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Fall harvest is upon us, with about 20% or more of corn and soybeans probably harvested by now.
We are starting to get a handle on yields, and so far the yields have been impressive, and much better than most farmers expected. While most producers were only expecting average yields, many are getting either the second largest or largest yields ever of both corn and soybeans.
Of course, with yields trending higher (for example, 2 bushels per acre per year higher in corn) each year due to improved technology, perhaps we should expect that? For many producers in Northern areas, we may not top 2016 yields for a while. Yet, 2017 yields are decent as well, with Southern areas reporting the best yields due to a relatively cool August. Soybean yields are also impressive in most areas, and it seems the farther south you go, the happier farmers are with their soybean yields.
Crop conditions released yesterday, showed an improvement of 2% in corn rated G/E to 63% G/E, which resulted in an improvement in the Pro Ag yield model of 0.80 bushels per acre to 172.4 bushels per acre. We have also heard some surprisingly good yield results from those who have harvested some corn. The yields in most cases are not as good as last year (though some are), but they are much better than farmers expected. Corn harvest is 17% complete, 9% behind normal while 96% is dented (2% behind normal), and 68% is mature (10% behind normal). Northern states still lag normal progress, even though we are into October already, in some cases two weeks later than a normal frost. It's very fortunate we didn't have cold weather the past few weeks, as even a normal frost would have done some damage to crop yield potential.
Soybean conditions were steady at 60% rated G/E, with the Pro Ag yield model down slightly to 47.3 bushels per acre, down 0.16 bushel per acre from last week. Soybeans are closer to being on schedule, with 80% dropping leaves (2% ahead of normal) while 22% are harvested (4% behind normal).
Cotton is 17% harvested (4% ahead of normal), while cotton conditions were down 3% to 57% rated G/E, still well above last year's 49% rating.
Sorghum is 94% coloring (equal to average), with 60% mature (3% behind normal) and 34% harvested (3% behind normal also). Sorghum ratings were 64% rated G/E (unchanged), still 2% behind last year's excellent crop.
Sugar beets are 22% harvested, 1% behind normal.
Winter wheat is 36% planted, 7% behind normal as it's been wet in HRW wheat country the past few weeks. Winter wheat is 12% emerged, 4% behind normal as well. Soil moisture levels rose last week (mostly in the western Corn Belt where rains were frequent), with subsoil up 3% to 59% adequate/surplus, and subsoil was also up 3% to 57% rated adequate/surplus. Both are still well below last year's 75% rating.
Note PLC payments for 2016 are finalized, with corn payments at 34¢ per bushel ($3.70 support minus $3.36 marketing year average price). Wheat payments are a whopping $1.61 per bushel (figured at $5.50 support minus $3.89 MYA price). Soybeans will have no PLC payment; with support at $8.40, the MYA was $9.47, above the support price.
Weather forecasts are oscillating back and forth for the eight- to 14-day forecast. Some updates are turning back to near-normal or even above-normal temps, and some are trying to turn it colder and drier. The most recent is back to mostly below-normal precip (except the Southeast U.S.), and normal to below-normal temps (except the eastern Corn Belt which is above normal). The seven-day nearby forecast is more predictable, with precip above normal to normal in most of the Midwest favoring the western Corn Belt and HRW wheat belt. Temps are above normal in the seven-day period for nearly all of the Corn Belt.
Stocks numbers released Friday, 9/29, were mostly smaller than expected for corn (-54 mb) and soybeans (-38 mb). That supported those markets all day, as they gained in strength throughout the day, but then at the close soybeans and corn
lost half their gains in a weak finish. The U.S. dollar has had a recent resurgence higher, and that is hurting grain prices (especially wheat). Since the report, prices have sagged lower for all grains, perhaps a typical harvest price response when yields are better than expected.
In the 9/29 Small Grains Report, HRS production was actually hiked from 401 mb for "other spring" wheat category to 416 mb. This was very disappointing for those expecting an acreage and production cut. HRS wheat production was instead
increased from 364 mb to 385 mb, with harvested acreage reduced but yields hiked. Total wheat production was therefore up 16 mb from September numbers, with wheat stocks then up 33 mb from traders' expectations. That was most bearish HRS wheat, and here we are pushing into new low territory for HRS December futures.
In the HRS wheat numbers, harvested acreage was reduced 140,000 acres in Minnesota; 90,000 in North Dakota; 270,000 in South Dakota; and 15,000 in Idaho. But harvested acreage was hiked in Montana (+170,000 acres) and +10,000 acres in Oregon. Yield offset the acreage decline, with yields up 5 bushels per acre in Idaho, +6 bushels in Minnesota, +5 bushels in North Dakota, and +13 bushels in Oregon.
Yields were down 1 bushel per acre in Montana, South Dakota, and Washington. The net result was an increase of 22 mb in North Dakota, -10 mb in South Dakota, with minor adjustments in other states for a net hike of 15 mb. (Traders expected a decline of 14 to 20 mb instead). So this was a bearish HRS and wheat report.
With trends turning back down in wheat and corn, and soybean prices sagging as well, this might be a year when prices sag into harvest of what is turning out to be a better-than-expected yield of corn and soybeans.


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Mumbai: Actor Tiger Shroff, who is busy shooting for his forthcoming film 'Student of the Year 2', says that he feels happy because after the success of 'Baaghi 2', top brands are approaching him for the endorsements deals.
Tiger Shroff was interacting with media here at the launch of innerwear brand Macho's new collection 'Macho Hint' as their brand ambassador on Tuesday.
Tiger Shroff made his Hindi film debut in 'Heropanti' which released in 2014.
Asked if he sees his brand value increasing with each passing day, Tiger Shroff said: "I feel really happy for that, especially after the success of 'Baaghi 2', I have been getting lot of appreciation and my brand value has gone up.
"I am really thankful that lot of brands have started believing in me."
Earlier Salman Khan and Ajay Devgn used to endorse innerwear brand 'Macho' but now Tiger Shroff has replaced both of them.
Asked whether he sees himself in competition with the established actors, Tiger Shroff said: "Definitely not… especially Salman sir and Ajay sir are really big stars.
"They have been ruling the film industry for a very long time. But I am really thankful that I am getting an opportunity to be a part of such a great brand."
'Student of the Year 2' is student-drama film directed by Punit Malhotra. It is a sequel to the 2012 film 'Student of the Year'.


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Snapshots of Argentina
While waiting for the boat to splash, we stayed in an apartment in San Isidro, a suburb of Buenos Aires. We had fun getting to know the neighborhood, visiting the nearby panaderia (bakery) almost daily, walking down cobblestoned sidewalks to the grocery store, and especially walking to the park where there were sets of exercise equipment. This equipment is found in a lot of public parks in Argentina (and in Uruguay we found later). The girls loved it, especially because we didn't have a lot of non-rainy days during the time that we stayed there.
Katie was thrilled whenever we agreed to take the elevator to our third-floor apartment – two sets of sliding metal grate doors had to be opened one at a time, and there was a jolt at the end that always had Ted and myself a little worried about what was going to happen. We also got to learn how to use a new washing machine, and the girls learned to hang our laundry inside (see the above about lack of non-rainy days…)


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We have a guest posting this week from Prof. Tim Skern of the Max F. Perutz Laboratories in Vienna, Austria. As well as providing a counterpart to TIR's earlier post on how to choose a PhD position, Tim also offers a number of recommendations for how to handle yourself in PhD interviews.
He writes:
Why do a PhD?
The first thing that a young scientist thinking about applying for a PhD should consider is herself or himself. Be very clear why you want to do a PhD. Many applicants answer this question from an interview panel by stating that they have a passion for science. But is this enough? Will your passion carry you through a phase when nothing works? Will it help when you are scooped by another group? For mentors, the quality of perseverance is just as vital as passion. Other qualities which you will need are self-reliance and responsibility for your project (i.e. you are doing it for yourself, for your own interest, and not because your supervisor told you to do it). Remember too that doing a PhD was only rarely a passport to an academic career and is even less so nowadays. The career path from postdoc to junior group leader to professor is still possible but you need a great deal of talent, skill, perseverance, and luck to make it happen in today's world. The analytical and problem-solving skills that you should learn during your PhD will open up numerous career paths for you, so there are many reasons why you could do a PhD besides the desire to find answers to your scientific questions.
Choosing a research field
Once you have decided that you are hell-bent on doing a PhD, look at what's out there. What interests you most? Is there a research area that's pushing back the frontiers? Which recent papers did you find surprising or stimulating? It is crucial that you are really interested in the subject area of your PhD. This will aid you twice over in your search for a PhD position – first, it will allow you to be enthusiastic at the interview; second, it will sustain you in the hard slog when nothing seems to work and the writing of a manuscript or thesis seems a long way away.
The application
Almost all applications are online applications these days, so it is important that you stand out from the other candidates, of whom there are usually many. How can you best do this? When I grade applications, I look first at the reasons given for doing a PhD, and the way the applicant describes her/his interest in the research field. One very important factor is that the application conveys the impression that the candidate has not sent a general application, but has genuinely made a specific application for the program and/or position being advertised. Generic applications are usually eliminated before the group leaders ever see them. Another important aspect of an application are the referees' comments. How detailed is the reference? Is it evident that the reviewer really knows the applicant? How did the applicant perform in the lab during the master's thesis? Above all, was the applicant independent and resourceful?
The interview
You will be competing with other talented students so keep in mind that you should try your best to stand out. Prepare yourself by finding out all you can about the institute and the group leaders offering positions, both on their websites and in PubMed. If you are informed who will be in your interview panel, find out about their research areas. They will most probably ask questions in this area.
Practise your presentation. You should know beforehand what you have to present and how long you will have. In our institute, you have 15 minutes each to describe your master's thesis and a publication from a top journal using a whiteboard. The times and subjects vary from institute to institute; for example, the time for presenting a paper can be as short as 5 min. Whatever the scheme, you must practise your presentations. Above all, you must stick to time. If you go over, you will be out.
For the presentation of both your master's thesis and your publication, start with a three-sentence summary. The first sentence states the question or hypothesis (for example, "This paper examines the structure of DNA"). The second explains what the advance in knowledge is ("DNA has a double helical structure with the bases inside and the phosphate groups as backbone on the outside"). The third presents the implications for the field in the future ("The structure suggests a simple mechanism to ensure the fidelity of DNA replication").
What is the point of this summary? Group leaders always want to hear the advance in knowledge first. They do not need a long introduction or a description of the methods; they know these already. They want to discover whether you have the insight to understand what the implications of the results are. In other words, why was your master's thesis important? What is the significance of the manuscript?
Once you have given the summary, you can pick out one or two key experiments and describe how the authors reached their conclusion. If you find something in the manuscript which you think is flawed or which you think is lacking, then mention this as well to demonstrate your ability to think critically. If you would have done something differently, then this is also worth a mention.
If the interviewers ask you questions on the results or background, then answer them directly and succinctly. Long-winded answers will upset the interviewer. If you do not know the answer, say so. You cannot know everything. If you try and waffle your way through, it will become clear at some point anyway that you do not know the answer.
Once your presentations are over, the interviewers will ask about your commitment to science, why you find your selected field interesting, and who you would like to do your PhD with. If you say Dr. X. or Dr. Y, then you should be able to show the interviewers that you know which fields they work on, and what the current state of the field is. It surprises me how often a student will name a group leader and then have little idea of what she or he is actually doing. You can also practise answering these questions with a colleague beforehand, especially one who has been (successfully) through a PhD selection interview.
You are/are not offered a place
If you are not offered a place, then write to the institute when you return home and ask for feedback so you can improve your performance at the next interview. Do not give up! Competition is fierce, and if you really want to do a PhD, you will make it happen.
If you are offered a place, remember that at this stage of the selection process, you are in an excellent bargaining position. You have shown that you are a quality student and group leaders will want you in their group. Use your bargaining position. Talk at length to the group leaders who you are interested in joining. Find out about the projects offered. How detailed are the projects? Will a particular project be starting from scratch, or will the project be based on one that is already up and running? Will you be directly supervised by the group leader, or by someone else such as a postdoc? What is the size of the group? (the bigger the group, the less frequently you will see the group leader) How many PhD students has the supervisor previously mentored? Did they publish their work? What is the average duration of a PhD in the group? Where are the alumni of the group now? Did any PhD students leave before completion of their theses? Is the group leader promising you too much? For instance, beware of group leaders or institutes promising you a publication in Nature or Science by the end of your PhD.
You can find some answers to these questions after the interview by talking to the group leader and the people in the group, or from the homepage of the group leader and from PubMed. Talk to the other applicants about their impressions of the group leaders and what they have found out. Summarise your findings. If there are one or two particular points that disturb you (for example, the group size, an overambitious project, or one that's too trivial), be prepared to reject the group leader.
In short, try and learn as much as you can before you make a decision and accept or reject an offer. Never forget the importance of this decision for your future! In my own search for a PhD, I took the first position offered to me (because I wasn't sure I would have another offer) without any investigation about the project or the group leader. It was probably the worst decision of my scientific career.
My main ideas are summarised below. I hope you find these viewpoints of a group leader useful and wish you good luck in your search for a PhD position.
- You will need passion, perseverance, self-reliance, responsibility, determination, and a goal.
- The application should be specific, well-documented, and have personal recommendation letters.
- Practise your presentations for the interview and summarise the advance in knowledge in three sentences.
Thanks to Brooke for discussions and the motivation to write this guest blog and Amelie Schoenenwald (a current PhD student in my lab) for comments and critique.
Tim Skern is a group leader at the Centre for Medical Biochemistry, Medical University of Vienna, and the Max F. Perutz Laboratories. His research focuses on the interactions of viruses with host cells. He is the author of "Writing Scientific English: A Workbook". He can be contacted at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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International Competition prize-winner.
Alexander Nikitin graduated from the St Petersburg State Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire in 1993. As a soloist, he has appeared with the St Petersburg Chamber Opera Company and the Zazerkalye Children's Music Theatre. Mariinsky Theatre soloist since 2002, having made his debut in the opera Sadko (Old Man).
Roles performed at the Mariinsky Theatre include: Prince Igor (Prince Igor) Shchelkalov (Boris Godunov) Venetian Merchant, Old Mighty Bogatyr (Sadko) Head of the Village (Christmas Eve) Chernobog (Sorochintsy Fair) Streshnev (Khovanshchina) Messenger (The Tale of Tsar Saltan) Second Herald, Shrovetide (The Snow Maiden) Captain, Zaretsky (Eugene Onegin) Ebn-Hakia (Iolanta) Yushko Velebin (The Maid of Pskov) Napoleon, Matveyev (War and Peace) Amonasro (Aida) Rigoletto (Rigoletto) Tonio (Pagliacci) Melitone (La forza del destino) Bonze (Madama Butterfly) Mandarin (Turandot) The King's Herald (Lohengrin) A Greek Captain, A Trojan Soldier (Les Troyens) Jaroslav Prus (The Makropulos Affair)
The singer's repertoire also includes the roles of Gryaznoi (The Tsar's Bride), Robert (Iolanta), Nabucco (Nabucco), Conte di Luna (Il trovatore), Ezio (Attila), Kurwenal (Tristan und Isolde) and Valentin (Faust).
With the Mariinsky Opera Company, he has appeared in Spain, Germany, Israel and the USA. Has toured independently to Switzerland and Finland.


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Listen in on Outside Comfort Zone's live vlog as Debbie and a panel of other women share their experiences, tips and tricks after thru hiking the Colorado Trail https://youtu.be/JaagsWf9bCg
Tag: colorado trail
Life Above Treeline
The morning quiet was deafening. The silence of the alpine void of wind, foliage and wildlife, just two weary travelers making passage across the top of the world. It was late in the day and we were still climbing. Passing from 11,000', 12,000' and on into 13,000' watching the sun slowly sink closer to the … Continue reading Life Above Treeline
Colorado Trail Segment 4 of 28
There are campsites here and there in the trees that line the meadow, a creek running down the middle, mostly hidden in the reeds, and evidence of a multitude of wildlife, footprints included, along the trail. Colorado Trail Segment 4 of 28 Start: Long Gulch End: Rolling Creek TH Distance: 16.6 Miles The turning point. … Continue reading Colorado Trail Segment 4 of 28
Colorado Trail – 24 Hours To Go
The weather will be perfect, it will be raging...there will be times we will see all four seasons in one day. It will be as predictable as any one raindrop finding its way to earth July 2019, 24 Hours till the Colorado Trail And so it begins, a journey of some five hundred miles across … Continue reading Colorado Trail – 24 Hours To Go
Colorado Trail – 6 Months To Go
"Trail life is full of oohs and awes, but they are also filled with sighs, four letter words and pain" January 2019, 6 months till the Colorado Trail Many adventures begin with vision, albeit a personal challenge, a quest for spiritual awakening, a test of physical endurance or just a plain desire to explore uncharted … Continue reading Colorado Trail – 6 Months To Go
Why Hike the Colorado Trail
The Colorado Trail is the perfect culmination of all we have been doing to keep ourselves active and will certainly challenge us across the board, a challenge we gladly accept and look forward to completing. People are taken back when we tell them we are backpacking the Colorado Trail as a thru-hike. Once we describe … Continue reading Why Hike the Colorado Trail
Lost Creek Wilderness – A Walk in the Rain
Times like these on the trail tend to be numb. You just push on while your senses are on heightened alert. Who gets up early in the morning and decides to go for a "workout hike" an hour away? Seriously, there are gyms close by, and we have equipment in our home, no, not used … Continue reading Lost Creek Wilderness – A Walk in the Rain


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February 14, 2020 | Abby Liu
According to Tania Oro-Hahn, the Action Step Leader for Staff Development in Cultural Competency and Spanish Teacher, social emotional learning can more easily happen through a simulation experiences. That's why at a January professional development day, faculty and staff participated in the StarPower simulation. Led by Sra. Oro-Hahn, the purpose of the exercise was to learn how power (or lack of power) can impact people and organizations. Examine bias. And consider issues of power, powerlessness, and diversity.
Following the simulation, faculty and staff reflected on our school culture and continued the conversation about diversity and inclusion that began earlier in the school year. Further training and discussions around issues of diversity and inclusion will follow throughout the spring.


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"There really is not a lot of negative things to say about the PDP-5070HD."
- Good picture color and accuracy; plenty of inputs; ATSC tuner gets great reception
- Boring TV stand; you better like the color black
Pioneer's 7th generation plasma, the PDP-5070HD makes strides over last years offering, the 5060HD with improved black levels and color decoding. Pioneer has also ditched their media box receiver in favor of an integrated ATSC/NTSC tuner and video/audio connections. With an MSRP of $4,000 or more, there are definitely more affordable plasma TVs on the market. Let's see what makes the PDP-5070HD worth your hard earned dollar.
Click here to watch a video of the Pioneer PDP-5070HD
Features and Design
The PDP-5070HD is a very nice plasma to look at it. The case features a piano black finish that looks great in any setting. A lot of companies are using silver, which might look good at first, but we have always felt that a black finish helps to enrich the colors on-screen giving them a more vibrant look. Pioneer ships a speaker bar that attaches to the bottom of the PDP-5070HD should you decide you want to use the TVs speakers instead of your own home theater speaker system. Having a speaker bar on the bottom is both good and bad. It's good because it means that the TV's width is minimized allowing for an easier installation in a home entertainment cabinet, or in areas of limited space; and at just 48.2 inches wide, this is a very size efficient TV. The downside to having the speakers on the bottom is that you often lose the feeling of a good 2-channel stereo sound because the speakers do not have any distance between them. As for the TV stand that comes with the PDP-5070HD, it matches the same finish as the TV and is really nothing special.
One of the first things you should notice with the new 7th generation Pioneer plasma TV's is that the media box is missing with everything being integrated into the plasma itself. We tend to have mixed feelings on this for a couple reasons. First of all, if you are like us and prefer to mount a plasma or LCD TV on the wall, you will want to minimize just how many cables are going to the TV. A media box is nice because you can plug your receiver and components into the media box, and then just run the single cable to the TV. This is great for those that install their TV themselves making the job easier and more affordable (since you do not need to purchase extra long cables or switch boxes), although we have heard installers swing both ways here. If you do not plan to mount this TV on the wall, instead opting for a TV stand or cabinet, having the connections integrated into the TV is nice because it gives you more shelf space in your TV stand for other home theater components.
Image Courtesy of Pioneer
As for connections, the PDP-5070HD has everything covered. There are two tuners, one ATSC and one NTSC, each with their own coaxial connection which is nice (the Philips 42PF9831D we reviewed recently has two tuners that share a single coax connection), 2 HDMI inputs, 1 analog VGA input, 2 component video inputs, 4 RCA inputs, 2 S-Video inputs and a single USB input which lets you connect a thumb drive or camera directly to the TV for picture viewing. The PDP-5070HD also features a Cablecard slot if that floats-your-boat. Pioneer was nice and opted to include a 3rd party TV guide to use when you are using the Cablecard connection.
Back of Pioneer PDP-5070HD
The left side has Component video, S-Video and RCA inputs in addition to a USB port
The right side has menu and channel/volume controls
The Pioneer PDP-5070HD has a native resolution of 1,365 x 768 which is pretty good, but oddly is one pixel short of other 50-inch sets on the market (and which is the standard). We asked Pioneer is this was simply a printing mistake, and it is not. What does this mean to you? Nothing really, it's not a big deal at all and even most videophiles will not notice the difference. Our Pioneer contact also told us that the PDP-5070HD is capable of accepting incoming 1080p signals (through the HDMI connection), but that it will down convert it to 1080i or 720p since the PDP-5070HD does not have a true 1080P panel.
Setup and Testing
Getting the PDP-5070HD up and running is very simple. The on-screen menu is simple to use, and the channel scan is relatively quick. If you are like us, you might prefer to keep your HDTV channels on one coaxial connection and your analog channels on the other. The Philips 42PF9831D for example, shares the coaxial connection between the NTSC and ATSC tuners, and therefore mixes your HDTV channels in with the other non-HDTV stations. This drove us nuts because we like to have all of our HDTV stations lumped together instead of being mixed in with other non-HDTV channels. Thankfully with the Pioneer PDP-5070HD you can do that thanks to the separate coaxial jack. The integrated ATSC tuner on the PDP-5070HD also did a better job picking up the HDTV stations in the Portland area, and reception was more reliable than the Philips.
According to Pioneer, the PDP-5070HD uses a redesigned Deep Encased Cell Structure to elevate brightness and improve image accuracy. The set also features a filter that is supposed to reduce screen glare and improve the contrast and color. We have always been impressed with Pioneer's plasma TV's and the PDP-5070HD did not disappoint. We have never been a big fan of picture presets so we were pleased to see that Pioneer lets you manually adjust the color temperature. You can then save the settings for each input. You can also do this for the preset picture modes of Movie, Standard, Gamer and User.
Using our trusty Oppo Digital OPDV971H which uses the DCDi chip by Faroudja, we fired up the system for testing. On the DVD input, we set the color temperature on the PDP-5070HD to low which we feel is the most accurate, and manually adjusted the picture from there.
The PDP-5070HD's video processing does a great job, but we noticed a little bit of jitter during Kingdom of Heaven on some scenes, otherwise it was smooth throughout the movie. Adam Sandler's Click just came out on DVD, so we decided to try that out on the new TV. We were impressed with the sharpness of the PDP-5070HD, especially during the close-ups. Color rendition is convincing and accuracy appeared to be spot-on.
We did not experience a lot of screen glare in a well-lit room and picture color looked very good at a 45-degree viewing angle. Plasmas are not as bright as LCD TV's in general, but we feel the PDP-5070HD holds its own in an environment where there is a lot of sunlight.
The remote control is intuitive to use and has your basic controls. It is not as pretty to look at as the Philips 42PF9831D remote, but it also will not show finger print smudges either. The bottom flips open to reveal more controls for the TV as well as basic controls for your DVD player, satellite/cable box, or DVR.
Pioneer PDP-5070HD Remote
There really is not a lot of negative things to say about the PDP-5070HD. While the MRSP of around $4000 seems rather high, you should be able to find it for under $3000 at most retailers. If 1080P is something that's important to you, then you might want to opt for the Elite (model ) instead, just be ready to spend more money of course. The PDP-5070HD might not have a ton of fancy features, but it definitely gets the job done and puts your money where it's important – in the picture.
• Good picture color and accuracy
• Plenty of inputs
• HDTV tuner gets great reception
• Customizable user settings
• Lackluster design
• Boring stand included
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Benchmarks for AMD's Polaris 12 lineup of graphics cards has leaked out ahead of the official unveiling of the silicone and hints that there will be two different models based on the Polaris 12 GPU core, codenamed 699F:CF and 6980:00.
It's no secret that AMD have been busy bees the past few months, with a plethora of Vega leaks hinting the cards performance will at least hold its own to Nvidia's Pascal lineup, and other leaks telling us that they have been working on not just Vega 10, but also Polaris 10 XT2 and Polaris 12.
While we can't answer any questions in this article about Polaris 10 XT2, we certainly can shed light on Polaris 12 and the two mysterious device IDs of 699F:CF and 6980:00. Firstly, entries for Polaris 12 have popped up in Linux patch notes.
There are also multiple graphics card benchmarks of two of the cards which have appeared online, specifically revolving around both Ashes of the Singularity and GFX Bench. It's pretty obvious from the performance of both benchmarks that Polaris 12 isn't going to be aiming at more than the lower end of the market – unless there's something very early regarding the silicone, extremely buggy drivers or something else going on.
Both GPU's perform very close to one another, with Ashes of the Singularity running on the Polaris 12 GPUs at the DX12 1080P extreme preset.
Moving on to GFX bench and there's a pretty similar story which emerges here, in this instance the card I've decided to pit it up against is the GTX 1050, based on Nvidia's Pascal range of cards. As you can see, AMD lose here – but we can't these results as final, so as with any leak, we need to give the cards the benefit of possibly another 10 – 30 percent of performance on launch with maturer drivers.
Then again, we also do not know the pricing details of the GPUs either, thus making it trickier still.
In the below GFX Benchmark, because it scrolls down so long I have copied the results next to each other, to make the image wider (rows to columns, so to speak).
Stick with us at RedGamingTech.com for more on this as it develops!


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Colombia Wants Own Canal, An Idea Panama Ridicules
Another Central American shipping canal? The idea has been kicked around Colombia off and on for 30 years, and now the nation's beleaguered president has dredged up the idea again.
"An interoceanic canal could be our trademark," Colombian leader Ernesto Samper said a few weeks ago. "This country needs to think about big things." (What Mr. Samper does not want people thinking about are allegations that his 1994 election campaign was partly financed by drug money.)
Samper contends the rival canal could be built for $1.65 billion and draw traffic from large ships such as oil tankers that currently cannot fit through Panama's channel.
But the initial reaction to his talk of a new canal has been laughter, at least here in Panama.
"It's totally ridiculous," says Michael Ross, manager of Norton Lilley Lines, reflecting the attitude of many Panama City shipping executives.
For one thing, critics say Colombia's canal, traversing perhaps 240 miles versus 50 for Panama's, would cost more than Samper allows - by one estimate $45 billion, or twice Colombia's current foreign debt.
And the market for "post-Panamax" ships, those too large to fit through the Panama canal, is slim, analysts say. About 35 container ships are too big to use the canal, and 60 more are under construction. But many of these have routes that don't take them from the Atlantic to the Pacific, or vice versa. As for tankers, a transisthmus oil pipeline in northern Panama recently closed, reflecting a decline in demand.
Though scoffing at talk of Colombia, Costa Rica, or Guatemala creating economically viable canals, Panamanians are laying plans to improve their own trademark waterway.
The Galliard Cut - currently the narrowest part of the canal - is being widened to allow traffic to flow in both directions simultaneously. Currently, canal traffic is near the 50 ships per day that the waterway can handle.
Another possibility being explored is a third set of locks that would be big enough to allow the larger post-Panamax class of ships.
The locks could be self-financed by canal funds, Mr. Ross says.
Currently, the Panama Canal grosses about $600 million a year in tolls from transiting ships. "Profits look set to increase, without a rise in tolls," says Richard Waino, the Panama Canal Commission's director of executive planning. The canal "should have a bright future. As long as it is run efficiently, it will be a good revenue earner for Panama.
Any new canal, Mr. Waino adds, would not merely compete with Panama's, but also with the intermodal system in the United States, by which freight is transferred in containers from ships to railroads between the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts. He says the intermodal system can be four to 10 days faster than sending a ship through the Panama Canal.
Some figures within Panama's shipping community are worried that the coming handover of the canal, agreed under the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaty, will throw the canal's administration into the domain of Panamanian politics. Concerns that the canal could end up like Panama's government ministries - some of which are viewed here as blatantly corrupt - are unfounded, Waino says.
"The intent is to prevent that," he says. A bill awaiting legislative approval would establish a legal framework for ensuring the political independence of the canal. "Systems, procurement, finance, and labor management will all be protected by the law," Waino says.
Assurances by the Panama Canal Commission are taken lightly by some skeptics. But Waino says, "I think the current government understands that the economic and social future of the country depends on the canal."


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The letter U is signed by holding up your dominant hand in a fist, facing outward, with the index & middle fingers sticking up while held together.
Teach your toddler the letter U sign when it is necessary to finger-spell some simple words - or the initials of objects, places, animals, or people's names. That way, your toddler slowly begins to associate the sign with the sound of the letter in a word or name.
This is a useful flash card taught best in conjunction with the other letters of the alphabet.
Get all four volumes of Baby Signing Time...
Learn More


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* Black silk satin sleep mask
* Blocks out light, aiding the natural sleep process
* Great for long flights and restless nights
While eye masks are often looked upon as a silly luxury, they really are a sleep accessory that works. By blocking out the light, eye masks induce your production of melatonin, your body's own naturally-produced sleep aid.
We love this Leopard Print Silk Eye Mask by HVN. Crafted from pure silk, the American-made eye mask is styled with an exotic leopard and leaf print, which makes it a delightful treat to put on. The finely woven material and the feather-light design means this eye mask fits softly and effortlessly on your face. The comfort and darkness it provides will help you fall asleep quickly and wake up refreshed.
If total sensory deprivation is what you need, try adding earplugs. Just make sure you're not relying on an alarm clock to wake you up!
Outfitted with a handy carrying case, the Leopard Print Silk Eye Mask by HVN is exclusively available through Matches Fashion. Use it the next time you struggle through a bought of insomnia, or on your next long-haul flight, when you want to fall asleep fast.
If you buy something because we told you about it, we may receive compensation from retail partners.


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Sen. Rick Santorum's CPAC speech carved out a niche for himself as the Blue Collar Conservative, the champion of the 'little guy.'
Santorum called on the GOP to be "pro-freedom, pro-family, pro-growth, and also pro-worker." He gets an A-plus from me as the only candidate I have seen so far to name the reality the average family is facing—a declining standard of living: "We have seen that wages over time have stagnated, the economy median income is declining. . .We need a vision that is focused on working men and women who are struggling in America today. . . and feeling like neither party really cares about them or talks about them. Seventy percent of Americans don't have a college education. . .Pundits often wonder how I was able to win 11 states, even though I was outspent 4 or 5 to one. . .I won because I stood for someone, the little guy, the American worker."
He jabbed implicitly at Jindal, Walker, Huckabee, and Christie when he pointed out: "Back in 2012, I wasn't for Common Core, and today I'm still not for Common Core."
Santorum seemed a bit underprepared when asked for the best way to dismantle Common Core, but he pointed to the bill introduced by Sen. David Vitter that would prevent the Department of Education from making waivers or grants dependent on adopting a particular curriculum or assessment.
Maggie Gallagher is the editor of ThePulse2016.com.


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Reflecting a modern Italy that reminds one of Milan more than Rome, Caffè del Corso is unique in its distinction from other area cafes. While not centered as near the old town as the other cafes previously written about here, its proximity both to the city center and the train station makes this a convenient stopover going to or coming back from the old town.
With a wide indoor and outdoor seating area, Caffè del Corso is better equipped to handle the masses than most of the other local cafes. Caffè Roma has five indoor tables and no patio seating, while here you'll find upwards of 20, not counting the patio. Surprisingly then, Caffè del Corso doesn't get particularly busy, or at least not in comparison to that previously mentioned cafe. This must surely have to do more with its location than the quality of its products because for both baked goods and coffees, Caffè del Corso is top-notch. Caffè Vergnano is the preferred bean here, good for me as it's one of my personal favorites. The cappuccino here is a delight, excellent every time and prepared by genuine coffee artisans. But this is Italy and a great cappuccino isn't treated with the respect it might be in America, rather it's to be expected.
The real prize then, is del Corso's pastries, cakes, puddings, and numerous other goodies. Whether you want pie or mascarpone (a must!) they have it here, fresh and unequalled. There's a lunch menu too, and should hunger find you wandering, the panini served here will satisfy your inner cravings.
Because of its size and quaint clientele, Caffè del Corso is also the perfect place to duck into the corner by the window, prop up your elbows, and read a little Italo Calvino as you sip your cappuccino and take bites from the chocolate cornetto. The chocolate is nutella, and the Calvino can occasionally be dense, but both reflect a broader creativity, much as this cafe suggests a wonderful way to while away a couple of hours… Or the custom two minutes to take a caffè at the bar.
Address Corso Umberto 1 Public transport N/A: It's small town in Italy – you can walk.
Opening times As this is Italy, my putting up the hours would be pointless. Opening and closing times are completely up to the whim of the owner. Being closed on Tuesday is something you can take to the bank… though preferably not an Italian one.
Cost € Telephone 080 204 7209 Website N/A


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New fully funded PhD studentship: Maritime Migrations: Transfers and Displacements in Britain's and Australia's Nineteenth-century Exchange Application deadline: Monday 25 January 2021 This project examines the role played by empires, oceans, and trans-national maritime networks in laying the foundations for modern processes of globalisation, deploying a range of methods and approaches from within and beyond the... Continue Reading →
NTEU Carolyn Allport Scholarship for Postgraduate Feminist Studies by Research
The Carolyn Allport Scholarship is available for a woman undertaking postgraduate feminist studies, by research, in any discipline, awarding $5000 per year for a maximum of 3 years to the successful applicant. Applicants must be currently enrolled in postgraduate studies, by research, in an academic award of an Australian public university. This scholarship has been... Continue Reading →
Bursary for 'Towards a New History of the Interwar Period'
UNSW Canberra and the Society of Military History are offering a bursary for PhD students and ECRs to attend the conference 'Towards a New History of the Interwar Period', on 3 – 4 September 2019. Among those speaking will be Dr Carolyn Holbrook, Professor James Cotton, Professor Joan Beaumont and Professor Frank Bongiorno. The conference website can... Continue Reading →
BHP Australia China Scholarship
The Foundation for Australian Studies in China (FASIC) is pleased to administer the BHP Australia China Scholarship (the Scholarship). The Scholarship has been established to encourage and assist students and young professionals to pursue specialised study, research and experience in priority areas of interest in the bilateral Australia-China relationship. The Scholarship is given to encourage... Continue Reading →
Curtin University PhD project and scholarship in creative writing/literary studies
Curtin University PhD project and scholarship in creative writing/literary studies Into the New World: Diaspora in Australian and Scottish Writing As part of Curtin's collaboration with the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, a PhD project with scholarship is available for 2019 start. Students undertaking a collaborative PhD under the alliance are offered a seamless international... Continue Reading →
Two PhD Scholarships at Newcastle University
Professor Lyndall Ryan is inviting applications for PhD scholarships following broad topic areas: Representations of Australian frontier massacre in any or a combination of Australian cultural texts, e.g. novels, films, plays, poems, dance, music, journalism, paintings, drawing, television and digital media. Mapping sites of frontier violence in the digital humanities. Potential applicants are sought from... Continue Reading →


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20 Million Miles to Earth: 50th Anniversary Edition
Of all the Rampaging Monster B-movies from the 1950s, 20 Million Miles to Earth, showcasing the work of stop-motion animation innovator Ray Harryhausen, remains among the most fondly remembered. And rightfully so. The results of Harryhausen's painstaking and detailed genius bringing clay sculptures to vivid life are right there in his Venusian Ymir, a bipedal animal taken from its home and brought to Earth. Because our atmosphere discombobulates its metabolism, the beast grows from the size of a doll to the street-stomping proportions necessary for a destructive rampage through Rome. This 2007 two-disc DVD edition celebrates three things. First, of course, is the film's 50th anniversary. In the abundant extras new for this edition, long-time fans such as Tim Burton, John Landis, and Rick Baker remind us how much Harryhausen features such as 20 Million Miles to Earth helped inspire their own later work as filmmakers. Secondly, Harryhausen himself at age 87, still lively and well-spoken is a big presence on these discs, from the feature commentary audio track to the featurettes that pay homage to him. Thirdly meaning lastly, although this DVD's marketing and extras hope you'll believe otherwise this edition presents a new colorized version of the original black-and-white film. Keep-case.
Back to Quick Reviews Index: [A-F] [G-L] [M-R] [S-Z]


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I was asked to participate in the #HallmarkAtWalgreens campaign, sponsored by Walgreens. Although I have been compensated, all opinions are my own.
Birthdays are special events in our house, whether they're our own or a friend's. I think it's important to buy a card to let people know how much you care, especially children. So of course, when Kane's friend Peyton had his birthday last week, we made sure to stop by Walgreens to get Peyton a special card!
Walgreens carries Hallmark Signature cards. We browsed cards from all this summer's biggest kids movies, including Cars 3. While there were a ton of children's cards to choose from, we settled on this Cars 3 card that allows you to build your own 3-D car–how cool is that?! At Kane's age, kids like cards that go above and beyond, and this card from Hallmark definitely fit the bill.
There were quite a few cards that had other extras, like flashing lights, wristbands that played music, and musical cards. I always look for "extra" cards for kids. When Kane turned 4 years old last month, I bought him a musical Finding Dory card from Walgreens and he was obsessed!
Add stickers to kids' birthday cards
With kids' cards, I like to add a personal touch with some stickers. Walgreens just happened to have these Hallmark stickers that matched the card we picked out.
Write a special message inside kids' birthday cards
Kane was so excited to help me with Peyton's Cars 3 birthday card! We started by writing Peyton a special message inside his card. It said, "Happy Birthday, Peyton! So glad we're friends!" I also helped Kane write his name and Peyton's name inside the card. I have always written an extra special message in addition to the one printed in the card, and I'm teaching Kane to do the same to let our friends know just how much we care. It's important to me for Kane to find joy in giving gifts and not just in receiving them.
Pour some confetti into the card for a fun surprise!
For a fun surprise, we added confetti inside the card that would fall out when it opened! It's a great addition to help the kids feel more special. Then, Kane added stickers on the outside of the card to decorate it. You can always decorate with one sheet of stickers and just pop the second sheet inside the card for the kid to have later.
Finally, the card was ready to go inside the bag. While I was at Walgreens, I also picked up a Hallmark brand bag and tissue paper. The bag is awesome because it has a pocket for the card on the inside of the bag!
Peyton loved his card!!! There's nothing like bringing joy to a child, and cards are such an easy way to show just how much you care.
The next time you need a birthday card for a child, be sure to stop by Walgreens! And you can get more ideas for making your kids' birthdays brighter by browsing #HallmarkAtWalgreens on social media!
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Walgreens. The opinions and text are all mine.


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Two of the photographers we are pointed towards during this project seemed to have sufficient similarities in approach to be considered together, here. Julian Germain's For Every Minute You Are Angry You Lose A Minute of Happiness (2005, but taken between 1992 and 2000) and Harry Callahan's pictures of his wife Eleanor and his daughter Barbara, tiny among the geometry and space of Chicago (taken on outings between 1952 and 1954) both were made without any seeming expectation of their becoming a finished body of work. Both series were made under 'real' conditions but – and presumably this is why they are here in the 'aware/studio' half of the chapter – using heavier, larger format equipment than the lightweight cameras used by Evans or Kuzma or Parr in the 'unaware/street' half. Continue reading
Category Archives: Part 2
exercise 2.4 – same background, different model
'This exercise is essentially the same as the previous one, but instead of taking photographs of the same person, here you must make portraits of three different subjects, but keep the background to the image consistent (see Irving Penn and Clare Strand, above). There are many ways of exploring this exercise. You could either select an interesting backdrop to use inside (studio) or perhaps select an interesting backdrop on location (street). Whichever you choose, try to be as creative as you can and be prepared to justify your decisions through your supporting notes.'
– IaP Coursebook, p.54
I would have liked to do something as simple and yet clever as Martin Parr and Daniel Meadows' 1972 June Street collaboration where the occupants of a terrace of Manchester houses were pictured in their originally identical but now divergently individual living rooms. I found this series much less problematic than Parr's later work on the Japanese Commuters that also forms part of the course material. I even have a couple of ideas for this – the various double front doors of the terraced maisonettes of the east London street that I live in or the small-shop interiors of the parade that runs perpendicularly along the far end of my street – but, lacking time I shall file this idea away for later use. Continue reading
exercise 2.3 – same model, different background
'Consider the work of both Callahan and Germain, then select a subject for a series of five portraits, varying the locations and backgrounds. The one consistent picture element must be the subject you have chosen, who must appear in all five images. Think carefully about where you choose to photograph them, either using a pose that offers a returned gaze to the camera, or simply captures them going about their daily business. The objective once again is to visually link the images together in some way.
Present your five images as a series and write around 500 words reflecting on the decisions
you made. Include both of these in your learning log or blog.'
– IaP Coursebook p.51
My son, James is nearly fifteen, on the cusp of being an adult. He lives with his mother in Glasgow, while I live in London, but I do manage to get up once a month or so and see James. Every year we go on holiday to Orkney, where I grew up.
This year we managed to make a couple of day trips to some of the smaller islands that fringe Scapa Flow. For this exercise I've put together a series of pictures to make a single day from various days of outings. Continue reading
Project 2.1: The Unaware – Evans, Kuzma and Parr in the Underground
While I was doing the research for this project, I made a trip to Kyiv for work. All the photographs illustrating this post were made during this trip, on the city's soviet-era metro system. I have known about these pictures for a long time now – indeed one of my clearest memories of the 2010 exhibition Exposed at Tate Modern was standing in front of the glass case containing the blackened Contax Rangefinder hidden beneath his coat by Evans to take his subway pictures – and have often taken photographs of my fellow travellers on public transport wherever I find myself.
I have written about Evans' subway shots before so – as this course is concerned with identity as well as location – will only add a couple of brief notes here. Continue reading
exercise 2.2 – the unaware
Closely consider the work of the practitioners discussed above [Walker Evans, Lukas Kuzma, Martin Parr, discussed here, and James Wood who I feel fits better in with section 3] then try to shoot a series of five portraits of subjects who are unaware of the fact they are being photographed. The reflection about your methodology will be as important as the final five images, so be prepared to write about how you found the experience (around 500 words) and present your findings via your learning log or blog.
– IaP Coursebook, p.47
For the exercise on reportage in Context and Narrative, I took two series of quite traditional street photographs. Now I wanted something less Gary Winogrand and more Phillip-Lorca diCorcia; something pulled back, something more truly covert.
I like Walker Evans' subway pictures, but this time, I took as my starting place a different set of pictures by him – the eleven anonymous portraits of workers leaving a factory in Detroit, published in Fortune magazine in 1946 as 'Labor Anonymous'.
The 150 pictures taken for that assignment caught their subject moving obliquely across Evans' field of view from right to left. The camera Evan's used was held at waist height and the pictures were cropped down into a regular composition before they were published. Continue reading
exercise 2.1 – individual spaces
'Make three different portraits using three different subjects. Prior to shooting your portraits, engage with your subjects and agree three different specific locations which have some relevance or significance to them individually. This can either be inside or on location, but the key to this portrait is the interaction you've had with your subject in identifying a place that has specific meaning for them. Each portrait should be accompanied by a very short piece of text explaining the choice of location or venue. Don't be tempted to create a work of complete fiction here; it might make life easier for you, but you'd be missing an opportunity to really engage with your subject and collaborate with them in the image-making process'
– IaP Coursebook – p.40
All three of the people pictured for this exercise live in Kirkwall, Orkney and the pictures were taken during my annual trip north in August 2017. I am related to all three of them, so, to a certain extent, I was able to grasp the reasons why they had chosen the locations they had fairly quickly. None of their reasons seemed odd to me; all of them had chosen places with links to their respective childhood. Interestingly – like the places I'd chosen to represent my square mile – none of the locations turned out to be quite the same as the place that existed in my subject's memory. Continue reading


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MFOPT - Optimization over Manifolds
Download the most current release: Version 1.0, 15/10/2013
This package contains the MFOPT MATLAB library that was used for the computations in the original ICCV 2013 paper.
Features: MFOPT can be used to approximately solve variational problems with total variation-base regularization and arbitrary data terms for functions that are constrained to values in a manifold. The library includes implementations for
- Euclidean spaces R^n,
- n-dimensional unit spheres S^n,
- the Moebius band,
- the three-dimensional rotation group SO(3).
Other manifolds can be easily added due to the modular structure.
Requirements: 64-bit version of MATLAB 2013a running under 64-bit Windows 7 or later.
- Figures 3,4,6 in the original paper were generated using a different code base and are not included.
- To clearly see the discretization effects as in Fig. 2, the problems have to be solved to a high accuracy. Low accuracy solutions that are not fully converged can actually look better (although they are in fact incorrect solutions). For the paper, a commercial solver was used to obtain high accuracy. The package contains a version that uses the simpler primal-dual method but gives much lower accuracy.
License: You may freely use and modify the source code for non-commercial research, as long as a reference is included in related publications. Please cite:
J. Lellmann, E. Strekalovskiy, S. Koetter, and D. Cremers: Total Variation Regularization for Functions with Values in a Manifold. In: International Conference of Computer Vision (ICCV), 2013. In press.
Quick Start
- Download and unzip to a folder of your choice
- run any of the
paper_*scripts from within MATLAB to solve the optimization problems, or the
vis_*scripts to visualize the results and generate the figures. A good starting point is
- Stopping criteria are set to high accuracy by default and will take a long time to compute. Computation time can be reduced by lowering the maximum iteration count
term_maxiteror increasing the target accuracy
- The
paper_*scripts read the input data from the
inputfolder, and solve the corresponding optimization problems.
- All output is stored in separate folders within the
resultsfolder, named by the date and time the script was run.
- The
results_importantfolder contains copies of the exact results shown in the paper.
- The
vis_*scripts use the data in the
results_importantfolder to generate the figures. The figures are stored in the
- The actual minimization happens in
solve_manifold(). If
use_gpu = true(default), the actual iterations are carried out by the MEX function
mf_iterate. Despite the field name, the open implementation is currently CPU only, so no GPU is required.
Adding your own manifold
All information about the manifold is passed to the solver in form of a
struct that is created by one of the
manifold_* functions. In order to add your own manifold, the best way is to modify one of the
manifold_* functions.
The manifold structure has the following fields:
m.mdims- struct holding the manifold dimensions and various constants:
m.mdims.dmanifold- dimension of the manifold: n for R^n, m for the m-dimensional sphere S^m, 2 for the Moebius band, and so on.
m.mdims.gradients- number of "evaluation points" at which the gradient is evaluated. Denoted by
min the paper.
m.mdims.points- size of the neighbourhood N_j in (10). Each gradient computation in one of the evaluation points uses the value of u at
m.mdims.pointspoints. This is used together with
m.P(see below).
m.mdims.vecs- the number of vectors (labels) used to discretize the manifold. Denoted by
lin the paper.
m.v- the vectors/points on the manifold, embedded into some R^n, that correspond to the labels. Denoted by z^k in the paper.
m.b- the weights
bused to integrate functions over the manifold as in (9).
m.P- defines the neighbourhood N_j for the evaluation points as in (10). For the j-th evaluation point y^j, the neighbourhood consists of all
Pmust be zero-based and of
mf_iteratecontains a hard-coded limit which requires size(P,1) ⇐ 25 if
use_gpu = trueis used.
m.A,m.B- These are the matrices A and B from equation (14) in the paper. They define the way gradients are computed on the manifold.
m.dist(v1,v2)- function handle, computes the geodesic distance between a pair of points x,y on the manifold. This uses the same vector representation/embedding into R^n as
m.mean(z,u)- function handle, computes the Fréchet mean (22) for the vectors
zand weights
m.plot()- function handle, sets up a (2D or 3D) figure and axis and plots a view of the manifold into which individual points can be plotted later.
m.embed(v)- function handle, for given points
von the manifold returns a points in the same (2D or 3D) space as
m.plotthat are used to visualize the points
The easiest way to find out the correct dimensions is to check out
manifold_moebius.m or
manifold_Rn.m. The solver will display an error if any of the dimensions are inconsistent with the
m.mdims struct.
If you have any questions or need help, feel free to send me an e-mail at Jan.Lellmann (at) web.de.
- The computation of the area on the sphere uses parts of the SPHERE_DELAUNAY and SPHERE_CVT libraries written by John Burkardt.


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Car Review: 2012 KIA Optima Hybrid
Car Manufacturer: KIA Model: 2012 KIA Optima Hybrid Starting Price: $27,000 The big question with gas prices reaching so high is whether or not to go electric or hybrid? Clearly, electric cars still have a long way to go to engage the mainstream and allow them to feel safe in leaving their gas guzzlers behind, but the concept of hybrid cars offers a comfortable alternative. While still running off of an electric battery, the car also works on conventional gas which allows for better gas mileage and a middle-ground that helps the environment and isn't too shabby on the pocket […]Read On »


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More from Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity by Bruce Bagemihl. The Regent Bowerbird is about 12 inches long, with velvety black plumage and brilliant golden yellow highlights. It lives in the forests of Queensland, Australia.
They're polygamous and promiscuous in their mating. Males court and mate with multiple partners in the display territories for which the bird is famous: the "bower" is an elaborate structure with two parallel walls made of twigs and a display area for ornaments the bird has collected.
The male's courting display involves him dancing around and ritually presenting these precious possessions by holding each of them in his beak, one after the other. The objects may include snail shells, coloured insect carapaces, berries, seeds, flowers, or bits of human detritus such as blue plastic bags, broken glass, foil, twine, and bottle caps. Sometimes the males paint the bowers a yellowish-green colour by using a mixture of mashed-up, brightly coloured leaves and their saliva.
You may already have guessed that male Bowerbirds don't see why all this effort should just be for the ladies to appreciate… or not appreciate in many cases, since females frequently get bored and move on before a male's show is finished. How rude. The other boys, however, appreciate how much effort has gone into all his foraging and decoration. Sometimes they appreciate it so much that they want to mate with the bower's owner. What you may not be expecting is that some male Bowerbirds are also transvestites…
Regent Bowerbird (Sericulus chrysocephalus)
Homosexuality: Male Transgender: Transvestism Behaviours: Courtship Ranking: Moderate Observed: Wild, Captivity
(See It's Gay Animal Fortnight for an explanation of this box.)
Many younger males have plumage that resembles that of a female bird instead of a male. For up to seven years they may entirely resemble females or look like a mixture of male and female. These transvestites have special ways of building their bower and displaying their objects when they're attempting to court somebody of their own gender. Bowerbirds with typical male plumage spend about 15% of their time trying to seduce other males. 28% of the juvenile transvestites' display time is spent re-enacting the twist from The Crying Game with other males. Furthermore, two thirds of adult males seem to have no interest in courting anybody of either gender. Only a third of males build bowers at all, and only a fraction of visits by other Bowerbirds to a courting bird's bower lead to mating.
Quite reminiscent of going back to somebody's place, then they insist on showing you all their records or all their action figures or how many shoes and teddy bears they've got or something and you just think, OK… heading home now.
Next time on Gay Animal Fortnight… the gayest hoofed animal is not the Unicorn. It's the Giraffe.
Original Regent Bowerbird image from Wikipedia Commons.


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When Amy was questioned at the scene; when the police got her statement days later at her house; when she was testifying in a packed courtroom, she always told the same story, beat by beat.
She and Bret were heading home from a party at a friend's place downtown. They both left early, at ten thirty, because they both had finals the next day, and they needed the sleep. There was alcohol at the party, yes, and drugs, too. They had each had a drink – which was fine, since they were over twenty one – but they hadn't driven till several hours later. Every precaution was taken, so alcohol played no factor in the incident.
The highway was mostly empty at that time, because the only people who were out were heading toward downtown, not away from it, but there was one very noticeable car on the road, one lane away. For about two miles a red sports car revved up its engines as it passed them, then slowed down so they could catch up, so it could blow past them again. Bret had remarked how dangerous that kind of a thing was, and then suddenly it happened.
Bret lost control of the vehicle, through some unknown means. Whether it was the slick roads or the suspension seizing up or hitting a pothole that jerked the steering wheel, we may never know. But the front corner of Bret and Amy's car caught the back corner of the sports car so that it began spinning out of control, till it collided with the concrete median and flipped into a light pole.
Amy looked right into Bret's eyes as she told her story, watching him not even blink when she left out what he'd said right before the steering wheel jerked: "What if I just slammed into this jerk right now, and he spun out and died?" He'd said it with a grin, and she'd laughed, and then it happened. Just like that. She never really thought he was capable of something like that. She still wasn't sure. So she kept it to herself. Ultimately there was no evidence to convict Bret of any wrongdoing, and he walked.


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Vets and vet students often get the idea that evidence-based veterinary medicine (EBVM) is a purely academic thing or isn't practice in general practice. As a GP firmly committed to this approach, I like to debunk those myths whenever possible.
I recently spoke to the senior veterinary students at my alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine about EBVM in practice, and gave some examples (including how EBVM has helped our practice in responding to COVID-19). Here are the slides for these presentations.


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BYNIK 50 – The most advanced directly operated spring loaded governor you will ever have seen!
The BYNIK-50 governor is a high performance governor that incorporates a built-in relief and
Auto-Reset OPSO Valve for downstream overpressure protection for commercial and light industrial users. This governor provides very stable pressures with high capacity and excellent shock characteristics maximizing numerous ITO innovation technologies such as a flexible air in-take stabilizer, a balancing diaphragm , and re-sizable vent and internal pilot tubes.
Presentation of BYNIK Features
Presentation of Features
Easy Selection
The ITO innovations minimize
any outlet pressure fluctuation despite varying inlet pressures. This allows the BYNIK-50 more accurate and stable pressure control for use inmultiple inlet pressure tiers .
It makes your governor selection easier.
Fast Response
ITO offers a direct-operated governor further quick- response and shock characteristics. It is the most highly recommended governor for gas burning appliance installations.
Re-balanceable on-site
Do you have to open your governor to change the nozzle orifice and vent size for best shock characteristics and flow capacities when the delivered pressure at the inlet is changed?
ITO innovations enable an on-site re-balancing in the easiest way possible for your loading situations.
In & Outdoor Installations
The vent is not externally mounted on the cover and can breathe through a space between the back cap and the cover avoiding rainwater ingress , so it can be installed outside without dedicated accessories. You can say goodbye to additional vent assemblies for water protection.
Standard Specificiation
BYNIK Technical Specification  (please note: Flange adaptors will be available)


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Five-Oh-Four-Oh, named for the room it was situated in, was a mixed media exhibition that combined social sculpture, music, performance, an active studio, documentation, video, functional furniture design, and live radio broadcasting. The space morphed throughout the week, being rearranged, littered, sometimes populated and sometimes unpopulated, sometimes loud and sometimes quiet – each state as important as any other.
It was ambitious. It was social, it was stressful, it was noisy, it was silly. It made me ill. It made me laugh + cry. It was great fun.
Events held within Five-Oh-Four-Oh:
Very Important Person
Performance with Selected Strangers
DJ Sets from Reckless Kettle, Hildisvini, Callum Mackie, Finlay J Hall
Cheese + Wine FM
Live Radio Broadcast
Guessing People's Names
Performance with Joseph Donald
Cheese + Wine
Flying Cheese Contest
Participatory Performance with Cheese + Wine Attendees
Practice 3-6, Gig at 6
Musical Performance with Machine Speak
Previously Unperformed Songs
Solo Musical Performance
Five Minute Artist Talk
Performance followed by Q+A
Workshop hosted by Mhairi Brown + Archie McIver


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- November 26, 2014
Scion Rules Out FR-S Turbo and Convertible Models in the Near Future
Almost a year ago, Scion showed off a concept vehicle called GT86 and it was mentioned that the car would turn into production and would turn into Scion FR-S Turbo. However, in the latest announcements, Scion has sidelined the news and said that currently they are not really focusing on the Turbo model to come up and that has been like a bad news to all the Scion FR-S fans that were eagerly waiting for the turbo model to come up. Many fans of Toyota/Subaru GT86 platform said that they were not happy with the announcement since they appreciate the low price and excellent capabilities of Scion FR-S.
Doug Martha, Senior Vice President of Scion spoke at the Wards Auto at the Los Angeles Auto Show and said that both the turbo and convertible models are not in the lineup at the moment. Martha did mention that they have various other special editions to work on and therefore they would like to go that way rather than work on the Turbo models. It could also be because of the rapidly declining sales of the GT86 platform and therefore Scion is moving ahead with something that can offer them better stability and profit in the market.


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We had a very good Christmas holiday!
We spent Christmas Eve with Chad's family at his parents house. Maria didn't get to enjoy much of the present opening as it came right at bed time. Luckily her cousin Jana was glad to help her open her presents so she could go to bed!
We got up Christmas morning and checked our stockings. Maria got her very own remote control! She even checks the TV after she pushes the buttons! (Mommy got an iPod Nano! and Daddy got the Blake Lewis CD! Mommy must have been very good!) Maria also opened her big gift from Chad and I, then Chad put it together.
We spent Christmas day at home after my family agreed that waiting to the 26th would be best for everyone. Chad's parents gave us a turkey breast on Christmas eve for us to make the next day, and then they came down, we all watched Christmas Vacation, and then ate a turkey dinner. (My first attempt at a turkey breast in the crockpot! I will definitely be doing that again!)
The 2nd day of Christmas (or Boxing Day) we went to Rochester to spend with my family. It was a nice day! Everyone was well rested, all the kids were fun and good. It was nice having the extra day and not feel so rushed or over-spent. Maria was good, went down for a nap (on the floor of the den) without any fuss. And we all got lots of good presents.
All in all it was a very nice holiday!
Grandma made Maria a stocking
A new Book!
Daddy got my new house built!
Grandma made me a dress too! And Mommy was too lazy to crop this photo, so you can see her hand too!


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I am member of a large group of Black Educators and on this particular day I noticed one of my colleagues post expressing being defeated and wanting to quit teaching. I instantly jumped at the post because as an educator, there are countless times when I feel like throwing in the towel. But then God sends me gentle reminders as to why I'm there in the first place.
Teaching is a selfless, thankless, timeless, and priceless job; so there will never be a monetary gift large enough to account for the toil teachers go through day in and day out. There are however experiences that serve as "thank you(s)' and "at a boy(s)" the Universe gives us. Back to the post I read. I instantly felt sorry for my colleague and wanted to offer some nuggets that would serve as support through the Woes of Teaching because our children need us. So I will share them here. Hopefully they help if just a little bit.
The first thing i would ask is this:
"What is making this year so undesirable?(if it's a lot, start writing it out.) some times when we put things on paper we can see the things we can/cannot control. This will help us decide if it is "me" or the environment I have found myself in. Then ask what steps have I taken in trying to make these things better? Also ask what steps outside of school have I taken in helping my own feelings and emotions?"
After we put it all out there I'd offer these suggestions…
- Try your very best to leave work at work! – For teachers that is almost impossible, but what I mean is that you are going to have to try and not bring school work into the house at times and disconnect from the school as best you can. Because education is as emotionally draining as it is physically draining, it easy for us to work overtime. No one in your school will never tell you that you're doing too much or working too hard. They will wait until you are bedridden or hospitalized because your body said stop. Which leads me to my next point…
- Use your sick days. Taking personal or sick days doesn't make you less of an effective teacher. It actually helps maintain the ability to keep your flame lit as the year progresses.
- Create habits that help you decompress from the stress of teaching. That means not only joining a fitness gym, but an aerobics or boot camp class. These are better than just joining because it allows you to connect with people that can both motivate you keep working and keep coming back without the price tag of a personal trainer. Practicing yoga and meditation. Both allow you to connect with your inner self and make you more conscious of "YOU!" For those that are self-motivated, go for walks/runs regularly. Yoga and Runs are my go-to means of decompression. Yoga centers me when I'm restless and long runs help to calm me after a challenging day or when I'm frustrated. Running can also jump start my day when I can drag myself out of bed quick enough to get a quick 20 min run in before getting ready for work.
- Consider taking mini vacations like a road trip or stay-cation at a hotel outside of town. The change of scenery can serve as a mental detox from the monotonous day to day of doing the same ole thing.
- MOST IMPORTANTLY – Adopt the Pray of Serenity. Accept things that you cannot change and take control of those things you can. You cannot change the administrator you were given nor the students that were enrolled in your class, so lets not waste valuable time on the negative energy some may bring. Focus more on what you can control: The design of your room whether it be with positive posters, vibrant colors or calming colors, manage the scent that is released into the room and tones heard in the room whether you're playing earthscapes, classical, gospel, or hip-hop. You'll be surprised what ambiance can do to a room.
Another thing that gives you greater control of your space is welcoming students into your room. It allows you to discern your students demeanor, oftentimes they will warn you of either how they feel or give you excuses as to how they forgot their homework on there bed. This is very important. In case you have never looked at this way, what this exchange does is shows kids that 1. this is my space and I am allowing you to enter, and 2. its shows when students respond they accept the establishment of power in the room. For your problem kiddos, meeting them at the door allows you to express to them your expectation of them.
Our life's mission is about sharing our knowledge to impact others not to keep it for selfish gain. So when we go through things, it is to give us endurance for the next challenge ahead or to help someone else handle a similar challenge later. Teaching allows us to share with people exponentially the roadmap to being successful and the roadblocks to avoid. As teachers of color, it is even more important that we "stick with it" because our presence holds the hope of so many students we interact with directly and indirectly. If we allow things that we cannot control to rule us, we will forever be running.
So come to the center of the ring and start fighting! A bad classroom experience will be no different than a bad experience at any other job you take. So in times of distress, go to your corner and listen to your cornerman. Even if you knocked on your butt in the fight this week, quarter, or semester, you'll be better prepared for the next punch. Just keep fighting! It means more than you know.


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I wanted to try making some Easter shaped chocolates this year with the kids, as I thought it would be fun. We were given a number of plastic chocolate moulds by a good friend, and my mother also gave us a silicone chocolate mould to try. We started with the silicone mould.
We didn't make our own chocolate, we used choc melts, in milk chocolate and white chocolate. I melted small batches of the melts in a ceramic bowl in the microwave for about 30 seconds at a time. Each time the microwave dinged, I mixed the chocolate with a spoon to make sure that it was melting evenly and not burning on the bottom of the bowl. It's very important to remove the spoon from the bowl before it is placed in the microwave!
I did not let the kids handle the bowl with the melted chocolate, as it can be very hot. I used an oven mitt to prevent burning myself on the bowl when removing it from the microwave. After a minute or two it was normally cool enough to touch, but we still had to be very careful.
As silicone is floppy, we used a plastic cutting board underneath the mould to prevent it from drooping and spilling the chocolate. We transferred the melted chocolate into the mould one spoonful at a time, carefully filling each hole to the top and smoothing it out. Inevitably, we dripped chocolate onto the cutting board, mould and even on the bench. The kids didn't mind swiping it up on a finger and popping it in their mouths. Once all the holes on the mould were filled, we placed it in the fridge to set.
We made some plain milk chocolate, some white chocolate, and some we mixed together to marble the chocolate. I also had a go at layering the chocolate. I found it was best to let the first layer set in the fridge for about fifteen minutes before adding the second layer.
The kids cut some cellophane into squares and placed about four chocolates onto each square, then brought the cellophane up around the chocolates creating a little bundle. We added some curling ribbon to tie it up, and I curled it with scissors. L tried to curl her own ribbon, but she didn't quite manage it. They want to give their little parcels of Easter chocolates to relatives.


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Tahini Cookies with Apricot Compote and Sumac
My dad hates getting up early in the morning. If left alone, he'd probably sleep until 11am every day. But he did it. He did it every damn morning of my childhood, weekends too. Rising to darkness, he'd shower, iron his shirt and slacks (my father can press clothes with a tailor's precision) dress himself, eat, and get out the door to bake the bread that fed our family—all in a half hour.
I'd rise about an hour later, but I felt his presence every morning in the steamy bathroom that trapped the smell of the cologne he's worn for 30 years, the light hum of the voices on the morning news he'd left on in the other room, and, without fail, from the sight of the crumb-filled, half-finished Tetley tea that sat on his side of the kitchen table.
It's curious that my dad drank Tetley in the morning (and still does). Persian, he comes from a tea culture. Tea is the national drink for a reason: Iran's coastal climate and topography are perfect for tea cultivation, and Iranians drink tea after every meal. The tea is often brewed in glass pots with a cylindrical infuser and poured into small, slender, filigreed glasses. An Iranian tea set is quite the vision, the ceremony of drinking from it an aesthetician's wet dream. The glasses seem to deliver a cautionary message: The hot glass will scorch your fingertips if you drink the tea when it is too hot for its flavor to be appreciated. The aroma of Iranian black tea is nothing like stateside tea, and the ritual surrounding drinking it brings together families, friends, and strangers. When there is tea, there are no divides; Iranian Muslims and Jews sip together in the tea houses that are found on every corner (though any divides are sensationalized anyway). Place a lump of pure cane sugar on your tongue, sip, close your eyes, breathe, let the marijuana-like high roll over you, and repeat—this is how Persian tea should be enjoyed. Drink it in the summer, no matter the temperature; drink it in the winter to thaw chilled bones. Drink it with rock candy (the confection originated in Iran, not at seaside American candy shops); swirl your crystal-laden stick in the warm amber liquid and let it melt. Drink it with rose-scented pistachio nougat.
But, no, my father lived to work and there was no time for proper tea. Not in the morning, not ever. The Madadians still need tea to make our blood pump, however, so 10 cups of Tetley a day would have to do—just a bag in a cup with boiling water poured over.
Curiously, my dad's breakfast tea always accompanied one thing—the same thing he ate for breakfast every weekday from the time I was born until I was a teenager: cookies. These were not granola bars or "health cookies" made from flax seeds and oats, but regular cookies, usually those of the sandy, crumbly, shortbread-like variety—simply flavored, very dunkable. The big blue tin—the ubiquitous Danisk Danish Butter Cookies—was on heavy rotation, and I loved the crackly sound that the empty white crepe paper holders made as they bounced around the tin. The tender Armenian filled cookies, ma'amoul, that were sold at our local farmstand was another one, as was anything that involved jam. In the spring, when Girl Scout Cookies were abundant, he'd have Trefoils—those crest-printed shortbread cookies with the fake-butter aftertaste.
My dad was thin and lean and played soccer every Sunday. A superlatively hard worker, he buzzed around his vast office—an organic chemistry lab—all day long tending to everything: his responsibilities, the responsibilities of others. He was a healthy man—well, save for the genetic heart disease—and his post-breakfast diet was sound. And yet, little me would castigate him for his cookie breakfast from behind my muffin or bowl of raisin bran (both of which I now know are no more healthful than the cookies) for eating dessert for breakfast, for leaving his crumbs all over the woven place mat, for not finishing his tea. Even at that young age, I could sense how hard he worked—how his life was our family's lifeline—and two little cookies didn't have the calories or the nutrients to support superman.
Admittedly, I didn't make these cookies with my father (or the upcoming holiday celebrating him) in mind. I am a tahini addict, eating through a tin a week, so uses for this ingredient come to me often. But as soon as I took a bite, I thought of my dad. He would love these cookies: The warm, nutty base; the seedy coating; the wine-cooked dried apricot compote (he loves jams, compotes, and dried fruits with everything from bagels to feta-filled pita, and he's a whino); and the dusting of a familiar-to-him ingredient: sumac.
At night I'd eat cookies with dad for his second serving and my first of the day. I'd be doing my homework; he'd be on our clunky, grey Microsoft desktop attending to work. We were silent, but for once we shared the ritual. I loved the way the tea soaked into shortbread cookies, the golden liquid dying the cookie as it inched its way up their length, softening the cookies and scenting them with its herbal flavor. With cookie eaten, the day was over. Dad could go to sleep and prepare to start the routine again; I could stay awake much too late for a growing girl and paste homemade stickers on some overdone poster for a book report. The cookies were bookends to the drudgery that was work and school, to the responsibilities that we threw ourselves—all of ourselves—at.
We haven't changed much. We're both workaholics, we care too little for ourselves, we drink tea. Dad reportedly doesn't eat cookies for breakfast very often anymore, but he'll always love a cookie with his tea, and I'll never sleep. Our complimentary vices bring us together.
Tahini Cookies with Dried Apricot Compote and Sumac
Makes about 25 cookies
These cookies can be made with a hand mixer.
196 grams (3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons) well-stirred and chilled tahini
113 grams (1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon) granulated sugar
1 egg plus 1 yolk
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons almond flour
2/3 cup sesame seeds
Dried Apricot Compote (recipe follows)
Sumac, for sprinkling
1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Line rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Spread sesame seeds in shallow dish.
2. Using stand mixer fitted with paddle mix on medium-low speed until most of sugar is moistened with tahini. Increase speed to medium-high and beat tahini and sugar for 2 minute. Reduce mixer speed to low and mix in egg followed by yolk until combined, followed by salt, baking soda, baking powder, vanilla, and vinegar. Add cornstarch and almond flour and mix until fully incorporated. (Dough may see a bit greasy and shiny—that's OK.) Roll 2-teaspoon portions of dough into balls between you hands and roll in sesame seeds to coat; space 12 cookies evenly on prepared baking sheet. Make small divot in cookies with rounded bottom of ¼ teaspoon measure.
3. Bake cookies for 10 minutes. Reshape the divots and fill each with a heaping ¼ teaspoon of apricot compote. Return cookies to the oven and bake until golden brown and slightly collapsed, 2 to 4 minutes longer for soft and chewy cookies and 4 to 6 minutes longer for crisper cookies with chew at the center (my preferred texture for this tea cookie). Sprinkle the apricot filling evenly with sumac and let cookies cool on sheet for 7 minutes, then carefully transfer to wire rack and let cool completely before serving.
Dried Apricot Compote
Makes about 11/2 cups
Be sure to use high-quality unsulfured apricots for this recipe. You can use any dry white wine here, but it really doesn't have to be that good. Serve leftover compote with cheese, on toast, whatever!
5 ounces dried Turkish apricots, chopped fine
115 grams (1/2 cup) cheap dry white wine
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon honey
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
Bring all ingredients to a boil in a small saucepan, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to simmer, cover pan, and let compote gently simmer until apricots are plumped, softened, and have absorbed most of the liquid, about 10 minutes. (When a spatula is run through the compote it should leave a trail, but the mixture should be syrupy and not dry; the compote will dry further when baked on the cookie.)


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Swarthmore College Computer Society
Digital services by and for Swarthmore students
Welcome! We're a collective of student volunteers who maintain digital services for the students, staff, and alumni of Swarthmore College. We offer club mailing lists, a campus directory, a daily digest, and much more. Most services require an SCCS account, available to anyone with an @swarthmore.edu email address.
Quick Links
News and Updates
Course Planner Updated
The SCCS Course Planner has just been updated for Spring 2023! You can use it to search for classes, organize your schedule, and share with your friends. Finally, due to popular demand, we've re-added the calendar export feature after a Google policy update broke it for last semester. As always, feel free to email us if you have any questions.
Follow Our Instagram!
We now have an Instagram! Follow us at @swatsccs for news, service updates, and more.


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…but it's not. You'll need to read all the way to the end to find out why.
First, lets look at some behind the scenes footage of the Red Bull Depth Charge. Now you're asking, what's that? Well, it was the world's first UNDERGROUND wakeboard event. They used a mine from 1864 that had since flooded with a whole lot of water, installed some features and put up some lights and whala, they had themselves a wakeboard course set about 120 feet below the surface of the earth.
Red Bull Depth Charge
Next up is the Dew Tour Mastercraft Wakeboard Rail Jam. One would think they'd hold a wakeboard event in a lake, right? Even in the Red Bull Depth Charge they were in a lake, granted is was underground, but still, it was a lake. The Rail Jam, they held it in a parking lot… on pavement… and built some really big pools. And by big pools, I mean ginormous (gigantic * enormous = ginormous) pools. In word, they were big. But not so big that if they jumped too high or too far, they might just hit pavement. Be sure to watch this one to the end because they managed to find a guy to explain everything for you.
Dew Tour Mastercraft Wakeboard Rail Jam
By now you're wondering why are there two wakeboarding videos posted here on a barefoot site? One might be OK, but two? Seriously? [just watched me some SNL] Well, both of these events had one Mr Peter Fleck involved in the planning of them. Who's Peter Fleck? This guy…
That is Peter Fleck as he appeared some 26 years ago. It's also this guy…
He's had a lengthy career as a barefooter, skied professionally in ski shows and has even competed at Footstock in recent years. He also helped plan both the Depth Charge and Rail Jam events. In addition to everything he's done on the water, he's done a lot of stuff off the water to help promote the sport of water skiing and all is various disciplines, even wakeboarding. Here's the video that was played at the Wisconsin Water Ski Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2009. It highlights some of the things he's done both on and off the water.
Peter Fleck Wisconsin Water Ski Hall of Fame Induction Highlight Video
Hopefully you've taken the nearly 30 minutes to read this short article and watch these three videos. Two highlight some spectacular water ski events and one highlights a truly spectacular water skier who helped make those events happen.


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After many months of complacency the VIX (Chicago Options: ^VIX) has sprung back to life.
In fact, seasonality and technicals suggest that the VIX (NYSEArca: VXX) is near a key inflection point.
An absolutely unique tool available only to iSPYETF readers is the VIX seasonality chart.
The VIX seasonality chart is created from averaging together 23 years of VIX behavior. But since the VIX is at a different price level every year, using an average of the VIX's actual values would inappropriately skew the result by overweighting the years when it was at a higher level and vice versa.
To equally weigh every year, the price history is adjusted (using a divisor) to begin at the same level on the first trading day of every year. Then each day's values for the rest of the year reflect the percentage change from that first day of the year.
The chart below shows VIX seasonality compared to this year's VIX performance.
The VIX has been dancing to the beat of its own drum for much of the year, but the latest 60%+ VIX spike follows the seasonal pattern nicely.
Seasonality projects a minor VIX high around October 9 and a major VIX high in late October.
Of course this is important for stock investors as VIX movements have a direct effect on the S&P 500 (NYSEArca: SPY), Nasdaq (Nasdaq: QQQ) and other major indexes.
But seasonality is not the only force driving the VIX.
In fact, here's an interest development unrelated to seasonality: Since September 19, the S&P 500 (SNP: ^GSPC) lost about 4%, yet the VIX soared 63%.
This 63% spike pushed the VIX above a 5-year old resistance level. Normally a move above such important resistance is bullish. Bullish for VIX means bearish for stocks.
What about this time? Will the VIX continue to rally, pushing stocks lower? Here's a detailed look at the VIX from a technical analysis perspective. VIX Above 5-Year Resistance - What Does it Mean?
Simon Maierhofer is the publisher of the Profit Radar Report. The Profit Radar Report presents complex market analysis (stocks, gold, silver, euro and bonds) in an easy format. Technical analysis, sentiment indicators, seasonal patterns and common sense are all wrapped up into two or more easy-to-read weekly updates. We are accountable for our work, because we track every recommendation (see track record below).
Follow Simon on Twitter @ iSPYETF or sign up for the FREE iSPYETF Newsletter to get actionable ETF trade ideas delivered for free.


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The International Master's in Economic system, State and Society is a unique, revolutionary, dynamic but firmly established postgraduate programme supplied by a consortium of main European universities. Cooperation with companies: Ministry of Financial Improvement, Federal Customs Service, Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation, Russian-Arab Business Centre, Russian-Emirati Enterprise Centre, PricewaterhouseCoopers Russia B.V, ОАО Sberbank of Russia, Folks's Bank of Kazakhstan, ООО Deutsche Bank, ZAO Business Financial institution 'Citibank', Nestle group, Sophia Antipolis Technology Park (30 worldwide firms), Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Good. The U.S. financial system, in contrast, is the last word nightmare conglomerate, with tens of thousands of utterly distinct traces of business, unified solely as a result of they happen to be inside the nation's borders. The expertise of a successful wheat farmer provides little insight into what works in the computer business, which, in turn, is probably not an excellent guide to successful strategies for a sequence of restaurants.
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It is not uncommon to restrict questions of the world economic system completely to human financial activity, and the world financial system is typically judged in financial terms, even in cases by which there isn't any environment friendly market to help valuate certain items or services, or in instances through which a scarcity of impartial analysis or authorities cooperation makes establishing figures tough. Typical examples are illegal medication and other black market goods, which by any normal are part of the world economy, however for which there is by definition no authorized market of any form.