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Chuck Billy of Testament
Interviewed by EvilG
Bay Area thrash metal legends TESTAMENT, hit #9 on the world sales chart with a total of approximately 58,500 copies sold world-wide of their new album Dark Roots of Earth in its first week of sales. This is a huge accomplishment for a metal band, debuting on a chart that typically dominated by bubblegum pop. With the original line-up together and drummer Gene Hoglan back on the drum throne, we all knew this album was going to be something special. However, they've exceeded fans, and my own, high expectations and have managed to top their 2008 release with an album that is arguably their finest. I got to speak with Chuck about the new album, the line-up, some of the songs, and a few other things. Read on…
So how are you doing this morning?
Good, good. Just getting up, enjoying the holiday weekend.
Excellent. My first question here is about your new album. I want to talk a bit about that. I know it's doing very well for you guys and it's even been breaking some records for the band and for Nuclear Blast, your label. So does it feel to you like the focus on the band has been increased in any way?
Well, maybe it's, you know, we've done so many records and releases that you always hope for the best and the best response from the press and the fans once the record's out and I think this record, we kind of , I guess, had – we wrote this record because we've had the original line-up since 2005 and I think we've reached the point that we've been back together long enough now that we've actually established a little more confidence. I guess it's just friends, musicians, songwriters, everything all involved. When we wrote this record we really didn't have like with past records there always was a sense of "what are they going to think?" You know, we haven't done a ballad on a record in 20 years because in the back of your mind you're thinking the fans are going to want this or they're going to criticize it. So I think this record, with that little bit of confidence when we wrote "Cold Embrace". It's the song that hit us like, you know something? This has got a lot of emotion and feeling in it. Let's go for it. We didn't even think about what anybody was going to think about it. So once we recreated all the songs with that frame of mind, it was kind of like we hope that really was almost something written for us. Then to get the response we got off of it, it was really like a little bit of a sense of accomplishment. Like, right on. But the confidence and the feeling we've had going into this record, it's like a payoff because the fans and everybody seemed to grasp it and so that was great. That's a good feeling for us at this point. And again little builders of confidence for a little more, you know? So it's been a good start.
Definitely. As always, I really enjoyed your vocals on the album and especially with a return to a little more variation and again more melody as with the song you just mentioned, "Cold Embrace", is a stand out I think. So was it a conscious decision on your part to do that or did you feel that this mostly flowed from what was required by the music that was written?
No. I consciously wanted to go back and try to capture maybe Practice What You Preach, something when we really started putting a little more hook and melody into the song writing. Even like The Ritual record, it had a little melody in it and I wanted to do that because over the past record, if I was given a mid-paced song, I would tend to just like try to sing it with my death voice, make it somehow heavier. In this record I decided that I wasn't going to do that. I wasn't going to go against what I would normally do and try to keep it melodic and it actually was more of a challenge to do that! The mid-paced songs that make the melody and the hook work. You know, you could sing a heavy voice over anything and it's just heavy. So it was definitely a little more of a challenge but I think in the end that it did take a lot of people. Even with like our old fans, some have also said it's totally Practice What You Preach days and that kind of stuff and that's kind of how we approached it so it's actually cool that they actually got that.
It's been eluded to in the press or by some interviews that maybe some members of Testament might not be sticking around for the long haul if this album isn't a success but with the way things have been going, has this become a non-issue?
I haven't heard anything at all…I haven't heard that ,so I don't know. I just think, like I said, we're just kind of – we don't talk about what the future is and what our plans are,. We just kind of let it happen and if people, you know, put an end to it and they leave, it's just we'll take it and deal with it when it happens. We've been through a lot with musicians in the band, drummers, bass players, guitar players, and there was a point right after The Gathering record – that's right before I got sick – it was getting pretty tiring finding new musicians and teaching them the songs again and having a different line-up. It was just this revolving door. That kind of got old and tiring and at that point we weren't really a hard touring band. We'd kind of pick and choose some of the shows and they were just festivals and they were just short runs. That was just the point where we're kind of getting tired so I think having the reunion comeback, that's when we all kind of just said, is it feeling good? Are we all cool? And everybody was, so we decided let's be a full on, let's go for it. Let's do as much shows and write a record and go for it and that's kind of the way we've done it for the last seven years and I think every record we've done has just kind of stepped it up and topped the previous one so I think everybody's kind of comfortable where we're at, you know? I mean, who knows what'll happen to this band because we've kind of seen it all. So just kind of take it one day at a time.
So also with working with Gene Hoglan again, are there plans for him to be listed as a permanent member of the band? Or is it like you said, take it as it comes and he's there for as long as he wants to be there – or is that kind of the way you're rolling with it?
Well, Gene's signed on to do this record touring cycle with us. I don't know what it means to be a full member of Testament anymore, really. It's kind of like, what does that mean? And we'd never want to hold anybody if they wanted to play other stuff or jam another project and we would never want to stop anybody from doing that so we're happy that he's into the record and he wants to tour with us and enjoys the organization. He just said, you know, I'm here to do whatever we can for this record so that's cool and that's kind of was we're going to approach it, really.
Hopefully, we'll get the tour two or three years off of this record and at that point we'll sit down and say, what do you think? When should we do it again? And that's when we'll address that.
Okay, cool. And some names that the Testament fans have come to know that you've worked with is Del James and also, of course, Steve Souza and they're both listed in the credits for the album so I just want to get your take on what they help you with – is it mostly help with lyrics, or do they also help with phrasing and melodies and other things like that, too?
No. I come up with all the melody and the phrasing and the story and what I want to write about. They help me accomplish putting it down to paper. You know, I could just tackle it myself but I like bouncing it off people and working with somebody because it challenges me, we work quicker because there's just more ideas thrown out there. We've just worked well together and Del has been writing songs since The Ritual record and Zetro's been writing with me when we did the Dublin Death Patrol and that's when we kind of realized, hey, we're working pretty good, we write pretty quick, and Zetro, if anybody knows this band, it's him, because he was in the band! I started out singing his songs so there was that connection. So it just works, and I just wanted to try to have the best record possible with the lyrics and the approach on the mixing of this record. I really wanted to keep the vocals a little more dry and less effects so you can really understand the vocals because in the past records I would delay them and reverb them and they'd just wash out and this one we totally took a different approach. Now when I listen back, I wish I would've done it this way all along, on every record.
Can you tell me a bit about what the song "True American Hate" is about?
Well, that was a song that was kind of inspired by back when US started sending troops over. We'd see on the news protesting in other countries where kids were walking around on the streets with their fathers with rifles and burning American flags on the street and to me that was just – I was kind of like blown away just how a parent would teach or influence their son to learn that much kind of hatred towards something. And maybe those kids don't really understand why they're doing it, they're just doing it because everybody's doing the parents maybe painting a different picture. I was just blown away how much hatred it was for Americans to burn the flag. And that's what kind of just burned in my mind. Just to me, that was just like the song came up just "True American Hate" was based on that visual that burned in my head watching the news.
So you haven't experienced any hatred towards yourself as an American when you're playing abroad, have you?
No. No. But you know, not hatred but the French always kind of feed that (laughs)……Americans are different. We've had some experiences trying to get around places and you speak English and they all of a sudden seem to not understand what you're saying and give you the run around. We've had some misdirections. But any place else, not really. Not for what we do and the people we see and the kind of metalheads that are at the shows that we're in contact with, they get it. They know what it's all about. It's just music, it's just being creative, it's not like we're on the offensive with something.
And another awesome song from the album, "Native Blood", has an excellent video as well. I was wondering, what is the message that you would like people to take away from the song?
Well, when I wrote it, I wrote because I'm Native American and when I was sick in 2001 I kind of went back to my Native American heritage to kind of get me through when I was sick – mentally, spiritually. I never really sung a lot about my culture with Testament, but that song, that meant something to me. It was a big part of it. So when I wrote it, I wrote it from the view of a Native American but the song is really just about indigenous people. There's indigenous people everywhere in the world. No matter what culture you have there's indigenous people that want to be heard, have something to say, and they have an opinion, and it's time to speak out and let your voices be heard. That's kind of the way I took it but I took it from the Native American aspect of it. I did the song in Spanish as well and that's almost coming not from a Native American but from indigenous people the way the chorus is interpreted.
I saw some of the YouTube clips of you, I guess with a vocal coach who spoke Spanish helping you along with the pronunciations or something there online.
Yeah and that whole thing was a tribute to my mother. My mother passed away a few years ago and she was a singer and she sang for the Red Cross and did a record for the Red Cross and I guess she was proud but she never really wanted to be a singer. She thought there was nothing there, so I kind of just did it as like a tribute to my mom.
Cool. When you guys toured back in 2010 with Slayer and Megadeth, those two bands were playing one of their classic albums in its entirety. I was wondering, is that something you wanted to do then as well with one of the classic Testament albums?
Well, we did it right before that tour. That year before we were doing The Legacy and The New Order back to back. So when that came up, they were doing that and we were like, I don't know. Especially when we only got like a 30 minute show. Maybe we should play like the best of with that time that we have and to pick one of those records, we couldn't even do the whole record in 30 minutes. So we decided that it would be better just to do a kind of best of 30 minute show. But yeah, those were fun to do, the crowd really loved it. We actually dug it, too, because some of those songs we hadn't played in a long time so we actually had to go into the studio and practice them and playing them 15, 20 years later, we definitely played them much better because we tuned it different. We didn't go back to that old tuning, we kept the tuning that we have today and the songs definitely were easier for me to sing and they're actually fun to sing. So those were good shows and they were special and we didn't really want to overdo it because they were a special thing for us and the fans and we just didn't want to run it into the ground, you know?
Have you ever thought about pulling like an Iron Maiden and playing the new album in its entirety?
Yeah, definitely. Like this new one here we had all kinds of ideas before we released it like, how can we do something special? We didn't want to just do listening parties and everything like that so what could we do? And we threw the ideas out there. Why don't we play the whole record start to finish and maybe livestream it or something, something like that to debut the songs. But that didn't happen and so this is probably the first record that we're actually playing four new songs off of. Any other record would've started with two, maybe three tops, but this one we're starting out with four right off the bat and who knows? Maybe it'll increase as we get out there but they just seem to be, I don't know, when we play them now, and we just did a two week run in Europe, and we put those four songs in and the crowd response…..we opened up the show with "Rise Up" and they're already singing the chorus right back and it's already feeling like it's a classic that we've already played for a while and the crowd's kind of taking it that way. So it's definitely the live material, this record is. We're having a good time with it for sure.
I know a number of people, myself included, even though the album's only been out for a little over a month now, consider this to be a contender for the best album of 2012. Have you heard much of that kind of feedback from fans?
Yeah. I've heard that and that's awesome. I think so because the last couple of records people were saying that, but I think really this is the one. I mean, like I said, just because we wrote it for us, you know? And listening to the record, even our guys that work on our crew, our sound and light guys, they're studying through the tours coming up and they're just like, man, these songs are way more happening than the last ones we've been studying for the tour. So we'll see what happens. Every year, of course, we're hoping for that Grammy nomination or something like that. We always have our fingers crossed, so I don't know. Maybe if it does hit people like that maybe we can get something like that going. That would be awesome.
Yeah, definitely. The cover painting is also quite captivating. I was wondering what direction, images, or words that you gave to the artist that helped inspire such artwork?
Well, Eric pretty much handles a lot of the artwork and cover and he does a lot of reading on that kind of stuff. He's a real creative guy and when he read up on Seronis, the tree god, and he's seen the visual in his head, once he's seen that, and we've always been kind of like an Earth conscious band, and when he came up with the title of Dark Roots of Earth, right when he said that to me I thought right away, "Yeah, that's it, that should be the title". Then once I saw the cover art it was like yeah, that's a good looking cover and I get it for what I interpret it. Dark Roots of Earth could be us as a reunited band, rejoining ourselves, and the roots are reaching down and connecting with the earth and it all kind of just made sense to me, the way I interpreted it. Then once I'd seen the artwork, I was just like, I like it. He's always coming up with some pretty visual stuff. We had the backdrop done up for a gig and just got to use it for the first time over in Europe just a couple of weeks ago, and it looked awesome! It looked really good up there!
I was wondering what your thoughts and concerns are in the wake of what happened with Randy Blythe. Not so much whether he's innocent or not, because I think we're all on the same page with our thoughts on that, but I was just wondering what your thoughts and concerns might be what it means for Testament and your infamous Wall of Death?
Well, that probably won't be going on anymore. But you just got to mean it and I was pretty infamous for years on "Over the Wall". I'd invite people up on the stage. In Japan we had 30, 40 people up there and you're wide open to anything happening like that. Anything, especially if it's an invite or something you are really kind of held responsible but somebody to take it upon themself like that, man, it's a shame for someone to lose their life, but at some point someone had to take responsibility from the fan, you know, or you get the fans that are upset with having too much security up there but I don't know if everybody just kind of forgot too soon about the Dimebag Darrell thing, you know? So you never know. I've been in the same situation in the early '80s, hitting someone with the mic stand in the head and cracking their head open and a lawsuit and you don't think about it at the moment and in his case I just think it was a shame. The U.S. didn't step in enough and Randy, I'm sure he didn't mean anything. If you're up onstage performing, and like myself, sometimes when I'm singing I have my eyes closed and so all of a sudden next thing you know I'm being tackled. The first response of anybody is going to be kind of defend yourself or what's happening? I know Randy, he doesn't wear his glasses onstage. I'm sure he probably can't see the guests when he's performing in the first place. So I mean there's just so much different stuff that I just thought that it was a shame that in the U.S. you would be innocent until proven guilty. Just to me, over there, it just seemed like he was guilty until proven innocent. There was just so much bullshit, keeping him in jail and raising the bails and stuff and there wasn't overwhelming evidence. It was the opposite. It was totally backwards. Guilty until proven innocent, almost. It was just crazy and I'm kind of ashamed the U.S. didn't really step in.
Definitely, yeah.
Or help the situation or making him bigger news than it was.
Yeah, definitely, so my last question… As you know, The Formation of Damnation came out in 2008, and here we are four years later with a new album. Are you content with a four year gap between albums? If so, the next one would be in 2016 – does that seem like the general plan for what you'd like to see?
Well, it's not a plan. I mean, we did almost over 400 shows on the Formation record over two and a half years and it did take almost a year to create this record where I didn't get it in the can and release it. No, we've already talked about that. This time in the middle of tours we definitely got penciled in the books that we're going to the studio and we're going to at least write a song or write two songs so we definitely want to get a jump, hopefully six to eight songs while we're still touring on this record. So when the end of the cycle happens, whenever it is, which usually seems to fall around Thanksgiving and into December and January when the music business itself is kind of dead. Hopefully that's when we can get in there, fine tune the eight tunes and maybe write a couple more and be ready a lot quicker than the last time. But we got held up just because Paul (previous drummer) was injured for a year and we didn't have a drummer to write with. Eric was really trying to write with a drum machine and that kind of slowed it up. You know, it's easier just to have Eric play and have a drummer just jump in there instead of trying to have it all thought out and drums planned out and then write with it. So Eric struggled a little with it and we kind of just hit a writer's block because it just wasn't coming yet.
So he went to Andy Sneaks place in England for a couple of weeks and Andy did the drums there, told him the beats, and Andy worked it out for him and so when Eric came back he had the starting skeletons of 12 tunes. He just went over there, got inspired, and did it. And a lot of those songs are on this record. You know, that held us up a little bit. I don't think it's going to happen next time. I don't want to wait that long. We've also talked about, who knows, maybe a year down the line release an EP. With the way people buy off the internet and stuff like that, it wouldn't be a bad idea to write those four songs, five songs, and release them as EP in the middle of all this.
That'd be cool. So is there anything else going on in the world of Chuck Billy that you'd like your fans know about?
I mean, I'd like to talk about the [Native Blood] video thing. The video actually turned out to be more than a just a video shoot. You know, we shot it up there on the reservation and a lot of my family and cousins and just the community really backed it up and joined in and were a part of it. From the Fire Department, Police Department, Tribal Council, just everybody got involved and it actually, I would say, brought people together. When people watch it, I don't know, you can really feel the emotion. It really draws the emotion out of somebody when you see the video. When I' first saw the first cut I was choked up. I was like, wow, you really captured it. It's got real great emotion in it. And because of that, we were contacted by the American Indian Film Festival and they want us to enter it this year and it's going to happen November 10th at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. So we entered it and we're still waiting to hear the response if it's accepted now.
Excellent. That'll be a new venue for you to get exposed to some different people again.
Yeah. And we're trying to shoot for – we actually got our agent going to start inquiring about some of the native casinos around the country. If we can play for more natives out there because I actually got to do the first Native American Awards – must have been about 15 years ago and I've just seen how many artists that weren't in the public's eye but they toured and did a lot of casinos and reservations and these were platinum artists, just based on traveling around the country and Canada, playing on reservations. Because the people just really packed in and supported them.
Well, hopefully that works out. That would be an interesting way for people to see you who might not normally have a chance to see you.
Yeah. So we're trying different things and just whatever we can at this point. Like I said, the record's got a good buzz so just trying to see what happens. Everything's kind of wide open for us. We only had 200 planned up through the end of this year and it's kind of wide open right now for next year so we'll see what happens.
You think there might be another big package kind of like what you're starting up soon with Anthrax and Death Angel? Maybe like another Testament and Slayer pairing or something like that for 2013?
That would be awesome. We always like to tour with Slayer.
All right. For sure.
There's so many bands out there, who knows? We're open for whatever's out there. I just want to get out there and play and promote the record and hopefully play with maybe more packages where we can play longer instead of the opening slot for 30 minutes. Get out there and have an hour set and do stuff like that, that'd be killer.
All right, Chuck. I'd like to thank you for your time, it's been great to talk to you!
Cool. Thank you, man.
And all the best with your upcoming tour and hopefully the album continues to do really well and makes a lot of best of list this year!
Right, man. Thank you.


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Posted by Editoress on 11/30/05
From Playground To Podium: BMX Race Facility At Marilyn Bell Park
Courtesy Nicky Pearson, OCA, BMX Growth and Development
A Community Meeting Hosted by Councillor Sylvia Watson, Ward 14 Parkdale/ High Park
Contribute your opinion and ideas about the proposed construction of this important recreational facility
Be sure to attend this meeting if you are:
- concerned about recreational opportunities for youth in our neighbourhood
- interested in leading a healthy lifestyle through BMX and other active cycling opportunities
-interested in the planning and design of the proposed park
When: Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Where: Masaryk Cowan Community Centre, 220 Cowan Ave
A draw will be held for a competition level BMX bike for attendees.
For More Information Please Call 416.392.7919
Or contact the OCA office at 416.426.7416
Just a bit of history on this project:
Torontonian Mike Heaton has worked for 8 years to get a BMX race track in Toronto. In March of 2005 the OCA came on board to assist and the track was approved in June 2005 to be be built at Marilyn Bell Park (Jamieson and Lakeshore, just west of the Ex). The track will be built to National standards in the hopes on hosting the National Championships or a UCI International Event in the coming years.
City Councillor Sylvia Watson is hoping to break ground for the new track in May 2006, but as per city rules, we are hosting a second community meeting allowing for citizens in the area to ask questions. The first meeting held last year showed overwhelming support for the building of the facility.
If there are any questions, please email email@example.com and we hope to see a lot of cyclists at the meeting.
|Return to Canadian Cyclist homepage | Back to Top


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Retire with ConfidenceRead the transcript
Indexed Universal Life Insurance: Help Meet Your Goals
Whether you're planning for retirement, college, or a rainy day, it's important to focus on the journey – not just the destination. To successfully plan for these milestones, it's vital to figure out which tactics to use to reach your goal faster, safer or more effectively. One of the tactics many consider is life insurance […]Read Article
Medicare Advantage vs. Medicare Supplement Insurance Policies – Which is Right for You?
Did you know that after you enroll in Medicare, there's a few more steps to take? You still need to decide how you want to receive your Medicare benefits and whether you want to pay for additional coverage. Medicare (Part A and Part B) is where many people start, but this plan can leave you […]Read Article
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The post-Stalinist regimes of Eastern Europe collapsed in part because of the glaring contrast between theory and practice, promise and fulfillment. The Catholic Church, meanwhile, a much older hand at politics, seems to thrive on a kind of ambiguity that the Communists never mastered. This thought is prompted by Pope John Paul II's latest encyclical, Centesimus Annus, an important document on the church's social policy that reveals, incidentally, that the Vatican has a more realistic concept of the world after the upheaval in Eastern Europe than the panegyrists of George Bush's "new world order."
Naturally, the encyclical sees the failure of the Soviet-bloc regimes as confirmation of its view that socialism and Marxism are wrong and bankrupt. There would be an outcry if one drew a similar conclusion about Christianity on the basis of the Inquisition, but such distortions are inevitable in the battle of propaganda. More interesting 1s the fact that, with capitalism seemingly entrenched, the church no longer feels the need to play the role of anti-Communist crusader. The Pope now emerges as a critic of the "idolatry of the market" and a defender of capitalism with a human face.
As usual, the encyclical does not quite make clear how the capitalist logic of profit is to be reconciled with the "primacy of the human being" that the Pope desires. There are also more down-to-earth questions. Does the encyclical mean that the Vatican will now cease the reshuffling of the Latin American hierarchy? When he visits Poland in June will John Paul damn Lech Walesa and his Finance Minister for introducing the crude and cruel version of capitalism blessed by the International Monetary Fund? Obviously not. Yet the encyclical should enable the advocates of liberation theology or the critics of the Balcerowicz plan in Poland to claim that the Pope is on their side. The wisdom of the Vatican is to have grasped that in both the Third World and Eastern Europe it will have to deal not with the blessings but with the curses of the capitalist system.
The Pope's home country gives some idea of what the church can do when it has real influence. Having played a helpful role in the transition, the Polish church gained great prestige and power under the new regime. Conscious that these gains may prove ephemeral, it is now trying to institutionalize Its prerogatives. The Polish bishops have just suggested that the separation between church and state be abolished in the new Constitution. Whether or not they succeed in having the dominant position of Catholicism enshrined in the text, they are already busy achieving it in practice.
The introduction of religious instruction in schools was only the first item on the clergy's agenda. Some church leaders would also like a ban on contraception and the outlawing of civil weddings-and hence of divorce. Fearful of a future in which it will no longer benefit from the existence of the Communist bogy, and in which it risks being weakened by the corruption spread by the capitalist market, the church wants to tighten its stranglehold on Poland's social and cultural life.
Judging by its efforts on abortion, it will not be bothered by scruples. A church-supported bill that would criminalize abortion has already been passed by the Solidarity-dominated Senat. It must still be voted on, however, by the lower house, whose members have been subjected to an intensive campaign stage-managed by the clergy. A propaganda drive in the schools has used all sorts of devices, including showings of the notorious antiabortion film The Silent Scream. Kids are told to ask their parents to sign petitions in favor of the bill; in small provincial towns it can often take courage to defy the local priest. The collection of signatures is being used to create the illusion of popular backing and thus prevent a proper consultation, for the Catholic Church dreads a referendum, which it would probably lose (most polls show roughly 60 percent opposed to the antiabortion bill). Such a defeat would destroy the myth of the church as moral master and representative of the population.
Why then are the deputies likely to toe the line? Because with a parliamentary election scheduled for the fall they fear the clergy's undoubted influence; because many people who were brave enough to face the jails of the old regime do not have the courage to defy the church; because on this issue, unlike economic ones, critics cannot claim that the Pope is on their side. For he is the main inspiration of this "moral order." Optimists suggest that the Catholic Church, having overplayed its hand, will provoke a backlash that will halt the movement toward theocratic rule. Be that as it may, for the outside world the Pope's trip to Poland is a useful reminder of the difference between the abstract elaborations of an encyclical and "really existing" Catholicism.


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Cancer survivor spreads hope
CANCER survivor Lesley King is determined to make a difference.
Holding her granddaughter Parker in her arms, she wished for a cure so she will never have to go through what her nan did 19 years ago.
When she was young, her father died from stomach cancer. Later in her life, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Since then, she has been determined to make a difference.
In the past she has been part of breast cancer support services. She is currently serving as a member for the Cancer Council Gladstone branch.
Ms King is urging locals to gather in celebration of Daffodil Day and give hope to Queenslanders affected by cancer.
"Since I was first diagnosed, cancer is now detected earlier and there are better treatments," she said.
"Imagine what could happen in the next 20 years."
Ms King is calling on the Gladstone community to paint the town yellow. The Gladstone branch aims to raise $7000.
Help out
Fresh daffodils and merchandise will be sold tomorrow at:
Kin Kora Stockland Shopping Centre
Gladstone Night Owl Centre
Gladstone Valley Shopping Centre
and Tannum Sands


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Easley has earned UConn scholarship, but he wants much more
STORRS -- Whenever Randy Edsall decided to wander out of his office in the Burton Family Football Complex and take a peek into the Shenkman Training Center to see who might be working out during the off-season, Marcus Easley was there.
If the head coach, while on his way to a meeting, passed by the weight room and stuck his head in for a moment, Marcus Easley was there.
When Edsall, working hard to beat the sunrise, pulled into his parking spot and looked across the street as receivers and quarterbacks worked on their pass routes on the lush grass of Memorial Stadium, Marcus Easley was there.
During each of those times, Edsall made a mental note to himself. Easley, an athletic receiver from Stratford, was working as hard as he could to take his game to the next level.
Over the last couple of seasons, with Donald Brown in the Huskies backfield, receivers -- heck, the entire passing game -- seemed to almost vanish into thin air. But with new offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead in place, along with an up-tempo offense that looks to finally balance the run and the pass, Easley knew that his time was now.
"Your junior year is supposed to be the year where you get your name out there, you want to be either a starter or a contributor," Easley said Monday at UConn's football media day. "Going into this season, I've set high expectations for myself and I want to try and be the best I can."
So, during this past off-season, Easley stayed on campus. He did not drive back and forth to Stratford like he had many times over the course of his first two seasons to visit family and friends. Football became his sole focus. He put extra time in the weight room and on the practice field, running routes with quarterback Zach Frazer.
He worked hard in the classroom and, most importantly, opened the coaching staff's eyes in the annual Blue-White spring scrimmage, making 10 receptions for 169 yards and two touchdowns. Easley caught a 34-yard touchdown pass from Frazer in the second quarter and a 30-yard TD strike from Johnny McEntee in the fourth.
Not bad for a player who came into the game with just five career receptions in two seasons.
"That (the spring game) was kind of my point in time where I knew I had to shine. I put myself out there," Easley said. "I opened some eyes, I guess. Hopefully, people recognize who I am now. I want to make a name for myself."
Said wide receivers coach Matt Cersosimo: "Going into spring practice from the winter workouts, I know he wanted to elevate his game and try to take his game to the next level, especially with the new offense coming in. I think he saw an opportunity to become a major contributor within this offense. And throughout the spring, he demonstrated that. He had a great spring. He's coming off a spring game where he was the leading receiver in the game and was able to make a lot of deep plays for us."
Easley was also coming off a final 2008 game against Pitt when he caught two passes for 54 yards, including a 43-yard fourth quarter connection with Tyler Lorenzen. He used that game to drive himself to be better in the off-season. And based on the results in the spring game, it's worked.
"It all started after last season. The role I had last year wasn't as big as I would have liked, so I took that, I used that as motivation, working on getting bigger, stronger, faster, and I improved. I made some strides this spring. I stayed up here all summer, working out with the team and trying to put myself in a better position come this fall."
That increased work ethic wasn't lost on Edsall, either. As good as Easley had been in high school at Bunnell, he wasn't offered a scholarship anywhere. He walked on at UConn and, for two years, paid his dues. He worked on special teams, made the occasional catch. He did whatever he was needed to do.
Edsall noticed that, too. And last Friday, he called Easley into his office and gave him some exciting news: He had earned a scholarship.
"It was an accumulation of all the things he's done from when he first got here until now," Edsall said. "Marcus has contributed on special teams and also as a receiver. He's continually worked hard and done the things that everyone else within the program has done. He got himself on the field and put himself in a position to be a contributor here, so I rewarded the young man for his dedication and his efforts."
For Easley, earning Edsall's praise was a big relief.
"When you hear, 'Coach wants to see you,' you never know what to expect. Could be something good, could be something bad. I couldn't remember doing anything bad, so I wasn't sure," Easley said. "He's real big on paying the price, putting in your time. I put in the effort and my hard work paid off."
Contact Chris Elsberry at email@example.com


text: Back | You are here: Homepage ... Service Procurement If you can't find a quality tool here, you won't find it anywhere else. We offer the biggest range, one that's thoroughly up-to-date and offers the best cost/benefit ratio. Of our more than 500,000 listed tools, we include over 60,000 in the catalogue so that exactly the right tool for you is available immediately.And we've still got a trump card up our sleeve: our procurement service, which is able to provide additional help when the going gets tough. The specialists who staff our procurement service are the experts you can turn to if you need to place an order with complicated requirements – or if there's something you can't find in our range. Our procurement service employees will make sure that you receive exactly the tool or the spare parts that you need.


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A new Activision website for the Transformers movie sequel video game features shots of robot modes for the Chevy Spark (Beat) and Trax. Frankly, they both look like hicks. A larger, higher-quality shot below.
The Transformers forum fan-boys at TFW2005 found a new Activision website for the inspired-by-Transformers-2 video game. The front page of the new game site features a shot of the robot modes for the Chevy Spark and Trax. Frankly, they both look like hicks. Ghetto hicks, but yes, hicks. Seriously, look at the sleepy eye and bored, folded-over arms. I half expect the Chevy Spark (also known as Skids in the movie) to be sitting back in a rocking chair on a porch, hat on head, and a piece of straw in its mouth. Maybe a banjo sitting next to him. What say you?
[Activision via TFW2005]


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How Do I?
How-to Instructions for Southeastern Students, Faculty, and Staff
Whether you are a student, faculty member or university staff member, How Do I? is here to answer all your "how do I" questions with LEONet, PeopleAdmin, Moodle, Gmail, TimeCentre, and OU Campus. By clicking on your choice below, you will be linked to a list of easy to understand how-to instructions that will answer most of your questions.
LEONet (PeopleSoft)
LEONet is Southeastern's online university administration system. LEONet provides students, faculty, and staff instant access to information and services online, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
For Students
Learn how to complete tasks such as register for classes, view your grades, or even print an unofficial transcript.
For Faculty
Learn how to complete faculty tasks in LEO such as enter grades, view your class roster, or even your class schedule.
For Deans and Department Heads
Learn how to access and print Faculty SACS Credentials using either a PC or a Mac.
For CSE Advisors
Learn how to complete tasks such as using the Administration Tracking System and the Registration Tracking as well as how to run necessary queries in LEONet.
LEO's Student Administration System
Faculty and staff can learn how to complete administrative tasks in LEO, such as find student information or class schedules, remove advising blocks, print student unofficial transcripts, give department consent for a student to register for a class, build class schedules, enter reassigned time for faculty, or pull a faculty workload accountability report.
Employee Self-Serve (HR System)
Employees can learn how to view personal payroll checks, leave balances, health benefits, salary history, and other employment information in LEO.
PeopleAdmin is Southeastern's Online Applicant Tracking and Position Management System. These How Do I? instructions provide Hiring Managers, Department Heads, and other administrators with instructions on how to create new position descriptions, modify existing position descriptions, and request to advertise vacant positions.
Southeastern offers online courses using Moodle. Moodle is a free web application software known as a Course Management System (CMS), a Learning Management System (LMS) or a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Instructors use it to create effective online courses where students can complete assignments, watch videos, take tests, check their grades, and many other tasks. These instructions will help users get logged in and prepare them to take an online course in Moodle at Southeastern.
Southeastern uses Gmail as its web-based email system. It offers students, faculty, and staff the flexibility of accessing email from any computer connected to the Internet. Southeastern students, faculty, and staff may find these basic instructions helpful when using Southeastern's Gmail.
OU Campus
OU Campus is the new Web Content Management System for the Southeastern Website. These How Do I? instructions provide contributors and approvers with instructions on how to create, edit, and publish web pages to the Southeastern Website.


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When considering any stock for your portfolio, don't be swayed by just the positives. Examine its pros and cons and decide whether it's possible upside outweighs its risks. Let's take a look at RF Micro Devices (NASDAQ: RFMD) today, and see why you might want to buy, sell, or hold it.
Founded in 1991 and based in North Carolina, RF Micro Devices is a semiconductor company specializing in radio frequency (RF) components and technologies. Its offerings enable and support mobile connectivity and communications. The company has a market capitalization of about $1.3 billion, and its stock is up about 4% over the past year and down 3.3%, on average, annually over the past decade.
The first thing to like about the company is the company it keeps. It's supplying technology for products that are proliferating rapidly -- very rapidly. We're talking phones and smartphones and tablets, for example.
Not all the numbers in its financial statements are appealing, but some are. Its long-term debt has fallen sharply, from more than $600 million in 2008 to just $119 million recently. It's not cash-poor either, with its cash and short-term investments coffers recently holding $300 million. Given that it's been free-cash-flow positive for several years in a row now, that bodes well for its health.
Meanwhile, while many mobile device suppliers have their fortunes very tied to Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), RF Micro Devices is less tied to it, though it does supply products such as the iPhone 5. Instead, the company is a major supplier for Nokia (NYSE:NOK), which has found success providing less developed economies with less expensive mobile phones. This is broadening RF Micro Devices' customer base. (Nokia may be in trouble, though, as smarter phones gain traction and its market share in China is shrinking.)
RF Micro Devices's Wi-Fi business is expected to grow strongly. In its last quarter, it topped analyst expectations and posted a shrinking loss.
Warren Buffett has long offered a good reason to sell stocks such as RF Micro Devices: He avoids companies that are outside his circle of competence, and companies where he can't comfortably predict how they'll be doing in five, 10, or 20 years. He's confident, for example, that people will still be drinking sodas in a decade, but the fortunes of firms in the fast-changing technology arena are much murkier.
Indeed, while RF Micro Devices' offerings have often complemented those of Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM), with mobile device makers buying supplies from both, Qualcomm has recently launched a new chipset that manages older and newer wireless standards (such as 4G LTE) and includes front-end signal processing, power management, and radio band tuning. In other words, it may eat RF Micro Devices' lunch, along with the lunches of several other players, such as Skyworks Solutions (NASDAQ:SWKS). Presto! RF Micro Devices' future suddenly looks different, or at least less certain, which was why its shares dropped some 15% on the news. An analyst at Lazard saw that drop as an overreaction, though, and upped his rating for the company to buy.
Other Wall Street analysts have been finding things to like about the company, with Topeka Capital in January rating it a hold and citing its increasingly diverse customer base and new products. In February, Oppenheimer analysts rated it to perform along with the market (i.e., not outperform it) and didn't see the company growing fast enough to justify its valuation. Notice that those aren't buy ratings, though the stock does sport some of those, too.
The Wall Street ratings are largely tied to the stock's valuation, featuring a forward P/E of 18 and a current P/E that's negative, due to RF Micro Devices having net losses instead of net gains. On a more reasonable note, its price-to-sales ratio is just 1.6, which is far from nosebleed territory. The company's revenue and earnings have surged and dipped, recently dipping. Its free cash flow has also been shrinking.
Hold (off)
Given the reasons to buy or sell RF Micro Devices, it's not unreasonable to decide to just hold off on it. You might want to wait for the company to move back into the black or for Nokia's fortunes to seem more clearly promising. You might simply wait for a lower price at which to buy to provide a margin of safety, though the stock price is already in penny stock territory, where many investors have lost fortunes.
You might also check out some other interesting related companies, to see if they seem like better bargains than RF Micro Devices. Perhaps take a look at China Mobile (NYSE:CHL), the world's largest mobile carrier, which has huge growth potential, given the country's relatively low mobile phone penetration. It seems reasonably valued, with a P/E below 11 and a forward P/E of just 8.5. The company's leader is worried about threats from apps such as Skype, though.
The verdict
I'm holding off on RF Micro Devices for now. Everyone's investment calculations are different, though. So do your own digging and see what you think. The company may perform spectacularly in the coming years, but remember that there are plenty of compelling stocks out there.


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Installing Rappture on Linux Systems
The following are instructions describe how to install the precompiled binary packages of Rappture on Linux systems.
1. Download the tar file that is correct for your architecture.
For 32-bit Linux systems: rappture-Linux-i686-20130903.tar.gz (139MB)
For 64-bit Linux systems: rappture-Linux-x86_64-20130903.tar.gz (124MB)
2. Create the destination directory (for example /usr/local/rappture) where you would like Rappture installed:
mkdir /usr/local/rappture
3. Unpack the tar file into the destination directory:
tar -C /usr/local/rappture xvf <tarfile>
where <tarfile> is the name of the tar file that your downloaded in Step #1.
4. Edit the rappture.env file to indicate where you installed Rappture.
Edit the file bin/rappture.env in the destination directory.
vi /usr/local/rappture/bin/rappture.env
Change the exec_prefix variable to the location of the destination directory.
5. Try running rappture. First put the Rappture bin directory in your command path:
export PATH=/usr/local/rappture/bin:$PATH
Now, run one of the examples:
cd /usr/local/rappture/examples/app-fermi/tcl rappture
This should bring up a simple Fermi function simulator, built with Rappture and Tcl!
Try another example:
cd ../../graph rappture
This should bring up a simple graphing calculator, built with Rappture and Python!
If this fails
If you have problems with the binary package, you also can try building Rappture for you system. See the instructions here.


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What is Christian unity?
If you are anything like me in this time of political unrest you might be wondering, "What does my faith say about all this ill will between persons of good faith?" Like you, I have my political opinions. Like you, I have my spiritual convictions. Like you, when there seems to be a tension between these two heart-felt values, whether those tensions are real or manufactured, I tend toward my spiritual conviction over my political opinion. And, like you, I seek others to help me understand the core issue asked of Jesus, "Lord, who is my neighbor?" There are, of course, Scriptural answers to all these questions. Yet the reality is we Christians differ on our interpretation of Scripture almost as much as we differ on our opinions of the place Scripture plays in our lives, not to mention our politics. It is in that spirit that I share with you the perspective of three scholars I hold in high regard. Dr. Charles Gutenson served 10 years at Asbury Seminary in Kentucky. Rev. Mike Slaughter is pastor of Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church in Tipp, Ohio. Dr. Robert P. Jones writes a weekly column for the Washington Post "On Faith." These three published authors have came together to write a book I recommend to you, "Hijacked, responding to the partisan church divide." The rest of this article is taken directly from their book.
"Remember that Jesus said Christians would be known, not by their ability to draw lines between themselves and those with whom they disagree, not by their ability to hold only true opinions on all matters, but rather by their love for one another quite apart from whether they fully agree on all issues. The oft-recited notion that we are to "believe and let believe" is not adequate for those who claim to be followers of Jesus. No, we must not only "tolerate" one another and our differing opinions. Rather, we are to love one another in spite of our divergent opinions – a love that bridges the ideological differences and allows us to join hands with one another and with God in his great work of reconciling the world to himself. "In all things, charity" means being able to look past the points at which we differ and to look instead at the deep unity of belief and commitment we have in naming Jesus as Lord and following him. It is to recognize a deeper fellowship around our Risen Lord, even if we are deeply in disagreement over any one of a number of political ideas. Is one a capitalist and another a socialist? Is one a Democrat and another a Republican? Is one a strong believer in the separation of church and state, while another is less committed? Does one embrace just war theory? Does another embrace Christian pacifism? Positions on none of these issues – nor a host of others like them – are valid reasons for division in the local church; but even more than that, none of them are a basis for not engaging one another with Christian charity. God is not a respecter of political parties; and while we will most likely belong to one of the many parties available, our partisan commitments must never be allowed to infiltrate the church."
If those words touch you as deeply as they do me, we are on the path of reconciliation together.
Pastor Pete Nelson of Carson Valley United Methodist Church is a member of Carson Valley Ministers' Association.


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The City of Portland and Elliotsville Plantation, Inc. are pleased to announce their ongoing collaboration to create a conservancy in Portland that supports municipal parks, trails, and open spaces. A six-member steering committee, which includes a representative from the City and a past Chair of the Parks Commission, will kick off a series of meetings starting tonight to determine the structure and implementation plan of the conservancy. The meetings are open to the public and meeting dates and locations will be posted online on the City of Portland's website.
Lucas St. Clair of Elliotsville Plantation, Inc. initiated the effort to create a parks conservancy in Portland this summer after a series of conversations with local stakeholders. Private foundations and conservancies to support municipal parks have grown in number across the country. These foundations engage the philanthropic and business communities in their municipalities to bolster the sustainability and ensure the success of local parks. Lucas St. Clair heard from many residents that a similar initiative in Portland could prove successful.
Members of the steering committee include Sally Deluca, Director of the City of Portland's Department of Parks, Recreation and Facilities, Diane Davison, Executive Director of Friends of the Eastern Promenade and a former Chair of the Portland Parks Commission, and other stakeholders and opinion leaders in the greater Portland area. Simon Thompson will lead the committee's efforts on behalf of Elliotsville Plantation, Inc.
"Portland is lucky to have such an extensive and well-maintained parks system," said Lucas St. Clair, President of Elliotsville Plantation, Inc. "This conservancy will aim to continue our tradition of treasuring public space and to encourage even more Portlanders to take advantage of all that Portland has to offer."
"We at the City of Portland are excited to see this community-led effort come together to support our parks and open spaces," said Sally Deluca, Director of the City's Department of Parks, Recreation and Facilities. "I look forward to engaging in the work of the steering committee and building a strong private-public partnership that will be around for generations to come."
"I began speaking with Lucas about this idea several months ago, and I couldn't be more thrilled to see it moving forward," said Dory Waxman, Chair of the Portland Parks Commission. "I know that the work thus far has been collaborative and inclusive, and I appreciate the effort to continue that moving forward."
Additional information will be posted soon on the City's Parks Department webpage.
WHEN: Portland Parks Conservancy - Blue Sky Commission Meeting, September 6, 2017
WHERE: Portland Public Library, Room 4.


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Watkins Glen again hosting Green Grand Prix, a push for innovation in transportation
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. (AP) � The Green Grand Prix is returning to Watkins Glen International.
The 10th annual showcase of motoring technology returns to the famed road course in the Finger Lakes on April 11. The goal of promoter Bob Gillespie is to preach energy independence, reduce greenhouse gases, and educate the public about alternative fuels.
This year's event will be comprised of a two-stage road rally. The first stage is a 100-mile, fuel-economy event at WGI. The second will be on public roads, with the focus on precision driving, and there will be Electrathon races featuring single-person, high-efficiency electric vehicles with three or four wheels and powered by gel cell battery packs.
Educational seminars and displays by manufacturers and vendors also are part of the activities.
Opening day at the track is April 12.


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I'm William Wyeth, one of four Education & Outreach trainees based at RCAHMS in the year-long Skills for the Future programme. My year at the Commission is split between different parts of RCAHMS' work (Scran, social media, a university module, etc), as well as an external three-month placement. My placement was itself split between Stirling Castle and the Bannockburn Heritage Centre. I've chosen the undiscovered site of the second day of the battle of Bannockburn. The battle itself was a pivotal moment in Scottish history, which combines elements of mythology as much as fact. The physical remains of the battle, however, are almost non-existent; thus far, a single 14th-century arrowhead has been found, which may not be linked to the battle in any case. There is no doubt that the battle of 1314 CE took place somewhere around today's Bannock burn, but frustratingly efforts by archaeologists and metal detectors to locate any evidence in the ground have been unsuccessful.
Since the battle, the area between the Pelstream and Bannock burns (where it is considered the second day of the clash took place) has been used as a ploughed field and dump site for building waste from different periods. Today, the area is largely wild grass, sitting between 20th-century suburban housing and the railway line from Edinburgh to Stirling.
I've chosen the undiscovered battlefield because it represents the challenge to historians and archaeologists in determining the developments on the ground during this critical day in Scottish history. It has also recently been the focus of a Big Dig in June 2013, which saw fantastic community involvement aimed at establishing the site of the second day's battle. Part of the activities on the site was filmed for an upcoming TV show produced to celebrate the 700-year anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn.
This is what I've chosen for Day of Archaeology, but why not tell us your favourite archaeological sites in Scotland on Twitter using #MyArchaeology.
For more information on this site, or others in this area you can also go to the Historic Environment Record for Stirling Council.
Contact Details:
Murray Cook
Municipal Buildings, Corn Exchange, Stirling, FK8 2HU
01786 233663
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Web: http://www.stirling.gov.uk/services/business-and-trade/planning-and-building-standards/archaeology
Searchable HER: http://my.stirling.gov.uk/archaeology_maps


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VANCOUVER — How easy is it to use social media to find out what people are doing, without them realizing they are being watched? It took me less than two minutes to not only identify where
a randomly chosen 16-yearold girl lives, goes to school and hangs out with friends, but also to pinpoint within three houses where she babysits. And when she's home alone with the kids.
From the Google Street View of those houses, it's a fair guess she is at the one with all the toys in the yard.
I learned she plays soccer, is in French immersion, and is probably a skier or snowboarder if the resort where she spent Spring Break is any indication. I can probably correctly identify where she went to elementary school. I know what she looks like, and I can recognize her friends. And once I know where she lives, it's not a big stretch to guess her parents' identity.
Creepy? Yes. Hard to do? No. Just ask Karl Swannie, founder of Victoria technology start-up EchoSec, a company that has created a search engine that mines close to 500 data feeds, including social media networks and open data from governments and the private sector - the search engine I used to randomly pick out a traveller at the Vancouver airport to see how much I could learn from their digital trail.
If it hadn't been for EchoSec aggregating everything posted from a location in a single search, it would have been difficult to pick out the teen's single Twitter post from millions of others. What sets EchoSec apart from other search technology is its ability to "geo-fence" - that is, to draw a virtual line around a building or an area, and to tap into all the publicly available data from that location. That means not only social media feeds but open data that could include everything from live webcam feeds to government information.
"It definitely opened my eyes," said Swannie. "There's a level of education that has to happen out there. People have to be aware that (their digital postings are) permanent, it's public. This is definitely a new way to visualize the data."
The public version of Echo-Sec's search technology that I was using has only a handful of feeds. The full version will have close to 500 sources of information that can deliver everything from the risky to the risqué.
The ability to track kids by targeting a school building worried Swannie so much that he disabled the software that made it easy to track an individual. Not that someone still couldn't do it themselves, though.
And he is warning police, governments, companies and even military organizations that they should be aware information is being shared that is timestamped, traceable, and can be "mined, followed and predicted."
Freely available Swannie's company stumbled across its discovery by accident while it was working on a search engine to help urban planners determine how people use public spaces. But the information its search engine taps is freely available, and anyone with the time, the inclination and the tech talent could create similar tracking tools.
"Everything that we're doing is public information," said Swannie. "We're not digging deep. This is stuff that you can freely find."
Using his company's search engine, Swannie draws a circle around a local high school on a map.
From a cloud of icons indicating everything from Twitter posts to Instagram photos, Swannie picks one tweet - from a teenage girl. Another click and clusters of posts indicate where the teen spends most of her time.
"This is where she goes to school," says Swannie, hovering the cursor on one cloud of social media posts. "And this is probably where she lives," he says, hovering on another cluster of tweets.
Google Street View opens and a couple of houses come into view.
"Probably in one of those houses," adds Swannie.
EchoSec's search engine - which mines photos, text and other information posted by social media users and links it to maps - reflects a trend that is seeing companies manipulate large amounts of data in a way that is raising concerns among privacy advocates and prompting warnings from Internet and child safety experts.
"Just because information has been posted and the individual has said yes to Twitter to geo-locate their posts, they don't understand that there are other companies that may be out there mining that data, mashing it up with other data, and creating these new tools," said B.C.'s Information and Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham. "I do think there's a problem in the chain of consent and the kind of ecosystem that has developed around the use of data, and social media in particular.
"It's complicated, but at the end of the day, individuals have a right to know how their information is being used by companies."
EchoSec's search engine depends on the geo-location feature prominent with many social networks - it could be someone checking in on Four-Square (a social media network that identifies a user's location), or someone on Twitter or another social network opting to have public posts appear with location information based on GPS-provided latitude and longitude.
The information is public, but unless someone knows exactly what they are looking for, it's likely to be inaccessible.
EchoSec's full search engine can reveal far more information than the public version, and privacy and security experts point out that others can tap into the same available data - both for good (law enforcement) and for bad.
"I think geo-fencing and this kind of creep factor is something that we all really need to look at," said Denham.
Her office has had discussions with EchoSec and other companies that are developing new technologies, and encourage them to think about privacy implications.
"The technology itself is neutral, but depending on how the technology is used and implemented and whether it's used by government or by commercial enterprises or individuals, they all have different implications," said Denham. "It's a pretty complex area."
Denham said open data is a good concept, "but we really need to think it through because it's never just data."
"It's often personal information about real people, and people who have a right to be informed that businesses are collecting their data and they have a legal right to know how businesses are using it."
In Canada, privacy laws protect people from having data, even public data, used without notice and without their consent.
"Unlike the United States, here in Canada we have these comprehensive privacy laws that apply to publicly available personal information such as that which is found in geolocated social media posts," she said.
But Denham said consumers have a responsibility to protect their own privacy.
"Nobody likes to feel they're being watched. But many people fail to disable GPS, and they also need to change their settings when they get new devices," she said. "Consumers need to do some work. They need to make themselves aware of privacy controls in social media."
Maintaining privacy Swannie said he doesn't think governments or companies realize the extent of the information that employees reveal through social media.
Using the search engine's geofencing tool, Swannie checked out military bases throughout North America and overseas.
"The first thing people check into on any base is the ammo (depot). I can show you the exact point of every ammunition dump on military bases," he said.
Swannie mapped the nearby Esquimalt Canadian Forces
Base and found a wealth of photos and postings. The Vancouver Sun sent examples of the military posts to Daniel Le Bouthillier, head of media relations at the Ministry of National Defence, who said there were "no operational security concerns" with those posts.
Le Bouthillier said members of the Armed Forces are encouraged to communicate publicly about their own experiences and expertise, in accordance with the government's communications policy. Among the requirements of that policy is a provision that employees respect privacy rights and national security.
From military bases, EchoSec started exploring other sensitive locations.
"We started rolling into areas like Fort McMurray and finding equally interesting things," said Swannie. He said the search engine turned up a photo of a person "with big bags of weed," and 15 minutes later was posting pictures showing that person working with heavy machinery.
The information is mapped, so that you can single out anything from your house, to a company's corporate headquarters, to a high school, or riots in the streets of Kiev. The data can also be filtered by date.
Peter Chow-White, a communications professor at Simon Fraser University and associate director of the Centre for Policy and Research in Science and Technology, is a tech-savvy specialist in big data and social media, yet even he was surprised at how much information EchoSec's search engine revealed about people who likely don't realize they could be tracked in such a way.
"This kind of bends our privacy laws into directions they definitely were not intended," he said. "Our current privacy laws were drafted in a time of email, not in a time of geo-tagging social media and big database linkages."
Chow-White drew a geofence around SFU and found photos of children who were at the campus for Spring Break camps.
"On the one hand, these kids are just sharing their information. On the other hand, I don't really want people to know my kids are away at a camp," he said. "It's another example of maintaining privacy. You have to be enormously active and savvy to maintain your privacy in a digital age."
Chow-White said databases on their own may have limited uses, but when they are linked together they can reveal considerably more information. "Obviously, the risks run the gamut from the everyday risks to people's personal information and their own well-being and their own sense of moving around without being watched, but it also raises some larger critical national issues around security as risks for the military and other security agencies," he said.
A free, public version of the search engine is available on EchoSec's website, but that uses only a handful of the sources the company taps into when collecting information for law enforcement agencies or other clients.
Unknowing risks Kelly Sundberg, an associate professor at Mount Royal University's department of justice studies, who has done research on the use of social media in law enforcement, said Echo-Sec's geo-fencing makes it easy to see an entire spectrum of social media feeds, including confidential data about companies and other sites.
"If you geo-fence a sensitive area, you can see even (into) places that have a policy where people shouldn't be taking photos and posting them publicly," said Sundberg.
Sundberg said that with some of the available technology such as facial recognition, people could create search tools to mine data that could become even more revealing.
While many people turn off the geo-locating feature of their social media feeds, others turn it on deliberately, and many aren't even aware that it exists at all.
"I don't think a lot of people realize the default settings of their mobile phones or smartphones is to geo-tag," said Sundberg. "A lot of people don't realize they are being geotracked with their smartphones and mobile devices."
Merlyn Horton, executive director of the Safe Online Outreach Society (SOLOS), which teaches online safety to parents and children, said the EchoSec search engine highlights the risks young people unknowingly take when they publish geo-located posts on the Internet. "There are unintended consequences of the technology. You're taking militarygrade tools and you can apply them to surveying youth and minors, " she said.
The EchoSec search engine doesn't just mine social networking data. It can also tap into video camera feeds that are publicly available, as well as other open data.
"It's getting super creepy," said Horton. "We are living in this age where we are being observed all the time. The issue is people's lack of awareness."
With children getting smartphones at younger ages, they often lack the knowledge and experience to keep themselves safe online, according to Horton. "It's a loaded Uzi in the hands of a Grade 5 student," she said of smartphones filled with social networking apps. "They're always leaving a digital trail."
Horton said SOLOS presentations include advice about turning off geo-location, but even people who are careful are sometimes unaware they are broadcasting their whereabouts.
"When we talk about geolocation in our presentations, they'll turn it off. But often it gets turned back on when you reset your phone," she said.
Const. Mike Russell, a social media officer and spokesman with the Victoria Police Department, said that while the information EchoSec uncovers isn't new, its scope and the way the information can be delivered is. "The fact this information is being aggregated in one spot is new," he said.
Russell said individuals need to check privacy settings on their social media networks, and employees should be aware of their company or organization's social media policy. "If you have location services turned on in your Twitter account, you can pinpoint a house within about three houses," he said. "People need to be aware of that."
However, geo-located social media posts can also help police. In Victoria, a man boasted on Facebook after a 2013 drive-by shooting that police were after him, and police were alerted to the post. Dennis Fletcher was caught and sentenced to eight years in jail for attempted murder.
email@example.com vancouversun.com/digitallife
EchoSec's search engine mines photos, text and other information posted by social media users and links it to maps. The cloud of icons above indicates everything from Twitter posts to Instagram photos.
Experts say most people are unaware that location services need to be manually disabled on their smartphones. iPhone settings are shown below.


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EDMONTON - At less than four metres wide, the office building at 104th Street and Jasper Avenue is one of downtown Edmonton's skinniest commercial buildings.
But if it is redeveloped into a restaurant with street-level and rooftop patios, it could enliven its surroundings in a big way, says owner Zoeb Dungarwalla.
The two-storey, 500-square-metre property sits on a narrow, rectangular site sandwiched by Cecil Place, which houses a Sobeys food store and office space, and Beaver Hills House park.
The building, which formerly housed a law firm, fronts Jasper Avenue and sits steps away from the increasingly trendy commercial and residential strip of 104th Street.
"Our purpose is to make it more attractive for the park as well as the area," Dungarwalla said. "It's a prime part of downtown. We've got a great opportunity to create something beautiful and incorporate the park and make it more vibrant and attractive for everyone that comes downtown.
"If you drive down Jasper Avenue today, there are a lot of blank spots. There are certain pockets that are thriving, but I think this part of downtown could do with that same injection of life that other parts of Jasper have seen."
Dungarwalla stressed that the project is still in early stages. Dub Architects is drawing up plans and no restaurant operator has been named.
"We have had some proposals from several groups, but it's something we cannot disclose at this time," said Dungarwalla, who purchased the building about two years ago.
Dub Architects has applied for a city development permit to turn the office building into a restaurant with 235 square metres of public space. The second floor would be expanded and a third floor and rooftop patio added. An at-grade patio is also in the plans and the building would be reconfigured inside and out.
The concept calls for a design that is open and activates the street and park, said Gene Dub, of Dub Architects.
"The challenge is not so much changing the space," Dub said. "The real challenge is the building is only 13 feet wide and you end up with a long row and (the challenge is) to make it feel expansive."
Dub said he did not know if the building ranked among downtown Edmonton's narrowest commercial spaces.
"I couldn't tell you, but it sure would be in the running."
Dungarwalla doesn't believe the building's long, skinny, shape will stand in the way of redevelopment.
"Anything can be used well, if it's creatively designed and executed," Dungarwalla said.
On Twitter: @mahspace


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Although the brick and concrete-penetrating Prism 200c can't see through clothes like the perv-preferred Midnight Shot NV-1, it's still pretty neat! The backpack-mounted scanner uses ultra-wideband radio waves to scan a room for baddies before they know you're there.
The pack even allows for quasi-3D perspective shifting, so that you can pick the best spot to pop in and surprise everyone. Just don't expect to be able to see if they've got their guns up and ready for you - people on the other side of a wall only show up as little dots. So, it's not exactly x-ray vision stuff, but still highly useful - and the first tech of its kind small enough for a person to use singlehandedly. It's a little odd that you're supposed to lean against the wall backwards while the scanner buzzes through and then look through the scope, but hey - wall-busting radar is wall-busting radar. Now if there were only some way to combine this and the Midnight Shot. Just saying.
Also: first person in the comments to make an Aliens reference wins 600 Gizmodo points.


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Kirk Cameron is best known for playing Mike Seaver in the 1980s TV sitcom Growing Pains or his leading roles in Christian films such as Fireproof or the Left Behind series. What most don't know about, however, is the former child star's ministry side. Charisma connected with Cameron for a revealing interview about this and a related new movie.
Charisma: Every summer, you and your family invite terminally and seriously ill children and their families to Camp Firefly. What inspired you to start this camp?
Kirk Cameron: It's a camp my wife and I started with our family about 24 years ago, when we were working on Growing Pains. We were meeting lots of children through the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Their wish was to meet the Seaver family and get an autograph. Our hearts went out to them. My wife and I wanted to do something more for them than just sign a piece of paper and take a picture.
Charisma:What's the purpose of Camp Firefly?
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Cameron: [We thought], "Wouldn't it be great if we could create an all-expenses-paid, weeklong vacation so that families can be together?" Often their wish lasts for a day or two and then they're back to their routine of dad working two jobs and mom at the hospital with the child and the siblings being taken to school by grandma and grandpa or an aunt and uncle.
We wanted to put them in an environment where they can just focus on their friends and family, or just focus on their faith and building friendships that will support them through this very difficult and challenging time. We bring six families to a camp in Georgia. It's a beautiful family resort, and everyone stays in beautiful private condominiums. Lexus donates a car for each family to drive during the week. It's just a terrific week.
Charisma: How do you go about selecting the children that come to your camp?
Cameron: We don't discriminate based on what people's faith or religion are. We simply ask our doctors and social workers at hospitals all over the country to recommend families. They come from all different backgrounds. We have lots of time to talk sitting around the campfire and at the pool ... and activities that lend themselves to talking about faith, family, friendships and eternity.
Charisma: What impact has Camp Firefly had on you?
Cameron: It adds a whole new level to your compassion. It forces you to deal with difficult questions—and ask tough questions, like, "Why does God let bad things happen?"
Charisma: Is that what led you to make your new film, Unstoppable [releasing in theaters nationwide for one night only on Sept. 24]?
Cameron: It was based on a true story of the Sandgren family who came to Camp Firefly three years ago and lost their son to cancer.
I got a phone call one day from Mr. Sandgren saying that Matthew had just passed away. It just took all of the air out of my lungs. I found myself sitting in the driveway, saying, "Lord, why didn't You heal him? Lord, help me to understand."
Charisma: Did you find an answer to your question while making this film?
Cameron: Well, without giving the whole movie away, I discovered that history reveals to us that everything going on from the beginning of creation is part of His story—that God is offering a story and, yes, there is pain and suffering, but God is right there in the middle of it. He's not avoiding it. He is right here with us.
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NEW YORK, N.Y. – The price of oil showed a small gain Tuesday, as positive U.S. economic news provided some support while traders wait for the latest supply reports.
In New York benchmark oil for August delivery rose 14 cents to end at $95.32 a barrel.
A trio of economic reports boosted both oil and stocks. The government said U.S. businesses ordered more long-lasting manufactured goods, including a surge in commercial aircraft orders. Readings on home prices and consumer confidence were also positive.
The Dow Jones industrial average was up more than 100 points in afternoon trading. Oil trading is often influenced by stock market trends which can reflect the state of confidence in the economic outlook.
Traders are awaiting the weekly report on oil and gasoline supplies due out Wednesday from the Energy Department. The nation's supply of crude oil is near a record level, while gasoline supplies remain high because of tepid demand.
Drivers are seeing some relief in gas prices. The price of a gallon fell a penny to an average of $3.55. It's dropped 8 cents in two weeks.
Brent crude, used to set prices for oil used by many U.S. refineries to make gasoline, rose 10 cents to end at $101.26 a barrel.
In other energy futures trading on the Nymex:
— Natural gas lost 9 cents to finish at $3.65 per 1,000 cubic feet.
— Heating oil rose less than a cent to end at $2.86 a gallon.
— Wholesale gasoline was unchanged at $2.73 a gallon.
Pablo Gorondi in Budapest contributed to this report.