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PDF::Labels =========== A geneal purpose tool for laying out sheets and sheet and sheets of labels from most any data source you can think of. This module grew from my need to send Chrismas cards December 2002 only to find that nasty Apple's Addressbook program doesn't do the mundane - print mailing labels. So I figured out how to use a couple of the PDF writing modules. Add the need to write labels for other applications I though I could put together a decent general purpose module. There are other modules out there but they lack the flexibility I envision. Features: - extensibility - individual labels are generated by a layout package - supplied layout package is pretty smart for simple multi-row labels - flexibility - I intend to allow for both explicit data sets for output as well as iterators / callbacks - ability to skip printing on certain labels (ie/ they've been taken already) - longevity - I am gambling that PDF::API2 is the long-term PDF authoring module for Perl Why? Perl Graphics Programming - O'Reilly - comprehensive - Its companion module - Paper::Specs will have zillions of label formats shortly. :) WHERE TO GO FROM HERE? ====================== See the examples directory. You are looking at all the documentation right now - v0.02 or higher will feature documentation. :) STATUS ====== THIS IS ALPHA SOFTWARE AND SUBJECT TO MAJOR CHANGES However, saying that, it does work for the most part. :) Failing any huge feedback that I should do things a different way it will continue essentially in the direction that it is. | <urn:uuid:599b4c8c-0472-4717-8531-54ee61a93375> | 2 | 1.5 | 0.044691 | en | 0.871197 | http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Text/JLAWRENC/PDF-Labels-0.01.readme |
The 5 Current Genetic Experiments Most Likely to Destroy Humanity
#4. Jellyfish-Monkeys
Good lord, what is it?
When your children ask you how the Jellyfish Apes came to be your masters, you can put on your best wizened old-man voice and tell them "it all began in the year 2000," which, in addition to being true, will also lend your tale a nice, distinct science fiction sound. Yes, it all began at the Oregon Regional Primate Research Center in November of the year 2000. Scientists modified a harmless virus with jellyfish genes and introduced it into the embryos of Rhesus monkeys, which sure beat the old-fashioned way of making a Jellyfish Monkey--furiously masturbating a jellyfish directly over a spread eagle monkey.
For the love of god, why are they doing this?
The researchers hoped to make the monkey glow. Seriously, that's it. The researchers justify continuation of these experiments with a lot of fancy talk about tracking the genetic markers and learning how to create stable, transgenic monkeys for future experiments. But, in the end we all know that, like us, they really only wanted to throw decadent and hilarious monkey raves.
The researchers, who we assume are the esteemed Professors Cheech and Chong, were operating under the somewhat controversial thesis that "if ... if monkeys like, glowed, man? That'd be fuckin' crazy!"
So far, though, all of these experiments have only resulted in one actual monkey with glowing hair and fingernails which was, sadly, stillborn. Researchers chalked this up mostly to the excess of fluorescent protein produced by the dead monkey, and only a little bit to the great and furious anger of an Old Testament God hurling ominous omens at them like the dodge balls they were also bad at avoiding in middle school.
What's going to happen to us?
To give the researchers credit, a glowing monkey would be almost twice as hilarious as a normal monkey, but unfortunately the first experiment failed and the first surviving monkey does not actually glow. Perhaps more unfortunately, he is also now part jellyfish, an animal as notorious for its gelatinous skeleton as it is for its painful, sometimes lethal stings.
Combine this with the highly intelligent nature of the typical primate, its superhuman strength and agility and complete lack of higher human emotions such as guilt, pity or regret and you've got a remorseless screeching, shit-flinging, venom-tentacled, unearthly monsters with no bones to break. Oh, and thanks to inept scientists, it won't even glow in the dark so that you might see them coming for you through the fucking trees.
Isn't there something familiar about the combination of monkeys and jellyfish? We don't mean to fear-monger, here, but the image of a primal, yet vaguely human form prone to translucence and glowing and outfitted with wet, flailing tentacles just sounds too familiar to us.
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5 Massive Hit Songs That Almost Didn't Get Released
#2. "What's Going On" - Marvin Gaye
Marvin Gaye is responsible for more unstoppable sex than prison. We owe so much to "Let's Get it On," and the fact that at one time Marvin Gaye wasn't given his way is downright terrifying, but it's true. About a decade into his career, Gaye had already established himself as an extraordinarily singular Motown talent, despite frequently bristling against the regimented structure of the Detroit label. But in 1970, after a crumbling marriage and the death of close friend/duet partner Tammi Terrell, Gaye became suddenly reflective and nearly ready to quit music altogether, even going so far as to try out for that year's draft of the Detroit Lions.
We like to think that this is how he showed up at tryouts.
The main thing Marvin had resented about the Motown system was its separation of songwriter, performer and producer as individual cogs of a hit-making machine whose responsibilities and talents were not to be mixed. With some production credit under his belt--with Motown session-band The Originals--and new songwriting partners Al Cleveland and Renaldo Benson of Four Tops fame, Marvin Gaye was ready to break out of his previous station in the machine and take control of all aspects of his destiny; his decision to buck the system influenced countless other talented artists--from peers like Stevie Wonder to later artists like Michael Jackson and Prince--to also take production and songwriting control of their product. He was about to completely shake up the music industry, but first he had to get released.
"What's Going On" pleads for understanding. In the background of the master track, you can hear a party going on from which Gaye's voice is markedly detached; a lonely, but passionate, voice in the crowd. The result of Gaye's complex songwriting, mixed with his abilities as a producer and an arranger was startlingly different from anything previously released by Motown. When the final master 45 was presented for release, The CEO of Motown called it "the worst record he had ever heard." Oh, did we mention that the CEO of Motown, Barry Gordy Jr., was Marvin Gaye's brother-in-law?
Gordy apparently believed that the music-buying public at the time would not be able to identify with a heartfelt cry of confusion and despair over social unrest and injustice. We here at Cracked are guessing he hadn't picked up a newspaper since early November of 1963.
Marvin stood his ground, however, threatening to walk away from music forever and, after a short stand-off, "What's Going On" was released, and critical and commercial response was almost instant. It became Motown's fastest selling single, the biggest hit of 1971, became Gaye's signature song--even topping out all the other massive hit songs he was already known for--and paved the way for the even more massive hit album "Let's Get It On."
#1. "Billie Jean" - Michael Jackson
Off The Wall was Michael Jackson's first album outside of the Jackson 5 franchise and his initial departure from Motown. He regarded it as his finest work, and it actually did well both critically and commercially, but it wasn't enough. He felt cheated that Off The Wall didn't win Album Of The Year, and he wasn't going to be happy until he was at the helm of something too big to ignore. In his first step, he did something every 21-year-old has dreamed of doing and fired the shit out of his dad.
With producer Quincy Jones, the two collaborated on a monolithic pop masterpiece. It's estimated that 300 original songs were penned for the project and condensed down to nine.
"I'm gonna burn this record and I don't even know why. Fuck it, you know?"
While composing "Billie Jean," Jackson knew he had a hit. He frequently relates a story about leaving the studio so focused on the song that he didn't even notice that the car he was in was on fire. Strangely enough, a few years later during the recording of a Pepsi commercial featuring a revamped version of the track, he caught the fuck on fire again. Once is a weird coincidence, twice is just damn spooky.
Jacko may have thought he had a hit, but Quincy Jones sure as hell didn't think so. Quincy thought the track, inspired by a homicidal-suicidal stalker and that apparently made its singer burst into flames, was "too weak" for the album. He hated the demo, especially the bass-line, and he wanted to change the title. Eventually he relented, insisting amongst his studio musicians that this track needed to have a "unique sonic personality" to be worthwhile. Vocal overdubs were sung through giant cardboard tubes and the drum pattern was overlayed with sounds of cinder blocks and chunks of wood. They even brought in a guy to play something called a lyricon, an instrument that looks like it should have been played by a member of the Mos Eisley pub band.
So the track made the album, but its problems didn't end there: MTV refused to air the video. MTV's policy at the time was that black performers were not "rock" enough; a view that's shocking not only because it's racist as all hell, but also laughably ignorant of music history. It took Walter Yetnikoff, president of CBS, the record label Jackson was on, threatening to both pull all CBS artist's videos off of MTV and publicly exposing them as the racist fucksticks they were to get the "Billie Jean" video on rotation. Rotation that quickly became heavy rotation as the song rocketed up the charts.
"Billie Jean," as you know, became a massive hit, Jackson got his Album Of The Year, and Thriller went on to become, by all accounts, the best-selling album of all time. Having achieved everything he had set out to do and significantly more, Michael Jackson moved to his dream home at Neverland Ranch and lived happily ever after... oh wait.
Ralf Bakr has many strange obsessions and compulsions that drive his existence. Rather than seek treatment, he chronicles them all at his personal blog "(Maybe) The Dorkiest Thing You'll See All Day." Ralf would also like to thank fellow Cracked writer Nick, without whose suggestions this article might not have happened. He'd also like to pat himself on the back for managing to write over 700 words about Michael Jackson without once using the words "child" or "plastic surgery."
Now check out some albums and songs that probably shouldn't have happened, in The 12 Most God Awful Tribute Albums Ever Recorded and 6 Musicians Who Predicted Their Own Death in Song.
Or, visit Cracked.com's Top Picks because their might something music related in there. Or boob related. Either way it's win-win.
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11 Old War Photographs You Won't Believe Aren't Photoshopped
War is hell, but as we've demonstrated previously (twice, even), it's also often bizarre to look at. When you start sifting through rare photos of secret projects and behind-the-scenes shenanigans that didn't make into the history books, you get lots of pictures that just look downright fake. Like ...
#11. Dazzle Ships
Before the invention of radar, naval battles were like a hardcore version of Marco Polo: Each side blindly lobbed shots at the other in hopes of connecting with something (yes, the board game Battleship was actually a fairly realistic representation). So ships of the early 20th century tried to make it even harder for their opponents by blending into the water with light-colored paint schemes. That is, until the British decided to try something a little ... different.
"Now you too can experience the joys of sea sickness without having to set foot on a boat!"
Called "dazzle" camouflage, the idea was to cover the ships in psychedelic designs that made it damn nigh impossible for an enemy spotter to determine speed, distance, and type of craft when spying the ships from afar. Try to stare hard at one of these -- your brain will start to hurt:
Getty via economist.com
It's like nautical Magic Eye.
The camouflage saw widespread use during World War I and (to a lesser degree) World War II, but it ultimately died out when the introduction of LSD allowed enemy spotters to operate on the same plane of consciousness as those creating the designs.
#10. Heil America!
This is not a still from some old "What if the Nazis win the war?" propaganda film. That is a real, undoctored photo of an American classroom.
You see, Hitler ruined several perfectly good things forever -- tiny mustaches, the swastika as a good luck charm, and all hand signals that look anything like the "Heil Hitler" salute. But Hitler didn't invent any of them.
For instance, in 1892, Francis Bellamy decided that your average American just wasn't pissing quite enough red, white, and blue. To counter this, he came up with the Pledge of Allegiance, along with a nifty little hand gesture to do while taking the pledge.
That's right: For decades, children across America happily heiled the Stars 'n' Stripes in what was then known as the Bellamy salute. Then along came this big, bald bag of dicks:
His beret is actually covering up foreskin and giant pee hole.
That's Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini. When he came to power, he resurrected the so-called Roman salute, and Hitler thought that shit looked so badass that he later adopted it as his own Nazi salute. This caused an obvious conflict when America entered World War II -- we couldn't very well have born-and-bred American kids doing the same salute as the Hitler Youth, and Nazis were notoriously ignorant of the concept of dibs. So during the war, Roosevelt signed off on a new salute proposed by Congress, and placing the right hand over the heart narrowly beat out flying the double bird in Germany's general direction.
#9. They Stayed in Formation, Right Until They Crashed
As much as that looks like the aftermath of the most cartoonish disaster in military history, it is actually just the product of space-saving efficiency and horrific waste.
Back in the days when countries would actually disarm once the war was over, fighter planes (which were basically useless in peacetime and couldn't be resold for civilian purposes) would just be scrapped. So these Curtiss P-40 Warhawks ($44,892 each to build in 1944 -- that's $590,000 in today's dollars) were scrapped and melted down. To save space as they awaited their fate, the planes were arranged like they'd taken a mass nosedive in perfect formation and somehow stuck neatly in the mud instead of exploding.
Walnut Ridge
Walnut Ridge
Plane yoga never took off.
This is just a single site: Walnut Ridge airfield in Arkansas. All over the world, there were thousands of planes lined up like this, just begging for some smartass to happen by and play him some warplane dominoes.
#8. Boardwalk Empire?
HBO's Boardwalk Empire features a character named Richard Harrow, a former World War I sniper whose face was horribly disfigured when he got face-sniped by an enemy marksman. In what seems like a purely Hollywood touch to make him look more terrifying, Harrow covers his brutalized face with a lifelike mask that attaches to his head via eyeglasses:
"Things I dislike: The Kaiser, feds, soup ..."
But it turns out that Harrow's plight is based on similarly wounded vets of the early 20th century. Decades before things like facial surgery and skin grafts were commonplace, disfigured vets covered their horrible wounds with facial plates just like the one featured on the show. There are more examples out there, but we wouldn't recommend looking at them if you happen to be reading this article while eating or before bed.
And don't worry, it wasn't just faces that got state-of-the-art protection from concerned scientists of the day. Wartime inventiveness also gave us ...
#7. Industrial Breast Protectors
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
When the men moved to the front during World War II, the women entered a new environment as well: the factory floor. As the Rosie Riveters and Wendy Welders were performing jobs they had never done before, men became very concerned about their safety. Well, the safety of particular parts of them, at least. So Acme developed the industrial plastic boulder holder that this young gal is so kindly demonstrating.
After all, if we endanger the boobies, what do our boys overseas have left to come home to?
#6. American Pyramid of Skulls ... Er, Helmets
Even after World War I was over, the American government decided that it needed one more bond drive to raise enough cash to tie up any loose ends. Dubbed the Victory Liberty Loan parade, the party visited New York City in May of 1919 and set up a huge display of American guns and various pillars and pyramids smack in the middle of Madison Avenue. Pyramids made of the helmets of (presumably dead) German soldiers.
Yes, harking back to the days of the victory pyramids that the Mongols decorated Asia with, America decided that we needed some victory pyramids of our very own. In case you're not familiar with the pyramids we're referring to, we mean those constructed of skulls that the men of the horde lovingly cleaned and polished after having severed them from their previous owners. That's right: Someone had the bright idea that reminding American citizens that each and every one of those helmets represented a dead or captured German soldier would inspire them to donate to the post-war drive.
Oh, and it totally worked. U-S-A! U-S-A!
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Today's Creation Moment
It Pays to Have a Second or Third Job
Genesis 1:25
Origins - Not a Scientific Issue at All
Evolutionary scientists today act as if "science" is the only way to determine whether something is true. But is this a proper way to learn the truth of a one-time event that is rooted in history?
CSI – or Crime Scene Investigation – might make you think so. Since the TV series focuses on forensic science and the study of physical evidence found at crime scenes, many TV watchers believe that such hard, physical evidence is absolutely necessary in order to solve a crime. But if you ask people in law enforcement, you'll learn that other kinds of evidence are just as important.
For instance, if the suspect can prove he was a thousand miles away from the crime scene at the time of the murder, this evidence proves he didn't pull the trigger. Investigators rely on such evidence to make inferences that are essential in crime solving, and this has absolutely nothing to do with DNA sampling, fingerprints and the other tools of the CSI team. Rather, it deals with eyewitness testimony, consideration of motives, the opportunity to commit the crime, plus many other lines of evidence.
Turning now to the evolution-creation debate, the origin of the universe is an historical issue and is not a scientific issue at all. It is not testable, repeatable, observable or falsifiable as the scientific method requires. Scientists can make guesses at what happened, but their guesses are predicated on the assumptions that God doesn't exist and that the rate at which processes occur now are identical to the rate they occurred in the past (uniformitarianism).
Unlike evolutionary scientists, however, biblical creationists know that the origin of the universe is an historical issue … and they do not start by assuming that God doesn't exist. Since origins is an historical, one-time event, creationists start by asking if eyewitness testimony is available. Indeed it is – the eyewitness account recorded in the Bible.
That's why creationists and not evolutionists know what really happened ... in the beginning.
The idea that science is the only or at least the best way to determine truth presumes that man's intellect is the ultimate reality, the ultimate authority. By this it presumes that no greater intelligence exists, and is thus exposed as an atheistic presupposition, denying the existence of God.
True story. Evolutionists are trying so hard to hold their dear macro evolution theory by its last thread. (not including variations in a kind) We know they can't prove the four other definitions that would make evolution true, and the evidence suggests that they're nothing but imagination. "The entire theory is held together in spite of, rather than because of the evidence." (Arthur C. Custance)
Science, as I understand it, is not about reaching absolute knowledge, but rather, in as reliable and measured a manner as possible, gathering and critically evaluating information about reality, past and present, with an ability to reason from evaluated information to predict results of specific investigation. Discussion of the past can, I believe, be science, if the reliability of the information is evaluated in accord with well reasoned, logical rules. When an archeologist, seeing the evidences in documentation, climate, material finds at digs, etc. predicts finds of a specific type in another direction, it is science. The fact that there is a higher level of uncertainty involved in the data than that held in physics or chemistry does not make archeology not science. It is well known as an observed, documented fact that a man named Nobel invented dynamite, but no experiment in physics or chemistry will demonstrate the fact. Eyewitness testimony is next after experiment in establishing fact. Ongoing principles of reality can be tested by experiment and witnessed. If those principles have operated differently in the past, no experiment in the present will establish it. Testimony and present circumstance are the only things able to support the knowledge, and that is always less reliable than repeatable demonstration.
Evolutionists rely on the hope that no one will pay attention to historical facts, which are easily verified by eye-witness testimony and observable processes in effect today. Evolutionism is set in a time before time began on purpose so that its fairytale can live in the minds of its adherents. But that's the only place it exists. It has no place in the real world, the history of which is accurately recorded in the Bible.
Evidence and eye-witness testimony can't be taken seriously by evolutionists. That's because facts would disturb the elaborate and illogical theories they come up with.
I'm not sure what people hope to gain by denying that the Lord created all things. I know that it feeds their arrogance; they use it as an excuse to be god of their own universe. They also manage to profit by it financially. But what can they truly gain? When you have lost your salvation, you have lost everything.
P.S. Despite rumors to the contrary, no unsaved person makes it into heaven. You either have to be humble enough to accept the Lord himself and obey his commands, or you will not be with him. | <urn:uuid:f8afea14-beee-45e4-add1-8adbe837e4eb> | 3 | 2.828125 | 0.4295 | en | 0.968016 | http://www.creationmoments.com/resources/blog/201111/origins-not-scientific-issue-all |
Link to Sponsoring Departments Kibbutzim as a Climate for Learning
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University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: August 31, 2001
Latest Update: March 9, 2006
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Index of Topics on Site Merging Efforts for Child Rearing: Kibbutzim
Left perspective given in this piece.
• Kibbutzim.
• The Hebrew plural of the word Kibbutz. A Kibbutz is a collective form in Israel on which the members of the Kibbutz share communally the kitchen and dining areas, the recreation areas, and the child raising efforts. The children live in their own quarters and are raised by members of the Kibbutz assigned to that specific task. The adult members of the Kibbutz work collectively on the economic support for the group, farming, animal raising, etc.
The Kibbutzim led to much discussion and consideration of collective child rearing.
Discussion Questions: Left Perspective
• Eight Questions on Kibbituzim on ZNet. Answers from Noam Chomsky. Questions from Nikos Raptis.
1. Where can one trace the roots of the kibbutz idea?
Chomsky traces the roots to European, libertarian, socialist doctrine that fit the peculiarities of Jewish communities distorted by their exclusion from many traditional civil activities. thus he invokes the concept of no Jewish working class families. Note his emphasis on Israel as a project of colonization.
Note also that Chomsky recognizes the role of art, in this case fiction, in capturing a new vision of the imaginary that breaks out of the traditional constraints of dominant discourse: "some of what I've read in current Hebrew fiction seems to me more like what I experienced than what I read in the social science-type literature."
2. As an experiment is the kibbutz considered, by the number of members, a small scale one?
Chomsky describes the movement as small, but reminds us of the structural context in which it existed: that of a social organization based on inclusion and collective participation and reward. In another answer he reminds us also of the hostility of the surrounding structural context. What does the climate of hostility offer as an advantage to the beleaguered group? Consider "out group" hostility as creating "in group" solidarity.
"The inclusion, collective participation, and reward depended however on the Eurupean libertarian and anarchist roots, growing from pogroms and revolutions in which these same people had been legally, politically, and economically excluded from most life-worlds. That exclusion, and the group's turning inward to build a viable and livable community resulted in strong ties to this alternative "in-gorup" and would have strengthened "out-group" hostility in favor of "in-group" solidarity. Consider also the different cultural responses to individual achievement and to the acceptance of authority.
If "out group" hostility helps create "in group" solidarity, what does the inner city gang situtation share with war/peace conflicts? Consider the many signifiers we use to tell people they are excluded: pejorative epithets, increased personal space, scowls, denying their existence by choosing neither to see nor hear them.
3. What was the role (if any) of religion in the kibbutz?
Chomsky describes the role of religion as minimal. How could this be so when so much of today's conflict pits Muslim against Christian/Jewish? Consider that as in group solidarity is enforced and supported, the group's orthodoxy tends to increase in the nation-state form, so that the adversarialism on all fronts will enforce the antagonisms between the "in group" and the "out group."
4. Is the family and the raising of children in the kibbutz radically different than that in an industrialized western "democracy", say the US?
Chomsky sees the most important difference as one of quality time allowed during the day for children to spend with parents and siblings when there are no other duties for either parents or children. Chomsky sees the setting aside of family time as crucial, but believes that things have changed very much since the time he was familiar with the kibbutzim.
What are the kinds of duties that take us away from one another when we might have family time. Now, this is where you need to keep in mind what Abel said about the exploitation of workers in the case where employers provide gyms, lunches, whatever, but then expect those same workers to give "loyal" and long service. Consider the situation in Japan, where this structural context kept women at home. And then consider who benefits the most from this arrangement. What would you need to know to decide if these conditions were most beneficial to the worker or to the employer.
5. Is there a great difference between the kibbutz of the '50s, that you knew, and the present one?
Chomsky suggests that the kibbutzim have become richer, more like suburbs. Does the website of Kibbutz Ein Gedi substanatiate that conclusion? Explain.
6. As an anarchist community, can one see the kibbutz as separate from the Israeli state?
Chomsky's answer is very helpful in understanding the "unstated assumptions" that operated to keep the kibbutzim intimately bound up with the Jewish state. His answer here also helps explain the paradigm shift from subsistence farming groups on the frontiers of
7. Now, in 1999, do you consider the kibbutz experiment as a successful one?
"Hard to answer. There are too many dimensions on which one can measure "success." Shortest of all the answers. Illustrates Chomsky's recognition of and respect for the perspective of the Other. Chomsky voices that same respect in his answer to the 9th question. Can you quote it? That might be a good measure of learning for this reading.
8. Are there any lessons that we have learned from the history of the kibbutz?
How does Chomsky explain the colonialization/settlement of Israel theoretically? Does this give you a different perspective on Edward Said's position on colonization and settlement of Israel Teaching essay to go up shortly on this. Nag me if I forget. jeanne September 7, 2001.
Relevant References:
• Ein Gal - Polyurethane Elastomer: Kibbutz Ein Gedi 86980, Israel. "Polyurethane Elastomer is a rubber-like material, but superior to rubber in many important aspects. . . . Ein Gal offers products and technical solutions in many industrial fields such as textile, paper, wood, plastics, metal, chemical, mining, mechanical engineering, automotive industries etc."
Kibbutz Ein Gedi offers economic production that goes way beyond farming.
• Kibbutz Ein Gede Link that is working. Chomsky's old link wasn't working for me on March 9, 2006. Will try to fix later. jeanne
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European Central Bank
AP survey: Why the outlook for global economy has brightened
From the United States to Asia to Europe, a global economy that many had feared was faltering appears poised for a resurgence on the strength of cheap oil and falling interest rates. That's the strikingly upbeat view of economists surveyed by The Associated Press, who no longer see Europe's financial crisis, the U.S. housing market or congressional gridlock as the threats they appeared to be last year. "The U.S. is doing well, you're getting a lot of good news in Europe," said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight. "The global economy is gaining traction." U.S. consumers are feeling flusher, thanks to lower gas prices, a burst of... | <urn:uuid:2861cedd-8153-40f6-88e9-2427f53db8cd> | 2 | 1.5 | 0.050582 | en | 0.969303 | http://www.dailypress.com/topic/business/european-central-bank-ORGOV000342-topic.html |
Cadder case legal ruling results in over 1000 court cases being binned
THE NUMBER of court cases abandoned or put on hold in the wake of a controversial legal ruling has topped 1000.
Figures obtained from the Crown Office show 1030 cases have now been affected by the Supreme Court ruling, known as the Cadder case, which involves cases where suspects were questioned without a lawyer.
A total of 78 of the affected cases were "solemn procedures" - reserved for the most serious crimes.
Of these, seven were High Court cases, including seven alleged crimes of indecency, one firearms offence and another case involving violence.
The Crown Office said it was a "matter of regret" that any case was unable to continue, but insisted they have taken measures to reduce the impact on prosecutions.
Last night Labour's justice spokesman James Kelly said: "It is a grave concern that, over a year since the Cadder ruling, cases are still being dropped by the courts and criminals are going unpunished. These statistics will be greeted with dismay by the victims of unprosecuted crimes.
"Kenny MacAskill needs to explain why cases are not being progressed by the prosecution service.
"He needs to provide an assurance that the current procedures are adequate and that no further cases will be dropped without prosecution."
Tory justice spokesman David McLetchie added: "This is yet more evidence of the devastating effect this ruling is having on the Scottish justice system.
"It is still allowing convicted criminals to walk free from our jails. The application of the European Convention on Human Rights has resulted in our justice system being tipped too heavily in favour of the criminal."
But a Scottish government spokesman said the justice system was "coping well" with the changes.
He added: "In the wake of the Cadder judgment, the justice secretary asked Lord Carloway to conduct a review of criminal practice in Scotland.
Interview "That report was published last month and we are considering the recommendations in detail."
In the Cadder case, the UK Supreme Court ruled that the Scottish system which allowed suspects to be held and questioned without access to a lawyer breached the European Convention on Human Rights.
As a result, all live cases where the Crown relied solely on a Cadder-affected interview for corroboration could not continue. | <urn:uuid:5ac6d732-7ee4-4ed8-9087-7e9759f2e4b5> | 2 | 1.53125 | 0.057099 | en | 0.966243 | http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/cadder-case-legal-ruling-results-1088677 |
Guilty verdict furthers copyright protection organizations dreams of banning free speech
Speaking with
It has been established that the judge serving on
Comments Threshold
By kalak on 6/11/2010 8:54:31 AM , Rating: 2
Wait a second. Are you confusing Socialism with Communism?
Yes, He is.It's a common misunderstanding. From web:
Both socialism and communism are based on the principle that the goods and services produced in an economy should be owned publicly, and controlled and planned by a centralized organization. Socialism asserts that the distribution should take place according to the amount of individuals' production efforts, however, while communism asserts that that goods and services should be distributed among the populace according to individuals' needs.
Another difference between socialism and communism is that communists assert that both capitalism and private ownership of the means of production must be done away with as soon as possible in order to make sure a classless society, the communist ideal, is formed. Socialists, however, see capitalism as a possible part of the ideal state and believe that socialism can exist in a capitalist society. In fact, one of the ideas of socialism is that everyone within the society will benefit from capitalism as much as possible as long as the capitalism is controlled somehow by a centralized planning system.
Another difference between socialism and communism is centered on who controls the structure of economy. Where socialism generally aims to have as many people as possible influence how the economy works, communism seeks to limit that number to a smaller group.
| <urn:uuid:6579ef82-14dc-4d97-8a03-cc8c3cc28a64> | 2 | 2.109375 | 0.103417 | en | 0.946187 | http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=18668&commentid=584105&threshhold=1&red=29 |
Print 7 comment(s) - last by voodoochile123.. on Oct 9 at 1:41 AM
UAV pilots are expected to outnumber pilots physically flying aircraft, but some experts are worried
As the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) continues to expand, the U.S. Air Force expects UAV pilots to soon outnumber manned aircraft.
The realization that there will one day be more pilots remotely controlling aircraft than sitting in the cockpit offers new challenges, including how effective UAVs would be in air-to-air combat.
Gen. Edward Rice, commander of the Air Education and Training Command, noted that there would be at least 1,000 pilots specializing in UAV aircraft.
Meanwhile, U.S. Army officials noted there is a growing demand for UAVs, but that demand will be difficult to fulfill due to budget cuts. The USAF also faces issues with budget cuts, and must now carefully choose which type of aircraft it invests in over the next decade, with Congress continually reminded that defense budget cuts could greatly handicap each branch of the US military.
In addition to U.S. research, UAV research has steadily increased in the UK, Israel, and other major military locations throughout the rest of the world. The Israel Air Force believe its Heron TP UAV will be able to collect data while flying over Iran, as the nation's largest UAV hopes to further modernize Israel's air technology.
The need for UAV technology has also led to an increase in private contractors developing software and aircraft that also progress with continued improvements. Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman have dominated the UAV market, while AAI Corp. and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems also receive significant funding for their own research.
As the need for UAVs grows, intelligence gathering and armed missions are two priorities for U.S. armed forces fighting overseas.
The recent killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen and lead Al-Qaida organizer, has shown the effectiveness of UAVs to follow and engage high-value enemy targets. The CIA-operated UAVs monitored al-Awlaki for a few weeks before deciding to engage -- waiting for the high-value target to relocate to a more secluded area, which helped reduce the likelihood of collateral damage.
UAVs will be used to collect intelligence and launch missions throughout the Middle East -- and select locations -- while U.S. military leaders continue to tackle budget problems and lingering technological issues.
Sources: Air Force Times, Military Times, The Jerusalem Post, The Atlantic Wire
Comments Threshold
UAV's make a lot of sense
By kattanna on 10/3/2011 10:51:21 AM , Rating: 2
When you can remove the pilot from the craft itself, but still have them in control remotely, it really frees up a lot of space in the craft itself. plus, without pilot considerations it can be made far more maneuverable then any craft with a pilot.
long range bombers would also be an ideal place for UAV
| <urn:uuid:fe2606c2-8d79-4c4c-92a6-879cc6aec396> | 2 | 2.03125 | 0.034389 | en | 0.933197 | http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=22897&commentid=719875&threshhold=1&red=4423 |
ARM core
Source: TSMC
Comments Threshold
By whyRuCloseMynded on 5/28/2012 10:31:02 PM , Rating: 2
Reading some of these comments.. just wow!
I would truthfully enjoy a hit of what you all are smoking. Windows! really? ... here is a clue. Choose your software wisely and you can run anything your heart desires on ANY device made in the last decade easily. Windows is a very poor example of an OS to lead the way into a power-efficient future. Do you honestly believe if ARM were to come out with a Cortex A-15 quad core laptop chip for the mobile space that Win 8 would be the only option available.. ill take Linux anyday of the week. Unless you know of a version of Windows that run entirely in RAM?
As far as Architecture goes... im running an Atom N550 with Ubuntu 12.04. There isnt anything i cant do (outside of 1080p gaming - HD video playback.. i have a gaming console and big screen tv for that) that i could do on my desktop. Oh and when i want to go outside... im getting a solid 8 hours of webbing around. ARM holdings will push this sort of ideology well beyond what Intel is capable of.. outside of high-end - computational prowess brute force high dollar computing - theyve never had a straw. AMD owns the mid-range nowadays... do you know why? NO ONE CARES about 10 second faster yet more expensive chips. ARM Holdings dominates the mobile markets.
ARM is capable of server boards running 16+cores under 20 watts. Think of what could be possible when they put some of that R&D into ultrathin laptops - all in ones... do you really care if you have to wait 30 secs longer for specific apps when you have the ability to run 16 of them simultaneously? Let alone when OSes much like Haiku become ready for primetime. BeOS on Risc anybody?
Quit giving Software companies the EASY OUT.. Software have far been behind Hardware for a good decade... thanks in large part to this Windows you speak of.
| <urn:uuid:a7e5ecf6-27e4-4cff-b224-d4106b6a8b97> | 2 | 1.625 | 0.024124 | en | 0.91939 | http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=24605&commentid=773789&threshhold=1&red=425 |
I. GPU Giant Goes CPU
[Image Source: IBTimes]
II. A Tough Road Ahead
Android MIPS
A few Android tablets run MIPS, but not many.
III. Move Has a Survivalist Aspect to it
So why would Imagination adopt such a risky ploy?
Sources: MIPS Technologies, Imagination Technologies, BBC News
Comments Threshold
RE: Competetion is good
By Alexvrb on 11/7/2012 8:48:07 PM , Rating: 2
Any native code (built using NDK) compiled for ARM only will not work out of the box on other architectures. There are other issues but this is a big barrier. Emulation is a possible way around this, although it takes quite a bit of effort. On top of this, if an app was compiled using the NDK (for ARM or x86) that indicates that they really needed the performance, and you're going to take a huge hit by emulating. So you'd have to be twice as fast just to run such an app normally.
These days they can compile apps using NDK to a fat binary with x86/ARM packaged together. So it's looking better for Intel there, assuming the developer is forward-thinking enough. But MIPS? I don't think Google supports them with the NDK. So MIPS Android, even if it was a modern Android version and was ported beautifully, would still only run SDK apps. Even then how well things work depends on underlying hardware, drivers, and how solid their MIPS Dalvik VM is.
| <urn:uuid:2f13fed0-6110-4c78-afee-0704ded23a69> | 2 | 2.25 | 0.471218 | en | 0.916218 | http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=29134&commentid=819359&threshhold=1&red=238 |
Worlds of David Darling
Encyclopedia of Science
Home > Encyclopedia of Science
practical generator
A practical generator. In this diagram the iron core that fills the space between the axle and the rotating coils has been removed for clarity. The magnetic field is provided by the two electromagnet coils ('field windings') which also have iron cores.
rotating coil in magnetic field
The top picture shows a single coil of wire placed in a magnetic field. As the coil is turned it cuts across the lines of force and (if it forms part of a complete circuit) a current is produced. When the coil is in the position shown in the second picture it is moving along the lines of force without cutting them. No current is produced here. In the last two pictures the red side of the coil again cuts lines of force but this time it is moving upward, so the direction of current is reversed.
Also called a dynamo, a generator is a device for converting mechanical energy into electrical energy. Generators originated with the discovery of induction by Michael Faraday in 1831; the considerable advantages of electromagnets over permanent magnets were first exploited by E. W. von Siemens in 1866.
Traditional forms are based on inducing electric fields by changing the magnetic field lines through a circuit (see electromagnetic induction). All generators can be, and sometimes are, run in reverse as electric motors.
The simplest generator consists of a permanent magnet (the rotor) spun inside a coil of wire (the stator); the magnetic field is thus reversed twice each revolution, and an AC voltage is generated at the frequency of rotation (see also magneto). Equivalent to this is rotating a coil of wire between the poles of a permanent magnet, as shown immediately below and in the illustration to the right.
AC current from a generator
A simple generator. On the right the coil is seen from the end making one complete revolution. The size of the current in each of the eight stages varies as shown by the curve. At 'e' (coil vertical) the current reverses.
In practical designs (see top illustration), the rotor is usually an electromagnet driven by a direct current obtained by rectification of a part of the voltage generated, and passed to the rotor through a pair of carbon brush/slip ring contacts. The use of three sets of stator coils 120° apart allows generation of a three-phase supply (see also armature).
Direct current generation
Simple DC generators consist of a coil rotating in the field of a permanent magnet: the voltage induced in the coil alternates at the frequency of rotation, but it is collected through a commutator – a split-ring broken into two two semicircular parts, to each of which one end of the coil is connected, so that the connection between the coil and the brushes is reversed twice each revolution – resulting in a rapidly pulsating direct voltage. A steadier voltage can be achieved through the use of multiple coil/commutator arrangements, and except in very small generators, the permanent magnet is again replaced by an electromagnet driven by part of the generated voltage.
DC generator
A generator can be made to give a 'one-way' or direct current by connecting the ends of the coil to the two halves of a split-ring or commutator. This device neatly puts whatever is the 'outgoing' end of the coil onto the same brush at the moment the coil comes up to the vertical and reverses the flow. In the first of the diagrams above, the red side of the coil is moving downward and the current produced in it flows out of the coil into the right hand brush. In the second diagram the red side of the coil is moving upward and now the current produced in it flows into the coil. But by this time the red side of the coil is connected to the left hand brush. So the current still flows out of the right hand brush, the rough the lamp and re-enters the generator at the left hand brush as it did in the previous diagram.
current from a DC generator
Although the commutator ensures that current always flows in the same direction, it does not prevent the current from falling to zero each time the coil reaches the vertical position. No current is produced when the coil is vertical because it moves along the lines of force instead of cutting across them. With a number of coils it is possible to have the current in one reaching a maximum when the current in another is zero. The commutator in that case consists of several pairs of segments arranged around the axle instead of the two halves of the split ring. The segments are insulated from each other, and the ends of each coil are connected to opposite segments.
Large-scale generation
For large-scale generation, the mechanical power is usually derived from steam turbines, or from dam-fed water turbines, and the process is only moderately efficient. The magnetohydrodynamic generator avoids this step and has no moving parts either. A hot conducting fluid (treated coal gas, or reactor-heated liquid) passes through the field of an electromagnet, so that the charges are forced in opposite directions producing a DC voltage. In another device, the electrogasdynamic generator, the voltage is produced by by using a high speed gas stream to pump charge from an electric discharge, against the electric field, to a collector.
Related category | <urn:uuid:81ba3dae-1e8b-4646-8a14-4b71db14fb70> | 4 | 3.796875 | 0.032608 | en | 0.935796 | http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/G/generator.html |
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Pasta Fatta In Casa - Homemade Fresh Pasta
From dough to drying, we walk you through the steps and techniques to make the perfect homemade pasta.
WATCH THE VIDEO Take a trip to one of the most famous artisanal pasta shops in Bologna, Italy.
My mother never measured anything and especially flour when it came to making pasta. Each time we made pasta, I would have my little notebook out and ask her how much flour she was putting in, and the response was the same every time: “you only put as much flour as the eggs want to drink today”. In other words, there is no exact amount; it can vary depending on the egg size, on the type of flour, and even on the humidity in the air that day.
So this recipe is just an approximate amount of flour, do not mix it all with the eggs at once, start with 3 cups of flour and go from there.
Rule of thumb: estimate 1 egg per person for a main course, and 2 eggs to 1 cup flour.
4 Cups flour
8-10 jumbo eggs
eggs flour well making fresh pasta
#1. Mound the flour in the middle of a wooden board. Make a well in the center of the flour. Break the eggs right into the center of the well. Beat the eggs with a fork until they are completely incorporated.
incorporating flour to make fresh pasta
#2. Using the fork gradually start to pull in flour from the sides of the well, slowly incorporating the flour with the eggs. Mix in only as much flour as the eggs can absorb. You may not need all the flour.
fresh pasta dough starting to come together
#3. Once the dough starts to come together, begin kneading until smooth and elastic, using flour if the dough gets sticky.
making fresh pasta
#4. You want to be continuously kneading the dough in a loose ball form, you should always be incorporating a new corner and folding it into the dough.
kneading fresh pasta dough
#5. Your hands should glide through he dough while you gently push down and inside. (see video for kneading action)
kneading pasta dough
#6. You want to work the dough for a total of about 15 minutes. During the kneading if the dough gets too nervous and tense (which is when it becomes too elastic and pulls back onto itself); you need to let it relax so that it is easier to work with, so set the dough for 5 minutes under a dry dishcloth and let rest.
#7. Youkneading fresh pasta doughr dough should contain a nice ratio of air pockets throughout. If it does not, you may have used too much flour and kneaded too roughly. Allow the dough to restfor at least 30 minutes before you make pasta, covered under a dry dishcloth.
Using a Pasta Machine:
cutting fresh pasta doughDivide the rested dough into 6 equal parts. With the palm of your hand, press the dough as thin as you can get it with your hand.
pasta machine
Starting on the largest opening of the pasta machine (typically the lowest number on the dial), feed the dough through the machine, one piece at a time. pasta machine kneading fresh pasta sheets
how to make fresh pasta - folding dough
Fold each piece into 3 parts like a letter. Lightly flour each side, and repeat feeding the dough through the machine 4-5 times until the dough is smooth and no longer sticky. Use flour on the outside of the folded dough each time before it goes back into the machine if it appears that it will stick. Make sure that you repeat the same number of times with each sheet, so that your thickness will be uniform.
long pasta sheets
Turn the dial on the machine to the next number, making your opening one notch smaller. Feed each piece of dough through the machine one time only, and do not fold it this time. Continue this process of narrowing the machine opening until you reach the thinness you want. Sprinkle with flour when necessary. It’s important to put each piece through the same number of times so each sheet of dough is a consistent thickness and texture.
finished pasta sheets
Lay the finished pasta sheets onto a lightly floured surface while working, and cover the sheets with a kitchen towel as you go along.
linguine fresh pasta
Your machine should have an opening or attachment that is used for cutting the sheets into a shape of long pasta. Feed each sheet through the desired shape attachment one at a time. Lay the noodles on kitchen towels until you are ready to cook. Shake off excess flour right before cooking by tossing the noodles lightly in colander. Make sure you have a large enough pot with a rapid boil to cook the pasta in. Fresh pasta needs a larger pot and more water than dried pasta because it has a tendency to stick together more easily if not.
Learn HOW TO make Fresh Filled Pasta | <urn:uuid:387b8f1a-53a2-4538-9805-c00b6ee1b5f6> | 2 | 1.78125 | 0.055405 | en | 0.917615 | http://www.delallo.com/articles/homemade-fresh-pasta |
Re: Length vs Complexity
I personally base password strength off the bit strength (entropy) of the password, as well as not selecting dictionary words. In the case of your passwords, "Security.Basics.List" is 92 bits (there are 2^92 possibilities if someone was to attempt a brute force). In comparison, "D*3ft!7z" is 51 bits.
In a brute force attack the shorter password would come out second best, although keep in mind factors like dictionary attacks etc. can speed up guesses of common words.
On 17/09/2010 1:01 AM, Mike Razzell wrote:
Users hear constantly that they should add complexity to their
passwords, but from the math of it doesn't length beat complexity
(assuming they don't just choose a long word)? This is not to suggest
they should not use special characters, but simply that something like
Security.Basics.List would provide better security than D*3ft!7z. Is
that correct?
Securing Apache Web Server with thawte Digital Certificate | <urn:uuid:df9db9b7-b558-46d9-942a-19877384cd2b> | 2 | 2.296875 | 0.681002 | en | 0.892056 | http://www.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/securityfocus/security-basics/2010-09/msg00199.html |
Team Legacy
Team Legacy
Star surfer Dewey Weber, realized his dream of designing and shaping surfboards out of his own surf shop in 1960. In the late 50′s and early 60′s, many considered Dewey the best surfer in the world and everyone thought he was the best “hotdogger. In 1993, Surfing Magazine honored him by paying tribute to him as “the father of modern surfing.” Referring to his “radical” style of surfing as being the basis of short boarding as we know it today. Dewey always pushed the envelope and operated “outside the box.” As Dale Velzy’s star rider in the 50′s, Dewey knew the value of functional design and high performance equipment.
about-team-legacy-1Dewey wasn’t just a great surfer, he was a champion spring board diver and a state champion wrestler who participated in the Olympic Trials in 1960. He brought his sportsmanship and the love of team participation to the world of surfing. Dewey believed that a “star” athlete lives inside of every good surfer and when given encouragement, support, and the right type of equipment, a dedicated surfer can push a little harder, stretch it further and give their best performance.
Every surf break in the universe has “star” performers and in 1961 Dewey took some of these young surfers under his wing and provided them with better equipment and coaching. This was the year that organized amateur competition began and Dewey was delighted at the prospect of having a surf team. When there were enough surfers riding for him to bring together as a team, he put them a “uniform” that would visibly designate them as an elite group of surfers who all rode Dewey Weber surfboards. The Redcoats were respected as a group, and when they showed up at a break, they got all the waves. And in a contest, everyone knew that red meant, “hot” and “Weber”.
Team competition was born and other manufacturers followed Dewey’s lead developing their own teams and uniforms. The Redcoat “uni” began as a red twill jacket and trunk, white stripes were added later. In the seventies red was not “groovy” and the uni switched to black for a few years.
20 members of the original Weber Competition Team with Dewey and mascot “Blackie” Dewey’s German Shepherd.
about-team-legacy-2This is the early uniform of the original team, all in red and affectionately known as “The Redcoats”. The white and black stripe was not added to the jacket and trunk until later. This picture was taken on the sand dune at Sycamore Canyon north of Malibu. The team was formed in 1961 and team members first competed in the Santa Monica contest that was a part of the 1961 Surf-A-Rama trade show at the Santa Monica Civic auditorium.
The team grew over the years and had representatives on the west, east and gulf coasts, as well as Hawaii. The team was mostly made up of “grass roots” surfers; hot guys representative of their local area, but we did have some members that became legendary surfers such as: Rell Sunn, Jimmy Blears, Randy Rarick, David Nuuhiwa, Nat Young, Mike Tabeling, Tak Kawahara, Bruce Valluzzi, Fletcher Sharp, Jackie Baxter, JoJo Perrin, Rosemary Reimers-Rice, Josette Lagadere, Shelly Merrick, Pat Magee, Chris Schlickenmeyer, Harold Ige, Donald Takayama, Joey Hamasaki, Dave Rochlen, and Phyllis O’Donnell among others. | <urn:uuid:1a994528-0acb-4f6a-9ee7-a2a00199588f> | 2 | 1.578125 | 0.01866 | en | 0.975352 | http://www.deweyweber.com/about/dewey-history/team-legacy/?add-to-cart=842 |
Home > Facts > Digestive Diseases
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Digestive Diseases
Digestive diseases, also called gastrointestinal diseases, are the diseases that affect the digestive system, which consists of the organs and pathways and processes responsible for processing food in the body.
The digestive system, or digestive tract, includes the mouth, the esophagus, the stomach, the gallbladder, the small intestine, the large intestine, and the anus, all linked as a long twisting tube that starts at the mouth and ends at the anus. It also includes the liver and the pancreas, two organs that produce substances needed for digestion such as enzymes, reaching the intestine through small tubes. The function of the digestive system is to transform ingested food for use by the cells that make up the body. Food enters through the mouth and proceeds to the gut (digestive tract) where it is chemically modified (digestion) for absorption by the body or waste disposal. Digestive diseases are numerous and can affect any part of the digestive system. They can be grouped into the following five broad categories.
Diseases of the esophagus and stomach
• Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GORD). GORD is the result of a malfunctioning lower esophageal sphincter (LES), the ring of muscle at the end of the esophagus that acts like a valve opening into the stomach. GORD prevents its proper closure and stomach contents return (reflux) to the esophagus, causing a burning sensation in the chest or throat (heartburn)
• Gastroparesis. Also called delayed gastric emptying, gastroparesis causes slow digestion and emptying, vomiting, nausea, and bloating
• Peptic ulcer. A sore in the mucosal lining of the esophagus (esophageal ulcer) or stomach (gastric ulcer)
Diseases of the liver, pancreas, and gallbladder
• Budd-Chiari syndrome. A rare liver disease in which the veins that drain blood from the liver are blocked or narrowed
• Cholecystitis. Infection of the gallbladder
• Cirrhosis. A life-threatening disease that scars liver tissue and damages its cells. It severely affects liver
function, preventing it from removing toxins like alcohol and drugs from the blood.
• Hepatitis. Inflammation of the liver that can result in permanent liver damage.
• Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Fatty inflammation of the liver related to insulin resistance, obesity, type II diabetes and high blood pressure.
• Pancreatitis. Irritation of the pancreas that can alter its structure and its function
• Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC). A liver disease that slowly destroys the bile ducts in the liver, thus preventing the release of bile.
• Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC). Irritation, scarring, and narrowing of the liver bile ducts. The accumulation of bile in the liver damages liver cells.
Diseases of the small and large intestines
• Appendicitis. Inflammation of the appendix, the small, finger-like structure attached to the first part of the large intestine.
• Celiac disease. Disease that damages the small intestine in people who cannot tolerate gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, and barley.
• Diverticulosis. Small pouches (diverticula) that push outward through weak spots in the large intestine.
• Diverticulitis. Infection or rupture of the diverticula.
• Duodenal ulcers. Ulcers associated with alcoholism, chronic lung and kidney disease, and thyroid disorders.
• Dysentery. Inflammation of the intestine with severe diarrhea and intestinal bleeding, resulting from eating food or water containing a parasite called Entamoeba histolytica or Shigella bacteria.
• Giardiasis. Infection of the intestine by the parasite Giardia intestinalis The parasite is one of the most common causes of waterborne disease in the United States and can be found in both drinking and recreational water.
• Infectious diarrhea. Illness resulting from bacterial or viral infections. Bacterial diarrhea is most commonly caused by Campylobacter jejuni, Salmonella, Shigella, Escherichia coli O157:H7. Rotavirus is the commonest cause of viral diarrhea in the United States. Other viruses causing diarrhea include Norwalk virus, and cytomegalovirus
• Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). IBS (also called spastic colon, or irritable colon) is a condition in which the colon muscle contracts more readily than it should.
• Lactose intolerance. The inability to digest significant amounts of lactose, the major sugar found in milk, due to a shortage of lactase, the enzyme produced by the cells lining the small intestine. Lactase breaks down milk sugar into two simpler forms of sugar which are then absorbed into the bloodstream. If not present, lactose is not broken down.
• Ulcerative colitis. Inflammation of the inner lining of the colon, characterized by open sores that appear in its mucous membrane.
Diseases of the anus
• Hemorrhoids. Commonly known as piles, hemorrhoids are characterized by swollen blood vessels that line the anal opening.
• Anal fissures. Splits or cracks in the lining of the anus resulting from the passage of very hard or watery stools.
• Perianal abscesses. These can occur when the tiny anal glands that open on the inside of the anus become blocked and infected by bacteria. When pus develops, an abscess forms.
According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 41.3 million Americans consulted physicians for digestive system disorders in 2005 and 6.9 million were diagnosed with ulcers. In the 1990-1992 period, 1.9 million people were disabled by digestive diseases with 234,000 deaths and over 6 million diagnostic and therapeutic procedures recorded in 2002.
In the United States, 100 million people are affected by acute diarrhea every year. Most diarrhea is believed to be viral and not bacterial in origin, but bacteria remain an important cause, as evidenced by the increasing public health warnings concerning contaminated foods. Nearly half of patients with acute diarrhea must restrict activities, 10% consult physicians, 250,000 require hospitalization, and approximately 3000 die.
The causes of some digestive diseases are well-known, especially for those resulting from viral (hepatitis, CMV), bacterial (diarrhea) or parasitic (gardiasis) infections, because the microorganisms can be clearly identified. Most peptic ulcers are also caused by a type of bacteria called Helicobacter pylori that weakens the protective mucous lining of the gut. As for the non-infectious.
Anus—The terminal opening of the digestive tract.
Ascites—Abnormal accumulation of fluid in the abdominal cavity.
Bacteria—Microscopic, single-celled organisms found in air, water, soil, and food. Only a few actually cause disease in humans.
Bile—Fluid made by the liver and stored in the gallbladder. Bile helps break down fats and gets rid of wastes in the body.
Bile ducts—Tubes that carry bile from the liver to the gallbladder for storage and to the small intestine for use in digestion.
Cecum—The pouch-like start of the large intestine that links it to the small intestine.
Colon polyps—Extra tissue that grows in the colon.
Diverticula—Small pouches in the muscular wall of the large intestine.
uodenum—The first section of the small intestine, extending from the stomach to the jejunum, the next section of the small intestine.
Esophagus—Muscular tube through which food passes from the pharynx to the stomach.
Ileum—The last section of the small intestine located between the jejunum and the large intestine.
Insulin—Hormone secreted by the pancreas that regulates carbohydrate metabolism in the body. It regulates the liver’s ability to store or release glucose.
Insulin resistance—Condition in which normal amounts of insulin are inadequate.
Jejunum—The section of the small intestine located between the duodenum and the ileum.
Lower esophageal sphincter (LES)—Ring of muscle at the bottom of the esophagus that acts like a valve between the esophagus and stomach.
Mucosa—Lining of the digestive tract. In the mouth, stomach, and small intestine, the mucosa contains glands that produce juices to digest food.
Pancreas—The pancreas is a flat, glandular organ lying below the stomach. It secretes the hormones insulin and glucagon that control blood sugar levels and also secretes pancreatic enzymes in the small intestine for the breakdown of fats and proteins.
Pharynx—Part of the neck and throat that connects the mouth to the esophagus.
Rectum—Short, muscular tube that forms the lowest portion of the large intestine and connects it to the anus.
Small intestine—The part of the digestive tract located between the stomach and the large intestine. It consists of the duodenum, the jejunum, and the ileum.
Villi intestinales—Microscopic hair-like structures covered with epithelial cells measuring 1–1.5 mm that line the mucous inner membrane of the small intestine.
diseases, medical researchers have only recently started to understand their numerous causes. For example, stomach ulcers can also result from the use of anti-inflammatory medications such as aspirin, ibuprofen, or naproxen. Similarly, it is also known that 80% of gallstones consist of hardened cholesterol and form when bile contains too much cholesterol, too much bilirubin, or not enough bile salts. It is also known that chronic alcoholism and hepatitis C are the most common causes of cirrhosis of the liver. As for diverticulitis, strong evidence suggests that it result mainly from a low-fiber diet. Gastroparesis is most often caused by diabetes, smooth muscle disorders and nervous system diseases while pancreatitis most often results from gallstones or alcohol abuse. Lactose intolerance is directly linked to a shortage of the enzyme lactase.
Increasingly however, researchers and physicians are realizing that one of the most common causes of digestive diseases is that people do not have healthy eating habits, and are also not aware of the many sources of food contamination. Besides bacterial or parasite infections, it is now understood that the digestive system can also be damaged by poor diets, prescription drugs, and food additives, especially antibiotics.
Since there are many types of digestive diseases, symptoms can accordingly vary widely, depending on the organ that is affected. Telltale signs are blood in the stool, changes in bowel habits, and weight loss. Additionally, physicians look for symptoms that may include one or more of the following:
• Acute abdominal pain. A sharp pain in the lower right abdomen is one of the symptoms of colitis or Crohn’s disease. A stomach that is very tender to the touch is indicative of diverticulitis or pancreatitis or an ulcer. Acute pain is also a symptom of gallstones.
• Ongoing abdominal pain. Depending on where the pain occurs, it will point to a specific digestive disease. For instance, if the pain goes away after taking antiacid medication, it points to a peptic ulcer. If it starts in the upper middle or upper right abdomen, and occurs after eating greasy or fatty foods, it is indicative of gallstones or infection of the gallbladder. If it occurs after eating milk products, it suggests lactose intolerance. Celiac disease is also accompanied by recurring abdominal pain.
• Bloating. Abdominal bloating is a symptom of lactose intolerance, Celia disease, IBS, and diverticulosis.
• Changes in bowel movements. Yellow and greasy stools that float are indicative of impaired pancreas function or celiac disease. Excess gas and loose, foul-smelling stools are a symptom of gardiasis or various bowel infections. Alternating loose and hard bowel movements are indicative of IBS.
• Bloody stools. Blood in the stools is one of the symptoms of Crohn’s disease, colitis, dysentery and hemorrhoids.
• Dark urine. Dark urine, accompanied by a yellowing of the skin or the eyes is indicative of hepatitis.
• Diarrhea. Watery bowel movements that occur many times throughout the day. If not bacterial or viral, diarrhea can be indicative of celiac disease, Crohn’s disease, gardiasis, or colitis.
• Fever. Fever accompanies several digestive diseases, in particular infectious diarrhea, dysentery, appendicitis, and colitis.
Diagnosis can be very difficult to establish because many digestive diseases share similar symptoms. For instance, celiac disease is commonly misdiagnosed as IBS, Crohn’s disease, or diverticulitis. This is why physicians believe that the key to an accurate diagnosis is careful and detailed history-taking during patient medical interviews. Physicians accordingly combine the patient’s gastrointestinal history to tests that can involve any of the following procedures:
• Barium enema. This test, also called a “lower gastrointestinal (GI) series”, uses x rays to detect abnormal growths, ulcers, polyps, and small pouches (diverticula) in the large intestine and rectum. An enema tube is inserted into the patient’s rectum and a barium solution is allowed to flow in to improve the contrast of the x rays.
• CAT Scan. Technique that uses a computerized x-ray scanner to take multiple views of a patient’s abdominal organs. The information is analyzed by a computer that produces cross-sectional images of the organ of interest. CT is used for viewing the more solid digestive organs such as the liver and pancreas.
• Colonoscopy. Test that allows the physician to look inside the colon using a colonoscope, a long, flexible tube that has a miniaturized color-TV camera at one end. It is inserted through the rectum into the colon, and provides a view of the lining of the lower digestive tract on a television monitor. The test is used to evaluate intestinal inflammation, ulceration, bleeding, diverticulitis, and colitis.
• Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP). ERCP is a technique used to diagnose problems in the liver, gallbladder, bile ducts, and pancreas. It uses both x rays and an endoscope, which is a long, flexible, lighted tube, inserted through the patient’s esophagus, stomach, and duodenum. Using the endoscope, the examining physician can see the inside of the digestive tract, and inject contrast dyes into the bile ducts and pancreas so that they can be seen with x rays.
• Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS). Technique that uses sound waves to create a picture of the inside of the body. It uses a special endoscope that has an ultrasound device at the tip. It is placed in the gastrointestinal tract, close to the area of interest
• Flexible sigmoidoscopy. Technique that allows to look at the inside of the large intestine from the rectum through the last part of the colon, called the sigmoid colon. It is used to investigate diarrhea, abdominal pain, or constipation.
• Stool tests. Collection of stool to identify microorganisms that may be infecting the intestine. Stools are examined under a microscope or analyzed for the substances they contain. For example, normal stool contains almost no fat. But, in certain types of digestive diseases, fat is not completely absorbed and remains in the stool.
• Swallowing test. In this procedure, the patient is asked to drink a solution of barium before the X-ray examination of the upper digestive tract (esophagus, stomach, and small intestine).
The treatment of digestive diseases varies depending on the condition being treated. Almost all treatment seeks the relief of symptoms and combine changes in eating habits with medications specific to the disease. In serious cases, surgical procedures are used, which can involve the complete removal of the affected organ.
• Gastroesophageal reflux disease GORD. Treatment may involve lifestyle changes, such as avoiding alcohol, loosing weight and eating smaller meals. Antacid medication, such as Alka-Seltzer, Maalox, Mylanta, Pepto-Bismol, Rolaids, and Riopan, can also relieve heartburn. Other drugs, such as foaming agents (Gaviscon), work by covering the stomach contents with foam to prevent reflux. H2 blockers, such as cimetidine (Tagamet HB), famotidine (Pepcid AC), nizatidine (Axid AR), and ranitidine (Zantac 75), can also reduce acid production. Proton pump inhibitors such as omeprazole (Prilosec), lansoprazole (Prevacid), pantoprazole (Protonix), rabe-prazole (Aciphex), and esomeprazole (Nexium) are now considered more efficient. Surgery is an option when medications do not work. A standard surgical treatment is fundoplication which wraps the upper part of the stomach around the LES to strengthen it and prevent acid reflux.
• Gastroparesis. When related to diabetes, treatment seeks to control the blood sugar levels with insulin and oral medications, such as metoclopramide (Reglan) to stimulate stomach muscle contractions which helps empty food. In severe cases, intravenous feeding may be required to bypass the stomach entirely. This is achieved by inserting a jejunostomy tube through the skin of the abdomen into the small intestine. The procedure allows nutrients and medication to be delivered directly into the small intestine.
• Peptic ulcer. Ulcers caused by Helicobacter pylori are treated with drugs to kill the bacteria, reduce stomach acid, and protect the stomach lining. Antibiotics are usually prescribed. The acid-suppressing drugs commonly used are H2 blockers and proton pump inhibitors. Medications such as bismuth subsalicylate are also used as protectors in the case of stomach ulcers. Surgery may also be required, such as a vagotomy, a procedure that cuts parts of the vagus nerve that transmits messages from the brain to the stomach. This interrupts messages to produce acid, hence reducing acid secretion.
• Budd-Chiari syndrome. Treatment usually involves sodium restriction, diuretics to control the accumulation of fluid in the abdominal cavity (ascites), and prescription of anticoagulants such as heparin and warfarin. Surgical shunts that divert blood flow around the obstruction or the liver may be required. In very serious cases, liver transplantation is the only effective treatment.
• Cholecystitis. If acute, treatment may require hospitalization to reduce stimulation to the gallbladder. Antibiotics are usually prescribed to fight the infection as well as acid-suppressing medications. In some cases, the gallbladder may be surgically removed (cholecystectomy).
• Cirrhosis. Treatment depends on the cause of the cirrhosis and on the complications that may be present. Alcoholic cirrhosis is first treated by completely abstaining from alcohol. Hepatitis-related cirrhosis is treated with medications specific to the different types of hepatitis, such as interferon for viral hepatitis and corticosteroids for autoimmune hepatitis. Treatment also includes medications to help remove fluid from the body. When complications cannot be controlled or when the liver becomes so damaged that it can no longer function, a liver transplant is required.
• Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease NAFLD. No single truly effective treatment has yet been found. If obese or overweight, patients are encouraged to loose weight and to follow a balanced diet. Increasing physical activity and avoiding alcohol is also recommended.
• Pancreatitis. If no complications occur, pancreatitis usually improves on its own. Treatment seeks to support body functions and prevent complications with hospitalization usually required to replace body fluids intravenously.
• Primary biliary cirrhosis. No treatment has been shown to be beneficial in slowing the progression of PBC. Patients are usually prescribed vitamins and calcium to help prevent loss of bone (osteoporosis), a common complication.
• Primary sclerosing cholangitis. There is no cure for PSC, but effective treatment is available for symptoms, such as the itching resulting from too much bile in the bloodstream, which can be controlled with drugs such as Questran or Actigall. Swelling of the abdomen and feet, due to fluid retention, can be treated with diuretics. In some cases, surgical procedures may be used to open major blockages in bile ducts. In the most severe cases, a liver transplant is performed.
• Infectious diarrhea. In healthy people, usual practice is to let the illness take its course, which can last from a few days to a week. Drinking plenty of liquids is required and medications such as Pedialyte, Cera-lyte, and Infalyte can be provided to replace electrolyte losses. Treatment with antibiotics is increasingly complicated by the bacteria having developed drug resistance.
• Celiac disease. The only treatment for celiac disease is a gluten-free diet.
• Crohn’s disease. There is no cure available, and the goal of treatment is to control inflammation in the intestine and reduce the symptoms of pain, diarrhea, and bleeding. Medications prescribed to reduce inflammation include Azulfidine (sulfasalazine), mesalamine or 5-ASA agents such as Rowasa, Pentasa or Asacol. Serious cases usually require more powerful drugs such as prednisone, antibiotics, or drugs that weaken the body’s immune system such as Imuran (azothioprine), Purinethol (6-mercaptopurine, 6-MP), Methotrexate or Remicade (Infliximab).
• Lactose intolerance. Removing milk products from the diet is the standard treatment. Lactase enzymes can also be added to milk or taken in capsule or chewable tablet form.
• Appendicitis. Surgery is performed to remove the appendix with prescription of pain medication.
• Ulcerative colitis. Treatment seeks to control acute attacks, prevent new attacks, and promote healing of the colon. Corticosteroids are usually prescribed to reduce inflammation. Medications prescribed to decrease the frequency of attacks include mesalamine, azathioprine and 6-mercaptopurine. In severe cases, the colon may be removed surgically.
• Diverticulosis. Besides a fiber-rich diet, treatment depends on symptoms. When diverticulitis occurs, simple bowel rest and antibiotics are prescribed. In severe cases, patients may require intravenous antibiotics or surgery to remove the affected portion of the colon.
• Dysentery. Rest and drinking plenty of fluids is the usual treatment. Hospitalization may be required for intravenous therapy.
• Giardiasis. Anti-infective medications such as metronidazole (Flagyl, Protostat) or quinacrine may be used. In pregnant women, treatment is not started until after delivery, because the drugs can be harmful to the fetus.
• Irritable bowel syndrome. IBS has no cure and treatment is based on diet changes, medication and stress relief therapy.
• Hemorrhoids. Corticosteroid creams and lidocaine ointments are used to reduce itching, pain and swelling. For severe cases, surgical removal of the hemorrhoids may be performed (hemorrhoidectomy).
• Anal fissures. Treatment may include the application of a hydrocortisone cream to the anal area to help relieve irritation, oral pain-killers such as acetaminophen, a stool softener such as Colace or Surfak to prevent constipation until the fissure heals, soaking the anal area in a warm chamomile infusion for 20 minutes to prevent infection and provide soothing relief, and avoidance of strenuous effort to pass stool. If a fissure does not respond to conservative treatment, surgery may be required, involving an operation that removes the area of the fissure and any underlying scar tissue.
• Perianal abscesses. Treatment involves surgical drainage of the abscess as antibiotics are ineffective. A small incision is made over the area and pus is expelled with manual pressure. The wound is packed with iodophor gauze, removed after 24 hours, and the patient is instructed to take Sitz baths 3-4 times a day for some two weeks.
Nutrition/Dietetic concerns
• Gastroesophageal reflux disease. Diets recommended for GORD are usually low-fat and include the basic food groups of cereals, vegetables, fruits, dairy products, and meats. A vitamin C supplement may be needed if the patient does not tolerate lemons, oranges, tomatoes, and grapefruits.
• Gastroparesis. Patients are asked to avoid foods that are high in fat and normally delay the emptying of the stomach. High fiber foods such as broccoli and cabbage also tend to stay in the stomach and are also restricted when symptoms are severe. Liquids always leave the stomach faster than solid food, so liquid foods are recommended.
• Peptic ulcer. In the past, physicians advised people with ulcers to avoid spicy, fatty, or acidic foods. Research has shown however that such diets are ineffective for treating ulcers. In most patients, no particular diet has emerged as being particularly helpful.
• Budd-Chiari syndrome. A low-sodium diet is required for the control of ascites.
• Cholecystitis. A low-fat diet is usually recommended with research showing that the pectin in apples may be beneficial, as well as the cellulose contained in celery and other crisp fruits and vegetables.
• Cirrhosis. Regardless of the type of cirrhosis, a healthy low-sodium diet is usually prescribed with total avoidance of alcohol.
• Hepatitis. Stimulating the liver can stress the liver and stimulants such as colas, chocolate, coffee, and tea are restricted. Fruit juices also, because they contain high levels of concentrated sugar which stress the digestive process and the pancreas, while feeding the virus.
• Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease NAFLD. A healthy diet controlling elevated cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood sugar is considered beneficial.
• Pancreatitis. Dietary guidelines recommend foods low in fat and high in carbohydrates and protein to decrease the work load of the pancreas. Pancreas stimulants such as coffee, alcohol, spicy and gas-forming foods are also restricted.
• Primary sclerosing cholangitis. A low-sodium diet is usually recommended to reduce fluid retention.
• Celiac disease. Patients work with a dietician to design a diet plan that is totally gluten-free. This means not eating foods that contain wheat, rye, and barley. Restrictions include most pasta, cereal, and processed foods.
• Infectious diarrhea. Diarrhea causes the body to loose too much fluid (dehydration) and electrolytes. Drinking plenty of water is accordingly extremely important. Broth and soups that contain sodium, and fruit juices, soft fruits, or vegetables that contain potassium, are required to restore the electrolyte levels.
• Lactose intolerance. If milk is removed from the diet, other sources of calcium are added, such as fermented milk products like yogurt that can usually be tolerated. Non-dairy foods that are high in calcium include fruits and vegetables such as kale, col-lard greens, broccoli, and oranges. Foods fortified with added calcium, such as soy milk, juices, cereals, and pasta, are also good sources of calcium.
• Colitis. Patients are advised to eliminate any foods or beverages from their diet that seem to make symptoms worse. This usually includes limiting dairy products, a low-fat diet high in fibers, eating small meals and drinking plenty of water.
• Diverticulosis. Since the lack of fiber and bulk in the diet is the major cause of diverticular disease, adding fiber and bulk to the diet is accordingly considered very important. Foods rich in fiber, such as bran cereals, whole wheat breads, a variety of beans, and fresh fruits and vegetables help keep the stools soft and bulky.
• Dysentery. Patients are asked to fast as long as acute symptoms are present, taking only orange juice and water or buttermilk. After the acute phase, rice, curd, fresh ripe fruits, especially banana and pomegranate and skimmed milk are allowed. Solid foods are reintroduced very carefully in the diet depending on the pace of recovery.
• Giardiasis. Drinking water to prevent dehydration is recommended, as well as replenishing the electrolytes lost as a result of diarrhea.
• Irritable bowel syndrome. People with IBS are usually asked to avoid food that is high in fat, insoluble fiber, caffeine, coffee, carbonated sodas, and alcohol.
• Hemorrhoids, anal fissures and perianal abscesses. A high-fiber diet consisting of fruits, vegetables, bran, whole-wheat grains with fiber supplements such as Metamucil, Citrucel, Fibercon is usually recommended along with a daily intake of plenty of water to prevent stool hardening.
Prognosis for some digestive diseases is excellent, for example the infectious diseases that clear up once the infectious agent is destroyed. Outcomes for most of the other diseases depends on the severity of complications and the underlying causes.
A healthy diet can help to prevent some digestive diseases altogether, such as diverticulitis, and lessen chances of developing others, such as colitis or alcoholic cirrhosis. Healthy nutrition is based on eating foods that meet the Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA) of the National Research Council. These foods should be from the four major food groups: dairy products, meat and nuts, cereals and grains, and fruits and vegetables. It is also recommended to drink eight glasses of water per day to help eliminate ingested toxins and maintain the pH balance of the stomach.
Another important prevention area is being careful about food contamination, directly responsible for all the digestive infectious diseases. These diseases can be avoided by simple precautions such as washing fruits and vegetables, cooking meat thoroughly, drinking only water from trusted sources, and basic hygiene.
Bellenir, K., ed. Digestive Diseases and Disorders Source-book. Detroit, MI: Omnigraphics, 2000.
Berkson, D. L., Droby, S. Healthy Digestion the Natural Way: Preventing and Healing Heartburn, Constipation, Gas, Diarrhea, Inflammatory Bowel and Gallbladder Diseases, Ulcers, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, and More. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 2000.
Bonci, L. American Dietetic Association Guide to Better Digestion. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 2003.
Dervenis, C. G., Lochs, I. Nutrition in Gastrointestinal and Liver Diseases. Basel, Switzerland: S. Karger Pub., 2003.
Holford, P. Improve Your Digestion: Optimum Nutrition Handbook. London, UK: Piatkus Books, 2000.
Lipski, E. Digestive Wellness. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2004.
Lipski, E. Digestive Wellness for Children. Laguna Beach, CA: Basic Health Publications, 2006.
Minocha, A. Handbook of Digestive Diseases. Thorofare, NJ: Slack Incorporated, 2004.
Nichols, T. W., Faass, N. Optimal Digestion : New Strategies for Achieving Digestive Health. Acton, MA: Quill Press, 1999.
Sullivan, R. G. Digestion and Nutrition. Emeryville, CA: Chelsea House Publications, 2004.
Cleveland Clinic Foundation. 9500 Euclid Ave. NA31 Cleveland, OH 44195. Department of Patient Education and Health Information: 1-800-223-2273). <http://www.clevelandclinic.org/health/>
International Foundation for Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders Inc. P.O. Box 170864, Milwaukee, WI 53217-8076. 1-888-964-2001. <http://www.iffgd.org>
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), National Institutes of Health. 31 Center Drive, MSC 2560, Bethesda, MD 20892-2560. 1-800-891-5389. <http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/facts/index.htm>
Monique Laberge, Ph.D.
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The concept of nuclear family in Australia has undergone dramatic changes since colonialism to present day. Structural forces such as industrialisation, technology, feminist movement, marriage and multiculturalism have modified the nuclear family to its present state. Institutional forces such as government (legislative), church and education have followed this metamorphosis by incorporating and embracing these changes to its modality. Thus changing structural forces in Australian society have compelled institutional forces to make modifications accordingly.
The nuclear family is the "traditional" concept of a family it consisted of father, mother and their children with the mother not being in paid employment and the father being the sole breadwinner. The family or the household is one of the main institutions in society. It is here that almost all the consumption in society takes place. The make-up of the family is not as "cut and dry" as it once was. Social forces have modified the nuclear family, the structural and institutional forces such as multiculturalism, the feminist movement, education, the church and the government alter the notion of the nuclear family. The nuclear family is as it was, is dead, and what has replaced it has put all old theories about the family to the test.
In the 19th century, there was a prevalent argument amongst scientists that the more primitive the society, the more extended were its family systems; or the more developed it was, the more the family system followed the nuclear pattern. The broad conclusion was drawn and held that the extended family had been a victim of the industrial revolution (Ogburn and Tibbits 1963). These arguments were refined by the structural-functional sociologists of the 1950s. These writers referred to the process of differentiation (societal units becoming more specialised) in modernising societies - that is, as a society modernises, its units become increasingl...
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Why Not Go?
Earlier this year, we ran an article about the emerging crop of native languages. The group included D, Go, Rust, and Vala. I promised then that we would eventually explore these languages in greater detail. This week starts that fun journey with what will be a five-part series on Go, the new language from Google. Unlike past tutorial series in Dr. Dobb's, we will run the articles in consecutive weeks, so that you can be up and running quickly.
More than the other languages on the list, Go really attracts me. While I am by no means an expert in it, I like what I've seen so far. My enjoyment derives, as you'll see, from an appreciation of the maturity of feature selection, rather than from a gee-whiz enthusiasm that new languages can generate on first exposure. (I confess I am susceptible to this kind of excitement as well—which is why I can recognize the difference with Go.) These features in particular appeal to me:
Fast and simple compilation. Go compiles fast. In fact, it compiles so fast, it can easily be used as a scripting language. Several reasons for the compilation speed are that it does not use header files; if a module depends on A, which in turn depends on B, a change in A requires only recompiling the original module and the A dependency; finally, the object modules contain enough dependency information that the compiler needs no make file. You simply compile the main module and it will automatically compile everything in the project that needs to be updated. Cool, eh?
Error handling through multiple return values. There are two primary paradigms today in native languages for handling errors: return codes, as in C, or exceptions, as in OO alternatives. Neither system is ideal. But of the two, return codes is the more frustrating, because returning error codes often conflicts with returning other data from the function. Go solves this by allowing functions to return multiple values. One value that returned for functions that you designate is of type error and can be checked anytime a function returns. If you don't care about the error value, you don't check it. In either case, the regular return values of the function are available to you.
Simplified composition (in preference to inheritance). Types can be qualified as members of a group of objects by the use of interfaces, which, like they do in Java, specify behavior. So, for example, the io package in the standard library defines a Writer that specifies one method, a Write function with array of chars as the the input parameter and return values of integer and error type). Any type that implements a Write method with the same signature is a de facto implementation of the io.Writer interface. This design decouples code rather elegantly. It also simplifies mocking objects for unit testing. For example, if you want to test one method in a Database object, in standard languages you have to create a database object that requires lots of initialization and protocol in order to create the mock. In Go, if the method under test implements an interface, you can create any object with that interface and you're good to go. So, you could create MockDatabase, which is a minimal object that implements only the few methods necessary to run the interface that needs to be mocked—no constructor, no added features, just the methods.
Simplified concurrency. Concurrency in Go is made comparatively easy. Put the keyword 'go' in front of any function and that function will run in its own go-routine (a very light thread). Go-routines communicate through channels that are essentially blocking message queues. The usual tools for mutual exclusion are available, but Go makes it simple just to kick off concurrent tasks and coordinate via channels.
Excellent error messages. No language I've seen comes close to Go in the quality of the diagnostics it emits. For example, if a program deadlocks, the Go runtime notifies you of this and, to the extent it can, tells you which threads are causing the deadlock! Compiler error messages are similarly detailed and useful.
Grab bag: There are other appealing features, which I'll quickly run through here: higher-order functions, garbage collection, hash maps and expandable arrays built into the language (so part of the language syntax, not brought in as a library), and so on.
Of course, not everything is rainbows and lollipops. The tools are still fairly immature and the community is small, but with Google behind the language, both aspects are sure to be remediated. While many languages—notably D, Rust, and Vala—aim to simplify C++ and add specific features, they all feel to me like “C++ with better features.” In Go, however, there's been a fundamental rethinking of how native languages should operate. And from that perspective comes an elegance of implementation that does away with many problems. Even if you have no particular need to consider Go, I think that by kicking the tires on the language, you'll find yourself appreciating many of its features. Cheers!
Related Reading
Go Tutorial: Object Orientation and Go's Special Data Types
Getting Going with Go
RESTful Web Service in Go Powered by the Google App Engine
A Brief Tour of the Go Standard Library
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Image of a Lunar Base base.
Button that takes you to the Overview Section. Image that says Teacher's Toolkit. Button that takes you to the Student Materials Section. Button that takes you to the Mission Day Section.
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Lesson 3: Latitude and Longitude
Teacher Introduction
In the Target Moon mission students locate bases using latitude and longitude as reference points. Plotting the possible points of impact will require students to accurately predict the path of the comet and determine the areas of ejecta at each location in order to move the astronauts to safety.
A good understanding of latitude and longitude is essential to the Target Moon mission. This lesson reviews information usually covered in a social studies class but embeds it in a space science scenario with an approach that integrates it with science and math.
60 minutes
• Student worksheet
• U. S. or world map with latitude and longitude lines
• Pencils
• Paper
equator: a circle of the Earth or celestial body that is equally distant from the two poles and divides the surface into northern and southern hemispheres.
latitude: the distance north or south of the equator.
longitude: the distance east or west of the prime meridian.
prime meridian: the meridian of 0 degrees longitude which runs through the original site of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England, and which forms the reference point for lines of longitude east and west.
Latitude and Longitude Review
Latitude is the distance north or south of the equator; imaginary lines measured in terms of 360 degrees of a circle help us locate points or locations on a sphere like Earth or the Moon.
The equator is the line of 0 degrees latitude. Lines of latitude start from the equator and go north to the North Pole and south to the South Pole. The North Pole is labeled 90 degrees north latitude and the South Pole is 90 degrees south latitude. The latitude of every point in between must be some degree north or south from 0 to 90 degrees. One degree of latitude covers about 69 miles, or 111 kilometers.
These lines are called parallels of latitude because they run parallel to the equator.
Longitude is the distance east or west of the prime meridian; imaginary lines measured in terms of 360 degrees of a circle help us locate points or locations on a sphere like Earth or the Moon.
Longitude is measured the same way as latitude except that the lines run east and west. Lines of longitude are called meridians and just as latitude must have a starting reference line. Longitude lines begin at 0 degrees at the line that runs through Greenwich, England. This line is internationally accepted as the 0 degree longitude and is known as the prime meridian.
For even greater accuracy degrees of latitude and longitude are further divided into 60 minutes, and minutes are divided into 60 seconds. Students will not have to measure in minutes or seconds for their Target Moon mission.
Finding Locations
When you use a map to locate a position, you often use the degrees of latitude and longitude. These are called coordinates. If you know the coordinates of a point, you can use a map marked off in latitude and longitude to locate any point on the sphere.
Image of a map that shows the world with degrees latitude and longitude. Please have someone assist you with this.
To identify locations with their coordinates (latitude and longitude) or to find locations using latitude and longitude, you must know how the lines are defined. Latitude is measured from the equator with positive values going north and negative values going south.
Longitude lines are measured from the prime meridian with positive values going east and negative values going west.
Example: Find the latitude and longitude for Washington, DC.
Find the latitude by locating Washington and the two closest latitude lines. In this case it will be the 40 degree latitude line and the 35 degree latitude line. Washington is south of the 40 degree line but north of the 35 degree line. By estimating how far Washington is from each line, you can see that Washington is approximately 38 degrees north latitude.
Find the longitude by finding the two longitude lines closest to Washington. The city lies between the 75 degree and 80 degree west longitudes. By estimating, you can see that Washington’s longitude location is approximately 77 degrees west.
1. Read the information about latitude and longitude with the students in class.
2. Encourage discussion and ask questions to check for understanding of the material.
3. Review the Target Moon scenario and make sure the students relate the material they learn in this lesson with their work in the mission.
4. Work the example for Washington, DC, with the students.
5. Have the students practice identifying locations by finding latitudes and longitudes. You can use a map from the appendix of a social studies or science textbook if you do not have world maps for the students to use.
6. Check for understanding.
Locations to find:
• A city you would like to visit.
• The city in which you were born.
• The city in which a parent was born.
• Where you would like to vacation.
• Where you would like to live one day.
• Where your favorite sports team is located.
• The farthest place you have visited compared to where you live now.
Animation showing all of the innovative programs for digital learning that the Center for Educational Technologies has developed. Some of them include: EVA Alert, M.A.R.S., and Target Moon. Button that takes you to the Classroom of the Future home page. The caption reads: Developed by the NASA-Sponsored Classroom of the Future TM.
Image that shows the bottom border of the page.
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Hotels near Bartholdi Museum - Best deals & budget rates!
There are many museums in France that are dedicated to famous artists. Because of the fame of the people that these museums represent, it can be expected that many tourists will want to pay a visit to these places. One of these museums is the Bartholdi Museum, which is regarded as an attraction that is considered a highlight of the tourism in Colmar.
This museum is located in the house where the great artist and sculptor Federic Auguste Bartholdi was born in the year 1834. Because of this, the museum was named after him, and it is mainly dedicated to his works and his life. As one of the contributors to the tourism in Colmar, the Bartholdi Museum features the artist's works as well as some artifacts and documents pertaining to his life. Bartholdi is well known for being the world-renowned designer of the Statue of Liberty. As a gift from France to the United States in the 19th century, the statue now stands at the harbor of New York City.
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Productivity & Costs Q4 2010
Q4 2010 Productivity & Costs was released today. Labor productivity increased +2.6%. Output increased +4.5% and hours worked increased 1.8%. For the year, annual productivity increased +3.6%, output +3.7% and hours +0.1%.
Below is business, nonfarm labor productivity per quarter.
Unit labor costs dropped -0.6% for Q4 2010 and are down -1.5% for the year. Frankly this implies workers are being squeezed and squeezed to the point they are flat as pancakes. Real wages decreased -0.6% for Q4 2010 and are only up 0.3% for 2010.
The basic equation for labor productivity is \frac{Q}L, where Q is the total output of industry.
How does the DOL calculate labor productivity?
Labor productivity is calculated by dividing an index of real output by an index of the combined hours worked of all persons, including employees, proprietors, and unpaid family workers.
L, or Labor, is measured in hours only. Both values are normalized to a base year, 2005. Output directly correlates to real GDP, minus the government, all of those nonprofits and our infamous, often illegal nannies and gardeners. The output, or Q is about 75% of real real GDP reported. Farms, if you can believe this, only subtract off about 1% from Output totals. Labor productivity is reported annualized. The main productivity numbers above are all business, no farms. This does include the manufacturing sector.
Annual nonfarm business productivity yearly change, was 3.6% and the quarterly change from one year ago is 1.7%.
Below is the unit labor costs, compounded annual rate, percent change. Unit labor costs decreased -0.6% for Q4 2010, but are down -1.5%, on average, for the year.
BLS defines unit labor costs as the ratio of hourly compensation to labor productivity, or \frac{\frac{C}L}{\frac{Q}L} = \frac{C}{Q}. For more formula definitions see the BLS handbook (yes this is the right page for labor productivity equations and calculations, I wouldn't do that to ya). From the report is the relationship of the ratios:
Increases in hourly compensation tend to increase unit labor costs and increases in output per hour tend to reduce them. Over the last four quarters, unit labor costs declined 0.2 percent, as hourly compensation and productivity increased 1.5 percent and 1.7 percent, respectively
Graphed below are unit labor costs, indexed to 2005. Notice the decline starting in the Great Recession, that's right, we're becoming mega cheap.
From the below report text, whether we're growin' or contractin' bottom line workers are getting the shaft (my interpretation of course).
The nonfarm business sector experienced productivity growth of 3.6 percent from 2009 to 2010 and 3.5 percent from 2008 to 2009. However, the 2010 increase in output per hour was due to a 3.7 percent increase in output as hours edged up 0.1 percent, whereas the 2009 productivity gain resulted when output fell 3.8 percent and hours fell 7.0 percent. In both years, strong productivity growth in nonfarm business was accompanied by declines in unit labor costs. By contrast the previous three years (2006-2008) were marked by modest productivity gains and increases in unit labor costs of more than two percent.
The BLS also reports separately on manufacturing productivity, but uses a different calculation method than the one for business productivity. So, don't think ya can subtract the below and get services productivity, the two ain't the same.
Manufacturing is sales, removing duplicates, adjusting for prices and output (Q) is correlated to shipments and the industrial production. indexes. Hours are hours like above. Page 4 of the report has the manufacturing productivity measurement nitty gritty.
Manufacturing productivity increased +5.8% in Q4 2010, manufacturing output increased +3.7 % while hours worked decreased -2.0%. For the yearly average, manufacturing productivity is up 6.0% in comparison to 2009 and in durable goods alone the average yearly change in productivity was 8.2%. This is the largest manufacturing productivity yearly increase since 2003.
Manufacturing unit labor costs are down -2.9% for Q4 2010 and in comparison to Q4 2009, down -3.0%. Why, real compensation (wages), increased +0.2% for Q4 2010 but is dow -1.7% in comparison to Q4 2009.
Now check this out, for the yearly average:
Unit labor costs in the manufacturing sector fell 4.5 percent—the largest decline in annual manufacturing unit labor costs since the series began in 1988.
Corporations are squeezing blood from a stone! Welcome to China America!
What you see these days in productivity is not what it appears. The press will claim increased productivity is a great thing, but it's clearly not translating into wages and jobs for workers.
While leads me to this paper from the Monthly Labor Review, The compensation-productivity gap: a visual essay. Now these are the people who maintain the BLS productivity statistics. In the report, they go over their methods, calculations, which can make a huge difference in results. Bottom line they show since the 1970's, workers are getting less and less of the labor share or payout, less of a slice from the American pie called increased economic output. What they found was most of the productivity vs. how much you get in your pocket to spend gap before year 2000 could be attributed to a couple of different measures for inflation. After 2000, the gap is because workers are getting screwed. From the paper:
Labor share is a measure of how much of the economic pie goes to all workers. When labor share is constant or rising, workers benefit from economic growth. When labor share falls, the compensation–productivity gap widens. Concurrently, nonlabor costs—which include intermediate inputs into production and returns to investments, or profits—represent a greater share of output.
Their paper is loaded with graphs, but the above was reprinted for it shows clearly, since 2000, American workers are simply getting shafted while those making the profits are taking it to the bank.
Here is the Q3 2010 productivity report, unrevised.
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IT WAS, beyond question, a disgrace. During ex-Yugoslavia's vicious internecine wars, the United Nations declared a “safe” area, essentially for its Muslim inhabitants, around the Bosnian town of Srebrenica. The Bosnian Serbs thought otherwise, shelled the place, then seized it, drove out the Muslims, and ultimately butchered over 7,000 Muslim men and boys. The UN troops supposedly guarding the “safe” area were Dutch. And what did they do to stop the Serbs? Nothing.
Yet all this happened seven years ago; everyone has known the basic facts for all those years; and everyone knew, broadly, why it happened—because the Dutch soldiers were far too few, and neither properly armed nor supported, even if they had been strongly mandated, motivated and commanded, to resist the Serb soldiery. The UN had bungled. So why, after days of public breast-beating provoked by a huge Dutch report into every detail of the affair, did the Dutch cabinet this week resign?
Though it was an earlier government that had sent the troops, today's prime minister, Wim Kok, after all, was prime minister in 1995. He did not quit then. His three-party coalition, elected in 1994, won a still larger majority in 1998, and has governed with much success. A fresh election was due anyway on May 15th. Mr Kok had already handed over his Labour Party leadership to his chosen heir, and hoped—though it recently had looked unlikely—to be able to pass on the prime ministership as well, once the often laborious business of Dutch coalition-making was complete.
Instead, he decided to offer the cabinet's resignation. His environment minister, Jan Pronk, who was a minister, if only for development aid, in 1995, was ready to quit anyway; now 62, he is a man of high moral standards and happy for the world to know it. A church report on Srebrenica published three weeks ago had already led him to condemn “the failure of politics” in the affair. The new report, officially commissioned six years ago, though damning past political decisions, did not suggest today's cabinet could be reproached. Mr Pronk, vigorously, did. The current defence minister, Frank De Grave, said he too was ready to resign; the army had concealed facts in 1995, to hide its own faults. To Mr Kok it looked politically wiser to offer the lot. So be it, said Queen Beatrix, but please carry on as a caretaker—as he would have for a time after the election anyway.
The affair may yet help his party. Dutch politics was already recovering its balance after the meteoric rise of the populist Pim Fortuyn last month, as voters returned to their old allegiances. There is now a lot of sympathy for Mr Kok, a respected leader brought low by a seven-year-old affair which, though he has accepted responsibility, was not his fault.
Nor was it only or even mainly that of the Dutch. A virtuous people, still troubled by the fate of their own Jewish minority in 1940-45, they are ashamed of their politicians' and soldiers' role in 1995; and the more so given that their own capital, The Hague, now houses the tribunal judging war crimes in ex-Yugoslavia. Pushed by the public, the government sent troops to keep peace where there was none, untrained for that task and with very little military or political intelligence. The army chiefs later rejected CIA offers to smuggle communication-tapping equipment to the Dutch force in Srebrenica. The troops did not fire a shot when the Serbs marched in. They later aided (eager) Muslim women and children to flee Srebrenica, well aware that the men's fate was “uncertain”, though not expecting mass murder.
Yet whose fault was this? Not just were the Dutch too few to defend anything, they were not meant to: the UN thought their mere presence would deter an attack, and they could shoot only if shot at themselves—which the Serbs carefully avoided. UN intelligence no more foresaw the Serbs' sudden attack, after months of shelling and skirmishes but not more, than the Dutch did. When it happened, the Dutch expected UN air strikes. None came (although not, says the report, because the UN force commander had made a secret deal with the Serbs, as has been alleged).
Nor yet did the UN foresee the later massacres any better than the Dutch. And, though their kin have raged against the report for saying so, not all the victims were blameless innocents: Muslim troops in the—supposedly demilitarised—safe area had both launched forays from it and treated Serbs inside it brutally. Yet that cannot excuse mass murder. The truly guilty were neither Dutch nor from the UN, but Bosnian Serbs. The Hague tribunal has sentenced one general directly involved, Radislav Krstic, to 46 years. His military chief, Ratko Mladic, and his political one, Radovan Karadzic, are still at large. | <urn:uuid:a70143e8-a98a-42de-b6b4-467f8a6822c0> | 2 | 2 | 0.062766 | en | 0.98777 | http://www.economist.com/node/1091124 |
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Practically Speaking
Voter registration 185 million, votes cast millions less
Elections, Obama 2008, Voter fraud
The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) released preliminary voter registration numbers from a nationwide survey and showed twenty states reporting record numbers in 2008 and total registration up at least 42 million since 2004.
According to the survey (.pdf), at least 185 million (184,746,883) people were registered to vote in this year's general election, an increase of about 42 million voters since 2004. In 2000, the number of registered voters was estimated to be 129.5 million, according to Census Bureau numbers.
The numbers collected were released November 3, the day before the general election, but do not represent final registration figures since some of the numbers were collected before the state deadlines for registration applications (.pdf). Additionally, many states, overwhelmed by the increase in new voters registering, had not finish processing new voter registration applications by the time these numbers were collected, although voters who submitted an application by their state's deadline were entitled to cast a provisional ballot in the election even though they were not yet on their state's voter roll.
The registration numbers also do not include voters who registered at the polls in states that allow election-day registration. Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Wyoming all offer election-day registration. Alaska, Connecticut and Rhode Island have election-day registration for people who want to vote only in the presidential race.
It's unclear if the numbers include voters whose registration status has been challenged under a new federal law that requires states to match the driver's license or Social Security number that new voters provide on their registration application against state motor vehicle records and the Social Security Administration database. Some states, like Florida, flag voters who fail a match, and it's unclear if these voters are included in registration numbers.
North Dakota did not supply any numbers, since the state is the only one that does not require voters to register to cast ballots.
The states with record registration numbers are: Alabama, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia
California has the largest number of registered voters at 17.3 million. Texas is next with 13.5 million, followed by New York (12 million) and Florida (11.2 million).
Early voter turnout numbers for the 2008 election indicate that about 136.6 million people cast ballots. One expert has estimated that voter turnout will figures will be about 64.1 percent.
In the 2004 presidential election, although 142 million were registered to vote, only 122.3 million people actually voted, which was a record high at the time. In 2000, of the 129.5 million registered voters, only 111 million turned out to vote, according to government figures.
This is the first presidential election in which the National Association of Secretaries of State has collected nationwide registration figures, according to NASS spokeswoman Kay Stimson.
US election: Record voter turnout
Americans have delivered one landslide even before a single vote was counted, turning out in what looked set to be record numbers to pick their 44th president.
Officials expected between 130 million and 140 million people would vote, up from 121 million four years ago.
An electoral official in Virginia Beach, Virginia spoke for many in the hotly contested swing states when he said: "Turnout is off the chart".
Election officials confidently predicted they would hit 65 per cent of those registered – the highest percentage since 1908. In South Dakota, not even a swing state, turnout was predicted at 70 to 75 per cent. In parts of Nevada, election officials claimed turnout could top 80 per cent.
Mike Duhaime, the McCain national field director, said: "We're seeing very heavy turnout all our battleground states. We're monitoring turnout in both Democrat and Republican precincts. It seems to be heavy across the board."
In Chappaqua New York, home of the Clintons, poll worker John Ritch said: "By 7.30am we had as many as we had at noon in 2004." With voter registration numbers up more than seven per cent, more than 27 million had taken advantage of early voting even before election day and many queued for hours before polling stations opened to join them.
In New York voters began lining up at 4am, more than two hours before the polls opened. Queues around the block were common in many states by mid morning, with a further surge towards late afternoon.
Police in Philadelphia were called to a polling booth where two members of the black power group the Black Panthers guarded the door, one of them armed with a knight stick, intimidating voters. One of the men was told to leave.
Rick Leventhal, the voter who called the police said that one of the men told him: "A black man is going to win the election. We're tired of white supremacy." In Pontiac, Michigan, Republican operatives told blacks queuing to vote that they would be fined if they were not on voter rolls. They were sent packing by union officials.
Observers elsewhere in Pennsylvania complained of "pandemonium" where Republican poll watchers, whose job is to monitor the integrity of the voting, were apparently removed from polling sites in direct violation of a recent state court ruling.
In New Hampshire the State Republican Committee went to court complaining that their poll workers were kept away from new voter registration tables, making it impossible for them to check that people were properly registered.
In Virginia, both Republicans and Democrats launched lawsuits. John McCain's campaign demanded a 10 day extension to the counting of absentee ballots to ensure all overseas military ballots are counted. A judge rejected Democrat calls for more voting machines to cope with higher turnout in black areas. There were accusations that people were voting multiple times.
In several states, election officials ruled that anyone in line when the polls close would be allowed to vote, causing the counts to drag on for hours.
In Ohio, one of the most hotly contested battlegrounds, Democratic voters in Toledo reported receiving automated robocalls designed to keep them at home. The calls warned that voting lines were long and that they could express their preference using their telephone key pad instead.
In Florida, where officials have fought to escape their reputation as an international laughing stock after the Bush-Gore recount debacle eight years ago, there were still problems, with papers rejected by the counting machines when voters failed to fill in details on the reverse of their ballots.
Electoral officials were unable to set up a polling station at a church in Tallahassee, the state capital, because they couldn't wake up the pastor. A sheriff's deputy had to drive up to his house and blast his car siren to wake him up.
There was also evidence of voter fraud. Tampa resident Michael Baccich, 57, was one of several voters who arrived to vote only to be told that he had already cast an absentee ballot.
Voters in Cuyahoga County, Ohio were only given half a ballot paper, causing their votes to be void. New voting machines also went down in Philadelphia, New Jersey and Cleveland, Ohio.
A blast of rain sweeping up the East coast disrupted voting in Virginia and North Carolina, key election bellwethers. In Chesapeake County, Virginia, voters drenched in the squall were asked to dry off first after their optical vote scanner was unable to read damp ballot papers. Thousands had their wet papers quarantined in separate bins while they dried out before officials scanned them in again.
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Fouke Monster
Fouke (Miller County) is a small town in southwest Arkansas that attracted attention in the early 1970s when a resident of Texarkana (Miller County) reported being attacked by a mysterious creature there. A reporter for the Texarkana Gazette wrote an article about the events, and from that small publication, a legend was born. Fouke and its monster became famous and were featured in a 1973 movie.
In May 1971, Bobby Ford reported to the Fouke constable that he was attacked at his house by a hairy creature that breathed heavily, had red eyes, and moved very fast. Ford said the man-like creature, which was about seven feet tall and three feet across the chest, put its arm around his shoulder and grabbed him. Ford broke free from the creature and ran, reporting that he ran so fast that he did not stop to open the front door but barreled right through it. He was treated at a local hospital for minor scratches and shock.
Ford said the being had been around his house for several days and that there were other eyewitnesses, including his brother and a hunting companion. Ford’s wife, Elizabeth, claimed that she was asleep in the front room when she saw a hairy arm with claws coming in the window. She also saw the creature’s red eyes. On the night of the attack, Ford claimed, he and his hunting companions spotted the creature at the back of Ford’s house with the aid of a flashlight. They shot at it and thought they saw it fall. The men started out toward it, but Bobby Ford ran back to the house when the group heard women screaming. Upon Ford’s return to the house, he was attacked. The men shot at the creature several more times, but investigators never found blood. The sheriff’s department searched the area, and the only things officers found were a set of strange tracks and claw scratches on the Fords’ porch.
Jim Powell, then a reporter for the Texarkana Gazette and the Texarkana Daily News, and Dave Hall, then-director of Texarkana radio station KTFS, went to Ford’s place and found a terrified family moving out of the house it had owned less than a week. Powell wrote an article that appeared in the newspaper, outlining the family’s alleged sighting and attack. The next day, both the Texarkana Gazette and the Texarkana Daily published the same follow-up story. It contained the first reference to the name “Fouke Monster.” The Associated Press and United Press International wire services transmitted the article to newspapers across the nation.
In 1973, the incident was made into a low-budget movie, The Legend of Boggy Creek, which perpetuated the story to an even larger audience. The movie, filmed in Fouke, is a pseudo-documentary thriller about the creature and the town, and it stars some of the eyewitnesses and residents of Fouke. Reported sightings of the Fouke Monster date back as far as 1946, when a resident reported to Miller County Sheriff Leslie Greer that she had seen a strange creature near her home. Sightings of a creature have been reported throughout Fouke history, but no sighting has been as famous as the one that gained national attention in 1971.
For additional information:
Blackburn, Lyle.The Beast of Boggy Creek: The True Story of the Fouke Monster. San Antonio: Anomalist Books, 2012.
Crabtree, Smokey. Smokey and the Fouke Monster. Fouke, AR: Day’s Creek Production Corp., 1974.
Thibodeau, Sunni. “The Fouke Monster 30 Years Later: Ex-journalists recall sifting fact from Fouke fiction after sighting.” Texarkana Gazette. June 24, 2001, p. 1.
Amy Michelle Thompson
North Little Rock, Arkansas
Last Updated 12/31/2012
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Maggot Moon Summary
Chapter Summaries
Chapters 1-5 Summary
Standish Treadwell often wonders about "what ifs." What if things, little things, had happened differently? Likely, the story he is about to tell never would have been. But the fact is, they did not happen differently and, as he so aptly notes, "what ifs are as boundless as the stars."
Standish Treadwell is dyslexic: words to him "are just circus horses dancing up and down." The kids at school tease him, chanting, "Standish Treadwell. Can't read, can't write. Standish Treadwell isn't bright." It is true that Standish cannot even spell his own name. He does have a story to tell, however, even though he dares not write it down, even if he could.
Despite his learning challenges, Standish is not stupid. He has an uncommonly strong imagination, and often sees things that others overlook. His old teacher, Miss Connolly, recognized this trait in him, and called him "an original." His best friend Hector appreciated it too.
Because he is considered "stupid," Standish sits in the back of the room at school, where he is "all but invisible." From this vantage point, even if he could read, the only word on the blackboard at the front of the room that he can make out is the huge one, stamped in red letters over a picture of the moon, that screams "MOTHERLAND." Standish is not paying attention on the day the note summoning him to the headmaster's office arrives in the classroom. He is lost in a daydream, imagining that he and Hector are in "the city across the water...where the sun shines in Technicolor." The world that Standish really lives in is dark and fearful; here, "the sky fell in long ago." Still, the boy had seen this other place once on TV, so he knows it exists, and he and Hector had invented a planet, Juniper, that is just like it, in all its wonder.
Standish is dreaming about being on Juniper, driving an "ice-cream-colored Cadillac" with his friend, heading home "for Croca-Colas in a shiny kitchen with...
(The entire section is 582 words.)
Chapters 6-10 Summary
To underscore his sadistic contempt for Standish, Mr. Gunnell undoes the boy's tie before releasing him. To the hapless fifteen-year-old, this deed is the ultimate humiliation. Dyslexic as he is, Standish cannot do up his tie, and Mr. Gunnell knows it. The boy had kept his tie's knot intact for a full year, moving it down each day just enough to slip his head through, then closing it up again, "neat as a whistle." Now, the "undone, hangman's rope of a tie" makes Standish feel like giving up; to show up at the headmaster's office with his tie undone is akin to suicide.
Standish was able to keep his tie in proper order all that time because of Hector, who was his protector when he was here. Hector said that the tie was just a way of making everyone the same, "just numbers." Hector, however, was never just a number, and Standish wonders if he might have been "rubbed out" because of that. If Standish forces himself to be completely honest, he must admit that his despair about what Mr. Gunnell has done is less about the tie and more about the loss of his friend.
As Standish walks disconsolately down the corridor to his fate, Miss Phillips, one of the school wardens, comes out of her office. Seeing Standish, she perceives his sorry state, and asks sternly, "What are you doing, Treadwell?" Watching the camera that sweeps back and forth, surveying the corridor, she waits until "the all-seeing eye" is turned in another direction, then quickly does up the boy's tie and straightens his shirt. Putting her finger conspiratorially to her lips, she waits until the camera is turned toward them again, then commends Standish, saying, "Good, Treadwell...that is how I expect you to arrive at school every day." Standish is amazed to have encountered such an unexpected savior.
As Standish sits on the hard bench outside the headmaster's office, waiting for the bell to signal Mr. Hellman's readiness to see him, his thoughts turn to the day he met Hector. Standish has always been the target of bullies at school since, in addition to his complete inability to achieve conventional literacy, he has "one blue eye, one brown." There is a...
(The entire section is 876 words.)
Chapters 11-15 Summary
The house that the new neighbors, the Lush family, now lived in had belonged to Standish's parents before they became "nonexistent." Like countless others, Standish's Mum and Dad had vanished more than a year previously. Their disappearances were unexplained, "their names forgotten, all knowledge of them denied by the authorities." The only person Standish has to take care of him now is Gramps, a tall, proud man, cunning like a "silver fox," who "[sees] a lot, [says] little."
Because of the war, and because so many people thereabouts had been "rubbed out," the dwellings on the Treadwells' street stood derelict and largely deserted. When the Lushes moved in, Gramps said that they were spies, which Standish understood to mean that the old man just did not want them to live there. Gramps actually suspected that informers in the neighborhood resided for the most part at the top of the road, opposite the hulking palace. The houses in that area were pristine, reserved for the Mothers for Purity, like Hans Fielder's mother and her friends. These citizens did "sterling work for the Greenflies and the men in black leather coats," spying and informing on others in return for easy access to food and clothing for their families.
When Standish asked Gramps why he thought spies would know how to get raspberry stains out of a white shirt, he received an answer that was cryptic at best. By the time the two ventured out, the curfew siren had sounded, and they were forced to make their trek via Cellar Street, a series of holes knocked through the basement walls of the houses along the block. After they had passed through the dank access and arrived at what had once been the cellar door to his parents' house, Standish and Gramps knocked politely.
After a "loud silence," the door was cracked opened by an emaciated-looking, graying, very anxious man who spoke the home language with a slight accent which Standish recognized as that of the...
(The entire section is 720 words.)
Chapters 16-20 Summary
From that night, Gramps, Standish, Hector, and Mr. and Mrs. Lush spent more and more time together. It was not long until they melded into one family. Mr. Lush told Gramps and Standish that he was an engineer who had refused to work on a project for the Motherland, but he gave no details about the nature of his assignment. Mrs. Lush was "a doctor who had refused to eliminate the impure." Because of their recalcitrance, both husband and wife were exiled to Zone Seven.
Standish is jolted from his reverie when the bell indicating the headmaster's readiness to see him rings. When the boy enters the administrator's office, Mr. Hellman, who is standing, clicks his heels together and extends his arm out rigidly, exclaiming, "Glory to the Motherland." Standish half-heartedly reciprocates the salute, then notices a man in a black leather coat sitting in the corner of the room. This unexpected personage's face is hidden by a hat with a sharp brim, and "eye-socket-fitting sunglasses." The man's appearance is sinister, and Standish wonders why he is here.
It occurs to Standish that the man in the leather coat might be there to check up on Mr. Hellman, but he doubts this because he knows that the headmaster is not very important. Mr. Hellman's sole "claim to fame" is a cheap watch he has, which is awarded to couples with eight or more children. Standish knows that the headmaster's timepiece is worth little because he has seen with his own eyes a watch of far greater value; it had belonged to Mr. Lush, and it saved them all last winter.
The past winter had been so long and bitter that the little household reached a point where there literally was no more to eat, and nothing left to use for firewood. As Standish, Gramps, and the Lushes sat around the kitchen table, wondering what to do, Mr. Lush left the room and came back with something wrapped in a cloth, which he handed to Gramps, saying, "You know what to do with it, Harry." In the cloth was a watch of pure gold, which shone "bright as a star." Gramps studied the inscription on it thoughtfully, then commented, "If we can grind off the words it will get us out of jail." The...
(The entire section is 877 words.)
Chapters 21-25 Summary
It has been only three weeks since Standish and Hector were planning their mission to planet Juniper. Mr. Lush had managed to rig up a television set, which enabled the family to access programs "from the land of Croca Colas," the wondrous place upon which Juniper was modeled. The pictures were in black and white, but Hector and Standish knew that the life depicted was "bursting with color." Their favorite show was about a lady named "ball," who was "all plastic perfect," and laughed all the time. Standish and Hector imagined that when they broke through to Juniper, everything in their own world would change for the better, and the "promised land" would be theirs.
Hector was assigned to the same class in school as...
(The entire section is 874 words.)
Chapters 26-30 Summary
With his nose bloody and one eye half shut, Standish climbs out from behind the schoolyard bench. He notices something interestinghe is taller than Mr. Gunnell. Perceiving that the teacher is about to strike him with his cane, Standish boldly, and perhaps foolishly retorts, "You can't keep hitting me . . . I'm taller than you."
With the whole class looking on, Standish bends to duck Mr. Gunnell's fists and feels the weight of the cane on his back instead. Glancing up quickly and seeing the teacher's chin jutting out, Standish hits him hard under the jaw and shoves his arm out straight into his chest. As Mr. Gunnell trips backward, his toupee falls off and drops ludicrously onto the pavement. The entire...
(The entire section is 548 words.)
Chapters 31-35 Summary
So that all might view the historic moon rocket launching, each school in the occupied territory of the Motherland has been issued a "working television." Standish notes the irony in the fact that "in this age of moon men," the television is old and "make-do" and that a teacher must struggle to position the aerial just so to get any sort of coherent picture at all.
Standish himself has no interest in witnessing the Motherland's great triumph. He and Hector had not bought into any of her "pure race chatty crap," having seen for themselves that there was "nothing pure" about any aspect of the Motherland's dominion.
It is the president of the Motherland herself who comes on the screen to address the masses....
(The entire section is 713 words.)
Chapters 36-40 Summary
Standish is given no further instructions after being expelled, so he simply walks back to his classroom. On the way, he looks out over the playground, where he sees the leather-coat man walking with Mr. Gunnell past the body of Little Eric Owen.
Stopping, the man in the leather coat takes out a pistol and places its barrel against Mr. Gunnell's head; a single shot rings out and Mr. Gunnell falls to the ground. Standish is curiously unfazed by the execution.
Back in the classroom, Standish finds that Hans Fielder has cut the bottoms off his coveted long trousers in a show of solidarity with the rank-and-file oppressed. It crosses Standish's mind that Mrs. Fielder, who doubtlessly compromised much to get her...
(The entire section is 400 words.)
Chapters 41-45 Summary
As Standish and Gramps continue toward home, they notice two plain-clothes policemen following them in a car. One of the men has a pair of binoculars, which he is using to lip-read their conversation. Standish and Gramps engage in innocuous chatter, and eventually, the men in the car speed away. Only then does Standish tell his grandfather about Little Eric, Miss Phillips, and the warning note.
At one end of the road where Standish lives are the grand houses where the privileged "Families for Purity" reside. At the very top of the road is that huge, hideous eyesore of a building with the legendary past. Today, that edifice is lit up "brighter than the stars," but of course, no one in Zone Seven dares to ask why. One...
(The entire section is 605 words.)
Chapters 46-50 Summary
In the days after the football was lost, it rained incessantly, so Hector and Standish devoted their energies toward building their rocket. The newspapers, rare commodities to which Standish was introduced for the first time, were filled with "rubbish" about the Motherland and the great astronauts who were going to conquer space. The boys saved some of the more interesting pictures from these "propaganda rags," and used the rest as papier-mâché for their project.
An old ironing-board cover given to Hector and Standish by Mrs. Lush served well as an outer skin for the rocket; in the boys' imaginations, the cover would shield them from the radiation that Mr. Lush said surrounded the moon. Standish asked the...
(The entire section is 582 words.)
Chapters 51-55 Summary
That night, Standish asked Hector what was on the other side of the wall. Hector clearly did not want to talk about it, and put his finger to his lips to indicate silence. Knowing that "the walls of the house were thin," the boys went up to the attic, where their rocket was hidden. When Standish once again demanded to know what Hector had seen, the boy finally admitted that he could not share that information with his friend, because of a promise he had made to his father.
Angrily, Standish was about to go back to bed, when Hector gently and unexpectedly asked, "Don't you want to launch the spacecraft?" Regarding their papier-mâché creation, Standish bitterly retorted, "You don't believe there is a planet...
(The entire section is 566 words.)
Chapters 56-60 Summary
In the days after the Lushes were taken, Gramps and Standish knew that they were under surveillance. Even with the din of the radio blaring endless propaganda, Gramps "took to writing down what he wanted to say . . . half pictures, half words," so that Standish could understand.
Every night, to communicate an aura of normalcy to the listeners, Gramps would call out loudly to his grandson, "Good night!" But Standish did not sleep. Instead the two would huddle on the edge of Gramps' bed together until midnight, when the detectives in the car that passed constantly up and down the road took a break. The old man and the boy would go down then to that secret passageway of holes pickaxed through the basements of the houses on...
(The entire section is 629 words.)
Chapters 61-65 Summary
On the day of the Motherland's space launch and the killing of Little Eric Owen by Mr. Gunnell, Standish realizes that he and Gramps are essentially gonersthey will almost certainly never get out of Zone Seven alive.
When they return home after Standish is expelled from school, they find that the front door has been kicked in and the house has been ransacked. Knowing that the detectives are once again watching them, Gramps and Standish wait until midnight, when it is safe to go down to the cellar.
The first thing Gramps does in those nether regions is pick up the traps he routinely puts out with their daily catch of rats and deposit them near the stairs leading back up to the house. The two then...
(The entire section is 767 words.)
Chapters 66-70 Summary
Standish and the moon man wait in silent dread until finally there is a noise in the garden. The moon man steals back down into Cellar Street, and Gramps appears at the kitchen door. Gramps is a messhis face is "all smoky, his shirt torn and burnt."
In worse shape, however, is Miss Phillips, who stands behind him, badly beaten. Standish turns on the radio, which is playing music "for the workers of the Motherland." As Gramps goes over and puts a kettle on, he explains that Miss Phillips's house had been set afire; it had only been "a matter of time."
Standish brings a bowl of water to the kitchen table and watches as Gramps tenderly wipes away the smoke from Miss Phillips's face and tends to her...
(The entire section is 889 words.)
Chapters 71-75 Summary
Writing furiously on a notepad, the moon man tells his story. He says that at first he sincerely believed he was involved in a genuine space mission, but before long, a colleague confided in him that the endeavor as planned was impossible as the radiation around the moon would incinerate anyone who approached it.
Soon after, the moon man was sent to Zone Seven, and the colleague in question disappeared. As it became increasingly clear that the Motherland's pioneering trip to the moon was "the greatest hoax in the history of mankind," the moon man was silenced because he dared to ask questions. He was not executed, however, because his face was still needed so that the Motherland could carry the colossal deception to...
(The entire section is 753 words.)
Chapters 76-80 Summary
Upstairs in the bedroom that once belonged to Standish's parents, Gramps gives his grandson a wide belt to wear under his clothes. On the belt, written "large and bold . . . in Gramps's beautiful hand" is the word "HOAX."
It occurs to Standish that while he was being briefed down in the Cellar chamber by Miss Phillips and the moon man, this is what his grandfather was really doing; the cardboard figures "were [only] an afterthought." Lovingly, Gramps was crafting his contribution to the success of Standish's risky venture, knowing all the while that the endeavor would almost certainly result in his precious grandson's ultimate demise.
Standish dresses in the tattered clothes that Gramps has gathered for him...
(The entire section is 787 words.)
Chapters 81-85 Summary
Two other boys who also did not at first volunteer are dragged out of the crowd and are marched outside with Standish into the bright sunlight. As he berates himself for not having paid more attention to what he has "volunteered" for, Standish notices a car park full of lorries that, according to the moon man, will ferry the thousands of workers away to "a nice gas bath" when their jobs have been completed.
Standish begins to doubt that he will be able to accomplish anything in this dismal place, other than ultimately becoming "maggot meat" like everyone else.
The boys who have been selected with him are "not yet as skeletal as others [Standish] has seen," but their thinness nonetheless makes him stand out,...
(The entire section is 814 words.)
Chapters 86-90 Summary
Hector is nothing more than a shadow, huddled in the corner of the room. Standish sits down next to him, knowing he is hurt. "What have they done to you?" Hector replies darkly, "Nothing too bad . . . I still have eight fingers left." He explains that his little finger was taken "after they shot Mama" to show his papa that if he refused to cooperate, they would kill Hector too, "but slowly."
Although he is pretty sure he knows the answer, Standish asks, "What did your papa do?" Although it is "a secret not to be spoken of," Hector relents this time and tells his friend that his father was a government scientist who "dreamed he would send a man to the moon."
After seeing how the Motherland treated her...
(The entire section is 773 words.)
Chapters 91-95 Summary
Standish has no idea how long he has been sitting there in the dark thinking about Gramps, Miss Phillips, and the moon man and wondering if they made it out to safety. He has been thinking about Hector too, his head "spin[ning] with all the many possibilities of the what-if game."
In an attempt to control his thoughts and maintain his equilibrium, Standish asks himself who he would want to be "right now, right this moment." He decides that he would like to be a Juniparian, with the "radiant vision" necessary to save Hector and all the others living in oppression in the Motherland.
Standish is beginning to lose heart, and he wonders, "what if I have it all wrong and I don't have the power to throw my stone?"...
(The entire section is 851 words.)
Chapters 96-100 Summary
Standish is more nervous than he has ever been when "showtime" finally arrives. He knows that if he blows his chance, everything he has gone through will have been for nothing.
His heart sinks when he recognizes the leather-coat man up in the observation room, and he instinctively knows that his old nemesis is looking for him. To keep from being detected, Standish crouches low in the trench.
When the man in the brown overalls moves away for a moment to argue that a wind machine should not be used to make the flag blow about because there is no atmosphere on the moon, Standish takes the opportunity to release Gramps's belt with its damning word "HOAX" from around his body. Fortunately, the knot securing it...
(The entire section is 688 words.) | <urn:uuid:5187a6ae-1759-4271-86b7-b39680a6357b> | 3 | 2.703125 | 0.15146 | en | 0.981337 | http://www.enotes.com/topics/maggot-moon |
Enterprise Integration PatternsMessaging Patterns
Loan Broker System ManagementLoan Broker System Management
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This section uses a more elaborate example to demonstrate how the system management patterns introduced in this section can be used to monitor and control a messaging solution. The example builds upon the C# and MSMQ implementation of the Loan Broker example from Chapter ?? (see Asynchronous Implementation with MSMQ). We augment rather than modify the original example solution so it is not critical that you reviewed all the code of the original example. As with the original example implementation, the intent of this section is not to explain the use of MSMQ-specific API's but rather to illustrate the implementation of the patterns in this book using a queue-oriented messaging system. The structure of the solution would look very similar when implemented in Java using JMS queues or IBM WebSphere MQ. Because we focus mostly on the design decisions and trade-offs, this section should be valuable to you even if you are not a C# or MSMQ developer.
Instrumenting the Loan Broker
The loan broker implementation consists of the following four key components (see picture):
• The Test Client makes requests for loan quotes.
• The Loan Broker acts as the central process manager and coordinates the communication between the credit bureau and the banks.
• The Credit Bureau provides a service to the Loan Broker, computing customer's credit scores.
• Each Bank receives a quote request from the Loan Broker and submits an interest rate quote according to the loan parameters.
In most integration scenarios we do not have access to the application internals but are limited to monitoring and managing components from the outside. To make this example as realistic as possible, we decide to treat each of the components as a black box. Keeping this constraint in mind, we want the management solution to meet the following requirements:
• Management Console: We want a single front-end that displays the health of all components and allows us to take compensating actions if something goes wrong.
• Loan Broker Quality of Service: In the original solution we developed a test client that monitors the loan broker's response times between quote request and response. In a real production scenario clients will not perform this function for us (they may, however, complain that the system is too slow). Therefore, we want the management solution to capture this information and relay it to the management console.
• Verify the Credit Bureau Operation: The Credit Bureau is an external service provided by a third party. We want to ensure the correct operation of this service by periodically sending test messages.
• Credit Bureau Failover: If the Credit Bureau malfunctions we want to temporarily redirect the credit request messages to another service provider.
Management Console
We want to be able to collect metrics from multiple components in a single point so we can assess the health of the overall solution from a central spot. The management console also has to be able to control message flow and component parameters so that we can address outages by rerouting messages or changing component behavior.
The management console communicates with the individual components via messaging. It uses a separate Control Bus that only contains messages related to system management and not application data.
Because this is a book on enterprise integration and not on user interface design, we keep the management console very, very simple. Many vendors offer real-time data displays or you can even achieve visual miracles with Visual Basic and Microsoft Office components such as Excel. Also, many operating system or programming platforms offer their own instrumentation frameworks, e.g. Java/JMX (Java Management Extensions) or Microsoft's WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation). We decide to hand-roll our solution to make it less dependent on a specific vendor's API and to demonstrate the inner workings of a monitoring solution.
Loan Broker Quality of Service
The first requirement for the management solution is to measure the quality of service that the loan broker provides to its clients. For this type of monitoring we are not interested in the business content of the individual messages, i.e. the interest rate offered to the client, but only in the time elapsed between the request message and the reply message. The tricky part in tracking the time between these two messages is the fact that the client can specify the channel for the reply message via a Return Address. So we cannot listen on a fixed channel for the reply. Luckily, the Smart Proxy pattern solves this dilemma for us. A Smart Proxy intercepts request messages, stores the Return Address supplied by the client and replaces it with a fixed channel address. As a result, the service (the Loan Broker in our case) sends all reply messages to one channel. The Smart Proxy listens to this channel and correlates incoming reply messages to stored request messages. It then forwards the reply message to the original Return Address specified by the client (see picture).
Instrumenting the Loan Broker with a Smart Proxy
In order to take advantage of the Smart Proxy functionality, we "insert" the Smart Proxy between the client and the Loan Broker (see picture). This insertion is transparent to the client because the Smart Proxy listens on the same channel that the Loan Broker originally listened on (loanrequestQueue). We now start the Loan Broker with new parameters so that it listens on the brokerRequestQueue channel instead of the loanrequestQueue. The Smart Proxy instructs the Loan Broker to send all reply messages to the brokerReplyQueue channel from where it forwards the messages back to the correct Return Address originally specified by the client.
We want to use the Smart Proxy to measure both the response time for loan requests and the number of requests being processed by the loan broker at any one time. The Smart Proxy can measure the time elapsed between request and reply messages by capturing the time that the request message was received. When it receives the associated reply message, the Smart Proxy subtracts the request time from current time to compute the time elapsed between request and reply. The Smart Proxy can estimate how many active requests the Loan Broker is managing at one time by counting how many outstanding request messages there are (i.e. request messages that have not yet received reply messages). The Smart Proxy cannot distinguish between messages queued up on the brokerRequestQueue from messages that the Loan Broker started processing, so this metric equals the sum of both. We can update the number of outstanding request messages whenever we receive a request message or a reply message.
The Smart Proxy passes the metrics information to the management console for monitoring and analysis. We could send the statistics for every single message but that would clutter our network if we deal with high message volumes. Inserting a Smart Proxy into the message flow already doubles the number of message sent (two request and reply messages instead of one each) so we want to avoid sending another control message for each request message. Instead we use a timer so that the Smart Proxy sends a metrics message to the Control Bus in predefined intervals, e.g. every 5 seconds. The metrics message can either contain summary metrics (e.g. the maximum, minimum and average response time) or the detailed info for all messages that passed through during the interval. In order to keep the metrics messages small and the management console simple we decide to just pass the summary metrics to the console.
For the implementation of the Loan Broker smart proxy, we reuse the SmartProxy base classes introduced in the Smart Proxy pattern. We subclass the SmartProxyBase, SmartProxyRequestConsumer, and SmartProxyReplyConsumer classes (see class diagram). Please see the Smart Proxy pattern for the source code for these classes.
Loan Broker Smart Proxy Class Diagram
Just like the original SmartProxy, the new LoanBrokerProxy contains two separate message consumers, one for incoming request message from the client (LoanBrokerProxyRequestConsumer) and one for incoming reply messages from the Loan Broker (LoanBrokerProxyReplyConsumer). Both consumer classes inherit from their respective base classes and add a new implementation of the AnalyzeMessage method.
Let's have a look at the implementation of the LoanBrokerProxy class. The class maintains two ArrayLists with metrics, performanceStats and queueStats ArrayLists. performanceStats collects data points of response-reply time intervals in seconds while queueStats collects data points of the number of outstanding request messages (those either queued up in the brokerRequestQueue or in process by the Loan Broker). When the pre-programmed timer triggers, the method OnTimerEvent moves the data from both collections and stores them temporary snapshot. We have to perform any further analysis of the data with this snapshot copy because the message consumers continue to add new data points as messages are received.
LoanBrokerProxy Class
public class LoanBrokerProxy : SmartProxyBase
protected MessageQueue controlBus;
protected ArrayList performanceStats;
protected ArrayList queueStats;
protected int interval;
protected Timer timer;
public LoanBrokerProxy(MessageQueue inputQueue, MessageQueue serviceRequestQueue, MessageQueue serviceReplyQueue, MessageQueue controlBus, int interval) :
base (inputQueue, serviceRequestQueue, serviceReplyQueue)
messageData = Hashtable.Synchronized(new Hashtable());
queueStats = ArrayList.Synchronized(new ArrayList());
performanceStats = ArrayList.Synchronized(new ArrayList());
this.controlBus = controlBus;
this.interval = interval;
requestConsumer = new LoanBrokerProxyRequestConsumer(inputQueue, serviceRequestQueue, serviceReplyQueue, messageData, queueStats);
replyConsumer = new LoanBrokerProxyReplyConsumer(serviceReplyQueue, messageData, queueStats, performanceStats);
public override void Process()
TimerCallback timerDelegate = new TimerCallback(OnTimerEvent);
timer = new Timer(timerDelegate, null, interval*1000, interval*1000);
protected void OnTimerEvent(Object state)
ArrayList currentQueueStats;
ArrayList currentPerformanceStats;
lock (queueStats)
currentQueueStats = (ArrayList)(queueStats.Clone());
lock (performanceStats)
currentPerformanceStats = (ArrayList)(performanceStats.Clone());
SummaryStats summary = new SummaryStats(currentQueueStats, currentPerformanceStats);
if (controlBus != null)
The LoanBrokerProxy uses the SummaryStats structure to condense the individual data points into maximum, minimum and average values and then sends the summary data to the Control Bus. We could make the evaluation more efficient by updating the summary statistics with each incoming message so that we have to store only the summary data and not each datapoint. On the other hand, deferring the computation allows us to change the amount of detail we want to publish to the Control Bus.
The LoanBrokerProxyRequestConsumer class is rather simple. The base class SmartProxyRequestConsumer takes care of storing relevant message data in the messageData Hashtable so that we can derive the current number of outstanding request messages from the size of the Hashtable. The LoanBrokerProxyRequestConsumer maintains a reference to the queueStats collection inside the LoanBrokerProxy so that it can add the new data point to this collection.
LoanBrokerProxyRequestConsumer Class
public class LoanBrokerProxyRequestConsumer : SmartProxyRequestConsumer
ArrayList queueStats;
public LoanBrokerProxyRequestConsumer(MessageQueue requestQueue, MessageQueue serviceRequestQueue, MessageQueue serviceReplyQueue, Hashtable messageData, ArrayList queueStats) :
base(requestQueue, serviceRequestQueue, serviceReplyQueue, messageData)
this.queueStats = queueStats;
protected override void ProcessMessage(Message requestMsg)
The LoanBrokerProxyReplyConsumer collects two metrics when a reply message arrives. First, it computes the time it took between sending the request message and receiving the reply message and adds that metric to the performanceStats collection. Second, it captures the remaining number of outstanding requests and adds that number to the queueStats collection.
LoanBrokerProxyReplyConsumer Class
public class LoanBrokerProxyReplyConsumer : SmartProxyReplyConsumer
ArrayList queueStats;
ArrayList performanceStats;
public LoanBrokerProxyReplyConsumer(MessageQueue replyQueue, Hashtable messageData, ArrayList queueStats, ArrayList performanceStats) :
base(replyQueue, messageData)
this.queueStats = queueStats;
this.performanceStats = performanceStats;
protected override void AnalyzeMessage(MessageData data, Message replyMessage)
TimeSpan duration = DateTime.Now - data.SentTime;
The SummaryStats structure computes maxima, minima and averages based on the captured data. It can derive the number of request messages processed by subtracting the number of performance data points (collected only for reply messages) from the number of queue data points (collected for request and reply messages). The implementation of this structure is quite trivial so that we decided not to fill a whole page with the code.
Once we insert the new Loan Broker proxy into the message stream we can start collecting performance metrics. To collect some example data, we configured two test clients to make 50 loan quote requests each. The proxy collected the following results (we used a simple XSL transform to render an HTML table off the metric data published in XML format to the controlBusQueue):
Loaded into an Excel chart, the queue size data looks like this:
Loan Broker Smart Proxy Statistics
We can see that he two test clients pretty much flooded the Loan Broker, peaking at about 90 pending requests. The Loan Broker then processes the requests at a stable rate of about 2 requests per second. Due to the large number of queued up requests, the the response times are pretty poor, peaking at almost 1 minute. The good news is that the Loan Broker handles a large number of sudden requests gracefully, while the bad news is that the response times are very long. In order to improve response times we could decide to execute multiple Loan Broker instances or multiple Credit Bureau instances (the Credit Bureau service turned out to be a bottleneck before).
Verify the Credit Bureau Operation
The second requirement for the management solution is to monitor the correct operation of the external Credit Bureau service. The Loan Broker accesses this service to obtain credit scores for customers requesting a loan quote. The banks require this information to provide an accurate quote.
In order to verify the correct operation of the external Credit Bureau service we send periodic Test Messages to the service. Because the Credit Bureau service supports a Return Address it is easy to inject a Test Message without disturbing the existing message flow. We simply provide a dedicated reply channel for test messages and avoid the need for a separate test message separator.
Monitoring the Credit Bureau Service
In order to verify the correct operation of the Credit Bureau service we need a Test Data Generator and a Test Data Verifier. The test data generator creates test data to be sent to the service under test. A Credit Bureau test message is very simple; the only field that is required is a social security number (SSN). For our tests we use a special, fixed SSN that identifies a fictitious person. This allows us to verify the result data with preestablished results. This way we can not only check whether we receive a reply message but also verify the content of the message. In our simple example, the Credit Bureau is programmed to return random results regardless of the incoming SSN. As a result, our test data verifier does not check for specific result values but instead verifies whether the results are within the allowed range (e.g. 300 - 900 for a credit score). If the results fall outside the allowed range (for example because a computational error score set the score to zero), the test data verifier notifies the management console with a message.
The test data verifier also checks the response time of the external service. If we do not receive a reply message within a preset time interval we alert the management console. To minimize network bandwidth, the test data verifier notifies the console only if the response is delayed or malformed, not when the service is operating correctly. The only exception to this rule occurs when the monitor receives a correct reply message from the service subsequent to detecting an error. In that case, the monitor sends a "service OK" message to the management console to indicate that the credit bureau is working correctly again. Lastly, during start-up the monitor sends a message to the console to announce its existence. This message allows the console to "discover" all active monitors so it can display the status for each.
The monitor implementation uses two separate timers. The Send Timer determines the time interval between the last received message or the last timeout event and sending the next Test Message. The Timeout Timer is started whenever the monitor sends a request message. If a reply message arrives within the specified timeout interval, the Timeout Timer is reset and restarted with the next request message. If the monitor does not receive a reply message within the specified interval, the Timeout timer triggers and sends the monitor sends an error message to the control bus. It then starts a new Send Timer to initiate a new request message after the send interval (see diagram). A real-life scenario is likely to use a relatively short timeout (a few seconds) and a larger send interval (e.g., one minute).
Monitoring the Credit Bureau Service
The implementation of the monitor is relatively simple and only requires a single class. The Monitor class inherits from the MessageConsumer introduced in the Smart Proxy pattern. This class configures and inbound channel and starts an Event-Driven Consumer to receive messages. For each incoming message it invokes the virtual ProcessMessage method. An inheriting class can simply override this method to add its own processing.
The Process method instructs a MessageConsumer to start consuming messages. The Monitor class augments the base implementation of this method by starting the Send Timer. When this timer triggers, it invokes the OnSendTimerEvent method. The Process message also sends a message to the Control Busto announce its existence.
Monitor Class - Sending Messages
public override void Process()
sendTimer = new Timer(new TimerCallback(OnSendTimerEvent), null, interval*1000, Timeout.Infinite);
MonitorStatus status = new MonitorStatus(MonitorStatus.STATUS_ANNOUNCE, "Monitor On-Line", null, MonitorID);
lastStatus = status.Status;
protected void OnSendTimerEvent(Object state)
CreditBureauRequest request = new CreditBureauRequest();
request.SSN = SSN;
Message requestMessage = new Message(request);
requestMessage.Priority = MessagePriority.AboveNormal;
requestMessage.ResponseQueue = inputQueue;
Console.WriteLine(DateTime.Now.ToString() + " Sending request message");
correlationID = requestMessage.Id;
timeoutTimer = new Timer(new TimerCallback(OnTimeoutEvent), null, timeout*1000, Timeout.Infinite);
The OnSendTimerEvent method creates a new request message. The only parameter in the request message is the customer's social security number (SSN). The method specifies a fixed SSN. The method also saves the message ID to verify the Correlation Identifier of any incoming reply messages. Lastly, it starts the timeoutTimer so that the monitor is being notified after a set time interval if no reply message is received.
The method sets the test message's Priority property to AboveNormal to make sure that queued up application messages do not let the service appear as if it was not available. Using a higher priority for Test Messages causes the message queue to deliver these messages ahead of queued up application messages. Setting a higher message priority is safe in this case because test data generator injects a very small volume of Test Messages. If we injected a large volume of high priority messages into the request channel we could interrupt the flow of application messages. This would definitely violate the intention of a management solution to be as minimally intrusive as possible.
The ProcessMessage is the heart of the Monitor class. It implements the test message verifier, evaluating incoming reply messages. After stopping the timeout timer the method checks the incoming message for the correct Correlation Identifier, correct data type of the message body and reasonable values inside the message body. If any of these tests fail, the method sets up a MonitorStatus structure and sends it to the Control Bus channel. The monitor also tracks the previous status is in the lastStatus variable. If the status changes from "error" to "OK", the ProcessMessage method also sends a notification to the Control Bus.
Monitor Class - Receiving Messages
protected override void ProcessMessage(Message msg)
Console.WriteLine(DateTime.Now.ToString() + " Received reply message");
if (timeoutTimer != null)
msg.Formatter = new XmlMessageFormatter(new Type[] {typeof(CreditBureauReply)});
CreditBureauReply replyStruct;
MonitorStatus status = new MonitorStatus();
status.Status = MonitorStatus.STATUS_OK;
status.Description = "No Error";
status.ID = MonitorID;
if (msg.Body is CreditBureauReply)
replyStruct = (CreditBureauReply)msg.Body;
if (msg.CorrelationId != correlationID)
status.Status = MonitorStatus.STATUS_FAILED_CORRELATION;
status.Description = "Incoming message correlation ID does not match outgoing message ID";
if (replyStruct.CreditScore < 300 || replyStruct.CreditScore > 900 ||
replyStruct.HistoryLength < 1 || replyStruct.HistoryLength > 24)
status.Status = MonitorStatus.STATUS_INVALID_DATA;
status.Description = "Credit score values out of range";
status.Status = MonitorStatus.STATUS_INVALID_FORMAT;
status.Description = "Invalid message format";
catch (Exception e)
Console.WriteLine("Exception: {0}", e.ToString());
status.Status = MonitorStatus.STATUS_INVALID_FORMAT;
status.Description = "Could not deserialize message body";
StreamReader reader = new StreamReader (msg.BodyStream);
status.MessageBody = reader.ReadToEnd();
if (status.Status != MonitorStatus.STATUS_OK ||
(status.Status == MonitorStatus.STATUS_OK && lastStatus != MonitorStatus.STATUS_OK))
lastStatus = status.Status;
If no message arrives in the specified interval, the timeoutTimer will invoke the OnTimeoutEvent method. This method sends a MonitorStatus message to the Control Bus and starts a new Send timer so that a new request message is sent after the interval.
Monitor Class - Timeout
protected void OnTimeoutEvent(Object state)
MonitorStatus status = new MonitorStatus(MonitorStatus.STATUS_TIMEOUT, "Timeout", null, MonitorID);
lastStatus = status.Status;
Credit Bureau Failover
Now that we can monitor the status of the external Credit Bureau service we want to use this data to implement a failover scheme so that the Loan Broker can continue operating even when the Credit Bureau service fails. It is worthwhile noting that Point-to-Point Channels already provide a basic form of failover. When we use multiple Competing Consumers on a single Point-to-Point Channel, the failure of one consumer will not interrupt processing as long as the other consumer(s) still operate. When multiple consumers are active, they split the load, effectively implementing a simple load balancing mechanism. Why would we need to implement an explicit fail-over mechanism? When using external services, we may be limited to simple channels that do not support Competing Consumers, e.g. SOAP over HTTP. Also, we may not want multiple services to load balance. For example, we may have a volume agreement with the primary service provider that gives us substantial discounts if we meet certain usage quotas. Splitting the traffic across two providers will likely cost us more. Alternatively, we may be using a low-cost provider as out primary service provider and only want to switch over to a premium provider when the low-cost provider fails. (For an excellent discussion of architectural decisions driven by licensing issues see [Hohmann]) .
In order to implement explicit failover, we insert a Message Router into the credit bureau request channel (see picture). This router routes the request either to the primary credit bureau service (green arrows) or the secondary credit bureau service (red arrows). Because the secondary service may use a different message format than the first service, we wrap the secondary service with a pair of Message Translators. The Message Router is a Context-Based Router, controlled by the management console over the Control Bus. The management console gets monitoring data from the Credit Bureau Monitor we designed in the previous section. If the monitor indicates a failure, the management console instructs the Message Router to reroute the traffic to the secondary service provider (see picture).
Explicit Failover with a Context-Based Router
Even while the request message traffic is re-routed to the secondary service provider, the monitor keeps on sending test messages to the primary provider. When the monitor confirms the correct operation of the service, the console instructs the Message Router to return to routing request messages to the primary provider. The solution diagram does not show a monitor for the secondary service provider even though it would be very easy use a second instance of the credit bureau monitor to monitor the backup Credit Bureau service.
Let's look at the implementation of the Context-Based Router. ContextBasedRouter inherits from our trusty MessageConsumer base class to process incoming messages. The ProcessMessage method checks the value of the variable control and routes incoming messages to either the primary or secondary output channel.
ContextBasedRouter Class
delegate void ControlEvent(int control);
class ContextBasedRouter : MessageConsumer
protected override void ProcessMessage(Message msg)
if (control == 0)
protected void OnControlEvent(int control)
this.control = control;
Console.WriteLine("Control = " + control);
The variable control can be set by invoking the OnControlEvent method. This is the purpose of the ControlReceiver class. This class also inherits from MessageConsumer as it listens for messages from the control channel. The ContextBasedRouter class supplies the ControlReceiver with a delegate of type ControlEvent to invoke when it receives a control event with a numeric value. If you have not come across delegates, they are a really neat, type-safe way to implement callbacks without having to implement another interface or relegating to function pointers ([Box] goes into all the gory details).
ControlReceiver Class
class ControlReceiver : MessageConsumer
protected ControlEvent controlEvent;
public ControlReceiver(MessageQueue inputQueue, ControlEvent controlEvent) : base (inputQueue)
this.controlEvent = controlEvent;
protected override void ProcessMessage(Message msg)
String text = (string)msg.Body;
Double resNum;
if (Double.TryParse( text, NumberStyles.Integer, NumberFormatInfo.InvariantInfo, out resNum))
int control = int.Parse(text);
Enhancing the Management Console
The first version of the management console was so simple that we did not even bother showing the code. All it could do was receive a message and write the message content to a file for later analysis (such as rendering performance graphs from Excel). Now we want to inject some more intelligence into the management console. First, when the primary Credit Bureau Monitor indicates a failure, the management console needs to instruct the Context-Based Router to reroute messages to the secondary service provider. We opted to implement this functionality inside the management console so that we can decouple the monitor and the Context-Based Router (effectively, the management console acts as a Mediator as defined in [GoF]). Also, implementing the failover logic in a central location gives us a single point of maintenance for the system management rules. Commercial management consoles typically include configurable rules engines to determine appropriate corrective actions based on events on the Control Bus.
Second, we want to build a simple user interface for the management console that displays the current state of the system. Obtaining a "big picture" view of a messaging system can be quite difficult, especially if message paths change dynamically. It does not take a lot of components to make it difficult to reconcile where messages flow. Our user interface is simple but nevertheless quite useful. We use the iconic language defined in this book to represent the interaction between components. For now, the user interface only displays the Credit Bureau failover portion of the system, consisting of two services and one Context-Based Router (see picture).
The Management Console Indicates That Both Credit Bureau Services Are Active
When the Monitor detects a failure and instructs the router to re-route the traffic, we want to update the user interface to reflect the new status (see picture). The router shows the new route for the request messages and the primary Credit Bureau component changes colors to indicate the failure.
The Management Console Indicates That The Primary Credit Bureau Failed and Traffic is Being Re-Routed
Let's have a brief look at the code behind this console. We will focus on the system management part of the code and not dive into the details of the code that renders the pretty user interface pictures. First, the management console needs to be able to retrieve status messages from the monitor component. To make the console as robust as possible, we access the message content in a loosely coupled fashion, reading individual fields from the XML payload. This approach helps keep the management console operational even if the individual components decide to add some fields to the message.
Not surprisingly, the console class also inherits from our good friend MessageConsumer, so we only show the ProcessMessage method here. The component simply reads the message's BodyStream into a string variable and passes it to the different components for analysis.
ManagementConsole - ProcessMessage
public delegate void ControlMessageReceived(String body);
public class ManagementConsole : MessageConsumer
protected Logger logger;
public MonitorStatusHandler monitorStatusHandler;
public ControlMessageReceived updateEvent;
public ManagementConsole(MessageQueue inputQueue, string pathName) : base(inputQueue)
logger = new Logger(pathName);
monitorStatusHandler = new MonitorStatusHandler();
updateEvent += new ControlMessageReceived(logger.Log);
updateEvent += new ControlMessageReceived(monitorStatusHandler.OnControlMessage);
protected override void ProcessMessage(Message m)
Stream stm = m.BodyStream;
StreamReader reader = new StreamReader (stm);
String body = reader.ReadToEnd();
The ManagementConsole class uses a delegate to notify the logger and the MonitorStatusHandler. Using a delegate allows us to easily add other classes that also listen on incoming control messages without having to change the code inside the ProcessMessage method.
One of the components analyzing incoming control message data is the MonitorStatusHandler class. First, this class checks whether the incoming message is a MonitorStatus message. If so it loads the message body into an XML document to extract the relevant fields contained inside the <ID> and the <Status> elements. It then invokes the delegate updateEvent which is of type MonitorStatusUpdate. Any interested class inside the management console application can add a callback method to this delegate and be notified any time a MonitorStatus message arrives. All the component has to do is provide an implementation of a method with a signature equal to MonitorStatusUpdate.
public delegate void MonitorStatusUpdate(String ID, int Status);
public class MonitorStatusHandler
public MonitorStatusUpdate updateEvent;
public void OnControlMessage(String body)
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
XmlElement root = doc.DocumentElement;
if (root.Name == "MonitorStatus")
XmlNode statusNode = root.SelectSingleNode("Status");
XmlNode idNode = root.SelectSingleNode("ID");
if (idNode!= null && statusNode != null)
String msgID = idNode.InnerText;
String msgStatus = statusNode.InnerText;
Double resNum;
int status = 99;
if (Double.TryParse( msgStatus, NumberStyles.Integer, NumberFormatInfo.InvariantInfo, out resNum))
status = (int)resNum;
updateEvent(msgID, status);
In our example, the first two components listening to the MonitorStatusUpdate event triggered by the MonitorStatusHandler are two user interface controls representing the primary and secondary Credit Bureau service in the user interface form. Each user interface control filters the events for the identifier that is unique to the respective component that is being monitored. When the status of the monitored component changes, the user interface control changes the color of the component. The following routine that is executed during the initialization of the display form ties the two Credit Bureau display controls to the monitorStatusHandler of the management console:
Console Form Initialization
console = new ManagementConsole(controlBusQueue, logFileName);
primaryCreditBureauControl = new ComponentStatusControl("Primary Credit Bureau", "PrimaryCreditService");
primaryCreditBureauControl.Bounds = new Rectangle(300, 30, COMPONENT_WIDTH, COMPONENT_HEIGHT);
secondaryCreditBureauControl = new ComponentStatusControl("Secondary Credit Bureau", "SecondaryCreditService");
secondaryCreditBureauControl.Bounds = new Rectangle(300, 130, COMPONENT_WIDTH, COMPONENT_HEIGHT);
console.monitorStatusHandler.updateEvent += new MonitorStatusUpdate(primaryCreditBureauControl.OnMonitorStatusUpdate);
console.monitorStatusHandler.updateEvent += new MonitorStatusUpdate(secondaryCreditBureauControl.OnMonitorStatusUpdate);
Another component listening to the MonitorStatusUpdate events is the FailOverHandler. This component is a non-visual component that analyzes status messages to determine whether a failover switch should be set. If the status of the monitor has changed (we use a logical XOR denoted by the '^' operator) the FailOverHandler sends a command message to the designated command channel. In our case, this command channel is connected to the Context-Based Router who will start re-routing credit score request messages.
FailOverHandler Class
public delegate void FailOverStatusUpdate(String ID, string Command);
public class FailOverHandler
public void OnMonitorStatusUpdate(String ID, int status)
if (componentID == ID)
if (IsOK(status) ^ IsOK(currentStatus))
String command = IsOK(status) ? "0" : "1";
currentStatus = status;
updateEvent(ID, command);
protected bool IsOK(int status)
return (status == 0 || status >= 99);
The FailOverHandler also invokes the updateEvent, which is a delegate of type FailOverStatusUpdate. Similar to the MonitorStatusHandler we can register any component that implements a method of this type to receive update notifications whenever the FailOverHandler changes status. In our example, we register the visual FailOverControl to receive these events so that it can redraw whenever the failover status changes. The console user interface initialization routine establishes the connection between these components:
Console Form Initialization
failOverControl = new FailOverControl("Credit Bureau Failover", "PrimaryCreditService");
failOverControl.Bounds = new Rectangle(100, 80, ROUTER_WIDTH, COMPONENT_HEIGHT);
FailOverHandler failOverHandler = new FailOverHandler(commandQueue, "PrimaryCreditService");
console.monitorStatusHandler.updateEvent += new MonitorStatusUpdate(failOverHandler.OnMonitorStatusUpdate);
failOverHandler.updateEvent += new FailOverStatusUpdate(failOverControl.OnMonitorStatusUpdate);
Connecting the individual components inside the management console through delegates and events results in a loosely coupled architecture. This architecture allows us to reuse the individual components and re-compose them into different constellations similar to the Pipes and Filters architectural style introduced at the beginning of the book. Essentially, passing messages arriving on the Control Bus by using delegates resembles creating an application-internal Publish-Subscribe Channel. Because the control bus events arrive on a Point-to-Point Channel, we have to use a single consumer who then publishes the event to any interested "subscriber" inside the application.
The following collaboration diagram illustrates the propagation of events between the individual components.
Propagation of Events Inside the Management Console
Using a user-interface console to visualize the message flow between individual components is a powerful system management tool. Some vendors include development suites that allow designers to visually arrange components and connect their input and outputs ports to create distributed message-flow application. For example, Fiorano's Tifosi product (www.fiorano.com) includes the Distributed Applications Composer that allows the design of a distributed solution from a single graphical user interface even though each component may execute on a different machine or platform. This tool uses a Control Bus to connect all distributed components to a central management and monitoring console.
Our simple example requires the management console hard-code the visual connection between the individual components, e.g. to draw a line between the failover router and the Credit Bureau components. Many integration tools such as Tifosi allow the user to design the solution from the beginning using a graphical user interface. This approach makes it easy to use the graphical design to display the status of the solution.
In some cases we may analyze the message flow in an existing messaging solution to create a graphical representation of the system. There are two fundamental approaches to perform this type of analysis. A Static Analysis analyses the channels that each component publishes and subscribes to. If one component publishes to the same channel another component subscribes to, the tool can draw a connecting line between the two components. Storing this information in a central repository (as supported by many EAI tool suites, for example TIBCO ActiveEnterprise) is a huge benefit for this type of analysis. In the absence of such a repository, we can inspect individual messages and reverse-engineer connections between components based on the origin of messages arriving at a particular component. This task is greatly simplified if the participating components support the creation of a Message History. Without the help of a Message History, we can still reconstruct the flow of messages if each message contains a field specifying the sender of the message (many systems include such a field for authentication purposes).
Limitations of This Example
Unfortunately, in order to fit this example into the scope of a single chapter, we had to make some simplifying assumptions. For example, our failover mechanism does not deal with the messages that are already queued up when the primary Credit Bureau service fails -- these messages remain queued up until the service is reinstated. The Loan Broker is able to continue functioning because it correlates incoming response message to reply messages, but the loan quote requests associated with the 'stuck' message will not be processed until the primary Credit Bureau comes back on-line. In order to improve response times in a fail-over scenario we should implement a re-send function that allows the Loan Broker to re-issue request messages for those messages that are queued up indefinitely in front of a failed service. Alternatively, the fail-over router could store all request messages that have arrived since the correct function of the service was last confirmed. If a service failure is detected, the router could re-send all these messages because some of them might not have been processed correctly. This approach can lead to duplicate request messages (and associated reply messages), but since both the Credit Bureau service and the Loan Broker messages are Idempotent Receivers this does not cause any problems -- duplicate reply messages are simply ignored.
This example demonstrated only a small subset of the system management functions that can be implemented with the patterns in this section. For example, we could monitor message traffic across all components, set performance thresholds, have each component send "heartbeat" messages and more, In fact, adding robust system management to a distributed messaging solution can require as much (or more) design and implementation effort as the original solution.
Site HomePatterns HomeTable of ContentsPrevious Previous Next Next
Table of Contents
Revision History
Solving Integration Problems using Patterns
Integration Styles
File Transfer
Shared Database
Remote Procedure Invocation
Messaging Systems
Message Channel
Pipes and Filters
Message Router
Message Translator
Message Endpoint
Messaging Channels
Point-to-Point Channel
Publish-Subscribe Channel
Datatype Channel
Invalid Message Channel
Dead Letter Channel
Guaranteed Delivery
Channel Adapter
Messaging Bridge
Message Bus
Message Construction
Command Message
Document Message
Event Message
Return Address
Correlation Identifier
Message Sequence
Message Expiration
Format Indicator
Interlude: Simple Messaging
JMS Request/Reply Example
.NET Request/Reply Example
JMS Publish/Subscribe Example
Message Routing
Content-Based Router
Message Filter
Dynamic Router
Recipient List
Composed Msg. Processor
Routing Slip
Process Manager
Message Broker
Message Transformation
Envelope Wrapper
Content Enricher
Content Filter
Claim Check
Canonical Data Model
Interlude: Composed Messaging
Synchronous (Web Services)
Asynchronous (MSMQ)
Asynchronous (TIBCO)
Messaging Endpoints
Messaging Gateway
Messaging Mapper
Transactional Client
Polling Consumer
Event-Driven Consumer
Competing Consumers
Message Dispatcher
Selective Consumer
Durable Subscriber
Idempotent Receiver
Service Activator
System Management
Control Bus
Wire Tap
Message History
Message Store
Smart Proxy
Test Message
Channel Purger
Interlude: Systems Management Example
Instrumenting Loan Broker
Integration Patterns in Practice
Case Study: Bond Trading System
Concluding Remarks
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Drake Chemical
Fact Sheet: January 1996
Any questions or comments regarding the information presented in this fact sheet should be addressed to Vance Evans, the EPA Community Involvement Coordinator. Mr. Evans' mailing address, telephone number, and e-mail address are listed on page 4 of this fact sheet.
On November 15, 1995, Lock Haven University sponsored a formal debate between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Arrest the Incinerator Remediation (AIR). The purpose of the debate was to discuss the proposed incinerator to be built at the Drake Chemical Site to destroy hazardous wastes on the site. Roy Schrock, the site's remedial project manager (RPM), and Leo Mullin, the site's civil investigator, represented EPA. Bill and Vicki Smedley represented AIR. Despite bad weather, approximately 280 people, including students and area residents, attended the meeting. The meeting began at 8:00 p.m. in Price Hall, an auditorium located on the campus of Lock Haven University.
The debate followed strict rules of conduct and procedure. Both sides alternately were allowed to present their viewpoints for seven minutes each, followed by a three-minute question and answer session. Following the debate, the audience participated in a one- hour question and answer period. Microphones were placed in the two aisles located in front of the teams. Audience members with questions lined up at the microphone situated near the parties to which their questions were directed.
AIR discussed five major points: human health effects, economic impacts, distrust of EPA, "violation of safety standards," and EPA's violation of its moral charge to protect human health.
EPA presented information about incineration designed to help the audience develop an informed opinion. EPA covered: 1) why incineration is the most appropriate remedy for this site, 2) site history and conditions at the site, 3) contamination present, and 4) particulars about the incinerator (e.g., the trial and risk burns).
Audience members asked questions of both EPA and AIR concerning topics discussed. Many of the questions focused on alternative clean-up methods, air inversion, and releases from the incinerator. During the question and answer period it became apparent (after taking obvious legitimate concerns into account) that a good portion of the audience would favor a safely operating incinerator to clean up the Drake Chemical Site over not cleaning up the existing contamination at the site. Following is a summary of the main questions and responses.
What clean-up alternatives is AIR proposing should be used at the site?
AIR: AIR members are not technical experts. EPA, the experts, should determine the safest clean-up method for the site. However, AIR proposes that EPA conduct a new feasibility study to determine the best alternatives for removing the contamination.
Why is AIR advocating that citizens wait for a new technology, when there is no significant research or data available regarding these technologies, and yet contesting the use of incineration on the grounds that there is not enough data to prove its effectiveness?
AIR: AIR believes that EPA should conduct a new feasibility study and re-examine alternative technologies. Several of the new clean-up methods that EPA looked at in its original feasibility study are being used in other locations in the country.
Why can't bioremediation be used as a clean-up method for the site?
EPA: Bioremediation is not an acceptable clean-up method for the Drake Chemical Site for the following three reasons:
Because of these reasons, EPA has determined that bioremediation could not achieve a safe level of protection for the Lock Haven community.
What would happen to the chemicals used in the soil washing alternative proposed as a possible clean-up method by AIR?
AIR: In this alternative, soil is forced through a filter and cleaned. The contaminants remain in the filter which then must be incinerated at another location or disposed in a certified hazardous waste landfill. AIR stated that the soil washing alternative has undesirable aspects and that there is no ideal solution to the soil contamination problems at the site.
Do thermal air inversions in Lock Haven affect incineration? If they do, why didn't EPA consider them in its 1988 record of decision (ROD) formally selecting incineration as the clean-up method for the site?
EPA: EPA did modeling to assess the worst case weather conditions and a risk assessment of emission concentrations in 1991 before developing the bid specifications for the cleanup. When in full production, EPA will install a new modeling system to determine the inversion parameters. EPA will use this information to determine the concentration of particles released from the incinerator and other sources. If EPA finds a significant increase in the concentration of contaminants in the air while incineration and air inversions are happening simultaneously, EPA will stop incineration. EPA will resume incineration only when the inversions have passed.
How can EPA assure the community that the TRV will not release material into the atmosphere if a power failure occurs?
EPA: Opening the TRV during a power failure will cause the incinerator to shut down. All materials have been treated by the time they have reached the TRV and are safe to be discharged into the air. The automatic shutdown will prevent any new soil from being added to the incinerator. The incinerator will remain shut down until back-up power sources take over or the main power source is restored.
How long would it take for the community to be made aware of a possible emergency situation at the site? How would the community be evacuated or notified to take safety precautions if necessary?
EPA: If an emergency situation were to occur at the site, the on-site contractors would immediately notify the Clinton County Emergency Planning Commission, fire departments, police, and other town offices as necessary. If evacuation or some other measure were required, the town of Lock Haven would follow the procedures outlined in the County Emergency Plan.
Who will be in charge of monitoring EPA, EPA's contractor, and the Army Corps of Engineers, who will be performing the work at the site?
EPA: EPA has hired an oversight contractor for the Drake Chemical Site. This contractor, who is paid by EPA, will perform additional oversight activities, including working with the community Technical Assistance Grant (TAG) representatives. This contractor will ensure that all clean-up activities are conducted according to current environmental guidance and policy and that all operations related to the incinerator are carried out properly and safely. The oversight contractor also will work with the contractor hired through the community's TAG to review and monitor ongoing work at the site.
Since Lock Haven is economically depressed, if the incinerator was commercial, bringing jobs and money to the town, would this debate still be held?
AIR: AIR believes that the Lock Haven community would respond to any incinerator being placed in their community. Other groups have opposed commercial incinerators in their communities. For example, a community group in Allenwood fought for four years to halt the construction of a commercial incinerator.
Direct Risk Assessment
Roy F. Weston, Inc. prepared the Draft Drake Chemical Incinerator Risk Assessment, also called the direct risk assessment, to assess possible risks associated with breathing in emissions from the Drake Chemical Incinerator during the two-month trial burn period. The risk assessment evaluated risks to hypothetical adults and children to determine the possible harmful affects to local residents.
The results indicate that there are no harmful health impacts associated with breathing in emissions from the incinerator during the trial burn for either children or adults. The carcinogenic (cancer-causing) risk for both children and adults is less than one in one million, which is the low end of EPA's acceptable risk range. The noncarcinogenic risk for both children and adults is well below EPA's level of concern. EPA determined that the potential blood lead levels in children are below 10 micrograms per deciliter, the level established by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) as protective of human health. Also, the predicted air concentrations due to incinerator emissions during the trial burn were below the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS).
Indirect Risk Assessment
Roy F. Weston, Inc. also conducted the Screening Level Risk Assessment for Proposed Trial Burn at Drake Chemical Superfund Site also called the indirect risk assessment. This assessment focused on possible indirect exposures (i.e., not direct inhalation) to emissions released during the trial burn.
The indirect risk assessment evaluated five possible scenarios: a subsistence farmer, a child of a subsistence farmer, a subsistence fisher, a nearby resident, and a child of a nearby resident. The subject of each scenario was assumed to be exposed to contaminants from the incinerator through eating above ground vegetables, incidental eating of soil, drinking water, and skin contact with soil and with water while bathing. In addition, the subsistance farmer and child were assumed to eat contaminated beef and milk, the subsistance fisher was assumed to eat contaminated fish, and the child of the resident and the subsistence farmer were assumed to eat contaminated snow. The results demonstrated that both carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic risks were within EPA's acceptable range.
CH2M Hill, EPA's oversight contractor, is staffing a new information repository at:
226 East Water Street (second floor)
Lock Haven, Pennsylvania
For more information, please call Roni Warren at 717-748- 2727.
If you have questions or comments or would like to know more about the Drake Chemical Site, please contact Vance Evans at the number or address below.
Vance Evans (3EA30)
U.S. EPA, Region III
1650 Arch St.
Philadelphia, PA 19103-2029
Local Navigation
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The similarities between creon and antigone
The Similarities Between Creon and Antigone
"Ah Creon! Is there no man left in the world-" Teirsesias Greek
theatre played a large role in Greece. The citizens were supposed
to learn from the mistakes made in tragedies. The citizens should
have learned what not to be like as a citizen or person. In a
Greek trilogy written by Sophocles there are two ma in
characters, Antigone and Creon. They are both strong willed and
stubborn people. Both being unwilling to change, they both seal
each others fate. Creon is passionate. . Antigone is full of
rage. They are both so similar they can not see eye to eye .
Although they may seem quite different, Creon and Antigone share
many similarities throughout the story. They are both very
independent people. Antigone is extremely independent.. She
doesn't mind doing anything on her own. For example, in the
beginning of the story when Antigone is talking with Ismene, she
asks for her help . When Ismene refuses she is furious with her.
Then Ismene decides to act independently. Creon is also very
independent. He refuses to accept anyone's opinions except his
own. When his son Haimon comes to talk with him he refuses to
listen , claiming that Haimon is "girlst ruck!" and corrupted .
Teirsesais comes and tells him a morbid prophecy. Creon will not
listen to this either. He claims that Teirsesais has been
corrupted by money, like many prophets at that time. He finally
listens to the Charagous when reminded th at Teiresias has never
been wrong. Antigone has no problem working by her self either.
She demonstrates this when she slipped by all the guards that
were protecting the dead body of Polyneices. Creon and Antigone
are both independent, and they are both very loyal. They are
loyal to their views. Creon is especially loyal to his laws.
Antigone is loyal to her beliefs. Creon will not change his laws.
An example of this occurs when he and An tigone argue. He calls
her "A traitor" For giving a burial for her dead brother
Polyneices. He is so loyal to his own laws that he fails to see
that he is disobeying the law of the gods. Antigone puts the laws
of the gods ahead of the laws of the state s. She goes ahead and
buries her brother. Which was strictly prohibited by Creon. This
shows her short-sightedness is because she only does what she
thinks the gods want. Instead of abiding by the law that Creon
decreed. Creon is also short-sighted because he refuses to
believe any other opinions or laws than his own. Creon and
Antigone are both so loyal which can also make them very extreme.
Creon is an extremist in reason. He thinks his law is the most
important. Antigone is an extremist of passion. Creon is
unwilling to put the god's law above his law. He is u nwilling to
listen to the passionate pleas of his son to let Antigone live.
He instead puts his laws first, and states that if he lets
Antigone live after she has broken his law, "How shall I earn the
worlds obedience?" His extreme will, later leads to his son's
death because he thinks his son has been corrupted by Antigone.
Antigone is equally as extreme and she will not listen to the
reasoning of her sister Ismene. Ismene reminds her of the
problems and dangers she is undertaking when she goes ou t to
bury Polyneices. Antigone will not listen though, and this ends
up killing her as well. Because Creon and Antigone are very
extreme in their ways this can also make them cruel and foolish
people. Creon is quite cruel to everyone around him. He never
once listens to anyone, but instead he acts foolishly and hurts
everyone. When he is talk ing to his son Haimon, he retorts that
Haimon is "a fool" and that he is, "Taken in by a woman!" These
words and his fathers attitude hurts Haimon and he becomes filled
with rage towards his foolish father. Antigone is also cruel and
foolish. Especial ly to her sister Ismene. Ismene tries to help
Antigone in the start of the play. When she tries to tell
Antigone not to risk everything to please the gods. Antigone
won't listen though, She just tells her "Go away Ismene. I will
be hating you soon", in a striking example of her cruelty. Ismene
and Antigone have been caring sisters until suddenly Antigone
abandons her because she does not agree to help bury their
brother. Creon also is cruel to his old friend and prophet,
Teirsesias. Teirsesias co mes to warn him that if he does not
free Antigone that bad things will happen, but Creon doesn't
believe him. He claims that Teirsesias has "sold out" as a
prophet and shows how foolish he is not to trust a long standing
friend who has never been wrong. Creon and Antigone are both
plagued by hubris. Creon wants to stand by the law he has made.
Antigone is willing to risk it all to stand by the law of the
gods and what is right. Creon's stubbornness is clear when his
old friend and prophet Teirsesias. Tells him to free Antigone.
Creon stubbornly refuses and remarks to the old wise man, "Bribes
are baser then any baseness" Creon does not even listen to
Teirsesias, who made him king in the first place. He is so
stubborn that he refuses to listen cl aiming that Teirsesias had
been corrupted by money and so his pride hampers his good
judgment. He is so concentrated on everyone being corrupted that
he does not even listen to common sense. His son, Haimon tries to
come tell him that he should not s entence Antigone to death.
Creon is outraged by his son siding with her. He tells Haimon
that he is a "Fool, adolescent fool! Taken in by a woman!" Haimon
responds to this by saying that he is "perverse" Creon, even more
outraged, calls him a "Girls struck fool" Haimon storms off with
a loathing hatred for his father's arrogant pride and
stubbornness. Antigone has equal hubris herself. She is so
passionate on burying her brother that she will not listen to
reason. Full of arrogance and indignati on, she will not listen
to the words of her sister. Ismene warned her of the dangers of
burying their brother Polyneices but Antigone will not listen.
She calls Ismene a "traitor" for not coming to help her and
Ismene shakingly replies "I am so afraid o f you". Antigone,
instead of listening to the common sense of her sister, snaps
back that "You need not be: you have yourself to consider, after
all". Later in the story Antigone is arrested for burying her
brother and Ismene comes crawling back to her. Ismene breaks the
conversation between Antigone and Creon by admitting that, "I am
guilty, if she let me say so". Antigone will not let her and
retorts coldly, "No, Ismene. you have no right to say so. You
would not help me, and I will not have you h elp me" This reveals
clearly how arrogant and stubborn Antigone can be. Even after her
sister wants to share in her punishment and crawls back to her.
She will not accept it to her own demise. Creon and Antigone are
both remarkably similar people. Ironically, they are both so
much the same that they can not see it. The flaws they share make
neither of them willing to listen to the other. Many of their
traits are identical, but their opinion s are so different that
they can't stand each other. Sophocles did an excellent job in
portraying the two vast extremes of the spectrum, passion and
reason. This story hopefully proves to people that neither
extreme passion nor extreme reason, but rather be in the middle
and achieve arete.
Word Count: 1,334
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Public Release: Scots engineers prove space pioneer's 25-year-old theory
University of Strathclyde
IMAGE: This is a schematic of displaced geostationary orbit. view more
Credit: Advanced Space Concepts Laboratory, University of Strathclyde
When American space pioneer, Dr Robert L Forward, proposed in 1984 a way of greatly improving satellite telecommunications using a new family of orbits, some claimed it was impossible.
But now engineers at the University of Strathclyde's Advanced Space Concepts Laboratory have proved that Forward was right.
The late Dr Forward - a renowned physicist who worked in the United States and from his second home in Scotland - believed it was possible to use 'displaced orbits' to deploy more satellites to the north or south of the Earth's equator, helping to meet the growing demand for communications.
He proposed that the orbit of a geostationary satellite could be pushed above - or below - the usual geostationary ring around the Earth, which follows the line of the equator, by using a large solar sail propelled by the pressure of sunlight. However, critics later claimed that such 'displaced orbits' were impossible due to the unusual dynamics of the problem.
Now graduate student Shahid Baig and Professor Colin McInnes, Director of the Advanced Space Concepts Laboratory, have shown that Forward was in fact correct, in a new paper published in the Journal of Guidance, Control and Dynamics.
Professor McInnes said:"Satellites generally follow Keplerian Orbits, named after Johannes Kepler - the scientist who helped us understand orbital motion 400 years ago. Once it's launched, an unpowered satellite will 'glide' along a natural Keplerian orbit.
"However, we have devised families of closed, non-Keplerian orbits, which do not obey the usual laws of orbital motion. Families of these orbits circle the Earth every 24 hours, but are displaced north or south of the Earth's equator. The pressure from sunlight reflecting off a solar sail can push the satellite above or below geostationary orbit, while also displacing the centre of the orbit behind the Earth slightly, away from the Sun."
Although the displacement distance above or below the equator is small - of the order of 10 to 50 km - work on hybrid solar sails, which use both light pressure and thrust from a conventional electric propulsion system, is underway and aims to improve the displacement distance.
Professor McInnes added: "Other work is investigating 'polar stationary orbits', termed 'pole-sitters' by Forward, which use continuous low thrust to allow a spacecraft to remain on the Earth's polar axis, high above the Arctic or Antarctic. These orbits could be used to provide new vantage points to view the Earth's polar regions for climate monitoring."
Shahid Baig and Professor Colin McInnes' work has been funded by the National Centre for Physics, Quaid-i-Azam University, and VISIONSPACE, an Advanced Investigator grant from the European Research Council, respectively.
The Advanced Space Concepts Laboratory is a world leader in frontier research on visionary space systems. Opened in 2009, the Laboratory's researchers are investigating how new space technologies can be used to deliver radically new space services, such as increased telecommunications capacity and new orbits for Earth observation and space science missions. More information at:
Notes to Editors:
1. The papers described in this press release are:
R L Forward, Light-levitated geostationary cylindrical orbits using perforated light sails, can be found in the Journal of the Astronautical Sciences, Vol.32, Apr-June, pp.221-226, 1984.
S Baig and C R McInnes, Light-Levitated Geostationary Cylindrical Orbits are Feasible, Journal of Guidance, Control and Dynamics, Vol. 33, No. 3, pp. 782-793, 2010.
A pre-print of the new paper is available at:
| <urn:uuid:d071e6ee-f613-4e3a-9968-99a8649db8a1> | 4 | 3.625 | 0.022283 | en | 0.907694 | http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-07/uos-sep072610.php |
Public Release: Cultural products have evolutionary roots
Concordia University professor shows humans are hard-wired to consume
Concordia University
This news release is available in French.
Montreal, June 12, 2013 - From Brad Pitt fighting zombies to Superman falling for Lois Lane, summer blockbuster season is upon us. But while Hollywood keeps trotting out new movies for the masses, plotlines barely change.
Epic battles, whirlwind romances, family feuds, heroic attempts to save the lives of strangers: these are stories guaranteed to grace the silver screen. According to new research from Concordia University, that's not lazy scriptwriting, that's evolutionary consumerism.
Marketing professor Gad Saad says evolution has hard-wired humans to be naturally drawn toward a specific set of universal narratives within cultural products. His new article in the Journal of Consumer Psychology shows that little in consumer behaviour can be fully understood without the guiding light of evolution.
"The human drive to consume is rooted in a shared biological heritage based around four key Darwinian factors: survival, reproduction, kin selection and reciprocal altruism. These fundamental evolutionary forces shape the narratives that are created by film producers or song writers," explains Saad, who holds the Concordia University Research Chair in Evolutionary Behavioural Sciences and Darwinian Consumption, within the John Molson School of Business.
That's true for other pop culture products like song lyrics, which Saad says offer "one of the most direct windows to our evolved mating psychology." From Bieber to Beyoncé, it's all about signalling wealth and finding a mate.
Saad explains that the focus of 90% of songs is on universal sex-specific preferences in the attributes we desire in prospective mates. Male singers show off their wealth and engage in conspicuous consumption via high status brand mentions. On the other hand, female singers refer to their own "bootylicious" physical beauty and call for "no scrubs" in order to denigrate men of low social status.
"Romance novels, pop songs and movie plotlines always come back to the Darwinian themes of survival (injuries and deaths), reproduction (courtships, sexual assaults, reputational damage), kin selection (the treatment of one's progeny), and altruistic acts (heroic attempts to save a stranger's life). Movies, television shows, song lyrics, romance novels, collective wisdoms, and countless other cultural products are a direct window to our biologically based human nature," says Saad.
It's not just cultural products that demonstrate the evolutionary roots of what Saad terms "Homo consumericus." From the food we eat to the clothing we buy, we're always under the influence of evolution.
For Saad, the practical implications are clear: "In order to achieve commercial success, cultural products typically have to offer content that is congruent with our evolved human nature." That means that Clark Kent will fall for Lois Lane while Superman saves the planet for a long time to come.
Related links:
Books by Gad Saad:
Media contact:
Cléa Desjardins
Senior Advisor, External Communications
Concordia University
Tel: 514-848-2424, ext. 5068
Cell: 514-909-2999
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No doubt, a diagnosis of skin cancer will bring many changes to your life. You’ll be busy finding the right medical team, and you’ll likely want to learn more about your health condition. One thing you’ll also want to investigate is what kind of clothing you should wear to protect your skin from any further damage from the sun.
Choosing Sun-Protective Clothing
Color, comfort, fit, and style may be important to you when choosing your clothes, but they aren't what counts when you have skin cancer. It’s clothing with tightly woven fabric that you should be wearing to protect your skin, says Martin Weinstock, MD, PhD, chairman of the skin cancer advisory committee at the American Cancer Society and professor of dermatology and community health at Brown University in Providence, R.I.
"Clothing with a tight weave is important — when you hold it up to the light, you can't see right through it. In general, most clothing does a pretty good job of sun protection. Sometimes clothes with a really loose weave let a fair amount of light through because of the big spaces between the fibers," says Dr. Weinstock.
Darker colors are often better at screening out the sun's rays and providing sun protective benefits, but the weave of the fabric is a more critical factor. "Color may make some difference, but it's not as important as the tightness. The fabric makes the difference," notes Weinstock.
In general, a white T-shirt is not going to provide as much protection from the sun as a black or other darker colored t-shirt would.
When to Toss Sun-Protective Clothing
Once your clothing gets old, faded, and stretched out, it's time to put it aside because it will have lost a lot of its ability to protect your skin from the sun. The more clothing stretches, the looser the fabric weave becomes, and the more ultraviolet (UV) rays can pass through and damage the skin.
Other factor to consider include:
• Dry clothing providing ample coverage. Dry clothing keeps out the sun's rays more than wet clothing, and long-sleeved shirts and pants that cover the legs and arms offer the best protection.
• High-luster polyesters and silks. Yes, they’re thin materials. But, they’re also shiny, so they can help reflect the sun, and those dangerous UV rays. Unbleached cotton, on the other hand, can absorb those rays.
• Dark denim. The sun-protective abilities of a dark denim wash are considerable: A long-sleeved dark denim shirt will not let the sun’s UV rays anywhere near your skin.
Sun Protective Ratings: SPF for Sunscreen, UPF for Clothing
You may know about the SPF, or Sun Protection Factor, of sunscreens, but clothing has its own rating code. UPF is the Ultraviolet Protection Factor rating given to clothing, and it measures how much UV radiation a fabric will allow to pass through to the skin. An article of clothing that is rated a UPF 25 means that 1/25th of the sun's UV rays will reach your skin. The higher the UPF rating, the better the clothing’s sun protective benefit. That dark denim shirt? Its UPF rating is 1,700.
If you really want to use your clothes as a daily tool to help keep your skin cancer from returning, you can also buy clothing specially treated with protective, colorless dyes that absorb UV rays. Additionally, you can wash your clothing in a product called Sun Guard, which adds sunscreen to clothes in the wash. This additive can further boost the UPF rating of your clothes.
Whatever clothing you decide to wear, it's still of the utmost importance to regularly apply sunscreen. But for additional protection from sun damage, you can’t really go wrong by dressing with skin protection in mind. | <urn:uuid:22c907d7-cf41-4da4-9b13-1997d96aaf6f> | 2 | 2.234375 | 0.023629 | en | 0.956304 | http://www.everydayhealth.com/skin-cancer/sun-protection-clothing-to-prevent-skin-cancer.aspx |
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Causes of Left Side Abdominal Pain
Author: Peter Sedesse MD
Information needed to diagnose the causes of left side abdominal pain
The occurrence of left side abdominal pain has numerous causes. Physicians require accurate, careful information from patients in order to give a diagnosis. The exact location of the pain such as the middle or side of the body is among the details included in the necessary information. Is the pain in the upper or lower portion of the abdomen? Are there certain positions that cause the pain to occur? What is the pain frequency? Is the pain constant or only present during activity such as exercise? For females, it is important to note at what point in the menstrual cycle the pain begins.
Exercise and cramping can cause left side abdominal pain
Exercise related cramping is one of the most frequent causes of left side abdominal pain. An improper warm up routine, electrolyte imbalances and dehydration are usually the causes of cramping while exercising. Drinking plenty of fluids an hour before exercise will reduce the chances of developing cramps while exercising. Water is fine although the prevention of cramps is achieved more effectively by the use of sports drinks. The abdominal muscles should be included in the warm up routine while stretching and warming up before exercising. Abdominal pain can also be an indication that something is seriously wrong inside the body.
Organs located on left side of the abdomen that can cause pain
Upper left abdominal pain can be caused by a number of individual conditions in the many organs located there. The abdomen’s upper portion has a section of the large intestine traveling through it. Pain can be caused by a twist in the large intestine or gas. The upper left abdomen also holds the pancreas, when it becomes inflamed very sharp pains will be experienced. The spleen is here also. An extreme amount of pain can result from a splenetic rupture, typically resulting from car accidents; this is a critical medical emergency. Liver disease can result in the painful inflammation of the spleen. Pain will usually be experienced in the upper abdomen’s outermost areas with a kidney stone. Hernias also cause a large amount of pain and occur when a hole appears in the abdominal muscles which allows intestines or other tissue to push through.
Ovulation and menstruation often cause abdominal pain and cramping
Females will often experience pain in the ovaries mid-cycle, this pain is usually isolated to one side of the abdomen or the other. During the actual time of the period, there can also be pain and cramping lower in the center abdomen. These pains usually occur every cycle and can be alleviated by exercising more and also with over the counter medications. In some women, another pain can occur in the lower abdomen that is called endometriosis. Endometriosis is usually not related to the menstrual cycle.
The Abdomen and Pneumonia
Pneumonia patients often present with upper abdominal pain. Pneumonia’s other symptoms are more obvious making this a secondary symptom. Coughing, chills, difficulty breathing, fever and sweating are some of pneumonia’s other symptoms. Upper abdominal pain can result when the diaphragm becomes inflamed from an extremely bad cough in some cases.
Many STDs often have abdominal pain as the first noticeable symptom
In many men and women, the earliest signs of a sexually transmitted disease are often overlooked until abdominal pain occurs. Extreme pain in the lower abdomen is how patients are usually first diagnosed with Gonorrhea. Many STDs are harmless when treated early, but can lead to major complications such as sterility if left untreated.
Occurring outside of exercise left side abdominal pain is a serious symptom. It is important to see a healthcare provider when the pain lasts more than a few hours or is very sharp. Delaying medical attention can potentially lead to death since several of the problems above are life threatening especially the splenic rupture.
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Fibromyalgia symptoms, diagnosis, Causes, Treatment – Short Medical Article
What is Fibromyalgia?
Before learning about what Fibromyalgia, you should know what a chronic disease is!
A chronic disease is a disease that lasts long and re-occurs from time to time. You can say chronic diseases are lasting medical conditions and are persistent.
Fibromyalgia is a chronic disease. Fibromyalgia is a condition where the patient has prevalent pain in muscles and tendons. He/she is fatigued at various points on the body. Women are much more likely to attain this disorder than men. Usually, fibromyalgia sysmptoms are prominent after a trauma, but it is not mandatory that a triggering event occur to cause this medical condition.
Symptoms and Diagnosis of Fibromyalgia:
Remember the various points that are affected in the body that we talked about earlier? These points are called Tender Points. There is widespread pain that is seen on these points. When pressure is applied to these areas, there is additional pain, if the patient is affected by Fibromyalgia.
Some of the Tender Points are Top of Shoulders, Upper Chest, Upper hips, Sides of hips, Inner Knees, back of head. (Please note that tender points are not limited to the above mentioned areas.)
Because of the widespread pain in the body, people with Fibromyalgia wake up tired even after plenty of sleep. The reason experts believe is because they never go into the deep restorative stages of sleep.
Causes of Fibromyalgia:
Nobody clearly knows what really causes Fibromyalgia. But doctors believe a variety of factors work together to cause this weird medical condition. Factors include Genetics, infections and trauma.
Because it has been observed that Fibromyalgia is a condition seen in families, researchers/doctors believe there might be genetic mutations that might have an impact on making a person susceptible to the disease.
Also certain illnesses and post-traumatic stress have been linked to fibromyalgia.
Treatments and Drugs for Fibromyalgia:
Because the exact cause for this condition is not know, doctors concentrate more on reducing the pain due to Fibromyalgia and improve the general health of the patients.
Medications help to reduce pain and improve sleep quality. Analgesics like Acetaminophen might give relief from pain. Usually given analgesics include Tramadol. Aspirin, ibuprofen, etc.
If the doctor feels the patient is depressed, the patient might get some antidepressants like Flouxetine, Duloxetine, or milnacipran.
Hopefully this helps you to understand the issues, symptoms, causes, treatment of Fibromyalgia. Please do not rely on this article in diagnosis of your medical condition. Always contact your doctor and then you can use this to prepare for your appointment! If you are or someone you know has had Fibromyalgia or a similar medical condition, please share your experiences with other users. Read about other medical conditions and short articles and prepare yourself!
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The Accidental Scientist: Science of Cooking Exploratorium
Candy Bread Eggs Pickles Meat Seasoning
Can weather affect candy making?
Oddly enough, it can. Cooking candy syrup to the desired temperature means achieving a certain ratio of sugar to moisture in the candy. On a humid day, once the candy has cooled to the point where it is no longer evaporating moisture into the air, it can actually start reabsorbing moisture from the air. This can make the resulting candy softer than it is supposed to be.
That’s why dry days are recommended for candy making, although the effects of humidity can be somewhat counterbalanced by cooking the candy to the upper end of the appropriate temperature stage.
Cool weather is also recommended for candy making, because—generally—the faster candy cools, the less chance it has to form unwanted crystals.
At The Fudge House on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, they like to make fudge on cool days for another reason: According to owner and candy maker Tom Lowe, people eat more fudge when it’s cooler.
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Gray Geese
Craig Russell
with permission from
SPPA Bulletin, 2004, 9(2):14
The American Gray goose is simply a larger version of the Western Gray. While it has never had an official standard it shows the general conformation of the American Buff goose, which essentially sprang from it. In fact this breed is far more uniform than many more recently developed breeds. Some American Buff strains were perfected with the use of Buff Pomeranian blood and the Pomeranians may have been the original source of the Buff gene. The Pomeranian was certainly one of the influences that differentiated the American Gray from the English Gray, which was its primary ancestor.
Years ago I wrote an article promoting the recognition of the Gray goose. As far as reader reaction, it was one of the most popular things I ever penned. Calls, letters and contacts at shows followed, all positive. (This was before the APA recognized any of the Pomeranian group. A number of correspondents wanted to start a similar movement for Pomeranians as well). A lot of people liked the idea, but everyone, including me, waited for someone else to do it. Reactions included suggestions. One caller pointed out that some Grays have orange bills and pink legs, like Western Graylags, and others have both orange bills and legs, like many western domestics. The suggestion was that the standard for the Gray should match that of the American Buff. This made sense, until I mentioned the idea to Bruce Lentz, who explained things. Different varieties are not required to match in leg color. Bruce felt that a recent derivative like the Buff goose should not be allowed to set the standard for the original historic type. He also believed that the orange-legged individuals were suspect for purity and largely a recent (20th century) development.
It does make sense that a breed that is simply a large domestic Western Graylag should match the Western Graylag in color. The American Gray is obviously very closely related to a number of European landraces. Historically gray has been the predominate color of domestic geese. Despite some very old white strains and types, only in recent years have white geese been at all competitive in numbers. In North America gray geese dominated the scene through the 1960s. Those gray geese included Toulouse, Gray Pomeranian and common or American Gray. Even by themselves the American Gray were the most common goose in North America and had been since colonial days, even before the Toulouse was widely known by that name or had reached our shores. The Toulouse reached North America in the 1850s and the Embden arrived in the 1820s.
The American Gray is predominately descended from the English Gray (in its early or original form) but with at least some other largely similar influences. The American Gray goose is the kind that Oscar Grow was talking about on pages 90 and 91 of Modern Waterfowl Management. "Throughout older goose-raising areas there are still to be found numerous local breeds that retain some following, though less widely kept, because of the inroads of improved varieties. Many are scarcely known outside their immediate environs but are retained more as a matter of association than for economic excellence, although their economic virtues are not lacking." Actually, "improved" often means larger, not always an economic virtue. Mr. Grow, who was the nations's foremost Toulouse breeder for many years, only mentions Grays so far as is needed to distinguish them from Toulouse. He promoted breeds like the Brecon Buff and Pomeranian in North America that are similar to our Grays in size and production qualities. He also promoted the smaller Roman geese.
On page 107 of his book Mr. Grow complains, "so many gray-plumaged geese . . . have been accepted as true Toulouse. This confusion has been aggravated through the devious advertising of hucksters who designate their gray geese as 'farm type Toulouse, business Toulouse and utility Toulouse'." He is right, there can't be but one true type for a breed. While Grays are not Toulouse and have an entirely different type and background, they were certainly the farm type, business type and utility goose in this country. In areas of heavy German settlement they were replaced by Pomeranians but were never seriously threatened as the nation's working goose until after 1970 when geese were no longer important in U.S. agriculture. The traditional family farm was rapidly disappearing and there was a strong commercial bias for white poultry.
Mr. Grow points out that other than the Chinese the Toulouse is considered the best layer of the standard breeds and brags that for more than 50 years his Toulouse averaged more than 60 eggs per season and maintained a hatchability rate of more than 54 percent (actually a very good fertility rate for Toulouse). He fails to mention the non-standard Grays often match or exceed the production figure and generally have far higher fertility rates, in excess of 90 percent. As a promoter of Toulouse, Mr. Grow's failure to dwell on the Gray is perhaps understandable. The fact that his Pilgrims, touted as a practical fowl of an ideal size, is in reality an American Gray with an auto-sexing gene, both further explains and makes his failure to cover the Gray in detail hard to understand.
Modern Waterfowl Management is hardly the first book to fail to give much notice of the Gray goose. Harry Lamon and Rob Slocum in Ducks and Geese (1922) refer to the geese kept on most farms as "of no definite breed or variety." They suggest that these geese "have probably arisen as the result of the crossing of the standard breeds." Bruce Lentz felt that he knew better. He saw this as the writers' attempt to help their friends in the poultry industry. Dale Rice, who I believe as a young man talked with Mr. Lamon, said that Lamon was a genetic expert and skilled breeder but knew very little about poultry history. Although John Norris was talking mostly about chickens at the time, he observed that people think poultry writers are experts but all too often they are just writers. It certainly makes sense that a breed that has been well established for nearly four hundred years has in fact been the dominant breed for most of that period should be recognized.
Though they were never as common as the Gray, and only in the late twentieth century did they become anything like common, there have been American White geese also. The Whites are confused with the Embden much as Grays are confused with Toulouse. The type is not as distinct in this case. The main difference is in size. The White goose shows the type of the Gray and is proportionally shorter bodied than the Embden.
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Online Exclusive
14 Tips for the New Firefighter to Start Off on the Right Foot
The old phrase "you never have a second chance to make a first impression" is a very important phrase to live by. So many people make their first impression to be a not-so-memorable one, and wish they could have it all over to do again. Unfortunately that usually never occurs. Life is not supposed to be fair, so what we can do is learn from others good points as well as their not-so-good points. Watching others succeed or fail can be very educational if you are able to pick up on what worked well for them and did not work so well for them. Here are some suggestions to get you started off on the right foot once you get hired onto a new fire department as a probationary firefighter:
1. Be aggressive at all times. First to details, last to leave.
When I say aggressive, I mean it in a positive way. Don't be so aggressive that you are annoying, over-persistent, or borderline scary to be around. Be willing to always learn new things, new concepts, and new ways of doing things. Be the first one into the scene on the medical call. Be the first one up in the morning and the last one to go to sleep. Be the first one at the station in the morning and the last one to leave. Be the first one to volunteer for the not-so-desirable jobs or duties (like when you're at the haz mat drill in the middle of the summer and the instructor asks "who wants to volunteer to put on the level A suit," and you are the least senior individual at the drill, be the first one to volunteer to do it.
2. If it is dirty - clean it. If it is empty, fill it.
If you dirty something at the firehouse (dishes, silverware, tools, apparatus, equipment, etc.), take the few minutes to clean it up then and there. I've heard the famous line "I'll get to it" so many times it gets old. If it were easy as that, it wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately "I'll get to it" usually never happens, and the mess that A shift didn't clean up, B shift gets to clean up the next day. Nice.
3. If it rings, answer it before anyone else does.
I laugh when I see probationary firefighters running for the phone so that they can be the first one to pick it up or so that they can get it before anyone else. That is almost to the extreme. Don't injure yourself or others in the process.
4. Do not be late to anything.
Showing up on time for work is the first start. I remember the first day of my recruit academy when I got hired. It was 0800 hours and the fire chief was giving his welcome to the fire department speech. Well, we were one body short and were starting to wonder where our one classmate that we had met last week was. Well, he comes running in at around 0830 hours walks right through the door that was next to the fire chief. The fire chief joked about it, but you could tell he wasn't happy. Would you be? That recruit would have been terminated on the spot by many departments. Although he is actually one of our best employees now, he did not make a good impression with the Chief or the Training Staff. He lived about 60 miles away and did not leave himself adequate time to parade through the stop-and-go traffic on the freeway. He should have left so early that he always gave himself an hour of fudge time. When I got hired, the smartest thing I ever did was rent an apartment a block away from our training facility. Even if my car didn't start (which has happened before), I knew I could walk to work and still make it on time.
Also, when the Captain tells you that the engine needs to leave at a certain time for a class across town, don't be in the middle of doing something that can't be easily stopped. Be ready to go at that time. A few months ago, I let the crew know that we needed to leave by 0840 hours so that we could make it to our training facility. It is only a 10 minute drive, but I wanted to leave us a 10 minute cushion because I hate walking in late or arriving late when you have other people (like the Training Chief) waiting for you so they can start the drill. Well, I walk outside to get on the Engine and the probationary firefighter is in the middle of washing the rig, and it is full of soap. Why would he even have started such a project if he didn't have the time? I commend him for taking the initiative, but he should have better prioritized his duties. Wear your watch and set your alarm to give you a five-minute warning if necessary. Be ready to go when your crew is!
5. T.V. will not be watched without permission of your company officer.
When I was on probation, I did everything I could to not even be near the TV, because I knew I would be tempted to watch it. While everyone went to watch TV, I usually took my books to the study room or went to the apparatus room to study something on one of the rigs. This is what is expected in most departments. However, every department is different. I remember hearing from one crew while I was on probation that they thought I didn't like them or their company. I asked them why and they said it was because I wasn't watching TV with them. I politely explained to them that I was on probation (like they didn't know) and that I had studying to do. What was their reaction? Oh, we thought you just didn't like us!
Then, on another occasion I was studying during the Super Bowl and the Captain came up to me (a Captain that is usually strict with probationary firefighters) and asked me to watch the Super Bowl. I politely declined, stating that I had studying to do. He then said that he was ordering me to do so, since it was our local team (San Francisco 49'ers) and that I needed a break. I then made a point to sit at the kitchen table, not the recliners, because knowing my luck, as soon as I hit the recliners I would have taken a nap (and then the camera would have come out and the reputation would have begun)! Since I was not the one that wanted to disobey a direct order from a supervising officer, then I reluctantly obliged. Last thing I wanted to do was get written up for insubordination (I could see the Battalion Chief reading that report "he refused to watch television with the crew"). But the point I'm trying to make is that I didn't initiate watching television on my own, I made the officer order me to do so. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
6. Use initiative to address work that you see needs completion.
If you see something that needs to be completed, DO IT! You should not have to wait for someone to tell you to do something in most circumstances. Obviously if you are not familiar with the work that needs to be completed (or the tools/equipment to accomplish the project), then it is best to ask someone how to accomplish your task. Don't wait for someone else to tell you to do something. Personally I like probationary firefighters that are "low maintenance." I shouldn't have to ask you to put up or take down the flags, to check out your equipment on the rig, to do your paperwork, to clean your assigned area of the station, etc. I should not have to micromanage you. Another good thing to do once your duties are completed is to ask your officer is there anything else that needs to be completed. That will show your motivation and drive to be a competent firefighter. Regardless of who caused you to do the work (C shift forgot to do the dishes) doesn't matter. What does matter is that you show the initiative to take the action now and get the job done.
7. Keep busy! Look for something to do. Study if you cannot find a job.
Regardless of what some people say, there is always something to do at the fire station, for the fire apparatus, or for the tools and equipment on the fire apparatus. Now by no means am I advocating busy work just to look busy. I remember having a Captain in a previous department I worked for ask me to clean the windows. I politely advised him that we had done the windows yesterday (since I had also worked at that station the day before). He said he didn't care and that we would do them today and every day if we had to, just to keep busy. His choice, but a ridiculous one in my opinion. I bet if we looked closely, we could have found other relevant things to do that needed to be done. If nothing else, we can always train on something, even if it includes just reading a book to refresh your memory on something relating to the fire service.
I appreciate it when firefighters ask me if there is anything else that needs to be done (after they have completed their assigned duties and responsibilities). Most of the time I don't have anything for them to do; regardless, it is the thought that counts. It shows me they care about their job and their duties.
When I was a student firefighter (a work experience program through Chabot College) with for the Oakland Fire Department, I used to work under an Engineer named Angelo Primas (who I believe is now a Captain) that would always like to go over things after dinner and during the down time of the day. He used to take me out to the apparatus and ask me what certain tools where for. He would spend many hours into the evening hours asking me questions about the tools and equipment. Where is this item carried? What is it used for? How would you use it? One regret I have is not asking him more questions, and not picking his brain more to get to some of that information; he was a wealth of information that obviously enjoyed and understood the importance of passing on his knowledge to the younger individuals that were just starting their careers in the fire service. | <urn:uuid:c8708ad6-2338-491c-8183-4adabf4a0c63> | 2 | 1.632813 | 0.040932 | en | 0.986956 | http://www.firehouse.com/article/10515354/14-tips-for-the-newly-hired-firefighter |
A correction for Bob Boese - he states: "The smaller the size of the weight, the better. But atomic weight of lead is 207.2 while tungsten is 183.85 and tin is 118.71. That means that your tin weight must be almost twice as large as your lead weight. Tungsten is only 12% larger but many times more expensive ? if you can find them."
Actually, the characteristic of interest is density, not atomic weight. Lead is 11340 kg/m3 vs. tungsten at 19250 kg/m3. Tin is 7310 kg/m3. (webelements.com) So, price aside, tungsten is a much better alternative as the same weight is only ~60% the volume of lead. Hence, the high weight of relatively small tungsten beads. Tin would be quite a bit larger.
He may be right about lead not having much of an effect in waterways, but probably still better to avoid it if possible. I use a temp sensitive putty that seems to stay on the leader about as well as lead shot ever did. Not hard to find in the shops. | <urn:uuid:3dc0b53f-23d9-47ff-ac96-353bc6145777> | 2 | 2.15625 | 0.269204 | en | 0.969271 | http://www.flyanglersonline.com/bb/showthread.php?26299-RE-Lead-Sinkers-and-the-Environment-Article-posted-this-week |
School meal regs blamed for drop in lunch sales
Mich. district selling 100 fewer lunches than last year.
Bangor Township Schools and other school districts across Michigan are hearing student complaints after implmemeting the new requirements for school lunches. Everything from "the food doesn't taste as good" to "there isn't enough food," has caused the district to sell 100 less lunches than last year.
For example, one menu entree is five chicken nuggets with a whole wheat roll, accompanied by vegetables and fruit. The wraps, paninis and calzones are about the size of a microwave Hot Pocket, said Ryan Leitermann, a 17-year-old senior.
With a total population of about 900 students, about 500 eat the hot lunch prepared at the school, said Shelley Blair, Bangor Township schools food services director. | <urn:uuid:59c2c3e3-b218-4e57-8965-1ef7093f4577> | 2 | 2.234375 | 0.245737 | en | 0.952333 | http://www.foodservicedirector.com/industry-news-opinion/news/articles/school-meal-regs-blamed-drop-lunch-sales?quicktabs_most_viewed_tabby=1 |
History of Wales (page 1/7)
[picture: Front Cover, History of Wales]
Title: History of Wales
Author: Woodward, B. B.
City: London
Date: 1853
Total items: 31
See all the images...
Some sample images
[picture: ]
[picture: 62.---Chepstow from the bridge.]
[picture: Chepstow Castle, 4:3 cropped version]
[picture: Plate 72.---Caernarvon Castle]
[picture: Plate 18.---Llanthony Abbey (Wallpaper Edition)]
[picture: Plate 23.---Llanthony Abbey.]
Tags in this source:
abbeys animals arches backgrounds battlements birds boats book covers bookplates bridges castles cattle chimneys christmas churches clouds colour deer dogs ducks entrances gothic gravestones greyscale hills overgrown page images people rivers ruins sepia sheep sunsets title pages towers towns trees views wallpaper water waterfalls widescreen
Places shown:
Aberedw ·Abergavenny ·Anglesey ·Beaumaris ·Brecknockshire ·Bridgend ·Caernarvon ·Caerphilly ·Cardiff ·Cardiganshire ·Cenarth ·Chepstow ·Denbigh ·Denbighshire ·Flint ·Flintshire ·Glamorgan ·Glamorganshire ·Gwynedd ·Havorfordwest ·Hay ·Holywell ·Llantysilio ·Merthyr Tydvil ·Monmouthshire ·Newport ·none ·Pembrokeshire ·Port Talbot ·Powys ·Powys Castle ·Raglan ·St Dogmaels ·Welshpool
Pictures from The History of Wales by B. B. Woodward, B.A., London, (Quarto, 1853 [First edition] vi + (ii) + 608pp, illustrated with 76 steel-engraved plates)
If you use these pictures for anything, or would like me to scan more, let me know. You can refer to the list of illustrations. All of these images are out of copyright (in the public domain). Henry Gastineau (the principal artist) died in 1876.
There is a low-quality scan of this entire book at Google Books but they forgot to scan the plates, I think.
Valid XHTML 1.0! | <urn:uuid:2851df76-bcd3-4a53-bdec-03c72a9c2ff1> | 2 | 2.140625 | 0.040445 | en | 0.83141 | http://www.fromoldbooks.org/HistoryOfWales/ |
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Ask the Expert Archive
Are theses fruits and vegetables gmo foods?
I’m not sure which fruits and vegetables you are referring to, but genetic modifications, or genetic engineering is not a new technology. It has been used in agriculture, for example, to make crops like corn and soy resistant to pests or tolerant to herbicides. In medicine, genetic engineering is used to develop microbes that can produce pharmaceuticals. And in food, genetic engineering is used to produce enzymes that aid in baking, brewing, and cheese making.
Traditional breeding and selection methods have been used successfully for years. However, the process is very time-consuming, sometimes requiring up to 20 years to develop a new plant variety. This is because traditional methods are random and imprecise, involving the passing of thousands of genes with each generation. It is difficult to guarantee that the undesirable traits will not be passed along with the desired traits and to screen for all possible trait combinations. This results in the tedious effort of selecting out those varieties that are most desirable and continuing the process until the final plant variety is achieved.
New biotechnology techniques — specifically genetic engineering — are an extension of older techniques and apply the same principles. However, new biotechnology is more precise and direct than traditional breeding and selection and allows for the transfer of genes from one species or genus to another. This is because new biotechnology allows for the transfer of a single genetic trait — rather than thousands as in traditional breeding — in a predictable and controllable manner. A wider range of new traits can be introduced into food without the introduction of extraneous and undesirable genes and in a more timely fashion.
Genetically modified varieties of papaya, potato, squash and tomato have been marketed internationally. The Rainbow variety of papaya from Hawaii was genetically modified to resist a virus that was destroying the crop.
A WHO report on modern food biotechnology can be found here:
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FTC Stops Family and Companies Selling Illegal Business Opportunity
Business Being Peddled Would Violate State and Federal Laws
For Release
A U.S. District Court has barred a purported former preacher, his two sons, and his companies from selling a healthcare business opportunity promising consumers millions of dollars if they participated in an alleged network of Medicaid providers. In fact, according to the Federal Trade Commission complaint, the defendants’ business model would have required participants to break numerous state and federal laws.
Using “healthcare conferences”at hotels and convention centers across the US, the defendants promised consumers that they would receive “guaranteed” Medicaid patients and would receive help from the lawyers, doctors, and other professionals on their staff in establishing their healthcare businesses. The FTC charged that the defendants misrepresented the assistance they would provide and that participants could legally earn money from the business, and did not provide participants with the required disclosure statement and earnings disclosures for a franchise. A U.S. District Court has granted a temporary restraining order, prohibiting the defendants’ from continuing their deceptive business practices, freezing their assets, and appointing a receiver.
The operation targeted church-going audiences, advertising their upcoming conferences on Christian radio and television networks. Their traveling road show visited at least 18 different US cities, drawing crowds of up to 1000 attendees, with many persons paying a $65 registration fee to attend. The defendants held “conferences” in Atlanta, Baltimore, Durham, Chicago, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Memphis, Jacksonville, Nashville, Macon, Columbus, Georgia, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Jackson, Mississippi, Norfolk, Richmond, and Austin.
At the conferences, individual defendant Jeffrey W. McLain would mix references to his alleged career as a preacher with descriptions of the huge rewards flowing from his business opportunity. The defendants claimed that they were millionaires and multimillionaires and that for a $2,495 investment, participants would have an opportunity to become as rich as they were. The defendants also ran a telemarketing operation in Marietta, Georgia through which they sold their business opportunity.
The defendants instructed participants to incorporate two companies – a non-profit organization, such as a church, and a for-profit healthcare company which would provide services to Medicaid-eligible clients. The defendants stressed to the participants that the ownership of the non-profit corporation needed to be untraceable to the healthcare company. The non-profit would collect donations, such as clothes and furniture, and distribute it to those in need, provided they gave the non-profit their Medicaid information. The participants were then supposed to funnel the Medicaid information to the for-profit medical services company that supplies its products or services to the recipient and bills Medicaid. The participant also could sell the Medicaid information to other providers and receive a referral fee between $100 and $500.
The sales pitch promised that lawyers, doctors, and other professionals would be available to guide participants through the incorporation and licensing of their two companies through the start-up phase, and would remain available to answer questions after the business was running.
According to the FTC’s complaint, the defendants failed to disclose that their business model would expose participants to either criminal or civil monetary penalties, as it would violate numerous federal and state laws. The complaint also alleges that they misrepresent that purchasers could legally make substantial earnings, and that they will receive assistance in establishing and managing their business venture. Finally, the FTC charged that the defendants failed to provide purchasers with the required disclosure statement and made unsubstantiated earnings claims.
The FTC received assistance in the case from the United States Postal Inspection Service in Atlanta, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and investigators from several different offices of the Attorney General, including their Medicaid fraud control units, from Maryland, Florida, Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Virginia.
The court entered an ex parte temporary restraining order against the defendants: Jeffrey Wayne McLain, also known as J.W. McLain; Alexander McLain; Victor McLain; Prophet 3H, LLC; Prophet 3H, Inc.; Georgia Home Health Care License and Certification Institute, Inc., doing business as GHLCI; Healthcare License and Certification Institute, Inc., doing business as HSLCI and HSLCC; and M7 Holdings, LLC. The FTC is seeking a permanent end to their deceptive business practices and redress for their victims.
The Commission vote to authorize staff to file the complaint was 5-0. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on July 18, 2006. The temporary restraining order was granted on the same day. A preliminary injunction hearing is scheduled August 1.
Contact Information
Media Contact:
Jacqueline Dizdul,
Office of Public Affairs
Staff Contact:
David R. Spiegel,
Bureau of Consumer Protection | <urn:uuid:c95e3e53-e9fd-45b1-be34-beefed5c5614> | 2 | 1.578125 | 0.02277 | en | 0.955329 | http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2006/07/ftc-stops-family-and-companies-selling-illegal-business |
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Tecumseh's Geni Profile
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Also Known As: "Tikamthi", "Tecumtha", "Crouching Panther", "Great Medicine Panther", "Shooting Star"
Birthplace: Shawnee village of Piqua on Mad river, about 6 in. southwest of the present Springfield, Ohio
Death: Died in Thames river, near the present Chatam, Ontario
Cause of death: Death in battle, War of 1812
Immediate Family:
Son of Puckeshinwa, Shawnee War Chief and Methotasa
Husband of Mamate Wife of Tecumseh; Wabeleganequa Puckeshinwa (Shawnee Indian) and Mohnetohse Wife of Tecumseh
Father of Monocue ?; Tecumopease Shawnee Indian; Mahyawwekawpawe Son of Tecumseh and Naythawaynah Son of Tecumseh
Brother of Cheeseekau (Matthew); son of Puckeshinwa; Sauwaseekau (A Door Open) Shawnee Indian; Nehasemo Shawnee Indian; Kumskaka (A Cat That Flies) Shawnee Indian and 6 others
Occupation: Shawnee Leader, Native American Rights Activist
Managed by: Private User
Last Updated:
About Tecumseh
The Ric Burns documentary, "Tecumseh's Vision: We Shall Remain" (first aired Oct 2009) can be viewed here:
Tecumseh (properly Tikamthi or Tecumtha: 'One who passes across intervening space from one point to another,' i. e. springs (Jones); the name indicates that the owner belongs to the gens of the Great Medicine Panther, or Meteor, hence the interpretations 'Crouching Panther' and 'ShootingStar' ). A celebrated Shawnee chief, born in 1768 at the Shawnee village of Piqua on Mad river, about 6 in. southwest of the present Springfield, Ohio. It was destroyed by the Kentuckians in 1780. His father, who was also a chief, was killed at the battle of Point Pleasant in 1774 (see Cornstalk). His mother is said of the white man, and denied the right of the Government to make land purchases from any single tribe, on the ground that the territory, especially in the Ohio valley country, belonged to all the tribes in common. On the refusal of the Government to recognize this principle, he undertook the formation of a great confederacy of all the western and southern tribes for the purpose of holding the Ohio river as the permanent boundary between the two races. In pursuance of this object he or his agents visited every tribe from Florida to the head of the Missouri river. While Tecumseh was organizing the work in the south his plans were brought to disastrous overthrow by the premature battle of Tippecanoe under the direction of the Prophet, Nov. 7, 1811. On the breaking out of the War of 1812, Tecumseh at once led his forces to the. support of the British, and was rewarded with a regular commission as brigadier general, having under his command some 2,000 warriors of the allied tribes. He fought at Frenchtown, The Raisin, Ft Meigs, and Ft Stephenson, and covered Proctor's retreat after Perry's decisive victory on Lake Erie, until, declining to retreat farther, he compelled Proctor to make a stand on Thames river, near the present Chatam, Ont. In the bloody battle which ensued the allied British and Indians were completely defeated by Harrison, Tecumseh himself falling in the front of his warriors, Oct. 5, 1813, being then in his 45th year. With a presentiment of death he had discarded his general's uniform before the battle and dressed himself in his Indian deerskin. He left one son, the father of Wapameepto, alias Big Jim (q. v.). From all that is said of Tecumseh in contemporary record, there is no reason to doubt the verdict of Trumbull that he was the most extraordinary Indian character in United States history. There is no true portrait of him in existence, the one commonly given as such in Lossing's War of 1812 (1875) and reproduced in Appleton's Cyclopedia-of American Biography (1894), and Mooney's Ghost Dance (1896), being a composite result based on a pencil sketch made about 1812, on which were mounted his cap, medal, and uniform.
Consult Appleton Cycl. Am. Biog., vi, 1894; Drake, Life of Tecumseh, 1841; Eggleston, Tecumseh and the Shawnee Prophet, 1878; Law, Colonial Hist. Vincennes, 1858; Lossing, War of 1812,1875; McKenney and Hall, Ind. Tribes, 1, 1854; Mooney, Ghost Dance Religion, in 14th Rep. B. A. E., pt. ii, 1896; Randall, Tecumseh, in Ohio Arch. and Hist. Quar., Oct. 1906; Trumbull, Indian Wars, 1851.
Tecumseh (March 1768 – October 5, 1813), also known as Tecumtha or Tekamthi, was a Native American leader of the Shawnee and a large tribal confederacy that opposed the United States during Tecumseh's War and the War of 1812. He grew up in the Ohio country during the American Revolutionary War and the Northwest Indian War where he was constantly exposed to warfare.[1]
His brother Tenskwatawa was a religious leader who advocated a return to the ancestral lifestyle of the tribes. A large following and a confederacy grew around his teachings. The religious doctrine led to strife with settlers on the frontier, causing the group to move farther into the northwest and settle Prophetstown, Indiana in 1808. Tecumseh took an active role in confronting Governor William Henry Harrison to demand land purchase treaties be rescinded. He began an attempt to expand the confederacy into the southern United States, but while he was away traveling, his brother was defeated in the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe. [2] . During the War of 1812, Tecumseh and his confederacy allied with the British in Canada and helped in the capture of Fort Detroit. The Americans, led by Harrison, launched a counter assault and invaded Canada, killing Tecumseh in the Battle of the Thames. Tecumseh has subsequently become a folk legend and is remembered as a hero by many Canadians for his defense of their country.
Tecumseh (c. 1768 – October 5, 1813), whose given name might be more accurately rendered as Tecumtha or Tekamthi, was a famous Shawnee leader. He spent much of his life attempting to rally disparate Native American tribes in a mutual defense of their lands, which eventually led to his death in the War of 1812.
Early life
Tecumseh ("Panther in the Sky") is believed to have been born in 1768 just outside the current town of Xenia, Ohio. His father was Pucksinwah, a Shawnee warrior who was killed at the Battle of Point Pleasant. His mother was named Methoataske. Tecumseh was raised as a warrior by his older brother, Cheeksuakalo.
Tecumseh eventually settled in what is now Greenville, Ohio, the home of his younger brother Tenskwatawa (formerly Lowawluwaysica) ("One With Open Mouth or The Open Door"), perhaps best known simply as The Prophet.
"Tecumseh's War"
Main article: Tecumseh's War
In 1805, a religious revival led by Tenskwatawa emerged. Tenskwatawa urged natives to reject the ways of the whites, and to refrain from ceding any more lands to the United States. Opposing Tenskwatawa was the Shawnee leader Black Hoof, who was working to maintain a peaceful relationship with the United States. By 1808, tensions with white settlers and Black Hoof's Shawnees compelled Tenskwatawa and Tecumseh to move further northwest and establish the village of Prophetstown near the confluence of the Wabash and Tippecanoe Rivers (near present-day Battle Ground, Indiana).
Tenskwatawa's religious teachings became widely known as did his predictions based on information supplied by Tecumseh. Many of these were based on readings from white men's books, in particular astronomy books (see Galloway). Tecumseh would eventually emerge as the leader of this confederation, though it was built upon a foundation established by the religious appeal of his younger brother. Relatively few of these followers were Shawnees; although Tecumseh is often portrayed as the leader of the Shawnees, most Shawnees in fact had little involvement with Tecumseh or the Prophet, and chose instead to move further west or to remain at peace with the United States.
In September 1809, William Henry Harrison, governor of the newly formed Indiana Territory, negotiated the Treaty of Fort Wayne in which a delegation of half-starved Indians ceded 3 million acres (12,000 km²) of Native American lands to the United States.[1] Harrison was under orders from Washington to negotiate with Indians that claimed the lands that they were ceding. However, he disregarded these orders, as none of the Indians he met with lived on the lands that they ceded.
Tecumseh's opposition to the treaty marked his emergence as a prominent leader. Although Tecumseh and the Shawnees had no claim on the land sold, he was alarmed by the massive sale. Tecumseh revived an idea advocated in previous years by the Shawnee leader Blue Jacket and the Mohawk leader Joseph Brant, which stated that Indian land was owned in common by all tribes, and thus no land could be sold without agreement by all. Not ready to confront the United States directly, Tecumseh's primary adversaries were initially the Indian leaders who had signed the treaty. An impressive orator, Tecumseh began to travel widely, urging warriors to abandon accommodationist chiefs and to join the resistance at Prophetstown (Tippecanoe). Tecumseh insisted that the Fort Wayne treaty was illegal; he asked Harrison to nullify it, and warned that Americans should not attempt to settle on the lands sold in the treaty. Tecumseh is quoted as saying, "No tribe has the right to sell, even to each other, much less to strangers.... Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth? Didn't the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?" And, "....the only way to stop this evil is for the red man to unite in claiming a common and equal right in the land, as it was first, and should be now, for it was never divided."[2]
In 1810 and 1811, Tecumseh met with Harrison at Grouseland, Harrison's Vincennes, Indiana, home. He assured him that the Shawnee brothers meant to remain at peace with the United States. Tecumseh then traveled to the South, on a mission to recruit allies among the so-called "Five Civilized Tribes". Most of the southern nations rejected his appeals, but a faction among the Creeks, who came to be known as the Red Sticks, answered his call to arms, leading to the Creek War.
While Tecumseh was in the South, Governor Harrison marched up the Wabash River from Vincennes with more than 1,000 men, on an expedition to intimidate the Prophet and his followers. On November 6, 1811, Harrison's army arrived outside Prophetstown (Tippecanoe). Instead of being frightened, Tenskwatawa ordered his warriors to attack the American encampment that night. In the Battle of Tippecanoe, Harrison's men held their ground, and the Indians withdrew from the village after the battle. The victorious Americans burned the town and returned to Vincennes.
The battle was a severe blow for Tenskwatawa, who had lost both prestige and the confidence of his brother. Although it was a significant setback, Tecumseh began to secretly rebuild his alliance upon his return from the South. Now that the Americans were also at war with the British in the War of 1812, "Tecumseh's War" became a part of that struggle. The American effort to neutralize potential British-Native American cooperation had backfired, instead making Tecumseh and his followers more fully committed to an alliance with Britain.
War of 1812
Tecumseh joined British Major-General Sir Isaac Brock to force the surrender of Detroit in August 1812, a major victory for the British. Tecumseh's acumen in warfare was evident in this engagement. As Brock advanced to a point just out of range of Detroit's guns, Tecumseh had his warriors parade from a nearby wood and circle around to repeat the maneuver, making it appear that there were many more than was actually the case. The fort commander, Brigadier General William Hull, surrendered in fear of a massacre should he refuse.[3] Among the Detroit residents imprisoned by the British was Father Gabriel Richard, but due to the high esteem in which the priest was held by the Native Americans among whom he ministered, Tecumseh refused to continue fighting for the British until they freed Richard.
This victory was reversed a little over a year later, as Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's victory on Lake Erie, late in the summer of 1813, cut British supply lines and forced them to withdraw. The British burned all public buildings in Detroit and retreated into Upper Canada along the Thames Valley. Tecumseh followed, fighting rearguard actions to slow the US advance.
Death of TecumsehThe next British commander, Major-General Henry Procter did not have the same working relationship with Tecumseh as his predecessor and the two "disagreed over tactics." Procter failed to appear at Chatham, Ontario as expected by the Native Americans. Harrison crossed into Upper Canada in October, 1813 and won a victory over the British and Native Americans at the Battle of the Thames near Chatham. Tecumseh was killed, and shortly after the battle the tribes of his confederacy surrendered to Harrison at Detroit. Certain eye-witness sources state that Tecumseh was killed by Colonel Richard M. Johnson, future vice-president of the United States under Martin Van Buren, although it has not been proven. Though Tecumseh was definitely killed, no one ever found his body.
Early life and training
Tecumseh was born in an Indian village near present-day Springfield, Ohio. His father was killed by whites in 1774. His mother, a Muskogee (Creek Confederacy), left him, when he was seven years old, to accompany part of the tribe to Missouri and then passed into obscurity. Tecumseh was reared by an elder sister, Tecumapease, who trained him in the strict Shawnee code of honesty; an elder brother, Cheeseekau, taught him woodcraft and hunting. He was adopted by the Shawnee chief Blackfish and grew to young manhood with several white foster brothers whom Blackfish had captured
NOTE: found in under Methoataaskee (Marguerite) Mary Shawnee (Ice)
Who was the mother of Tecumseh?
Her Shawnee name was Methotasa, meaning "A turtle laying her eggs in the sand. But where did she come from? Most of the books you read will tell you that the Shawnee's capture her while fighting the Cherokee, and the great chief Pucksinwah, married her. She became the mother of Chiksika, Tecumapese, Tecumseh, and the triplets, Sauwaseekau, Kumskaka, Tenskwatawa, who later became known as Lowawluwaysica (The Profit, although most who have studied about this family know that he was not the profit, it was his brother Tecumseh). Later they would adopt two white girls and a white boy who were taken as captives after fights with the white people.
Many people will tell you that Methotasa was first a Mohawk, or from some other tribe before she was taken by, or traded to the Cherokee. But, Methotasa was not Native American at all. Methotasa, mother of Tecumseh, was born, Marguerite Mary Iaac. She was born between 1728 and 1737 in Hampshire Co. WV. Her parents were Frederick Iaac Jr. who was born about 1713 in Holland and died in Monongalia Co. WV. And Mary Galloway, born about 1690.
While Frederick and some men were out one day, many members of his family were attacked and killed by a band of indians. His wife Mary Galloway Iaac was among those found dead.
Some of the children were taken as captives, Marguerite Mary Iaac, who was between the age of 5 and 10, William Iaac, John Iaac, and Christina Iaac. Marguerite Mary Iaac ended up with the Cherokee, she may have been traded to them, or sold, or captured by them. It was told that she had flaming red hair and was very pretty. She spent many years with the Cherokee, but was taken captive by the Shawnee after a battle between the two tribes. Mary soon became a favorite in the eyes of the Shawnee Chief, Pucksinwah, and they were married. That is who Methotasa really was.
----------------------------------------- Is said to be 1st cousin but Unsure of the connection - by lineage found for her see her profile at Tecumoplas Margaret born 1742 in Maryland, the daughter of Older Daughter-Sarah Opessa and Pekowi Man. She died after 1791 in WV (?). She was the first cousin of Tecumseh and the wife of Rupert Collins, white. Rupert was born about 1740 and died after 1791
view all
Tecumseh's Timeline | <urn:uuid:01bbe0c6-3fbd-48ab-a454-cddc060a180b> | 2 | 2.375 | 0.037323 | en | 0.978344 | http://www.geni.com/people/Tecumseh/6000000009687795332 |
10 Sneaky Ways to Lose Weight
• 10 Sneaky Ways to Lose Weight
friends dinner
Weight-Loss Tip: When Out With Friends, Order First
If you do, you're more likely to choose a meal that's in line with your healthy-eating goals. When groups of people eat together, they tend to select similar items, one study found. "We want to fit in with the people we're dining with," says lead researcher Brenna Ellison, Ph.D., a food economist at the University of Illinois. So if your friend orders cheese fries, you'll tend to do the same—even if you had the best spinach-salad intentions. If ordering first isn't an option, try steering the conversation away from discussions about food. Instead of saying "What are you having?" bring up work, the weather, whatever, and you'll feel less pressured to order a fattening meal.
Montrose Digital Archive
• date dinner
Weight-Loss Tip: Set the Mood
Compared with bright, loud environments, candlelight and jazz lead people to eat about 18 percent less, or about 120 fewer calories per meal. Why is that? The relaxed atmosphere slows down your chewing, and "you end up taking an average of eight minutes longer to eat," says Brian Wansink, Ph.D., director of Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab and author of Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think. That may be just long enough for your brain to realize that your stomach is full.
Getty Images
• chopsticks dinner
Weight-Loss Tip: Use Chopsticks
Unlike standard silverware, chopsticks make it nearly impossible to shovel food into your mouth. "Because of the amount of food you can grab," Wansink says, "chopsticks slow you down and make you eat less food with every bite."
Montrose Digital Archive
• salad vegetables
Weight-Loss Tip: Remember, Veggies First
Here's a strange-but-true finding: The three foods that you see first at a buffet will end up comprising about 66 percent of the food you take back to your table, according to one Cornell University study. We tend to load up on the things that initially tempt us, Wansink explains. So start off at the salad section—and much of that 66 percent will be good for you.
Montrose Digital Archive
• buffet serving
Weight-Loss Tip: Never Leave Food Where You Can See It
Being within eyesight of a banquet of food makes you eat 15 percent more—regardless of whether you're at home or a restaurant, Wansink has found. "Seeing it fills your thoughts with food," he says. "And watching people return to a buffet makes you think it's more normal to go for seconds, thirds, and fourths." If you can, move food completely out of sight—"you don't want to catch the action in your peripheral vision either," says Wansink. At home, leave serving dishes on the counter instead of the table, and sit facing away from the spread.
Montrose Digital Archive
• bread basket
Weight-Loss Tip: Follow the "Rule of Two"
When dining out, select whatever reasonable main entrée you want (plus included sides) and pair it with only two other things to eat and drink. So if a piece of bread and one glass of wine are your two preferred entree pals, skip appetizers and dessert. If you want the artichoke dip and tiramisu, avoid the bread basket and beverages other than water. "On average, people who use the rule of two report eating about 25 percent less because it makes you rethink what you're ordering or eating," says Wansink. And keep in mind: You're more likely to order what you see first (it's why some restaurants showcase certain items), so choose carefully.
Montrose Digital Archive
• dinner setting
Weight-Loss Tip: Place a Napkin on Your Lap
People who do this before eating tend to have a healthier body mass index, according to Cornell University researchers. That's because using a napkin reflects good table manners, says Wansink, and careful eaters often pay more attention to what they're eating—and, as a result, how many calories they're consuming.
Montrose Digital Archive
• menu
Weight-Loss Tip: Ignore Healthy Buzzwords
"Organic," "all natural," "low fat," "a full serving of vegetables"—research shows that food descriptions that include veggies or other seemingly healthy attributes often make us believe that we're consuming fewer calories than we actually are. In fact, we eat about 35 percent more than we do when we think the food is unhealthy, according to University of Toronto researchers. One quick fix: Imagine the dish without the healthy food or description, suggests Wansink. For instance, leave out the vegetables in vegetable lasagna and you're still eating lasagna—pasta, cheese, and a heavy cream sauce.
Montrose Digital Archive
• cereal
Weight-Loss Tip: Ditch Cold Cereals
Louisiana State University researchers found that women who eat a warm bowl of oatmeal served with fat-free milk feel 28 percent less hungry for up to four hours later compared with when they pour their breakfast from a box. Oatmeal's fiber (which takes longer to digest) is the secret, says study coauthor Frank Greenway, M.D.
Montrose Digital Archive
• instagram vegetables
Weight-Loss Tip: Fill Your Instagram With Healthy Pics
And follow friends who do the same. Researchers from England's University of Leeds found that people eat fewer calories—and make better choices—after seeing shots of nutritious foods. "Visual cues prime you to eat right," says Durvasula. The idea works at home or the office too—swap the candy bowl for fresh fruit. And just like that you're eating healthier.
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Quebec Student Leader Convicted in Outrageous Political Trial
Quebec student leader Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois was convicted November 1 of contempt of court for publicly criticizing a court injunction issued during last spring’s student strike. The injunction ordered the strikers to allow dissident students who opposed the strike to attend classes.
Nadeau-Dubois will be sentenced on November 9. He faces a fine of up to $50,000 and possible imprisonment for up to a year. This is the first time in the history of the Quebec student movement that a leader has been convicted of contempt of court. In a highly politicized judgment, the court declared that in criticizing the injunction and defending the democratic decision to strike made by the students in mass assemblies he had advocated “anarchy,” encouraged “civil disobedience,” and his comments could be used to pave the way to “tyranny.”
Nadeau-Dubois has announced that he will appeal the conviction, and called on supporters to donate funds to aid his defense. A web site,, has been established to publicize statements of support and collect contributions. And some solidarity demonstrations have already been held both in Quebec and elsewhere (including a small protest in Toronto on November 3).
The original injunction was issued in May to a student at Laval University who disagreed with the decision taken by the members of his student association, an affiliate of the Coalition large de l’Association de solidarité syndicale des étudiants (CLASSE), to join the massive strike against the Liberal government’s tuition fee increase.
At its peak the four-month strike saw about 300,000 students shut down classes; some of the demonstrations mobilized close to a quarter million students. Although the immediate goal of the students was to block the fee increase, the CLASSE advanced the demand for free university tuition, an initial objective of Quebec’s extensive reform of public education in the 1960s, and campaigned against other government budget measures such as a new tax on health care around an explicitly anticapitalist perspective.
Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois was a co-spokesperson for the CLASSE, which grew to more than 100,000 members during the strike. Also participating in the strike were the official student federations representing CEGEP (college) and university students, the FECQ and FEUQ.[1] All three groups are recognized under Quebec law as the exclusive representatives of the students in their respective universities or colleges.[2] All regard the right to strike – to shut down classes, enforced by mass picketing and other action – as an important weapon in their arsenal of tactics. Since the late 1960s, the Quebec students have staged seven general strikes with varying degrees of success.
The injunction in question was one of many issued by the courts in early May in an attempt to break the student strike. Many were initiated by students associated with the young Liberals, the youth affiliate of the then government party led by Premier Jean Charest. The courts were only too happy to oblige; the chief justice of the Superior Court, François Rolland, himself issued seven such injunctions, all identically worded, between May 3 and May 12.[3]
The injunction rulings all had in common a refusal to accept that the mass action by the students was a strike. Instead they called it a “boycott,” and thus not subject to the rules governing legal strikes or Quebec’s anti-scab legislation. In the case of the injunction that was at issue in Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois’ contempt prosecution, issued May 3, the judge stated flatly that the students had no real right to strike under Quebec legislation.
The premise behind these injunctions, stated or unstated, was that the students had no genuine collective interests worthy of being enforced by common strike action; they were individual consumers of a college or university education, with no right to restrict access to that “commodity” by other consumers. Neoliberal reasoning of the first order.
The student associations argued in return that injunctions restricting or prohibiting their picket lines were an infringement of their right to free expression of belief, and that their legally recognized right to represent the students could only be effective if they had the right to enforce the majority decisions taken democratically in mass assemblies of the students they represented.
In the result, the injunctions failed to break the strike, the students simply ignoring or defying them, often in the face of brutal police repression. The Charest government then enacted Bill 78 (later named Law 12), which (among other things) shut down the campuses until August and threatened severe fines and loss of legal representation rights to student associations that violated its provisions.[4]
In a television broadcast May 13, an RDI journalist interviewed FECQ president Léo Bureau-Blouin and CLASSE spokesman Nadeau-Dubois concerning the injunctions. Bureau-Blouin stated that his federation was urging students to comply with them as “precise orders of the Court….” Bureau-Blouin, a successful candidate in the September 4 Quebec elections, now sits on the Parti Québécois government benches.
Gabriel Nadeau-Blouin, for his part, stated [translation]:
“What is clear is that those decisions, those attempts to force the return to class, never function because the students, who have been striking for 13 weeks, are in mutual solidarity, and generally respecting the democratic will that was expressed through the strike vote and I think it is completely legitimate for the students to take the steps to enforce the democratic choice that was made to go on strike. It is of course regrettable that there is indeed a minority of students who are using the courts to by-pass the collective decision that was taken. But we think it is completely legitimate that people take the necessary steps to enforce the strike vote, and if that means picket lines, we think it is a completely legitimate means of doing so.”
That is the statement for which he has now been convicted of contempt of court.
Road to Tyranny?
A striking feature (if I may use that adjective!) of the 20-page judgment by Superior Court justice Denis Jacques is its highly charged political language. The allegation against Nadeau-Dubois is essentially that his statement to RDI was likely “to impair the authority or dignity of the court,” to cite the language of Article 50 of the Quebec Code of Civil Procedure, one of the two contempt provisions at issue. But the judge goes even further. Whether or not Nadeau-Dubois was specifically attacking the injunction in question (the judge decided he was), the student leader, in his criticism of injunctions and defense of the students’ democratic strike vote, was held to be impugning the “rule of law” and promoting “chaos.”
“Defiance of the law is the surest road to tyranny,” said the judge, quoting President John F. Kennedy, a quotation he found in what was the major legal precedent for his judgment: the court decision convicting the leaders of Quebec’s three trade-union centrals of contempt of court in 1972, when they refused to order the striking members of their common front of public sector unions to obey injunctions ordering them back to work.[5]
Adopting a similar tone, the judge found Nadeau-Dubois guilty of urging non-compliance with court orders. Was he defending democracy? No, “instead he advocated anarchy and encouraged civil disobedience.”
The shock of the contempt conviction provoked an immediate wave of protest, especially in the social networks. Many comments focused on the political nature of the court’s decision. Some cited a 2005 La Presse article showing the judge’s connections with the Liberal party.
One of the first and strongest statements of support was by Québec solidaire MNA Amir Khadir on behalf of his party. “This court decision is an insult to all the youth who mobilized last spring in a massively peaceful way,” he declared in a written statement. “Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois was the embodiment of that youth and is now punished for having put himself in the service of a cause. They have tried him politically.”
Khadir noted that Charest’s Bill 78 had specifically singled out Nadeau-Dubois: it invalidated all the injunctions issued in connection with the student strike, but made one exception – for the sole prosecution for contempt of court that had resulted, the one aimed at Nadeau-Dubois. And Khadir recalled that at the time he had publicly adopted as his own Nadeau-Dubois’s entire statement that was the subject of the prosecution.
Khadir contrasted the rough “justice” meted out so precipitously to the student leader with the lax approach taken by the authorities toward the widespread corruption in Quebec politics now being revealed in the hearings of the Charbonneau Commission. “While for years they let things ride with the bribers and their accomplices in the engineering firms, law firms, municipalities and the National Assembly, the trial of a student spokesperson who dared to stand up to a government worn through with scandals is already ended.” It was a case of “two weights, two measures.”
Québec solidaire, said Khadir, remained in solidarity with Nadeau-Dubois and the CLASSE. And he urged the student associations and others to demonstrate their support.
Unfortunately, the FEUQ and FECQ have so far made no statement on the Nadeau-Dubois conviction. Their silence underscores the divisions that have reappeared within the student movement. In contrast, the ASSÉ declared its “unfailing support” for the student leader. “The words that earned Mr. Nadeau-Dubois his conviction,” said spokesman Jérémie Bédard-Wien, “are the refrain of the entire student movement. History will prove him right.”
And several teachers’ unions have already signified their support of Nadeau-Dubois and declared their intention to contribute to his appeal. •
1. Respectively, the Fédération étudiante collégiale du Québec and Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec.
2. An Act respecting the accreditation and financing of students’ associations, R.S.Q. c. A-3.01.
3. Jean-François Morasse v. Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, Quebec Superior Court, File No. 200-17-016412-124 (November 1, 2012), para. 23n.
4. The new PQ government has declared its intention to repeal these provisions.
5. In that case, the union leaders were sentenced to a year in jail. But that in turn provoked a massive province-wide spontaneous general strike involving up to 300,000 people that included occupations of factories and radio stations, blockading of bridges and airports, and worker takeovers of some industrial towns. So great was the pressure on the Liberal government of the day that it had to ask the imprisoned union leaders (Marcel Pepin, Louis Laberge and Yvon Charbonneau) to appeal their contempt convictions so as to make it possible for the government to release them from prison and continue bargaining. The common front then went on to win some key demands, including a $100 minimum wage for the lowest paid workers, mainly women.
Articles by: Richard Fidler
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Using + DIF To Lower Fuel Costs
February 26, 2007 - 12:51
The cost of energy has been identified as the most important issue facing the floriculture industry by several recent greenhouse grower surveys. Although energy prices have subsided somewhat, fuel costs are still high, especially for growers in cold climates. There are several different production strategies and infrastructure investments that can lower fuel consumption to heat greenhouses. One strategy is to grow crops at a warm day temperature and a cool night temperature.
Testing The Theory
Plants develop in response to the 24-hour average daily temperature. For example, crop timing is similar if plants are grown at a constant temperature of 65° F or a day/night of 70/60° F if the day and night segments are each 12 hours long. If growers lower the night temperature without increasing the day temperature by the same amount, crops will be delayed. Since approximately 75 percent of the energy consumed in greenhouses occurs at night, it stands to reason that a lower night temperature will consume less energy.
To test this theory, I used Virtual Grower to simulate monthly energy costs at different temperature setpoints for two hypothetical greenhouses in Grand Rapids, Mich., and Charlotte, N.C. Virtual Grower is a free computer software program developed by the USDA-ARS, Toledo, Ohio, that predicts energy consumption using a variety of user inputs, including location, greenhouse characteristics, time of year and temperature setpoints.
The Results
As Figure 1, below, indicates, the predicted fuel cost to heat 1 acre of double-poly greenhouse was always less expensive with a positive DIF (+10° F DIF means that the day is 10° F warmer than the night) compared with a 0° F DIF (day equals night temperature) or a negative DIF (-10° F DIF means that the day is 10° F cooler than the night).
However, the estimated fuel cost savings depended on the month, location and average daily temperature. For example, a grower in Grand Rapids delivering an average temperature of 65° F could lower his or her March fuel bill by 18 percent by switching from a -10° F DIF (60/70° F day/night) to a +10° F DIF (70/60° F day/night). A producer in Charlotte growing crops at an average temperature of 72° F could lower an April fuel bill by 27 percent by switching from a 0° F DIF (72/72° F day/night) to a +10° F DIF (77/67° F day/night).
Interestingly, the potential reduction in fuel consumption by using a positive DIF was greatest during mid spring (April and May in Michigan and March and April in North Carolina). During these months, growers could theoretically save more than $2,000 per acre by switching from a -10° F DIF to a +10° F DIF and about $1,000 per acre by using a +10° F DIF instead of a 0° F DIF. Clearly, the way temperature is delivered during the day and night can be manipulated to minimize fuel consumption while still delivering the same average daily temperature.
Something To Consider
One consequence to using a positive DIF temperature regimen is it promotes stem elongation of most bedding plants, herbaceous perennials and potted plants. In other words, plants will become progressively taller as the day temperature increases relative to the night temperature. If finished plant height specifications remain unchanged, it is likely higher rates of plant growth retardants will have to be used. Therefore, growers will have to weigh the potential savings in fuel costs relative to the potential increased cost of plant growth retardants.
About The Author
Erik Runkle is assistant professor and floriculture extension specialist in the Department of Horticulture at Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich. He can be reached at or (517) 355-5191.
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Rhodes' harbor at sunset
Rhodes - the island of the sun
Rhodes lies 270 nautical miles from Piraeus and is surrounded by the islands of Symi, Tilos, Chalki and Alimia as well as rocky outcroppings like Tragoussa, Drosonisi, Prasonisi and others. It has an area of 1,400 sq. km. and a coastline length of 220 km. The land is by and large mountainous -the highest mountain is Attavyros with 1,215m. height-, with small plains, verdant ravines and river beds, valleys and plateaus and long sandy beaches.The well known stag statue at Rhodes harbor entrance
Helios - the Sun-God, symbol of Rhodes The continual sunshine -an average 300 days of sunshine a year- and the mild climate make the island suitable for viticulture. Its superb climate, the fertile soil and the geographical position are the main factors which have made the island densely populated from antiquity up to the present. Its population today is around 90,000 and they are able to host more than 1,250,000 visitors a year.
Visitors who come to enjoy the island's natural beauty and to get aquainted with its long history. The airport of Rhodes has daily charter flights from many European cities as well as Cyprus, Tel Aviv and Cairo. You can also reach Rhodes by plane from Athens (about 50 minutes flight), Crete and Santorini. Large ferry boats go daily between Piraeus and Rhodes (the trip lasts from 13 to 20 hours), while there connections with Thessaloniki, Crete, the rest of the Dodecannese and international ports as Limassol (Cyprus),Haifa (Israel), Alexandria (Egypt) and Ancona (Italy). Hotels of all categories can be found in Rhodes, with rooms or suites, pensions, and rooms to rent in private houses. Travel Agencies in Rhodes Island can provide you with everything you may need either for your accommodation or exploring the island. Welcome to the brilliant island of the sun!...
Photos and text taken
from "Rhodes - the brilliant island of the sun"
(Toubis Editions)
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Issue 39 - 1987
Collection: UK - Masters of the Universe
Month: September
Year: 1987
Production Country: United Kingdom
Issue: 39
Language: English
Issue 39 - 1987
Issue 39 - 1987
Feature Story 1: "The Defeat of He-Man"
Continued from "The Finding of Viper Tower" in the previous issue. As Viper Tower rises to the ground, Hordak knows he must destroy it before King Hiss regains the power to rule Eternia. He sends Dragstor towards the tower, but Dragstor is attacked by the Magna-snakes. Just then, He-man, Extendar and Rio Blast are patrolling nearby, when they hear the sounds of battle and rush towards them. As Hordak sees them approaching, he retreats, refusing to waste his power by fighting two armies at once. The Snake Men then catch the heroes in a venom shell! (Continued in next issue)
Master Mail
Questions on Mekaneck, Leech, and the Snake Men feature in this issue's master mail, along with a complaint about the comic's regular practice of putting posters on the other side of stories (always very annoying).
Feature Story 2: "The Third Moon"
He-Man and Moss Man are relaxing on the battlement of Grayskull, when they see something very strange in the sky- there are three moons! They decide to investigate, and take a star shuttle to the third moon. They find an odd structure on the moon, which turns out to be the head of a giant creature. They blast off again, and see that the whole moon is in fact a large bird-like creature, that was hybernating, and when it was curled up it looked like a moon. They return to Grayskull, and He-Man finishes off with a classic line taken from the classic movie "The Thing": "Keep watching the skies!"
Feature Story 3: "Monster in a Bottle"
Two traders, who make money from being swindlers, find a strange bottle amongst their stuff. When they open it, a strange creature emerges and appears to be about to attack them! But one of them wishes it was back in the bottle... and at that moment, it goes back in the bottle. They decide to sell the bottle to Hordak, who could make good use of the monster. But Hordak has already found out from Mantenna, who was spying on them, and he buys the bottle from them. He unleashes the monster upon He-Man, Teela and Mekaneck, but it turns out to be a friendly monster. Angrily, Hordak chases after the traders, but one of them holds a lucky charm, which causes Hordak to fall into a pit, so they can get away.
(An okay issue, but it's noticeable at this point that the comic is going through a stage of rather unattractive artwork...)
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Feminism [Pic]
Hits: 10503 | Rating: (3.2) | Category: Misc. | Added by: gingernut333
Male, 30-39, Western US
9 Posts
Sunday, November 02, 2014 7:33:22 AM
How about just learning to tell people to f×#* off?
Male, 40-49, Southern US
5133 Posts
Monday, September 09, 2013 7:38:01 AM
littleoracle-"What if someone walked up to her and said, " You look butch." or put her down for her looks."
She will learn that people are cruel. This is a basic fact of life.
But you seem to think this is only a problem for little girls. Little boys have to put up with cruel namecalling, too. ("you're fat, you're a fag, you're a sissy")
littleoracle-"Don't judge a woman by what she wears."
Why do women get the special pass on this? They want to be equal, right? Well, girls AND boys both have to go through this.
How about 'Don't judge people by what they wear'? But, seeing as you cannot control the cruelty of others, teach your children that the opinions of others mean nothing.
Female, 50-59, Europe
6549 Posts
Monday, September 09, 2013 6:44:40 AM
Advocacy groups work for marginalised people. When 50% of a population is treated as 2nd class citizens it is fairly safe to say they are marginalised. I am not quite sure at what point you want to say women are/were not ,marginalised. For starters you need to identify the population group - Earth as a whole- the US, the UK, Finland- London. Then at what point you feel equality is reached. Certainly some groups of women are reaching a reasonable state of equality- but NOT all by a bloody long way. So which women don't count? Women in Saudi or Afghan- poor women of colour in the US- do you think we should all ignore them because a few of you over privileged citizens feel that some rich uppity white women do not know their place. Feminism is not an on/off switch- just as all social justice movements it has shades and nuances depending on circumstance.
Male, 40-49, Europe
12206 Posts
Monday, September 09, 2013 1:40:09 AM
Well, that's an even more content-free way of showing that you have no reply because you know I'm right. Well done for finding it!
Female, 18-29, Midwest US
2181 Posts
Monday, September 09, 2013 12:33:21 AM
If you go out in the fora tonight, prepare to be unsurprised. If you go out in the fora tonight, you'd best facepalm your eyes. Because tonight's the night of the troll piiiiic niiiic!
Male, 40-49, Europe
12206 Posts
Sunday, September 08, 2013 8:31:05 PM
Bugger...some edit-repost-delete tidying up has reversed the order of my last two posts. A real editing facility would be nice.
Male, 40-49, Europe
12206 Posts
Sunday, September 08, 2013 8:29:31 PM
Not one woman here has spouted any haterad or anger towards men, men on the other hand spewing venom about feminist. What are you so afraid of?
Are you serious?
You're talking about a semi-organised and very powerful ideology that varies from advocating that male people be excluded from consideration in any positive way in anything to advocating that all male people should be killed and you're asking why many men are angry and/or afraid of it? Really? Isn't the answer obvious?
Random example:
The last time anyone cared enough to look, healthcare expenditure on women in the UK was almost eight times higher than healthcare expenditure on men in the UK. Feminism, of course, still advocates healthcare *for women only* because feminism always advocates everything for women only because that's what feminism is for. How many men have died as a result? Who cares? They're only men.
Male, 40-49, Europe
12206 Posts
Sunday, September 08, 2013 8:28:21 PM
Now here is where feminists ignore almost everything I've written because they know it's right and they can't argue against it, and focus solely on the one reference to the most extreme forms of feminism. That gives them the opportunity to make the false claim that what I've written only applies to extremist feminists and then to make the false claim that extremist feminists have no effect on the world or on feminism and that therefore all criticism of feminism is invalid, QED. Obviously untrue, but somewhat effective at diverting attention from an inconveniently true argument.
There you go, I've saved you some typing.
Male, 40-49, Europe
12206 Posts
Sunday, September 08, 2013 8:14:14 PM
On top of that, of course, is the fact that no group advocacy ideology is ever controlled by its most moderate followers. Power is taken by those who want it most and are willing to do the most to get it. Power is taken by those who put the most time and effort into getting it, who lobby hardest, who make the most attention-grabbing material (how true it is doesn't matter very much), who rouse the most anger and direct it...and that can never be the most moderate.
So feminism at its best is still innately and profoundly sexist and feminism as a movement cannot ever be dominated by its best. It's a foul ideology, run by the grotesquely bigoted and propped up by the gullible who have fallen for their lies (and who are still sexist, just not as much).
Male, 40-49, Europe
12206 Posts
Sunday, September 08, 2013 8:06:49 PM
madduck i support equality,and this was the genuine path of feminism,i agree with that.
But you're both very obviously wrong.
Feminism is a group advocacy ideology. It always has been, always is and always will be, because that's what it is for. That's the entire point of it, that's it's defining feature, that is the only thing common to all strains of feminism.
An ideology that advocates for one sex is not an ideology that advocates for sexual equality. It's inherently in opposition to sexual equality because at best it requires defining people by their sex (you can't advocate for one sex without first dividing humanity by sex) and judging people by sexist stereotyping (at best, you must judge one sex as being unworthy of consideration on a socio-political scale).
Feminism *even in it's mildest forms* is innately sexist and in direct opposition to the very basic concept of sexual equality.
Male, 18-29, Midwest US
361 Posts
Sunday, September 08, 2013 7:08:23 PM
Respect isn't something to be handed out to everyone that demands it, it's to be given to people who deserve it. From the cartoon I've read, I don't see anything there deserving of any kind of respect.
As for the content of this cartoon, how am I supposed to know if anything the speech bubbles are saying isn't true. Maybe, in each of those cases, the speech bubbles were correct.
Male, 50-59, Western US
874 Posts
Sunday, September 08, 2013 5:24:42 PM
Actually every last one of the balloons was being spoken by a feminist to the ladies depicted.
Male, 30-39, Western US
2290 Posts
Sunday, September 08, 2013 2:19:16 PM
It's always ok to demand things. Never mind earning anything.
Male, 40-49, Europe
2613 Posts
Sunday, September 08, 2013 12:48:56 PM
Stop wrting cartoons and get the f*ck back on the kitchen.
Female, 50-59, Europe
6549 Posts
Sunday, September 08, 2013 12:28:25 PM
I agree- people should not call boys out for being feminine.That is also very sexist indeed...
Male, 30-39, Canada
1050 Posts
Sunday, September 08, 2013 12:10:26 PM
the problem with this post is that its not woman specific, this happens also to man so feminism should have nothing to do with that kind of behavior
Female, 30-39, Midwest US
281 Posts
Sunday, September 08, 2013 11:31:42 AM
Patchouli - How about this example. Do these women come across as victims feeling sorry for themselves?
I commend you for teaching your daughter non-gender specific activities. Good for you, seriously. But what if your daughter started to dress more like a tomboy? What if someone walked up to her and said, " You look butch." or put her down for her looks. How would that make you feel? How do you think it would make her feel? And most important of all, what would you teach her to respond and what would you think of the person that said that to her in the first place? That is the point of this comic. Don't judge a woman by what she wears. And women shouldn't listen to people who say these things to them. That's it, plain and simp
Male, 18-29, Eastern US
227 Posts
Sunday, September 08, 2013 11:21:52 AM
The problem with the "feminist movement" is that coverage of it is limited to extremists. The man hating, shaved head, "uterus in lockboxes" movement is so ridiculous and prevalent that the entire movement's cogency is threatened by it.
Top it off by the average woman in pop culture being exactly what the feminist movement doesn't want women to look like.
The feminist movement needs to start looking more at women that are reinforcing the stereotype and the extreme feminists than "men" as their enemy. I realize that the silent majority of the movement probably does this, but it's not what the feminist movement is seen as doing.
Female, 50-59, Europe
6549 Posts
Sunday, September 08, 2013 11:20:58 AM
One thing that often strikes me about many vocal feminists online is that they can often be very young- often of university age. this often means they have a certain 'tone' that age and experience will temper. It pays to remember this when you try to come up with preconceptions about feminists- because they do not necessarily give a good representation of a broader church.
Male, 40-49, Canada
4668 Posts
Sunday, September 08, 2013 10:24:39 AM
What is written in online documents and what is said by people are two different things.
The online documents show the intention but it is often abused and becomes a forum for hating men and perpetuating the victim card in women. We need to drop the "Poor Me" thing and work on building up self esteem. In these feminist forums, woman need to be told they are powerful and independent. Not that they are victims.
I also do recognize the difference between the problems of women here and the problems of women in say, strict Muslim Countries. Fighting for the rights of women who do not have the same rights a women here have, is noble, IMO.
Again though, this has very little to do with the cartoon or the point that most men here are trying to make and that is that men suffer the same type of judging. This isn't a problem that is specific to women but is more a human condition.
Male, 30-39, Midwest US
138 Posts
Sunday, September 08, 2013 9:58:08 AM
(message continued. piece of poo website) ... substantive and original.
Male, 30-39, Midwest US
138 Posts
Sunday, September 08, 2013 9:55:04 AM
Lots of misconceptions about feminism in this thread. It's almost as if you guys are pulling your ideas about it out of your asses rather than doing any research, but that can't be it, right? I'm sure you're all up to speed on intersectionality. I'm sure you've all read the books by Betty Friedan, bell hooks, and Audre Lorde. I'm sure you visit the better feminist websites every day. That must be why your arguments against it are so 5Cats
Male, 50-59, Canada
27727 Posts
Sunday, September 08, 2013 8:29:54 AM
@richanddead: Yeah, my city (Winnipeg) is usually in the "top 5" for car theft every year (per capita, of course) in North America! USA and Canada anyhow.
Youth Gangs are almost immune to "law" in Canada, and they know it.
Immobilizer, club, alarm, it's a standard! They still check regularly to see if it's locked.
@patchouly: Thanks bro! Sounds like you're a good dad! It's not easy, eh? Any idiot can 'make a baby' but raising them properly is another matter entirely.
Male, 50-59, Western US
33912 Posts
Sunday, September 08, 2013 7:45:27 AM
I've said it before {and been called an idiot} and I'll say it again, the Feminist Movement failed. In that the primary goal was to help women achieve a more respected position in society. They're more sexualized than before and the most common ways of referring to women is "Bitches & Ho's". Not the most respectful terms. It's not just men, women also refer to other women this way. They dress more sexually, act more, TWERK!...etc.
No, while men must pay lip service to respecting women in the workplace etc., it's just a cover so they don't get in trouble. The truth is very different.
Male, 40-49, Canada
4668 Posts
Sunday, September 08, 2013 7:36:35 AM
Hope your car is safe, man. I may not like your politics, but I'd certainly hate to see something happen to your car or possessions.
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Animals of Africa: Agama Lizards Brighten Up Tanzania During Mating Season
July 12, 2012
Blog Image
Most of the time agama lizards are pretty inconspicuous creatures that are brown or gray in color. However, when mating season rolls around, the males turn brilliant shades of red and blue to catch the attention of their female counterparts. This unique quality has earned them many nicknames from “Rainbow Lizards” to “Spiderman Lizards.”
Agama lizards are extremely common in sub-Saharan Africa and can also be spotted across India and parts of Southern Europe. They prefer to make their home in dry, rocky regions, and your naturalist guide is sure to keep a diligent watch for this tiny lizard during your Kenya & Tanzania safari takes you through this environment. Mating season for the agama lizards typically falls between March and May. In addition to changing their appearance, males will also bob their heads when courting females. It is not terribly common, but females have been observed pursuing males by displaying their reproductive parts and then running, taunting the males to catch them. This may be because the animals are polygamous and one male often has a harem of six or more females.
If you get the chance to see an agama up close, you may notice it has scars or a broken tail — males are very aggressive and often get into fights. Their tails are their primary weapons. But they also use scare tactics such as the bob-and-weave movements you might see in a boxing match and opening their jaws wide to frighten their opponents. They are relatively small, averaging about 12 to 18 inches in length.
These reptiles, active during the day, can withstand the high temperatures found under the African sun, but they prefer to find shade or other shelter when the thermostat approaches 100 degrees Fahrenheit. In fact, they typically only emerge from their hiding places to scavenge for food. Insects are the food of choice for the agamas, but you might catch them munching on fruit, grass, seeds and the eggs of other small reptiles.
These animals occur naturally in Africa and other neighboring areas. Because of their distinct coloration, they are also sought after and kept as pets around the globe.
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Download Model question papers & previous years question papers
Posted Date: 05 Jul 2008 Posted By:: jothi vignesh Member Level: Gold Points: 5 (Rs. 1)
2005 Anna University Chennai B.E Electrical and Electronics Engineering ELECTROMAGNETIC THEORY for Electrical and Electronics Engineering Question paper
Course: B.E Electrical and Electronics Engineering University/board: Anna University Chennai
Third Semester
Electrical and Electronics Engineering
Time : Three hours Maximum : 100 marks
Answer ALL questions.
PART A — (10 ? 2 = 20 marks)
1. Under what conditions will the field intensity be solenoidal and irrotational?
2. State Gauss's law. Under what condition is Gauss's law especially useful in
determining the E–field intensity of a charge distribution?
3. A fixed voltage is applied across a parallel plate capacitor. Does electric flux
density depend on the ? of the medium? Explain.
4. Can a static magnetic field exist in a good conductor? Explain.
5. Compare the usefulness of Ampere's circuital law and Biot–Savart law in
determining B
of a current carrying circuit.
6. Explain the significance of displacement current and eddy current.
7. Why is the H–field immediately outside of a perfect conductor tangential to the
conductor surface?
8. Define Poynting vector. What is the SI unit for this vector?
9. What are the boundary conditions of electro magnetic wave at the interface
between two loss less dielectric media?
D 034
2 D 034
10. Explain the method of images to find field at a point due to a point charge.
PART B — (5 ? 16 = 80 marks)
11. (i) Define Lenz's law with mathematical expression. (4)
(ii) Find the magnetic field intensity at a distance x above an infinite
straight wire carrying a steady current I. (12)
12. (a) Find the potential of a uniformly charged spherical shell of radius R at
points inside and outside. (16)
(b) (i) Given the potential 2
10 sin cos
? ?
? find the electric flux density
D at , 0)
. (10)
(ii) Calculate the work done in moving a 10 ? C charge from point
A (1, 30?, 120?) to B (4, 90?, 60?). Use spherical (r, ? , ? ) co–ordinate
system. (6)
13. (a) Two electrodes at potentials 0 V ? V and V ? 0 volt are separated by a
distance d along z–axis. The region between the electrodes contains a
uniform charge density 0 ? , which is generated by electrode at 0 V and
collected at electrode at 0 V. Calculate the electric field at any point Z.
What is the direction of the field? (16)
(b) Derive Maxwell's curl equations from Ampere's law and Faraday's law.
Express the equations in phasor form for time harmonic fields. (16)
14. (a) Explain the Finite Difference Method to find potential at a point in a
charge free medium. (16)
(b) Two infinite parallel plates separated by a distance d are perpendicular
to x–axis. The plate at x ? 0 is at potential 0 V and that at x ? d is at
potential 0 V ? V . Find the E–field and potential variation between the
3 D 034
plates by separation of variable method. Plot these parameters versus x.
15. (a) Give a mathematical representation of plane waves propagating in +Z
direction in an infinite loss less dielectric medium. Explain how this
medium is characterised by propagation constant and wave impedance.
(b) A linearly polarised plane wave E ? 10 e? j k, r ?mV m? propagates through
free space at an angle ? with respect to Z–axis. Calculate the average
power flow through 1 m2 surface of circular shape lying on
xy plane with center at the origin. Under what condition power flow will
be maximum? (16)
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Hindu philosophy
Schools of Hindu Philosophy
Nyaya, traditionally founded by Akshapada Gautama (6th cent. B.C.), is a school of logic and epistemology that defined the rules of debate and canons of proof. Its views were accepted with modification by most of the other schools. The atomist school, Vaisheshika, founded by Kanada (3d cent. B.C.), analyzed reality into six categories: substance, quality, activity, generality, particularity, and inherence. The universe is made up of nine kinds of substance: earth, water, light, air, ether, time, space, soul (or self), and mind.
The Samkhya school, founded by Kapila (6th cent. B.C.), admits two basic metaphysical principles, purusha (soul) and prakriti (materiality). Prakriti consists of three gunas or qualities: sattva (light or goodness), rajas (activity or passion), and tamas (darkness or inertia). When these constituents are in equilibrium, prakriti is static. However, disturbance of the equilibrium initiates a process of evolution that ultimately produces both the material world and individual faculties of action, thought, and sense. The purusha appears to be bound to prakriti and its modifications and may become free only through the realization that it is distinct from prakriti. Early versions of Samkhya, now lost, may have been theistic, but the classical system does not include God. The yoga school expounded by Patanjali (2d cent. B.C.) accepts Samkhya metaphysics to explain the validity of yogic processes described in the Yoga Sutras and also accepts the concept of an Ishvara, God or supreme soul. Yoga is defined as "cessation of the modifications of consciousness" and is achieved by an eight-stage discipline of self-control and meditation.
The Purva Mimamsa school, founded by Jaimini (2d cent. B.C.), set forth sophisticated principles for interpreting the Veda, which was regarded as entirely composed of injunctions to ritual action. Its epistemology and theory of meaning were constructed to show that the words of the Veda had eternal and intrinsic validity. The different schools of Uttara Mimamsa or Vedanta are all based on the Upanishads and the Brahma-Sutras of Badarayana (c.200 B.C.–A.D. 200), but differ in their concepts of God, world, soul, and the relation between them.
Sections in this article:
More on Hindu philosophy Schools of Hindu Philosophy from Infoplease:
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Hinduism
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Featuring Guidelines
Updated December 2014
Having your Instructable "featured" means you are an excellent author, and you're providing some of the best content on the site. We want everyone to see what you've made!
When we feature your Instructable, it's our way of saying "You are awesome, and we love you!"
So what does it take to get your Instructable featured? Read on, my friend, you have come to the right place!
There are currently two tiers of featuring we use to promote great content and reward our awesome authors:
• Feature: Your Instructable will appear in the Featured Feed, and you'll receive a free pro membership which can be applied to your own account or given as a gift to another member!
• Homepage Feature: Your Instructable will appear in the Featured Feed, as well as on the homepage, and you'll receive a free pro membership which can be applied to your own account or given as a gift to another member.
For an Instructable to be featured, the main criteria we look for are excellent documentation and reproducibility. These break down into the following points:
• The title fits and explains the project.
• The introduction should state what the project is, and the reason or motivation behind it.
• All photos should be original, bright, clear, and in-focus.
• Projects should be broken into enough steps to be easy to follow, with sufficient photos and explanatory text to allow the reader to understand the process.
• Grammar and spelling should be good enough so as to not be distracting.
• Projects should be complete and contain all the information needed so others could reasonably duplicate the project (if the reader were to have the necessary skills and access to similar tools and materials.)
• Lists should be included of parts/materials/ingredients/tools used, with links to sources as needed, as well as links to references.
• Whenever possible, the inclusion of downloadable files, PDF patterns, and so forth is desirable.
• Video content (youtube videos, etc.) may be featured as well. Videos should have great production quality, clear instructions, and reproducible outcomes, and, ideally, be accompanied by photos and written step-by-step instructions.
For a Homepage Feature, here are some additional things we look for:
• Overall stellar documentation and beautiful cover images. The content is highly reproducible and has that “wow, awesome!” factor.
• Video content needs to be accompanied by photos and written step-by-step instructions that meet the criteria as noted above. Aside from increasing the likelihood of getting a homepage feature, this format will also significantly increase video content's chances at placing well in contests! ;)
Please note that high levels of ingenuity, creativity, innovation, and/or utility in a project will often compensate for weaknesses in documentation, so these criteria should be viewed as guidelines and not necessarily hard fast rules!
What about business-related content from bloggers, etsy-ers, youtubers, kickstarters, and so forth?
Can that type of content be featured? Absolutely! Any Instructable that meets the criteria as outlined above and contains real how-to instructional content can be featured. If you are in this camp, it's an excellent practice to keep your ulterior motives relatively subtle. For example, some of our best authors are also bloggers and etsy-ers, and many of these authors simply include a single link to their site or store in the last step of their Instructables. This is a perfect approach that allows their projects to get as much attention as possible on the site, but also plug their commercial interests in a way that is not overbearing or spammy. Being overbearing or spammy is the quickest way to NOT being featured!
Want your project featured?
Sometimes it's hard to see where your project could use some enhancements! Luckily, we have some great authors that will review your project and give you feedback at the volunteer-run Clinic
Do you get featured a lot? Why not spend a little time in the Clinic and help others get to your level! :)
Picture of Featuring Guidelines
Kiteman2 years ago
Do you want your instructable to be featured? Then please read this:
It is very rare for a feature-worthy project to be missed, so it is not usually worth simply requesting that your project be featured.
Instead, if you want to know how to change a specific write-up so that it becomes worthy of a feature, please use The Clinic.
That is where knowledgeable and helpful people hang out, specifically to help authors improve and polish their work.
jackwp1 year ago
If you want suggestions, you should correct your sentence "Authors who have their projects featured on the homepage get a free 3-month pro membership coupon that they can apply towards their account or gift to to other members".
Kiteman jackwp1 year ago
What's wrong with it?
jackwp Kiteman1 year ago
to to
Kiteman jackwp1 year ago
Oh, yes!
darman12 Kiteman1 year ago
Haha, it still hasn't been changed :P
Kiteman darman121 year ago
I'm not sure the author has time to these comments so often.
darman12 Kiteman1 year ago
Ah... when I saw you respond to jackwp, I assumed you were the author. I didn't look to see who it was *facepalm* I was wondering "If he just responded to him, why didn't he just change it??" Haha.
Kiteman darman121 year ago
Was it Ha or Haha?
iloveandroid1 year ago
please suggest some improvements -
knex dude 20001 year ago
check my knex lancia delta instructions please.
annahowardshaw2 years ago
Also, it seems to be up to different people at the time things are published, so it is still very subjective. I have one unfeatured project that won a contest, another that was selected for one of the Instructables books and one that is at 11,000 views without having the 'featured' banner. It's definitely great to ask for feedback, and generally featured projects are going to get more views, but don't assume that not being featured means something is wrong with your work!
Thanks a lot this was really helpful!
username2523 years ago
I think I got most of them.
Can anyone check my instructable if it fits the criteria? Personally, I think it's from the uninterested of the item or the it's a Photo instructable. I would want to make a step-by-step one but I don't want to stay on the computer from being busy.
Is anyone willing to give me some advice?
It's I think just too much information for a photo instructable.
Step by step, this would be an awesome project.
KRA5H2 years ago
How do I change:
so that it becomes worthy of a feature?
pranjal122 years ago
Please, Please tell me how to improve my instructable.
KRA5H2 years ago
Please review:
Let me know what I need to do to improve it to become a featured instructable.
BLUEBLOBS22 years ago
This really helped me. What about guides? Could you add a criteria for guides? If not, it's okay.
dimtick2 years ago
One thing that I would add is that timing is also a factor. As a general rule don't publish before a major holiday if your project is not related to that holiday. Its very easy for a project to get buried and overlooked in all the holiday traffic. Best to wait until after when things slow down. I made the mistake of publishing my last instructable right before Easter. After a week it's only had 44 views and probably half of those are me. I'm kicking myself for not waiting.
This also holds true for when there's a major contest deadline approaching. Contests will naturally get more attention so it may be worth waiting until after the deadline.
Bot13983 years ago
(removed by author or community request)
Kiteman Bot13983 years ago
See my PM.
themadjeweler3 years ago
anyone think my instructable is any good?
susanrm3 years ago
Thanks for this cool set of guidelines. It does help me understand the criteria, and I am grateful to have had my -ibles featured so often. That being said, I'm confused about why one of my favorite, most awesome projects wasn't featured. It isn't easy to craft felted creatures with fun personalities, and I thought the wider community would like to be aware of it. But it has received little notice, whereas those who have seen it in person, or have seen the -ible because I pointed them to it, have been very impressed. (And poor Myron's feelings are hurt... especially after he got beat out by felted soap on the homepage today!)
This is the instructable. Feedback would be helpful, thanks!
jen7714 susanrm3 years ago
Maybe you should post your question here. This checklist is a guideline so unfortunately not all the ibles that meet the criteria are going to be featured.
susanrm jen77143 years ago
Thank you. I was unaware of that clinic up to now. :-)
farzadbayan3 years ago
I want to know which one of the Step by Step rules, isn't in my new Instructable?
kelseymh farzadbayan3 years ago
This one:
Keep in mind that there's an element of "wow, awesome" that is nearly impossible to define, but is clearly visible when you see it. Such ingenuity, creativity, originality, and utility may compensate for slight weaknesses in presentation. The goal of the featuring process is ultimately to identify excellent projects, and help them find an enthusiastic audience on Instructables and beyond.
'Nuff said.
farzadbayan kelseymh3 years ago
Please explain the rules to become feature about this one.
I think it have "wow, awesome" element.
farzadbayan kelseymh3 years ago
Thanks, but I couldn't understand your purpose enough. For example I made this video for that Instructable. As you know that's a few hard and take many hours to make. I made that, because I think that can explain my Instructable more, save time and will help people that they don't want to follow steps.
Also I could publish that in a Video Instructable, but I didn't do that, to make my Step by Step more complete.
Sorry, but I can't understand your purpose yet and I think is not a good place to publish projects about Scripting, Computer, and CG. (also that made all of my pictures "low quality", how you want me to send high quality pictures?)
Please explain your comment for me a few more (with fluent grammar, because I can't understand hard grammar sentences.)
A reminder to take a break is nice, but the whole "sitting is bad for you" debacle was *painfully* dumb. I was embarrassed for whoever wrote that, and sad that they had never gotten the opportunity to be exposed to logic, science, or critical thinking. Sadly, not everyone is fortunate enough to get an education in reasoning, analytical skills, or research.
LR, do you mean places like this, are wrong?
Finding articles on the bad effects of sitting aren't hard, finding ones that claim otherwise is more difficult.
Some are less "specific" then others. There are studies being taken on, on the side effects of extended sitting, and how it effects the organs stress wise......
I mean that correlation does not imply causation.
(Also - the first link does not provide any citations from peer-reviewed scientific journals, associated content is not precisely an authority on...anything, and your last link doesn't have anything to do with the fatal effects of sitting.)
I've no doubt that never going outside and sitting for every hour you're not asleep is detrimental to your health, but that story was beyond hyperbolic and alarmist ("Sitting is killing you"? "It's clear that sitting is killing us"? Give me a break). From the context in the Mashable story from which ed got this silly infographic, its main purpose seemed to be to sell stand-up desks using pseudo-science. It citied media reports that sitting can cause back pain and is associated with such maladies as obesity and diabetes in a sad attempt to prove its relentless refrain "sitting is killing you."
It twisted the evidence into pretzals, citing studies showing that excessive amounts of sitting can be predictive of health problems to literally claim that sitting will - and *does* - kill you. Not the physical inactivity, or the diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, or other health problems of which sedentary lifestyles may be either predictive or contributory, but the simple act of sitting in a chair. This is a patently ridiculous claim. It is like saying that being Russian killed those who died as a result of radiation exposure after Chernobyl. Being Russian (or, if you like, a citizen of Pripyat) was certainly more predictive of dying of radiation-related health consequences than many/most other factors, and could in a sense be said to contribute to their deaths, but only a fool would say that it was being Russian that killed them. More accurately, they died because they were where they were - *because they were not elsewhere.* Almost tautologically, a sedentary lifestyle is harmful because you're not getting exercise (or getting less exercise because being sedentary takes away from time you would otherwise be active) - not because you're sitting. The issue is ratio of exercise to sedentary activity, not that you sit at your job, period.
A facebook comment on the story put it best:
"Breathing has been shown to increase risk of death as well.. People who breathe regularly are 100% more likely to experience death than those who aren't breathing...."
Correlation, people. It doesn't imply causation.
Well, I was unable to "access" the peer reviews on the subject that I had read "about" and heard doctors speak of.
However, understandably if the thread you are talking about was alarmist I understand what you mean. It was just that reading "just your comment" helped me misunderstand then. Because a number of recent studies link organ stress on prolonged sitting. Just as inactivity is not JUST correlated with, but is the cause of much of the muscle atrophy found in many persons, so it has been determined that prolonged sitting can cause unhealthy side effects.
Other things to worry about are DVT or Deep Vein Thrombosis, and three common areas that are affected by a desk job are the hips, shoulders and head/neck. In a seated position, the front of our hips are in hip flexion. The hip flexor muscles are shortened and tight in this position and will tend to stay short even when we are up walking around....etc. Actually, any form of stagnation can result in problems, even sleep, if done in a problematic way.
Sure. What I'm saying is that it is entirely inaccurate to say that *sitting* is bad for you - it is an incorrect ratio of activity to inactivity that is associated with all of those things. (Not to mention that so many health problems are largely hereditary, and diet and lifestyle actually factor into them very little...but that's a bit of a tangent...)
But that doesn't make for a nice attention grabbing headline... :)
Of course, sitting is not bad, any more then standing is or eating, but anything can be done in excess. Sorry for my misunderstanding you.
BeFit3 years ago
I made this instructable "The ULTIMATE Guide to Loose Weight & Build Muscle":, let me know what you think and your suggestions on how to make it even better!
PS: somebody asked me if all the photos in the instructable are really mine, the answer is yes, every single photo.
I'm waiting for your kind feedbacks :)
annahowardshaw3 years ago
I knew I had one photo Instructable featured with fewer than 5 pics so I looked at the current features. On one page of recent photo features, 7 out of the 20 contain fewer than 5 pictures.
No issue with featuring projects that only have one or 2 images, but the guidelines should reflect that so that people do not feel the need to add superfluous pictures.
Sorry for spelling out 'one' and then following that with a numeric. Should have proofed better before posting!
A vanishingly-tiny goof.
Goodhart Kiteman3 years ago
Indeed, very few left anymore that would have noticed :-)
annahowardshaw3 years ago
Quick grammar comment...
Under the photo section it reads:
"At least 1 images that show final project"
The Ideanator3 years ago
Yay! finally a set of guidelines to write our ibles by to get them featured! HQ published these quality standards in the nick of time, the quality of newer ibles has been declining.
*checks date*
This is from 2010.
*compares to new stuff in the archives*
I'm confused.
canida (author) The Ideanator3 years ago
Check the "updated" date at the top. ;)
The Ideanator canida3 years ago
Its about time this got stickied in plain sight for everyone to see instead of being swept under the rug, so to speak.
Please tell me you stickied this...
canida (author) The Ideanator3 years ago
kelseymh canida3 years ago
Idea would like this forum topic itself to be easily visible to all users, rather than have it disappear down the "old topics" hole once we stop commenting.
In particular, as he and others have suggested, putting a link to this topic right on the Submit page (for example, in the sidebar where the three types of I'bles are defined), could be really helpful to users.
Exactly my meaning kelsey.
Yes canida, I would really like to see this forum post or something similar but formatted a bit neater and still contain all the same information visible to all users by way of the submit page. perhaps it could be combined with the authoring tips page and be set as a banner there, somewhere on the homepage, and scattered randomly around the website.
Kiteman canida3 years ago
I think he means there should be a permanently-visible link to this list somewhere.
Maybe in the grey bar at the top of the page, under the search box, or somewhere in the submission process?
Chuckle....yeah, I didn't check either, but just added to the newly started "conversation" .... :-)
Kiteman3 years ago
There is also that indefinable element of awesomenossitiness (hard to spell or say, let alone define!).
IMO, awesome levels of incredible ingenuity, cleverness, usefulness or originality can compensate for a lack in other areas.
canida (author) Kiteman3 years ago
Noted and added.
Kiteman canida3 years ago
Awe, you didn't use my spelling...
caitlinsdad Kiteman3 years ago
I think that is tied in to your levels of midi-chlorians or mitochondria or something.
Ninzerbean3 years ago
Requiring a paragraph of text with each step can make an 'ible unnecessarily wordy, sometimes a picture of stuff being mixed in a bowl or something put together sort of says it all. There is only so much you can write sometimes.... lots of times I imagine only a sentence will suffice, are you sure about this requirement?
jeff-o Ninzerbean3 years ago
A paragraph doesn't necessarily mean half a dozen sentences. I think two sentences would be enough to constitute a "paragraph."
Goodhart jeff-o3 years ago
I was thinking the same thing.
One need not "be overly wordy" but still it is good to be clear (and concise) :-)
canida (author) Goodhart3 years ago
Good points, all; updated to include that nuance.
Goodhart canida3 years ago
Thank you, tis much appreciated !
kelseymh Ninzerbean3 years ago
Some descriptive text is necessary, since not everyone can see pictures, and screen readers are not yet able to provide auido description of photographs.
MichelMoermans4 years ago
I think this one should rotate on the homepage continuelly or be on a special list that anyone quickly can find it :D It's really good, I agree with everything :)
Maybe "pegged" to be visible easily?
I think it should be stickied to the homepage and on the ible creation page for easy refrence, speaking of which, what happened to the thing that popped up detailing the recommended bits to do and put into an ible before you started it?
Yeah, something like that :-) Oh, I don't know, I thought it came up when you "start" a new ible. Doesn't it anymore?
playfulplans4 years ago
Wow, excellent summary.
My first Instructible was featured on the front page yesterday, and I just found this post. I'm no expert here.
Which goes to show it's pretty much an intuitive process if you have something genuine to offer and can muster the photos, a vid or two and explain the process clearly. Step-by-step is the only way I can imagine ever doing it...
My first instructable was featured too. XD
depotdevoid4 years ago
Ah, just found this again, it had sunk pretty far into the blog. Lots of good info here, thanks!
jwystup4 years ago
Hey I just saw this and I was wondering: are there any specific criteria for getting featured in the email newsletter? I've had a couple of 'ibles featured on the homepage (yay!) but what would it take for those to get in the newsletter? Do they just have to be more awesome?
kelseymh jwystup4 years ago
I suspect that's right. Consider how many front-page features there are in a given month. They all (by assumption) meet all the featuring criteria. At that point, how do you choose the "best of the best"? The newsletter editor is probably the arbiter of those decisions.
As with the advice for getting featured in the first place, if you are really interested in getting into the newsletter, your best bet is to probably look (critically) at a bunch of the Instructables that have been there, and try to integrate what sorts of things they might have in common, especially in terms of how they're presented, not the specific project.
Good luck!
canida (author) kelseymh4 years ago
The newsletter usually includes high quality (featured) Instructables that also have clear evidence of reader interest (popular). There's editorial discretion there too, of course, but a well-titled project with an awesome picture that's irresistably clickable is likely to earn you the attention necessary to level up to the newsletter.
DJ Radio4 years ago
If you don't have an image for a step, but you have a video to take the image's place, would that be acceptable?
canida (author) DJ Radio4 years ago
So long as it's not the intro step, sure. But it's also pretty easy to grab a snazzy still from the video, which will make people more likely to click onto that step.
miiwii3 DJ Radio4 years ago
couldn't you do both..?
sunshiine4 years ago
Thank you for posting this! Important information that should benefit someone, especially the newbies.
Gorfram4 years ago
Okay, maybe I'm quibbling, maybe I'm curious. I do promise that this is not a "You shoulda featured my 'Ible!" whine: I can think of several good reasons that it might not have been Featured.
It's just that this Instructable ( seems to meet 13.5 of the 14 items on the "General" checklist (the Intro photo is a little fuzzy due to a severe crop); and, as nearly as I can tell through my own subjectivity, 2 of the 3 "Bonus" checklist items (that Intro photo really should be better than it is).
Good reasons for it not to have been Featured:
1) It may be of limited interest.
2) It really could be dangerous, if the safety precautions on the Intro page and in Step 3 were not followed.
3) It was a contest entry (does that make a difference?).
4) It pre-dates the "Channel" structure on this site; and, while it rates well for a "Channel Feature," it falls somewhat short of a "Category Feature."
It's a perfectly good 'Ible, but it's not going to rock anyone's world (well, not unless they ignore the above-mentioned safety precautions :). Could you perhaps expand your checklist to better reflect the reasons that it might not have been featured?
canida (author) Gorfram4 years ago
I probably should state above: since this is all done by humans (who, unlike Robot, occasionally sleep!) we sometimes miss good projects. For this specific project, I've just featured it in the Photography channel - so yes, #4 is correct. #3 is irrelevant, #2 doesn't apply because you've clearly defined how to do this safely, and #1 is true - this is of interest to photography buffs. The single most important item for a category or homepage feature is the picture, though. A killer picture can bump an otherwise niche project up to a more general interest level. As you mention, the photo is a bit blurry. It's also not 100% clear what's going on (composition) and could be lightened (photo editing software). So, while not right for the homepage or category, it's an extremely solid Channel feature project. I hope that helps!
DJ Radio canida4 years ago
I think interest in the subject that an instructable demonstrates shouldn't really count for or against featuring. That's like saying a video clip is bad because not a lot of people watch it, even though the video has mostly positive feedback from people who do watch it.
canida (author) DJ Radio4 years ago
That's why it's part of the bonus checklist: homepage or category features should be of interest to people besides those who already know and like the subject. As I said above:
This personal storytelling aspect also increases the chance an Instructable will be interesting to someone not already familiar with the subject. While some topics are more generally interesting by their nature, a high-quality, detailed, awesome project will grab almost anyone's attention.
This means that, for example, a crochet or K'Nex project isn't likely to appear on the homepage unless it's a subject or story that's likely to appeal to a broader audience. Make sense?
DJ Radio canida4 years ago
Yeah I guess so, but I still find it kind of unfair that topics with broader audiences get better chances of being featured, even with the storytelling at all.
Gorfram canida4 years ago
Thanks, Canida, for your detailed response; and for Channel-Featuring this Instructable. (FWIW, I've changed the Intro photo to one that is definitely less fuzzy and hopefully more explanatory.)
(Yippeee... my first "Featured"!!!! :) :) :)
(And that means I'm eligible for the Gift Exchange now! :)
Of course all the (non-robotic) Instructables staffers should sleep, and eat, and do their laundry, and every so often go out to play in the sun. I hope my earlier post didn't sound like I was taking you to task at all - I figure that your job must sometimes seem like herding Schrodinger's cats, and I'm very glad that you and the other staffers work so hard at doing it.
Gorfram Gorfram4 years ago
PS to add: Thanks for the checklist - it's great as it is, and very helpful. :)
DJ Radio4 years ago
What does it mean if a requirement "Doesn't apply"?
zascecs DJ Radio4 years ago
Probably if you didn't meet one of the requirements.
DJ Radio zascecs4 years ago
No, I think that just means the requirement isn't met. It would still apply but you just haven't met it.
zascecs DJ Radio4 years ago
...isn't that just what I said...?
canida (author) zascecs4 years ago
What other folks in this thread said - "doesn't apply" means that, for this project, the criterion is irrelevant. For example, if you're doing something that's really dead-simple, you may not need multiple pictures on each step, or even very many steps. Here's a good example of an excellent but super-short Instructable: How to Remove a Tick
Saturn V DJ Radio4 years ago
It means it's not relevent. If you have a step that has no possible relevent pictures, then that wouldn't apply to that step.
Gorfram DJ Radio4 years ago
I expect it means that that particular requirement isn't relevant to that particular project. For instance, if no tools are needed to do the project, the "tools list" requirement wouldn't apply.
Skyfinity4 years ago
Very nice. This is a good list.
Kryptonite4 years ago
killerjackalope4 years ago
Did the list you to just have being awesome on it? | <urn:uuid:c5a522a1-1810-40c2-9ef9-1c4b87c73165> | 2 | 1.578125 | 0.049661 | en | 0.953198 | http://www.instructables.com/community/Featuring-Checklist/ |
Picture of How to tie a bowline knot
These step by step pictures will show you how to tie a bowline. The bowline is also called the rescue knot because it never slips and is good for rescue-related purposes like pulling someone out of water. It is also called the king of knots because it can be used in so many different situations.
J-Five2 years ago
Back when I was in Scouts I was taught
"The rabbit goes around the tree and then sees a hunter and then goes back in the hole.â
ethanb34 (author) J-Five2 years ago
I was taught that way too but it was confusing for me because I didnt know which hole
J-Five ethanb342 years ago
On how to tie the square knot
i wrote it's KNOT hard right over left then left over right
i know right!
Andsetinn2 years ago
Nice, clear pictures and easy to understand. (I was taught up (through the hole) under (the line) and down (through the hole))
a rigger2 years ago
NIce work. Left handed?
ethanb34 (author) a rigger2 years ago
I'm right handed I just was holding the camera with my right hand so I had to use my left hand | <urn:uuid:905d0daa-dcbe-4079-83b8-09ddae85db94> | 2 | 1.890625 | 0.04118 | en | 0.930398 | http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-tie-a-bowline-knot-1/meta-info |
Native American studies as a discipline developed in the 1960s as a way to bring Native experiences and perspectives into the college classroom to better understand the history, achievements, and struggles of Native people and to counteract neocolonialist and stereotypical views of Native peoples.
NAMS at Ithaca College is an interdisciplinary minor organized around various themes related to the present and past of indigenous peoples in North America and Hawaii. The NAMS initiative includes a 21-credit minor, speakers and cultural events, intercollegiate activities, diversity recruitment, and community outreach. Seven academic departments -- anthropology; cinema, photography, and media arts; philosophy and religion; history; politics; sociology; and sport management and media -- are participating in NAMS, making it a highly interdisciplinary area of study.
Native Americans are a prominent social and cultural presence in our region. Ithaca is located within the homeland of the Cayuga Nation, one of Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy. The Onondaga and Seneca Nations are near Ithaca as well.
Contemporary Native American issues such as cultural revitalization, land claims, health care, repatriation of human remains, and casinos appear regularly in the local news. Understanding these issues in terms of their history, cultural contexts, and economic impact is important for students in many fields of study. The NAMS minor may be particularly valuable to students pursuing careers in communications, education, multicultural outreach, human services, medicine, and the social sciences.
Photo Credit: Michelle Boulé, The Ithacan. Kalen Marvin, right, from the Mohawk Nation, plays a turtle shell rattle during a dance by the Young Spirit Dancers at the First Peoples' Festival, an annual event co-sponsored by Ithaca College and the NAMS Program
| <urn:uuid:a0dc3c2b-424c-4d5a-aa0c-ce310edc9f09> | 2 | 2.5 | 0.02799 | en | 0.916789 | http://www.ithaca.edu/hs/minors/native_american/ |
House of Commons 'cordoned off after fire'
Parts of the Houses of Parliament are closed off due to fumes from a small fire in a room at the House of Commons end of the building early this morning.
Sources have told the Press Association that there was no significant damage but areas were being cordoned off, including the Commons, because of the potential danger from toxic substances such as asbestos. | <urn:uuid:61f8d482-08d5-4010-bb6d-1f457ca314d9> | 2 | 1.5625 | 0.159191 | en | 0.974814 | http://www.itv.com/news/update/2012-08-31/house-of-commons-cordoned-off-after-fire/ |
Located in the USA and wanting to play online poker with an offshore site? Some players use VPNs (Virtual Private Network Servers) to disguise their IPs and access poker sites. If you decide to use a VPN, do so with caution: most poker sites are checking network details prior to accepting new player signups.
Virtual Private Networks, most commonly used with OpenVPN software, are one way poker players can disguise their United States location and continue to play poker online. A good VPN also allows players to bank using offshore e-wallets or credit cards. Unfortunately, many poker sites have been cracking down on VPN usage to avoid prosecution from USA law enforcement and/or fraudulent players trying to appear anonymous.
How does a VPN work?
VPNs are essentially relaying your internet activity through a server in some other country. Suppose you’re located in New York City. If you try to access Yahoo! from your computer, the request goes directly into the DNS infrastructure of the internet providing you with a direct connection to Yahoo. Yahoo also knows that you’re located in New York City based on your IP. That’s why you might see advertisements for local services opposed to taxis, restaurants, or hotels in California.
When you send your request through a VPN, the VPN essentially becomes your IP and location. So, the New Yorker using a United Kingdom VPN to access Yahoo! would first connect to the UK, then browse the internet as normal. When you land on Yahoo’s homepage, they see you as a visitor from the UK, NOT New York City where you REALLY are.
Learn more about how VPNs work here.
Why do people use VPNs? Are they doing something illegal?
Not necessarily. VPNs might allow someone located in a country that heavily censors the internet, ie. China, to browse sites they wouldn’t normally be able to visit. Someone with a Shanghai IP would have limited access to some USA media. If that person connects to USA media through a VPN located in the United States, they can use the web like any normal American.
People also use VPNs for privacy reasons. The need for “Privacy” doesn’t always mean someone is up to no good. Instead, these people want to use the web anonymously. Employing a VPN adds a layer of protection against prying eyes. If a webmaster wants to know who’s accessing his/her website, they’ll look at IP addresses of users first. Someone without a VPN will be traced directly to their physical location, or internet service provider who can identify them. Turning on a VPN means the sleuthing webmaster would trace a visitor back to a server first. Then, he/she would have to have some authority to question the VPN server owners about who uses their service. Most people operating VPNs will not turnover records and account information unless an egregious offense is occurring, or they are otherwise compelled by a court order to do so.
Of course, if your favorite poker site welcomes everyone EXCEPT USA players, an Ireland VPN moves your IP location overseas, even if you’re in downtown Detroit. Then, you only have to fund your account to enjoy online poker action just like you did before Black Friday.
What are some VPNs that welcome poker players?
Caution: This list came from a casual internet search. You’ll need to evaluate each service on your own to see if it CURRENTLY accepts poker players, the cost, and quality of service. You should also consult a knowledgeable attorney before opening an online poker account using a VPN. You might be subject to prosecution, foreign or domestic.
If you’re tech savvy, you can always setup your own VPN, which is probably the safest in terms of privacy concerns. You can tweak your server’s setup to use a different port (the usual is 1194), connection method, and encryption protocol. Ask any friend who’s in IT and they can help you out. VPS (Virtual Private Servers) are available around the world for affordable prices, and you can have a VPN up in a couple hours of configuration.
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The unedited full-text of the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia
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TOWER (Hebr. ):
A building of strength or magnificence (Isa. ii. 15; Cant. iv. 4, vii. 4), and, with a more limited connotation, a watch-tower in a garden or vineyard or in a fortification. It was customary to erect watch-towers in the vineyards for the guards (Isa. v. 2), and such round and tapering structures may still be seen in the vineyards of Judea. Similar towers were built for the protection of the flocks by the shepherd, in the enclosures in which the animals were placed for the night (comp. the term "tower of the flock," Gen. xxxv. 21; Micah iv. 8), and it is expressly stated that Uzziah built such structures in the desert for his enormous herds (II Chron. xxvi. 10). Around these towers dwellings for shepherds and peasants doubtless developed gradually, thus often forming the nuclei of permanent settlements.
Towers for defense were erected chiefly on the walls of fortified cities, the walls themselves being strengthened by bastions (Neh. iii. 1), and the angles and gates being likewise protected by strong towers (II Kings ix. 17). Thus the walls of the city of Jerusalem were abundantly provided with towers in antiquity, and the ancient tower of Phasael (the so-called "tower of David") in the modern citadel is an excellent specimen of this mode of defense, its substructure being of massive rubblework, and the ancient portion of the tower erected upon it being built of immense square stones (for illustration see Jew. Encyc. vii. 142). The citadel forming the center of a fortified city was also termed "migdol" (Judges viii. 9, ix. 46). It was usually erected at the highest point of the city, and formed the last place of refuge in case the town was besieged and its walls stormed (Judges ix. 46).
E. G. H. I. Be.
Images of pages | <urn:uuid:873f09a7-8ad0-4685-8f41-2661e4758485> | 3 | 3.15625 | 0.04213 | en | 0.945378 | http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14466-tower |
Jewish Journal
April 11, 2002
Birth of a Jewish Nation
Why 54 years ago, one state thrived while the other crumbled.
I have been asked by the Hillel Foundation at Dartmouth College to meet with them on the occasion of Israel's 54th birthday. There aren't too many of us still around who were there at its birth, and they would like to hear, from the perspective of a participant, what made it possible for the Jewish state to survive while the Palestinian state, also created by the United Nations, crashed in flames.
I'll save you a trip to Hanover, N.H.
In 1948, we fought a war of survival for which we had been well-prepared. The Jewish state lived because its people had, over the decades, formed an army, created a democratic form of national government, established a viable economic base, set up a system of social services, built a modern educational structure including universities and evolved a western legal framework, so that when the moment arrived on May 15, 1948, all of these necessary institutions were in place.
The Palestinian Arab state died as it was being born. Its political organizations and its society were tribal and village-centered. Its leaders never thought in terms of a national movement. Its economy was largely agrarian and its people too often illiterate and technologically unskilled. In war, it relied on neighboring Arab states to protect it, and their interests were not necessarily those of the Palestinians. Little was in place on May 15, 1948, to enable the Palestinian state to survive.
As for the war itself, it was a close thing. We had the advantage of trained manpower, but they had those Arab armies, better equipment, long borders across which assistance could flow freely, the heights (Jews tended to live in the valleys of Palestine, Arabs in the mountains) and a cohesive population. At least they all spoke Arabic, whereas our soldiers spoke a dozen languages and often couldn't make themselves understood, quite a handicap under conditions of combat.
We had, in addition to our sense of purpose, short lines of supply, a democratically elected government and advanced technological skills. Perhaps most important, we had the assistance of that eminent Zionist, Joseph Stalin, who early on decided that a Jewish state created in the midst of the Arab world would cause problems for the Western powers, thus giving the Soviet Union an opportunity to benefit. Beginning in June, an airlift from Prague brought us much badly needed equipment, manufactured originally for Hitler's armies. By the end of the war, we were flying Messerschmit fighters, using Spandau machine guns and firing rifles with swastikas emblazoned on their stocks.
I am certain that I will be asked how it is possible that Israel, having won its War of Independence in 1948, the Sinai Campaign in 1956, the Six-Day War in 1967, the War of Attrition in 1970 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973, is still fighting what appears to be an unending conflict. The answer is that Israel did not win a war, it won a series of brief -- but bloody -- battles separated by years of uneasy truce. Never once did Israel destroy the enemy's capability of renewing the conflict at a time of its choice.
Israel won as the Allies won World War I; 15 years later, along came Hitler, and the war started up again. Israel has never totally crushed its enemies as the Allies did in World War II, nor can it. Israel is too small, too vulnerable and too lacking in the kind of totalitarian ethos that might make such a victory over the Palestinians acceptable. The Palestinians, different in so many ways from what we were in 1948, are on the verge of creating their own state, and when the present bloodbath has ended in mutual exhaustion, will some day point to their intifada as the start of it all, as Israelis refer to the War of Independence.
In all honesty, I cannot state that my being there at the time did much for Israel, which would have gained its independence without my presence. But, as they tell us on election day, every vote counts, so get out of the house and follow your conscience. Unencumbered by family responsibilities, I did.
Looking back from this distant vantage point, I don't regret a moment of it.
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"What is the first name meaning of my name?" is a common question people have when they visit our web site. You can enter your name below to find out using the Mathematical Principle as explained by the Kabalarian Philosophy.
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The Energy In Your Name and The First Name Meaning of Your Name
The power of a name and its value has long been immortalized in prose, poetry, and religious ceremony. Everyone recognizes himself or herself by name.
The question is: What is the First Name Meaning of my name and how does a name influence a person's character?
Let us consider what a name is. It is the grouping of several letters of an alphabet, or other symbols, which represent the identification of a person or an object.
The one thing which separates human beings from the animal kingdom is human mind, which has the ability to reason on a conscious level. To think consciously, one must use language. This point is not generally appreciated but it is vitally important. It is impossible to think without language. What allows language to serve in this manner? In the case of languages which have alphabets, letters are placed in a definite sequence in the alphabet, i.e., in the English alphabet, "A" is always in the first position, "B" in the second position, and so on. Any alphabet is an alphabet because symbols are recognized by their form or sound in a definite order--change the order and confusion results.
There is more than just sound and alphabetical symbols to language. What is it that language expresses? Is it not intelligence? Is not intelligence a mental power? Do we not learn through education--using language--to develop intelligence, which is recognized as mental growth and the individuality of the personal mind?
The link between human intelligence, mind, language, and the order of the letters in the alphabet is the key to measuring human mind and solving the major problem of mental discord and imbalance.
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Time Management
What's in a Name?
Finding Out More | <urn:uuid:570b9cdc-5634-4b69-af5c-443de0ec9c09> | 2 | 2.203125 | 0.024467 | en | 0.833161 | http://www.kabalarians.com/cfm/first-name-meaning.cfm |
Steller Sea Lions
Eumetopias Jubatus
A Steller Sea LIon in the Broughton Archipelago
Our Steller Sea Lions are the largest of the sea lion family. They weigh in at around 2000 lbs or 900 kg. Males have fur on their backs and chests; thus the name. It is believed that their long ago land ancestor is the Grizzly Bear.
It is very easy to confuse sea lions with seals. The obvious differences are their size, seals are much smaller and the sea lions have tiny ear flaps (see photo above); seals simply have an ear hole.
What they eat: mostly fish and cephalopods.
What eats them: Transient killer whales; humans hunt/cull them.
Steller Sea Lions live in colonies and form harems during breeding season. Only the strongest males breed with the females.
Their average lifespan is 20 years.
The Steller sea lion should not be confused with the California sea lion. We do not see many this far north. The California sea lion is much smaller (about 700 lbs.) and is easily trained. They are the species most often seen in theme parks.
A Steller Sea LIon in the Broughton Archipelago
June Early July Mid July End of July Early August Mid to Late August September
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very rare
Lots of Steller Sea Lions hauled out in Johnstone Strait | <urn:uuid:f9b75409-9614-4d97-8d2c-c9119f65a63f> | 3 | 2.640625 | 0.031076 | en | 0.941099 | http://www.kayakbc.ca/steller-sea-lions-eumetopias-jubatus |
Psychic Dreams
Keen Category: Psychic Advice
A woman dreaming while sleeping in bed
Dreams demonstrate that there are few limitations on what we can perceive through the psychic powers of the subconscious. Through dreams we can predict the future, communicate with someone on another continent, and experience events that may affect our world.
Every night, our dreaming body (astral body) escapes the confines of the conscious world and enters a dimension where existence is timeless. We realize that we are connected soul-to-soul and to everything that exists. In this dimension, we are all psychic.
There are three types of psychic dreams, and they are quite common: precognitive, telepathic, and clairvoyant dreams. Once we are awake, these dreams baffle us because we define ourselves as separate from others and see events through constructs of space and time.
Precognitive Dreams
A dream that seems to have predicted a future event is identified as a precognitive dream. For example, dreaming about a friend you have not seen in years and then running into the person in a supermarket the next day or dreaming that you won a raffle days before the drawing and finding the winning ticket in your wallet would be deemed precognitive dream experiences. These dreams can predict good news as well as bad news – even death. They may be quite accurate in revealing even the smallest details of an event that will take place sometime in the future. Dreams of death are one of the most common precognitive dream experiences. Many individuals report an uncanny power to predict the death of a loved one days or months before their passing. However, those who frequently dream of death view it more a curse than a blessing.
In interpreting dreams, it is important to differentiate a dream that is precognitive from dreams that are more personal and relate to the constructs of the dreamer's psyche. It is often difficult for the novice to verify a paranormal dream, since the event it predicts can arrive far after the dream vision. The dream experience may not manifest in the life of the dreamer until years later. For instance, it is not uncommon for a woman to have her "dream man" and future husband show up in a dream as much as ten years before his actual arrival.
Telepathic Dreams
A dream where we may have touched the consciousness of another person and have accurately revealed his or her thoughts, actions or life situation is referred to as a telepathic dream. For instance, dreaming that a relative is sick and discovering that he or she is in the hospital demonstrates our ability to communicate with each other in the dream state through telepathic channels. The dreaming mind may receive information about a loved one as far away as another continent or as close as the next room. There is no distance or barriers between two close souls.
Even those people who we are in constant contact with everyday have secrets they withhold from us. It is not uncommon for a wife to dream about her husband's escapades and infidelity or a mother to dream that her son is drowning in emotional grief. The dream will render the psyche cues into a metaphoric storyline revealing the subject's secret thoughts.
Telepathy is not confined to the human species. I have a friend who often dreams she is swimming with a pod of whales as if she is a member of the pod. The dreams occur each year during whale season on Maui, just days before whales arrive into Lahaina harbor. Her dreams demonstrate interspecies communication and telepathy is possible.
Clairvoyant Dreams
Dreams where we have psychically connected with an object or situation in the world are referred to as clairvoyant dreams. These remarkable dreams include dreams of natural disasters and noteworthy social events. Having a dream of an earthquake and waking to a special news report on TV reporting an earthquake halfway around the world can give us goose bumps. The dreamer's clairvoyance in such instances is magnified. He or she has received information that may be very detailed and that is seldom elicited. Individuals who receive such information on a regular basis may experience a great deal of anxiety as a result. Some may turn off their intuitive powers or even stop remembering their dreams.
Clairvoyant dreams offer evidence that we are not separate from the body of the earth and that changes or disturbances in the earth can readily be perceived by the dreaming mind. Such psychic abilities are natural to those who are awakened to a hidden potential of the mind that is closed off or hidden during the normal waking state.
The night before the explosion of the Deep Horizon oilrig in the Gulf of Mexico, I had a dream that I was swimming in the center of a group of otters. They were distressed and covered in oil and I was trying to rescue them. The dream was both precognitive as well as clairvoyant.
There are some unique individuals who report having precognitive, clairvoyant and telepathic dream experiences with great frequency. An individual with such ability is a psychic sensitive. In a shamanic culture, an individual with such powers might take the role of a shaman/healer, using his or her abilities in service to other members of the community.
Psychic Spying
Some individuals have the uncanny ability to enter the psychic field of friends, acquaintances or neighbors and to dream about the intimate details of their lives. A common theme is visiting someone else's house and exploring the rooms to discover secret information that only the subject could know about or riding around with the person in their vehicle. For instance, a year back I had a dream that my neighbor had traded in his pickup truck for a 4-door sedan. He is a single guy in is late 30's and seldom dates. The dream was revealing his secret desire to find a mate and have a family. Most of the time, the dreamer has no conscious control over their nighttime wanderings and the spying is totally innocent. But some individuals have trained themselves to become psychic dream spies and use their power to invade the privacy of others, something that is never recommended.
Psychic dreams can be difficult to identify and most dreamers can't differentiate them from their own personal dreams. An analytical approach to dream interpretation usually proves useless in determining whether a dream is a psychic dream. It is only the intuitive mind that can perceive the difference. By adopting an intuitive approach to dream work, one may more easily recognize the truth about a dream. Following up on hunches from a dream that is thought to be a telepathic message from a friend is one way of validating your intuitive powers.
Other Psychic Articles by Ariadne Green | <urn:uuid:933e98f5-0acf-4fd3-8495-a003f02be922> | 2 | 1.757813 | 0.043604 | en | 0.963793 | http://www.keen.com/articles/psychic/psychic-dreams |
Why We Fight (Paperback)
Vital insights and wisdom on the perennial question of why we fight
This book explores how some of the greatest minds of civilization have tackled a question that continues to play a vital part in our lives today. In Why We Fight, Simon Van Booy curates an enlightening collection of excerpts, passages, and paintings, presenting works by Sophocles, Tacitus, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, William Shakespeare, Emily BrontË, Abraham Lincoln, Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo, Walt Whitman, Friedrich Nietzsche, Oscar Wilde, James Tissot, James Joyce, General George Patton, and others.
Why We Fight will engage both the serious philosopher and the eternally curious.
About the Author
Product Details ISBN-10: 0061845566
ISBN-13: 9780061845567
Published: Harper Perennial, 08/01/2010
Pages: 240
Language: English | <urn:uuid:4722ddb7-8687-4a1c-b5be-15057f96321a> | 2 | 1.867188 | 0.172611 | en | 0.904487 | http://www.keplers.com/book/9780061845567 |
Making Lives Easier with Knewton Crab Stacker
In a previous post, we discussed Knewton’s in-house deployment tool, Knewton Crab Stacker (KCS). To summarize, KCS is a command line tool used to make deployment of CloudFormation (one of Amazon’s services) easier. It saves our engineers from banging their heads against their desks when trying to deploy their services.
So what exactly makes KCS such a valuable, can’t-live-without-it tool? In this post, we’ll take a look at some of the many KCS commands that make the lives of a Knewton engineer easier.
Normally, when you want to ssh into an EC2 instance, you have to go through a long and arduous process to find the instance’s public DNS name, then locate your own ssh key for that instance, and then finally type out the command that lets you ssh into the instance. You have to do this every single time you want to ssh. As you may imagine, this gets annoying fast.
To make this whole process simpler, we have a KCS command that does everything for you. All you have to do is specify which stack and target environment you’re trying to ssh into, and then KCS will take care of the rest. It will find the public DNS of the instance, find your ssh key, and finally ssh-es into the box for you. Besides being a huge time saver, my favorite part about this command is that it adds colors to the instance’s terminal. Colors make everything better.
Often while working on a service, we will make modifications to the instance (which we get into by using the awesome KCS ssh command). But when you make modifications, inevitably something gets messed up. No one wants their instance to be messed up, so you have to restart it. This usually involves relaunching the stack the instance is a part of, and twiddling your thumbs while you wait.
Here at Knewton, we like to save time, so we created a command that allows us to essentially restart our instance. We call this command kick.
Underneath the hood, kick gets the address of the instance we want to kick, ssh-es into the instance, and re-runs cfn-init (the command that is first run when the instance is created). This re-downloads the needed resources and configures everything you need using Chef. After kicking an instance, the instance is essentially brand new and ready for more tinkering.
Roundhouse Kick
A very common scenario that an engineer comes across is when he’s made a change to a service, has finished testing it locally, and then wants to test it on a real stack. To do this using just CloudFormation, we would have to first upload our new build to S3, then update our stack to use the new build. Updating a stack takes quite a bit of time, anywhere from a couple to ten-plus minutes. That’s a lot of waiting around.
That’s why we invented roundhouse kick. Roundhouse kick does everything you need to update the version of your service without having to relaunch your stack.
Here’s how it works: first, it will upload your build to S3. Next, it will do what we call an in-place update of the stack. Instead of launching new instances as a regular update would do, an in-place update just updates the existing instances. The time saved with the in-place update makes up the majority of the time saved. After updating the stack, KCS will then kick all the instances of the stack, which, in effect, restarts the stack and grabs the new version of the service you uploaded earlier. We like to think we made Chuck Norris proud with roundhouse kick.
“Chuck Norris can upload his new build to S3, update his stack, and kick his stack all at once.”
Grab logs and Failure logs
Sometimes you roundhouse kick your stack too hard and it stops working (there’s no such thing as a soft roundhouse kick). To find out what’s wrong, you have to ssh into the instance and check the logs. But there are many logs. And you’ll probably have forgotten where all of these logs are located.
Don’t worry — KCS has got you covered.
With a simple command, you can get all of the logs from your instance in a nicely bundled tarball. To do this, KCS knows the location of your logs thanks to some coordination with the Chef recipes that set up the logging system. After determining these locations, KCS will then perform an scp command with all the needed arguments to retrieve all the files. Now you can find out why your stack couldn’t handle the roundhouse kick.
What’s Next for KCS?
Even with all the cool commands that KCS has, there’s always room for improvement. People want KCS to run faster, have more features, and be invincible to bugs. When there’s a bug in a new release of KCS (which are unfortunately inevitable), the deployment team gets bombarded with complaints from disgruntled KCS users. We then work to fix everything, and try to get a new release of KCS out. But even when we do release a new KCS, not everyone remembers to upgrade their version and we continue to get complaints. We ask them to check their version and then we find out they aren’t on the latest version. An upgrade then fixes the issue. This is annoying and unnecessary for both KCS users and the deployment team.
To solve this problem, we created KCSServer — the website version of KCS, which has been my baby during my summer internship. Since KCSServer is a website, we don’t have to worry about people having different versions of KCS. We can very easily make changes to KCSServer without having to worry about getting people to install the latest version.
Migrating KCS to a website also provides many other benefits. One of the main issues we wanted to address was the speed of KCS. As a command line tool, KCS is pretty slow. For a command (such as describing a stack), KCS has to make a call to Amazon after determining all the proper credentials, and then once it retrieves the information, it has to output everything in a readable format for the user. With KCSServer, we can make this command much faster by utilizing a cache. A command has to be run once. Then, for all other times the command is run, KCSServer can just retrieve the output from the cache (of course, we update the cache as needed). This reduces the latency of a command from a couple of seconds to milliseconds. Considering that our rapidly-growing team of engineers uses KCS a lot, these seconds saved will quickly become hours, then days of developer time saved.. Another added benefit? With some CSS, we can make KCSServer look a whole lot more pleasant to look at than the dull terminal.
What’s the Take-Away?
Hopefully after reading about how we at Knewton use KCS to maximize our efficiency, you’ll start thinking more about how to eliminate inefficiencies in your own deployment process, or any process for that matter. Hopefully you’ll start asking yourself, “What’s slowing me down at doing my job?” and “What can I do about it?” Then you can go out there and create your own version of KCS. Don’t forget to give it an awesome name.
Online Cross-Validation to Predict Future Student Behavior
At Knewton we use various mathematical models to understand how students learn. When building such models we want to make sure they generalize, or perform well for a large population of students. Cross-validation, a technique in machine learning, is a way to assess the predictive performance of a mathematical model. At Knewton, we use cross-validation extensively to test our models.
Cross-validation is based on the fact that we don’t have access to unlimited data. If we had all the possible data on student learning patterns, the solution would be straightforward. We would test all our models with the data and pick the one with the lowest error rate. In reality, we only have a finite set of student data to work with. Given a limited amount of data, how do we decide which model performs the best?
One approach is to use all of the available data to test our model. A major problem with this approach is overfitting, which is demonstrated in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Left: the model (blue) underfits the data (orange). This is an over-simplistic explanation of the data where the model would be a better fit if it had more parameters. Middle: the model fits the data just right, where the model captures the overall pattern in the data well. Right: the model overfits the data, where the model fits the noise in the dataset. (Source)
If our model overfits the data, the error rate will be low but if new data is added to the dataset, the model might perform poorly as the fit doesn’t explain the new data well. This is why models that overfit do not generalize well and should be avoided.
This is where cross-validation comes into play. In this approach, rather than fitting the model to the full dataset we split it into training and test sets. This is also referred to as holdout cross-validation, as we are leaving a portion of the data out for testing. The model is fitted using only the training portion of the dataset. Then we assess the predictive performance of the model on the left-out data, which is the test set.
As an example, one model we use to assess student learning is Item Response Theory (IRT). We want to cross-validate our IRT model for a set of student responses to test the performance of our model. To do this, we can split the student response data into training and test sets, fit the model to the training data, and validate it on the test data. If the fitted model predicts the student responses in the test set accurately we can accept this IRT model.
When measuring how students learn, we assume they learn over time. Therefore, it is useful to understand how students behave as time progresses. A shortcoming of the holdout cross-validation technique is that it makes comparisons between random bits of past student data so it can’t make predictions about how students will behave in the future. It would be very useful if we were able to make predictions about students’ future behavior given their past learning patterns.
Online cross-validation is a version of cross-validation which can validate over time series data. Going back to our student response data example, online cross-validation uses a student’s past data to predict how that student will behave in the future. The dataset for online cross-validation is a time-ordered set of responses the student gave in the past. We take the first k responses of a student and use them for the training set, then we try to predict that student’s k+1st, k+2nd, …, k+nth response. If our prediction accuracy is high, we can say that our model is a good fit for our dataset.
Let’s look at how online cross-validation works in more detail. The students answer some questions over time. Some of these responses are correct (green) and some are incorrect (red). Online cross-validation will start by training on the student’s first response only (k=1), then use this to predict whether the student is going to get the next item (k+1 = 2) correct or incorrect.
Figure 2: The first iteration of online cross-validation. The dots represent whether a student got a question correct (green) or incorrect (red). The model is fitted using the first response (k=1) and then used to predict the second, k+1st item (k+1=2). If our prediction matches the student response, our model accuracy increases. 0/1 refers to incorrect/correct.
In the next iteration of online cross-validation, we can use the first two responses (k=2) as our training set, fit the model using these two data points, and predict the third response (k+1=3).
Figure 3: The second iteration of online cross-validation. The dots represent whether a student got a question correct (green) or incorrect (red). The model is fitted using the first two responses (k=2) and then used to predict the third, k+1st item (k+1=3). 0/1 refers to incorrect/correct.
Online cross-validation continues until we run through all the iterations by increasing the training set one student response at a time. We expect to make better predictions as we add more data to our training set.
With online cross-validation, we are not limited to predicting only the next response in the future. We can predict a student’s next 2, 3, …, n responses. This makes online cross-validation a very useful technique if we want to make predictions far in the future.
Both holdout cross-validation and online cross-validation are very useful methods to assess the performance of models. Holdout cross-validation method is useful in assessing performance if we have a static dataset, whereas online cross-validation is helpful when we want to test a model on time series data.
Kankoku: A Distributed Framework for Implementing Statistical Models
As future-facing as Knewton’s adaptive learning platform may be, the concept of a personalized classroom has a surprisingly rich history. The idea has intrigued educators and philosophers for decades. In 1954, behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner invented the concept of programmed instruction, along with a working mechanical prototype to boot. His “teaching machine” consisted of a wooden box on which questions were displayed to students on strips of paper controlled by turning knobs. One would only progress upon answering a question correctly. A crucial feature of the teaching machine was that “the items were arranged in a special sequence, so that, after completing the material in frame 1, the students were better able to tackle frame 2, and their behavior became steadily more effective as they passed from frame to frame.” The argument upon Skinner’s teaching machine was founded still holds water today: that “what is taught to a large group cannot be precisely what each student is ready just at that moment to learn.”1
Sixty years later, examining Skinner’s prototype still provides an insightful frame of reference. Knewton’s platform is responsible for tracking the individual learning states of each student at the granularity of individual concepts and questions. Like the teaching machine, we must deliver relevant recommendations in real-time and classroom analytics in near real-time. Those recommendations and analytics serve as a tool for both students and teachers to improve student outcomes. Considerations like these influence the engineering decisions we make on a daily basis, including the decision to use a stream-processing framework to power several of our statistical models. In this blog post, we will open the hood of our own teaching machine to explore the tradeoffs behind the design of Knewton’s scientific computing platform.
Why Stream Processing?
Knewton’s recommendation engine faces the task of providing recommendations to millions of students in real-time. As one of the pioneers of behaviorism, Skinner certainly understood the importance of delivering the right feedback at the right time.2 Respond to a student event (e.g., finishing an article) just two minutes late, and the impact of a recommendation diminishes rapidly. But what goes into each recommendation under the hood? A recommendation is essentially a ranked selection of instructional content that is most relevant to the subject matter that a student is studying at any particular time. Every student’s learning history (the data representing their interactions with content and their activity on the system) is taken into account. Knewton’s recommendation engine also considers other factors, such as each student’s learning goals and deadlines. All of this data is processed through a variety of psychometric and statistical models that estimate various characteristics of students (e.g., their proficiency or engagement level) and content (e.g., its difficulty or effectiveness). While some of these computations can be performed ahead of time, there are still numerous models that must be computed on the spot in response to a student interaction.3 Combining and processing all of this data results in a very large sequence of actions that must be performed in a small period of time.
Knewton is much more than just a differentiated learning app. Imagine if Skinner’s teaching machine knew every student’s individual learning history, knowledge state, habits, strengths, and upcoming goals, and could take into account goals set by teachers or administrators.
To handle all this data, Knewton has built Kankoku4, a stream processing framework that can respond to individual events in real-time.5 Stream processing systems operate under the requirement that inputs must be processed “straight-through” — that is, real-time feeds must trigger a set of downstream outputs without necessarily having to resort to polling or any intermediate storage. Stream processing systems are also characterized by their support of real-time querying, fault-tolerance, and ability to scale horizontally.6 The primary complement to stream processing is batch processing, consisting of programming models such as MapReduce that execute groups of events scheduled as jobs. Batch computing is fantastic for efficiently performing heavy computations that don’t require immediate response times.
However, these advantages of batch processing are also what make it less suitable for responsive, high availability systems like Knewton’s.7
Kankoku is a scientific computing Java framework developed in-house that provides a programming model for developing decoupled scientific models that can be composed to create any kind of computable result. The framework aims to abstract away the details of retrieving and storing data from databases, reliability, scalability, and data durability, letting model writers concentrate on creating accurate and efficient models. In the example workflow below, the nodes (or Kankokulators, as we call them) represent individual (or sets of) calculations. Streams are fed into Kankoku from a queue, which serves as a message broker by publishing received student events into various topics to which Kankoku subscribes.
With this framework, complex multi-stage computations can be expressed as networks of smaller, self-contained calculations. This style of programming is especially well-suited for data analysis where the outputs of an arbitrary statistical model could be used as inputs to another. One example of this could be aggregating student psychometrics as inputs for modeling student ability using Item Response Theory (IRT).
Speed and horizontal scalability are also important in developing a stream processing framework for real-time events. One of the many ways Knewton achieves horizontal scalability is by partitioning the input data stream using a partitioning key in the queue.8
“Kankoku” Means “Recommendation”
Similar to how Skinner’s teaching machine immediately responds to individual inputs, Kankoku streamlines responsive event processing for arbitrary, unbounded data streams. Both serve a complex need — providing personalized learning recommendations — yet have internal mechanisms that are easily decomposable, and execution that is reproducible.
But Kankoku is very different from the teaching machine. The software it powers is capable of understanding and analyzing the learning mechanisms of millions of students. Ensuring that Knewton doesn’t sacrifice quality to meet the demands of quantity or speed is a top priority. To meet these ends, we are continually revising and extending our models to run more efficiently while delivering better results. Kankoku’s design is a strength here. Not only does it help Knewton break down a complex task into smaller pieces, it also makes it simpler to understand and tweak each component. Monitoring these models requires complex visibility tools that allow Knewton to examine intermediate computation in real-time. Kankoku is less like one teaching machine than it is hundreds of small machines working together in concert.
So What?
In his exposition “Programming Instruction Revisited,” Skinner spoke of his dream of creating technology that would help classrooms evolve beyond the “phalanx formation” by helping teachers become even more attuned to every student’s individual needs. As history has shown us, implementing such technology at scale is an extremely difficult problem. Truly understanding student needs and providing feedback in real-time is a non-trivial challenge for any person, much less a computer program. Practical machine learning and “artificial intelligence” is in many ways a systems engineering challenge — building models that can handle real-time workloads at scale is crucial to creating a service that will actually be useful to students and teachers. Well-designed systems will never replace teaching, but they can provide an automated, responsive, and unified platform to expose insights about student learning to teachers and parents around the world, who do understand how to best act on those insights.
I’d like to thank the creators of Kankoku — Nikos Michalakis, Ferdi Adeputra, Jordan Lewis, Erion Hasanbelliu, Rafi Shamim, Renee Revis, Paul Kernfeld, Brandon Reiss, George Davis, and Kevin Wilson — for their tireless work as well as letting me play with such an awesome piece of technology. Stay tuned for part 2 of this blog post for more details on my internship project (extending the Kankoku framework with Apache Storm).
1. B.F. Skinner. Programming Instruction Revisited
2. Knewton is not preaching or practicing behaviorism. This is only meant to be an analogy.
4. Kankoku means “advice” or “recommendation” in Japanese. It also means “Korea.”
5. In addition to powering Knewton’s recommendation engine, stream processing suits a variety of applications, ranging from powering Google Trends to supporting fraud detection and “ubiquitous computing” systems built on cheap micro-sensor technology that demand high-volume and low-latency requirements. Other applications include powering bank transactions (which require exactly-once delivery), image processing for Google Street View, and command-and-control in military environments. See: Akidau, et al. MillWheel: Fault-Tolerant Stream Processing at Internet Scale
6. Stonebraker, et al. The 8 Requirements of Real-Time Stream Processing
7. Frameworks such as the Lambda Architecture exist that unite both programming models. There is also technically a gray zone between batch and streaming processing frameworks – for instance, Spark Streaming processes events in microbatches. Some of our models can’t be implemented with microbatching, but it is an interesting idea worth exploring.
8. Alternative terminology for “grouping”: sharding, shuffling.
Web-Based, Real-Time Data Monitoring
This post was written by Joy Zheng, a student at Harvard University who interned at Knewton this summer.
How do you quickly visualize and validate data in a large-scale, distributed, and real-time system? How do you make it deployable in multiple cloud environments? And how do you track changes to this data over time?
These are questions that I set out to answer in my internship this summer, as I worked to develop a web-based interface that displays how much data the Knewton system is receiving from hundreds of thousands of Pearson students across the country.
At a very high level, this is how things work: Hundreds of thousands of college kids across the country use a recommended textbook published by Pearson. These books have an online component with which the students interact, learn, take tests and quizzes, etc. Information regarding all this activity flows through to us at Knewton. We process it to make recommendations to each student about how to progress through the course, so that the student can achieve the milestones set by the professor.
For any given student, we need to know something about the student and his or her history of previous answers, as well as something about the course and the textbook that the course uses. We also need to track any custom content that instructors have created. In order to serve up recommendations, the work gets divided up among different services in the system — along with the data.
With this problem set in mind, I came up with a list of overarching goals for a web-based dashboard that would provide this information. Before building the system, I had to keep in mind the following:
Recentness of data: While it isn’t vital for the dashboard to have up-to-the-second data, someone has to be able to login at any time and see fairly recent data — say, from the last hour. We also want to make sure that, when needed, users can get even more recent data on demand.
Responsiveness: How fast can we refresh the data?
Redundancy: When two users want the same piece of data from the platform, the dashboard should not have to fetch it twice.
Ability to get details on the fly: Given thousands of courses, how do you get more descriptive information on the fly?
Ease of use: Using the dashboard should not require deep knowledge of how data is being handled in the platform itself.
Configuration: In line with the last point, the dashboard should be configurable from the website; one should be able to change things like “refresh time” on the fly, for example.
Ultimately, we settled on an implementation where data would be polled at regular intervals from various pieces of the Knewton platform and then cached in memory.
This resulted in three strategies for obtaining the data:
Auto-refresh: We query for updates every hour.
On-demand refreshes: If a user wants the most recent state for some piece of information, they can force a refresh.
Stats over time: Permanent persistence of summary statistics — because we want to be able to see some numbers over time, we save relevant data once every 24 hours.
As a result, data presented to the users is almost always drawn from the cache; we preferred this to live querying for two primary reasons.
First, as mentioned previously, we didn’t want to have to send off queries to the platform for data multiple times if we would be getting the same data back; we only wanted to have to pipe data when it had been updated.
Secondly, speed. After all, drawing information from local cache is faster than having to gather it, and we were even able to cache significant portions of the web pages themselves.
Additionally, as part of collating data, one of the roles of the dashboard was to cross-reference it — to line up the data about a textbook with the data for a course and the data for a student. Thus, the nature of the internal back-end references meant that querying on-demand for say, information about one course or user, would require querying in sequence, rather than querying in parallel.
Given that most of the Knewton platform is written in Java, and non-Java pieces had Java APIs in place, the language choice for the dashboard was very straightforward; admittedly, though, there were points where I missed functional programming, especially when trying to make sure that the dashboard could handle multiple simultaneous users during parallelizing refreshes.
The webpage itself was run using an embedded Jetty servlet. In retrospect, now that I am more familiar with Jetty and having run through a cycle of configurations, I likely would have given this choice more consideration — either by looking at different server technologies or different configuration methods. Especially compared with Ruby on Rails, which defined my previous experience with servers, resolving relative URLS both for webpage and resource files ended up taking notably more effort than expected with this configuration style. This challenge was compounded by the use of JSP (Java Server Page = Java-embedded HTML) files which facilitated UI and CSS better than the Java-generated HTML that I had in the first running dashboard version.
The interaction within the system can be represented in the diagram below:
While testing functionality, I ran the code on a local machine against a very small set of data (really small — like counting actual numbers rather than trailing zeros on your fingers) just to make sure that everything was running and that we were gathering the expected data. Consequently, in our first run against a bigger sized data set (approaching 100,000), some areas of data took a few hours to refresh. We were also piping enough data around to have a tangible effect on the performance of the platform as a whole (ouch!).
To improve performance, we took a few steps:
Reduced field set: First, we took another look at all the data we gathered to make sure that we weren’t collecting anything we didn’t need. While our trimming efforts here probably didn’t have as much of an effect on performance, they definitely reduced the memory footprint.
Delta Refreshes: Next, we made the dashboard smarter by only receiving data that had been updated since the last refresh. Given API restrictions, this wasn’t possible for every service that we queried, but it still gave us a big speed boost.
Lazy loading: Data that we might reasonably want (but could live without 90% of the time) was taken off the automatic update list, and instead only queried and cached on demand. This sometimes meant a wait of 15-30 seconds by users if they really wanted to dig into the details, but it reduced the amount of data we had to cycle through every hour by an order of magnitude.
These tweaks improved performance by orders of magnitude, too, so that refreshes could be measured in minutes or seconds rather than in hours.
While the server sent out data in HTML tables, data manipulations were left to JavaScript on the client side. I started with the TableFilter library (; however, once running the dashboard against more realistically sized datasets, we hit the ceiling on the ability of this library to sort and search through large tables. After being pointed in a new direction by a fellow Knerd, we switched to the DataTables javascript library which, in addition to having much better performance, also offered a larger variety of available plugins and extensions. While JavaScript will work for the near-term, and using the pre-existing libraries allowed us to get off the ground quickly, processing of huge datasets will ultimately need to be moved to the back end as the number of Knewton users grows.
All in all, I was able to get the dashboard up and running into production just a few minutes before my final presentation of my internship. The dashboard is now being used officially at Knewton to track data across multiple environments and for several hundred thousand students across the country!
GraphLint: Creating a Domain Specific Language for Graph Validation
Kenny Yu is currently a sophomore at Harvard College where he is studying computer science. In the summer of 2011, he interned at Knewton as a software engineer. During his internship, he built a new source review and release process and created a graph validation engine based on configuration schemas. He interned at Knewton again in January 2012 and rebuilt the graph validator by creating a domain specific language. The following blog post is a summary of this project and the process he used to design the language and the new validation engine.
The Question
At the core of the Knewton Adaptive Learning Platform is the course structure that brings all the lessons, concepts, and content into one connected graph. This graph is so large that checking it by hand is infeasible. Thus, Knewton’s graph datastore needed a validation system to check the structure of its graphs.
The validator idea is simple: given a graph, how can we tell if it is “well-formed”? How can we create a set of rules to express what edge and node types are acceptable in a given graph? My mentors, Jordan Lewis and Trevor Smith, decided that I should build a domain specific language (DSL) for writing the ontology schemas to solve this problem.
Developing the Language: “Onto”
Before creating the DSL, I had to understand the use case of the language I was building. After speaking with developers and content creators at Knewton, I composed this list of considerations that would drive my planning process:
1. Expressiveness of the language – Above all, the language must be capable of encoding complex relationships between nodes and edges.
2. Simplicity and ease of writing the language – The language must be easy to write and so easy to understand that non-developers can think and write in it.
3. Ease of implementing the language – It should be easy to take the language and parse it into a form that can be used for graph validation.
4. Graph validation run-time – Once the ontology had been parsed from the DSL into usable form, how quickly can we validate a graph using the provided ontology?
The graphs I worked with are directed multigraphs, where edges and nodes may have associated data with them. In Knewton’s case, both nodes and edges have types (e.g. “Concept”, “Module” and “Contains”, “Represents”). Using these types, we want to assert relationships like:
For all nodes m of type Module, there exists exactly 1 node c of type Concept such that the directed edge (c,Contains,m) exists in the graph.
We also want to express logical combinations like the following:
For all nodes c of type Concept:
there exists exactly 1 node m of type Module such that the directed edge (c,Contains,m) OR (c,Represents,m) exists in the graph
there exists exactly 0 or 1 nodes m of type Module such that the the directed edge (c,Contains,m) exists in the graph.
I used statements like these as inspiration to create the DSL. The DSL consists of these statements:
1. Universal quantifier statement: for all <variable> in <node type> <statement>
2. Existential quantifier statement: there exists <number rule> <variable> in <nodetype> such that <statement>
3. Edge rule assertion statement: (<variable>,<edge type>,<variable>)
4. And statement: <statement> and <statement>
5. Or statement: <statement> or <statement>
6. Xor (Exclusive or) statement: <statement> xor <statement>
7. Not statement: not <statement>
Thus, the above two statements, written in the DSL, look like this
and the second one:
Lacking creativity, I decided to give ontology file names the “.onto” extension, and thus the Onto language was born.
Language Implementation Choice
It was difficult to determine which language I would use to implement this project. Having recently taken a compilers class in OCaml and knowing the benefits of OCaml’s strongly typed system and functional programming language features (and my personal preference for coding in OCaml), I thought that OCaml seemed like the natural choice for this kind of project. However, after I considered the reusability of this project with other systems in the company, I realized that OCaml would not be the best choice. The company recently decided to move towards Java and possibly other JVM-based languages. I had researched Java-OCaml bindings and discovered that existing options couldn’t meet this project’s need. As a result, I chose to implement this project in Java to make it more compatible with other systems at Knewton.
Having only used ocamllex and ocamlyacc to create parser generators, I needed to research other parser generators for Java. My mentors suggested ANTLR. I found ANTLR to be a high quality project that was incredibly easy to use.
Validation Algorithm
Now that I could successfully parse ontology files into memory, how would I validate a graph? I decided to implement the algorithm in a functional way: traverse the abstract syntax tree (AST) generated by the parser and for each statement node, create a closure that, when provided an environment–a mapping from variable names to actual nodes in the graph–and called, would return “true” or “false” (and thus represent whether the graph passed validation on that statement). After traversing the entire AST, one closure would be produced and would represent the validate function. A list of errors would be generated if the graph failed validation.
For example, I did the following for the Universal quantifier statement:
1. Generate the closure by traversing the AST in <statement>
2. Iterate over all nodes with type <node type> in the provided graph, and for each node:
1. extend the current environment by mapping: <variable> to current node
2. call the closure on this new environment, and ensure the closure returns true
I followed a similar procedure for the rest of the node types in an ontology.
Unfortunately, closures are not directly accessible in Java. Instead, I had to generate wrapper classes that wrapped methods representing the closure. In addition, because of the lack of match statements in Java, I used the visitor pattern to traverse the AST.
Testing and Profiling
After unit testing the validation engine on small graphs and simple ontologies, I moved on to a real life error-riddled data set. The graph in the data set had 53,377 nodes and 53,960 edges. When I initially tried to validate this graph, the JVM exploded. Even with 2GB of memory, the JVM still did not have enough heap space to validate this graph in half an hour. After profiling, I discovered that over a hundred million Strings were being generated by error messages for failed validation. As a result, I made several changes to make the validator more memory efficient: I used the flyweight pattern when allocating space for environment variables, node and edge types, and I lazily generated the error messages, only creating them when necessary.
This solved the memory problem. However, the run-time of the validation algorithm was still horrible. Each nesting level of a for all and exists statement added a factor of V to the asymptotic run-time (where V is the number of vertices). For example, if an ontology had three nested for all statements, the run-time would be O(V^3). Fortunately, since edges could only connect two vertices (unlike in a hypergraph), I could optimize the exists statement to only check in the neighboring set of the current node. With this optimization, exists statements no longer multiplied the computational complexity. As a result of these memory and time optimizations, the run-time for the 50,000+ node data set went from 30+ minutes to less than 4 seconds. Changing the run-time from V^2 to V makes such a big difference!
Looking Back, and Next Steps
It’s a rare opportunity to go back and rebuild old projects from scratch. It’s an even rarer opportunity to get complete freedom (as an intern) to design a central component of the company’s system. At Knewton, I was fortunate to have both opportunities. Knewton tasked me with rebuilding the graph validation engine, and I had complete freedom to design the project however I wished. Even more remarkable–this project allowed me to to work at a scale (50,000+ nodes!) that I would rarely ever touch at school.
There are several things that in retrospect I would have done differently. The lack of functional language features in Java made it difficult to implement the validation algorithm. As a result, if I were to redo the project, I would probably implement it in Scala. Using Scala’s interoperability with Java and its functional language features (especially the ability to create closures and use case classes) would have made the implementation easier to write and more concise. Furthermore, there are many optimizations I could have implemented to make the validation engine faster: I could have used properties of second-order logic to transform quantifier and logic statements into equivalent statements with a faster run-time, and I could have parallelized the algorithm to make use of concurrency. But this is pretty good for working just two and a half weeks! | <urn:uuid:9691db1f-eaa5-4652-a058-22292634347d> | 2 | 1.5625 | 0.040864 | en | 0.938737 | http://www.knewton.com/tech/blog/tag/internship/ |
Breast Cancer
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Laboratory Tests
There are a variety of laboratory tests that can be performed to diagnose and monitor breast cancer and its treatment. These tests can be broken down into four groups, based on the purpose of testing:
When a radiologist detects a suspicious on a mammogram, more tests need to be done to see if it could possibly be a cancer. Abnormalities on mammogram may include finding micro calcifications (tiny white dots on mammogram), masses (where there appears to be a lump on the x-ray), or areas of distortion in the breast tissue. Whilst all of these may be associated with breast cancer they can also be caused by non cancerous (benign) breast disease and 5-15% of women with abnormal mammograms will not have breast cancer. Also a palpable breast lump may be caused by a cyst or a fibro-adenoma which is not cancerous. Therefore any woman with a breast lump or abnormal mammogram will need more testing before a diagnosis can be made. This may be done by requesting more images of the breast with more in-depth scans (such as an ultrasound or MRI) or by a biopsy of the lump or suspicious area. For a biopsy, a small sample of tissue is taken from the suspicious area of the breast so that a pathologist can examine the cells for signs of cancer. There are several types of biopsies (fine needle aspiration, core biopsy, surgical biopsy) performed to first determine whether the area is benign (non-cancerous) or malignant (cancerous). This determination will guide treatment. The type of biopsy depends on the size of the abnormal area and also whether it can be felt on examination. Usually a fine needle aspiration (FNA) is performed for woman with breast lumps that can be easily felt (as the lump is close to the skin) and a few cells are removed from the lump to be examined under a microscope. Sometimes if the lump is quite big or is quite deep in the breast tissue, a core biopsy is taken which involves taking a larger sample of the tissue as compared to the few cells taken in a FNA. Because a core needle can remove a larger tissue sample, and more samples are taken for comparison, a core needle biopsy is more accurate than a fine needle aspiration. However, if you have very small breasts or very hard lumps, a core needle may not be able to take a good tissue sample, and other biopsy methods may be required. Core biopsies may also be done under radiological guidance (so the doctor knows where to aim the needle) if the lump cannot be felt easily. This may be the case where suspicious areas are picked up incidentally on mammogram and cannot be felt on the patient. Occasionally the lump may be removed surgically first and a biopsy done after removal. This is called an excision biopsy if the entire lump is removed or an incisional biopsy if only part of the lump is removed.
The testing of biopsy material for cancer involves looking at cells under a microscope for evidence that cells have become malignant (changed from normal breast cells to cancer cells). Needle aspirations (where a fine needle is inserted into the lump and a few cells are removed) are limited in that they only show if malignant cells are present. A tissue biopsy is needed to determine if the cells are at an early stage or invasive as this involves removing a small sample of tissue and shows whether the cancerous cells have actually invaded into the surrounding tissue or not.
If the pathologist's diagnosis is invasive carcinoma, there are several tests that may be performed on the cancer cells that guide in treatment and prognosis of the patient. The most useful of these are Her-2/neu and oestrogen and progesterone receptors.
• Her-2/neu is receptor that is found on the surface of certain cancer cells. It is found in many different cancers and is not specific to breast cancer. It is made by a specific gene called the Her-2/neu gene which causes the cancer cells to make an excess of the Her-2 receptor. The faulty gene only occurs in cancer cells and is not a gene that you can inherit from your family. Some breast cancer cells have a lot more Her-2 receptors than others. In this case, the tumour is described as being Her-2-positive. It is thought that about 20-25% of women with breast cancer will have Her-2-positive tumours. Human epidermal growth factor, which occurs naturally in the body, can bind to these Her-2 receptors causing the cancer cells to grow and divide more rapidly. Because of this Her-2-positive breast cancers tend to be more aggressive than other types of breast cancer. However, fortunately there are treatments that specifically target the Her-2 receptor preventing growth of the cancer cells and it is therefore important to know if a tumour is Her-2 positive or not. This treatment called Herceptin (Trastuzumab) blocks these Her-2 protein receptors, preventing the human epidermal growth factor from attaching and preventing growth of the tumour cells. Herceptin can therefore be used after surgery to reduce the risk of the cancer returning or can often be used to shrink the cancer before surgery. It can also be used to treat the cancer after it has returned or spread. There are two common techniques used to determine Her-2/neu status in breast cancer and to see whether or not a tumour is er-2 positive: immunohistochemistry (a method for detecting the amount of the Her-2 protein in the cells) and fluorescene in situ hybridization (FISH), which determines the amount of the Her-2/neu gene in each cell.. Currently, the gold standard for assessing Her-2/neu status is immunohistochemistry, and the results are scored as 0, 1+, 2+ and 3+ where 0 and 1+ are considered negative results. A 3+ result is considered positive and means that there are significant levels of the Her-2/neu receptor in the cell and the cancer is therefore Her-2 positive. A 2+ result is less straightforward and means that a moderate amount of Her-2 protein has been found. As this is inconclusive, this result is usually confirmed by FISH testing to check as to whether the Her-2/neu gene is also present in significant levels in the cell. If the FISH result confirms that there are excessive levels of the Her-2/neu gene as well, the cancer would be described as Her-2 positive. Therefore, currently, FISH is used to confirm Her-2/neu positive status and eligibility for Herceptin in cases of 2+ immunohistochemistry..
• Oestrogen and progesterone receptor status is also determined by immunohistochemistry and looks for the presence of proteins that act as receptors for the female hormones oestrogen and progesterone. In tumours that have these receptors, normal female hormones bind to these receptors and cause the cancer cells to grow and divide more rapidly. The presence of these receptors are very important prognostic markers in breast cancer, and the higher the percentage of overall cells positive for the hormonal receptors the better the prognosis. If there are a significant number of oestrogen receptors, it is known as oestrogen-receptor positive breast cancer (ER+). If not, it’s known as oestrogen-receptor negative breast cancer (ER-). Similarly the cancer is progesterone-receptor-positive (PR+) if it has progesterone receptors or progesterone-receptor negative (PR-) if it does not. Around 2 out of 3 cancers will test positive for hormone receptors. Currently hormonal therapies are only designed to treat oestrogen receptor-positive cancers so ER negative but PR positive cancers are treated the same as breast cancers that are ER positive. Fortunately however, breast cancers that are progesterone receptor-positive also tend to be oestrogen receptor-positive. If a tumour is both ER and PR receptor negative hormonal therapies will not help and these cancers carry a worse prognosis. Current hormonal therapies block the conversion of other hormones in the body to oestrogen (e.g. anastrozole, letrozole also known as aromatase inhibitors) or interferes with how oestrogen binds to these receptors (e.g. tamoxifen) However, for woman who have not gone through the menopause the treatment is usually slightly different as the ovaries are the main source of oestrogen production and treatment is usually directed and blocking this.
Other laboratory tests may be used to help determine whether or not the tumour is responding to therapy or if it has recurred. The CA15-3 tumour marker, if elevated prior to treatment, is one such laboratory test, and is used after treatment, to monitor a patient for a recurrence of breast cancer. CA 15-3 is normally produced by the breast tissue and therefore some cancer-free individuals normally have a level of this substance in their blood and/or urine. This is especially true for pregnant or breastfeeding women where the breast tissue is more active. However, because in breast cancer the cells grow and divide more rapidly, the levels of Ca15-3 may increase as the cancer gets bigger, and give a higher result than expected. However not all breast cancers cause an increase in CA15-3 and it is unlikely to be significantly raised in early stages of breast cancer as not enough of the breast tissue is involved. Therefore, only a medical professional can evaluate whether the results of such a test are cause for concern. In general, because of these reasons, CA 15-3 is a poor screening test but an excellent surveillance test in some patients. This means thatit is unreliable for detecting cancer (as it can be elevated in patients without cancer) but can be used to follow it once it has been diagnosed. It can therefore be used in select patients to see if the cancer has spread or recurred (where the levels of CA 15-3 in the bloodstream would be expected to increase) or to assess a response to a particular treatment.
There are additional tests that may be used in breast cancer cases, such as DNA ploidy, Ki-67 or other proliferation markers. However, these are not currently in routine use in the UK and most authorities believe that only Her-2/neu, oestrogen receptors, and progesterone receptors are beneficial. This is mainly because there is currently no treatment available that works for patients with positive results in these additional tests and also because studies have shown that they offer little information on prognosis. Some research centres use these tests for additional information in evaluating patients however most centres currently do not use them at all.
Finally, women who are at high risk for breast cancer because of family history can find out if they have the BRCA-1 or BRCA-2 gene mutation by taking a blood test. Since the BRCA genes normally help to protect a woman from developing breast cancer, a mutation in either gene indicates that the patient is at higher risk for developing the disease. Women who carry mutations in either the BRCA-1 or BRCA-2 gene face a 60-80% lifetime risk of breast cancer. It is important to remember, however, that not all individuals with the mutation develop breast cancer and that most cases of breast cancer occur in women who lack mutations in either BRCA gene. A genetic counsellor should explain the meaning of the results and offer advice about options for decreasing risk. Counselling advice should be offered both before testing takes place and after receiving test results.
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Why Today’s Politicians Love Teddy Roosevelt
teddy roosevelt
Why are today’s politicians drawn to Theodore Roosevelt? Is it his political beliefs and achievements? No, says historian Rosemarie Ostler. It is more likely his pugnacious personality and his pungent way with words.
Obama Can Learn From FDR
Franklin D, Roosevelt
Still the Age of Reagan: Long Waves in American Politics
Why People Hate Politics
gautam dutta
Gautam Dutta: Rather than engage in discussion and debate, many politicians find it easier to demonize their opponents, rather than debate the issues.
How Empathy Makes Superior Judges – and Justice
elena kagan barack obama
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger... | <urn:uuid:b02b80a5-1b4a-4a28-a948-1ab066ea7d43> | 2 | 1.8125 | 0.998171 | en | 0.943963 | http://www.laprogressive.com/tag/scots-irish-americans/ |
tagLoving WivesFight or Flight
Fight or Flight
You will find that I use Lewis and Mark in this story for the name of the same person. This person has memory failure after a short series of traumatic events. He does not know his real name and asks to be called Mark.
When the narrator refers to him, he is Lewis. When addressed by the new people in his life he is Mark
Toward the end I indicate where the story stops being narrated and becomes first person. Obviously a person with no memory has a difficult time telling a story well.
It is nice to think you would be able to function in a certain manner when confronted with an event you find to be traumatic. In reality, you may respond in a completely different way than you want to/might have imagined you would. Nobody really knows their capability to be able to control fight or flight.
This is why the military, doctors, police and so forth train all the time...so that flight is removed as an option.
Life was good for Lewis; he was married 4 months ago to a woman he truly adored. They had dated for two and a half years before taking the plunge.
There were no relatives to attend the wedding. Both sets of parents were gone; he had no siblings or any other relatives to his knowledge. She had one sister, who was in the service and on deployment. They invited as many friends as they could. About a dozen showed at the party to help celebrate.
He worked as a clerk at one of the largest insurance companies in the area; just a few more courses and he could take the test to become an agent. After that he would be in the big time.
Marie was a surgical nurse at the hospital. She was well on her way to becoming a physician's assistant; she had to finish one more semester before her tests.
Lewis usually got home a little before she did, so he would start dinner as he studied. It was usually something simple; pop a tray into the oven or warm a large can of whatever.
Three nights a week she was off to school soon after eating; two off those nights he went to his classes. The other night he spent working on his dream car; a 1957 Chevy. He had restored Josephine from the ground up. He chose that name because it seemed to suit the car; and he knew no one by that name. He hoped to have her ready to drive in time for Marie's graduation in about a month, it would be close.
The weekends were theirs to do as they pleased, usually not getting out of bed until the late morning or early afternoon. This was their time; time for loving, time to make up for all the demands of the week. They were always exhausted by the time they did get up.
It was a Tuesday, one of the days they did not need to go to school. As he pulled into the driveway he hardly noticed the car parked in front of the house; the neighbor kids always had visitors who parked all up and down the street. He dropped his cases on the table in the hall and went upstairs to change. Halfway up the stairs he almost heard a little squeak. His mind immediately brought up a picture of his wife as they made love. He smiled as the thought crossed his mind.
At the top off the steps he noticed the guest room door slightly ajar; it was usually closed. Not really thinking about it, he reached to pull it closed when his life as he knew it came to an abrupt end.
Eighteen hours later he stopped to use the facilities at the rest stop. He had no idea where he was; he didn't care either.
As he pulled into a parking space, the scene he saw as he closed that door returned. It had haunted him off and on, mostly on, since he left the house. His Marie was lying on her back with a huge black man between her legs, he was pumping away faster than he ever thought possible. His Marie, the one who gave him her virginity only four months before, was pumping right back with equal abandon. She was making the same small sounds she made for him. Now it appeared as if she was going to have to be someone else's Marie
His only thought was to leave; he could not live with a woman who would do this.
He picked up a piece of mail and quickly wrote on the back: "If this is what you want you can have him. I won't have a cheating wife. You pay for the divorce."
He threw his ring on it and left it on the hall table on top of his bags. He was out the door and on the way down the road soon after.
He had stopped three, or was it four, times for gas; each time grabbing a couple of cokes and something light to eat. Most of it was on the seat beside him still. His bladder was overfull.
After thinking about the problem for a while he decided that he needed to go back and confront Marie, he was not the type to run from a problem. Besides, he had worked too hard to get to this point his life to throw it all away. He called work and told the recorder he had to take time off for a family problem; he would be back on Monday.
It was between dawn and sunrise when he finally managed to pry himself out of the car, as he stood up the first punch hit him and knocked him out. Two men threw him onto the hood of the car and continued to beat him, without mercy, as he lay there. He was lucky he did not feel the rest of the beating. The men drove off in his car with all the contents of his pockets. They found it to be funny that he wet himself then proceeded to soil his shorts soon after.
One of them commented on how "...they really beat the shit out of him." He was still on the hood as they drove off; to their continued amusement he slowly rolled off the hood of the car as they backed out. He bounced off the curb and lay still. As they left the rest area they rudely toasted him with cokes he had purchased before.
Ten minutes later a trooper pulled into the parking lot to investigate the report of some disreputable looking characters at that location. He found nothing to be concerned about until he returned to his car and saw a badly beaten man fifteen feet beyond where he parked. Had he been at any other angle he might have missed the feet that showed under the trash can.
Lewis died two times on the way to the hospital. He was revived both times. He was near death again as they wheeled him in.
But, Lewis was a fighter, he survived. After ten days in an induced coma they began to bring him out. He was asked many questions; the blank looks he gave in return were not a good sign. He almost whispered "Cheating bitch." and soon screamed "NO!" really loud, and he moaned something about the love of his life being over. Everything else was incoherent moaning and sobbing.
The third day he was awake the doctor asked what he wished to be called. "I feel like I am known as Mark" he replied. The doctors pushed gently for a last name, but he said nothing else. So he became Mark, which in truth was his middle name.
The damage to his body was healing but his face was malformed, surgery made him look normal again.
Soon it became apparent that he was going to continue as he was for the duration. When the hospital could do no more for him he was sent to a psychiatric rehab hospital. A nurse named Nancy was able to befriend him and get responses to some questions, but he could not remember anything about his life before the beating. He still had the same terrible dreams; just a large black man rapidly pumping into a willing redhead. There were never any faces and many times the bodies were barely in focus. Much of the information revealed was recorded from mumblings as he slept. It was just not enough.
The day his room's air conditioner stopped working he revealed another clue. James Jones, the residential engineer, was a smallish black man. When James entered the room to make the repair, Lewis tried to climb out of his chair. The entire time he was screaming "You can't have my wife you son of a bitch. Get out of here and leave us alone!"
James made a hasty retreat from the room.
The staff had to sedate Lewis to calm him down. Over the next couple of days his nurse, Nancy, listened to the story about his dreams and managed to eventually convince him that it was not James who was in his dreams. The description of the man Lewis told her about, with his wife, was just too different to be James.
The next week Lewis asked if he could speak to James. "I 'm sorry for the way I treated you the other day. I realize I was wrong about who you were and what I said."
"It's OK" was the only response.
The two men sat for over an hour and talked about a lot of things. James had to go home to care for his child, so his wife could go to work. They parted as friends.
On the way out of the building James stopped to report that everything was now good between them. As a last remark, one he almost didn't make, he reported that Lewis seemed to watch one redheaded nurse every time she passed by his room. The staff kept a close eye on him and saw it too.
They asked her to walk into his room and see how he reacted.
Nancy was there with him as she entered the room Lewis sat up straight and looked very angry. The redhead moved closer to him a little at a time, until he suddenly spoke. "How dare you come into my room after what I saw you doing with that man? GET OUT and leave me alone. I never want to see you again!"
The nurse turned and left as quickly as she could.
The entire episode was recorded by the closed circuit camera in the corner of the room.
He sat in his chair and wept great big, sobbing tears of pain.
Nancy soon asked "Mark, who was that woman?"
He simply responded "That was Mary, the slut." He almost got the name correct.
"Are you sure about that? She looks like a nurse who works here named Lucy to me."
"No, I'm not really sure; in my dreams she had hair like that. Her hair was longer though. I can't seem to remember her face at all."
The sobbing resumed.
Detective Paul Shields, had been working on the case since Lewis was brought into the hospital almost dead. He hoped that the new particles of information would give some insight into who this man was. After running all available missing persons reports, there were over five hundred with the name Mary making the report. When he added any known spelling variables too, there were over twenty five hundred cases to work through, if that was even her name. With a loss of memory like this he might not even be close to her name. The only real clue was a tiny tattoo inside his hair line, It was a small heart that red "MP/ 4 ever" In real life her name, before marriage, was Marie Peterson.
Somehow she was on the short list of persons who were sent copies of the tattoo. She had never seen it; her name moved lower on the lists when she did not recognize it.
Mark started to follow James around the facility some days. He always asked questions about what James was doing. Soon he was diagnosing problems and suggesting solutions as fast as James was able to. Many times James used Mark's idea instead of what he might have tried first; Marks's ideas were usually the best and fastest cure.
Since he was making so much progress on that front the facility fought to keep him there as long as they could. At least he might be able to find a job later. When Medicare, and the other sources, would not cover the cost any more they had to let him leave.
Nancy took him home with her; they trusted each other and were good friends by that time. She had three weeks of vacation saved up and used every bit of it to get him settled. To occupy his time he began to do little repairs for her; things she could not do, that were in need of doing since her husband died years before. Soon he was being asked to help her friends and neighbors too. He made some spending cash; most of which he never spent except to buy materials for his jobs. He was making a good name for himself in the neighborhood.
Before you think that Lewis and Nancy became lovers; that never was an option. The relationship was closer to mother and son. She was considerably older and he knew somehow that he was still married. He held his marital promises as a sacred bond to be treasured. In his mind it didn't matter if she was true to him or not. A promise was a promise. "If a man can't keep his word he is useless" he once said
Two years had gone by and Marie was getting nowhere with her search. The police had relegated the case to the cold case files, only to be visited when a John Doe turned up dead somewhere.
She decided to hire a private detective with her own meager funds; some of her friends helped too. The detective thought it was a good, cost effective move to soak the media and police hotlines with his picture and information. They would sit back and wait for a month or so to see if anything popped up.
Meanwhile he also followed up on the remains the stolen car. It was found burned in Miami, Florida a little bit more than a month after Lewis was left for dead. There were charge card purchases too. Mostly they were for food and gas. He noticed a pattern when pins were placed on a map. There was a week long period when all the purchases were in a small town about five hundred miles from Miami. The trail began shortly after the assault and ran directly to that town. Slowly the purchases stopped as the cards were beginning to be declined for various reasons. The few after the town headed toward Miami.
A PI he knew was contacted to check out the purchases around town. One man remembered when a former local boy was in town about the same time frame as the purchases; one day two of the cards he used were declined at the same time. The boy pulled out a small wad of cash and paid for their food. "Damn if he could remember that boy's name. OH, wait, Barbie Jo Watson had been hanging with him one evening."
Her daddy wouldn't talk to the detective until he said he was investigating a possible crime. Then he couldn't talk fast enough before he forgot the entire story. The man kept calling for weeks after with more details.
Daddy knew the boy's name and that of his parents. He knew that the parents moved to Florida in shame over the actions of their boy. Another neighbor had their address, just outside Miami. You might think Daddy had a grudge working there?
The best clues were on the cell phone bill. The guys had called their friends; most of them would not talk or denied any knowledge of the calls. Those calls were all placed along the same general route as the charge card purchases. The very best clue was the call Lewis placed to his company. It pinpointed the location to a particular small area that included the rest area, right at the beginning of the trail the boys made. They knew he was alive and in good health at that time.
All calls after that were from various places along the road to Miami, to people the assailants knew.
With this information he called the local barracks of the state police. The trooper who found Lewis had transferred to the other side of the state. Detective Paul Shields just happened to hear a conversation about how to contact the trooper when facts were repeated that sounded like his John Doe case. He asked if it was about the John Doe a few years back. After speaking with the PI he is certain of who he has been investigating.
The two suspects had been released from the county jail the morning before. They had been serving ninety days for vagrancy, shoplifting and petty theft, etc. The prison took them to the county line and put them out with instructions to never return.
The phone lines were busy for the next few days with information sharing between the various parties.
Paul stopped to meet Nancy and show her the picture. The man was quite handsome; he did not look a lot like her friend Mark. She decided it was worth looking into since the changes could have been due to the attack and subsequent surgeries to make his face look normal. Without a photo to match maybe they just took a good guess.
Paul pulled the fingerprints they had in the file to compare to the ones from back east. They looked like a match to him. He sent them to the main print lab at the state police headquarters. Despite damage from some cuts and abrasions they concluded that they were from the same person.
Marie was asked to come in for a progress report Saturday morning, the last three weeks she had only called on Friday evening to be told they were still working on it. When she called on Friday this week the PI asked if she had time to stop in this morning. Thinking he wanted more information she reluctantly agreed. Her life was too busy with little time to waste on trivial things. He insisted that his man was to pick her up and bring her in to the office. She tried to protest. He explained that "...it would be better this way."
After sitting she was handed a sheet of paper. After turning it over her heart skipped a beat. On the page were two sets of fingerprints; one was labeled Insurance Agent Application, the other was labeled John Doe number 362. Stamped across the top of the page was the official stamp of her state police. She saw big letters close to the size of Chicago, she read the words "IDENTICAL MATCH".
She looked up to see the smile on his face as it slowly disappeared.
"Is he dead she suddenly blurted out? She stopped breathing for only a second before he responded "No".
Why the bad look then? She started to cry, not sure why at the time.
"I'll tell you the basics as we know them now, details may change with time." he stated. "Please understand as I give you the details that he is alive and doing well, he was taken in to live with a friend. She is aware of the developments. He, however, is not.
She? He is living with a woman? Her heart sank.
The night he disappeared he drove overnight to get to a small town that I will tell you about at later date. He stopped at a rest area where he was beaten and robbed. Using the statements from his credit cards and cell phone the assailants were tracked to another town and ultimately to Miami, Florida. We know who they are and are trying to find them as we speak. I can't tell you any more on that subject until they have been arrested."
The state police found him shortly later. He died twice on the way to the hospital. Each time he was revived. The hospital placed him in a coma to allow his body to heal without his pain causing problems. After ten days he was allowed to wake. He had, and still has, little memory of his past life before the assault. Over time he has regained what he thinks are some memories, unfortunately they are some very bad ones."
He paused to allow Marie to absorb the information.
She spoke up and asked, "What does he believe he remembers?"
"Remember he was badly beaten before he was found....He believes he walked in to find you having sex with a large black man."
"We expected that was what he meant in the note he left, he must have seen my sister and her husband in the guest room. They told me the door moved while they were in there. When I got home he had left his ring and the note on the envelope you have in your files."
Her mind drifted back as she explained what she knew and saw.
"I was a little later than I wanted to be due to an accident on the road out of town. I wanted to be there when he walked in the door. I wanted to introduce Lewis to my little sister and her husband, she and I look quite similar until you get to know us. She has a slight gap between her two upper teeth and my ears are slightly smaller. I also wanted to tell him we were pregnant.
As I drove up our street he was flying out of our drive like he was being chased by the devil. He took the turn at the street on two tires, almost hitting my car. Before I was able to turn he was out of sight, I tried to phone him...he never answered.
I left message after message all evening and throughout the night begging him to return. I explained it was not me he saw. If he got even one message I have no idea."
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Zookeeper's Wife (Ackerman) - Discussion Questions
Discussion Questions
1. How does Diane Ackerman's background as a naturalist and a poet inform her telling of this slice of history? Would a historian of World War II have told it differently, and, if so, what might have been left out?
2. Reviews have compared this book to Schindler's List and Hotel Rwanda. How would you compare them?
3. Did this book give you a different impression of Poland during World War II than you had before?
4. Can you imagine yourself in the same circumstances as Jan and Antonina? What would you have done?
5. How would you describe Antonina's relation to animals? To her husband? How does she navigate the various relationships in the book, given the extreme circumstances? Is her default position one of trust or distrust?
6. Do people have a "sixth sense" and how does it relate to "animal instinct"?
7. Some might judge Jan and Antonina guilty of anthropo-morphizing animals and nature. Would you? Why or why not?
8. Can nature be savage or kind—or can only humans embody those qualities? As science and the study of animal behavior and communication teach us more and more about the commonalities between animals and humans, is there still any dividing line between the human and the animal world? If so, how would you describe it?
9. The Nazis had a passion for animals and the natural world. How could Nazi ideology embrace both a love of nature and the mass murder of human beings?
10. The drive to "rewrite the genetic code of the entire planet" is not distinct to Nazism. What similar efforts are alive today? Are there lessons in Jan and Antonina's story for evaluating the benefits and dangers of trying to modify or improve upon nature? Do you see any connection between this story of more than sixty years ago and contemporary environmental issues?
11. Genetic engineering of foodstuffs is highly contentious. So are various reproductive technologies that are now common, such as selecting for—or against—various characteristics when choosing from sperm or egg banks. How would various characters in this book have approached these loaded issues? (Questions from author's website.)
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Mark Carney explains central bank speak
The governor on ‘stock phrases or code words’
Mark Carney just spoke at the CFA Society in Toronto. The theme is “guidance,” or how central banks can try to influence investors’ expectations by indicating the likely future movements of interest rates. As the Globe’s Kevin Carmichael noted last week, Carney’s tenure at the Bank has brought about some important changes on guidance. The governor “embraced the academic argument that a little uncertainty could be good for financial stability: a healthy debate about the likely path of interest rates eliminates the risk of a one-way bet, which essentially was the case in the U.S. ahead of the financial crisis.”
Here are some interesting bits from the prepared remarks, which the governor said do not contain any new guidance about the Canadian economy:
It’s a good idea to explain not just what the Bank is likely to do, but also why—especially when managing inflation isn’t the Bank’s only concern:
Telling investors how interest rates are likely to move can be very useful in times of crisis and when interest rates as already as low as they can go:
In extreme circumstances, when central banks must keep interest rates at rock-bottom for a prolonged period of time, it might be a good idea to tie future rate hikes to targets in non-inflation adjusted GDP (which captures both inflation and economic growth):
Mark Carney explains central bank speak
1. Sigh.
Well the man doesn’t have to shout ‘PANIC! A-BAN-DONNNNNN SHIP!!’ but there is no need for all the secrecy and coded remarks either. People are more educated now, and don’t need the patronizing pat on the head. Ordinary explanations will do.
If fact it would mean people wouldn’t panic/sleepwalk based on what politicians were saying
• Sorry, no, I think you miss the point of central bank speak. I attended a lecture by an IMF guy the other day. No word of a lie, he said with a straight face words that translated to, “of course governments had to bail out their banks because they needed liquidity. And the banks had to charge higher interest rates because the governments had taken on too much debt.” So, if that is your version of logic, it is imperative that nobody actually understands you.
• We all know the point of central bank speak.
Lying….so as not to panic the peasants.
Except it’s not 1929, and people aren’t peasants anymore.
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Did you know?
put down for - definition and synonyms
What are red words?
phrasal verb [transitive]
Word Forms
present tense
I/you/we/theyput down for
he/she/itputs down for
present participleputting down for
past tenseput down for
past participleput down for
1. 1
put someone down for something to write someones name on a list so that they can take part in an activity or become a member of an institution or organization
I’ve put my name down for the trip to Paris.
It’s the sort of school you have to put them down for at birth.
2. 2
put someone down for something to write on a list that someone agrees to give or take something
I’ll put you down for £20 then.
Can you put me down for one of the puppies?
See also main entry: put
BuzzWord Article
Word of the Day
Mardi Gras
shrove tuesday
Open Dictionary
brain fade
a temporary inability to think clearly or remember information
add a word
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Did you know?
understand - definition and synonyms
What are red words?
verb [never progressive] understand pronunciation in British English /ˌʌndə(r)ˈstænd/
Word Forms
present tense
present participleunderstanding
past tenseunderstood
past participleunderstood
1. 1
[intransitive/transitive] to know what someone or something means
If you don’t understand, just put your hand up.
The instructions were difficult to understand.
I don’t understand a word you’re saying.
Luke nodded as if he understood perfectly.
understand what/where/whether etc: I don’t quite understand where you want me to put it.
Synonyms and related words
1. a.
to know what something spoken or written in a particular language means
I’m sorry, I don’t understand French.
Synonyms and related words
2. 2
[intransitive/transitive] to know how or why something happens, or what effect or influence something has
Do they fully understand the implications of their decision?
understand how/why/what etc: We are only beginning to understand how the brain functions.
understand (that): Please try to understand that we want the best for you.
Synonyms and related words
3. 3
[intransitive/transitive] to know how someone feels or why someone does something, as a result of experience or by imagining what it must be like to be them
He says his wife doesn’t understand him.
I understand your concern, but the operation is completely safe.
I can understand your reluctance to talk about what happened.
understand how/why/what: Does she understand why he doesn’t want to see her?
understand someone/someone’s doing something: I can understand him not inviting Joan (=understand why he does not invite her).
Synonyms and related words
4. 4
[transitive] formal to believe that something is true because you have heard or read it somewhere
understand (that): We understand that a major announcement is to be made tomorrow.
be understood to do something: Mr Lang is understood to favour more traditional teaching methods.
it is understood that: It is understood that £2.5 million has been set aside to develop the scheme.
5. 5
[transitive] [usually passive] to recognize that a word or phrase is missing in a sentence and that you have to imagine that it is there
The object of the verb is understood with words such as ‘to smoke’ and ‘to read’.
BuzzWord Article
Word of the Day
Mardi Gras
shrove tuesday
Open Dictionary
brain fade
a temporary inability to think clearly or remember information
add a word
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Wednesday, March 04, 2015
What is ricin?
Ricin is a protein toxin that is readily produced from castor beans (Ricinus communis), which are ubiquitous throughout the world. It acts as a cellular poison by inhibiting protein synthesis. Naturally-occurring cases of ricin involve ingestion of castor beans, and are marked by severe gastrointestinal symptoms, vascular collapse, and death.
How is ricin associated with Bioterrorism?
Ricin has been used as a biological weapon for assassinations in the past. It is toxic by numerous exposure routes, however, its use by bioterrorists might involve poisoning of water or foodstuffs, inoculation via ricin-laced projectiles, or aerosolization of liquid ricin or lyophilized powder. Waste from the commercial production of castor oil contains 5% ricin, making it easy for such a substance to fall into the hands of bioterrorists.
What are the signs of ricin intoxication?
When inhaled as a small particle aerosol, ricin would likely produce symptoms within 8 hours. Fever, cough, difficulty breathing, nausea, and chest tightness are followed by profuse sweating, skin turning blue, low blood pressure, and finally respiratory failure and circulatory collapse. Time to death would likely be 36-72 hours, depending on the dose received.
How is ricin intoxication diagnosed?
The diagnosis of ricin is largely based on symptoms and should be suspected in a setting of mass casualties with a similar and appropriate clinical picture. Failure to respond to antibiotics helps to differentiate ricin exposure from lung infections produced by bacterial agents. A blood antibody test exists but is not readily available.
Can ricin intoxication be treated?
No specific treatment exists, and care is thus supportive treatment of symptoms.
Is a vaccine available?
No specific vaccine or antitoxin exists. A protective mask would offer protection from aerosol exposure | <urn:uuid:b38ba0bf-05d6-4203-836c-0ee9f0bdac65> | 3 | 3.03125 | 0.459751 | en | 0.927682 | http://www.marioncoks.net/Departments/HealthDepartment/PublicHealthEmergencyPreparedness/Ricin/tabid/7514/Default.aspx |
Using the World Wide Web
Back | Next
Tips for Better Search Results
Be specific
EXAMPLE: Hurricane Andrew
Put most important terms first in your list;put a +sign in front of each one
EXAMPLE: +environment +everglades +water +pollution
Use at least three keywords in your query
EXAMPLE: Florida tourism economy
Use quotation marks around phrases
EXAMPLE: "art deco"
Use Boolean connectors to indicate inclusion, exclusion, or proximity.
EXAMPLE: dolphins NOT football tradition OR culture tsunami AND Thailand
Think about words you'd expect to find in the page, and use as keywords
EXAMPLE: students drinking alcohol accidents
Write down your search statement before typing it into a search engine
EXAMPLE: +"Miami Dade College" +"financial aid" +scholarships +grants | <urn:uuid:bab5b8b6-1ef2-4c03-8785-72bce200d3b6> | 3 | 2.78125 | 0.030338 | en | 0.65601 | http://www.mdc.edu/kendall/library/lis1001/worldwideweb09atips.html |
Open position guitar chords for beginners
In this lesson, we're creating rhythm parts using chords that exploit the open strings. We'll make things simple by limiting our study here to major and minor triads.
As you may have guessed from the name, triad chords contain three notes. For a major triad we need the root, major third and perfect fifth. For minor triads we need both a root and fifth, but this time there's a minor or flattened third.
When creating a chord fingering we can duplicate any of the notes as many times as we wish. Take for example the E major chord. To create an E major triad, we need the notes E, G# and B. If we play E major in the open position it can be fingered with a low E, B, E, G#, B and top E.
Take some time to examine the chord examples on the next page. We've written out the intervals within the chords, the note names on the stave and the preferred fingering (numbers in the circles on the virtual fretboard). There are five possible major fingerings (C, A, G, E and D).
There are also five possible minor fingerings, however, the ones for C and G are tricky to play, so most guitarists avoid them. We've written out the most popular three (D minor, E minor and A minor) for you to practise.
The beauty of the open chord system is that the chords sound good and are easy to play. You can access other keys by using a capo (a device that clips around the neck and holds down the strings across any fret to provide a new 'zero' fret). It is possible to write great songs and accompany yourself and others with just this handful of chords – ask Bob Dylan!
For this lesson's example, we've designed a chord progression that uses every open position, major and minor chord at least once. For inspiration we listened to great chord strummers REM, but The Smiths or early Coldplay are also good examples. To make things more interesting, we've included two extra chords (Dsus4 and D/F#). It's well worth learning these extra chords, as they are popular additions to the open chord vocabulary and feature in many songs.
We've kept the strumming rhythms simple. For the crotchets (quarter notes) use a downstroke and for continuous quavers (eighth notes) use a downstroke followed by an upstroke.
Full track
Backing track
Next page: chord diagrams and tab example
Open position major and minor chords
(Click chord diagrams to enlarge)
Example: verse progression
(Click tab to enlarge)
[Verse: Bars 1-8] The chord progression for the verse is simply a four-bar pattern repeated twice. Make the transitions between the chords as smooth as possible and use a loose and relaxed strumming action. To add interest we've included the third of D (F#) in the bass of the D chord (D/F#). This is a common trick when moving from E minor to G via D as it provides a smooth bass line.
The Dsus4 is another common chord and has been used to anticipate the move to G. We've missed off the low third (B, 2nd fret, fifth string) from the G chords as this doesn't sound so good with distortion. Missing out the third from G leaves us with a rock-friendly G5 power chord – very AC/DC!
Next page: tab for the bridge and chorus sections
Example: bridge and chorus sections
(Click tab to enlarge)
[Bridge: Bars 9-16] For the bridge I've used a different strumming rhythm and also introduced two new chords (D minor and E major). Switching from a major chord to a minor chord, and vice versa, is a popular compositional trick for changing key, referred to in theory circles as modal interchange.
[Chorus: Bars 17 – 25] This section exploits all the techniques discussed for the other sections. The last chord is A major which provides a surprise happy ending.
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Slaters Queensland Almanac 1887
187 records
Slaters Queensland Almanac 1887. 1887. Almanacs and directories are a valuable resource for local, family and social historians as well as for researchers in other fields of Australian history.
This Slaters Queensland Almanac, Directory and Gazetteer contains country and Brisbane trades directories which lists the names, addresses and professions of many people in Queensland in 1887. It also includes a comprehensive almanac section giving information on weather, events, history of the colony, the government and more. Directories are an extremely useful tool for establishing when and where a person lived however this is just a starting point, look further in the directory to find out more information about the society in which they lived, the occupation they held and the people they knew. This product provides a great tool for researching Australian history making information that is difficult to find plainly and easily accessible on one CD.
Clear form | <urn:uuid:1dbb8829-e210-4f62-b168-8139aa2db918> | 2 | 2.5 | 0.195629 | en | 0.934638 | http://www.myheritage.com/research/collection-50634/slaters-queensl-almanac-1887 |
Blame big fingers, tired eyes or other distractions, but odds are you've sent a text or tweet to someone accidentally.
It probably wasn't a photo of your crotch, such as U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner mistakenly tweeted out. And it probably wasn't a text cussing at a fashion icon, as Lady Gaga sent to Vogue editor Anna Wintour, thinking she was responding to another Anna.
Still, it happens to all of us, from text-addicted teenagers to businessmen on BlackBerry Messenger.
About 40 percent of texters admit they've accidently sent a text to the wrong person, and 10 percent say they do it once a month, according to research by the makers of TextPlus, a smartphone app.
Accidentally replying to an incoming message or clicking the wrong person on your contact list are common errors.
"I was trying to hit on a girl named Kelly via text one time. My boss' name is Kelly, and I almost sent it to her. I changed her name to 'boss' after that," said Eric Swenson, a 21-year-old student - via text, of course.
Swenson hasn't always caught his mistakes, though, and has been left staring at his phone screen at a disparaging message he fired away to the wrong recipient.
"If you recognize it right away, say, 'Sorry, wrong person,' " said Drew Olanoff, the "textpert" and community director for TextPlus. "You don't want them wondering, 'Was this for me?' They'll understand. It happens to everybody."
Weiner's highly publicized case, Olanoff said, provided a few examples of what not to do when you make a mistake: lie about it ("I didn't send it!") or blame technology ("I was hacked!").
Though the subject matter of Weiner's messages was clearly inappropriate, even innocent texts can be problematic when they end up in your co-worker's or your grandmother's inbox. Humor sites have made such texts an Internet meme, posting thousands of screenshots people have submitted of their uncomfortable exchanges from texting mistakes.
"If everyone just took a moment to re-read what they typed before they hit send, every one of the mistakes on and WrongNumberTexts
.com could be avoided," said Jillian Madison, who runs the sites and wrote a book with the funniest submissions. "Of course, it's easier said than done. Today, we're all moving fast, talking fast and communicating fast. The downside to that is it leads to mistakes, often with dire consequences."
Embarrassment isn't the only result from such mistakes, which have prompted breakups, firings and even arrests. This week, a man from Porter mistakenly sent a text message allegedly arranging a drug deal to an officer at a Montgomery County constable's office.
Americans' rate of texting is booming, with younger texters sending more messages than ever. According to a recent Nielson Mobile report, teens sent an average of 3,364 a month at the start of 2011. The 18-24 age group sent 1,640 a month.
More texting means more opportunities for mistakes, so Olanoff predicts tech companies will begin to create more safety features for users, such as a "Are you sure you want to send this text?" message or even an option to retract misfired messages.
"There will be more things to 'save us from ourselves,' " Olanoff said. | <urn:uuid:2043fe45-08b3-4167-9207-67bf4f819424> | 2 | 2 | 0.034697 | en | 0.960579 | http://www.mysanantonio.com/life/article/Being-all-thumbs-can-mean-real-trouble-when-1421813.php |
Digital natives, digital immigrants, part II: Do they really think differently?
Marc Prensky 2001 On the Horizon v9 n6
This article deals with the issue of whether Digital Natives, people who grew up with video games and the Internet, actually think differently than preceding generations. It reviews neurological and sociological literature indicating that experience can cause physiological and psychological changes that affect thinking and learning, whether educational games are effective, and proposes that one skill that Digital Natives have less opportunity to develop than preceding generations is reflection. Is there any way to build video games to promote reflective thought?
Link to Full-Text Article
This resource is referenced here:
Resource Type: Magazine ArticleKeywords: games, game-based learning | <urn:uuid:ff12304f-ae01-4770-a5b7-b8f05374dfd5> | 3 | 2.96875 | 0.025055 | en | 0.917639 | http://www.nagt.org/resources/1612.html |
Physics & Math
Home |Physics & Math | In-Depth Articles
Salad-bar strategy: The battle of the buffet
Video: Beat the salad bar: Build the ultimate food tower
Competition, greed and skulduggery are the name of the game if you want to eat your fill. Smorgasbord behaviour is surprisingly complex
A mathematician, an engineer and a psychologist go up to a buffet… No, it's not the start of a bad joke.
While most of us would dive into the sandwiches without thinking twice, these diners see a groaning table as a welcome opportunity to advance their research.
Look behind the salads, sausage rolls and bite-size pizzas and it turns out that buffets are a microcosm of greed, sexual politics and altruism - a place where our food choices are driven by factors we're often unaware of. Understand the science and you'll see buffets very differently next time you fill your plate.
The story starts with Lionel Levine of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and Katherine Stange of Stanford University, California. They were sharing food at a restaurant one day, and wondered: do certain choices lead to tastier platefuls when food must be divided up? You could wolf down everything in sight, of course, but these guys are mathematicians, so they turned to a more subtle approach: game theory.
Applying mathematics to a buffet is harder than it sounds, so they started by simplifying things. They modelled two people taking turns to pick items from a shared platter - hardly a buffet, more akin to a polite tapas-style meal. It was never going to generate a strategy for any occasion, but hopefully useful principles would nonetheless emerge. And for their bellies, the potential rewards were great.
First they assumed that each diner would have individual preferences. One might place pork pie at the top and beetroot at the bottom, for example, while others might salivate over sausage rolls. That ranking can be plugged into calculations by giving each food item a score, where higher-ranked foods are worth more points. The most enjoyable buffet meal would be the one that scores highest in total.
In some scenarios, the route to the most enjoyable plate was straightforward. If both people shared the same rankings, they should pick their favourites first. But Levine and Stange also uncovered a counter-intuitive effect: it doesn't always pay to take the favourite item first. To devise an optimum strategy, they say, you should take into account what your food rival considers to be the worst food on the table.
If that makes your brow furrow, consider this: if you know your fellow diner hates chicken legs, you know that can be the last morsel you aim to eat - even if it's one of your favourites. In principle, if you had full knowledge of your food rival's preferences, it would be possible to work backwards from their least favourite and identify the optimum order in which to fill your plate, according to the pair's calculations, which will appear in American Mathematical Monthly (
So how do you know what to select first? In reality, the buffet might be long gone before you had worked it out. Even if you did, the researchers' strategy also assumes that you are at a rather polite buffet, taking turns, so it has its limitations. However, it does provide practical advice in some scenarios. For example, imagine Amanda is up against Brian, who she knows has the opposite ranking of tastes to her. Amanda loves sausages, hates pickled onions, and is middling about quiche. Brian loves pickled onions, hates sausages, shares the same view of quiche. Having identified that her favourites are safe, Amanda should prioritise morsels where their taste-ranking matched - the quiche, in other words.
Not surprisingly, Levine and Stange found their two-person buffet strategy didn't work when they applied it to a scenario with more people. Even so, they found that rushing into grabbing favourites is not always advisable. This time, however, they modelled two general approaches: the "boorish lout" who would always pick their favourite food and the "gallant knight" who makes selections that take into account the enjoyment of others as well as their own. They found that if any of the diners act boorish, everybody ends up with a less satisfying meal than if every person acts gallantly ( So it can pay to be altruistic - but not if there are any selfish diners.
Indeed, sometimes the only way to satisfy an appetite at a buffet is to pile your plate high while you can - and here's where some engineering know-how can apply.
Software engineer Shen Hongrui, who lives in Beijing, China, found a way to fit an astonishing amount of food into one dish: piles reaching up to a metre tall. Shen had noticed that patrons of the salad buffet in Pizza Hut were asked to follow the rule: "one bowl, one visit". So he worked out how to build towers from salad items, and so maximise his haul. He even, with tongue firmly in cheek, published equations, diagrams and instructions online so others could repeat the feat.
The key is to build a cylindrical tower using a base of radiating carrot sticks balanced on the bowl rim. "The foundations are very important, so choose dry and strong material," Shen advises. Then build walls of cucumber slices or fruit blocks, before filling the inside of the tower with any food items you want.
Bear in mind you may be thrown out for such mischief, though. Shen and his fellow salad architects were thwarted when Pizza Hut banned the practice in China.
So, back to our hypothetical buffet. The engineers are busy building towers while the mathematicians scribble strategies on napkins. What are the psychologists up to?
When they approach a buffet, they are more interested in spying on other people than eyeing up the food. Their findings could help explain many of the extra pounds you will inevitably pile on during the festive season.
Supersizing strategy
For example, Brian Wansink and colleagues at the Food and Brand Laboratory at Cornell University noticed that people with a high body mass index (BMI) sit on average 5 metres closer to a buffet than those with an average BMI, and 71 per cent face the food, compared with 26 per cent of people of average weight (Obesity, vol 16, p 1957). They were also more likely to go back for seconds. It's hardly earth-shattering news that larger people like food, of course, but with the right triggers anybody can be encouraged to gorge. Indeed, researchers at Georgia State University in Atlanta have shown that group size dramatically affects the number of calories consumed. If you are with one other person, you will eat 35 per cent more calories than if you dine alone. In a group of eight, you're looking at a whopping 90 per cent increase (Physiology & Behavior, vol 51, p 121).
The gender of eating companions also influences the food people eat - but it's more likely to influence women. In unpublished experiments, Wansink noticed that if a woman is next to a man at a buffet, about 12 per cent of what ends up on her plate will be determined by what he takes. If she's next to another woman, that jumps to 44 per cent. So women are influenced by both sexes. By contrast, men's choices were unaffected by either.
Clearly then, deciding between the sandwiches and pork pies is not such a straightforward task after all. A scientific mindset can be a terrible burden at the buffet. You can only imagine the hand-wringing that goes on at dessert.
Jamie Condliffe is a writer based in Oxford, UK
Issue 2844 of New Scientist magazine
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Auto Doctor: Flat tire repairs can damage tire pressure monitor
When a lessee fixed the flat tire on When a lessee fixed the flat tire on her 2013 Hyundai Sonata, the "Low Tire Pressure" sign stayed illuminated on the dashboard. Photo Credit: Hyundai
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Dear Doctor: I'm leasing a 2013 Hyundai Sonata. I had a flat tire, which I had fixed with the silicone, but the "Low Tire Pressure" sign stays illuminated on the dashboard. All four tires are inflated properly. Will this hurt my fuel economy? Hyundai said if they look at it and the sensor is broken, I would be charged because the tires are not included in the warranty. -- Amy
Dear Amy: Go back to the shop that repaired the tire. If they took the tire off the rim, or if you drove the car with a flat tire, then the tire pressure monitor may have been damaged. I see a lot of tire pressure monitors damaged due to removal of the tire from the rim. You can go to any tire shop for a replacement tire pressure monitor. You'll have to replace the monitor before you end the lease or you may be charged the full retail dealer price.
Dear Doctor: Why does General Motors require the synthetic engine oil to be replaced so frequently? I only drive about 6,000 miles a year in my 2011 Chevy Impala, but my dealer wants me to replace the oil at 3,000-mile intervals. Can the oil get contaminated that fast with such short trips? I thought that the replacement intervals were doubled when using synthetic oils. Would this mean I'd be changing regular oil every 1,500 miles? -- Bill
Dear Bill: Oil change intervals are one of the most important services to prolong engine life. The oil change monitor does not discern the difference between full-synthetic oil and regular oil. The internal parts of today's engines require certain types of oil to properly operate. Unlike older engines, new high tech engines have a lot of electric and hydraulic valves and switching devices, especially camshaft timing valves and solenoids. The main failure for these control devices is contaminated oil. The dealer may be able to reprogram the oil change interval with the factory Tech 2 scan tool, however, I suggest changing the oil and filter twice a year with the use of full-synthetic oil. You should also drive the car on the highway weekly to ensure the engine gets up to operating temperature. This helps clean and burn out contamination and dry out moisture in the exhaust.
Dear Doctor: I have a 2003 Lincoln Town Car with a moonroof. When it rains water accumulates in the rear passenger floor. I've checked and it is not coming from the moonroof. Interestingly, my neighbor has the same problem. How do I fix it? -- Ralph
Dear Ralph: I find many leaks are caused from debris stuck in sunroof drains and heater box drains. To locate the water source in the rear seat floor area you'll need to have a repair shop to a water test over the roof, closely inspecting the rear window seals as well as body welds that may have cracks. This should not be a major repair.
Dear Doctor: I have been given conflicting advice on an emergency-only generator. I've been told to run it once a month and I've also been told to let it run out of gas and then store it. Should I use stabilizer? How long may I store 5 gallons of gasoline? -- Joe
Dear Joe: I live in an area that has frequent power outages and I have generators at my home and the shop. I keep gas in both of them and use gas stabilizer, too. I start the generators every other month and let them run for 20 minutes with a load, such as lights or any other power equipment. Draining the gas, however, can cause fuel-tank rust (if the tank is not plastic), the carburetor gasket to shrink and leak, and corrosion to form in the carburetor. You should change the oil in the generator one a year. If the generator is electric-start and has a small battery, then you should use a small battery charger and charge the battery every three months.
Dear Doctor: There are many new models with turbocharged engines offered today. My mechanic says to stay away from a turbo because they are not durable. I know this was the case in the past. Do you think the new turbo engines will be as durable as non-turbo engines? -- Fred
Dear Fred: Turbocharging is the wave of the future, as is supercharging. I personally own cars with supercharges and twin turbochargers. In the old days, turbo engines experienced poor oil lubrication. Also, oil would breakdown under heat in engines with carburetors. -- Junior Damato, Motor Matters
Junior Damato is an ASE-certified Master Technician. E-mail questions to Mail questions to: Auto Doctor, 3 Court Circle, Lakeville, MA 02347
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Timetable (DDPW01)
Dynamics of Discs and Planets
Monday 17th August 2009 to Friday 21st August 2009
Monday 17th August 2009
08:30 to 09:50 Registration
09:50 to 10:00 Welcome - Ben Mestel
10:00 to 11:00 L Hartmann ([Michigan])
Review - protostellar disk observations
Session: 1 - Observations of Protoplanetary Discs
Rapid progress is being made in developing observational constraints on the structure and evolution of protoplanetary disks, primarily due advances in spectral sensitivity due to the Spitzer Space Telescope and improvements in spatial resolution from mm-wave interferometry. Unfortunately there still are considerable uncertainties in the masses and mass distributions of disks. I will review the observational limits we now have on disk masses, the evidence for dust growth and settling in these disks, and the increasingly common indications of inner disk clearing at early evolutionary times (~ 1 Myr). I will then argue that the time-dependence of disk accretion in the protostellar phase strongly suggests that something like a dead zone or high-surface-density, low-viscosity, region exists in inner disks, at least initially, providing the conditions for more rapid formation of relatively massive bodies.
11:00 to 11:30 Coffee and posters INI 1
11:30 to 11:50 D Wilner ([Harvard Smithsonian Center])
Submm observations of protoplanetary disks
Session: 1 - Observations of Protoplanetary Discs
Observations over a wide wavelength range provide diagnostic information on protoplanetary disks, but the submillimeter regime is especially important because (1) optically thin dust emission probes particles through the entire disk, including the cold midplane, (2) these are the longest wavelengths where dust is readily detectable, and therefore the last direct link on the chain of sizes from sub-micron interstellar particles to planetesimals, (3) aligned dust particles can produce polarized emission that traces the magnetic field, and (4) spectral line emission from a variety of species show the detailed disk kinematics and constrain nebular chemistry. I will describe recent results from the Submillimeter Array that take advantage of several of these key features, with implications for disk structure, planet forming potential, and the physics of accretion. In particular, I will discuss a high resolution (0.3 arcsec = 40 AU) 870 micron survey of dust continuum emission from young disks in the Ophiuchus star-forming region, where we have used 2D radiative transfer calculations to fit simultaneously the resolved submillimeter data and the broadband spectral energy distributions with a parametric model in an effort to characterize the viscous properties and the likelihood of future (and perhaps even past) planet formation in these disks.
11:50 to 12:10 J Bouwman ([Max-Planck-Institute, Heidelberg])
Observational evidence for grain growth
Session: 1 - Observations of Protoplanetary Discs
The disks in Herbig Ae/Be and T Tauri systems are believed to be the birth sites of planetary systems. These disks are known to dissipate in about 10Myr, after which giant planet formation will be terminated. In this review I will discuss observational evidence for the onset of planet formation:the growth of sub-micron sized dust grains, typical for the ISM, into mm sized dust grains. To correctly interpret these observations, comparisons to experimental and theoretical studies elucidating the processes (growth, evaporation, condensation, crystallisation, and large scale mixing) acting on dust in protoplanetary disks, are required. This review will, therefore, extensively discuss the interplay between observations and experiments/theory.
12:10 to 12:40 Discussion (session chair: Jim Pringle)
Session: 1 - Observations of Protoplanetary Discs
12:40 to 13:30 Lunch at Wolfson Court and posters
14:00 to 14:40 C Dominik ([Amsterdam])
Review - models of protoplanetary disks
Session: 2 - Protoplanetary Disc Modelling
In my talk I will address a variety of modeling approaches to protoplanetary disks. I will discuss radiative transfer models that are used to derive spectral energy distributions and address the issues related to various geometrical structures in such disks and the pitfall of modeling these with codes not appropriate for complex geometries. I will discuss the latest models of the inner boundary of protoplanetary disks near the dust evaporation zone and show that a detailed treatment of the evaporation physics leads to interesting structure, size and chemical sorting, and possibly to instabilities as a source for observational variability, both in SED features and in interferometric observations. I will also discuss the latest suite of models covering dust settling and coagulation on a global scale in disks. Hydrodynamic and magnetohyrdodynamic models are beyond the scope of this review talk.
14:40 to 15:00 N Calvet ([Michigan])
Recent results on the interpretation of observations of protoplanetary disks
Session: 2 - Protoplanetary Disc Modelling
I will show recent results on the interpretation of SEDs and spectra of protoplanetary disks around low mass stars. I will talk about recent Spitzer/IRS observations that indicate that disks are very settled even in extremely young populations. I will then talk about Spitzer/IRAS observations showing that the inner disks get increasingly settled as the population ages in primordial disks. I will show UV observations of molecular H that indicate that the gas in the inner disk disappears when the stars stop accreting, even if some dust and probably gas is left in the outer disks. I will talk about the transitional and pre-transitional disks, that is, disks with inner clearing and gaps, and speculate that they are possible phases for the final clearing of the inner disks.
15:00 to 15:30 Tea and posters INI 1
15:30 to 15:50 G Lesur (University of Cambridge)
Turbulent convection in accretion discs
Session: 2 - Protoplanetary Disc Modelling
Transport of angular momentum has always been a central problem of accretion disc theory. Since the discovery of the magnetorotational instability in accretion discs by Balbus and Hawley (1991), MRI-driven turbulence is believed to be the best candidate to explain anomalous transport in discs. Despite this result, several other routes to turbulence have been considered over the last two decades, with limited success. A possible alternative to MRI turbulence is turbulent convection, driven by an unstable vertical entropy gradient in the disc. Several studies have shown that convection was actually transporting angular momentum inward, and is therefore not favourable to accretion. In this presentation, I will revisit the problem of turbulent convection in accretion discs, using modern numerical methods. In particular, I will show that this hydrodynamic process could actually drive outward angular momentum transport if certain conditions are met, with an efficiency compatible with protoplanetary discs observations.
15:50 to 16:10 T Sano ([Osaka])
Dead zones in protoplanetary disks
Session: 2 - Protoplanetary Disc Modelling
MHD turbulence driven by the magnetoroational instability (MRI) is the most promising mechanism of angular momentum transport in accretion disks. However protoplanetary disks are dense and cold so that the ionization fraction is extremely low. It is known that there must be dead zones in protoplanetary disks where the growth of MRI is suppressed significantly due to non-ideal MHD effects. The size of dead zones are related to the characteristics of dust grains. The gas and dust evolutions, or planet formation, are affected by the existence of the dead zones. The roles of the dead zones in planet formation scenario are summarized in this talk.
16:10 to 16:30 C Gammie ([Illinois])
Self-gravitating disc evolution
Session: 2 - Protoplanetary Disc Modelling
I will briefly review recent advances in modeling self-gravitating disc evolution, as well as some unsolved problems, particularly the long-term interaction of density waves with other forms of angular momentum transport such as MHD turbulence.
16:30 to 17:00 C Clarke (University of Cambridge)
The role of photoevaporation in disc dispersal
Session: 2 - Protoplanetary Disc Modelling
I first recapitulate former work explaining how the interplay between viscous evolution and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) photoevaporation produces a characteristic pattern of disc clearing, which invoves first rapid viscous draining of the inner disc (within a few A.U.) followed by rapid photoevaporation of the outer disc. This behaviour sets in at late times when the accretion rate through the disc is very low ($\sim 10^{10} M_\odot$ yr$^{-1}$). I then describe recent work which demonstrates that, contrary to previous estimates, Xray photoevaporation is in fact likely to be a major disc dispersal agent. The sequence of disc clearing phases is qualitatively similar to that described above but with two key differences: i) the photoevaporation rate is ten times higher and thus this clearing sets in earlier, when the disc accretion rate is $\sim 10^{-9} M_\odot$ yr$^{-1}$ and ii) a combination of the greater penetrating power of Xrays and the somewhat lower temperatures attained by Xray heated gas compared with the EUV case means that the peak wind mass loss occurs at $\sim 20 $ A.U.. The size of the inner hole is thus $\sim 4$ times larger than in EUV photoevaporative models. We discuss the implications of this new result for models of disc clearing and the production of transition discs.
17:00 to 17:30 Discussion (session chair: Steve Balbus)
Session: 2 - Protoplanetary Disc Modelling
17:30 to 18:30 Welcome Wine Reception INI 1
Tuesday 18th August 2009
09:00 to 09:40 G Wurm ([Münster])
Review - there and back again: the making and destruction of dusty planetesimals
Session: 3 - Dust Coagulation and Planetesimal Formation
A dust particle has to take a number of different roads to be incorporated into a planet. On the constructive side, collisions gentle enough might stick the particle to other particles and lead to growth of larger objects. Ultimately, beyond any detail, this is how planetesimals, km-size precursors to planets and terrestrial planets further on form. Collisions are therefore among the most fundamental processes in planet formation. In detail they have their share in shaping the size distribution and morphology of evolving bodies and to set formation time scales of larger objects in protoplanetary disks. Sticking, rebound, fragmentation, and reaccretion (the latter especially by gas drag) are important results of individual collisions. How far we can get along the size scale of growth from dust upward and which collisions / conditions would be needed to get to planetesimals will be covered in this talk. As the evolving bodies are not isolated in their collisions but embedded in a gaseous protoplanetary disk, other processes can support, prevent, or even undo the growth of large bodies. Eventually, these processes might be of similar importance as the collisional growth and put some dependence of the formation processes to the radial distance from the star within the disk. Planetesimal and planet formation does not necessarily proceed the same way all over the disk. I will suggest some thoughts on this.
09:40 to 10:00 A Johansen ([Leiden])
The crucial role of metallicity for planetesimal formation
Session: 3 - Dust Coagulation and Planetesimal Formation
The probability of finding exoplanets around a main sequence star rises sharply for metallicities around solar or higher. I present computer simulations of particle clumping and planetesimal formation in protoplanetary discs with varying amounts of solid material. The sedimentary mid-plane layer of pebbles is unstable to both Kelvin-Helmholtz and streaming instabilities. For metallicities below the solar value the equilibrium mid-plane layer is thick and displays no clumping. However, already at slightly super-solar metallicities, strong clumping occurs in the mid-plane layer. These particle clumps can locally obtain more than a hundred times the gas density. We interpret the onset of clumping as an effect of a curious trait of the streaming instability: the strength of the turbulence increases with a decreasing solids-to-gas mass ratio. Particles inside dense clumps have collision speeds of a few meters per second, and the clumps readily contract gravitationally into a number of interacting 100-km-size planetesimals. Our results show that the metallicity dependence of exoplanets may have been imprinted already in the early stages of planet formation, or during the dispersal of the gaseous part of the disc.
10:00 to 10:40 E Kokubo ([NAOJ])
Review - formation of terrestrial planets: the basic dynamical model
Session: 4 - Formation of Terrestrial , Super-Earth and Giant Planets
In the standard scenario for formation of planetary systems, a planetary system forms from a protoplanetary disk that consists of gas and dust. The formation scenario can be divided into three stages: (1) formation of planetesimals from dust, (2) formation of protoplanets from planetesimals, and (3) formation of planets from protoplanets. In stage (1), planetesimals form from dust through gravitational instability of a dust layer or coagulation of dust grains. Planetesimals are small building blocks of solid planets. Planetesimals grow by mutual ollisions to protoplanets or planetary embryos through runaway and oligarchic growth in stage (2). The final stage (3) depends on a type of planets. The final stage of terrestrial planet formation is giant impacts among protoplanets while sweeping residual planetesimals. In the present talk, I review the basic elementary processes of terrestrial planet formation, showing some recent simulations.
10:40 to 11:00 D McNeil ([QMUL])
Oligarchic growth and migration scenarios for short-period neptune and super-earth formation
The discovery of short-period Neptune-mass objects, now including the remarkable system HD69380 with three Neptune analogues, presents challenges to current formation models. Several formation scenarios have been proposed, where most combine the canonical oligarchic picture of core accretion with type I migration and planetary atmosphere physics (e.g. Terquem & Papaloizou 2007; Alibert et al. 2006). These consider only a very small number of progenitors at late times, raising questions about the earlier evolution. Using global N-body simulations, we ask whether the standard model of oligarchic core accretion with embryos experiencing type I migration can generate a population of hot Neptune systems. This problem is investigated using both traditional semianalytic methods for modelling oligarchic growth as well as a new code designed specifically for treating formation problems with large dynamic range (McNeil & Nelson 2009). We consider a wide range of plausible disc parameters, and find that it is difficult for oligarchic migration models to reproduce the observed distribution. By comparison, it is relatively straightforward to form short-period icy super-Earths. We conclude that either the conditions in discs which produce hot Neptunes differ significantly from those of our simple disc models, or we are missing important physics that modifies the migratory behaviour of forming planets.
11:00 to 11:30 Coffee and posters INI 1
11:30 to 12:10 Poster Presentations INI 1
12:10 to 12:30 C Agnor ([QMUL])
Giant impacts and planetary evolution
The planetesimal hypothesis posits that solid rocky or icy planets form via the accumulation of smaller bodies. In this picture, collisions between bodies are the mechanism by which planets acquire mass and a principal process of planetary evolution. Giant collisions between like-sized planets have been invoked to explain several bulk planetary characteristics (e.g. the origin of Earth's Moon and Mercury's large iron core). In this talk, I will discuss how these giant impacts arise in the context of planetary formation and our recent results to explicitly model these collisions. I will discuss the connections between the different stages and regimes of planetary growth, the giant impact outcomes expected, and the implications for the thermal, rotational and compositional evolution of emerging planets.
12:30 to 13:30 Lunch at Wolfson Court and posters
14:00 to 14:20 Z Leinhardt (University of Cambridge)
The evolution of collision outcomes in the protoplanetary disk
Although hundreds of extrasolar planets have been detected, the earlier phases of planet formation are much more difficult to observe. As a result, theorists and numericists are still struggling to explain the planet formation process in detail. One of the fundamental problems in explaining the formation of our own solar system is reproducing the low eccentricity and inclination of the terrestrial planets. The dominant growth mechanism of planetesimals in the terrestrial region is collisions. However, the details of the collisions and the evolution of the post-collision remnants are not well understood. Although there has been a significant amount of work incorporating simple fragmentation models into numerical simulations of planet formation, thesesimulations have yet to produce the low eccentricities and inclinations of our own solar system. In this talk I will present numerical simulations that show how the criteria for catastrophically disrupting planetesimals can change by orders of magnitude as theimpact velocity and mechanical properties of the planetesimals are varied. These simulations suggest that the collisional response of planetesimals will change significantly as the protoplanetary disk evolves. The results presented here validate previous work (Benz, 2000), and expand upon their conclusions. The critical impact velocity required to begin collisional erosion of weak aggregate bodies is only a few metres per second. Therefore, the transition from the coagulation phase to collisional erosion for km-sized bodies begins much earlier during planet formation than usually considered. Thus, it seems likely that additional mechanisms (besides collisions) are needed for planetesimals to grow beyond km-sizes in the young protoplanetary disk. Our result that km-scale aggregates are particularly susceptible to disruption is supported by the observed deficit of small bodies in the outer solar system. With these results in mind we strongly suggest the use of a velocity dependent disruption law in N-body simulations of planet formation and evolution.
14:20 to 14:40 E Thommes ([Guelph])
From gas disks to gas giants
The ensemble of now well over 300 discovered planetary systems displays a wide range of masses, orbits and in multiple systems, dynamical interactions. These represent the endpoint of a complex sequence of events, wherein an entire protostellar disk converts itself into a small number of planetary bodies. Here we present self-consistent numerical simulations of this process, which produce results in agreement with some of the key trends observed in the properties of the exoplanets. Though the typical formation history of a planetary system is highly stochastic, there are nevertheless clear correlations between a system's birth disk and the characteristics of the mature planetary system which ultimately grows from it. Analogues to our own Solar System are naturally accounted for in this picture, as the products of disks just slightly above the giant-planet-forming threshold. However, such outcomes are in the minority, and a "typical" planetary system tends to have significant eccentricities and shorter-period orbits, akin to the discovered exoplanets.
14:40 to 15:00 H Genda (Tokyo Institute of Technology)
Formation of heavy-element rich giant planets
More than twenty extrasolar planets are known to transit their star. >From planetary radius observed by the transit method and planetary mass observed by the radial velocity method, one can determine the densities of the extrasolar planets. The density of the planet informs us about the planetary interior. According to calculation of the interior structure of gas giant planet by Guillot et al. (2006), the core mass and core mass ratio in the planets increases with the metallicity of their star ([Fe/H]). This dependency seems to be reasonable, because the star with higher [Fe/H] had the protoplanetary disk with enough solid materials to form more heavy element-rich planet. However, the simple formation theory of gas giant planets cannot fully explain this dependency. We have performed the smoothed particle hydrodynamic (SPH) simulations of collisions between two gas giant planets. Changes in masses of the ice/rock core and the H/He envelope due to the collisions are investigated. The main aim of this study is to constrain the origin and probability of a class of extrasolar hot Jupiters that have much larger cores and/or higher core/envelope mass ratios than those predicted by theories of accretion of gas giant planets. A typical example is HD 149026b. Theoretical models of the interior of HD 149026b (Sato et al. 2005; Fortney et al. 2006; Ikoma et al. 2006) predict that the planet contains a huge core of 50-80 Earth masses relative to the total mass of 110 Earth masses. Our SPH simulations demonstrate that such a gas giant is produced by a collision with an impact velocity of typically more than 2.5 times escape velocity and an impact angle of typically less than 10 degrees, which results in an enormous loss of the envelope gas and complete accretion of both cores.
15:00 to 15:30 Tea and posters INI 1
15:30 to 16:10 D Mordasini ([Max-Planck-Institute, Heidelberg])
Giant planet formation by core accretion
A review of the standard paradigm for giant planet formation, the core accretion theory is presented. First, an overview of the physical concepts used in this model is given, and results of classical core accretion models are shown. Then, various improvements and modifications to the original model are discussed. Such improvements are the inclusion of more realistic envelope opacities and solid accretion rates, of concurrent migration and disk evolution and of results of hydrodynamical simulations. The corresponding consequences are compared with the observational constraints given by the giant planets of our own solar system. Finally it is discussed how recently several groups have started to use core accretion models to understand the statistical properties of the quickly growing population of extrasolar giant planets.
16:10 to 16:50 A Boley ([Zürich])
Review - gravitational instabilities and the formation of gas giant planets
Gas giant planets can be formed directly through disk instability if the Toomre Q parameter is near unity and the local cooling time is comparable to or less than the local dynamical time. Whether these conditions can ever be realistically met during disk evolution has been the focus of heated debate. In this talk, I will review the constraints that analytical work and detailed radiation hydrodynamics simulations have placed on the disk instability model. I will outline where there is general agreement in the field and where controversy remains. In particular, I will summarize recent work by multiple authors that suggests that planet formation by disk instability can operate at large disk radii (~100 AU).
16:50 to 17:10 D Stamatellos ([Cardiff])
The thermodynamics of disc fragmentation and the properties of the objects produced
We suggest that stars like our Sun should sometimes form with massive discs, and we show, by means of radiative hydrodynamic simulations, that the outer parts of such discs are likely to fragment on a dynamical time-scale, forming low-mass stars, brown dwarfs, and planetary- mass objects. The disc thermodynamics play a critical role in this process. We will present the predictions of this model and we will compare these predictions with the observed properties of low-mass stars and brown dwarfs. In particular, we will show that the model of disc fragmentation can explain the binary properties of low-mass stars, the brown dwarf desert, and the existence of free-floating planetary mass objects. We will also discuss predictions of the model that can be tested by future observations.
17:10 to 17:50 Discussion (session chair: Lucio Mayer)
Wednesday 19th August 2009
09:40 to 10:00 S-J Paardekooper (University of Cambridge)
Corotation torques and type I planetary migration
Session: 5 - Disc-planet Interactions and Migration
In the standard picture of planet migration, Type I migration is due to a linear response of the disc to the presence of a low-mass planet. This mode of migration is driven by torques generated at Lindblad resonances, can be alarmingly fast, and takes all planets up to a few times the mass of the Earth very close to the central star. Corotation torques, in the linear picture generated at corotation resonances, were thought to play only a minor role. Recent work has shown, however, that this simple linear model is not correct. Corotation torques are always non-linear, and can be much larger than the linear estimate, to the extent that they can even dominate over the Lindblad torques, especially when non-barotropic effects are considered. I will give an overview of the current state of affairs concerning the new picture that is emerging for Type I migration, and how this may affect planet formation in general.
10:00 to 10:20 A Crida (University of Cambridge)
Migration in resonance
Session: 5 - Disc-planet Interactions and Migration
It is well known that a planet embedded in a protoplanetary gaseous disk migrates, generally towards the central star. If two planets are migrating in the same disk at different speeds, they may get caught in a Mean Motion Resonance. It has been shown for instance that Jupiter and Saturn in a same disk should most likely end in the 2:3 MMR. Other configurations are possible, in particular some planets could share the same orbit in 1:1 resonance. The resonance has several effects on the migration of the pair of planets. First, their eccentricities should increase. We have shown that the damping of the eccentricity of the inner planet by the inner disk can explain the eccentricities of observed systems. Second, the migration rate may be completely changed. If the outer planet is lighter than the inner one, and if the two planets in resonance lie inside a common gap, they may migrate outwards (Masset & Snellgrove, 2001). We have shown that this can proceed on the long run, towards up to ~100 AU in flared disks. This could explain the presence of the recently directly detected exo-planets, orbiting at several dozens of AU around HD8799 and Fomalhaut. In addition, under some conditions, the migration rate could be negligible over the life-time of the disk. This should apply to the outer solar system, in the frame of the Nice model (Morbidelli et al., 2007). Consequences of this idea on the Minimum Mass Solar Nebula will be presented.
10:20 to 10:40 F Adams ([Michigan])
Type I planetary migration with stochastic fluctuations
Session: 5 - Disc-planet Interactions and Migration
This talk presents a generalized treatment of Type I planetary migration in the presence of stochastic perturbations. In many planet-forming disks, the Type I migration mechanism, driven by asymmetric torques, acts on a short time scale and compromises planet formation. If the disk also supports MHD instabilities, however, the corresponding turbulent fluctuations produce additional stochastic torques that modify the steady inward migration scenario. This work studies the migration of planetary cores in the presence of stochastic fluctuations using complementary methods, including a Fokker-Planck approach and iterative maps. Stochastic torques have two main effects: [1] Through outward diffusion, a small fraction of the planetary cores can survive in the face of Type I inward migration. [2] For a given starting condition, the result of any particular realization of migration is uncertain, so that results must be described in terms of the distributions of outcomes. In addition to exploring different regimes of parameter space, this talk considers the effects of the outer disk boundary condition, varying initial conditions, and time-dependence of the torque parameters. For disks with finite radii, the fraction of surviving planets decreases exponentially with time. We find the survival fractions and decay rates for a range of disk models, and find the expected distribution of locations for surviving planets. For expected disk properties, the survival fraction lies in the range $0.01
10:40 to 11:00 J Burns ([Cornell])
The real thing: Saturn's ring
Session: 5 - Disc-planet Interactions and Migration
Of all dense astrophysical discs, only Saturn's rings can be studied in detail. Cassini observations reveal examples of many processes that are likely relevant in the dynamical evolution of debris discs, such as the interactions of the disc's particles with one another, with local masses and with more distant masses via resonances. Material accretion and breakup have been inferred elsewhere, and even non-gravitational forces are found to sculpt some regions. Resonances account for much of the rings's architecture that is understood. Lindblad resonances with Mimas (2:1) and the co-orbital moons (7:6) constrain the exterior perimeters of the A and B rings. Density and bending waves, initiated at resonances with satellites, are abundant in the outer A ring, where they transfer angular momentum between the satellites and the rings. These waves indicate disc's physical properties, which vary smoothly across this region. Gaps may also be opened by resonances with a lumpy planetary gravity field or with non-uniform rings. Structures in dust-laden rings are visible at Lindblad resonances with the planetary spin rate, likely driven by electromagnetic interactions. Satellites with radii ~ 15km and ~ 4km open the Encke and Keeler gaps, generating undulations along the gap edges that are remarkably persistent and surprisingly complex; the A and B peripheries are also complicated. It is unclear whether this morphology alters angular-momentum transfer. “Propellers”, believed to be disturbances generated by unseen embedded moonlets (tens to scores of meters), are concentrated in three bands in the mid-A ring. Some very large propellers (from >100-m objects) are found in the outermost A ring; one's orbit is noticed to evolve, perhaps exhibiting smooth Type-I migration or stochastically scattering off density clumps. Self-gravity wakes develop in the A ring, but the full agglomeration of moonlets is frustrated by Saturn's tides. These clumps form ephemeral elongated structures with height-to-width ratios of ~1x10; regions between wakes are fairly clear. Close-in moons have low densities (~0.5 g/cc) and nearly fill their Hill spheres. Even though the dense B ring is almost opaque (optical depth ƒ ~ 5), concentric holes are occasionally visible; in places, its ƒ jumps repeatedly between two values over radial spans of hundreds of km.
11:00 to 11:30 Coffee and posters INI 1
11:30 to 11:50 S Matsumura ([Northwestern])
Evolution of planetary systems emerging out of gas disks
Session: 5 - Disc-planet Interactions and Migration
Previous N-body simulations of multiple planetary systems without a gas disk have successfully reproduced the observed eccentricity distribution by assuming that the planetary systems are dynamically "active" when the gas disk dissipates. The planet-planet interactions alone, however, cannot explain the semi-major axis distribution. We numerically study the evolution of planetary systems as the gas disk dissipates by using a hybrid N-body and 1D gas disk code, and highlight disk's role in shaping the planetary systems.
11:50 to 12:30 Discussion (session chair: John Papaloizou)
Session: 5 - Disc-planet Interactions and Migration
20:00 to 23:00 Conference Dinner at Corpus Christi College (Dining Hall)
Thursday 20th August 2009
09:00 to 09:40 H Levison (Southwest Research Institute)
Modeling the formation of giant planet cores
Session: 6 - Stability and Long-term Evolution of Planetary Systems
One of the most challenging problems we face in our understanding of planet formation is how Jupiter and Saturn could have formed before the the solar nebula dispersed. The most popular model of giant planet formation is the so-called 'core accretion' model. In this model a large planetary embryo formed first, mainly by two-body accretion. This is then followed by a period of inflow of nebular gas directly onto the growing planet. The core accretion model has an Achilles heel, namely the very first step. We have undertaken the most comprehensive study of this process to date. In this study we numerically integrate the orbits of a number of planetary embryos embedded in a swarm of planetesimals. In these experiments we have included a large number of physical processes that might enhance accretion. In particular, we have included: 1) aerodynamic gas drag, 2) collisional damping between planetesimals, 3) enhanced embryo cross-sections due to their atmospheres, 4) planetesimal fragmentation, and 5) planetesimal driven migration. We find that the gravitational interaction between the embryos and the planetesimals lead to the wholesale redistribution of material - regions are cleared of material and gaps open near the embryos. Indeed, in 90% of our simulations without fragmentation, the region near that embryos is cleared of planetesimals before much growth can occur. The remaining 10%, however, the embryos undergo a burst of outward migration that significantly increases growth. On timescales of ~100,000 years, the outer embryo can migrate ~6 AU and grow to roughly 30 Earth-masses. We also find that the inclusion of planetesimal fragmentation tends to inhibit growth.
09:40 to 10:00 P Armitage ([Colorado])
Planetary system architecture from planet-planet and planetesimal scattering
Observational evidence points to a dominant role of small-body scattering in early outer Solar System dynamics, while planet-planet scattering is a plausible explanation for extrasolar planet eccentricity. Both processes are likely to operate during the early evolution of systems of low-mass giant planets at moderate orbital radii (of the order of 10 AU), potentially leading to architectures distinct from either the Solar System or currently known extrasolar planetary systems. I will present results from a very large set of N-body simulations of marginally stable multiple planet systems surrounded by planetesimal disks. The simulations suggest that a surprisingly sharp transition from typically eccentric to typically circular orbits ought to be observed as surveys detect lower mass planets at larger orbital radii, and that resonant configurations may dominate among more massive planets whose dynamics was affected by planetesimal disks.
10:00 to 10:20 E Ford ([Florida])
Planet scattering, eccentricity excitation and the long-term evolution of planetary systems
The discovery of extrasolar planets on eccentric orbits has motivated theoretical investigations of numerous mechanisms for exciting the eccentricities of giant planets during the planet formation process and subsequent orbital evolution. The orbital properties of the growing number of extrasolar planetary systems and multiple planet systems are beginning to provide clues that constrain planet formation models. I will discuss the implications of exoplanet observations for eccentricity evolution from planet-disk interactions in young planetary systems to the chaotic evolution of multiple planet systems. I will discuss the potential role of planet scattering in the formation of planets in wide orbits, such as those recently found around A stars. I will also discuss the implications of planet scattering and secular interactions for the orbits of Neptune or super-Earth-mass planets. I will conclude will speculations as to why our own solar system has settled to a state with nearly circular orbits.
10:20 to 10:40 Y Wu ([Toronto])
Secular instability: organization of planetary systems and the origin of hot Jupiters
In a planetary system where planets are well spaced and interact only through their secular (i.e., non-resonant) perturbations, there exists a nonlinear instability that leads to chaotic behaviour. Some planets (the most unstable ones) may gradually obtain very large values of eccentricities and/or inclinations. We elucidate the condition under which this occurs. When a most unstable planet is removed from the system, either through close encounter with another planet, or through close encounter with the star (where tidal effects might kick in), the remaining planetary system becomes increasingly more stable. This, as opposed to planet-planet scattering, may explain the stable architecture of the observed systems. In the case of the most unstable planet moving in toward close encounter with the star, its pericentre dipping may be tidally stalled around a few stellar radii. When these orbits are tidally circularized, we obtain hot jupiters (or hot neptunes). This scenario for hot jupiter formation explains a variety of observed phenomena, including correlations between planet mass and semi-major axis, coplanarity of planet orbit and stellar spin, as well as the paucity of second planets around hot jupiters.
10:40 to 11:00 M Davies ([Lund])
Turning solar systems into extrasolar planetary systems
Many stars are formed in some form of cluster or association. These environments can have a much higher number density of stars than the field of the galaxy. Such crowded places are hostile environments: a large fraction of initially single stars will undergo close encounters with other stars or exchange into binaries. We describe how such close encounters and exchange encounters will affect the properties of a planetary system around a single star. We define singletons as single stars which have never suffered close encounters with other stars or spent time within a binary system. It may be that planetary systems similar to our own solar system can only survive around singletons. Close encounters or the presence of a stellar companion will perturb the planetary system, leading to strong planet-planet interactions, often leaving planets on tighter and more eccentric orbits. Thus, planetary systems which initially resembled our own solar system may later more closely resemble the observed extrasolar planetary systems.
11:00 to 11:30 Coffee and posters INI 1
11:30 to 12:00 Discussion (session chair: Martin Duncan)
Session: 6 - Stability and Long-term Evolution of Planetary System
12:00 to 12:40 Poster presentations
14:00 to 14:30 J Patience ([Exeter])
Direct imaging of planets
Session: 7 - Observations of Extrasolar Planets
Direct imaging searches for exoplanets are sensitive to wide orbit planets and provide complementary information on the exoplanet population compared to indirect detection techniques. Recent high-contrast imaging has revealed a multiple planet system orbiting the young, dusty A-star HR 8799. The three planets are located projected separations of 24-68 AU and have masses estimated to be 7-10 times the mass of Jupiter. The discovery of massive planets at the orbital radii around HR 8799 system and other recently imaged exoplanets present important test cases for models of planet formation and evolution. Ongoing imaging surveys and upcoming instrument projects will further characterize the population of outer giant planets.
14:30 to 15:00 D Fischer ([Yale])
The search for planets around alpha centauri A and B
Session: 7 - Observations of Extrasolar Planets
We are carrying out an intensive Doppler search for low mass planets in the alpha Centauri system at the 1.5-m CTIO telescope. The binary star system presents a challenging environment for the accretion of planetesimals into protoplanets. However, dynamical simulations show that if they form, terrestrial mass planets within about 2 AU of either star could survive in stable orbits. We present the motivation for our exoplanet search and describe the auxiliary science: the power spectrum of p-mode oscillations, a study of the convective zone depth in A and B, and a measurement of the helium abundances in the stars. This program will also help us to determine the fundamental limits of Doppler planet searches. We will present the status of the project and our Doppler analysis.
15:00 to 15:30 Tea and posters INI 1
15:30 to 15:50 M Fridlund (ESA/ESTeC)
The CoRoT mission - first results, successes and the future
Session: 7 - Observations of Extrasolar Planets
The CoRoT mission was launched into space on the 27:th of December of 2006 and have carried out scientific measurements since mid-February of 2007. Over 45 000 light curves with lengths of between 22 and 155 days have been obtained with a dutycycle of over 95% have been obtained and a large number are already to be found on the public server of the CoRoT mission. So far 12 planets have been discovered and further studied (of which for 7 the first results have been published). Several of these objects have very interesting characteristics. The most spectacular find is designated 7b and is the first proven terrestrial type ('rocky') planet found outside the solar system. This is because we have measured both a very precise radius as well as a well determined mass, proving that its average density is similar to the 'rocky'worlds found in our own system. As such this planet form the beginning of the study of worlds like our own in the Galaxy, as well as being the kind of object that the CoRoT mission was designed to find. Nevertheless, literally hundreds of exo-planetary candidates have been found and new ones are being added to the list for follow-up observations on almost a daily basis. The talk will discuss the confirmed planets, CoRoT-7b in particular and give a hint of things to come
15:50 to 16:10 K Horne ([St Andrews])
From hot Jupiters to cool earths
Session: 7 - Observations of Extrasolar Planets
I will summarise ground-based programmes using small wide-angle camera systems (e.g. SuperWASP) to discover and characterise transiting Hot Jupiters, and complementary surveys to discover and characterise cool planets down to the mass of the Earth by intensive follow-up of Galactic Bulge gravitational microlens lightcurves.
16:10 to 16:30 J Cho ([QMUL])
Spitzer observations of hot Jupiters and their interpretation
Session: 7 - Observations of Extrasolar Planets
A brief review of the existing Spitzer, and other, data on hot Jupiters is given. Some interpretations and implications for theory are presented.
16:30 to 17:10 Discussion (session chair: Tristan Guillot)
Session: 7 - Observations of Extrasolar Planets
Friday 21st August 2009
09:00 to 09:40 M Meyer (ETH Zürich)
To see a world in a grain of sand: observations of debris disks as tests of planet formation theory
Session: 8 - Debris-Discs: Observations and Theory
We will review recent observations of debris disks with a focus on what they can reveal about the formation and evolution of planetary systems. In this presentation, we define a debris disk as one where the opacity we see is dominated by dust produced in collisions of planetesimals. We will concentrate on observed properties of disks as a function of wavelength (as a proxy for orbital radius) and compare results as a function of stellar mass when possible. We will start by summarizing the observational evidence for the appearance of dust debris and final gas disk dispersal. We then consider the observational signatures of terrestrial planet formation and giant impacts. We will briefly comment on specific physical properties inferred for debris disks based on application of simple models. Finally, we will review the observational connection (or lack thereof) between known exoplanets and debris disks. If most planetary systems are dynamically full, then it may be those systems lacking signatures of debris that represent the richest planetary architectures. Related Links • - Star and Planet Formation Research Group, Institute for Astronomy, ETH • - Spitzer Legacy Science Program FEPS
09:40 to 10:00 G Rieke ([Arizona])
Spitzer tracers of dynamical activity in debris discs
Session: 8 - Debris-Discs: Observations and Theory
I will review the patterns of dynamical activity in debris disks as they are revealed by observations with the Spitzer Telescope. The Spitzer data show an overall decline in such activity among all stellar types, but recent detailed analyses reveal significant differences with stellar type. They also suggest that the disks around earlier-type host stars may have a general pattern of relatively complex structure, whereas those around solar-type stars may have simpler structures. On top of these overall patterns, there are a number of classes of rare but extreme systems: 1.) an absence of disks around young stars with very high stellar winds; 2.) huge excesses around stars in the 30 – 120 Myr age range; and 3.) large outflows in A stars. Each of these classes represents interesting phases in the overall evolution of the planetary systems generating the disks.
10:00 to 10:40 M Wyatt (University of Cambridge)
Collisional and dynamical evolution of debris discs
Session: 8 - Debris-Discs: Observations and Theory
The observed properties of debris discs are seen to change with stellar age in a manner indicative of the discs' evolution. The majority of the observed trends agree with what would be expected from the steady state collisional evolution of planetesimal belts formed in the protoplanetary disc. However, there remains uncertainty as to how debris discs are stirred, and about the role of stochastic processes (due to either massive collisions or planetary system instability) in their evolution. More generally the study of debris discs offers a unique opportunity to probe how planetesimals and planetary systems form and evolve. This talk will review our current understanding of the theory of debris disc evolution, due to both collisional processes within the disc, and due to the dynamics of its interaction with a (typically unseen) planetary system.
10:40 to 11:00 A Moro-Martin ([Madrid])
Exchange of debris between planetary systems
Session: 8 - Debris-Discs: Observations and Theory
The exchange of meteorites among the terrestrial planets of our Solar System is a well established phenomenon. Similarly, could solid material be transferred between planetary systems? We examine a dynamical process that yields very low escape velocities using nearly parabolic trajectories, and the reverse process that allows for low velocity capture. These processes are chaotic and provide a mechanism for minimal energy transfer that yield an increased transfer probability compared to that of previously studied mechanisms that have invoked hyperbolic trajectories. However, they require a small relative velocities and would therefore be applicable when the stars are still embedded in their maternal cluster. We estimate the transfer probability in a stellar cluster as a function of stellar mass and cluster size. We find that significant amounts of solid material could potentially have been transferred from the early Solar System to our nearest neighbor stars in the cluster. Regarding the exchange of km-size debris today, given the high relative velocities between the Sun and its neighbors, any incoming extra-solar debris would be identified as a hyperbolic comet. No hyperbolic comet has been observed so far, but future surveys with Pan-STARRS and LSST will provide wide coverage maps of the sky to a very high sensitivity ideal to detect moving objects. In anticipation of these observations, we estimate the number of extrasolar comets that might be detected taking into account recent results on the frequency of planetesimal and planet formation (from debris disks and planet surveys), the amount of solid material that might be available to form planetesimals (from protoplanetary disks studies), and the size distribution of planetesimals (from the study of the small body population in the Solar System).
11:00 to 11:30 Coffee and posters INI 1
11:30 to 11:50 J-C Augereau ([Joseph Fourier Grenoble])
Observations of exozodiacal disks
Session: 8 - Debris-Discs: Observations and Theory
The zodiacal cloud has long been suspected to have extrasolar analogs, exozodiacal, debris clouds that remained elusive until very recently. Over the last decade, the presence of exozodiacal dust in the habitable zone around nearby stars, has essentially been discussed as a potential noise source that may compromise the ability of future exo-Earth finding missions to reach their goals. Our pioneering detection of exozodiacal dust around Vega in 2006 by near-IR interferometry shows that exozodis are by themself very interesting astrophysical objects. During this talk, I will review the current observations of exozodiacal dust disks around nearby main sequence stars, and show that, as a rule of thumb, the detected exozodiacal dust disks differ from the zodiacal cloud. I will then discuss possible dynamical scenarios that may give rise to an abundant production of exozodiacal dust. I will show that a promising scenario involves the outward migration of a planet destabilizing a planetesimal belt similar to the Kuiper belt, and responsible for a cometary bombardment.
11:50 to 12:30 S Lubow ([Space Telescope Science Institute])
Review of disc-planet interactions
Session: 8 - Debris-Discs: Observations and Theory
The interactions of a young planet with its surrounding gaseous disc are likely responsible for the properties of many of the observed extra-solar planets. The masses of these planets are determined by tidal truncation or gas dispersal. Their orbital radii are determined in part by planet migration. Disc-planet interactions may play a role in exciting the orbital eccentricities of planets. A major uncertainty in evaluating these interactions is the physical state of the disc about which we have little direct observational evidence. The nature of disc turbulence and structure of the disc can have an important influence on the outcome of the interactions. Understanding how these interactions affect the planet formation process is a major challenge.
14:00 to 15:00 D Lin ([UCSC/KIAA])
Conference summary
Session: 8 - Debris-Discs: Observations and Theory
15:00 to 15:30 Tea INI 1
University of Cambridge Research Councils UK | <urn:uuid:2245fe0c-cb81-4abe-a7d5-cc7d6460efe1> | 2 | 1.765625 | 0.021248 | en | 0.902736 | http://www.newton.ac.uk/event/ddpw01/timetable |
Novell Home
Identifying Windows Services Issues
Novell Cool Solutions: Feature
By Bryan Keadle
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Posted: 2 Nov 2005
Have you ever tried to troubleshoot a Windows machine's SERVICES by trying to identify what services may have been added (spyware, non-standard software), or services that have changed from their normal status? This can be a tedious and frustrating task....especially since there are so many services to look through.
I discovered a neat little trick that helps me easily identify services that are in a different state than what they should be.
When you open SERVICES.MSC, you typically find a screen like this:
Instead, re-arrange your columns (click-and-drag column headings) to be in this order:
Name | Startup Type | Status | Description
Now, you can sort by Startup Type by clicking on the column header.
So, this is a different view of your services, but how does this help to identify what's "normal" for a given service? By editing the description for each service with a naming convention that identifies what the Startup Type and Status of each service is supposed to be, you can then choose to sort by *DESCRIPTION*, like this:
My naming convention is:
Startup_Type_Value)_Startup_Type_Status Description
For example, look at the Workstation Service above.
Startup_Type_Value = 2 (the value in the registry),
Startup_Type = (A)utomatic
Status = Started
So the resulting "combined" descriptions reads:
2)_A_RUNNING Creates and maintains client network connections...
Now, at a glance, you can easily tell which service(s) is in a different state than what the description field indicates that it should be. For example, look at this print screen and see if you can tell which service(s) is "non-standard":
If new services were to be added, then the descriptions wouldn't have the naming convention, so those would be easily identified if you sort by the description column.
How cool is that?!?!
But wait, does that mean you have to MANUALLY edit each and every service? What a pain that would be! That's where this utility, SERVICEDESCRIPTIONS.EXE comes in. Simply run SERVICEDESCRIPTIONS on a machine that's configured (service-wise) the way you want/expect it to be, and it will go through and change the Service Descriptions for you! Handy. You can just as easily remove these modified descriptions to put it back the way it was, or reset the descriptions so as to "snapshot" your new standard service statuses.
I have this incorporated into my corporate standard load. If I find myself needing to troubleshoot a workstation, one place I'll look is to see whether any of the services are in a state other than what our standard load dictates them to be, or if a new service has been added (like spyware/malware can have a tendency of doing).
If you have any questions, feel free to email me at
SERVICEDESCRIPTIONS - Modify Service Descriptions to reflect Service Status
REMOVE - Remove Service Description modifications
RESET - Reset Service Descriptions according to current status
EXPORT - Export Descriptions to specified .REG file
IMPORT - Import Descriptions from specified .REG file
Download tool.
© 2015 Novell | <urn:uuid:00190022-801b-4fe0-9de0-ab5ee1250937> | 2 | 1.671875 | 0.051932 | en | 0.905554 | http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/16333.html |
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Atmospheric Water Generation as a Viable Water Resource
U. Mtambuzi
AquaMaker/Osiris Enterprises, US
water, generation, global, drought, resource
40 trillion gallons of constantly renewing and thus sustainable water sit virtually untouched in the atmosphere of the continental United States. The technology of atmospheric water generation is young and continuously being refined as one of the most viable resources and least environmentally impactive alternatives to groundwater sourcing, primarily for potable water. Why is more attention not being paid to this resource which, when combined with alternative energy sourcing is nearly 100% carbon impactive. This presentation explores and compares the sub-types of atmospheric generation and their application from individual to global use.
Nanotech 2008 Conference Program Abstract | <urn:uuid:2ee7d2e1-8ff8-47e4-b557-f5a0e61bdfdf> | 2 | 2.078125 | 0.762669 | en | 0.875509 | http://www.nsti.org/Nanotech2008/showabstract.html?absno=70246 |
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China’s Dictators at Work: The Secret Story
Zhao Ziyang, former general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, in his study in Beijing, where he was under house arrest from 1989 until his death in 2005; from Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Zhao Ziyang
Prisoner of the State is the secretly recorded memoir of Zhao Ziyang, once holder of China’s two highest Party and state positions and the architect of the economic reforms that have brought the country to the edge of great-power status. The book has had much attention in the West. Inside China, despite official attempts to denigrate and block any news of it on the Internet, it is already having a powerful effect. This effect will increase as Chinese tourists from the mainland buy the Chinese edition of the book in Hong Kong.
Twenty years ago, just before the Tiananmen killings on June 3 and 4, 1989, Zhao was thrown out of office for sympathizing with the students; until his death in 2005 he spent almost sixteen years under house arrest. Born in 1919 and a member of the Communist Party since 1938, once he achieved great power he was a political loner, with only—a big only—Deng Xiaoping to back him. But when Deng decided to smash the Tiananmen demonstrations, he also smashed Zhao. When Zhao died in 2005, he was nearly forgotten; but the state was still put on high security alert.
When asked about Zhao’s memoir just after it was released, the official government spokesman, according to a press report, brushed the question aside, saying only that all matters involving 1989 have been dealt with. The semiofficial Hong Kong press later carried an attack on Zhao’s disclosures:
If overturning the verdict on the 1989 political turbulence is the interim objective of the “memoirs” editors and those foreign media promoting the book, then advocating the change of China’s current political system into Western parliamentary democracy is their ultimate goal.
But a subsequent report shows that the subject of Tiananmen keeps reappearing:
A group of Chinese intellectuals has disclosed it recently met…to urge an end to official silence about the bloodshed 20 years ago. Their speeches are now circulating on some Chinese-language internet sites and through email. “As time has passed, this massive secret has become a massive vacuum. Everyone avoids it, skirts around it,” [said] Cui Weiping, a Beijing-based academic…. “This secret is in fact a toxin poisoning the air around us and affecting our whole lives and spirit.”1
Up to now, even using the word “Tiananmen” on the Internet in China can bring a knock on the door. But foreign news of the book on the Internet has already slipped past the official censors, and may make tens of millions in China who have never or barely heard of Zhao realize what was lost when he died and what might have been.
What indeed? Zhao’s hopes for China’s political future were expressed during the internal exile in which he ended his days. Nothing can be more perilous in China today than saying this, which appears in the memoir:
In fact, it is the Western parliamentary democratic system that has demonstrated the most vitality. This system is currently the best one available. It is able to manifest the spirit of democracy and meet the demands of a modern society…. Why is there not even one developed nation practicing any other system?
If Zhao had uttered these words in public, he might have ended in prison, not under house arrest. In December 2008 over 8,500 Chinese, including some officials, signed “Charter 08,” which included these words:
Some of the main signers were detained briefly for questioning, and one, the poet Liu Xiaobo, was arrested and then disappeared for months; he is still being held by the police. Among other signers, one professor was forced to resign his position as a researcher, and another was transferred from Beijing to a small college in China’s far west.
Zhao, in his taped remarks, just published in book form in Prisoner of the State, cautiously observed that true democracy would require many years of transition, but he could not resist noting the “positive experiences” of Taiwan and South Korea, which have successfully made the transition to democracy and prosperity. As Roderick MacFarquhar writes in his perceptive foreword:
If a patriotic official only came to the conclusion that democracy was needed for China after years of nothing to do but think, what chance is there for a busy official today to have the leisure or the security to think such thoughts while on the job?
And even Zhao remained extremely cautious, refraining from stating the views he taped. In 2000, after reading an account by Zong Fengming, a close friend of Zhao’s, who made over one hundred visits to his home, the Columbia scholar Andrew Nathan observed:
Zhao still believed in what we might call “glasnost authoritarianism”… a system of one-party rule with enough openness to allow citizens to criticize officials but not enough to allow a rival political force to overthrow the ruling party.
Is the book that is now revising this view and calling for parliamentary democracy genuine? Its editors claim that the tapes were secretly recorded, beginning about the year 2000, and smuggled by various means to Hong Kong. The tapes have been listened to by those who knew Zhao’s voice, including Bao Tong, his former secretary and the father of Bao Pu, one of the book’s editors. Bao Tong served seven years in prison after Zhao was purged. Bao Pu says that he helped smuggle the tapes out of China. “The Chinese Communist party is just like the Mafia,” says Bao Tong.
If the Mafia boss thinks you might betray him, he will just kill you or throw you into prison for as long as he likes. This is not how a political party or a government should behave.
Bao Tong says as well:
You have to say it clearly: It’s not a good system, it’s a bad system. It has to be stated that the people who were killed [on June 4] were good people and they shouldn’t have been killed…. We must announce that Tiananmen was a criminal action.
Bao Tong was sent into exile in his home province, forbidden to return until after the June 4 anniversary.
Apart from Zhao’s poignant late advocacy of democracy, much else will enrage his former comrades in the Politburo, particularly his revelations of how chaotic, unruly, uncomradely, and backstabbing the senior leaders were (and at least since the late 1950s always have been). Since dynastic times rulers have feared factions, and Deng is said here to have ordered his immediate underlings not to “squabble.” From Zhao’s account we learn how rumors spread and nasty little notes were passed about; people agreed with others to their faces and then undermined them immediately afterward. Slights against a colleague were never forgotten or forgiven, and could be deadly if that colleague secured the favor of the top man.
The top man in Zhao’s career from the late 1970s was always Deng Xiaoping, Zhao’s only reliable mentor and sponsor. When that sponsorship ended, it was curtains for Zhao, who, even after a lifetime of inner Party work, was outraged at how quickly he was cast out. This was the kind of infighting, whether one was in or out, of which Party members were forbidden to speak, much less quote from. In a recent review of Zhao’s book in The Washington Post, Perry Link notes that he
flouts the unspoken rule against public blame of others in the [ruling] group. He skewers Li Peng, Li Xiannian, Yao Yilin, Deng Liqun, Hu Qiaomu and Wang Zhen repeatedly and by name. He complains that the meeting at which martial law was decided was in violation of the Party Charter because he, the general secretary, should have chaired such a meeting but was not even notified of it.
The careers of some of these grandees reached far back into the Mao era and like members of a quarreling family they could not endure being pushed aside by one of its younger members. When Zhao died in 2005, as Perry Link wrote, they were alarmed:
China’s top leaders formed an “Emergency Response Leadership Small Group,” declared “a period of extreme sensitivity,” put the People’s Armed Police on special alert and ordered the Ministry of Railways to screen travelers headed for Beijing. If this is how the men who rule China reacted to Zhao’s death at home, how will they respond to…a book in which Zhao repeatedly attacks the stonewalling and subterfuge (and sycophancy, mendacity, buck-passing, and back-stabbing) of people whose allies and heirs remain in power today?
The first parts of this book will be of special importance to anyone interested in what happened during the spring of 1989, culminating in the Tiananmen killings of June 3 and 4. The demonstrations had begun immediately after the death on April 15 of the former Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang, whom the students liked for his straightforward, slightly country-bumpkin ways and his honesty, in contrast with the vast official corruption that became one of their principal concerns once the demonstrations got going. Deng had appointed Hu as general secretary, but got rid of him when he seemed opposed to Deng’s attacks on intellectuals and in favor of discussion rather than persecution. Cravenly, in true Party style, Zhao didn’t defend Hu when he was under attack, and chided him for being too reckless. Premier at the time, Zhao reluctantly succeeded Hu as general secretary in 1987.
Zhao’s account of how the protests began confirms much that we already knew or suspected. Hu Yaobang, he acknowledges, had always had “a very good public image.” Many people were enraged by his demotion, which they felt was a stab in the back to reform. Zhao recalls that in the spring of 1989, at a meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee, China’s tiny ruling group, he said that
we should not forbid the activities of the students who were merely holding their own commemorations while the Central Committee was holding memorial services.
Reporting on these events from Beijing, I saw the police cars cruising through the square even then, and observed the constant questioning of students about their identities. Zhao urged that the students should be encouraged to return to their campuses, and said that “bloodshed must be avoided, no matter what.” Everyone agreed to this, he emphasizes. But on April 19, as Zhao was preparing for a visit to North Korea, a fatal time to leave Beijing as it turned out, the hard-line Politburo Standing Committee member Li Peng asked him why he wasn’t taking “counteractions” to stop students from gathering just outside the leadership compound. Zhao replied, he says, that this was not his job, and adds that most of the students had already left the square.
But on April 23, after Zhao left for North Korea, at a meeting of the Politburo’s Standing Committee, Li Peng and his clique, Zhao says,
vigorously presented the student demonstrations as a grave situation. They disregarded the fact that the student demonstrations had already calmed down.
The minutes of the meeting, Zhao recalls, referred to the student demonstrations as “organized and carefully plotted political struggle.”
This must have panicked Deng for two reasons. He spoke of his fear of a resumption of the Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976, when he was detained and his son was permanently crippled. Deng probably also recalled that, in the 1920s, it was young students like himself who be- gan agitating against the Guomin- dang government that collapsed with the Maoist victory in 1949. In Deng’s words on April 25, the demonstrations had become “anti-Party, anti-socialist turmoil,” a situation to be stopped at once, “in the manner of ‘using a sharp knife to cut through knotted hemp.’” More fatally yet, on the next day, April 26, the demonstrators were accused of being “anti-Party” and “anti-socialist” in a People’s Daily editorial.
The number of demonstrators soared. On April 27 I joined thousands of angry students marching toward Tiananmen from their campuses, miles from the square, cheered on by enthusiastic crowds along the way. Not far from their goal they were blocked by ranks of the Armed Police, backed by armed soldiers in trucks. I feared that there would be bloodshed, but the police ranks suddenly parted and the cheering students poured through into the square. Zhao says that while in North Korea he telegraphed his complete approval of the Politburo’s actions:
I was not in any position to express disagreement because I was abroad and had no direct knowledge of the situation at home.
Since imperial times, and especially since Mao, Chinese officials have learned to go along. But when Zhao returned to Beijing and discussed matters with university officials, he realized that the harsh April 26 editorial in People’s Daily had made matters much worse and that the numbers of demonstrators had escalated. He says that some senior officials now feared bloodshed and were urging restraint.
As for the students, Zhao says, they now felt “that the symbol of the paramount leader had lost its effectiveness.” What Zhao appears not to have known is that, as they told me at the time, members of the research institute that had helped formulate his economic policies, and that had regular contact with Bao Tong, were writing some of the leaflets circulating in the square about what was happening inside the highest levels of government.
Before long, students were shouting “Li Peng resign” and “Down with Deng Xiaoping.” Such shouts had not been heard in Beijing since the public meetings of the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, and we now know, although the regime seemed paralyzed to those of us walking about in the streets, that Deng and his allies were preparing to take action against the demonstrations that were spreading to dozens of other cities.
Zhao seems unaware of this and notes that Deng’s children were worried about his bad health and hoped that Zhao would not alarm him further, especially with the impending visit to Beijing of Mikhail Gorbachev. In a speech, drafted for Zhao by Bao Tong, to the Asian Development Bank on May 4, and later held against him, Zhao observed that all the students were doing was “asking us to correct some of our flaws.” And in the following days, he says, most of the students returned to their classes, “waiting to see…how the promises in the May Fourth speech would be realized.”
Quite futilely, he suggested to his colleagues that
on the topics of most concern to people and raised by the students—such as corruption, government transparency, democracy, rule of law, and public scrutiny of government—we needed to take active measures.
His enemies on the Standing Committee, he says, particularly Li Peng, made “fierce attempts” to block his proposals. On May 13 a small group of students began a hunger strike that rapidly spread—highly dramatic in a country where not eating regularly is regarded with particular dismay—and Zhao worried that “some students might die. We would have a hard time answering to our people.”
During these tense days, his opponents, led by Li Peng, were spreading rumors that Zhao’s own family was corrupt; these were picked up by the foreign press, including myself, and reported as probably true. Zhao insists that they were totally false. He asked to see Deng Xiaoping on May 17 and on arriving at the senior leader’s house discovered that his enemies on the Standing Committee were already there. “I realized that things had already taken a bad turn,” he comments.
Zhao made what was an impossible but brave suggestion: that the severe judgments of the April 26 editorial must be “revised,” that the students should no longer be labeled anti-Party and anti-socialist. Li Peng blamed Zhao’s speech to the Asian Development Bank on May 4 for the size of the demonstration.
Deng now made a deadly decision that foreclosed the possibility of compromise and sealed Zhao’s fate. “Since there is no way to back down now without the situation spiraling out of control,” he said, “the decision is to move troops into Beijing to impose martial law.” To oversee this, Deng appointed Zhao’s three greatest enemies, including Li Peng, who also accused Bao Tong of leaking reports of Standing Committee meetings. This meant that Zhao himself was responsible. Zhao denied this. To his last days a stickler for correct procedures, Zhao says that there was no formal vote to impose martial law, as if this were shocking. On May 18 he made a final plea to Deng, which he knew to be fruitless, pressing for a reversal of the April 26 denunciation of the demonstrators and advising that “key leaders personally go out among the masses and admit this.”
Now came perhaps the most dramatic moment in the Tiananmen crisis thus far, one that those who witnessed it, including myself, failed to understand. Early in the morning of May 19, Zhao took his own advice and in the darkness entered the square, followed closely by Li Peng, who fled, “terrified,” leaving behind the director of the Party’s Central Office, Wen Jiabao, now China’s premier. Looking drained and defeated, Zhao apologized:
Students, we came too late. Sorry, students. Whatever you say and criticize about us is deserved. My purpose here now is not to ask for your forgiveness. I want to say that now, your bodies are very weak. You have been on a hunger strike for six days, and it’s now the seventh day…. Now what is most important is to end this hunger strike. I know, you are doing this in the hope that the Party and the government will give a most satisfactory answer for what you are asking for. I feel, our channel for dialogue is open, and some problems need to be resolved through a process. You cannot continue to…insist on stopping only when you have a satisfactory answer.
As he admits, the students (and listening reporters) had no idea what he was implying. “Even less,” he says, “could they imagine the treatment in store for them.” At that eleventh hour Zhao still could not break Party discipline and warn that martial law would be imposed the next day.
He now fully grasped that great decisions were being made without his knowledge, and on the night of June 3, he says, “while sitting…with my family, I heard intense gunfire.” Zhao’s brief appearance in the square was held against him later because he had “revealed that there were differences among the Party’s highest level of leadership and that he might be stepping down.” Astonishingly, he never refers to the actual killings or gives a clear impression that he knew what had actually happened in Tiananmen apart from the terrible noise. He says that “of the activists involved in this incident,…most were arrested, sentenced, and repeatedly interrogated.” But he gives no idea of the vast nationwide purge that followed. In another example of his ignorance he states flatly that no one in the square had “aimed at overthrowing the People’s Republic and the Communist Party.” In fact, thousands had been shouting “Down with the Communist Party,” “Down with Deng Xiaoping,” and “Li Peng resign!”
On May 16, Zhao had a conversation with Mikhail Gorbachev, who reportedly was smuggled to a meeting with him through secret tunnels under the square because of the tumult in central Beijing. During that conversation Zhao told the Soviet leader that “we still needed Deng to be at the helm.” Although Deng was no longer on the Politburo, he was, as everyone knew, making the most important decisions. Zhao says he later learned that Deng was “extremely angered” when he learned of his remarks, because they pushed him to the forefront during the student turmoil. This, Zhao puzzlingly insists, was unbearable for Deng.
But that was only one of many charges against Zhao. Not only Deng but other influential retired “elders” who were formally outside the power structure, and in theory not eligible to make official decisions, were beside themselves with rage at the students. From TheTiananmen Papers, published in 2001, we learn that at a meeting just before the crackdown, Vice President Wang Zhen burst out:
Those goddamn bastards! Who do they think they are, trampling on sacred ground like Tiananmen so long?! They’re really asking for it. We should send the troops right now to grab those counter- revolutionaries, Comrade Xiaoping! What’s the People’s Liberation army for, anyway?
Deng replied,
We’ve got to do it or we’ll never forgive ourselves! We’ve got to do it or the common people will rebel! Anybody who tries to overthrow the Communist Party deserves death and no burial! The so-called democrats or opposition in China—people who in fact are the scum of the Chinese nation…. Imagine for a moment what could happen if China falls into turmoil. If it happens now, it’d be far worse than the Cultural Revolution.
This is what Zhao was up against, and for me, at least, the most curious aspect of his book is that he doesn’t seem to comprehend the power and the malice of the forces opposing him. Once he was dismissed as Party general secretary—an act of which he was not immediately informed—the post was soon given to Shanghai’s Party secretary, Jiang Zemin, who would eventually become president. Zhao was promptly sent home and for more than three years failed to grasp that he was not simply out of power but had been condemned to house arrest, which would last almost sixteen years.
From then on he wrote letters to the leaders, complaining that he had not been treated according to the rules and the law, words he never misses a chance to use. When Bao Tong was put in prison, for instance, Zhao complained that this violated “the Party Charter and the law.” How could the Standing Committee function, Zhao demanded, “when two of the five members…had been pushed aside?” The other member was Hu Qili, who had been sympathetic to Zhao’s views on reform.
At a meeting of the Central Committee, Zhao was accused of “splitting the Party” and “supporting turmoil”; then and in the years that followed he complained that the Party was
reversing black and white, exaggerating personal offences, taking quotes out of context, issuing slanders and lies—all in Cultural Revolution language.
What was absent from these complaints was any mention of the killings or their horrible aftermath. Zhao must have known what happened after he was purged from the many visits he had from members of his family and from his old comrade Zong Fengming, who tricked his way into Zhao’s house.
Zhao was a child of the very Party that was now persecuting him. He had joined at the age of nineteen and over the decades—including his incarceration and forced labor during the Cultural Revolution—he had witnessed and, I dare say, participated in acts that were outside the rules and against the law. Indeed, in the campaigns against intellectuals from 1983 to 1987, in which Deng, not for the first time, attacked his adversaries, Zhao had objected but not too much. He was also ill informed. He mildly chides China’s leading scientist, Fang Lizhi, who while “abroad, attacked Deng Xiaoping personally, by name.” In fact Fang was in Beijing, where he gave interviews to me and other reporters. (His essay calling for democracy, “China’s Despair and China’s Hope,” was published in the February 2, 1989, issue of The New York Review and then circulated in China.) Eventually, after taking refuge in the American embassy, Fang was allowed to leave for the US.
Among Zhao’s other constant complaints were the refusals to let him play tennis and golf and to spend the winters in the warm south, which was allowed but not in places he had requested. (At one point he was advised to play golf; he suspected that this was because Jiang Zemin would soon be in the US, where he could say that all was well with Zhao because he “had recently even gone out to play golf.”) Although he was permitted to travel south almost every winter to escape Beijing’s bleak climate, staying near Hong Kong was ruled out because Governor Chris Patten “was attempting to extend democratic elections in Hong Kong, so the situation was very delicate.”
For an active, if elderly, man once at the top of the political scene, to be confined at home was painful, “cold” as Zhao put it. But he was, after all, at home, able to see old friends, and not in prison like Bao Tong and many thousands of ordinary people. A photograph in the book shows him in his cosy study. He was visited by family, who unlike the relatives of lesser prisoners had not been persecuted; indeed, his daughter remained in her senior position in a fashionable Beijing hotel. But he was gradually forgotten, in China and abroad. Nonetheless, as Perry Link has observed, Zhao’s death four years ago aroused intense anxiety within the leadership.
What will never be forgiven by the present leaders and, I fear, by their successors—in a country where Mao’s giant portrait still hangs over Tiananmen Square—is Zhao’s advocacy of true democracy for China—even if he thought it could be achieved only slowly. Maybe worse is his damning judgment of Deng:
[He] always stood out among the Party elders as the one who emphasized the means of dictatorship…. He found extremely annoying the use of street demonstrations, petitions and protests as a way for people to express their views.
It is also important to recall, as MacFarquhar underlines, that it was Zhao “rather than Deng who was the actual architect of [economic] reform…. Without Deng’s support it would never have been possible to proceed.”
What will be the effect of Zhao’s book when news of it gets loose in China? Bao Pu writes in his eloquent epilogue,
Without political reform, without checks and balances, the market is distorted, manipulated by corrupt officials and dirty dealing. The nation is still ruled by men, not law.
As the late Lucian Pye of MIT wisely observed:
In the annals of history there is only a small chapter devoted to those who advanced economic progress. The big chapters are reserved for those leaders who brought political freedom and security to their people.
—June 4, 2009
1. 1
Chris Buckley and Benjamin Kang Lim, “China’s Ex-censor Claims Key Tiananmen Memoirs Role,” Reuters, May 21, 2009.
2. 2
The full text of “Charter 08” was published in these pages, January 15, 2009, translated by Perry Link.
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When the Devil Danced in Hungary
by László Krasznahorkai, translated from the Hungarian by George Szirtes
New Directions, 274 pp, $25.95
One evening in October 2010, the Hungarian novelist László Krasznahorkai—a man in his fifties with a biblical look—appeared on the balcony of the Collegium Hungaricum in Berlin, a white modernist building that’s a block north of Unter den Linden. At the same time an image of a dog, in silhouette, was projected from inside the building onto a large window below the balcony. Without introduction or explanation, Krasznahorkai then began to speak. And at first, I suppose that the uninformed commuter in Berlin might have assumed that the monologue this man was pronouncing was in the imaginary voice of the silhouetted dog—stretched out, as if leaping.
Horst Tappe
László Krasznahorkai, Switzerland, 1993
Whenever Krasznahorkai paused, in precise synchronization, a new image of the leaping dog’s silhouette was projected onto the window. Meanwhile, Krasznahorkai didn’t acknowledge the people standing below him on the pavement. He simply spoke to the street. As he continued, the nature of this monologue became more violent, threatening apocalypse. To the confused Berliner, it perhaps now seemed more likely that this man was talking not as a dog but as himself, a deranged prophet:
Withdraw into protection and safeguard all that is important to you, take it down to below the earth, all that you have, take down the jewellery, the food, the children’s photographs, the armchair where you like to sit with a book in your hand, the curtain, behind which you feel yourselves to be safe, from the window; gather together all that was dear to you, gather together the identity cards and baptismal certificates, take the money out of the bank and hide it in the cellar behind the wall, but really every piece of jewellery, every scrap of food, every photograph of the child, every armchair and every beloved book, every curtain and every document, and really all of the money down to the very last cent, and really hide all of these things well, but really well, under the earth, so that at least you will be able to believe until then that there was some sense to it all….
Until finally, with no warning, Krasznahorkai turned around and disappeared. Simultaneously, the lights went dark.
This isn’t the performance of an ordinary novelist. It is instead a pure product of Krasznahorkai’s unique style. And a preliminary description of this style would therefore include his carefully staged obscurity, his playfulness, his comprehensive pessimism, his love of apocalypse, and his delight in the obsessive monologue. Or to put it another way, Krasznahorkai’s subject is a total disenchantment with the world, and yet the manner in which he presents this disenchantment is hypnotically enchanting. He is one of the great inventors of new forms in contemporary literature, like the show that night in Berlin, a staging of a pamphlet made in collaboration with the contemporary artist Max Neumann, called Animalinside.1
And yet although he may have led a countercultural transatlantic life (he lived in Allen Ginsberg’s New York apartment for a while, where he met at the kitchen table with David Byrne, Patti Smith, and Philip Glass), Krasznahorkai still remains little known in New York or London.2 When Animalinside came out, only two of his books—The Melancholy of Resistance (1989; English translation 1998) and War and War (1999; English translation 2006)—had been translated into English. He is perhaps more famous to lovers of arthouse movies than arthouse novels, following his collaborations with the Hungarian director Béla Tarr—the most notorious of which is Tarr’s seven-hour adaptation of Krasznahorkai’s first novel, Satantango. It’s only now that the English-speaking reader can read Satantango itself—which came out in Hungary in 1985, and has recently been published in a translation by George Szirtes. In this beginning we find clues to Krasznahorkai’s startling style.
Satantango begins with desolate ordinariness. It is raining. It will always be raining—comically, oppressively—in the invented world of Satantango:
The setting is a collective farm that has been formally closed down, but whose inhabitants molder on, living off their scrimped savings. It’s presumably sometime in the early 1980s, as Hungarian communism enters terminal decline. The collective farm, “once the home of a thriving industry,” is “now nothing but a set of dilapidated and deserted buildings.” But this dilapidation is nothing new. In this novel, disintegration is the world’s constant condition—which is why Krasznahorkai also uses the outmoded vocabulary of the old regime. Nearby are the ruins of manors, estates, and castles: the paraphernalia left behind by the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
This deliberate blurring of historical references is an example of a wider principle in Krasznahorkai’s work. He delights in planting small contradictions inside what his fictions take as real—like the bells that wake Futaki. They seem ordinary, as he lies in bed with Mrs. Schmidt, a woman who is not his wife. Her husband is a farm worker who is currently looking after some cattle. Hearing the bells, Futaki can think of no rational explanation for the sound, since the closest possible source, he considers, is at least four kilometers away on the old Hochmeiss estate—“but not only did that have no bell but the tower had collapsed during the war and at that distance it was too far to hear anything.” Then suddenly there is silence. Futaki goes back to bed with Mrs. Schmidt, but is too afraid to close his eyes: frightened by both the “ghostly bells” and also the silence that followed. This leaves the reader with a choice. Either Futaki’s intuition of the ghostly and otherworldly is true, or there is another rational reason for the sound of bells, which he has not considered.
Krasznahorkai likes to trap the reader inside the cracked thinking of his characters. And this delight in encompassing the reader’s perspective has its typographic form—his refusal in Satantango to use paragraph breaks. The unit of composition in this novel is the chapter, which unfurls as a single block of text. In his later fiction, Krasznahorkai has continued to play with the usual lengths, not just of paragraphs and chapters, but also of sentences. (In 2009, he published a story called “El último Lobo.” It is written in a single sentence, and lasts twenty-eight pages.) This act of magnification has a compelling effect. With no paragraph break to pause at, the reader is forced forward, following the strange flowing line of Krasznahorkai’s narrative, just as this story continues, with the mystery of the bells left unresolved.
The reason for Schmidt’s absence from his house is that he and another man, Kráner, are due that morning to be “rounding up the cattle to drive them west from the Szikes toward the farm byres in the west where they would eventually receive eight months’ worth of hard-earned wages.” (Actual economic details, like from whom they will receive these “wages,” are never made explicit by Krasznahorkai.) The money—or so it has been agreed—is to be split equally among the farm’s remaining inhabitants; but Schmidt and Kráner have privately worked out a scheme to take the money entirely for themselves, return home in secret to pack up, then run away, leaving the others behind to their destitution. His premature return therefore nearly leads to the discovery of Futaki in bed with Mrs. Schmidt, but Futaki manages to scramble out of the house without being seen. Intuiting the criminal reason for Schmidt’s early arrival, he immediately goes back to knock at the front door, as if by chance. He confronts Schmidt, and threatens to tell the villagers about Schmidt’s plan to defraud them, forcing him to agree to a three-way split. The embezzled wages will now be divided between Schmidt, Kráner, and Futaki.
It seems, therefore, that this story will consist of the dirtiest realism. Mr. and Mrs. Schmidt and Futaki wait for dark, so that they can escape. But then the story disintegrates.
Kráner’s wife comes knocking at the Schmidts’ door to excitedly announce that two men, Irimiás and Petrina, who were believed to have died two years earlier, have been seen alive and on their way back to the farm. In only a few sentences, this news converts these characters, so recently intent on flight, into delighted optimists. For Irimiás, in Futaki’s words, “is a great magician. He could turn a pile of cow shit into a mansion if he wanted to.” It was Irimiás who in the past had always been able to rescue the farm from financial catastrophe. Perhaps, therefore, he can do it again, and restore the farm to its former success. Yes, in this surprising state of hope, which means that the issue of the embezzled money is for the moment forgotten, they gather in the village bar: suddenly, improbably, resplendent with a glowing future, waiting for Irimiás.
A story that looked like dead-end realism now seems more like a messianic allegory.
In interviews, Krasznahorkai presents himself as a yogi of aesthetic severity. “The reader must content themselves with these lone concrete, but vague, indications, quite simply because what I describe…can happen anywhere.” For after all: “Time and space aren’t very important. Only the situation counts.”3 This aesthetic of restriction has its modernist history—in the novels of Franz Kafka or Samuel Beckett—but I think that Krasznahorkai’s fiction is in fact more mischievous than his statements might imply. It isn’t simply that he leaves information out; he also presents the information he does offer in a systematically oblique way.
Satantango is structured in two parts, two halves of six chapters each, which form a quilt of both time frames and perspectives, moving from character to character, all arranged around this particular evening at the local bar and the following couple of days. The second chapter of Satantango, for instance, begins a little further back in time than the first. This isn’t, however, made clear until toward the chapter’s end. It is also written from the perspective of new characters: two men who sit waiting in the corridor of what appears to be a government office. After four pages, the reader discovers that one of them is Petrina; after another five, that the other is Irimiás—the two men whose arrival at the collective farm so excites Futaki and Mr. and Mrs. Schmidt.
The teeming surface obscurity that this structure creates has, I think, its philosophic rationale. “Every story is a story of disintegration,” says Karrer, the hero of Béla Tarr’s film Damnation—the first Tarr made with a script by Krasznahorkai. In this world, Krasznahorkai’s characters forage for impossibly permanent meanings—in politics, or religion, or sex. His oblique technique of composition forces the reader to develop the same “indispensable skill of distinguishing between favorable and unfavorable signs,” scrutinizing the surface of the story for possible meanings. (The hangouts of West Coast dope fiends may seem far from Krasznahorkai’s rain-soaked bars, but it’s not so surprising that Krasznahorkai admires the fictions of Thomas Pynchon—from whom he borrowed the epigraph to his recent book, Seiobo. Both construct fictions that hint at incompletely understood meanings.) But perhaps there’s also a more playful, novelistic motive for Krasznahorkai’s oblique forms. It means that he can entertain different levels of meaning—political, or theological, or psychological—and not be limited to any one of them. His economy of detail represents a kind of aesthetic freedom.
For after all, the situation that emerges in Satantango does have a time and place. The novel’s basic armature is a collective farm within a totalitarian state. It turns out that Irimiás and Petrina had been informers of some kind on behalf of the Communist regime while living on the collective farm. They had then become ideologically wayward—the detail of which is only alluded to obliquely—for which they were sent to prison. Now, two years later, on the same day that Futaki wakes up beside Mrs. Schmidt, they are sent back out to work. Irimiás, the brains of the duo, decides that they should make for the farm: “We’ll take their money then we’ll move on.”
Before they arrive, at dawn, Krasznahorkai offers a description of the evening in the village bar: two chapters of depressed, apocalyptic, comical drinking. The condition of entropy, where the world is winding irrevocably down, is a grand theme for fiction. Here, it is given its richly sodden form. The bar is infested with spiders’ webs. The bar’s owner lusts for Mrs. Schmidt. He turns the heating up, trying to force her to remove more layers of clothing. Mrs. Halics makes her husband read the Book of Revelation. Mrs. Horgos wanders in, looking for her young daughter Esti, who has gone missing. No one cares. Mrs. Halics tries to seduce Mrs. Kráner. It adds up to a detailed portrait of human sin or human nature, depending on the vocabulary. Throughout the night, they keep drinking, finally performing the drunk, slow tango of the novel’s title, observed by Mrs. Halics, who sits there “only wondering why judgment was so slow in coming.” Soon, they are all dead asleep in the bar, where they are eventually discovered by returnees Irimiás and Petrina.
And here, at the novel’s midpoint, Krasznahorkai intensifies the two strands of his style—a portrait of universal decay that is also buoyant with the hazy possibility of transcendent meaning. And both these strands develop from the missing young girl—Esti Horgos.
New Directions
Between the two chapters that describe the night of drinking, there’s a chapter narrated from Esti’s perspective. She is neglected by her mother and sisters, and bullied by her adolescent older brother, Sanyi, and the village thinks of her as mad. Earlier that day, in a state of manic sadness and anger, she attacks and kills her cat—quickly followed by a wild regret. Desolate, and trusting in an afterlife, she makes off with the cat’s corpse to another nearby ruined estate, the Weinkheim Castle. She has decided to commit suicide. “‘Yes,’ she quietly repeated to herself, ‘the angels see this and understand it.’” When she reaches the Weinkheim ruins, she places the cat beside her, lies down, and then takes poison. “She knew perfectly well her guardian angels were already on the way.”
There’s a gap in Satantango between the end of the first half, when Irimiás and Petrina arrive, and the beginning of the second. This gap represents what appears to be a day and a night during which the village has gone searching for the missing girl, a search that has finally ended with the discovery of her corpse. The second part then opens with Irimiás presenting a monologue to the village’s dejected inhabitants—a tissue of pious, distantly Communist kitsch. Moved by Esti’s death, he wants in response to once more set up a working collective—“a model economy that offers a secure existence and binds together a small band of the dispossessed”—perhaps in Almássy Manor, another nearby collection of disused buildings. Naturally, he adds, this will need money.
And so, trusting entirely in Irimiás, and burdened with guilt at Esti’s death, the villagers give Irimiás whatever savings they possess (including the embezzled wages). Then they set off for the manor, while Irimiás, Petrina, and Sanyi go into town, ostensibly to organize the scheme. Although, of course, this plan is a pure invention—for Irimiás is a skillful opportunist. He had only come for money, but has now seen a much larger prize: “the network, that enormous spiderweb, as woven and patented by me, Irimiás.” Not content with stealing their money, he will impress the authorities by converting the villagers into a personal mafia of informers.
But here, deep in ordinary corruption, the usual reality buckles. As Irimiás, Petrina, and Sanyi are walking on the road into town, which leads them in the direction of the ruins of Weinkheim Castle, they hear an unexplained humming, then see “a white transparent veil” billowing in the wind, that vanishes when it touches the ground. When they reach the grounds of the ruins of Weinkheim, where Esti killed herself, the humming has become “the sound of something like sniggering.” No movement, however, is visible in the trees or foliage. Terrified, they keep going, until finally they see Esti’s corpse, wrapped “in a series of transparent veils.” They have only recently seen her body buried in the ground, in a coffin. Now, it seems to have reappeared—and they see it levitate and fly off among the clouds: “Then the tinkling-chiming voices reached a triumphant crescendo above their heads before slowly fading away.”
The scene is unexplained, gorgeous. Irimiás and Petrina try to calm Sanyi by describing what they have seen as a hallucination. In private, they are less sure. Perhaps they have witnessed the supernatural—a possibility angrily rejected by Irimiás: “It doesn’t matter what we saw just now, it still means nothing,” says Irimiás. “Heaven? Hell? The afterlife? All nonsense.” For humans, argues Irimiás, are “trapped forever,” with no transcendent escape route from the rain and mud. “We think we’re breaking free but all we’re doing is readjusting the locks. We’re trapped, end of story.” And they continue to walk into town.
But the reader is troubled by a spell that is difficult to dissolve. This episode could be explained away as a hallucination, but the two characters who should most believe this are unconvinced. The possible reality of apocalypse hums over the mud and lust of this novel, like a telephone wire. (Just as Krasznahorkai’s prose, in George Szirtes’s agile translation, can smoothly move from his characters’ secondhand vocabulary, like Futaki observing “‘his own careworn features’” reflected in a window, to a melancholy beauty: “He felt that what the rain was doing to his face was exactly what time would do. It would wash it away.”)
It’s therefore possible to construct some kind of transcendent theory of this novel, a theory that would link the levitation of Esti’s corpse to the bells heard by Futaki and the humming heard by Irimiás, and that would connect the Satan in the novel’s title to Irimiás himself, who is addressed as “Lord of Misrule” by a barman—Irimiás as the novel’s false messiah, peddling mendacious messages of hope. But then, against this there is Mrs. Halics, obsessed by the Book of Revelation, who is only comical; and if Irimiás is Satan then he is a very minor Satan, just an everyday Communist atheist, terrified of what he has seen.
Krasznahorkai, in other words, has invented a way of writing disenchanted fables.
And what follows seems to return the story to its mode of acid description. Irimiás successfully concludes his scheme. The authorities, he sadly says, will not allow their project to go forward, at least for the moment. So he recommends that they should all disperse and wait for an opportune moment of regrouping—meanwhile remaining “in lively, continual communication” with him, maintaining an “unceasing, vigilant observation of their immediate surroundings.” Then Irimiás files an official report on his activities to the authorities, with descriptions of each of the villagers. And with this penultimate chapter, the story seems to have ended, the process of disintegration complete—a systematic cancellation that was perhaps always obvious from the chapter numbers. In the first half they are numbered I to VI. In the second, they’re numbered backwards, from VI to I. This novel traces, in other words, the canceling steps of its title’s tango.
But if the world is total emptiness, then what can writing do? One answer may be found in the seemingly minor figure of the farm’s doctor. He is a recluse who, ever since work stopped on the farm, decided to stay there, spending his days in observation of the village’s remaining inhabitants. He is haunted by “the triumphal progress of the wrecking process…the power that ruined houses, walls, trees and fields.” The best he can do, he decides, in the face of the world’s inescapable disintegration, is to “use his memory to fend off the sinister, underhanded process of decay.” He therefore vows to “watch everything very carefully and to record it all constantly, all with the aim of not missing the smallest detail.”
On the night of Irimiás and Petrina’s arrival, he stumbles out into the rain, making for the bar to get more pálinka, but becomes disoriented in the dark and wanders into the fields, then onto the road into town—where he is found the next afternoon, alive but delirious. In the novel’s final chapter, he has apparently arrived back home after a three-week absence in a hospital. As usual, he tries to resume his observations, but now there’s no one left to observe, since the villagers, following Irimiás’s orders, have left.
It seems like a gentle coda, and this impression increases when the doctor hears the sound of bells—the same bells, the reader assumes, that Futaki heard at the novel’s opening. Like Futaki, the doctor cannot understand it. Puzzled, he keeps looking frustratedly out at the empty farm. There is nothing left for him to describe. Then he has a sudden illumination. He doesn’t need the villagers to be present in order to describe them. He becomes a visionary, or writer of fiction. But his excited scribbling is interrupted by the bells again. He makes his way through the rain to the chapel on the Hochmeiss estate—which Futaki had earlier ruled out as being too far away to be heard—and discovers a madman, ringing “a quite small bell…hanging in the middle of the exposed, improvised structure.” The possibly transcendent has its ordinary explanation, after all. With this matter resolved, the doctor goes back home, nails his door shut, and returns to his notebook:
Careful not to damage the paper, he started writing. “One morning near the end of October not long before the first drops of the mercilessly long autumn rains began to fall….”
Yes, he begins writing Satantango. This novel, it turns out, is on an endless loop.
There are various ways of philosophically finessing this metafictional finale. The most immediate is to see the novel as a dark statement of Nietzsche’s idea of eternal return (or, as Samuel Beckett once described James Joyce’s similarly circular novel, Finnegans Wake, a Dantesque purgatorial process). The true referent of the title’s “Satantango” isn’t therefore the villagers’ drunken dance but all existence—a repetitive, vacuous dance directed by the devil. But it also creates an even more disturbing effect. It might be possible to recuperate a prosaic rational frame, if the reader assumes that everything up to the moment when the doctor is found delirious on the road is real, and that the novel’s subsequent events represent his imagined attempt to explain the sudden emptiness of the village on his return from the hospital.
The problem is that there’s nothing within the novel that might provide a basis for this distinction. Unlike, say, Camus’s novel The Plague, where it is also revealed that the novel has been written by one of its characters, there is no moment within the novel to separate different layers of fictionality, except perhaps for the precise moment when the doctor decides to write it. So while the doctor imagines his account of the village as a bulwark against the world’s disappearance, it becomes in fact a form of that disappearance, a literary illusion. The novel eats itself up in its own construction. And yet, on the other hand, there it is—and the aura of the supernatural that the story has created is still real.
Like the episode of Esti’s levitating corpse, this ending is open to multiple interpretations, which the novel never works to sustain but also never denies—a parable with no fixed doctrine.
The epigraph to Satantango is a single sentence: “In that case, I’ll miss the thing by waiting for it.” Krasznahorkai offers only an oblique attribution—”F.K.”—but its source is Kafka’s novel The Castle. In the eighth chapter of Kafka’s novel, called “Waiting for Klamm,” a “gentleman” asks K to leave: “‘But then I’ll miss the person I’m waiting for,’ said K., flinching.” To which the gentleman replies: “You’ll miss him whether you wait or go.” And K’s triumphant riposte is this: “Then I would rather miss him as I wait.”4
In the novel, it’s an example of how K has the defiant courage of his self-defeat. As an obscurely attributed epigraph, however, the sentence becomes stranger: a near oxymoron—whose tone could be despairing or euphoric. “In that case, I’ll miss the thing by waiting for it.” It is a miniature example of Krasznahorkai’s style—where the everyday is revealed as a tragicomic mystery. Sure, the roots of this are in Kafka. “Without Kafka,” Krasznahorkai has said, “I could never have written.”5 But the excitement of Krasznahorkai’s writing is that he has come up with his own original forms—and one of the most haunting is his first, Satantango. There’s nothing else like it in contemporary literature.
1. 1
László Krasznahorkai, Animalinside, with images by Max Neumann, translated by Ottilie Mulzet and with an introduction by Colm Tóibín (New Directions, Sylph Editions of London, and the Center for Writers and Translators at the American University of Paris, 2010).
2. 2
Interview with László Krasznahorkai, The Hungarian Quarterly, Winter 2011.
3. 3
Interview with László Krasznahorkai, Le Matricule des Anges, June 2011. The translation from the French is my own.
4. 4
Franz Kafka, The Castle, translated by Mark Harman (Schocken, 1998), p. 105. Without, obviously, speaking any Hungarian, I can’t tell if the alteration of “him” to “the thing” is Krasznahorkai’s or Szirtes’s. (And I’m grateful to Daniel Medin, one of the editors of Animalinside, for pointing me to the complications of this provenance.)
5. 5
Interview, Le Matricule des Anges, p. 33.
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PROVIDENCE, R.I.— Capt. James Cook needs no introduction. Son of the commonest soil of Yorkshire, he rose to command three voyages that opened European minds to the wide world of the Pacific Ocean and epitomized maritime exploration in the 18th-century Enlightenment. Even his cruel death, in 1779, only magnified his heroic reputation.
Then there is Alejandro Malaspina, Spain's answer to Cook and a brave, intelligent explorer in his own right. He led a five-year scientific expedition, in 1789-94, that charted the western coast of the Americas and traversed the Pacific as far as the Philippines, with a side trip to China.
Yet Malaspina might as well have sailed off the edge of the earth, so forgotten have he and his achievements been in the annals of exploration over the last two centuries. He was without honor even in his own country. On his return to Spain, he ran aground on the shoals of domestic politics and was thrown in prison, his journals suppressed and his name virtually stricken from Spanish history.
Now, finally, Malaspina is being rescued from oblivion. A comprehensive edition of his journals was published by the Naval Museum in Madrid in 1990, and English translations -- ''The Malaspina Expedition, 1789-1794'' -- are being issued by the Hakluyt Society, a London organization that publishes accounts of geographical discovery. The second volume was introduced in April at a symposium here at the John Carter Brown Library. The final English volume is to be published at the end of the year.
Scholars at the symposium said the publications would restore to history an overlooked chapter in the scientific exploration of the Enlightenment. They expect a proliferation of studies of Malaspina and Spain's role in what had been viewed as a largely British and French endeavor.
''This is the beginning of a Malaspina industry,'' said Dr. Norman Fiering, director of the library, an independent research institution at Brown University.
Dr. John B. Hattendorf, a professor of maritime history at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., explained that Malaspina's voyage ''made very little impact at the time because of his political problems'' and had been neglected since because of the lack of published documentation. Only a few specialists, he said, have known anything about the Spanish mariner.
''He was one of the greatest and one of the least known explorers of the 18th century,'' said Andrew David, a retired British hydrographer and an editor of the journal's English translation.
Malaspina was 33 when he set sail from Cádiz on July 30, 1789, commander of what historians call Spain's greatest scientific expedition. He was born Italian, like Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci before him, and as the third son of a minor noble, had to look elsewhere for a place in life. He became an officer in the Spanish navy.
The expedition was instructed to inspect the Spanish territories in America and the Philippines, as well as make new hydrographic charts and gather information on indigenous people, flora and fauna, and other natural resources. On board were cartographers, botanists, zoologists, artists and some officers who doubled as ethnographers.
Both in inspiration and preparation, the expedition drew on the example of Cook and to a lesser extent, the French mariner Louis Antoine de Bougainville. Malaspina had many occasions in his journal to cite Cook's advice and experience.
''There is no doubt that Cook's voyages were the yardstick against which Malaspina measured his own,'' Dr. Donald C. Cutter, an emeritus history professor at the University of New Mexico, wrote in an introduction to the first English volume of Malaspina's journals.
Two identical three-masted ships were built especially for the voyage. Each was 120-feet long, with a 31 1/2-foot beam and copper-lined wooden bottoms. Their shallow drafts gave them access to shallow harbors and estuaries.
The Descubierta, commanded by Malaspina, and the Atrevida, by José Bustamante, reached South America, rounded Cape Horn and spent almost three years surveying the coastal waters from Chile to Alaska. At each anchorage, mapping parties got their bearings in observations of the sun and stars, checked the chronometer for longitude and made gravity measurements to determine variations in the shape of the earth. Naturalists went on specimen-collecting treks deep in the interior.
Malaspina noted in his journal that ''many times our crews had to recover at sea from the debilitating effects of time ashore, rather than restoring in port the usual ravages of life at sea.''
It is not clear whether the crews mostly suffered from an excess of onshore work or revelry.
Malaspina passed up a visit to the Galápagos Islands, Mr. David noted, ''thereby forestalling his scientists from discoveries anticipating Darwin.''
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Greenhouse Effect
The greenhouse effect is an increase in the average temperature of the Earth. It happens because certain gases absorb infrared heat that would normally be radiated into space. Infrared light is what you feel as heat from heat lamps used in restaurants to keep french fries hot. It also causes the heat you feel from ordinary light bulbs. Since carbon dioxide absorbs this heat, the more carbon dioxide there is in the atmosphere, the warmer the air will be. If the air gets too hot, the balance of life will be disrupted. Species of plants and animals will die. The food chain could be upset. This would cause many serious problems worldwide.
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• Identify greenhouse gases.
• Determine why some proposed replacements for greenhouse gases won't work.
• Determine the percentage of the various greenhouse gases' effects on global warming.
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• Determine the change in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air.
• Determine the possible causes of the greenhouse effect.
• Determine the link between industrialization and the greenhouse effect.
• Hypothesize reasons for increases in production of certain greenhouse gases and propose solutions to global warming.
• Infer what international problems need to be addressed to stop the greenhouse effect.
• Describe the effects of global warming on humans and on plants.
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Oasis Yoga & Health
Nick Pivot
Reflexology can be traced to ancient Egypt, dating back to 2330 BC. However it is thought that the treatment was commonly received in China, India and Japan. Reflexology is a gentle and non-invasive form of complementary therapy often described in the West as Zone Therapy. By using firm and accurate thumb or finger compression techniques on reflex areas located in both hands and feet, reflexology can stimulate every part of the body, promoting a sense of calm and relaxation.
Feet and hands are a complex mechanical structure which map the entire body into reflex areas (hence the name Reflexology). It is believed there are over 7200 nerve endings in the sole of the foot.
Excess acidity can be triggered by stress and influence blood calcium levels and uric acid (most commonly known as crystals) to travel through the bloodstream and weaken all body systems. These crystals will generally be stored in the reflex areas located in both hands and feet.
By massaging and dispersing the crystals parked around nerve endings, reflexology promotes the reabsorption of crystals by the blood and lymph system. It stimulates the natural discharge of waste from the body, restoring energy flow within each related zone of the body.
As a Reflexology practitioner you always approach conditions in a very holistic and non judgemental way. A physical discomfort is often the manifestation of an emotional imbalance. Life can be challenging and difficult at times. However one thing is for sure, your body doesn’t make mistakes.
By developing an understanding of the possible cause behind your condition, you are empowered with practical tips and personalised insights to help you manage your health more effectively. “A healthier Today, means a brighter Tomorrow”
With a particular interest in Maternity Reflexology and Cancer recovery, Nick Pivot now adapted his approach to treatment to suit all his clients needs and expectations, from minor ailments to pain management of long term conditions.
Nick Pivot is a fully qualified therapist, registered with the British Reflexology Association (BRA) and a member of CNHC (the regulating body for complementary therapies in the UK)
If you want to find out how you can benefit from Reflexology or book an appointment Please contact Nick Pivot on 07952578520 or email [email protected].
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OSHO Online Library » The Books » A Sudden Clash of Thunder
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Chapter 9: The Laughing Buddha
Whenever a truth is born, a ray of light, suddenly scholars gather together - intellectuals, professors, philosophers, theoreticians - and they jump upon the truth, they crush it; they mold it into dead theories and scriptures. That which was alive becomes just a paper thing. The real rose disappears.
Once I was staying in a Christian friend’s house. I started looking into his Bible: there was a rose. He must have kept it in the Bible. Many years old - dry, dead, crushed between the pages of the Bible. I started laughing. He came rushing from his bathroom. He said, “What? What are you laughing at? What has happened?”
I said, “The same has happened to truth as has happened to this rose. Between the pages of your Bible, the rose has died. Now it is just a memory of something which was one day alive, just a remembrance. All fragrance gone, all aliveness gone. It is as dead as a plastic flower or a paper flower. It has a history but it has no future. It has a past but it has no possibility. And the same has happened to truth. In the pages of the scriptures it has died.”
The devil said, “Don’t be worried. Take it easy. If people have already reached there - the scholars, the professors - they will immediately crush it.”
When truth happens it is non-verbal, it is silent. It is so profound it cannot be expressed through words. Then sooner or later people will come who will put it into words, who will systematize it. And in their very systematization it is killed.
Hotei lived a totally different life from an ordinary religious man. His whole life was nothing but a continuous laughter. It is said about Hotei that even sometimes in sleep he would start laughing. He had a big belly, and the belly would shake. Sardar Gurudayal Singh would have enjoyed meeting him, and Hotei would have enjoyed Sardar Gurudayal Singh. People would ask him, “Why are you laughing? And even in sleep!” Laughter was so natural to him that any and everything would help him to laugh. Then the whole life, awake or asleep, is a comedy.
You have turned life into a tragedy. You have made a tragic mess of your life. Even when you laugh, you don’t laugh. Even when you pretend to laugh, the laughter is just forced, manipulated, managed. It is not coming from the heart, not at all from the belly. It is not something coming from your center; it is just something painted on the periphery. You laugh for reasons which have nothing to do with laughter.
I have heard:
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OSHO Online Library » The Books » The Art of Dying
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Chapter 5: Having and Being
You can create such a monotonous life that intelligence is not needed. When intelligence is not needed you become dull. And when you become dull, of course you start feeling a certain sort of peace, a certain silence - but it is not real, it is pseudo. The real silence is very alive, throbbing. The real silence is positive; it has energy in it, it is intelligent, aware, full of life and zest. It has enthusiasm in it.
The false silence, the pseudo silence, is simply dull. You can see it. If a stupid person is sitting there - an idiot, an imbecile - you will feel a certain silence around him; it is the same silence as you can feel near a cemetery. He has a space around him which is very dull. He seems to be very indifferent to the world, not in contact at all, disconnected; he is sitting there - like a lump of mud. There is no vibration around him of any life, of any energy; there is nothing streaming around him. This is not real silence. He is simply stupid.
When you come close to a buddha.he is silent because of his intelligence, he is silent because of his awareness; he is silent, not because he has forced himself to be silent, he is silent simply because he has understood the pointlessness of being disturbed in any way. He is silent because he has understood that there is no point in being worried and there is no point in being tense. His silence is out of understanding. It is overflowing understanding. When you come near a buddha you will have a totally different fragrance - the fragrance of consciousness.
And not only will you feel a freshness, a breeze around him, you will feel that you have also become more alive, aflame. Just by being close to him your own inner being is lit; a lamp starts burning within you. When you are close to him, with just the very affinity, the closeness, you suddenly feel you are no longer so depressed. His presence is pulling you out of the mud in which you had established yourself perfectly. His very presence is uplifting - you will feel life, love, compassion, beauty, reality.
A person who goes on chanting a mantra and living a monotonous life of routine is dead; he just goes into the gestures and motions because he has to. And he has done the same things so many times that there is no need to be alert about it - he can do it in his sleep. He has become very efficient, but his efficiency simply means that he has become mechanical. That’s why he is silent. You will see this type of silence if you come across people who practice Transcendental Meditation. They have stilled themselves by repeating a certain mantra; they have forced their mind to keep quiet. But this is cheap and you cannot get the real with such cheap measures. The real becomes available only when you work for it with your totality.
But remember, I am not saying that the real becomes available by your work.there is a paradox in it. You have to work hard, you have to work in a total, passionate way, and yet you have to remember that it does not happen by your work alone. It happens by grace. That is the message of Hasidism.
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OSHO Online Library » The Books » The Mustard Seed
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Chapter 6: Goodness Is a Luxury
The sixth saying:
Jesus said:
The kingdom is like a shepherd who had one hundred sheep.
One of them went astray which was the largest.
He left behind the ninety-nine, he sought for the one until he found it.
Having tired himself out, he said to the sheep: I love thee more than the ninety-nine.
One of the most puzzling problems has been: what will happen to the sinners, those who have gone astray? What is the relationship between the divine and the sinner? Is the sinner going to be punished? Is there going to be a hell? - because all the priests have been insisting that the sinner is going to be thrown into hell, he is to be punished. But can God punish anybody? Is there not compassion enough? And if God cannot forgive, then who will be able to forgive?
Many answers have been given, but Jesus’ answer is the most beautiful. Before we enter into this saying many other things have to be understood; they will give you the background.
Whenever we punish a person, whatsoever rationalizations we may like to make, our reasons are different; and remember the distinction between reason and rationalization. You may be a father or a mother, and your child has done something of which you don’t approve. It doesn’t matter whether he has done something right or wrong, because who knows what is right and what is wrong? But you disapprove and whatsoever you disapprove of becomes wrong; it may be, it may not be, that is not the point: whatsoever you approve of is right. So it depends on your approval and disapproval.
And when a child goes astray, is doing something wrong in your view, you punish him. The deep reason is that he has disobeyed, not that he has done something wrong; the deep reason is that your ego feels hurt. The child has been in conflict with you, he has asserted himself. He has said no to you, the father, the authority, the powerful one, so you punish the child. The reason is that your ego is hurt and punishment is a sort of revenge.
But the rationalization is different: you say it is because he has done wrong and he has to be put right. Unless he is punished how is he going to be put right? So he should be punished when he moves in a wrong direction, and he should be rewarded when he follows you. That’s how he is to be conditioned for a right life. This is the rationalization, this is how you talk about it in your mind, but this is not the basic unconscious reason.
The unconscious reason is totally different: it is to put the child in his place, to remind him that you are the boss and he is not the boss, that you will decide what is wrong and what is right, that it is you who are going to give him direction; that he is not free, that you possess him, that you are the owner and if he disobeys then he will suffer.
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Linked by Adam S on Tue 26th Aug 2008 12:17 UTC, submitted by irbis
Bugs & Viruses "Antivirus software on your personal computer could become a thing of the past thanks to a new "cloud computing" approach to malicious software detection developed at the University of Michigan. The researchers' new approach, called CloudAV, moves antivirus functionality into the "network cloud" and off personal computers. CloudAV analyzes suspicious files using multiple antivirus and behavioral detection programs simultaneously. Traditional antivirus software that resides on a personal computer checks documents and programs as they are accessed. Because of performance constraints and program incompatibilities, only one antivirus detector is typically used at a time. The researchers see promising opportunities in applying CloudAV to cell phones and other mobile devices that aren't robust enough to carry powerful antivirus software."
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by Earl C Pottinger on Wed 27th Aug 2008 00:33 UTC
Earl C Pottinger
Member since:
Aside from the mess that is Windows, does any other modern OS out there have a problem running multiple programs that scan the same files/memory at the same time?
If I can run multiple programs at the same time, why not virus checkers? Why assume I need a cloud?
As far as I can see what is needed is a common format for anti-virus programs to report their results in.
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I was reading an article about the plunge in interest rates on junk bonds and wondered, are bond rates low, and if so, why?
I looked at AAA-rated Corporate Bonds (the highest-quality) and BAA-rated Corporate Bonds (medium-grade) as rated by Moody’s Investors Service, as that data was most readily available, to see if bond rates are down. Definitions:
• AAA: Bonds rated Aaa are judged to be of the best quality. They carry the smallest degree of investment risk and are generally referred to as “gilt edged.” Interest payments are protected by a large or by an exceptionally stable margin and principal is secure. While the various protective elements are likely to change, such changes as can be visualized are most unlikely to impair the fundamentally strong position of such issues.
• BAA: Bonds rated Baa are considered as medium-grade obligations (i.e., they are neither highly protected nor poorly secured). Interest payments and principal security appear adequate for the present, but certain protective elements may be lacking or may be characteristically unreliable over any great length of time. Such bonds lack outstanding investment characteristics and in fact have speculative characteristics as well.
Bond rates are low
Indeed, they are at historic lows – it’s cheaper for a corporation to borrow money now than at any point since 1956.
Bond Yields Historic
Interestingly, it’s cheaper for a BAA rated company to borrow money today than it was for a AAA rated company to borrow money back in 2011. Think about that. Companies that are up against the wall today (e.g. Best Buy and Dell who are both BAA rated companies and examining buy-outs) can borrow money cheaper than the top companies in the world could in 2011 (think Exxon and Johnson & Johnson – two of the largest and most stable companies out there).
Bond Yields Historic recent
If you think of countries instead of companies, the distinction is much clearer. AAA countries include Switzerland and Germany. BAA countries include many of the “PIIGS” – Spain, Italy, and Ireland. To think that the equivalent of Italy today can borrow at the same rate as Germany could in 2011 is absurd, but true.
Why are yields so low?
This is not an easy question to answer, and there’s a lot going on.
First, 4 rounds of quantitative easing by the federal reserve is having a big impact on bond prices. The bond market is just like any market – it’s driven by supply and demand. And when the Federal Reserve prints $85 billion each month to buy bonds, suddenly there’s more demand than supply. Bond yields decrease to the market-clearing rate.
There’s more going on though. Because bond rates are down, investors have to take on more risk to get the same return. In the competitive market of asset management, there’s belief that similar to before the housing bust, managers are taking bigger risks by buying lower-rated bonds, juicing their portfolio for the short term, but adding risk.
Additionally, there is still a “flight to security” going on. While a BAA bond is only medium grade, it is a lot better than the prospects of some sovereign debt and equity like in Greece. Suddenly, in a tough market, lower-rated bonds become more appealing.
How low will interest rates go?
I don’t know (hypothetically I calculated 30-year morgage rates could reach 2.75%), but there’s not much room below. I wouldn’t buy any bonds at the moment.
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There Might Be a UDID Alternative for iOS Developers
Earlier this month it was discovered that social networking app Path was downloading the address books of its users without their knowledge or permission. Understandably, many people were unhappy with the situation, which prompted congress to get involved and question both Apple and several social networking app developers on their privacy policies and the information that the apps gather from users.
Your device UDID, if you are unaware, is a unique identifying code that developers use to track your app activity (similar to web cookies). When questioning app developers and Apple, the inquiring congressmen questioned UDID activity, prompting Apple to reaffirm that it is doing away with UDID access.
Back when iOS 5 was released, Apple announced in its developer documentation that developers needed to start moving away from the use of the UDID, using unique, app specific identifiers instead. As of last week, amid the privacy concerns of both congress and the public, Apple began rejecting new apps and updates that use a device’s UDID and don’t ask for user permission.
The sudden move to turn away apps using the UDID is no coincidence, and though developers have known that its disappearance was a possibility, the rejections have left them scrambling for an alternative.
One such alternative might come from AppRedeem, which is a mobile advertising platform designed to help developers boost engagement and acquire new users. The company has developed the “Organizational Specific Device Identifier,” or the ODID, which is already in use by discount giant Groupon.
AppRedeem CEO Sheffield Nolan recently explained the ODID system to TechCrunch, who then spelled it out:
“Over-simplifying, an ODID is created by appending a hash of the MAC address to an organization’s ‘secret key’ to create the payload, and then applying a hash wrapper to the payload. Furthermore, the ODID is sandboxed within the specific organization that created it, and the device’s Mac address is used as the seed for the ODID.”
The ODID eliminates most privacy concerns because an app developer cannot obtain the unique MAC address from a device using the system, since it is just a seed. It is, however, a unique identifier that does not disappear when a device is reset.
AppRedeem began updating its SDK with ODID support yesterday, and it will be available to all customers by the end of the week.
More than half of the top 100 grossing apps are part of AppRedeem’s service, including Groupon, Zynga, Disney, TinyCo, Gameloft, AOL, and Smule.
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Home > Health Resources > Health Encyclopedia
What Happens During Chemotherapy for Kidney Cancer
What Happens During Chemotherapy for Kidney Cancer
Photo of intravenous drug bag
Most people get chemotherapy in an outpatient part of the hospital, at the doctor's office, or at home. You may go to a special chemotherapy-only clinic. Depending on which drugs you get and your health, you may stay in the hospital during treatment. You may get these drugs in pill form, by injection, or in more than one way.
For treatment of kidney cancer, chemotherapy has mostly been replaced by biologic therapies. However, according to the American Cancer Society, these chemotherapy drugs are still sometimes used in cases where targeted therapy and immunotherapy have not worked. Some of the chemotherapy drugs include:
• Gemzar (gemcitabine)
• 5-FU (5-fluorouracil)
• Xeloda (capecitabine)
You may take more than one drug. If so, it's called combination therapy. Which drugs you get and how often you get them depend on many factors. If you are having chemotherapy, you may have it combined with biological therapy. This combination is sometimes called biochemotherapy.
You get chemotherapy in cycles over a period of time. That means you may take the drugs more than once, interspersed by breaks between them. Having chemotherapy in cycles helps in more than one way.
• It allows the drugs to kill more cancer cells. That's because cells aren't all dividing at the same time.
• It allows your body to rest from the chemotherapy. Treatment damages quickly dividing normal cells, too, such as those in the lining of your mouth or stomach.
Because you may need to have an IV for chemotherapy more than once, it can be helpful to have a venous access device or an indwelling catheter. This catheter is a small tube that remains in place for a long period of time so that you don't have a new IV started each time you get treatment. One end of the tube is placed into a vein near your heart. The other end is placed just under the skin or even comes out through the skin where it is available for connecting to the chemotherapy. Talk with your health care team about whether you should consider one and what the advantages and risks of having a venous access device or catheter may be.
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Car Glow Plugs
While petrol or gasoline engines have spark plugs, diesel engines use something else to ignite fuel for startup: the glow plug. Whatever type of engine your car's fitted with, it requires a certain amount of heat in order to even start. In a gasoline engine, this heat comes from the spark plugs that directly connect to the cylinders. So whether your engine is cold or hot, there won't be any problems starting a petrol-powered car (unless a cold engine means it's iced). In diesel-powered cars however, even a regularly cold engine is a hassle.
Enter the car glow plug. See, instead of relying on an electrical spark to ignite the air-fuel mixture in the cylinders like in a gasoline engine, diesel engines use a different method. Specifically, the diesel engine compresses air, raising its temperature to a certain point. It is when that point is reached that fuel is sprayed inside the engine cylinders, creating explosions for power. The plug's job is to pre-heat the diesel engine, aiding it in beginning and sustaining its own internal combustion process. That's why you can't immediately start a diesel engine, especially if it's cold. Once you insert the key and partially turn it to the "on" position, you have to wait for the "wait-to-start" light to go out before turning the key all the way. This gives the plug ample time to preheat the engine for startup. And of course, if a diesel engine's seen some fairly recent use, or if the ambient temperature is pretty hot, the use of the glow plug won't be necessary at all.
What does the car glow plug look like exactly? It's a piece of metal that's shaped like a pencil, with a heating element on one tip. Once exposed to electricity by way of the glow plug relay, the tip begins to emit light and heat, preparing the diesel engine for startup. For optimum operation, these tips are usually crafted from elements like platinum and iridium, both of which are resistant to oxidation and are able to sustain extreme temperatures.
But it's not as simple as that. Way higher temperatures than necessary can actually damage some glow plugs. As with other things that use electricity, too much heat can burn them out. To prevent this from happening, we advise that you turn this component off after the engine has started operating. Additionally, these plugs also have a short life span. As they get older, they become less efficient, making it more difficult to start your engine. This problem becomes even more evident during the winter, when you realize that your glow plugs have seen better days. Once this happens, don't hesitate to look for a replacement immediately.
Here at Parts Train, we can sell you a high-quality, durable glow plug at the lowest price online. Remember: fuel efficiency depends on the quality of your car's components, so make sure you fit your car with only the best parts on the market. | <urn:uuid:574c60c9-57a1-4b67-a9c0-b0197267e724> | 3 | 2.953125 | 0.975856 | en | 0.953434 | http://www.partstrain.com/ShopByDepartment/Glow_Plug |
By Mary Carroll Moore
Paining by Mary Carroll Moore
MARY CARROLL MOORE is an award-winning author. Her books include PEN/Faulkner-nominated novel, Qualities of Light and Your Book Starts Here: Create, Craft, and Sell Your First Novel, Memoir, winner of the New Hampshire Literary Award, 2011 Readers’ Choice Award. She teaches workshops and weekly writing classes both online and in person at writing schools around the U.S.
Have you noticed the trend? Books are getting more complex--not just in their storylines but also in their structures. Could this be a reflection of how our brains are changing (see The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr, )? Or perhaps it shows our desire to reinvent literature once more.
Multiple Narrators Become Woven Structures
Only fifteen years ago, when Barbara Kingsolver's, The Poisonwood Bible was published, we were awed by a story told from six or seven viewpoints. Each member of the Price family contributed their own version of the voyage from Georgia to be missionaries in the Belgian Congo. Next came the breakthrough structure of Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge. Called "episodic" because it straddled the line between a group of short stories and a novel, it paved the way for further experimentation in Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, and Carol Shields's The Stone Diaries. Each of these new forms offered a complicated woven plot, following not just multiple narrators but different eras. The Stone Diaries even toggled from first- to second to third-person voice.
I've found the next wave in two books I read recently: Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and The Suicide Index by Joan Wickersham. Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life is set up like an encyclopedia moving through alphabetical listings of topics. There are notes, bullet-point lists, and ruminations. Some listings are one paragraph, some as long as chapters. It is entertaining and extremely random, as if you're visiting a fictional character's journal and peering in on her mind, heart, and daily life.
The Suicide Index is a bit more serious and the chapters look like real chapters, but the organization is fascinating. It explores the author's experience after her dad's suicide. Each chapter is a different way it affected her--but it is set up as an index. Chapters fall under main and subordinate headings, like an index would. An example: "Suicide: act of: attempt to imagine." Both of these books--and many others out on the market today--demonstrate a new kind of literary architecture. Structure is the frame of the story. These authors are saying how much this frame influences their narrative, and they are making it a strong part of their stories.
Simple to Complex Structure
It's useful to consider how your book's structure influences your writing. At revision, especially, you can use the structure to emphasize what the story is trying to say. I remember being in awe of Ann Patchett's Bel Canto, as I realized the language and structure mimic an opera--which is a main subject of the book.
If your story is about chaos, for instance, how could your structure show this? Choosing complex structures takes more work from the writer--to create a clear pathway and anchor the story for the reader. If done well, it can amuse us, startle us in delightful ways. Make us think differently. But it may not be for you. Many of us are drawn to complicated structures as readers, but as a writer, make sure this serves your story. What best fits your topic? A simple structure (see below) might allow your story to shine, while a complex one will only confuse it unnecessarily. But if you are writing a story about several generations or multiple narrators or places, or if your topic is cutting edge, you may well benefit from an equally edgy structure.
Types of Book Structure
Although there are many exceptions, most books fall into one of three categories:
1. Simple structure (such as a fairytale)
2. Woven narrative structure (multiple narrators)
3. Woven architectural structure (multiple storylines)
In simple structures, there are usually five main turning points. Using Beauty and the Beast (from The Blue Fairy Book, edited by Andrew Lang) as an example, these are:
1. First external triggering event: The family's house burns down and they lose everything.
2. First internal turning point: The father must give up his daughter to the Beast.
3. Second external triggering event: Beauty refuses to marry the Beast but is given permission to return home if she promises to return.
4. Second internal turning point: Beauty realizes the Beast is dying because she did not return as promised.
5. Final crisis or epiphany moment: The Beast turns into a handsome prince.
There's not a lot of work for the reader. This kind of structure is deeply satisfying because it mimics life--beginning, middle, and end. As Aristotle said, it provides an emotional catharsis.
Is Your Book Ready for a More Complex Structure?
The first step in trying a different structure is to decide what threads will connect the parts of your story for the reader. Threads can be:
1. Chronology of events
2. The narrator or main character's growth arc
3. Theme or a central image, place, or era
Chronology of Events
We've seen that in fairytales, the chronology of events guides the structure, providing a beginning, middle, and end in chronological time. Events are logically placed along this timeline, and the story evolves in a clear way. We easily track chronological structures because they are like a calendar: one thing happens, then another thing happens as a result.
Growth Arc
When the narrator or main character's growth arc (how they change as a result of the events) is the dominant thread, the writer moves out of chronological time. There might be a scene from the past inserted in the middle of the chronology. Now we are being guided by something other than just the events--there's an emotional undercurrent that is directing the story. Books with strong movement into backstory or flash forward are usually threaded by the narrator's growth arc. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls and Cheryl Strayed's Wild both use flashbacks a lot. Wild has two narrative threads--the chronology of the PCT hike and the revealing of her childhood trauma.
Theme or Image
The most complex structure is threaded by theme or image. Books that follow thematic or image threads are much more complex. These will often have a main question that will be addressed from lots of different perspectives, sometimes even time periods and narrators. They move back and forth in time very easily. The Stone Diaries is a good example, with several different stories tied together by the question of identity and the image of "stone" and what it means.
One big image, like a camera shot often placed at the start of the story, carries us through the structure. Sometimes the chronology or narrative voices move all over the place, but the image repeats and is recognizable by the reader. An example is Let the Great World Spin. In the opening chapter, we see the tightrope walker--people on the ground staring up at the sky where "real" life is happening. Each section in the book explores an aspect of this dual view--and the theme challenges us with the question of where life is really taking place.
How Do You Work with Complex Structures?
If your story holds up to the simple structure, decide whether any of the books with more complex plot structures provide an alternative structure that would work best for your material. Try reading and analyzing the structure of one of the books listed above or find a book you'd like to analyze or model. Then break down and map the author's choices to see what might work best for your work. Reading them as a writer, getting behind the author's decisions, see how you might borrow from their approaches to devise your own strategy for telling your tale. If you find your story has several threads or subplots that do not fit neatly into a linear, chronological order of storytelling, then a more complicated plot structure might work best for bringing your story’s pieces together in an interesting and cohesive way.
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Re: Re: Tutorial: Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming
by jreades (Friar)
on Dec 10, 2002 at 21:59 UTC ( #218933=note: print w/ replies, xml ) Need Help??
in reply to Re: Tutorial: Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming
in thread Tutorial: Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming
Java has both primitives and object-versions for each of the primitives. I think that the Java designers knew that they would have a mutiny if they forced everyone to write:
Integer i = new Integer(3);
So they gave you a short-hand way (that doesn't give you the object functionality) which is:
int i = 3;
However, you can always promote your primitives to objects, and the primitives very limited (you can't even do string concatenation without using a StringBuffer object). Actually, to be more specific (since gjb rightly called me on this):
• When you call the overloaded '+' on two String objects in Java, what is actually returned is an entirely new String that is the result of concatenating the two previous Strings (this is also the case when using '+=' -- you actually get back a new String object, not the old one with some new characters appended to it. Strings are essentially immutable in Java.)
• This is why you would want to switch to a StringBuffer object when doing a lot of appending in Java, because that doesn't create a lot of new String objects unecessarily.
Anyway, my point was really that Java likes to see the entire world as objects, even the things that we Perl users normally see as primitives, and that to really start to actually do anything in Java you're going to have to get used to objects pretty quickly.
However, your point is well-taken and I'm going to be making some edits to my post to take in your (and others') feedback.
Comment on Re: Re: Tutorial: Introduction to Object-Oriented Programming
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Heute Und Danach.
By Lurker Grand and Andre Tschan.
Patrick Frey, 2013. 600 pp., 2000 color and black & white illustrations, 8¼x11".
Publisher's Description
For the first time, heute und danach ('today and thereafter') compiles the extensive and distinctively regarded musical history of Switzerland in the 1980s and relates it accordingly to its specific issues.
The styles of music and the musicians involved, the changes within society, the art and youth scene, the development of cities in terms of “youth culture” as well as technical achievements and alternative distribution types serve as versatile backgrounds for the 1980s to have become the most formative part of Swiss cultural history. In the 1980s, the change, initiated by sections of the youth population itself, was supposed to bring about a fundamental shift in society. The term “youth culture” became defined and has been entirely embedded in the understanding of society. Fifty chosen key figures of the Swiss scene at that time provide the main emphasis of the planned publication. These include Alain Croubalian, Stefan Eicher, Vera Kaa, Kuno Lauener, Muda Mathis, Franz Treichler and Suzanne Zahnd who are portrayed by means of particular interviews.
Six comprehensive and elaborately researched meta-texts and a complete discography offer the contextual foils. A three-person editorial team – brought together from regions such as Bern, Basle, Zurich and Romandy – as well as a dozen authors are all involved in the book project. The parties concerned are renowned experts of the music and culture scene. Several years of research provide an excellent overview of the intriguing pioneering works of this historico-cultural “lost” and fragmentarily chronicled Swiss music, design and scene history.
'Those who thought highly of themselves would visit illegal bars or even run them. That is why they sprang like mushrooms out of the ground. Or underground. Not very many had names. There was a bar called Daktari as well as a gambling bar, however most of them were named after their streets: Klingenbar, Hohlbar, Zweierbar. And yet, at times there were even three bars called Zweierbar on the street called Zweierstrasse, which inevitably lead to some confusion. Those who did not know where the desired venue was situated looked out for a conspicuous accumulation of bicycles in front of ordinary houses or back yards in order to find it.' (Stephan Pörtner)
'No wonder that we openly dealt with sexuality, for we were to some extent numerous and often good-looking people in the same place at the same time. Sex was until the beginning of the 80s still the secret weapon in the fight against square people, parents, employers and whoever else there was who tried to get in the way between us and our amazing time and self-indulgence. And since androgyny has already pleased us aesthetically, the categories male and female were about to collapse anyway. I think the first time I actually thought about my sexual preference was when I got pregnant at the end of the 80s.' (Suzanne Zahnd)
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Time to Find a Better Word than 'Sharing' for the New Economy
Abigail Zenner writes of the need to find new nomenclature, instead of "sharing," for transportation network companies like Uber, or sharing economy darlings like Airbnb.
According to Zenner, "many commentators have pointed out that the term 'sharing,' at least as we learned it as children, generally means letting people use something you have for free, not renting out something you have, and definitely not a company owning a bunch of things which it rents to people or paying someone to do work on your behalf."
Zenner summarizes the argument of Jason Pavluchuk, for instance, from the Association for Commuter Transportation, who argues that calling Uber and the like "rideshare" makes it "harder to advocate for other models that more aptly deserve the term, like carpool and vanpool services where people actually ride together."
Full Story: "Sharing" isn't a good term for services like Uber and Lyft. Is there a better one?
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Where Things Are From Near to Far
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