text:
Pediatricians support marriage for same-sex couples
- Pediatricians group%3A Marriage equality helps promote legal and financial stability for children
- New policy also supports adoptions and foster care placements regardless of sexual orientation
- There%27s no cause-and-effect relationship between parents%27 sexual orientation and kids%27 well-being
In a new, updated policy statement, the nation's largest pediatricians group says that civil marriage for same-sex couples -- as well as full adoption and foster care rights for all parents, regardless of sexual orientation -- is the best way to ensure legal and financial security for children in these families.
"Children thrive in families that are stable and that provide permanent security, and the way we do that is through marriage," said Benjamin Siegel, co-author of the American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement. The group "believes there should be equal opportunity for every couple to access the economic stability and federal supports provided to married couples to raise children." Siegel is a pediatrics professor at Boston University School of Medicine.
The new policy statement, published online Thursday, is in the April issue of the journal Pediatrics.
In 2002 and again in 2010, the 60,000-member association supported second-parent adoption by same-sex partners as a way to protect children's right to maintain relationships with both parents, eligibility for health benefits and financial security. The new policy statement and an accompanying technical report adds recommendations in support of civil marriage for same-sex couples; adoption by single parents, co-parents or second parents regardless of sexual orientation; and foster care placement regardless of sexual orientation.
The statement says that an extensive body of scientific research documents that there is no cause-and-effect relationship between parents' sexual orientation and children's well-being.
Multiple studies attest to the healthy development of children of same-sex couples when the child is wanted, the parents have a commitment to shared parenting, and the parents have strong social and economic support, the statement says.
The statement names other national medical and health groups that have said they support marriage equality, including the American Psychological Association; the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Family Physicians.
Others that the statement says "support gay and lesbian parenting and the nurturing of children" include: the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry; the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the American Medical Association.


text:
I know what the (Hilbert) Nullstellensatz says. A MathSciNet search on "nullstellensatz" turns up nearly 200 papers, with only a minority offering either new proofs or new applications of the classic theorem. The others use "nullstellensatz" in a generic way, so I'm curious to know, short of reading many dozens of papers, what feature or features historically have made a new theorem count as a new nullstellensatz.
I imagine this question will have diverse answers depending upon what features of what version of the original theorem have some natural translation or extension into a given parallel discipline (to commutative ring theory). Unless I'm lucky that one respondent has made it their business to survey this whole literature, I expect a full(ish) answer will emerge only from multiple contributions, so please don't feel shy to tell just the part of the story you know.
Community wiki?

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Students forced to take survey about "drug use," "emotions"
Paul Joseph Watson
May 29, 2013
A high school teacher in Chicago was disciplined by a school board after he warned students that they should assert their 5th amendment right not to self-incriminate in response to a survey which demanded students provide details about their drug use and "emotions," leading to a possible visit with a social worker.
Despite receiving support from eighteen speakers at a Batavia school board meeting yesterday, school officials hit social studies teacher John Dryden with a "letter of remedy," which threatens more consequences if he fails to fulfil a list of demands.
"Dryden told three of his classes that they had a Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate themselves when they took a social-emotional learning survey April 18," reports the Daily Herald. "Some of the 34 questions asked students about their drug and alcohol use, as well as about their emotions. Their names were on the surveys, as it was intended to identify students who could use help, according to school district officials. Those whose answers raised red flags were called in to the school's student services workers, including social workers and counselors."
The survey, the first of its kind in the school district, was part of state-mandated "social-emotional learning standards" and asked students about "drug, alcohol and tobacco use, and emotions," in order to target specific students who may have required "help" from social workers, counselors and psychologists.
Dryden said he only saw the survey 10 minutes before students were due to take it and that he thought, "somebody needs to remind them they have the ability not to incriminate themselves." A teacher then reported Dryden to school officials after numerous students refused to take the survey.
The very notion that teens experimenting with drugs, alcohol and tobacco while also having "emotions" requires the interference of social workers and psychologists – removing authority from parents who are more than capable of dealing with such issues – is another example of how the state is hyping banal behavior which is part of every teen's experience in order to institutionalize young people at an early age while infringing on privacy and parents' rights.
After the issue first broke, Dryden received a wave of support from both online respondents to the story and local parents and residents. A petition to "Defend and Support John Dryden" has received over 1,000 signatures.
"I think he was right in what he did. I think he gave them a real-life lesson," said Greg Chapman.
"You really did do a well-intentioned thing," added former student Joe Bertalmio.
Despite the school claiming parents were informed that they could withdraw their children from taking the survey on privacy grounds, several insisted that no such notification was received.
"I was not made aware a survey was going to be issued to my son, and basically was not given any opportunity to protect his privacy rights," said Meg Humphrey, a biology teacher at the high school and parent of a student.
The school claimed that Dryden's 5th amendment stance had no foundation and had "mischaracterized" their actions because the survey was subject to student privacy laws. However, the results of the survey were not kept confidential, as the school claimed, but were also sold to the company that provided the survey.
School Superintendent Jack Barshinger also refused to tell reporters what further consequences Dryden may face, suggesting that they file a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain the "letter of remedy".
Several stories in recent years attest to the fact that children being informed about their constitutional rights is now frowned upon by many school authorities.
In 2009 we reported on how an interim pastor at a large Christian college in Mount Vernon, Texas, was threatened by Department of Homeland Security goons dressed in black who accused him of engaging in terrorism for teaching a group of Boy Scouts about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
Last month we reported on the story of a father who was shocked to find a note in his 4th grader son's bag that indicated his teachers had instructed children at the school to accept that they should be willing to give up some Constitutional rights in order to be more safe.
Given stories like these, it is unsurprising that the United States is seeing a 10-12% increase in homeschooling every year.
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.
The Emergency Election Sale is now live! Get 30% to 60% off our most popular products today!


text:
Mindful they didn't want to spend their lives down the pits or herding sheep, Threatmantics went for the third Welsh cliche – singing. No one could have predicted it would turn out this way…
Heddwyn Davies on viola and singing
Taliesyn Källström on percussion and singing
Andrew Rhys Lewis on guitar and singing
Gareth Middleton on bass
Huw Alun Davies on drums
Bi-polar by nature, Threatmantics attempt to crowbar as much into rock and roll as possible. Veering wildly from heartbroken folk, to balls-out rock, to spine-crushing metal, to good-time pop; barely held together by very fine thread and pretty ribbons, they play music that sounds as much like the band they wish they were as possible.
Whether they will survive the pits and troughs remains to be seen, but it's a special thing to be able to soundtrack your own adventure.
Threatmantics released their debut Upbeat Love on Double Six in 2008, and are currently working on the follow up, to be released in 2010.


text:
There is hope in dark times.
Kennedy's dad
It's the night before Kennedy's third brain surgery. Her parents, Jaci and Tait, are tense. "What if?" questions fill their minds.
That night, Make-A-Wish® volunteers arrive. They're going to find out Kennedy's one true wish – the one thing in the world that can help her through all that lies ahead. Soon, Kennedy is so wrapped up in the possibilities that she no longer thinks about her surgery. Her parents join her in daring to look past tomorrow, and instead look further to the future.
Kennedy's answer: I wish to meet real ballerinas "because I like to dance."
Times of Challenge and Doubt
The seizures started when Kennedy was 3 years old. Being diagnosed with a life-threatening neurological condition changed everything about her life. It affected her hearing. Her weight nearly doubled because of her medication. She felt isolated from other kids, Jaci says. She would see children at a playground, but couldn't play along with them because of the pain from her treatments.
Jaci can't forget the angst and doubt before the first surgery. The procedure required part of Kennedy's skull to be removed. What would the surgery do to her personality?
The Return of the Real Kennedy
Today, the real Kennedy is back. She can hear. She can dance. And her smile? Back and bigger than ever. The memories of seeing a live ballet and meeting the ballerinas live on for her family. The experience is their reminder that there is always hope during a dark time, and that they're never alone.
This story makes me feel
Get connected with Make-A-Wish®.
I wish to have a dance partner
June 25, 2012 - 11:25 AM
Kennedy You inspired me with your courage and your dream of being a ballerina. Your wonderful story helped me forget about my daily concerns which mean little when I read about you and see your bright smile. I am praying for you and your family and know that you will one day be a great ballerina or any great thing you desire to be. God bless you.
October 05, 2012 - 4:43 PM
Kennedy I love to dance too and your story inspired me to make a difference I'm just not quite how yet. Keep on dreaming.
December 13, 2012 - 7:39 AM
hi kennedy! okay so i don't know if you will end up reading this, but if you do, i hope it makes you as happy as i was when i was watching tv and the blue bunny commercial came on about some little girl with the same name and interest came up with ballerinas. yes my name is kennedy too. i'm from north carolina and im 13 years old, i love to dance and i've danced since i was really little!!! after i watched the commercial i saw your youtube video and it made me so so sad! i began making instagram and twitter awareness post for LKS. you are so so brave and my prayers as well as my friends and family go out to you and your family and the other families struggling with similar situations you are a beautiful little girl and that will get you so far when your bigger!!!! stay strong baby girl
May 15, 2013 - 12:58 PM
Kennedy, You're a strong young girl. You've gone through so much and yet you stayed so hopeful. I think your story is simply amazing. Stay strong darling <3
November 04, 2013 - 11:24 AM
Barbara H.
Absolutely wonderful story. Joyous. Thanks for sharing.
November 21, 2013 - 1:13 PM
Kennedy, what a beautiful girl you are! Thank you so much for sharing this incredibly touching story.
December 01, 2013 - 3:44 PM
thank you jesus! thanks to the lord for kennedys healing
December 16, 2013 - 8:06 PM
What a touching story! Kennedy you are a real inspiration to all of us. Hope you are fine and that all you dream will come true!
May 20, 2014 - 1:51 AM
hillary et anissa
Oh ! your story is so touchy ! you are an exemple for sick people we are amazed about your courage and you strength . You give hope to the little girls who wouldlike to fulfil their dreams Thanks for sharing your amazing story !.
May 23, 2014 - 5:03 AM
Agathe and Adele
Dear Kennedy,We think you are the strongest young girl we know. Your story is so touching because it reminds us of our little sisters. You are an example for everyone and your dream is so wonderful.You deserve all the happiness of the world.Enjoy your life !Kiss from Paris ! <3Agathe and Adele <3
May 23, 2014 - 5:11 AM
Oh god! What a touching story! Kennedy, you're such a strong, courageous and hopeful little girl. Keep smiling on! I hope your life can be better and you can be a great ballerina! I'm sure I'll see you on stage someday! ;)
May 23, 2014 - 5:17 AM
maya o.
Sweet Kennedy,Your courage and your strength have helped a lot of people.I'm sure that your parents are very proud of you and we are too. You are and you have been a real ballerina who have danced to fight the diseases.Stay who you are.Love, Océane and Maya <3
May 23, 2014 - 5:23 AM
Hello Kennedy, Your story is absolutely inspirational I am so glad you got through all of your surgeries and can live an awesome life now , I am so happy that you don't look at the bad side of things and yo are always positive. Thanks for the awesome, inspirational story.
June 15, 2014 - 7:54 PM
i will pray for her
September 11, 2014 - 6:38 PM
made me tear up. this is the sweetest. she is so cute
April 16, 2015 - 12:18 PM
Samantha K
I am a dancer myself, and had read your story. I have been dancing for eleven years. One of my dance teachers is a famous Russian dancer. She can be noticed in older newspapers. Her name is Mrs. Julia. She is the one that had inspired me to become a ballerina. My studio had gone to nationals. Nationals is a type of competition, it is the biggest one that my studio goes too. It's is located in Wisconsin Dells. Back to the point, Mrs. Julia is amazing and one of her dances had won the whole entire competition with one of her ballet dances. They got the highest score over all, competing against/over 700 dances. One other cool things is I had won national with one of my old teams. At my studio we have teams with different names. My teams name was Starfire. We won nationals in the preteen category for jazz. The real reason why I am writing is because, I wanted you to meet me and my ballerina teacher Mrs. Julia. :) ~Samantha K
May 04, 2015 - 6:57 AM
hematologic disorder
I wish to be a supermodel
I wish to go see the princesses
I wish to be a ballerina
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text:
Windstorm Xynthia Causes 45 Deaths in Western Europe48.8N 2.3E
At least 45 people have been killed in storms that have lashed parts of Spain, Portugal and France, officials say. Forty of the victims died in western France, where many drowned or were hit by parts of buildings or falling trees.
The windstorm system, named Xynthia, has put five of the 95 French departments on red alert – only the second such warning since the new emergency system was introduced in 2001. Here, the storm can be seen over northern France. Upon opening the full image, Spain and Portugal are visible to the south, and Norway can be seen to the north.
Winds of up to 140km/h (87mph) caused chaos as they moved from Portugal up through the Bay of Biscay. Upon reaching Paris, wind speeds hitting 175km/h at the top of the Eiffel Tower, were reported. The storm system is moving north-eastwards and was expected to reach Denmark by the evening of the 28th, French meteorological authorities said.
Worst affected are the Vendee and Charente-Maritime regions on the western coast of France. Huge waves and strong gusts battered many coastal towns, spreading floods inland and destroying buildings. Residents took to their roofs in the Vendee region and police helicopters were in action attempting to locate and rescue them.
At least a dozen people are said to be missing in France and 59 others injured. In Germany, a man was killed and his wife injured when a tree fell on their car in the Black Forest region. Earlier on Sunday a falling tree killed two Spanish men in a car near Burgos. A Spanish woman was killed by a falling wall in Galicia, and a Portuguese boy was killed by a tree in Paredes.
More than a million homes in France have lost electricity. Rail services were severely affected in northern Spain and a number of trains in western France were delayed because of flooded tracks. Air France said 70 of its flights had been cancelled from Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Spain's Canary Islands, particularly La Palma, Gran Canaria and Tenerife, were also hit by the storm, although there was no great damage.


text:
Christian Living
Living a life for Christ is a fantastic thing. These books and resources discuss the Christian life and what it means to live a life for Christ.
There are no products matching the selection.
In order to serve you better and ensure that you will get Canadian tax receipts for donations and the best shipping rates for purchases, please visit our Canadian store.Yes, take me to the Canadian site Continue to the U.S. Site
Thank you for your support!


text:
Reds focused more on division title, not Wild Card
CINCINNATI -- With three teams bunched together and in line for three playoff spots, the battle for the National League Central should be the race that sizzles the rest of the way in baseball.
By winning six of eight and 11 of 16 entering Monday, the third-place Reds have shown that they aren't content to settle for one of the NL Wild Card berths. They came in 2 1/2 games behind the division-leading Pirates, and 1 1/2 games behind the second-place Cardinals. As recently as Aug. 8, Cincinnati was staring at a season-high seven-game deficit and seemed to be spinning its wheels perpetually.
"It's funny how you get written off when you're seven games out, and now we go on a little run and we're back," Reds third baseman Todd Frazier said. "That's baseball and that's how things go. You just got to bear with yourself, bear with your team, bear with your city, and that's just the way it goes."
After several games of struggles, the Reds' offense has scored five or more runs in four of the past six games vs. the Cubs and Brewers. The rotation came in 5-2 with a 1.89 ERA in the previous 10 games, and the bullpen has generally been solid with the work of Sam LeCure, Manny Parra and J.J. Hoover stepping up.
"For the most part lately, we've been coming together, and from top to bottom, putting together some good at-bats," catcher Ryan Hanigan said. "We had nine walks [Sunday at Milwaukee] and we had nine runs with no homers. The pitching has been there. The bullpen has been there. If we can keep at it, keep grinding, this is definitely a good team. I feel like we're ready to make a push and really put together a good string. If it doesn't go that way, we have to grind it out a little more."
Reds fans have waited all season for this -- a push to take control of the division they last led on April 22. It seems to be coming together, at just the right time. Meanwhile, Pittsburgh has dropped seven of its previous nine games. St. Louis is 9-8 in August and is seeking its first three-game winning streak since late July.
"We knew if we turned around and played the kind of ball we knew we can play, it was going to happen like that," Reds shortstop Zack Cozart said. "The Pirates are going to play the Cardinals like they did. And we're going to play the Pirates. It's going to be whoever is hot at the end. We think we're playing a lot better ball and we can play a lot better than we have, too."
If the season ended today, the Reds would have the second NL Wild Card spot. Clearly, that's not the desired end game. In town is the closest team chasing them in the D-backs, who came in five games back. The Reds are still thinking more about catching Pittsburgh and St. Louis, and less on staving off Arizona.
"We're not trying to slide into the Wild Card," Hanigan said. "That's a flip of the coin if it goes down that way. It's better to be in the driver's seat by winning the division. We've got games against the Cardinals. We've got games against the Pirates. We have a lot of opportunities. It's in our hands."


text:
|June, 2009
|Bravery et al.
|Terminal, method, server, and computer program product for switching buddy lists based on user profile
|August, 2006
|Method of announcing sessions
|November, 2006
|Luoma et al.
|July, 2009
|July, 2008
|Alperovitch et al.
|Client Responsibilities in Messaging Systems
|December, 2006
|Method for describing and comparing data center physical and logical topologies and device configurations
|April, 2003
|Symons et al.
|Message monitoring method and apparatus involving SECS-to-XML message conversion for application to a semiconductor equipment system
|September, 2005
|Yu et al.
|Dynamic Location of a Subordinate User
|August, 2009
|Appelman et al.
|October, 2009
|Hinds et al.
|Intelligent software agent system architecture
|October, 2004
|Uszok et al.
The present invention relates to an operating system in which documents are stored in a chronologically ordered "stream". In other words, that is, as each document is presented to the operating system, the document is placed according to a time indicator in the sequence of documents already stored relative to the time-indicators of the stored documents.
Within this application several publications are referenced by arabic numerals within parentheses. Full citations for these and other references may be found at the end of the specification immediately preceding the claims. The disclosures of all of these publications in their entireties are hereby incorporated by reference into this application in order to more fully describe the state of the art to which this invention pertains.
Conventional operating systems frequently confuse inexperienced users because conventional operating systems are not well suited to the needs of most users. For example, conventional operating systems utilize separate applications which require file and format translations. In addition, conventional operating systems require the user to invent pointless names for files and to construct organizational hierarchies that quickly become obsolete. Named files are an invention of the 1950's and the hierarchical directories are an invention of 1960's.
Some conventional operating systems employ a "desktop metaphor" which attempts to simplify common file operations by presenting the operations in the familiar language of the paper-based world, that is, paper documents as files, folders as directories, a trashcan for deletion, etc. Also, the paper-based model is a rather poor basis for organizing information where the state of the art is still a messy desktop and where one's choices in creating new information paradigms is constrained [1].
Thus, conventional operating systems suffer from at least the following disadvantages: (1) a file must be "named" when created and often a location in which to store the file must be indicated resulting in unneeded overhead; (2) users are required to store new information in fixed categories, that is directories or subdirectories, which are often an inadequate organizing device; (3) archiving is not automatic; (4) little support for "reminding" functions are provided; (5) accessibility and compatibility across data platforms is not provided and (6) the historical context of a document is lost because no tracking of where, why and how a document evolves is performed.
"Naming" a file when created and choosing a location in which to place the file is unneeded overhead: when a person grabs a piece of paper and starts writing, no one demands that a name be bestowed on the sheet or that a storage location be found. Online, many filenames are not only pointless but useless for retrieval purposes. Storage locations are effective only as long as the user remembers them.
Data archiving is an area where conventional electronic systems perform poorly compared to paper-based systems. Paper-based systems are first and foremost archiving systems, yet data archiving is difficult in conventional desktop systems. Often, users throw out old data rather than undertaking the task of archiving and remembering how to get the data back. If archiving and retrieval of documents is convenient, old information could be reused more often.
Reminding is a critical function of computer-based systems [2] [3], yet current systems supply little or no support for this function. Users are forced either to use location on their graphical desktops as reminding cues or to use add-on applications such as calendar managers.
A solution to these disadvantages is to use a document stream operating system. One such system is outlined in a 1994 article [4]. However, this article fails to address many of the disadvantages of conventional operating systems.
One object of the present invention is to provide a document stream operating system and method which solves many, if not all, of the disadvantages of conventional operating systems.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a document stream operating system in which documents are stored in one or more chronologically ordered streams.
An additional object of the present invention is to provide an operating system in which the location and nature of file storage is transparent to the user, for example, the storage of the files is handled automatically and file names are only used if a user chooses to invent such names.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an operating system which takes advantage of the nature of electronic documents. For example, a conventional paper document can only be accessed in one place, but electronic documents can be accessed from multiple locations.
Another object of the present invention is to organize information as needed instead of at the time the document is created. For example, streams may be created on demand and documents may belong to as many streams as seems reasonable or to none.
An additional object of the present invention is to provide an operating system in which archiving is automatic.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an operating system with sophisticated logic for summarizing or compressing a large group of related documents when the user wants a concise overview. In addition, this summarizing can include pictures, sounds and/or animations. Also, no matter how many documents fall into a given category, the operating system is capable of presenting an overview in a form so that all the documents are accessible from a single screen.
Also, an object of the present operating system is to make "reminding" convenient.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an operating system in which personal data is widely accessible anywhere and compatibility across platforms is automatic. Accordingly, this invention provides that computers using the operating system of the present invention need not be independent data storage devices, but also act as "viewpoints" to data store and maintained on external systems such as the INTERNET. Thus, in accordance with the present invention users can access their personal document streams from any available platform such as a UNIX machine, a Macintosh or IBM-compatible personal computer, a personal digital assistant (PDA), or a set-top box via cable.
According to one embodiment of the invention a computer program for organizing one or more data units is provided. The computer program includes: (1) means for receiving one or more of the data units, each of which is associated with one or more chronological indicators; and (2) means for linking each of the data units according to the chronological indicators to generate one or more streams of data units. Other embodiments of the invention also provide: (1) chronological indicators including past, present, and future times and (2) means for displaying the streams, wherein respective indicia representing the data units are displayed and each data unit includes textual data, video data, audio data and/or multimedia data. The means for displaying the streams may further include displaying selected segments of the streams corresponding to selected intervals of time. The means for receiving may further include means for receiving data units from the Word Wide Web or from a client computer.
According to another embodiment of the invention, a method of organizing one or more data units is provided including the steps of: (1) receiving one or more data units, each of which is associated with one or more chronological indicators; and (2) linking each of the data units according to the chronological indicators to generate one or more streams of data units. In other embodiments, the chronological indicators may include past, present, and future times. The method may further include the steps of: (1) displaying the streams, wherein respective indicia represent each data unit and each of the data units may be textual data, video data, audio data and/or multimedia data. The step of displaying the streams may further include the steps of: (1) receiving from a user one or more values indicative of one or more selected segments of the streams corresponding to selected intervals of time; and (2) displaying the segments of the streams corresponding to the selected intervals of time.
These and other advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the detailed description accompanying the claims and the attached figures.
FIG. 1 shows a viewport in one embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 2 shows a substream menu in one embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 3 shows a list of summary types for the substream chosen in FIG. 2 of the present invention;
FIG. 4 shows the time display in one embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 5 shows a calendar-based dialog box in one embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 6a shows a dialog box in connection with a phone call in one embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 6b shows a summary of phone calls in one embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 7 shows a phone call record dialog box in one embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 8a shows text data used by one embodiment of the present invention; and
FIG. 8b shows the result of a summarize operation in one embodiment of the present invention.
This invention is a new model and system for managing personal electronic information which uses a time-ordered stream as a storage model and stream filters to organize, locate, summarize and monitor incoming information. Together, streams and filters provide a unified framework that subsumes many separate desktop applications to accomplish and handle personal communication, scheduling, and search and retrieval tasks. One embodiment of the present invention utilizes a machine-independent, client/server open architecture so that users can continue to use the same conventional document types, viewers and editors.
A "stream" according to the present invention is a time-ordered sequence of documents that functions as a diary of a person or an entity's electronic life. Every document created and every document send to a person or entity is stored in a main stream. The tail of a stream contains documents from the past, for example starting with an electronic birth certificate or articles of incorporation. Moving away from the tail and toward the present and future, that is, toward head of the stream more recent documents are found including papers in progress or new electronic mail. A document can contain any type of data including but not limited to pictures, correspondence, bills, movies, voice mail and software programs. Moving beyond the present and into the future, the stream contains documents allotted to future times and events, such as, reminders, calendar items and to-do lists.
Time-based ordering is a natural guide to experience. Time is the attribute that comes closest to a universal skeleton-key for stored experience. Accordingly, streams add historical context to a document collection with all documents eventually becoming read-only, analogously as history becomes "set in stone". The stream preserves the order and method of document creation. Also, like a diary, a stream records evolving work, correspondence and transactions because historical context can be crucial in an organizational setting.
One embodiment of this invention allows for basic operations to be perform on a stream: new, clone, transfer, find and summarize.
Users create documents by means of the new and clone operations. New creates a new, empty document and adds the document to the main stream. Clone duplicates an existing document and adds the duplicate to the main stream at a new time point. Documents can also be created indirectly through the transfer operation. The transfer operation copies a document from one stream to another stream. Creation of a document if "transparent" because documents, by default, are added to the at the present time point. Internally, the document is identified by a time indication so no name is required from the user for the document. Nevertheless, a user can optionally name a document is desired.
Some streams can be organized on the fly with the find operation. Find prompts for a search query, such as "all E-mail I haven't responded to," or "all faxes I've sent to Schwartz" and creates a substream. Substreams, unlike conventional, virtual or fixed directories which only list filenames, present the user with a stream "view" of a document collection. This view, according to the present invention contains all documents that are relevant to the search query. Also, unlike searches of conventional fixed directories, the substream is generated by default from all the documents in the main stream. Accordingly, individual substreams may overlap, that is, contain some documents that are the same and can be created and destroyed on the fly without affecting the main stream or other substreams.
The find operation creates a substream of the main stream or of another substream based on, for example, a boolean attribute-and-keyword expression or a 'chronological expression', for example, "my last letter to Schwartz". Also, substreams may point to the future, for example, "my next appointment".
Once created, substreams operate dynamically, that is, if a user allows a substream to persist, the substream will collect new documents that match the search criteria as documents arrive from outside the operating system or as the user creates the document. This dynamic operation provides automatic monitoring of information because the substream not only organizes the documents as received but also filters for incoming information. For example, a substream created with the query "find all documents created by other people" would subsume a user's mailbox and automatically collect all arriving mail from other users. A substream remains in existence until destroyed by the user and acts as a filter by examining each new document that enters the main stream.
Although a document may belong to any number of substreams, the document also enters and remains on the main stream. A substream, in other words, is a "subset" of the main stream document collection. In other words, a way of looking at the main stream so as to exclude certain documents temporarily.
The summarize operation "compresses" or "squish" a stream to generate one or more overview documents. The content of an overview document depends on the type of documents in the stream. For instance, if the stream contains the daily closing prices of all the stocks and mutual funds in a user's investment portfolio, the overview documents may contain a chart displaying the historical performance of particular securities and the user's net worth. As another example, if the substream contains a list of tasks a user needs to complete, the overview document might display a prioritized "to-do" list. Thus, the summarize operation collapses a stream into a summary document. This summary document is a "live" document which is updated as additional documents are added to the main stream.
The type of summary depends on the type of documents in the substream. In one embodiment of the present invention at least one general "squish" function is provided no matter which stream is to be squished. Typically, however, the user will have a number of different squishers to choose from, for example, one squisher might produce a summary in words, while another squisher might produce a graph. Also "custom squishers" may be supplied by third parties or created by the user.
Another aspect of the invention is that applications execute "inside" a stream document leaving any output in that document. Thus, running an application is a variant of the new operation. For example, to run a spreadsheet application such as Lotus 1-2-3, a user creates a new document at the head of the main stream, specifically, a "live" spreadsheet document. The application itself is stored on the main stream, or located by means of a calling card that points to another stream containing the application.
A stream has three main portions: past, present, and future. The "present" portion of the stream holds "working documents", which also includes the timepoint in the stream where new documents are created and where incoming documents are placed. As documents age and newer documents are added, older documents pass from the user's view and enter the "past portion" where the documents are eventually "archived". By disappearing from view old information is automatically cleared away so the old information will not clutter up the workspace. At some future point if documents in the past portion are needed, such documents can be located with the find operation even if the past document has already been archived.
The "future" portion of the stream allows documents to be created in the future. Future creation is a natural method of posting reminders, for example, meeting dates and scheduling information. The system allows users to dial to the future by selecting a future timepoint for a document. The present invention keeps the document until that future time occurs. When the time of documents' timepoint arrives the reminder document is brought into view and the document enters the present portion of the stream.
One embodiment of the present invention is implemented in a client/server architecture running over the Internet. The server is the workhorse of this embodiment handling one or more streams by storing all main stream and substream documents. Each view of a stream is implemented as a client of the server and provides the user with a "viewpoint" interface to document collections, that is, streams. The "look and feel" of the viewport may be different for different computing platforms but each viewport should support the basic operations.
One embodiment of the present invention implements a client viewport using graphically based X Windows, another embodiment implement a client viewport solely with text in standard ASCII (American Standard Characters for Information Interchange) and yet another embodiment implements a client viewport for the NEWTON personal digital assistant (PDA). The X Windows viewport provides the full range of functionalities including picture and movie display. In contrast the text-only viewport has a mail-like interface although all the basic operations are available. Also, because the NEWTON PDA lacks substantial internal memory and relies on slow external communications, that is low bandwidth, a minimal stream-access method is provided.
The X Windows viewport embodiment is shown in FIG. 1. The interface is based on a visual representation of the stream metaphor 5. Users can slide the mouse pointer 10 over the document representations to "glance" at each document, or use the scroll bar 20 in the lower left-hand corner to move through time, either into the past or into the future portion of the stream.
Color and animation indicate important document features. A red border in one embodiment means "unseen" and a blue border means "writable". Open documents may be offset to the side to indicate when the document is being edited. In this embodiment incoming documents slide in from the left side and newly created documents pop down from the top and push the steam backwards by one document into the past.
External applications are used to view and edit documents which the user can select by clicking on the documents graphical representation. The external applications speed the learning process significantly because new users can continue to use familiar applications for example, conventional UNIX application such as emacs, xv, and ghostview, to create and view documents while using streams to organize and communicate the documents.
The X Windows interface prominently displays the basic operations, that is, New 30, Clone 40, Xfer 50 (that is, transfer), Find 60, and Summarize 70 as buttons and/or menus. As discussed previously the New button creates a new document and adds the document to the stream at the "present" timepoint. The Clone button duplicates an existing document and places the copy in the stream. The Xfer button first prompts the user for one or more mail addresses and then forwards the selected document. The find operation is supported through a text entry box 60 that allows the user to enter a boolean search query which results in a new substream being created and displayed. The summarize menu 70 generates a new document which displays information from documents in a stream in a desired format, for example, a graph.
The X Windows interface of this document also provides additional buttons. The Print button 80 copies a selected document to a printer where documents may be either printed conventionally or moved to a printer stream. A software agent which can be associated with the stream forwards each new document to an appropriate printer. The Freeze button 90 makes a document read-only.
Pulldown menus are used to select documents from streams or existing substreams, create summaries, initiate personal agents and change the clock.
The Streams menu 110 allows the user to select from a list of locally available streams.
FIG. 2 shows the Substreams'menu 120 of one embodiment of the present invention. This menu is divided into three sections. The first section 130 contains a list of operations that can be performed on substreams, for example, remove. The second section 140 contains one menu entry labeled "Your Lifestream", and causes the viewport to display a user's main stream. The third section 150 lists all of the user's substreams. As indicated by this third section, substreams can be created in an incremental fashion, that is, one substream generated from another resulting in a nested set of menus. In this example the nested menus were created by first creating a substream "lifestreams and david" 160 from the main stream and then creating two substreams from this substream, "scenarios" and "ben" 170. Substream "scott" 180 was created from the "scenarios" substream. Semantically this incremental substreaming amounts to a boolean 'and' of each new query with the previous substream's query.
FIG. 3 shows the summarize menu 190 which lists the possible summary types. Choosing any of these menu options creates a substream summary and a new document containing the summary is placed on the stream.
The Personal Agents menu 200 lists a number of available software agent types. Personal software agents can be added to the user interface in order to automate common tasks.
The embodiment illustrated in FIG. 4 always displays the time in the upper right hand corner of the viewport interface. This time display also acts as a "time" pull-down menu 190 that allows the user to set the viewport time to the future or past via a calendar-based dialog box as illustrated in FIG. 5. Setting the viewport time causes the cursor to point to that timepoint position in the stream such that all documents forward of that timepoint, that is, towards the head of the stream have a future timestamp and all documents behind that timepoint, that is, towards the tail, have a past timestamp. As time progresses, this cursor moves forward towards the head of the stream. When the cursor slips in front of the present timepoint "future" documents are added to the visible part of the stream in the viewpoint, just like new mail arrives.
The effect of setting the time to the future or past is to reset the time-cursor temporarily to a fixed position designated by the user. Normally the user interface displays all documents from the past up to the time-cursor. Setting the time-cursor to the future allows the user to see documents in the future part of the stream. Creating a document in the future results in a document with a future timestamp. Once the user is finished time-tripping, the user can reset to the present time by selecting the "Set time to present" menu option in the time menu.
In one embodiment of the present invention "browse cards" 100 are employed so that when the user touches a document in the stream-display with the cursor, a browse card appears. The purpose of the browse card is to help the user identify a document by providing the user some idea of the document's contents in a small window. The content of browse cards is an abbreviated version of a document which as been compressed into an micro-document like an index card. In one embodiment, the browse card creation operation does header stripping so that the browse card displays the first non-trivial words in a document. In another embodiment, complex analysis is performed on the document contents so that 'most important' words, pictures and/or sounds are presented.
Another embodiment of the present invention provides "calling cards" which represent or point to a stream or substream Every stream has a calling card and the only way to reference a stream is via this calling card. In this embodiment the find operation performs as follows: (1) the user provides a search query; (2) an appropriate substream is generated; (3) the substream's calling card is generated; and (4) the new calling card is deposited as a new document at the head of the main stream. Every duplicated calling card bears on the face text, an icon or both. In the case of the find operation, the new calling card is marked with the argument supplied by the user for the search query, for example "from: Schwartz and Lifestreams" or "last letter from Piffel". As a default in this embodiment, the interface will automatically display the new substream.
Another embodiment of the present invention allows documents to be grouped explicitly into a substream. With this feature the user marks, that is, selects all documents to be included in the substream and groups the selected documents into a substream by creating a new calling card. The new calling card comes equipped with a system-created icon which is marked on all documents that are part of the new stream and the user may add any other notation to the face of the new calling, card, for example, "these should be merged together to produce the Zeppelin report."
In the embodiments with calling cards the "transfer" operation takes two arguments: a document and a calling card so that the document is copied onto the stream designated by the calling card. The document may itself be a calling card and depending on instructions from the user, either the calling card itself or the stream designated by the calling card is copied onto the new stream.
Each main stream in this embodiment has a calling card which allows 'inter-main stream' communication. To communicate a user includes on the face of the calling card for the user's main stream whatever information the user is willing to make public. Other users wanting to send that electronic mail will need a copy of that user's calling card, which might be, for example, "Rock Q. Public, Blimp Mechanic, Passaic N.J."
To give only limited access to user's stream, a user provides a copy of the calling card customized to provide the desired access. Minimal access gives other users append-only privileges, that is, user B can send user A mail, but cannot view anything on user A's stream. Access restrictions beyond "minimal" are stated in terms of substreams. In other words, a calling card gives access to all documents contained in the specified substream unless that document is also contained on one of specified excluded substreams.
The present invention allows a stream document to contain another stream, that is a 'stream envelope'. A stream envelope is equivalent to a 'value' calling card versus the 'reference' calling cards discussed above. In other words, rather than point to another stream with a calling card, the stream envelope contains a copy all the documents from the other stream. For example, user A transfers to user B a substream consisting of all Zeppelin-manual correspondence which contains many documents. However, a single new document appears on user B's stream: a stream envelope. The stream envelope may be opened yielding the many documents of the forwarded stream.
According to the present invention, a text-editor designed specifically for stream A can treat a document as a stream of bytes so that software agents designed to 'ride' streams could ride documents as well. Also, the stream find operation can scan the streamed document and synchronization based on stream properties can be applied to the streamed document.
Streams can be copied and combined into new streams, that is, streams can be merged. For example, if a user acquires stream segments from ten electronic newspapers and magazines all covering the same one-month period, the segments can be merged in a sorted order into a single combined stream.
Another feature of the present invention is a card gallery which consists of some reasonable number of microdocuments, for example twelve, arranged in such a way that each is always fully visible on the viewport for example, in two columns of 6 each at the right of the display. Each micro-document is a calling card or a micro-browse-card (MBC) to a "regular" document on the stream or in a squish. The micro browse card in the card gallery represent documents a user has been working on. Whenever a user opens a document or creates a substream or squish, the corresponding micro browse card is added to the card gallery. A user can re-open the document, squish or have the viewport display the substream, by clicking on, or otherwise selecting, the corresponding micro browse card.
The micro browse card is administered as a least-recently-used cache, that is, new cards are dealt on top of the least-recently-used existing card, however, users can override this mechanism and place or lock a card in the gallery. For example, a live squish can act as weather-station, appointment calendar, stock ticker or other current-status reporter if the user locks the micro browse card for the squish in the gallery.
Because a users' card gallery includes by default the calling cards of streams the user has recently opened, the card gallery acts, to the extent streams are used as Web sites, as a World Wide Web "hot list."
In one embodiment of the present invention at least some part of the stream is in the form of a receding stack of upright rectangles, framed in such a way that only the top line of each document is visible. A foreshortened viewing angle yields a view that is approximately a right triangle, the bottom edge aligned with the bottom of the display and the left edge aligned with the display's left border.
In another embodiment of the inventive operating system a 'slide rule' bar display is provided which is labelled with the endpoints of the stream, that is, the dates of the farthest-past and farthest-future documents. The document density can be illustrated, for example, by the amount of color saturation of the bar at any point. This type of display aids the user because some days, weeks, months or other time period have more associated documents, some have fewer. The slide rule has a magnifier that the user can slide via a mouse, for example up and down the bar. The magnifier obscures the portion of the slide rule that lies beneath, but the obscured segment is replaced by an enlarged view of the small part of the stream starting at the point touched by the upper edge of the magnifier or, some similar protocol for defining the starting point of the magnified segment. By sliding the magnifier, you change the part of the stream currently displayed in the main perspective view.
In another embodiment of the present invention at least some part of the stream is in the form of a conventional calendar month display. With this display, the stream-segment associated with day n appears as a list of document headers in n's calendar box.
To contemplate the future instead of the past, according to one embodiment of the present invention, a user can reverse the stream so that the head of the stream now appears in front, with the nearest-future document immediately behind that document, next-nearest behind that and so forth. The user then looks from the present into the future so that furthest-away document in the display equals furthest-away in future time.
All documents older than some date d may be moved by the server from immediately-accessible storage to cheaper, long-term storage. When a document is archived in this way, however, the browse card of that document may remain available in immediately-accessible storage, so that the archived document appears in the regular way in the viewport. When a user opens an archived document, the user may incur some delay as the server locates and reloads the body of the document.
Automatic archiving is a feature of the standalone embodiment and user-managed web site embodiment. In either embodiment, the streams operating system monitors remaining disk space and when available space is low, the operating system asks the user to pop in some diskettes or other storage media. Similarly when an archived document needs to be reloaded, the operating system tells the user which diskettes or other storage media to insert.
In another embodiment of the present invention a chat feature is provided. If two users want to chat online in UNIX TALK style; the user creates a new stream and each user focusses the viewport on that new stream. To make a comment, a user pops a new document on the stream head with the comment contained as text inside the document. The stream synchronization properties allow many users to manipulate a stream concurrently, and allow a user to block at the end waiting for the arrival of a new document which would mean in this case awaiting the next comment.
A chat stream by its nature provides: (1) permanent record and (2) support for multiple parties to a conversation. A chat stream is in this sense is a real-time bulletin board. In this regard a network bulletin board may be stored in a stream providing: (1) archived comments that can be searched and retrieved using the standard streams operations; (2) synchronization characteristics like a chat stream; and (3) a bulletin board that can be, located via the find operation.
In another embodiment of the present invention any software agent with the necessary access can ride your stream. Therefore streams can be the basis of groupware systems implemented for example as a flock of agents. For example, when user A's wants to schedule a meeting, a software agent departs from user A's stream to visit the streams of each of the other intended participants. Each user's stream lists the current appointments in the stream's future portion, and each user also includes a document giving the user's general availability in pre-arranged terms so that the meeting-maker software agent can understand. When the software agent finds an appropriate meeting time, the software agent posts a document to each stream's future and creates a new stream for the meeting itself. The software agent forwards the calling card of the meeting stream to each participant. This new stream serves as a chat stream on which the participants can discuss the meeting beforehand, accumulate any material developed during the meeting itself and persists when the meeting is over as a record and a vehicle for post-meeting discussions.
In the following embodiments a stream naturally provides a structure for storing technical an electronic versions of a newspaper or magazine.
In addition, a mail-order firm might store its catalog in a stream with each document describing one item. A top page can embed calling cards as hyperlinks so that the streams pointed to are updated automatically by the persistent substream mechanism. Each user can also reformat the catalog to taste by creating a substream containing descriptions of whatever sort of object interests the user.
In another embodiment of the present invention a phone conversation is stored as a time-ordered sequence of spoken sounds or as electronic representations. When two users want to have a phone conversation, the users can use software such as a software agent, that creates a new stream and hands each user the calling card. Each user's 'phone agent' tosses digitized representations of speech frames onto the stream and grabs each new frame that appears, turning each speech frame into sound. In this scheme, phone and voicemail are integrated in the all-purpose stream context and can be manipulated using the standard stream operations.
Additionally, in another embodiment of the present invention a television source can be stored as a time-ordered sequence of sound-and-image frames. Such television information is an archive as well as a realtime source and can be searched and substreamed. A television set is merely a viewport. Also, scheduling information can be stored in the television stream's future and tuning into a television station only requires double-clicking on the appropriate calling card. Similar embodiments can provide for radio stations, music sources, etc.
A stream according to the present invention can be controlled by a voice-interface as well as a computer and thereby be accessed via a conventional phone. The voice interface would allow: (1) the stream to be searched and manipulated; (2) new objects to be installed; (3) objects to be transferred; and (4) other capability.
The following embodiment discusses how the present invention is used for electronic mail. To send a message, the user creates a new document, for example by clicking on the New button and composes the message using a favorite editor. After composition, the message document is sent with a push of the Xfer button. Similarly, existing documents are easily forwarded to other users, or can be cloned and replied to. While all mail messages, both incoming and outgoing, are intermixed with other documents in the stream, the user can create a mailbox by substreaming on documents created by other users. A user can also create substreams that contain a subset of the mailbox substream, such as "all mail from Bob", or "all mail I haven't responded to".
With the present invention, a reminder can be generated as future electronic mail, that is a user can send mail that will arrive in the future. If the user dials to the future before writing a message document, when the message document is transferred the message document will not appear on recipient's stream until either that time arrives or the recipient happens to dial the recipient's viewport to the set creation date. In the present, the document will be in the stream data structure but the viewport will not show the document. By appearing just-in-time and not requiring the user to switch to yet another application, these reminders are more effective than those included in a separate calendar or scheduling utility program.
One embodiment of the present intention supports an electronic business cards document type as well as a 'phone call record' document for noting the date and time of phone contacts. In addition, the task of creating a phone call record is automated through a personal agent. The personal software agent is automatically attached to the personal agent menu so that anytime a user wants to make a call the use chooses "Make Phonecall" from the personal agent menu. The agent is spawned and the dialog box in FIG. 6a appears. The user types in the name of the callee and the agent searches the current stream for a business card with that name. If the name is found, the software agent creates and fills in the appropriate entries of the phone call record as seen in FIG. 7. This functionality is similar to the use of the personal assistant on the Newton personal digital assistant. The user can later use the streams summarize operation to summarize the phone calls made. This results in a report as shown in FIG. 6b.
In another embodiment of the present invention this functionality is extended to include the functions of a time manager. Time managers generally track the billable hours a professional spends on one or more projects. In streams this is easily accomplished by creating a timecard that marks the starting and ending time of each task. These timecards are just thrown onto the stream as used. Then, before each billing period, the stream is summarized by the timecards, resulting in a detailed billing statement for each contract.
Another embodiment of the present invention organizes a user's personal finance. Large number of users already track their checking accounts, savings, investments, and budgets with applications such as QUICKEN. The types of records and documents used in these applications such as electronic checks, deposits, securities transactions, reports are conveniently stored and generated by streams.
For example, a stock quote service may forward the daily closing prices of a given portfolio to a user's stream at the end of every business day. These documents are as shown in FIG. 8a. Such documents can list each stock and mutual fund along with its closing price, giving the user a method of calculating the value of the user's assets on a specific day. But if the user wants higher-level view of the portfolio over time the summarize operation can be used. For example, the user first selects a substream containing the stock quote documents and selects the "summarize by portfolio" menu item. This operation compresses the data into a single chart of historical data which summarize the portfolio documents in the substream. This result is illustrated in FIG. 8b.
Another embodiment of present invention provides a stream-based checking account. Each check written creates a record on the users stream. Some of these checks are electronic checks sent to companies with an online presence; other checks are transcribed from written checks. The user, in this embodiment, employs a personal software agent to help balance his checkbook. At year's end the user runs a tax summary which squishes the financial information in the users stream onto income tax forms which can be sent electronically to the Internal Revenue Service.
Streams can also be used for budgeting, tracking expenditures, etc. Streams contain everything a user deals with in the user's electronic life in a convenient and searchable location.
As discussed previously, every user can send out custom calling cards that grant access to a user's stream. Thus, the particular user's stream can function as a personal World Wide Web site such that the web site is merely a subset of the user's main stream or a substream. For the convenience of external users, a user can generate a "guide to this stream" document that functions as a top page. In the context of the present invention, a hyperlink, or a bookmark is just a calling card. By double clicking, or some comparable mechanism, on a calling card the viewport displays the specified stream. Embedding a link from one document to another document means to embed calling cards.
The present invention's personal web site provides more features than a conventional worldwide user side because: (1) the web site and personal information site are unified and maintained simultaneously with the same toolset; (2) visitors to the site use the same interface as for the visitor's own stream, that is, the visitor can browse, create substreams and squish; (3) visitors can be given customized access levels so that friendly visitors get to see more; and (4) the personal web site can filter incoming documents.
Streams of the present invention are designed to work with conventional World Wide Web browsers, thus opening a document of type web bookmark causes the appropriate browser to fire-up as an application the way a text editor fires up when the user opens a text document. However, streams also provide an indigenous web-browsing model. Key features such as calling cards and find provide this functionality so that the viewport itself functions as the browser.
Streams may also be quite useful for managing information outside of the system. For example, keeping track of web bookmarks is difficult and bookmarks are inconvenient to pass to other users. Conventional systems accomplish those transactions by copying a Web address from a web browser to an electronic mail message which the recipient then copies from electronic mail back to recipient's browser and adds this web address as a bookmark. Streams solve both of these problems.
In one embodiment, an agent watches each user's bookmark file for each time a new bookmark is added and then adds the same bookmark to a stream as a new Web address document. The effect of opening a Web address document in a stream is that the web browser comes to the foreground and attempts to connect to the Web address. In this way streams create a bookmark substream while at the same time making the data in the bookmarks readily available to any other search a user may make.
Passing Web addresses around is trivial, the user merely copies the Web address document to another user's stream (a one-step process) and the Web address is automatically included in the recipient bookmark substream.
A stream is a data structure that can be examined and to the extent possible manipulated by many processes simultaneously. Also a process may block the end of a stream, that is, suspend the stream operation, until awakened when a new document appears on the stream head. Streams need to support the block-at-the-end operation so that a software agent or what amounts to the same thing, that is, a substream or a live squish document can examine each new document arriving at the stream.
A stream must support simultaneous arcess because: (1) a user creates many software agents which may: seed to examine the stream concurrently; and (2) a user may have granted other users limited access to the user's stream, and the user will want access to this stream even while the other users access the stream.
One embodiment of the present invention is configured such that each server may support three to four simultaneous users with stream sizes on the order of 100,000 documents (perhaps a year or two of documents for the average user). In another embodiment, the operating system is configured such that lifestreams may have millions of documents or more. The substreaming aspect of one embodiment of the present invention is efficiently implemented using an inverse index of the document collection maintained by the server. No real performance problems with respect to retrieval have occurred. Given the very large indices that are being used on the Internet the retrieval scheme is expected to scale to large document collections.
Since a user is unlikely look at 10,000 documents at once and discern any usable information, the present invention does not provide the user with an entire document collection at once. Instead "cursors" are used to allow the user to view segments of the document collection and to load in more segments as needed.
One embodiment of the invention provides a single-threaded server which allows a single of access. Other embodiments of the present invention utilize a multi-server and multi-threaded approach which provides a more scalable architecture.
Regarding the term "agent" used in this application, it is noted that this term refers one of three kinds of embedded computations: personal agents, document agents, and stream agents. Personal agents are typically attached to the user interface and can automate tasks or can learn from the user's interactions with streams. Document agents live on documents and are spawned by various events, for example, the first time that a document is accessed. Stream agents are attached to streams and execute whenever the stream changes in some way, for example, a new document appears on the stream.
Further, regarding the term "document", it is noted that this term includes traditional text based files, electronic mail files, binary files, audio data, video data, and multimedia data.
Additionally, this document stream operating system can be implemented as an independent operating system with all required subsystems such as: a storage subsystems in software and/or hardware for writing documents to disc drive, tape drives and the like; interrupt handling subsystems; and input/output subsystems. However, the present invention also encompasses implementations which utilize subsystems from other operating Systems such as the Disk Operating System (DOS), WINDOWS, and OPERATING SYSTEM 7. In such implementations, the graphic user interface (GUI) of the other operating system can be replaced by the present invention viewports. Alternatively, the present invention can operate as a document stream utility for the other operating system.
It must be noted that although the present invention is described by reference to particular embodiments thereof, many changes and modifications of the invention may become apparent to those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention, which is only limited by the appended claims. For documents may have associated attributes used to locate the document during a search, for example, a special code word selected by the user.


text:
The Color of Rain
- Michael Spehn & Gina Spehn Authors
- 2011 28 Nov
EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is an excerpt from The Color of Rain by Michael Spehn and Gina Spehn (Zondervan).
the fall
The morning of my thirty-second birthday, I was already looking forward to dinner with my parents. Dad and I shared the same birthday and Mom was making our favorite, linguini with traditional meat sauce and meatballs, to celebrate. With a name like Antoinette Valenti, you know her sauce is ridiculously good. I've yet to meet a person, regardless of how many vowels they have in their name, who can make a more tender meatball than my mother.
Bright sunlight bathed the kitchen in warmth. Two-year-old Drew had just finished eating oatmeal, and Sam was sitting in his high chair launching toys in between bites of Gerber baby cereal when the phone rang. My best friend, Colleen Schomaker, was calling with a solo performance of "Happy Birthday." She sang at hyperspeed, so as not to actually sing, and then reminded me that I am still older than her. We said good-bye with a plan to meet for lunch.
As I hung up, the television caught my eye. Smoke was billowing from one of the World Trade Center towers in New York City. I leaned my elbows on the counter to watch on my tiny black-and-white kitchen television and called Colleen back.
"Are you watching this?"
"Yeah, I know. Unbelievable."
We mulled it over for a few minutes and hung up again. By now, I had turned on the television in the family room. Sam was still in his high chair, happily being entertained by Drew as I watched a passenger jet explode into the second tower. My body recoiled with every replay of the plane entering the building. I sat on the coffee table in stunned silence and began to feel nauseated. My soul ached at the sight of incomprehensible suffering. With the rest of the world, I was riveted to my television on this otherwise gorgeous September day, helplessly watching America wounded and bleeding.
It took my husband, Matt, several hours to return home from his downtown office at the local NBC television station in Detroit. When I heard the garage door go up, I ran to meet him. We held each other tightly, still in a state of disbelief. My parents had already arrived. Time was standing still as we came together to watch the horror unfold. Around five o'clock I walked outside to clear my head. The late afternoon sun was blinding. I felt like I had been in a tunnel all day. My body ached from tension. It was surreal, and it wasn't even happening in our state. It was, however, happening in our safe country, in a city we had visited many times, and in a place where people we knew and loved were living. It was happening to people just like us. It was happening to us.
Dinner was quieter than usual, although the kids helped keep things light. The world may have paused, but Drew still had spaghetti sauce on his face, and Sam was still throwing things from his high chair. There wasn't much conversation aside from expressions of deep sadness, gratitude, and a strong sense of unity with our fellow Americans.
I took an hour tucking the kids into bed that night, snuggling, reading, and saying prayers. What kind of world had I brought them into? I walked downstairs and collapsed into Matt's arms. The television was muted and we sat quietly watching the images on the screen.
"I have a present for you," Matt said.
"For what?" I asked and then remembered it was my birthday. "I don't feel much like celebrating. How about if I open it tomorrow?"
"Okay, but you have to read this tonight." He handed me a letter.
Especially today, with the enormity of current events, I want to convey to you again, how much you mean to me and how proud I am to be your husband. The hard work that you are engaged in right now is exhausting, invisible and largely thankless in the short term.
But honey, please know that buried at the core of this tedium is the most noble and important work in the world — God's work; the fruits of which you and I will be lucky enough to enjoy as we grow old together. Watching these little guys grow into men is a privilege that I am proud to share with you, and the perfect fulfillment of our marriage bonds.
You are a great mom.
You are a great wife.
You are my best friend.
You are very pretty.
Happy Birthday.
— Matt
Matt's generosity restored my hope. He made me feel safe and loved and purposeful. In his own adorable way, he even made me feel beautiful, which every mother of young children knows is no small task. At a time in our lives when careers and kids were creating loose threads in our marriage, and on the worst day in our nation's recent history, Matt gave me a renewed perspective about our life together and our future. His letter was like a stitch in the mending process. It was the best birthday present I'd ever been given.
A few months after 9/11, we celebrated our tenth anniversary in California. We planned the trip several months prior to our actual October anniversary, mostly to accommodate schedules. We rented a convertible Porsche Boxster in San Francisco and made the leisurely drive south to Big Sur. Matt was in his glory. Evidence of God surrounded us. The Sierras to our left, crashing surf to our right, and a little black sports car beneath us. Heaven. We looped around the Seventeen-Mile Drive and took in all the sights. The Lone Cypress Tree, tall Spyglass palms, and sea otters serving themselves a dinner of abalone on the rocks as they languished in the Pacific. We twisted and turned a bit farther south on Highway One until we arrived at the Ventana Inn and Spa, a quiet, romantic resort nestled in the cliffs at Big Sur. Pulling into the resort we noticed smiling people meandering around in white robes. Before the bell captain could open the car door, Matt leaned into me and whispered, "Resort? Or insane asylum?"
"Either way, we'll fit in," I replied with a laugh.
Ventana was quite a contrast from our everyday world. It was an extremely quiet, romantic escape. There was a bit of culture shock, but it didn't take long to adapt. Fifteen minutes after we mocked the crazies in the white robes, we were donning our own monogrammed terries with matching white flip-flops, sipping a delightful Napa Cabernet on our leisurely stroll to the Japanese hot baths. We giggled like kids who were getting away with something. We had only two days to luxuriate, so we made the most of them, eating extraordinary cuisine and taking deep breaths of the night-blooming jasmine.
After dinner we sat on the terrace of our bungalow overlooking the tranquil mountains. I rested my head back and felt the tension in my body melt away. When I opened my eyes, there was an open jewelry box with a beautiful pair of diamond earrings sitting on top of a Ventana notepad with a handwritten note:
Here's my big idea. When the time comes, we give one to Drew and one to Sam as "down payments" on engagement rings. Then, we go get you two giant rocks! I love you. — M
I hugged him around his neck and we kissed. He got it right. The earrings were perfect, but most of all, I loved his big idea. He considered five people in giving this gift. It was for me, our boys, and their future wives. His thoughtfulness would touch people he didn't even know.
"Try 'em on," he said, smiling. He knew he had me. Matt had been buying me jewelry for years, but much of it sat idle in the jewelry box. I had never been one to wear much jewelry, mostly because I was hyper-aware of the fact that I had it on, and I tended to fidget with it. My discomfort, however, did not stop my persistent salesman husband from buying it. Now, after ten years, he had found the perfect gift, elegant and understated, with the perfect message.
"Thank you," I whispered. "I can't wait until our boys can understand this about you."
Matt hit play on the CD player on our nightstand, and we listened to a complimentary CD titled Going to California. The CD was an acoustic guitar tribute to Led Zeppelin. I liked my rock-and-roll, but this mellow CD worked with the robes-and-slippers mood. It became the soundtrack for a perfect weekend getaway.
Back home, the week of our actual anniversary in early October, Matt and I were not feeling pressured to buy gifts or plan an elaborate night out. Great memories of our California trip lingered, but we were glad to be home in Michigan this time of year. The autumn chill was beginning to creep back into the air, which meant sweatshirt weather, football games, and spicy chili. Everything smells different when the leaves begin to turn. Their yearly morph releases a burnt perfume that sweetens the air.
The vibrant colors and crisp temperatures make me feel like I could run a thousand miles, although after the first two, I'd rethink that idea. Autumn arouses all of the senses like no other season, perhaps because we can feel the beginning of the end, nature's grand finale.
Matt was upstairs showering and Sammy took his morning nap while I molded Play-Doh with Drew. I took notice of the leaves that hung just outside the window. The chartreuse green was giving way to hints of vibrant red, orange, and yellow.
"Gina!" Matt shouted to me from our bedroom. I walked to the bottom of the stairs to see him wrapped in a towel, dripping wet.
"Feel this," he said as he pushed his finger into his thigh. At first I thought he was being funny but quickly realized that his tone was more serious.
"What is it?" I asked, rushing up the stairs.
"I don't know. It feels like a marble in my leg, like a tiny tumor."
I stopped moving and glanced up at him with a confused look.
"A tumor? Who says that?" I said half sarcastically. That thought lingered in the air a moment until I realized, a Kell says that. While the average person does not jump to the conclusion that it's a "tumor" before considering every other possibility, Matt's family, given the genetic history on his dad's side, tended to assume the worst. We continued feeling around his thigh. The marble was very deep in the muscle. Matt and I agreed that he would call his dad's oncologist.
A few days later, on the day of our tenth anniversary, I was in our bedroom and saw our acoustic Led Zeppelin CD from Ventana. I realized that the timing of our trip had been less about logistics and more about a divine plan. As Matt lay in our bed recovering from surgery to remove a tumor from his leg, I pressed play. The last two songs on the CD were "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You" and "Stairway to Heaven."
Autumn had arrived.
The Color of Rain
Copyright © 2011 by Michael Spehn and Gina Spehn
This title is also available as a Zondervan ebook. Visit www. Zondervan.com/ebooks.
This title is also available in a Zondervan audio edition. Visit www.zondervan.fm.
Request for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.


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This question brought up the issue of whether it is appropriate to retag someone else's question as
homework. While I believe that it's the community's responsibility as much as the OPs to make sure questions are tagged appropriately, it made me think about who should remove the
homework tag if the question isn't homework. In most cases I think the community retains the right to change tags in all cases to accurately categorize the question, however, in the general case, only the OP really knows for sure -- everyone else only has opinions. My sense is that only the OP, except in the most obvious cases, should be the one to roll back a
homework tag.
Your thoughts?


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Skip navigation.
Fasten your seatbelts; it's going be a bumpy ride from December 10th to December 30th. Mercury will be going into retrograde starting today, taking us for a wild ride for the next three weeks. Be prepared to get lost, run out of gas, arrive at your appointment late, spill coffee on your favorite skirt, misplace your files, fight with your boyfriend and leave with a parking ticket. Sound like oodles of fun? It's unfortunate that you cannot stop Mercury from going retrograde, but there are some tricks to help you survive during this time and possibly even learn some things!
***NOTE: while I was copying this blog post from a blog post from 2008 - my computer crashed! Mercury in retrograde is a trickster and has officially begun.
Dare you ask, what does Mercury in retrograde mean?
Mercury is not actually moving backwards; it's just that we see it this way from Earth, because of the combined movement of the Earth and Mercury around the Sun.
All the planets affect Earth. The Moon uses make the oceans ebb and flow twice a day! There's no doubt that the Moon influences us, too, which is why we attribute craziness and wild behavior during a Full Moon with the term: lunatic (lunar is the astronomical name for Earth's Moon).
Mercury is the closet planet to us and it affects us greatly. Mercury is considered the planet of communication and its energies involve the mind, mental processes, communication, travel, speaking and writing.
The retrograde symbol is "Rx", the same symbol on all medical prescriptions! The connection between science, medicine and astronomy is deep and ancient. Physicians until the 15th century had to also be astrologers before they could practice medicine.
When Mercury is in retrograde all the aspects that it governs will "go backwards", too.
Huh? What happens Mercury goes retrograde?
All sorts of things! It's like everyone you know has suddenly gone mad! You might find yourself getting into bizarre arguments about nothing at all, babbling like an idiot or barely even able to form a coherent thought. Computer and other electronic equipment malfunctions are notorious during Mercury retrograde. We don't tend to get all the information we need at this time, so it can be hard to make big decisions and it's not a good time to sign a contract, either.
I'm scared! How will I survive?
I know it sounds frightening, but no time is completely bad for anything, there is a reason everything happens.
The key is the reversed direction of movement: take any known Mercurian action, and reverse its flow. Consider the keywords "re-evaluate", "re-doing something", "double-checking", "finish the old projects" and there you are, you've found the good side of Mercury retrograde.
This is an excellent time to work on old projects that never got to be finished. So, think about the things you started and never finalized. Maybe that door just needs another lick of paint or you'll decide to finally put away your ex-boyfriend's love letters.
Mercury retrograde is providing us with a chance to re-examine various areas of our life that may need a little more work, so that we can move forward to a bright new dawn. Now, more than ever, the time is right to look at things with clear eyes. Delicious, fresh perspectives are revealed. We often have major breakthroughs—intellectual, emotional or spiritual—during this time.
Be Prepared!
Next, you might wish to prevent any bad things to happen to you: so double-check your agenda, call your business partners to confirm that everything goes as planned, have everything ready before the deadline and leave some extra time for unexpected events. Make copies of your important files and documents, save your work more often.
This, too, shall pass
Keep in mind that the planets will keep rotating around the sun and just as EVERYTHING does: this, too, shall pass. One of the best ways to cope - as with anything, really - is to just "go with the flow". When you fight Mercury retrograde, that's when life gets really ugly. Just take some time, go slowly, be careful and don't freak yourself out by expecting to be uber-productive-perfect right now. Above all, be generous and compassionate with everyone, especially yourself!
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Manning Marable, an academic and respected authority on black America, doesn't use his book, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention to destroy the reputation of the man who told the heartlands that the assassination of President Kennedy represented "chickens coming home to roost". But, over 487 pages, Marable does effectively destroy the cultivated brand. There is a wealth of detail, some of it new, some of it old stories confirmed, all aided by documents and new recollections from the US government, the FBI and the Nation of Islam, whose leader Louis Farrakhan gave the author an unprecedented nine-hour interview. At the end of it all, Malcolm X remains Malcolm X, for good or ill, one of the most fascinating historical figures of the 20th century. But it is difficult to see him in the same way again.
Black newspaper roots
Born in Dayton, Ohio, on May 13, 1950, Marable wrote in his book, "Speaking Truth to Power," that as the child of middle-class Black Americans – his father a teacher and businessman, his mother an educator and college professor – He watched the largely Southern civil rights movement from afar.
He found his political voice as a teenager writing columns for a Black newspaper, the Dayton Defender. He served as the Defender's correspondent and marched along with thousands of others during Dr. King's funeral procession.
"With Martin's death, my childhood abruptly ended," he wrote. "My understanding of political change began a trajectory from reform to radicalism."
Marable earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Earlham College and his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland. He taught at the University of Colorado at Boulder and Ohio State University, then served as the founding director of the Africana and Hispanic Studies Program at Colgate University before going to Columbia.
Prolific author
Marable wrote hundreds of papers and nearly 20 books, including "How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America" (1983); "Beyond Black and White: Race in America's Past, Present and Future" (1995); "The Crisis of Color and Democracy" (1995); "The Great Wells of Democracy: The Meaning of Race in American Life" (2003); "Freedom: A Photographic History of the African-American Freedom Struggle" (2002); and "9/11: Racism in a Time of Terror (2002).
A public memorial service is set for May 27. Besides Leith Mullings, his wife of 15 years, three children and two stepchildren survive him.


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Before I get to the recipe for this delicious Strawberry Summer Cake, I wanted to say thank you for all the feedback on my previous post. If you missed it I asked what you thought the ideal amount of posts per week was appropriate for a blog. I am still mulling it over. Jo-Anna sent me a great link from Will Work for Followers that addressed this very issue. Check it out here if you would like to see his answer for the ideal posting frequency. I was leaning towards trying out posting every other day, but after reading Dan's post I am still trying to decide if every day will be better for growing my blog. Who knows? I sure don't.
Anyways, on to the cake!
Makes on 10" round cake
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened, plus more for pie plate
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 pound strawberries, hulled and halved
whipped cream, for garnish (optional)
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 10-inch pie plate. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together into a medium bowl.
2. Put butter and 1 cup sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to medium-low; mix in egg, milk, and vanilla.
3. Reduce speed to low; gradually mix in flour mixture. Transfer batter to buttered pie plate. Arrange strawberries on top of batter, cut sides down and as close together as possible. Sprinkle remaining 2 tablespoons sugar over berries.
4. Bake cake 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees. Bake until cake is golden brown and firm to the touch, about 1 hour. Let cool in pie plate on a wire rack. Cut into wedges. Cake can be stored at room temperature, loosely covered, up to 2 days.
Source: Martha Stewart, Smitten Kitchen and Milk & Honey
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