andy Gipson of Braxton. "I like the part about strengthening the EVerify laws."
Some in Mississippi oppose a path for citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants.
“There is a legal way to come to the United States," said Dr. Rodney Hunt of the Mississippi Federation of Immigration Reform and Enforcement.
Hunt said the Republicans behind the plan are short-sighted and hurting the party.
"Democrats -- they're the ones that will gain politically by giving amnesty to 11 or 12 million people who are here illegally, because once they become legal and vote, they're going to vote for the Democrats," Hunt said.
Last week, immigrants and their supporters rallied at the Capitol in protest of immigration reform bills introduced this year. | <urn:uuid:fe1e5601-2c2f-48f6-a5c9-e580514f683e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wapt.com/news/central-mississippi/jackson/Local-leaders-react-to-lawmakers-immigration-plan/-/9156912/18315198/-/q4gmrb/-/index.html?absolute=true | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966121 | 305 | 1.59375 | 2 |
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — NASCAR will have its new track-drying system available for the Daytona 500, although the system likely will not have been perfected by then.
The goal is to get a track such the 2.5-mile Daytona International Speedway dry in about 30 minutes instead of what is typically a two- or two-and-a-half-hour process. A half-mile track such as Martinsville, which usually takes 45-60 minutes to dry, could be dry in 15 minutes.
Last year’s Daytona 500 was delayed a day and a half by rain, forcing NASCAR to run it on Monday night. The race was red-flagged for another two hours when Juan Pablo Montoya’s car crashed into a track jet dryer, causing it to burst into flames.
NASCAR officials were thin on details on the new system as patents are still being obtained. Using vacuums and blasts of compressed air and heat pushed through pipes behind a pickup truck, the system will create a wave of water as it blasts the track dry.
“What I declared to our team a couple years ago is, ‘Let's change the way we do it, let's innovate, let's get a system,’ and the goal is to improve it by 80 percent … and we're real close,” NASCAR Chairman Brian France said.
“We'll be debuting our first cycle, our first generation of this track drying system, which is pretty interesting, and we also are going to do it in a much more green, carbon-emission friendly way.”
NASCAR has 24 of the systems ready to go, said NASCAR Senior Vice President of Operations Steve O’Donnell. He there will be a mix of jet dryers and the new system at Daytona.
The Daytona 500 was the only race in NASCAR’s three national series postponed because of rain last year.
The new system won’t use jet fuel.
NASCAR will use Ring Power, a Caterpillar equipment dealer, out of Orlando to help with construction of the equipment.
“It’s using compressed air,” O’Donnell said. “There’s a lot more use of vacuums as well. It’s just different technology. … In the past we’d look at Daytona and say we need 12 jet dryers and call it a day. We’ve used that same philosophy for years.”
O’Donnell said the Daytona 500 issues did not add to the urgency.
“There was urgency from Day 1 that Brian announced it that we’ve got to get this done — we were really surprised at how quickly our guys at the R&D center could come up with something on their own,” he said.
“We’re not there yet. But the progress we’ve seen … has been really very promising.”
In the past, NASCAR would require tracks to have a certain number of jet dryers and pay for the fuel costs.
But O’Donnell said that NASCAR currently owns the new track dryers and could dictate that the tracks use them. Whether the tracks will eventually have their own is still to be determined, O’Donnell said.
Speedway Motorsports Inc. President Marcus Smith, whose company owns eight Cup tracks, has not seen the new system.
“I know nothing about it but would love (to know),” Smith said. “If it works better, then we’ll let them use it.”
Smith said the economic impact on fans having to try to stay an extra day — or having to leave without seeing the race — is considerable and this could have a major impact on a fan’s experience at the track.
“It’s a huge deal,” Smith said. “So many rainy weekends, … when you have the spotty showers throughout the weekend, it seems like it always happens where you have a window that’s gong to be two or three hours to dry the track.
“You finish drying the track and then in five minutes it starts raining again, that’s a big downer.” | <urn:uuid:7f4e6544-17e2-42ac-ae6f-27335ee12b25> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sportingnews.com/nascar/story/2013-01-23/nascar-2013-track-drying-system-rain-delay-jet-dryer-daytona?modid=recommended_3_5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966906 | 890 | 1.640625 | 2 |
A grave concern has been raised over poor quality of education in the country, which in turn contributes to poor economic growth and retards ongoing efforts to curb abject poverty.
Speaking at the National Economic Forum organised by an organisation known, as Tanzania Professionals, in Dar es Salaam yesterday, Phares Magesa, Tanzania Professionals’ president showered praise on the government for building many schools, but faulted a serious shortfall of poor quality of education being offered by the schools.
“Over the past five years, the economy has been growing by an average of six per cent, which is one of the fastest growing counties in Africa, but our universities and colleges produce low quality graduates who become obstacles to attain the envisaged economic development,” he said.
Magesa disclosed that the government has also given special the issue of infrastructure special attention due to the fact that the country is still struggling to produce reliable electricity and poor state of transportation system, for the purpose of spurring economic growth.
Meanwhile, Magesa called for proper strategies, including formulating laws and regulations ahead of gas and oil mining to enable the people to benefit from the resources.
He pointed out that the issue of East African Community needs to be considered and discussed in details especially on how Tanzania will benefit from it, as a country.
“Basically, we cannot avoid this issue, but we need adequate preparations and need not to fast-track the process towards political federation.
Regarding unemployment amongst the youths, Magesa said the problem was sensitive today more than ever before, calling for appropriate measures to redress the situation before it’s too late. | <urn:uuid:0f400339-4976-40cc-87a4-b844add87c32> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ippmedia.com/frontend/index.php/hl=23tion=com_content.com/29rontend/rf=11./milkwoodmanor.co.za/73/function.fopen?l=42351 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962386 | 334 | 1.632813 | 2 |
LONDON (AP) — British police and medics whose failures contributed to the deaths of 96 soccer fans in the country's worst sports disaster unfairly blamed the dead for the 1989 tragedy and sought to cover up their actions, newly disclosed documents revealed Wednesday.
The documents vindicated efforts by the victims' families, who had spent 23 years demanding a full accounting of the events at Hillsborough stadium that killed fans of the Liverpool soccer team. Most of the victims were crushed and suffocated in a standing-only section after they were herded there by police.
Prime Minister David Cameron issued a full apology Wednesday for the wrongdoing of authorities and the subsequent cover-up, saying that Britain had been shamed for more than 20 years by its reluctance to expose the errors that led to the deaths. Lawmakers in the House of Commons gasped and wept as he spoke.
Relatives of the dead had suffered the "failure of the state to protect their loved ones and the indefensible wait to get to the truth — and the injustice of the denigration of the deceased, that they were somehow at fault for their own deaths," Cameron said.
"I am profoundly sorry for this double injustice that has been left uncorrected for so long," he told lawmakers.
The tragedy took place during an FA Cup semifinal between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest on April 15, 1989, at the stadium in Sheffield, northern England. A total of 94 supporters died that day — two more died later, one in 1993 — and almost 800 others were injured when police officers herded around 2,000 Liverpool fans into caged-in enclosures that were already full.
The response to the disaster transformed British sports, bringing the introduction of all-seated soccer stadiums for elite clubs. That, in turn, helped the teams drive out the remnants of hooliganism that had long tainted British soccer and heralded a shift in the demographics of sports fans. Improved stadium safety meant more families and women attended matches, but having stadium seats also caused ticket prices to rise — pricing out some of soccer's traditional working-class fan base.
After an era in which violent English football fans had been the scourge of Europe, the changes eventually instilled new confidence in Britain's ability to host sports events. That attitude was reflected this summer in London's hugely successful — and trouble-free — hosting of the 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics.
Following a lengthy campaign by victims' relatives to learn the full details of the Hillsborough disaster, a government-appointed panel reviewed and released 400,000 pages of previously undisclosed documents from police, the government and local authorities.
Bishop James Jones of Liverpool, who led the panel, said the documents offered clear evidence of failures by British authorities. He said they showed authorities' extensive attempts to shift blame for the tragedy onto fans and some proof that a number of Liverpool fans were denied medical treatment that could have saved their lives
"The tragedy should never have happened," Jones said. "There were clear operational failures in response to the disaster and in its aftermath there were strenuous attempts to deflect the blame onto the fans."
Panel member Dr. Bill Kirkup, previously associate chief medical officer at Britain's health ministry, told reporters evidence showed 41 of the dead had at least the "potential to survive," although he could not be certain that a speedier response would have saved them all.
Tests were carried out on possible alcohol levels in the bloodstreams of the dead — including children — for "no apparent medical reason," and police officers had consulted a national database to check whether victims had criminal records, all in an effort to "impugn the reputations of the deceased," the report said.
Among its other conclusions, the panel found that:
1. Problems with overcrowding and crushes at Hillsborough were well known but ignored by authorities.
2. A total of 116 of 164 police statements were amended to "remove or alter comments unfavorable to" South Yorkshire Police, while the South Yorkshire Metropolitan Ambulance Service also tampered with statements.
3. Police and ambulance staff were slow to act and interpreted crowd unrest as a prelude to a riot rather than a sign of distress.
4. The senior police officer at the stadium falsely told his superiors that Liverpool fans had broken into the stadium and caused the fatal crush, while then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was told by police that drunkenness and violent crowd behavior were to blame.
Although some compensation payments have been paid by police, no individual or organization has ever faced criminal charges in connection with the Hillsborough calamity. James Saunders, a lawyer for the families of the victims, said Wednesday's disclosures meant that "those persons who have lied, concealed and distorted evidence should now be brought to account before the law personally."
Responding to the disclosures, lawmakers sharply criticized The Sun, Rupert Murdoch's tabloid, for its role in publicizing the false police allegations against Liverpool fans.
In an infamous front-page story headlined "The Truth," the newspaper inaccurately claimed that some fans had urinated on police officers who were attempting to resuscitate the dying and others had stolen from the dead.
Kelvin MacKenzie, editor of The Sun at the time, said he had "published in good faith and I am sorry that it was so wrong." Relatives dismissed his apology.
David Crompton, the current chief constable of South Yorkshire Police, also said he was "profoundly sorry for the way the force failed."
Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard, whose 10-year-old cousin Jon-Paul Gilhooley was the youngest fatality, praised the courage and dignity shown by the Hillsborough families and survivors.
"For 23 years they have fought for truth and justice on behalf of the victims and survivors of this terrible tragedy and all Liverpool supporters," Gerrard said. "Speaking as someone whose family directly suffered, I know the pain and hurt will remain. However, I hope that today's report helps bring some comfort, now that everyone knows what happened."
Cameron said Attorney General Dominic Grieve would likely apply to Britain's High Court to overturn the verdict from the original inquest hearing, which ruled in 1991 that the deaths were accidental. That would mean a new hearing into the Hillsborough deaths would take place.
Accidents at stadiums have plagued nations worldwide for decades. FIFA, the governing body for world football, says at least 1,500 people have died and about 6,000 were injured in 60 major incidents at sports events between 1971 and 2012.
David Stringer can be reached at http://bit.ly/b2tTK0 | <urn:uuid:c4b65b18-bcf8-4398-9c0f-357274ae3adb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nwcn.com/news/world/169438006.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980872 | 1,348 | 1.75 | 2 |
US 4080623 A
A color television camera including a plurality of camera tubes and an image registration system in which information is projected, via the beam path of the viewer, to a beam splitting optical system. A registration image is projected onto each of the camera tubes by providing a suitable end face of one of the prisms of the splitting optical system with a reflective layer or by arranging a mirror or a prism at this area.
1. A television camera including a pick-up tube assembly comprising a plurality of camera pick-up tubes and a beam-separation assembly for directing respective image-forming beam components onto corresponding ones of said camera pick-up tubes, a viewfinder, input optical means for receiving image-forming radiation from a scene and forming corresponding images on said camera pick-up tubes and including a beam splitter arranged to direct a portion of said image-forming radiation along a first optical path terminating at said pick-up tube assembly, and a further portion of said image-forming radiation along a second optical path terminating at said viewfinder, and means including an image carrier located in an optical path within said television camera and arranged selectively to project a registration-image-forming beam along at least a part of said second optical path towards said input optical means, said input optical means being arranged to direct said projected registration-image-forming beam along said first optical path towards said pick-up tube assembly to form a registration image on each said camera pick-up tube.
2. A television camera as claimed in claim 1 in which said image carrier is located in a real image plane of said input optical means.
3. A television camera as claimed in claim 2 in which said real image plane comprises a real object plane of said viewfinder.
4. A television camera as claimed in claim 3 in which said image carrier is a transparency arranged to be displaced out of said second optical path when not required.
5. A television camera as claimed in claim 3 in which said image carrier is a translucent screen and said registration image is selectively projected onto said translucent screen from a direction inclined to the axis of said second optical path.
6. A television camera as claimed in claim 1 including means for selectively interrupting that part of said second optical path nearest to said viewfinder and to optically connect said means for projecting a registration-image-forming beam to the other part of said second optical path.
7. A television camera as claimed in claim 1 in which the beam splitter forming part of said input optical means includes a reflective element arranged to project the registration-image-forming beam from said second optical path directed by said beam splitter along said first optical path towards said pick-up tube assembly.
8. A television camera as claimed in claim 2 in which said beam splitter comprises a prism assembly having therein a partially transmissive reflecting surface inclined to the normal to the input-forming-beam axis, and said reflective element comprises a reflecting side-face to said prism assembly.
9. A television camera as claimed in claim 7 in which said reflective element is formed by a prism.
The invention relates to a television camera comprising a plurality of camera tubes, an entrance optical system, an optical view-finder and a position correction device for superposing component images of each of the camera tubes.
A television camera of this kind is known, for example, from British patent specification No. 1,351,083. In a television camera comprising a plurality of camera tubes, it is necessary for a test pattern whose image is to be scanned in each of the camera tubes to occupy a fixed position with respect to a real image to be formed by each of the camera tubes. Small shifts of the scanning rasters relative to the entrance optical system, for example, caused by radial shifts of the camera tubes or by shifts of the scanning raster in the camera tubes, can hardly be avoided. Therefore, it must be easily possible to perform the registration of the entrance images, often referred to as superposition, in the camera. For the position correction of such a camera, a test pattern must be recorded which in commonly used cameras is placed, for example, in the form of a transparency, in front of the camera or which is introduced directly via the colour splitting prism.
The invention has for its object to provide a television camera comprising a simple and reliable position correction device. To this end, a television camera of the kind set forth in accordance with the invention is characterized in that the entrance optical system comprises means for projecting a registration image of an image carrier, present in the optical device of the camera, onto each of the camera tubes.
Because in a camera in accordance with the invention a test pattern, preferably a geometrical pattern, is projected from the beam path in front of the viewer, via the entrance optical system, onto each of the camera tubes, the position correction can be simply performed without further elements being required.
In a preferred embodiment of a camera in accordance with the invention, an image-carrying element which can preferably be swung away is included in the beam path in front of the viewer, it being possible to project the said element simultaneously on all camera tubes by way of a reflective end face of one of the elements of a beam splitting block of the entrance optical system. Alternatively, use can be made of a test pattern which is positioned outside the beam path and which is selectively projected into the beam path by means of a mirror.
Some preferred embodiments in accordance with the invention will be described in detail hereinafter with reference to the drawing. The drawing diagrammatically shows a colour television camera comprising three camera tubes and means in accordance with the invention for superposing the component images.
The camera shown comprises an entrance optical system of which a zoom lens 1, a beam splitting prism 2, a viewer objective lens 3 and an image objective lens 4 are shown. Also shown is a colour splitting prism 5 which is adjoined by the input entrance windows, each of which comprises a target, of three television camera tubes 6, 7 and 8. The optical axis 9 of the entrance optical system and the electron-optical axex 10, 11 and 12 of the camera tubes are preferably situated in one plane, the electron optical axis of one of the camera tubes, in this case the camera tube 7, coinciding with the optical axis of the entrance optical system. The electron-optical axes of the camera tubes must in any case be situated in the prolongation of the three principal directions for the various colors formed by the splitting prism. Part of an entrance image, for example, 20 % is directed by a face 15 of the beam splitting prism 2 onto the viewer objective lens 3, while the remaining 80 % is applied to the image objective lens 4 for the actual display. The reflected image information is used by the viewer objective lens 3 and a mirror 16 to form an intermediate image 17 which serves as an entrance image for the viewer 18. In accordance with the invention, a test pattern 19 can be introduced at the area of the intermediate image 17. This can be effected, for example, in the form of a transparency which is provided with a test pattern and which can preferably be swung away, or in the form of a frosted transparency on the side of which a test pattern can be projected. It need not be possible to swing this transparency away, but this is to be preferred to ensure unimpeded passage of the real image. For projecting this test pattern onto the camera tubes it is sufficient in accordance with the invention to provide a face 21 of the beam splitting prism 2 with a reflective layer.
Thus, the splitting system is not only used to direct part of the entrance light onto the viewer, but also for projecting a test pattern onto the camera tubes. During the adjustment of the camera, preferably first the camera tube geometry is adjusted, so that a properly focussed upright image is formed thereon with a main lens which is set at infinity and a focus lens which is also set at infinity. The targets of the camera tubes thus coincide with the three component images formed by the entrance optical system at the color splitting prism. Subsequently while preferably the image entrance of the camera is closed, the viewer is optimally adjusted with respect to the camera tubes and with respect to the beam splitting optical system by means of the test image which is then in the active position 17; use is then made of an image of the test pattern which is imaged very well by the viewer. For the test pattern use can be made of any suitable scene. For the test pattern and for the method of adjustment reference is made to U.S. Pat. No. 3,700,789. In cameras where it is not easy to provide the face 21 of the beam splitting prism with a reflective layer for practical reasons, a separate mirror can be arranged at this area. The face 21 must then be ground smoothly and it must be suitably transparent, while the reflective face must be adjusted. Alternatively, a prism can be arranged in the vicinity of the face 21, the same conditions then being applicable as for the mirror.
In a further preferred embodiment of a television camera in accordance with the invention, the test pattern is introduced, for example, from a position 22 by means of a mirror 23. At the position of the transparency 17 which carries the test pattern information, only a blank transparency, for example, a perspex plate, must then be provided. Instead of introduction via the mirror 23, a fiber optical system can also be used. The transparency need no longer be arranged so that it can be swung away.
In a modified embodiment, the test pattern is introduced from a position 24. If the projection is optically suitably adjusted, no transparency need be included in the beam path in front of the viewer. The mirror 16 is constructed so that it can be swung away in this embodiment, preferably about an axis 25, so that the mirror interrupts the beam path in front of the viewer in the swung-out condition. The mirror can alternatively be constructed to be semi-transparent.
In a further embodiment of a camera in accordance with the invention the test image is projected from a position 26. A further transparency can then again be omitted. When the mirror 16 is arranged to be pivotable about an axis 27, it can be used for the beam passage from the splitting optical system to the viewer as well as for projecting test pattern information to the splitting optical system. Instead of the pivotable mirror, a composite prism can be used. | <urn:uuid:b13e6c80-e04d-4104-9499-0fa7d5f2e460> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.google.com.tw/patents/US4080623 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947399 | 2,127 | 1.539063 | 2 |
DECEMBER 1, 2006
Thirty years at Viry-Chatillon
Renault F1 celebrates 30 years at Viry-Chatillon this week although the factory actually dates back to 1969 when Amedee Gordini moved his engine operation into the facility after it was taken over by Renault in 1968. From February 1969 the Renault-Gordini company ran its business from the factory but the creation of Renault Sport in September 1976, the result of a merger between Renault-Gordini and the sporting department of Automobiles Alpines, which had previously been located in Dieppe, led to a new era beginning in December 1976. A few weeks after that Renault admitted that it was planning to enter F1 in 1977 with a turbocharged car. This was based on an F1 prototype built on Renault's behalf by Alpine over the winter or 1975-76. The Alpine A500 ran for the first time in March that year and was used to help to develop Michelin F1 tyres.
The first proper Renault F1 car - based on the A500 - appeared in June 1977 and the team made it debut a few weeks later at the French GP with Jean-Pierre Jabouille at the wheel of what would soon become known as the Yellow Teapot because of its colour scheme and its tendency to produce clouds of steam when the engines blew up - which they did on a regular basis. From these humble beginnings Renault grew into a strong force in F1 although the turbo-engined cars never won a World Championship. In the end the factory team was shut down but the Renault Sport engine designers went on to create the Renault V10 which would win a string of World titles in the 1990s and the team at Viry-Chatillon now provide engines for the Renault F1 team, which has won the last two World Championships.
|Print News Story|
THE FIA OFFICIAL ENTRY
PENSKE HONOURED BY RBS
TOYOTA PUTS FUEL CELL GURU INTO F1
THIRTY YEARS AT VIRY-CHATILLON
KERKORIAN DUMPS ALL GM STOCK
DA MATTA YET TO DECIDE ON HIS FUTURE
A CHAMP CAR IN CHINA
JACQUES HAS A DEAL - NOW HE NEEDS MONEY
A GOOD IDEA FROM SUPER AGURI
A NEW MAN AT THE BRDC | <urn:uuid:dd401ef8-c806-4487-bb1f-82995d4cce19> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns17823.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96101 | 494 | 1.742188 | 2 |
French teens are fighting for their right to be scantily clad with nationwide protests against new dress codes that ban up-to-there fashions.
The first battle cry for liberté came from Lycée Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire in Essonne, a school just south of France, reports the Independent UK.
There, students protested a dress code imposed by a new headteacher that banned garments above the knee and holes in pants (guess those destroyed boyfriend jeans are out) by galavanting around school in skimpy duds for two days.
And it isn't just girls crying foul, guys want to show a bit of thigh too.
Student Léa Dedieu rallied 300 of the school's 2,100 students to participate in the protest for what she insists is a "philosophical point freedom"; boys wore Bermuda shorts and girls miniskirts, reports the source.
Turns out the school in Essone isn't alone in fighting for longer hemlines.
Lycée Condorcet d'Arcachon in Gironde, Lycée Saint-Jean-Hulst in Versailles and Lycée Saint-Joseph in Reims all have imposed new dress codes in place with various success -- 200 students in Gironde marched on the town to protest the restrictions.
Why all the protests? French sociologist Michel Fize blames it on T.V. "How can you say to a teenage girl that she is baring too much of her shoulder when those on television are doing exactly that?" he told the source.
Or maybe they're influenced by politics: France's First Lady was no stranger to minis in her modeling prime.
What do you think? Are teenagers dressing too sexy these days and if so, is T.V. to blame? Leave a comment! | <urn:uuid:a46385f8-fe03-4aa9-b461-c709f86cf173> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://main.stylelist.com/2009/12/23/french-students-protest-school-ban-on-miniskirts/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942087 | 378 | 1.53125 | 2 |
IATDC 'Communion' Issues - October 2006
Three documents produced at the recent meeting of the Inter-Anglican Doctrinal and Theological Commission have been commended by the Archbishop of Canterbury for study throughout the Anglican Communion.
In common with other commissions and networks, the IATDC considered the proposal of the Windsor Report for the creation of an Anglican covenant which could express the way in which Anglicans in different parts of the world live together. ‘Responding to the Proposal of a Covenant’ reflects on the biblical and ecclesiological background to the idea of covenant, and observes ways in which the concept of covenanting may be fruitfully employed to demonstrate a way in which Anglicans seek to stay together in times of controversy.
The Archbishop had invited the Commission to give attention to the particular role of bishops in maintaining the unity of the church. The equipping of bishops for their work and ministry is expected to be an important element in the next Lambeth Conference (2008), and the Commission has offered a number of theses as a theological and doctrinal under-girding for that process.
The ongoing work of the IATDC, a study of ‘the nature and maintenance of communion, and especially the Anglican Communion’ was resumed, and a ‘Summary Argument from the “Communion Study”’ incorporates insights gained from the most recent, third round of conversations with Anglican bishops and theological teachers which the Commission has been facilitating.
The Chair of the IATDC, the Rt Rev Professor Stephen Sykes, commented: "The meeting in Kenya was very good indeed, and I think we are developing a really positive assessment of things which hold Anglicans together today. The three papers that were produced indicate something of our understanding so far, and I hope they may prove to be useful as the Anglican Communion continues to explore its identity as a world-wide Christian community".
The Archbishop has remitted all three papers to the St Augustine’s Seminar (4 to 11 November 2006) which will be undertaking preparatory work on the Lambeth Conference agenda. The theses on the Episcopal office will also be offered to the Theological Education for the Anglican Communion (TEAC) training programme, and responses to the idea of an Anglican covenant forwarded to the Covenant Design Group.
The IATDC expects to meet in Kuala Lumpur next year in order to complete and develop the overall Communion Study. | <urn:uuid:94b08861-6dfc-40f6-adc4-57fe1bf44c92> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.anglicancommunion.org/ministry/theological/iatdc/docs/2006resources.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955068 | 510 | 1.5625 | 2 |
USA Watchdog | July 3 2012
Anselm Rothschild famously said, “Give me the power to issue a nation’s money; then I do not care who makes the law.” It looks like the bankers are taking control of the Eurozone with their latest bailout plan to “inject” printed money directly into the banks. I guess this is one of the main reasons why Howard Buffett (Warren’s dad) said this decades ago: “The gold standard acted as a silent watchdog to prevent ‘unlimited public spending.Our finances will never be brought in order until Congress is compelled to do so. Making our money redeemable in gold will create this compulsion.” ” When you recall that one of the first moves by Lenin, Mussolini and Hitler was to outlaw individual ownership of gold, you begin to sense that there may be some connection between money, redeemable in gold, and the rare prize known as human liberty. Also, when you find that Lenin declared and demonstrated that a sure way to overturn the existing social order and bring about communism was by printing press paper money, then again you are impressed with the possibility of a relationship between a gold-backed money and human freedom.” REP. HOWARD BUFFETT
Ellen Brown of Webofdebt.com has written an excellent post on what is really taking place in the ongoing banking bailout of the Eurozone. Get this, the bankers over there have given themselves immunity from just about every law that can be broken. This is outrageous!! She is today’s guest writer on USAWatchdog.com. As usual, Brown uses excellent sourcing to back up what she says. Please enjoy– Greg Hunter
Government by the Banks, for the Banks: The ESM Coup D’Etat in Europe
Ellen Brown (Guest writer, USAWatchdog)
On Friday, June 29th, German Chancellor Angela Merkel acquiesced to changes to a permanent Eurozone bailout fund—“before the ink was dry,” as critics complained. Besides easing the conditions under which bailouts would be given, the concessions included an agreement that funds intended for indebted governments could be funneled directly to stressed banks.
According to Gavin Hewitt, Europe editor for BBC News, the concessions mean that:
[T]he eurozone’s bailout fund (backed by taxpayers’ money) will be taking a stake in failed banks.
Risk has been increased. German taxpayers have increased their liabilities. In future a bank crash will no longer fall on the shoulders of national treasuries but on the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), a fund to which Germany contributes the most.
In the short term, these measures will ease pressure in the markets. However there is currently only 500bn euros assigned to the ESM. That may get swallowed up quickly and the markets may demand more. It is still unclear just how deep the holes in the eurozone’s banks are.
The ESM is now a permanent bailout fund for private banks, a sort of permanent “welfare for the rich.” There is no ceiling set on the obligations to be underwritten by the taxpayers, no room to negotiate, and no recourse in court. Its daunting provisions were summarized in a December 2011 youtube video originally posted in German, titled “The shocking truth of the pending EU collapse!”:
The treaty establishes a new intergovernmental organization to which we are required to transfer unlimited assets within seven days if it so requests, an organization that can sue us but is immune from all forms of prosecution and whose managers enjoy the same immunity. There are no independent reviewers and no existing laws apply. Governments cannot take action against it. Europe’s national budgets [are] in the hands of one single unelected intergovernmental organization.
Here are some of the ESM’s key provisions:
[Article 8] “The authorised capital stock shall be EUR 700 000 [700 billion Euros].”
[Article 9]: “ESM Members hereby irrevocably and unconditionally undertake to pay on demand any capital call made on them . . . such demand to be paid within seven days of receipt.”
[Article 10]: “The Board of Governors . . . may decide to change the authorised capital and amend Article 8 . . . accordingly.”
[Article 32, paragraph 3]: “The ESM, its property, funding, and assets . . . shall enjoy immunity from every form of judicial process . . . .”
[Article 32, paragraph 4]: “The property, funding and assets of the ESM shall . . . be immune from search, requisition, confiscation, expropriation, or any other form of seizure, taking or foreclosure by executive, judicial, administrative or legislative action.”
[Article 30]: “ . . . Governors, alternate Governors, Directors, alternate Directors, as well as the Managing Director and other staff members shall be immune from legal proceedings with respect to acts performed by them in their official capacity and shall enjoy inviolability in respect of their official papers and documents.”
And that was before Merkel’s recent concessions, which allow this open-ended indebtedness to be funneled directly to the banks.
Why Did Merkel Cave?
“Reactions back home were devastating,” reported der Spiegel. “[T]he impression was that [Merkel] had been out-maneuvered by Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti and Spanish Prime Minster Mariano Rajoy.”
As of June 21, 13 of 17 countries still had not ratified the ESM; and the most important ratification needed was Germany’s, the largest economy in the Eurozone. Earlier, Angela Merkel had opposed using the bailout fund to pump money directly into struggling European banks. But at the EU summit that began on Thursday and dragged on well into the night, she finally relented. Late Friday evening, German lawmakers voted 493-106 in favor of the €700 billion ($890 billion) permanent bailout fund.
What caused Merkel to back down? According to an article in The Economist, the late night was “filled with bluff and bluster,” in which
Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish prime minister . . . , along with Italy’s Mario Monti, had threatened to block any agreement at the summit unless their demands were met. Mr Rajoy obtained satisfaction, but the same is not quite true of Mr Monti, who had been the most adamant of the two.
Mr Monti declared himself satisfied, but caused considerable irritation to partners. Among the deals he had blocked was the “growth pact”, a mixture of stimulus measures.
What Monti achieved by this maneuver was not clear:
“Who needs the growth pact? Not Germany,” said one bemused participant. The euro zone’s fiscal hawks say the bond-buying mechanism will be little different from the existing system. “Mario Monti raised a gun to his head and threatened to shoot himself. In the end he wounded himself in the shoulder,” said one scornful diplomat.
Maybe. Or maybe the bond-buying mechanism was not what he was really after.
The Italian Coup D’Etat
There is reason to suspect that “Super Mario” Monti may be representing interests other than those of his country. He rose to power in Italy last November in what critics called a “‘coup d’etat’ engineered by bankers and the European Union.” He was not elected but stepped in after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi resigned under duress.
Monti is not only an “international advisor” to Goldman Sachs, one of the most powerful financial firms in the world, but a leader in the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission. In an article in The New American, Alex Newman calls these clandestine groups “two of the most influential cabals in existence today.” Monti is listed as a member of the steering committee on the official Bilderberg website and as the European Group chairman on the Trilateral Commission website.
The Trilateral Commission was co-founded in 1973 by David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski, also Bilderberger attendees. The Trilateral Commission grew from the thesis in Brzezinski’s 1970 piece Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era that a coordinated policy among developed nations was necessary in order to counter global instability erupting from increasing economic inequality. He wrote in his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard that it would be difficult to get a consensus on these issues “except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.”
Naomi Klein calls it “the shock doctrine”—an induced disaster forcing austerity measures on sovereign nations. In desperation, they would come to heel, relinquishing the sovereign right of governments to an unelected body of technocrats. And that is what the ESM seems to achieve.
Rockefeller notoriously wrote in his 2002 autobiography, “Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure—one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”
Implementing the Shock Doctrine
In another bankers’ coup last November, former Goldman Sachs executive Mario Draghi replaced Jean-Claude Trichet as head of the European Central Bank. The European Stability Mechanism quickly followed. It was a permanent rescue facility intended to replace certain temporary facilities as soon as the member states had ratified it, slated to occur by July 1, 2012. The ESM came to an initial vote in January 2012, when it was passed in the dead of night with barely a mention in the press.
The recent modifications were also agreed to in the dead of night, ostensibly because Italy and Spain were afflicted with onerously high interest rates. But there are other ways to bring down interest rates on sovereign debt besides forcing whole countries into open-ended pacts to bail out private banks for unlimited sums in perpetuity, in the hope that the banks might bail the governments out in return.
The U.S. 2012 budget deficit is significantly worse than either Italy’s or Spain’s, yet somehow the U.S. has managed to keep interest rates on its debt at record lows. How has it pulled this off?
One theory is that JPMorgan’s $57 trillion in interest rate swaps have something to do with it. Another explanation, however, is that the Fed has simply stepped in as lender of last resort and bought up any debt not sold at the low rate set by the Treasury, using “quantitative easing” (money created on a computer screen). Between December 2008 and June 2011, the Fed bought a whopping $2.3 trillion of U.S. bonds in two rounds of quantitative easing. Why can’t the European Central Bank do the same thing? The answer is that there are rules against it, but rules are just arbitrary agreements. They can be changed by agreement—and often have been, to save the banks.
As the cynic quoted in The Economist article above observed, the bond-buying mechanism for countries under the ESM will be little different from the existing system. Mario Monti said the plan will support government bond prices only in countries that comply with fiscal targets, and that it will act as an incentive for governments to follow virtuous policies. That means avoiding deficits, even if it requires further austerity measures and selling of assets. On the public level, that could mean national treasures like the Acropolis. On the private level, The New York Times reported Friday that some desperate out-of-work Europeans were going so far as to sell their kidneys to pay household bills. The shock doctrine, it seems, has come to the doorsteps of privileged Westerners.
The German diplomats negotiating the ESM did leave open some escape hatches, including a request by Germany’s highest court to the country’s president not to sign the treaties into law until a legal review can be completed. At least 12,000 complaints are expected to be filed with the Federal Constitutional Court regarding the ESM and the fiscal pact. The legal review could well conclude that the ESM illegally hijacks taxpayer funds for private bank profit.
It is one thing to pool national resources to bail out other sovereign governments, quite another to write a blank check to bail out the profligate private banks that precipitated the global downturn. Europe has a strong tradition of publicly-owned banks. If the people must bear the costs, the people should own the banks and reap the benefits.
Ellen Brown is an attorney and president of the Public Banking Institute, http://PublicBankingInstitute.org. In Web of Debt, her latest of eleven books, she shows how a private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Her websites are http://WebofDebt.com and http://EllenBrown.com. | <urn:uuid:6506a2cb-46e3-4c9b-a756-49b5c9d19bf9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://shiftfrequency.com/greg-hunter-banks-are-now-in-control-of-eurozone/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960951 | 2,770 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Cut your cable and not your Channels
|Cut the Cable and still watch TV|
Yes! Corporate companies cut jobs and Americans cut cable. The cable subscriptions have gone sky high and more average Americans started ditching their cable companies.
Have they stopped watching their favorite TV Shows, Movies and sports ?
The answer is NO !
People cut cable because they pay for hundreds of channels they would never watch. So some companies started video-on-demand and streaming services online. Some of the popular streaming services are Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu Plus and Vudu. Click on their names to see what they offer.
|Amazon Instant Video|
These streaming channels have thousands of movies and all the popular TV Shows of your cable channels. Moreover you would get access to Youtube on your TV using these streaming players.
Check the channels on the Roku player here..
Check the channels on Apple TV here..
To compare these top streaming services and their costs, Click here..
These video-on-demand services host a huge content online including your favourite TV shows and thousands of movies. They let you to choose what content you want and so you pay for only for what you watch.
Can I get their service on my TV ? Answer: Yes! You Can.
There are many streaming players available in the market such as Roku, Apple TV which allows you to get these video streaming services on your TV. These devices are available for one time purchase starting from $49.99
What are all the minimum requirements to use these streaming devices ?
1. You should have a TV.It doesn't matter if you have an old TV or HD TV. If your Old TV has the rca port(Red,white and yellow ports) most of these devices will work.
2. High speed internet service.Since these devices have to download the movies and the TV shows from Internet you need a high speed internet service but they won't cost you much and most of us already have them for our computer. Some of the popular internet service providers are at&t, cox, Verizon, charter etc.
3. Wireless Router.Even most of these devices have an Ethernet port, a Wireless router or modem which would help you to connect these streaming devices to the internet without a wire.
What you don't need ?
1. You don't need a computer to use these streaming devices.
2. You don't have to be a geek to install and to use these devices
They are just like a DVD player connected to the internet. All these devices come with a simple remote control.
Roku and the Apple TV are the most popular streaming players among the others. Roku streaming players starts from $49.99 and you could get these devices from your nearest walmart, bestbuy or amazon.
To know more about the TOP STREAMING DEVICES and the various features they offer, follow our blog.
Actually you could do lot more than just streaming using these devices. If you have any questions, I could definitely help. Please leave your comments... | <urn:uuid:52b9ca95-0012-4dac-9577-bc69e99247cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://techsneeze.blogspot.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947238 | 629 | 1.578125 | 2 |
We’re back to our weekly updates after a great series last week for Wolf Awareness Week. Here are the top wolf-related items for this week:
Wolf supporters inundate Congress
Defenders put an alert out to our members early this week asking them to send a message to Congress, telling them not to undermine wolf recovery by legislating away protections for wolves. In less than a week, our supporters generated more than 50,000 responses to show our elected representatives that there is still strong support for continued wolf recovery and sustainable management. Thank you to all our citizen wildlife defenders for taking action!
Haven’t had a chance to sign the petition yet? Visit the Defenders Wildlife Action Center to add your voice to the tens of thousands of our supporters who are speaking up to save America’s wolves!
Don’t blame wolves for tougher hunting
Public News Service in Idaho and Montana ran a story last week featuring retired wolf recovery coordinator Carter Niemeyer, who reminded hunters that wolves are an important part of the outdoor experience. Niemeyer says wolves have been unfairly blamed by hunters for making elk harder to find.
Editorial skewers Gov. Otter’s decision to abandon wolf management
Idaho Mountain Express took Governor “Butch” Otter to task for playing politics with wolves in Idaho:
“Otter’s ink-on-paper tantrum was conveniently timed with less than two weeks to go before an election in a state where voters begin to froth at the mouth when the words “federal” and “wolf” are uttered. The response is always strange given that Idahoans have no problem being big beneficiaries of federal largesse and that the vast majority of us will never see a wolf.”
Genetics study supports robust wolf population
A story this week in the Billings Gazette mischaracterized an important study about the genetic health of wolves in the Northern Rockies. The researchers found that there is good genetic exchange between subpopulations, but that healthy exchange required much greater wolf numbers than the minimum number required in federal recovery objectives. As Defenders’ Rocky Mountain Director Mike Leahy points out, the study affirms that those minimum recovery objectives are too low to ensure a healthy, sustainable wolf population over the long run. Defenders continues to call for wolf management based on the best available science.
Amazing wolf artists write about Wolf Awareness Week
Thanks again to our friends at Etsy for Animals (EFA), a collective of independent artists who help raise money for other nonprofit groups. Team EFA chose Defenders as their charity-of-the-month for September and followed up by promoting Wolf Awareness Week last week. They featured some excellent blog posts and really cool wolf art. It’s not too late to order a painting, jewelry, clothing and other wolf gear from these talented artists. See their full collection of wolf objects here.
Attacks from both sides
In September, writer Bill Schneider gave us a back-handed compliment by recognizing that Defenders has worked hard to build in-roads toward sustainable wolf management. And now he’s calling out anti-wolf hunting groups for making compromise more difficult. As Schneider points out, both sides need to give a little if we’re ever going to resolve this issue. | <urn:uuid:36bf05b6-5a52-459c-b725-0621f8314235> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.defendersblog.org/2010/10/wolf-weekly-wrap-up/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932647 | 678 | 1.601563 | 2 |
- In WORLD
- Post 22 October 2011
- By by Christopher Wills
- Hits: 171
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A powerful 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck eastern Turkey Sunday, collapsing about 45 buildings according to the deputy prime minister.
Only one death was immediately confirmed, but scientists estimated that up to 1,000 people could have been killed.
The worst damage was caused to the town of Ercis, in the mountainous eastern province of Van, close to the Iranian border. The city of Van also suffered substantial damage.
"Around 10 buildings have collapsed in the city of Van and around 25 or 30 have collapsed in Ercis, including a dormitory," Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay said.
Atalay said authorities had no information yet on remote villages, adding that the governor was now touring the region by helicopter to assess damage. The quake's epicenter was in the village of Tabanli.
Authorities did not provide a casualty figure but the Kandilli observatory, Turkey's main seismography center, said the quake was capable of killing many more people.
"We are estimating a death toll between 500 and 1,000," Mustafa Erdik, head of the Kandilli observatory, told a televised news conference. His estimate was based on the structure of the housing in the area and the strength of the quake.
The Turkish Red Crescent said its rescuers pulled several injured people out of the collapsed dormitory in Ercis, which sits on a geological fault line.
In Van, a bustling city with many apartment buildings, at least 50 people were treated in the courtyard of the state hospital, the state-run Anatolia news agency said.
"There are so many dead. Several buildings have collapsed. There is too much destruction," Zulfikar Arapoglu, the mayor of Ercis, told NTV television. "We need urgent aid. We need medics."
Serious damage and casualties were also reported in the district of Celebibag, near Ercis.
"There are many people under the rubble," Veysel Keser, mayor of Celebibag, told NTV. "People are in agony, we can hear their screams for help. We need urgent help."
"It's a great disaster," he said. "Many buildings have collapsed, student dormitories, hotels and gas stations have collapsed."
Some houses also collapsed in the province of Bitlis, where at least one person, an 8-year-old girl was killed, authorities said. The quake also toppled the minarets of two mosques in the nearby province of Mus, reports said.
NTV said Van's airport was damaged and planes were being diverted to neighboring cities.
Terrified residents spilled into the streets in panic as rescue workers and residents using their bare hands and shovels struggled to find people believed to be trapped under collapsed buildings, television footage showed.
Several Cabinet ministers headed to the area as authorities mobilized rescue teams across the country.
The quake had a depth of 20 kilometers (12.4 miles), which is relatively shallow and could potentially cause more damage.
Earthquakes are frequent in Turkey, which is crossed by fault lines.
In 1999, about 18,000 people were killed by two powerful earthquakes that struck northwestern Turkey. Authorities blamed shoddy construction for many of the deaths.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
( AP Photo/ Abdurrahman Antakyali, Aatolia) | <urn:uuid:31ba640f-d92e-43d8-a9ad-91bd95acd2e2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chicagodefender.com/index.php/news/world/3284-7-2-quake-causes-damage-casualties-in-turkey | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978693 | 722 | 1.5 | 2 |
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Queer Abby Responses
The questions Abby will be addressing here are:
Question #1: I’m really falling hard for this girl I’ve been dating but I’m worried because her ex just ended their relationship not long ago. Could I be a rebound guy?
So you are really into this girl but don't want to wind up being the next break-up casualty? Smart move. I guess the thing to keep in mind is how much time you are spending weekly (daily would be a big red flag) talking about her past relationship. Remember that any ending of a relationship is accompanied by a grief process. The longer the relationship lasts the more invested one generally becomes and the harder it is to let go. One of the ways people avoid the important but difficult grief process (because it is emotionally uncomfortable if not down right painful) is by entering into a relationship prematurely. Also note that some folks enter into another relationship quickly in order to get the self-esteem boost they may derive from the enhanced social status of wearing the "relationship badge" for the self and for others (especially an ex) to admire.
Bottom line is that the focus should be on the new relationship (aka yours) not the old. If you find yourself experiencing the break-up grief process along with her (these can include shock, denial, anger, sadness, revenge fantasies or obsessive thinking and talking about an ex), then it's probably a good idea to keep yourself at a safe emotional distance so that you do not play the role of healer or become an understudy. Being a friend may go a long way initially for both of you and is arguably a necessary condition for a strong romantic relationship.
Lastly, make sure that your level of attraction, needs, values, and interests are pretty compatible because ultimately that will make this relationship a worthwhile adventure. Rebound relationships are often noted for the ease with which these essential things are compromised. In the end, just have fun and if it starts to hurt, say "ouch"... meaning communicate your feelings and your expectations of her. If it’s not working, then move on and date someone who is ready to be with you FOR you.
Question #2: I’m in a long distance relationship with someone I met during the summer. Things are going really well but I’m concerned it won’t last? Any suggestions?
Yes, long-distance relationships while in college can be quite emotionally and logistically challenging. There are so many other academic and social pressures, demands and distractions (pleasurable and not) to manage. However, no need to throw in the towel just yet. If you guys are both certain that you'd like to "keep the good times rolling", then here are a few tips to make your geographically impaired relationship easier.
These are just a few suggestions to get you started. May seem like difficult work but anything meaningful in life generally requires investment. LDR's can be fulfilling if you're up for the challenge. It's a bit harder when you are still getting to know one another but not impossible. Just don't neglect the other wonderful opportunuties to make new friends and engage in new activities that college life offers. This will provide you with alternate ways of building the self-esteem necessary to keep your relationship healthy and enjoyable.
Question #3: My girlfriend and I are in a same–sex relationship and we are in love and would like to get married someday. The problem is that because I cheated on her in the past, she throws this in my face whenever I get mad or complain. She sometimes threatens not to speak to me as payback. I want to be able to get angry without her bringing up the past especially since she was unfaithful to me too (after I was). When will she get over this and how can I help her?
This must be very confusing and upsetting for you. You guys have really had your ups and downs in this relationship, huh? It sounds to me like the two of you are committed to working things out and staying on track for the long haul. Past infidelities can be difficult to heal because trust is such an essential part of intimacy and it has been ruptured. I don't know when you can expect that she (or maybe even you for that matter) will be done grieving the loss of the sense of "specialness" that can come from a breach in monogamous commitment. Clearly she may still be wounded by the past infidelity and may be acting on her anger to make you feel all the shame and insecurity in this relationship that she may been feeling. When you get mad at her she may be experiencing this as a form of rejection from you which might bring her right back to the feelings (i.e., shame, anger, inadequacy) that she experienced when she first learned of your infidelity.
For many same-sex partners, intimacy (getting close to others) can become linked with the fear of rejection, humiliation or abandonment because of the dehumanizing stigma society has placed on homosexuality. There can often be a “you and me against the world” kind of effect because of the perception and reality that society is often unreceptive and hostile to same-sex relationships. It's a lot of pressure to be in a same-sex relationship when there is often little-to-no support, encouragement or guidance from family, peers and society for making it work. Heterosexual privilege and homophobia can sometimes have devastating effects on the self-esteem of LGBT students which can also impact relationships. Also, aside from the unique challenges of a same-sex relationship, it’s a lot of pressure to be “the one", particularly so early in life when your needs, interests, values and preferences are still all actively changing and evolving.
The important thing here is that you sit down together and navigate a future course for this relationship that doesn't include emotional abuse. Emotional abuse is any behavior that is designed to control and subjugate another person by using humiliation, intimidation, exploitation, guilt, coercion, manipulation, and fear. It can include anything from verbal abuse and constant criticism to more "below the radar" methods, such as repeated disapproval, a system of punishments meant to control behavior and feelings, or even the refusal to ever be pleased. Now it's important not to panic and label your relationship "emotionally abusive" because many relationships suffer from these temporary violations. It's really about patterns of behavior that often get worse and can sometimes lead to physical or sexual abuse. So just take note, particularly if you begin to experience a deterioration of your self-confidence, your trust in your own perceptions, or your self-worth. No relationship is worth those consequences.
But on a cheerier note, here's a good place to start. Taking time together to make a list of relationship do's and don'ts (ground rules), needs, limits, and expectations, and a safe space in which to periodically communicate these needs, concerns and intimacy violations. Initially, a couples counselor may be of great assistance in this difficult process so that you can learn how to express anger in non-threatening, productive, and relationship-affirming ways. So please don't hesitate to schedule an appointment at the Counseling Center for an individual or couples consultation if you think that would help. Whatever you do remember that self-care is self-love and that the relationship with yourself is arguably the most important one there is. You should also check out the Billy LGBT Center in San Jose for programming on important same-sex relationship issues and for additional support.
Question #4: When do you know if or when you are ready to have sex with someone?
It doesn't matter if you are a virgin or have had many sexual partners in the past. With each new potential partner-- you should ask yourself honestly about your readiness and willingness to have sex. QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF:
If you decide you are ready, then there are important things to know about SAFER SEX practices in order to maximize your health and safety. If you make the mature decision to engage in sex, then it is essential that you EDUCATE YOURSELF about all aspects of sex!!!!
Question #5: I have not had sex but I have had sexual contact, as in oral sex. I am 19 years old. Should I have a PAP smear or any other kinds of tests done?
First off, it is important to know that a Pap smear is just one part of a gynecological exam. A Pap smear is really a screening test for cervical cancer. The smears identify inflammation and infection in the cervical area that may be evidence of abnormalities in the cervical cells. The Pap smear does not test for pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), vaginal infections, or other types of gynecological problems. An annual gynecological exam is very thorough and often includes:
Some practitioners recommend that all women over the age of 18 should have an annual exam even if they haven't had vaginal intercourse. Others disagree. If you are not having vaginal sex and have no pain or other symptoms, then it is likely not needed. However, if you have irregular, painful, or extremely heavy periods, or are experiencing any strange rashes, bumps, discharge or other symptoms, then an exam would DEFINITELY be recommended. If you want to schedule an appointment with a physician or nurse practitioner, you can contact the Cowell Health Center at (408) 554-4501.<>Now, a second part to your question that concerns Abby is a risk for sexually transmitted infections (STIs). It is important to know that oral sex DOES carry risk for the transmission of STIs. The risks depend on whether or not the receiver and/or giver was already infected with a sexually transmitted infection (STI), and if so, then which one. Herpes, HIV, yeast infections, gonorrhea, syphilis, human papillomavirus (HPV- the virus that causes genital warts), and chlamydia can all be transmitted through unprotected oral sex. The risk is lower than through vaginal or anal sex, but there is still risk. You can read more about STIs and how they are contracted here: www.smartersex.org/stis/stis.asp
The best ways to lessen your risks include: | <urn:uuid:8710c9f9-1094-40bf-88b2-da9ff2eaac5b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://scu.edu/wellness/queerabby/responses.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958996 | 2,277 | 1.617188 | 2 |
“All six will be referred to the proper U.S. authorities for further action,” said an official familiar with the joint Afghan-American investigation intothe Koran burnings, who was not authorized to speak about it publicly.
Significantly, the five service members found responsible so far include military “leaders,” according to the report. While it was unclear whether that meant any senior officers would be held to account, it was taken as a sign here that the investigation was focusing more on decision-making along the chain of command rather than simply focusing on soldiers who may have been carrying out orders with little understanding of their potential impact.
The preeminent religious authority in Afghanistan, the Ulema Council, said Friday that those responsible for the burning of the Korans and other religious texts should be put on trial and punished. And it called for the American-led coalition to respond by handing over all Afghan prisoners in its custody and ceding control of its prisons.
The Ulema Council, which is made up of scholarly mullahs, made its recommendations following its own investigation into the Koran burning incident last week in a statement released through President Hamid Karzai’s office late on Friday evening.
The burning of the Korans and other religious texts, seized from Afghan prisoners at an American-run detention center, triggered days of deadly protests. At least 29 Afghans have been killed in the violence, and the outpouring of popular fury coincided with the shooting deaths of six American soldiers.
Gen. John R. Allen, the NATO commanding general in Afghanistan, and President Obama both apologized in the wake of the demonstrations.
But in its statement Friday, the Ulema Council condemned the burning, said no apology would be enough to forgive the desecrations of the Koran and asked for guarantees that religious texts would never be dishonored again.
“The council strongly condemns this inhuman, bad and barbaric act by American forces based at Bagram Military Base and emphasizes that this devilish action cannot be forgiven by apologizing,” Maulawi Mohammad Said, a member of the council, said in a statement read to Mr. Karzai, according to the palace. “The perpetrators of this crime should be put on a public trial as soon as possible and be punished, and both NATO and the United States should guarantee that in the future no one will dare to desecrate Muslim religious materials.”
The council’s recommendations largely repeat demands it made last week immediately after the incident — although in fierier language this time — when it also called for a trial and justice for those responsible.
But on Friday the council also said it had concluded that the root cause of the burnings was what it called the illegal administration of the prison and said the remedy was to close down all foreign prisons and hand them over to Afghan control.
Those findings offered support for Mr. Karzai in his long-running dispute with the coalition over control of prisons in Afghanistan.
Mr. Karzai has repeatedly argued that the Afghan government should take over the American-run detention center in Parwan, adjacent to the Bagram Air Base north of Kabul, where more than 3,000 inmates suspected of being insurgents are housed, in addition to other detention centers.
So far, the United States has declined, citing legal reasons and saying that the Afghans are not prepared to run the maximum security sites.
On Friday, Gavin Sundwall, a spokesman for the American Embassy in Kabul, reiterated that argument in an e-mailed statement: “The United States has repeatedly made clear that it is committed to working with the Afghan government to complete a transition of detention operations in Afghanistan in a manner that is safe and orderly and in accordance with our international legal obligations.”
The Ulema Council also came out in favor of an issue the Karzai government sees as another point of national sovereignty: an end to night raids by the United States military, in which commandos search for people suspected of being insurgents in private homes rather than in the field.
Both the control of the prisons and the night raids are sticking points in negotiations, currently at a crucial stage, over a longer-term strategic partnership between the United States and Afghanistan.
The council’s investigation was only one of three parallel investigations into the Koran burnings.
Perhaps more awaited is an interim report, conducted jointly between the United States and Afghan military. It is likely to give a far more detailed explanation into the events that led to the burning of Korans and other religious texts, and its findings will be an important test of Afghan public opinion following the days of violent protests.
NATO said Friday that the investigation was completed, and would soon be passed to General Allen for review. He will decide what findings and recommendations to make public.
It is expected within the next week, officials have said.
But the only investigation that will carry formal legal weight is a third inquiry, conducted by the American military alone, that could lead ultimately to criminal legal action or lesser administrative punishment. Its findings and recommendations are expected in the second half of this month.
After last week’s deadly protests, Afghanistan has become quieter in the last few days, with few signs of protests. Some of the NATO military advisers pulled from Afghan ministries by General Allen after the shooting deaths of two American officers inside the Interior Ministry have also begun to return to work.
Asked whether the calls by the Ulema Council would increase tensions again, Mr. Sundwall said: “We certainly hope that the release of this report does not lead to more violence. We appreciated President Karzai’s repeated calls for dialogue and calm earlier and hope that people took them to heart. As Ambassador Crocker has said, we believe that we will get through this unfortunate period, that a decade’s worth of relationships don’t go away in a single week.”
The New York Times
The New York Times | <urn:uuid:697cc389-8f57-48f9-92d0-b0d165cd4d42> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://guilhermepaixaous.blogspot.com.br/2012/03/5-us-service-members-found-responsible.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968585 | 1,215 | 1.625 | 2 |
Watch Gas/Wood Dual Fuel Cook Stove Videos
The gas and wood combination range circa 1910 was first introduced as a wood range with a side car, a separate gas unit that attached to the stove. Combination stoves eliminated the need for a summer kitchen and gave the cook a choice of fuels.
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Further technological advances lead to the eventual additions of thermostatically controlled ovens, glass oven doors, and various other so-called modern conveniences.
The combination range represents the best of both worlds allowing the user to cook on a diversity of fuel sources. Ovens, broilers and burners on any of our ranges can be converted to electric to provide modern cooking conveniences while maintaining the aesthetic integrity of these antique stoves.
This beige range has a black frost this is matched with black handles and gas knobs. The Premier Dual is prime when cooking for many mouths. Four wood burners and four gas burners can hold many pots and pans while the large oven has adjustable shelves. A white back splash with a shelf helps keep mess to a minimum and is easy to clean with a wet cloth.
This small stove is unique treasure from top to bottom. The Stratford Universal has delicate teal green enamel marbleized with an off white that is also found on the doors and back splash. Two wood burners are located to the left of two gas burners with a rare cover feature. A hinged cover piece can be lowered to provide additional counter space as needed or raised during cooking as a back splash. A compact unit, the Stratford Universal is a terrific choice for a small or crowded kitchen with limited surface space. | <urn:uuid:a6b62ea5-e3e6-4d07-8bb1-6744a3c61c54> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://goodtimestove.com/gas-wood-cook-stoves/21-kitchen-ranges/gas-wood-dual-fuel-combination-cook-stoves/23-watch-gas-wood-dual-fuel-cook-stove-videos | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956521 | 378 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Visitors to Chemin-A-Haut State Park will have the chance to see Louisiana's rich diversity of wildlife up close, thanks to a recent donation by longtime taxidermist Wesley Streeter Sr.
An outdoorsman all his life, Streeter took his first deer when he was nine years old and began doing taxidermy as a hobby in 1948. His hobby grew into a successful business, Streeter Taxidermy north of Bastrop, for close to three decades.
“We mounted all kinds of animals,” he said. “It was the type of the work you kind of had to do on your own, because there were [trade] secrets.”
Streeter said he mounted wildlife from all 50 states, as well as exotic species and museum pieces, during his career. Recently, he chose to donate his personal collection of native Louisiana mounts to Chemin-A-Haut for the public to enjoy.
“This is where I wanted [my collection] to be,” he said.
Some items from the large collection – including a rare white squirrel, giant loggerhead snapping turtle shell, and various game fish – have already been installed in the park office. Park manager Russ Brantley said Streeter's daughter is planning to create plaques with information to go with each mount.
“They're all beautiful pieces,” said Brantley.
Mary Frances Streeter said she and her husband met while both were employed by International Paper Co. Wesley took her on her first hunting trip in the Oak Grove area, and the couple married in 1954. Today, she said, “Our son and daughter both hunt just like we used to do.
“This is his pride and joy,” she said. “He wanted to give his personal collection to the people.”
After coming to see the pieces installed in the park office, the Streeters joined Brantley for a scenic, backwoods tour of Chemin-A-Haut. Able to identify many of the trees by sight, Wesley said that growing up, much of the area was “all mixed timber” like that preserved at the park. He also recalled aspects of the park's history, such as the deer pen maintained by Sanford Harrison, who managed the park from 1949-1969.
Approximately 30 mounts remain to be displayed in carefully selected locations at the park, where they will be safe from damage and direct sunlight.
“We're honored to be able to display this collection,” said Brantley. “That's something people deserve to see.” | <urn:uuid:d1eec9b4-b480-46f4-9490-03b6dc21c81b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bastropenterprise.com/article/20120710/NEWS/307109987/1015/LIFESTYLE | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982502 | 542 | 1.804688 | 2 |
The FBI plans to test by 2014 a database for searching iris scans nationwide to more quickly track criminals, according to budget documents and a contractor working on the project.
The Next-Generation Identification system, a multiyear $1 billion program already under way, is expanding the server capacity of the FBI’s old fingerprint database to allow for rapid matching of additional physical identifiers, including facial images and palm prints.
Today, iris scans conjure images of covert agents accessing high-security banks and laboratories. But, increasingly, law enforcement agencies are spending state and federal funds on iris recognition technology at jails to monitor inmates. Some Missouri prisons are buying the same system the FBI acquired, partly so that they can eventually exchange iris images with federal law enforcement officials. And many counties are storing pictures of prisoner irises in a nationwide database managed by a private company, BI2 Technologies.
The FBI expects to collect many of these state and local iris images, according to B12 officials and federal documents.
A May 17 budget justification document states one of the “planned accomplishments for BY13” -- the budget year that begins Oct. 1 -- is to “demonstrate iris recognition capabilities via the iris pilot.”
A June FBI advisory board memo that Nextgov reviewed states, “supervised release/corrections are candidates for the pilot, being that many already have the capability in place. The additional goal is to start to build an iris repository.” Iris recognition is a helpful identification tool, according to the memo, because it “is very accurate,” does not require human intervention and “the hardware footprint is also very small [due] to the size of the iris image.”
The aim of iris recognition at corrections facilities, according to law enforcement officials, is to promptly catch repeat offenders and suspects who try to hide their identities.
Building a Repository
Officials at the Pinal County Adult Detention Center in Florence, Ariz., appreciate the nonintrusiveness of the BI2 iris recognition system, which does not touch prisoners’ faces when snapping photos of irises or scanning eyes for recognition. The inmates place their eyes three to 10 inches away from binocular-like lenses, which record the iris image, so wardens stay out of harm’s way during head counts, county officials said. The technology also ensures the center does not mistakenly release similar-looking siblings, twins or parents, when one family member comes up for parole, they added.
President and Chief Executive Officer Sean G. Mullin said BI2 Technologies has been working closely with the FBI unit chief responsible for implementing NGI. “BI2 Technologies provided the FBI [Next-Generation Identification system] over 12,000 iris images from current law enforcement agency clients for analysis and testing by NGI,” he said. Company officials said they were not aware of a specific pilot program that has been undertaken to demonstrate iris searching capabilities.
Mullin said his company was told the FBI plans to conduct an iris pilot in 2014. Local agencies in 47 states now participate in B12’s nationwide Inmate Identification and Recognition System, or IRIS, which has been operating for six years, he said.
FBI officials declined to comment on progress using NGI for iris matching. “Because we are in the early stages of development of additional biometric capabilities, including the facial recognition pilot, there is no new information to report at this time,” said Stephen G. Fischer Jr., a spokesman for the FBI’s criminal justice information services division.
The interstate network that BI2 maintains uses a high-resolution camera to obtain an image of an offender’s iris during the booking process. Special software then transforms the picture into a digital file that is encrypted and stored with the company. For recognition purposes, the camera takes a live shot of an individual’s iris and the software then compares the new image with archived iris pictures collected during intake to confirm the person’s identity.
“Everybody that gets booked into our adult detention center, we get a capture of their iris. That gets hooked to their photo. And then everybody that’s being released goes through the system again to make sure we’re getting ready to release the same person,” said James Kimble, deputy chief of the Pinal County Adult Detention Center.
Pinal County used $30,000 in state funds to buy three cameras, supporting devices and access to BI2’s nationwide iris database, he said. Within a few months, some Pinal patrol officers will receive a handheld recognition tool that synchs with the database through an iPhone app.
The Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona also is using iris recognition for many of the same safety purposes, said Dwight D’Evelyn, media/crime prevention coordinator for the office. Yavapai contracts with BI2 using in-house jail enhancement funds. “The data is stored in both the system of record at the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office and the national server,” he said. “The iris images are stored, accessed and utilized by participating agencies on the national server, which is located at a secure site in Texas.”
D’Evelyn stressed that the iris files are the property of the sheriff’s office and, “during transmission, the iris images are always encrypted.”
Jennifer Lynch, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, found the concept of a privately run, national iris network disconcerting because of the many recent data breaches at businesses. She cited financial institutions exposing customer account data and passwords stolen from job seekers using the professional networking website LinkedIn.
“That's really concerning to me -- the fact that they are held by a private company,” Lynch said. “You can change your credit card data. But you can't change your biometric data.”
Oftentimes, however, the data cribbed during these incidents was not adequately encrypted, cybersecurity experts are quick to note.
BI2’s iris images are “encrypted using strong cryptographic algorithms to secure and protect them,” the company website states. “Thus, standing alone, biometric templates cannot be reconstructed, decrypted, reverse-engineered or otherwise manipulated to reveal a person's identity. In short, biometrics can be thought of as a very secure key: Unless a biometric gate is unlocked by using the right key, no one can gain access to a person's identity.”
The average iris recognition time -- from when an image is captured to when an officer receives a response -- is 7.8 seconds, Mullin said.
“No agency -- and there are more than 400 BI2 systems in operation across the nation -- that has implemented BI2’s IRIS technology has ever had an erroneous or mistaken release because of an identification error,” he said.
During a six-month period at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, BI2’s system immediately spotted 119 repeat offenders previously booked by the department who provided different names and identification to avoid detection, Mullin said.
The June FBI advisory board memo states the bureau has chosen an L-1/MorphoTrust iris capture system for NGI. (L-1 Identity Solutions was acquired in 2011 by Safran and reorganized as MorphoTrust.) In 2011, the Missouri Sheriff’s Association bought the same system using federal grant money partly so the association’s database could eventually interface with NGI, said Jeff Merriman, a grant consultant for law enforcement agencies. He also works part time for the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office in Missouri, where he was a former police commander.
Jasper and more than 50 other Missouri agencies are hooked up to the association’s central system for statewide sharing, he said.
“Not only are we capturing multibiometrics at jails and prisons, we are also linking dozens of disparate criminal records systems across the state, connecting the dots between all the offenders and using that information tactically to combat crime,” Merriman said.
But the Missouri iris scans can’t get to the FBI. The problem is the Missouri State Highway Patrol, which is responsible for sharing criminal history records with the FBI, doesn’t have an iris database to collect the state’s iris files, he said. The FBI visited the Missouri Sheriff’s Association biometric system as part of the bureau’s NGI research, according to Merriman.
Now, he is working with law enforcement agencies in Oklahoma and Tennessee to acquire grant money for starting iris database systems that can connect with the Missouri Sheriff’s Association biometric system.
Separately, York County Prison in Pennsylvania has been using an LG Electronics iris recognition system for about a decade, prison spokesman Joe Borgiel said.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Lynch said she was concerned by the breadth of iris recognition in the law enforcement realm. That said, she added, iris scans can be less sneaky than facial searches, which governments and social networks such as Facebook are embracing. Nextgov reported in 2011 that the FBI would begin a limited trial of facial recognition in early 2012.
“With iris scans and facial recognition, one of the differences is you can take a picture of a face surreptitiously,” Lynch said.
Thomas E. Bush III, who helped develop NGI's system requirements when he served as assistant director of the FBI’s criminal justice information services division between 2005 and 2009, acknowledged people will worry about authorities combing through candid videos and photos for suspects, and, inadvertently, collecting images of innocent passersby.
“I’m an American citizen. I get that,” he said, but, “no, we will obtain these from the people who come into contact with law enforcement.”
Bush, now a private consultant, added, “It’s not public source data.” And, the FBI would not upload a bank vault’s iris database into NGI. “The FBI’s No. 1 priority is protection of civil rights,” he said.
In 2008, the bureau distributed a privacy impact assessment describing controls to ensure NGI complies with federal privacy regulations. FBI officials have said the bureau has an elaborate system of checks and balances to guard irises, palm prints, mug shots and all manner of criminal history data.
“The information sharing of the future is biometrically based,” Bush said. “That’s when you know that you have Tom Bush. This makes me more confident that I do have the right [bad] Tom Bush and then the good Tom Bush goes on his merry way. It’s about getting the right bad guy . . . We’ve got limited resources.” | <urn:uuid:3f49819f-a289-4024-a67e-66edd6ffa732> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2012/06/eye-crime-fbi-building-database-iris-scans/56481/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935645 | 2,308 | 1.78125 | 2 |
The 5th biennial Science, Technology and Research Symposium will be October 22-23, 2013 at Waterfront Place Hotel in Morgantown.…
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Gaston Caperton is trying to save America’s education system, one book at a time. After two terms as governor of West Virginia and 13 years as president of the College Board, Caperton has had a front-row seat to the problems besetting America’s education system — issues with school access, college affordability, recruiting high-quality teachers and combating low student expectations.
We all know the big problems, said Caperton, but in his two new books, which will be released just months before he steps down from the College Board in October, he won’t rehash what’s wrong with U.S. education, but rather showcase what’s right.
“You do not succeed by dwelling on what’s wrong,” Caperton said in an interview at his home in Charleston’s South Hills. “People have to know what are examples of excellence and what works. These books are basically stories of people who have gone into situations and have taken what was a bad situation and made it great.”
Caperton’s upcoming books, The Caperton Years and The Achievable Dream, chart the College Board’s transformation from a testing company to an education advocacy organization since Caperton took the helm in 1999. They also highlight on-the-ground school success stories he encountered in classrooms across America.
When Caperton came to the College Board in 1999, the non-profit education membership association had a limited mission and was known primarily as the entity that administered the Scholastic Achievement Test (SAT). The College Board was facing a bleak financial future when Caperton took over, even considering scaling back its SAT fee waivers to remain financially solvent.
Caperton decided to fix the College Board’s bottom line — both in finances and core philosophy.
Read the entire story at the Charleston Gazette.
Visit our Press Room for more news stories about education, science, research and innovation in West Virginia. | <urn:uuid:abb11cfc-b72a-47d1-9879-24f44654a9cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wvresearch.org/archives/3361 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962928 | 449 | 1.710938 | 2 |
It's the feast day of a little known blessed -- Peter To Rot. I remember reading his story in a book about modern saints I received around the time of my Confirmation, "Faces of Holiness, Faces of Christ." But it wasn't until our Kenosis teens began researching saints to be the patrons of Kenosis that I realized the reason for his martyrdom near Papua New Guinea. He was a martyr for marriage.
Fast forward more than a year later, and my fiance and I were told that the only day available in July for a wedding at the church in which we hoped to marry was July 7.
Fast forward another few months, and I realize that July 7, our wedding day, is the feast day of Bl. Peter To Rot, a martyr for marriage. God is good! And, no worries, I am not typing this post on our wedding day. In fact, as I mentioned a couple of days ago, I have pre-posted until the beginning of August to allow me time to marry, move and travel.
But I had to share the saint of the day and a link to his powerful story.
Bl. John Paul II said in his homily for the beatification of Bl. Peter To Rot:
The Martyr’s example speaks also to married couples. Blessed Peter To Rot had the highest esteem for marriage and, even in the face of great personal danger and opposition, he defended the Church’s teaching on the unity of marriage and the need for mutual fidelity. He treated his wife Paula with deep respect and prayed with her morning and evening. For his children he had the utmost affection and spent as much time with them as he could. If families are good, your villages will be peaceful and good. Hold on to the traditions that defend and strengthen family life!
Let's learn from this martyr's story and ask him for his prayers today. | <urn:uuid:a4cd7c36-6195-4be4-99c5-9a82e73b3cf6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://unshakeablehope.blogspot.com/2012/07/bl-peter-to-rot-pray-for-us.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98973 | 388 | 1.640625 | 2 |
With Cows It’s Always About the Food
I had used the SeaAgri Sea Salt a few weeks ago in the garden behind the cows in this picture, putting out about 25 pounds per acre. When I finished I tossed the excess on the ground outside the fence, not realizing that I was adding to the equation of what qualifies as cow food..
These are my neighbor’s cows from about a quarter mile away. They broke through their fence and came to our place. They followed their order of dominance as each one ate at the spot where the sea salt had been absorbed by the grass. They ate the grass, roots and eventually the dirt.
While they were here, I placed a few handfuls out around the barn. They sniffed out each one and devoured it.
Was it the smell or the electrical conductivity?
This was just one confirmation that I am on the right track in pursuing the idea that re-mineralization is critical in the food process.
Robert Cain and Carmen Hagan are carrying on the work of Dr. Murray and were very helpful in getting me the 2,000 pounds of sea salt that we put on the pasture that year. The guys at the farmers co-op all thought I was going to kill the fields. Having tested this idea for several years, the one thing we have learned is that you can dilute the sea salt and spray it on, if the expense is a concern. Just remember that the cows really enjoy it mixed in with alfalfa pellets and DE.
Cows Also Browse
Much to the chagrin of my wife, the cows really find certain bushes in our flower bed delectable.
There are a couple of times each year when the cows break out of the fencing for a little fun.
The first place they go is to some nearby cedar trees for a good scratch. Besides, cedar sap makes a great cologne. Then they head towards the privet hedge and low hanging leaves on young trees. I had to put fencing around the apple trees to save them.
They stop off at the flower bed to snack on the crape myrtle. Cows enjoy crab grass, dandelions, certain thistles, hair vetch, purple vetch and anything growing in the garden.
The point is that they get quite bored and nutritionally deficient on a mono-crop of one variety of grass. Well, in our case, we are a 24/7 salad bar.
Why is Re-mineralization So important?
Dr. William Albrecht pointed out a generation ago that if we don’t feed the soil, it can’t feed us. For years, scientist have focused on what components would boost crop yield without giving much thought to how nutritious those extra bushels might be.
Maynard Murray pioneered study in the idea that sea water contains over 90 minerals and trace elements that are critical to human health. He noticed especially how sea creatures don’t have cancer and that their vital organs stay youthful far beyond the experience of land based animals.
The University of Georgia published a report detailing the minerals contained in the Sea-Agri Sea Salts.
Nationally recognized garden expert Ann Myers has also recently begun testing the sea salt idea. | <urn:uuid:5fe57b25-0078-48b5-a3af-1558f5532d18> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foggybottomfarms.com/cows-know-food/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967952 | 677 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Sudan and the International Criminal Court
Catch me if you can
The president of Sudan thumbs his nose at the International Criminal Court
OMAR AL-BASHIR certainly gets around. In defiance of the arrest warrant for war crimes issued against him by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on March 4th, the Sudanese president has spent the past week jetting about northern Africa. He visited Eritrea, Egypt and Libya and was planning a trip to Ethiopia. Having called on some of his neighbours, he is making up his mind whether to attend a summit of the Arab League in Qatar on Monday March 30th.
Mr Bashir is scathing about the allegations of crimes against humanity and war crimes that are levelled against him. As he travelled, a spokesman for the Sudanese foreign ministry said that the president considers the warrant for his arrest “not worth the ink it is written with—and this is the message of this trip.”
For now the ICC is putting on a brave face. Speaking to al-Jazeera television the court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, retorted that Mr Bashir's trip is “a sign of desperation rather than a challenge to the ICC”. In fact the trip demonstrates the enormous difficulty faced by the court in getting those indicted into the dock.
Within Sudan Mr Bashir faces no threat of arrest. In Khartoum, the capital, people prefer to avoid talking in public about the indictment of the president. When pressed, a typical response is no more than a resigned shrug of the shoulders. A few dissidents explain that after two decades of military rule, it is time for Mr Bashir to go. Those more sympathetic to Mr Bashir, notably in government and business, suggest that the warrant is part of a broad American conspiracy to steal resources (mainly oil) from Sudan. For them, the president's wanderings are welcome evidence of his thumbing his nose at the court.
Beyond Sudan Mr Bashir is slightly more at risk, but he has designed his tour with care. Eritrea, Egypt, Ethiopia and Libya have all failed to sign up to the ICC and thus they have no direct obligation to nab Mr Bashir (although any member of the United Nations is expected to co-operate with the court). The African Union and the Arab League, of which they are variously members, have both called for the arrest warrant to be deferred, arguing that it will destabilise Sudan.
It might grow trickier for Mr Bashir if he decides to go to Qatar, which would involve travelling through international airspace. The president's supporters worry that his plane could somehow be diverted to a third country which might be more willing to enforce the ICC's arrest warrant, sending Sudan's president to The Hague.
In Qatar Mr Bashir could have pause for thought. The host country itself has not signed the Rome treaty which set up the court, so is not obliged to detain Mr Bashir. But Jordan, Djibouti and the Comoros—all members of the Arab League—have signed up to the court and should in theory lend a hand in bringing the indicted president to book. In practice, with the Arab League rejecting the validity of the warrant, this is most unlikely.
Yet Mr Bashir might yet hesitate. Various former heads of state—from Liberia's Charles Taylor to Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic—were eventually delivered to international tribunals, despite widespread belief that the courts were toothless because they lacked the direct means to conduct arrests. The Committee of Muslim Scholars, Sudan's highest religious authority, has issued a fatwa advising Mr Bashir to avoid the Arab League summit because “the enemies of the nation are creeping round”. Should Mr Bashir decide to stay home, he has a convenient excuse to do so. | <urn:uuid:a6476bf1-5b99-4e4a-b5b1-72a8a40d74d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.economist.com/node/13395465?zid=317&ah=8a47fc455a44945580198768fad0fa41 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973502 | 784 | 1.726563 | 2 |
This statutory database is current through the 2003 Regular Session of the South Carolina General Assembly. Changes to the statutes enacted by the 2004 General Assembly, which will convene in January 2004, will be incorporated as soon as possible. Some changes enacted by the 2004 General Assembly may take immediate effect. The State of South Carolina and the South Carolina Legislative Council make no warranty as to the accuracy of the data, and users rely on the data entirely at their own risk.
Title 49 - Waters, Water Resources and Drainage
OFFICE OF STATE CLIMATOLOGY
Creation of South Carolina State Climatology Office.
There is created within the Department of Natural Resources the South Carolina State Climatology Office.
Appointment of state climatologist.
The director shall appoint the state climatologist who shall serve as director of the office.
Powers and duties of office.
The office has the following powers and duties:
1. to serve as a climatological focal point for state government and its agencies;
2. to provide climatological support to the department and other state agencies as required, including collection and analysis of climatic data, such as drought, flood, rainfall, storms, and other climatic information that affect water management in South Carolina;
3. to acquire, archive, process, and disseminate all climatic and weather information which is or may be of value to policy and decision makers in the State;
4. to act as the representative of the State in all climatological and meteorological matters within and outside the State;
5. to prepare, publish, and disseminate regular climatic information for those individuals, agencies, and organizations whose activities are related to the welfare of the State and are affected by climate and weather, and to serve as a source of climatic information for the citizens of South Carolina;
6. to conduct and report on studies of climate and weather phenomena of significant socioeconomic importance to the State;
7. to evaluate the significance of natural, man-made, deliberate, and inadvertent changes or modifications in the climate and weather affecting the State, and to report this information to those agencies and organizations in the State which are likely to be affected by the changes or modifications.
Certification of copies as authentic reproductions of weather records; presentation of annual report.
The state climatologist may certify copies as being authentic reproductions of weather records held in the State and shall present a report each year to the board of the Department of Natural Resources concerning the activities of the climatic program and other information which the board may consider necessary. | <urn:uuid:79d8ad28-8f16-42b4-9943-ee8d901859c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scstatehouse.gov/archives/CodeofLaws2003/t49c025.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939852 | 528 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Unfortunately for some North Carolinians, the effort to increase the age at which adolescents are charged as adults was halted yet again in Raleigh last week, say legislators.
Earlier this year, legislators introduced Senate Bill 434 to “raise the age” of juvenile jurisdiction from 16 to 18. In previous years, the initiative died in committee in the form of other bills and without bipartisan support. As Republicans have taken the majority in Raleigh, the bill seemed promising for proponents of the initiative, as it gained steam due to the newfound support of Republicans.
Currently, North Carolina is one of only two states which automatically prosecute all 16- and 17-year-olds as adults for any type of crime, from theft of a candy bar to more heinous crimes like rape or murder.
Eleven states have set the age at 17, while the other 37 states have set the age of adulthood at 18. New York is the only other state to try 16- and 17-year-olds as adults for criminal matters. According to the child advocacy group Action For Children (AFC), about 22,000 young people in North Carolina will suffer because of the current juvenile justice system. The current policy, it points out, is nearly a century old, and does more harm than good.
And although SB 434 unanimously passed House Judiciary Subcommittee A on June 20, where it had died during previous sessions, it failed in late July. This year it failed in a Senate appropriations committee.
The initiative will now move to the Legislative Research Committee to review the steps necessary to fully implement the policy change for next year. Advocates, including conservatives and progressives, say the review is a strong step toward finally changing the state's current law.
According to Marilyn Avila (R-Wake), the bill failed yet again this year because of two primary issues — feasibility and funding. Avila signed as one of the bill’s chief sponsors this year.
“A lot of people were hesitant about funding it,” said Avila, explaining many legislators were wary of the policy change due to the economy. “You got a system that is not working and right now we just don’t have the funding to fix it.” She added that it is now the intention of senate majority lawmakers to beef up the current system to make it ready for a change, by making sure the state can accrue the proper funding as well as collecting the proper data of the current system. “We would like to come back with recommendations in the long session.”
“We want to look at what it is and find out what needs to be addressed,” Avila continued, adding that currently there is considerable discretion with the presiding judge and the district attorney in each juvenile case. “We want an evidencebased program as their standard resource for sentencing… It feels like a good step. Evidence is key.”
This year’s bill will resemble next year’s prospective bill to “raise the age,” explained Avila. As with most bills, Avila explained that SB 434 will be used as a basis for next year’s bill, with revisions. “It will be a graduated approach. Every bill builds off of the next one,” she said.
Under SB 434, 16- and 17-year-olds who commit misdemeanors would have no longer been tried in the adult system. Instead, rather than simply being incarcerated, juveniles would be dealt with in the juvenile system, which offers rehabilitative education and insists on appropriate punishment and restitution. Young people that commit serious, more felonious offenses would remain in the adult system.
In essence, the bill would not only have raised the age at which youth are tried as adults for misdemeanor crimes, but it would have ensured that all 16- and 17-year-olds accused of a felony remain in adult court. In order to keep the state’s juvenile policy change manageable, both administratively and financially, the bill sought to increase the age in half-year increments, contingent upon funding, beginning in 2016.
“North Carolina's children, families and taxpayers need and deserve a smarter approach to dealing with children charged with misdemeanors,” said Avila in a statement earlier this month. “After achieving strong bipartisan support for raising the age this session, my colleagues and I will now carefully craft the specifics necessary to make this important change a reality. In making the change, we will reduce crime, save taxpayers money and give North Carolina's children the same shot at success as kids in 48 other states.”
Avila added that the current policy is an economic hindrance for the state, as adolescents with criminal records have a harder time obtaining competitive jobs, joining the military or entering a college.
AFC Director of Policy and Outreach Brandy Bynum, who has earnestly supported the initiative, remains hopeful of next year’s reintroduction. “We look forward to the LRC taking a serious look at what system changes need to be addressed to move N.C. to raise the age,” she said in a statement last week. “First, we applaud our legislative supporters on both sides of the aisle for their due diligence to this very important issue.”
But not all legislators are happy with the bill’s failure this time around.
“We worked hard on this for six years now and it’s sad that we’re just not there yet,” said Alice Bordsen (D-Alamance), who had spearheaded the effort since its inception over half a decade ago. “I am glad and grateful to Marilyn Avila that is still alive ... I think the majority is making it more complex than it needs to be. They basically stonewalled the issue.”
“Young people are reclaimable. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel on this,” Bordsen continued, expressing that North Carolina’s drive to be independent from other states policywise is, in this case, counter-productive. She pointed out that many states have juvenile justice systems in place that produce low recidivism rates. “North Carolina still prefers to punish people rather than get them better. We are not a forgiving state or a forgiving society.”
But regardless of political-philosophical qualms, both Avila and Bordsen agree that lawmakers and citizens working together, is paramount to the success of the initiative. “Raising the age is something for all of us to pay attention to,” said Avila. “Our young people are our future, so we shouldn’t punish them all for their past.” | <urn:uuid:a1c64533-3668-44eb-8b69-70ff00343db8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.maconnews.com/news/state--region/3367-north-carolina-wont-raise-the-age-this-year | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964635 | 1,400 | 1.765625 | 2 |
True Power of Java EE and JMS: Distributed Computations!
Back in 2011 I was writing a PhD about evaluating and measuring
quality of Web Services compositions. I had a system where I focued on evaluating
WS-BPEL processes (but the framework I designed was extremely flexible
and supports any business scenario technology).
The system (called Measurement System DIES) is a Java EE application. It is designed in a distributed manner which makes scaling out and distributing computations very easy.
Out of pure curiosity, I decided to do stress tests. Apache Geronimo did not survive this nor did the embedded ActiveMQ. After I killed Geronimo and started it again all queues stopped working... I had to install brand new instance of Geronimo.
But thanks to Java EE capabilities and the distributed nature of my system I was able to overcome this problem. See how I did it with JMS and distributed computations!
The EJB module of my application
- Queue for execution orders - each execution of a WS-BPEL process instance may last minutes (I have a 10 minutes timeout set up),
- Queue for asynchronous computing of quality and performance score of each activity trace - this task usually takes up to 4 seconds to complete (most of the time spent here is to query external services like geolocation services),
- Timer for computing statistics - every 10 seconds I retrieve all completed instances which are not yet analysed and conduct some statistical computations.
The development environment
While developing my system I used 1 box for everything:
- Apache Geronimo with my Java EE application and embedded ActiveMQ server
- Apache ODE as an WS-BPEL execution engine
- IBM DB2 pureXML
I managed to get a second machine. Based on that I decided to distribute my components this way:
- Apache Geronimo with my Java EE application with Timer but without Queue components
- IBM DB2 pureXML
- Apache ODE as an execution engine
- Apache Geronimo with EJB module with Queue components
- Standalone ActiveMQ
- 3rd for IBM DB2 pureXML database
- 4th for Apache ODE
Here is what I did:
- I split my EJB components. I moved my two queues into a separate project and deployed them to Apache Geronimo installed on the second machine. I decided to leave the Timer component in the original EJB project.
- I downloaded a standalone ActiveMQ server and installed it on the second machine.
- Finally I configured connection factories for both Apache Geronimos. I used the wizard offered by Geronimo's Admin Console - it was childishly simple! I use application-wide JMS resources and just compared the generated deployment plans with the ones I already had. It turned out that I had to add 1 line to my deployment plans - the external server url. NICE! This is how the enterprise configuration should look like!
I re-ran my stress test. Both Geronimos and ActiveMQ survived :)
What was the improvement rate? Hard to say... In Java when you add, subtract, multiply or divide NaN by any other number you still get NaN. I know one thing for sure, the first configuration did not survive the stress test :)
Always keep in mind that some day your system will have to be distributed or scaled out. At the design stage it's far more easier to introduce basic enterprise architectural patterns and concepts than to introduce them during the maintenance phase (when, for example, task distribution would have a huge impact on the whole system).
(Note: Opinions expressed in this article and its replies are the opinions of their respective authors and not those of DZone, Inc.) | <urn:uuid:8e885f65-c580-4468-ba1c-b69919677911> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://java.dzone.com/articles/true-power-java-ee-and-jms | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932142 | 776 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Dissolve into Evergreens
Hold Yer Nose
Give Me Libertarian...?
Here I Go Again
Solutions needs Problems
Shop at Home
The Flaming Lips
The New Radicals
Death Cab for Cutie
Badly Drawn Boy
Coheed and Cambria
Atom Site Feed
"The third reason why an individual takes on the group perspective is that the group encourages conformity through both continuous socializations and social sanctions. We are socialized to believe what the group does. We learn its perspective through listening and watching others and through intentional acts of teaching by others. Orientation to college life, basic training in the army, on the job training, and spring football practice are but a few examples of social sanctions (rewards and punishments) from the group. When we use the group perspective, others in the group accept us, and we come to feel part of something important. If we do not use it, we are not rewarded, and sometimes we are punished. All social organizations want loyalty, and loyalty is tested through showing that we believe in the ideas and principles of the group." - Ten Questions
I do lots of pretending. Funny thing is though, as long as I keep my mouth shut people will assume that I believe just like they do. I've had people tell me racist jokes, spew right wing hate, and generally act like an asshole without even once stopping to ask if I agreed with them.
- I am bad at small talk. Unless there is an agreed upon subject at hand I don't know what to say, because I don't know the person, and I don't like making assumptions about them. The more you are socialized into mainstream opinion the more common ground you will find with other people. Small talk becomes easier. I have lost friends as they have been socialized into cultural groups while I have remained outside. We quite literally, had nothing to talk about anymore.
In Oklahoma, watching football helps, especially when you have to avoid conversations about politics and religion. And there's always movies and music?
- I am bad at my job. Not in any technical sense. Most people I work with agree that I am one of the most knowledgeable people there, but they also know that I don't "try hard enough" when it comes to achieving the company goals. Rather than internalize the company mindset, I pretend. I say the right things when asked, and go through the motions. But really I could care less if we reach our goals. I'm not a team player and you can only fool people for so long.
To successfully become part of a group you have to internalize the values of that group. I wouldn't call it brainwashing, "socialization" sounds nicer. The punishment for resisting the values of the group is always the same, exclusion. In the professional world this can have devastating results, including the death of your career. In the social world it can mean losing friends or even making enemies.
Freedom of thought. Once you have become socialized into a group, you defend their values even to the point of being willfully ignorant. Remaining outside of social groups allows you to look on reality with less bias.
Yes, in exchange for accepting and defending the values of the largest and most powerful groups you can reap tremendous benefits, material wealth, social advancement... phone sex.
Most people, in fact walk a line between staying an individual and being absorbed into social groups. Many people join smaller, less demanding sub-cultures where the rewards are smaller but the sacrifices to your individuality are smaller as well. Other people have drawn very definite lines between their professional lives and their personal lives, where they might adopt the mindset of their profession but keep that from affecting the decisions they make in their personal lives.
My favorites are the people that have adapted the mindset of their chosen social environment so completely they will even deny that they have done so. This, you may have noticed is my particular pet peeve with religious people that claim that despite believing in the dominant religion in which they were raised will always say that they did so because of the "rightness" of that religion, not its social convenience or its rewards.
Such self delusion is often well rewarded.
Ground Control to Major Tom
Comments: Post a Comment
Dissolve into Evergreens | <urn:uuid:bfd02c6d-3f48-4b82-a5b9-4c0ff5f1a36d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://juscuz.blogspot.com/2004/10/mind-control-to-major-tom.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965316 | 882 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Sloshed, trollied, hammered, plastered. We’ve done a sterling job of inventing words for the inebriated state, but when it comes to judging from their behaviour how much a person has drunk, we could do (a lot) better. That’s according to a review of the literature by US psychologist Steve Rubenzer.
We all have our trusted indices for judging other people’s drunkenness. Perhaps it’s when the eyeballs start floating about as if under the control of a clumsy puppeteer. Or maybe the effusive ‘you know I love you’ delivered with a trickle of dribble. However, the vast majority of studies find that lay people, police officers and bartenders are in fact hopeless at distinguishing a drunk person from a sober one, at least at moderate levels of intoxication. To take just one example, after watching drunk and sober people being interviewed and negotiating a stair case, bartenders rated them as slightly, moderately or very drunk with an accuracy of just 25 per cent.
An international cybercrime investigation is underway into a sophisticated scam network that left a Western Australian man half a million dollars out of pocket when criminals sold his Perth investment property using stolen credentials.
The man, Roger Mildenhall, had been overseas for more than a year when his neighbour informed him that a house of his had been put on the market and was in the process of being sold. Mildenhall then found out that another property of his had already been sold in June.
Mildenhall rushed home and action was taken to stop him losing a second property. The crimes were reported to the police last Friday.
photo by TJ Scenes
Humans can be unpredictable. Sometimes you think you know the answer to something, and other times you’re completely wrong. It’s weird too- sometimes you can find the answers you’re looking for by using reference tools for learning and sometimes it’s more of a social/psychological answer you can’t find within a book.
Also, it seems like it takes forever to get a question answered, and even then you’re not always satisfied with the answer you received. Does it seem like you still don’t know the true answer to what you were asking? If so, it’s possible that you weren’t asking the correct question in the correct way. It may be time to learn how to ask smart questions, so the answer you get will be the ones you truly need.
Sooooo… how do I learn what questions to ask?
When you come to someone with a question, consider all the issues that surround it. The only way to truly get a complete answer is to ask a thorough question where all of the variables have been considered. For example, be sure to look at:
- The person’s background.
- The actual knowledge and life experience the person has.
- Whether there is any research pertaining to the subject and if the person agrees with it.
- Whether prejudice of any kind is involved.
- If you’ve asked the question the way you really wanted to.
There are other considerations, but those are a few to get you thinking about how you might ask – and someone might answer – a question. Most of the questions we ask, we don’t really need the answer to. We already know the answer, but we want people to confirm it for us. When they do, we feel better. When they don’t, we get upset and feel like we’re right back at square one.
Open up your eyes and listen as well… the answers are there
When you ask a question, do you actually listen to what the answer is that you’re given? A lot of people don’t. They just feel as though they are supposed to ask questions, but they don’t really care what the other person’s opinion is. While unfortunate, it’s quite common. You don’t need to be one of the people who do this. You can change.
After you’ve thought about your question and decided that it’s one you really do need to ask of others, think about the others in your life. Who would be most likely to know the answer? Whose opinion do you most respect? Is there someone in your circle of friends and family members who has experience with the subject? If you’re considering a divorce, don’t ask your happily-married sister. Ask your aunt who’s been married five times. She’ll have more knowledge of the procedure.
In short, people often feel as though they aren’t getting the right answers when, in truth, they’re getting the answers that are true for the people they’re asking the questions of. When you take the time to formulate the right question and make sure to ask the people who will have the most knowledge to impart to you, you’ll be much more likely to get the answers you need.
I still remember learning from my father how to carefully remove a dipstick to check the oil level in our cars. It was drilled into me — along with turning off the lights when you left a room and clearing the plates off the table after dinner — that oil needs to be changed every 3,000 miles or so.
I’m not sure what I thought would happen if I didn’t, but I vaguely imagined an unlubricated engine grinding to a halt.
Childhood habits are hard to undo, and that’s often good. To this day, I hate seeing an empty room with the lights on.
But sometimes, we need to throw aside our parents’ good advice. In March, for example, I wrote about how we should relearn the dishwasher and laundry soap habits we inherited from our mothers.
This is the DTV Shredder, a militarized skateboard with two caterpillar tracks. It can travel at over 30mph, go up 40-degree slopes, turn around in four feet, and be remotely operated. It’s also quite spectacular in action.
As a maid working in Saudi Arabia, Lahanda Purage Ariyawathie suffered at the hands of her Saudi employer and his wife, who skewered her body with at least 24 nails and needles (pictured). Her case was unusually brutal, but the abuse of domestic workers in the Middle East is all too common.
Huge numbers of migrant domestic workers, mostly from Asia and Africa, are employed throughout the region. Some 1.5m work in Saudi Arabia, 660,000 in Kuwait and 200,000 in Lebanon. Many work very long hours and receive little food, no time off and pay that is a fraction of any minimum wage, if it materialises at all. Human Rights Watch (HRW), a New York-based group, says at least one domestic worker died every week in Lebanon between January 2007 and August 2008. Almost half were suicides and many were as a result of falling from high buildings, often while trying to escape their employers. Mistreatment is so widespread that the Philippines, Ethiopia and Nepal no longer let their citizens go to Lebanon to work as maids, though such bans have had little effect.
Most maids get their jobs through sponsorship systems, so their immigration status is tied to their employer. Employers can repatriate them at will, prevent them from changing jobs and, in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, stop them from leaving the country.
According to data from Twitter, published in February 2010, every day around 50 million tweets are sent over the popular micro blogging platform.
Considering an average time of 10 seconds to write one single tweet and the average consumption of 250 watt/hour for one single computer, the total daily consumption amount to 35 kW h (kilowatt hour). | <urn:uuid:efefb8e3-9ed2-47fd-8e35-5dab6fc0759a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://chickenmcnugget.com/2010/09 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968035 | 1,637 | 1.65625 | 2 |
HI, can you tell me the name of this soapstone and where was it quarried? Thanks so much!
It is from Bucks County Soapstone - www.bcsoapstone.com
soapstone pretty but high maintenance I hear
stone countertop? How does it do w heat?
Soapstone for counters very durable!
Kind of a neat look- I think it is soapstone. Might be $$.
Soapstone counters @ wood panel walls
soapstone 100 sq ft vs granite 50? but no sealing
soapstone counter & sink??? looks cool. Is it 'warm' enough for me?
Are you a fan of soapstone kitchen sinks? Let's discuss! Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.Compare more kitchen sink materials
basics: Soapstone is a natural stone composed largely of mineral talc, which lends the material the smooth feel of soap. Slab colors are typically medium gray and can have a greenish cast. Over time, the soapstone will darken to a deep charcoal. Slabs may contain pronounced veining, which is produced | <urn:uuid:32ae2c51-d8b0-4786-a654-9bbddde00373> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.houzz.com/soapstone-countertop-options | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938867 | 230 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Iranian Union of Students Islamic Association has produced a new videogame simulating the rescue of two Iranian nuclear experts from the clutches of American and Israeli troops, called Rescue the Nuke Scientist.
In the game, U.S. troops capture a husband-and-wife team of nuclear engineers as they make a pilgrimage to the holy site of Karbala,Players take on the role of Iranian security forces as they undertake "The Special Operation," tracking the scientists from Iraq to Israel. To successfully complete the game, the player will have to enter Israel, kill U.S. and Israeli troops, rescue the scientists and retrieve their laptops which contain secret information.
The student group that produced the game was also behind the 2005World without Zionism conference during which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."
Save the Nuke Scientist took three years to develop. Its release comes close on the heels of the similarly-nationalistic Save The Port.Failure brings the message, "With resistance, you can battle the enemy," and the Iranian flag flies in the corner of the screen throughout the game. | <urn:uuid:f3bc2fb8-2df4-46ed-af9f-194297e72d39> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cyberwarzone.com/content/iran-new-videogame-rescue-nuke-scientist?page=420 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958559 | 230 | 1.632813 | 2 |
"Iran has legitimate energy concerns, legitimate aspirations," says Obama. Funny thing: Iran's energy concerns are legitimate, but America's aren't. No drilling for oil, no nuclear energy here -- but in Iran, sure.
A Which-Side-Is-Obama-On Alert: "Obama says Iran's energy concerns legitimate," by Nancy Zuckerbrod for AP, June 2 (thanks to all who sent this in):
LONDON (AP) — President Barack Obama reiterated that Iran may have some right to nuclear energy — provided it takes steps to prove its aspirations are peaceful.
In a BBC interview broadcast Tuesday, Obama also restated plans to pursue direct diplomacy with Tehran to encourage it to set aside any ambitions for nuclear weapons it might harbor.
Iran has insisted its nuclear program is aimed at generating electricity. But the U.S. and other Western governments accuse Tehran of seeking atomic weapons.
"Without going into specifics, what I do believe is that Iran has legitimate energy concerns, legitimate aspirations. On the other hand, the international community has a very real interest in preventing a nuclear arms race in the region," Obama said.
The comments echo remarks Obama made in Prague last month in which he said his administration would "support Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy with rigorous inspections" if Iran proves it is no longer a nuclear threat.
Iranian state television described the news as Obama recognizing the "rights of the Iranian nation," a phrase typically used to refer to Iran's nuclear program.
The president has indicated a willingness to seek deeper international sanctions against Tehran if it does not respond positively to U.S. attempts to open negotiations on its nuclear program. Obama has said Tehran has until the end of the year to show it wants to engage.
"Although I don't want to put artificial time tables on that process, we do want to make sure that, by the end of this year, we've actually seen a serious process move forward. And I think that we can measure whether or not the Iranians are serious," Obama said....
I can tell you that right now, Mr. President. | <urn:uuid:42e9ffc8-a4e8-4b3a-a24e-54fe8ff20358> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/06/obama-iran-has-right-to-nukes.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96366 | 427 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Why We Can't Outlaw Hatred
Oh, wait. A Moscow court just sentenced an all-woman punk rock band to two years in prison for performing a protest song aimed at Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The reaction of the media, usually quick to condemn outrages against free speech, was strangely muted because, in free-speech-related irony, many news outlets refused to mention the name of the band, Pussy Riot.
Besides, there's a long tradition in this country of adults being appalled by the shocking music embraced by rebellious young people and trying to censor and suppress it.
In a case closer to home, publicity surrounding vile music linked to the mass shooting at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek may have increased interest in trying to outlaw offensive artistic expression.
It turns out Wade Page, the Sikh temple shooter who killed six and wounded four others before shooting himself, was a white supremacist deeply into a nationwide white power, heavy metal music scene.
You mean loud rock 'n' roll that sounds like a clatter of discordant noise can have secret, race-hatred lyrics that encourage mass murder? Well, we should at least be able to get rid of that.
Besides, politicians would much rather take on music than offend the powerful “all-guns-good” lobby by stopping anyone from freely acquiring high-capacity weapons intentionally designed to murder large numbers of human beings within minutes.
Actually, protecting speech, even vile speech, under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is a lot more important to preserving our democracy than all those twisted arguments about the importance of arming ourselves under the Second Amendment.
Let's be clear. Page's underground “hatecore” music scene, pumping up the adrenaline of malevolent skinhead crowds by shouting vitriolic, racist lyrics along with those golden oldies, “Sieg Heil” and “Heil Hitler,” is about as reprehensible as speech gets.
So why not go to the root of the problem and make it against the law in this country to incite people to hatred and ignorance?
Well, at least one of our major political parties would be put out of business. Some people might object to that.
But the basic problem with trying to outlaw hatred is the same one we've run into writing “hate crime” enhancers into our murder and assault laws.
Violence against another human being already is hateful. Murder is the ultimate hate crime.
It would be just as tragic and hateful for Wade Page to murder six white parishioners in their church as it was for him to murder six Sikhs at their temple.
Obviously, increasing the severity of the punishment by designating some instances of deranged multiple-murder/suicide as hate crimes is meaningless as a deterrent.
Because of this country's long history of racial violence, I understand why African Americans and other people of color welcome hate crime legislation. They want special recognition and punishment for the role of racism in violence.
They might be a lot less supportive if they realized enforcement of hate crime laws is just as racially biased as the enforcement of our other laws. African Americans are disproportionately prosecuted for hate crimes against whites.
That's the root problem with laws against hate speech or music. Laws are written and enforced by politicians, the last people we want controlling what we can say.
We've seen the shambles politicians make of the right of artistic expression when they try to write their vast ignorance of art and theater into law.
Outlawing political opinions creates further complications. There are certainly views on the extreme right today about President Barack Obama that Wade Page's band Definite Hate could perform really loud while thrashing about onstage.
A lot of people would be glad to lose such ugly speech, but it's totally unrealistic to think the Tea Party's platform would be the first thing to go. There's a much greater chance this column would end up being against the law.
The extremists who control today's Republican Party already have a head start in passing laws taking away basic rights.
That includes taking the right to vote from millions of Americans and taking away the rights of women to control their own bodies and ignore the sexual commands of the aging, white, male, Catholic hierarchy.
So if we can't pass laws denying freedom of speech to the haters among us, are we totally helpless in a democracy to do anything to combat violent hatred?
Democracy's antidote to hate speech is more speech. We may not be able to outlaw hatred, but every decent person can work to end it by speaking up and never allowing hatred to become acceptable in our politics or in our lives. | <urn:uuid:d18bc898-9406-409c-afcb-faa07d450255> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://expressmilwaukee.com/article-19690-you-cant-hardly-comprehend-what-mcnally-writes-its-just-the-same-twaddle-of-hatred-toward-good-.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96598 | 956 | 1.796875 | 2 |
You may have noticed that we lowered our internet threat level to low risk. We have taken another look at Email-Worm.Win32.VBMania and its prevalence and came to the conclusion the increased threat level was not warranted.
The number of overall infections has been quite low. The number of spammed messages is relatively high, but those don't pose danger anymore as the URLs in the emails are all down. So VBMania will not harvest any additional victims through email. Additionally, VBMania will fail to (properly) run on Windows 7 when UAC is enabled.
That leaves VBMania with two infection vectors: it creates copies of itself on network shares and USB devices. VBMania can be annoying to clean up manually, but the malware doesn't pose much of a challenge to get rid of with a security product.
The noise around VBMania really reminds me of the Bozori worm from 2005. (Some vendors called it Zotob.) For Bozori the overall infection numbers weren't that high either. But, just like with VBMania, some big media corporations got hit which created a lot of extra buzz.
Overall, this threat is far from sophisticated - the malicious techniques it uses are ancient. As a matter of fact, the heuristics that shipped with our KAV6 release over four years ago detected this sample proactively.
To be honest, I'm still somewhat amazed that VBMania managed to make the headlines in the same week we saw a very sophisticated zero-day attack against Adobe Reader.
Corporations that ended up infected with VBMania should seriously rethink their security over the weekend.
2010 Sep 13, 21:17
here was comment and i've tried to reply for this but clicked on "delete", instead "reply". | <urn:uuid:b35a7d11-80a2-43e0-8a6e-0e2244643de2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.securelist.com/en/blog/313/Another_look_at_VBMania?replyto=2183&tree=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955745 | 371 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Prof. Bridget Gourley and 3 Other Women Chemists Receive National Science Foundation Grant
August 22, 2006
August 22, 2006, Greencastle, Ind. - A team of four women chemists, including Bridget L. Gourley, professor and chair of chemistry and biochemistry at DePauw University, is the recipient of a National Science Foundation grant of $499,864. The three-year, NSF ADVANCE Partnership for Adaptation, Implementation and Dissemination Award (PAID), will support a collaborative research project establishing horizontal mentoring alliances of senior women scientists at liberal arts colleges. Joining Dr. Gourley in the project are: Kerry Karukstis of Harvey Mudd College, Miriam Rossi of Vassar College, and Laura Wright of Furman University.
One major objective of the project is to facilitate the advancement of senior women science faculty members at liberal arts colleges to the highest ranks of academic leadership. Additionally, the project will evaluate effective mentoring mechanisms including cyber connections for women faculty at liberal arts colleges as compared to other types of institutions. Members of the mentoring alliances will also offer programming on their home campuses to expand the reach of this award.
"The presence of senior women faculty in the highest ranks of academic leadership enables female students to self-identify as potential scientists and engineers, thus having a powerful influence on their choice of career," noted the four professors in their grant proposal. "Yet only 1.8% of faculty members in universities and four-year colleges holding doctorates in the physical sciences are female full professors with 20 years or more experience beyond their doctorate," compared with 26% among men.
"Kerry, Laura, Miriam and I are excited to build on connections we began through a Mellon Cluster award and further facilitate the success of senior women scientists in liberal arts settings," Professor Gourley says. "Our hope is that by working from the top we can impact the largest number of individuals, benefiting not only our colleagues but all of our students as well. The workforce is gradually changing and all students need to be prepared for working in an environment that may not reflect what they expect."
Visit the National Science Foundation online by clicking here.
Gourley, who has served as director of DePauw's Science Research Fellows and Women in Science programs, also served as host site chair for the 2006 national conference of the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR), which brought more than 550 people to DePauw June 24-27. Details can be found in this previous story.Back | <urn:uuid:61d000c0-0322-4a70-864c-4761dc68b760> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.depauw.edu/news-media/latest-news/details/17938/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957376 | 528 | 1.5 | 2 |
One of the most frequent questions that I’ve gotten from visitors to the California Design exhibition is “where did you find all this stuff?” In addition to the chairs, tables, textiles, and ceramics that you’d expect to see in a design exhibition, you’ll also find some rather offbeat things—a 1930s ice gun, his-and-hers lobster swimsuits, and a roadside barricade light used in countless highway construction sites.
The answer to the baffling question of how we located all the objects is that we looked pretty much everywhere. Many were already in LACMA’s permanent collection. To find the rest, we visited dozens of private collectors, dealers, and auctioneers and asked our colleagues in museums across the country about what they had in their galleries and tucked away in storage. But some of our proudest (and most affordable) finds came from visits to antique stores and that virtual shopping wonderland, eBay.
We found the Burroughs Manufacturing Corporation plastic pitcher at a Dallas antique mall ($7.27). The company’s proprietor Clarence Burroughs patented the design in 1948 and put it into production along with a wide array of handy molded plastic objects such as salt and pepper shakers, bread boxes, and wastepaper baskets.
We found pristine orange crate labels in a flea market in San Juan Capistrano (2 for $26). The imagery of agricultural bounty was as characteristic of California as the brightly colored, dynamic designs.
And the Henry Dreyfuss Swinger Polaroid camera was an eBay victory at $9.99 for the camera and its original box and instruction booklet (we could have gotten the camera alone for a mere penny, but we’re suckers for vintage packaging).
We’re not bragging about our bargain finds just to make you jealous. The real message here is that collecting design is not reserved for the rarefied few. While many areas are of art out of reach except to the phenomenally rich, it’s possible to enter the collecting field at nearly any level. Find something that fascinates you, learn by looking closely, ask lots of questions, and don’t be afraid to pass on a piece that doesn’t meet your rigorous standards.
With this behind-the-scenes glimpse, go forth into this shopping season and seek out your own California design treasures. When you find something that resembles what you saw in the show (or if you can’t make it to the show, check out highlights in the free mobile app), post it to the California Design Flickr feed and share it with us.
Remember, go green and buy antiques!
Bobbye Tigerman. Assistant Curator, Decorative Arts and Design | <urn:uuid:3f0e4eed-1f2e-443c-ac56-e01c7bc80a2e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lacma.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/mid-century-design-at-mid-century-prices/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944189 | 574 | 1.515625 | 2 |
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