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Black Hat USA 2013 brings together the best minds in security to define tomorrow's information security landscape. Featuring many new tracks and new training sessions, Black Hat USA is the biggest and best conference we've ever presented.
Need to conduct effective penetration tests as efficiently as possible? This challenging, fast-paced course will teach you how to best use available tools and methodologies to accurately emulate modern threats; all while adapting to tightening budgets, limited timeframes and diverse skillsets.
Attackers are constantly evolving, becoming more sophisticated in how they attack and evade security measures. Participants will develop stealth, evasion, and persistence techniques to effectively emulate the enemy and demonstrate the impact of a successful attacker.
The days of running grep to find simple stack overflows are gone. This 2 day course teaches students how to dive into large C/C++ source code projects and find exploitable memory corruption vulnerabilities armed with nothing more than a text editor. It is completely up to date and focuses on real world vulnerabilities such as use-after-free and type confusion in web browsers.
Looking to sharpen you malware analysis skills? Then take this fast-paced class to develop skills in dealing with anti-reversing packers and special case malware. You will practice your new skills by dissecting real malware via hands-on labs.
Learn how to profile a target with devastating accuracy without ever sending a packet to their network. Taught by the 2-time winner of the Defcon Social Engineering CTF, get extensive hands on experience utilizing OSINT tools to optimize your next pentest/SE attacks. Lots of labs and practical coursework makes sure you get actual experience with the tools.
From mind-bending XSS attacks, to exploiting race conditions, to advanced SQL injection attacks, Advanced Web Attacks and Exploitation will deepen and broaden your knowledge of web application hacking, as well as help you identify and circumvent various protection mechanisms in use on the web today.
Advanced Windows Exploitation provides an in-depth and hardcore drilldown into topics ranging from precision heap spraying to DEP & ASLR bypass techniques to real-world 64-bit kernel exploitation. This course is extremely hands-on and includes a lab environment, which is tailored to bringing the most out of you.
In this a two-day hands on course you will learn how to pentest Android applications, perform static analysis, traffic manipulation, memory dumps, debugging , code modification and dynamic analysis – from zero knowledge to full exploitation of any APK.
This course is full of hands-on labs, making the best out of the AppUse Android application pentesting platform, from its own creators.
This course will have 4 components: reverse engineering, source code auditing, fuzzing and exploitation. Each section contains a liberal amount of labs and hands-on exercises.
Learn advanced techniques in SQL Injection as well as some lesser known injection flaws such as LDAP Injection, Hibernate Query Language Injection, XPATH Injection, XML External Entity Injection, Direct Code injection etc. Identify, Extract, Escalate, Execute... Need we say More?
Hands-on course using open source tools to perform penetration testing of web application. Attendees will perform instructor lead application pentests using the open source tools included in the Samurai Web Testing Framework Live CD (Samurai-WTF).
This two day course will take a deep-dive into the fundamentals of SCADA security and provide students with the knowledge that they need to safely perform penetration testing against live SCADA environments. The course will also provide students with methodologies through which security research may be performed against SCADA devices in order to identify 0day flaws in some of the world's most critical systems. During the course, students will have the opportunity to engage in live attacks against programmable logic controllers (PLC's) and other industrial control systems, to include activities such as SCADA RTOS firmware reversing and SCADA protocol fuzzing.
Learn rapid techniques in how penetration testers utilize day to day attack vectors to rip through security controls. This course is designs for professionals looking to get into penetration testing or learning cutting edge techniques in gaining access to systems through penetration testing. Learn everything you need to know to be a successful penetration tester including ground breaking social engineering attacks, circumventing security mechanisms (antivirus and more).
Securing cloud computing is most definitely not business as usual. This course, which fulfills the Cloud Security Alliance CCSK requirements, shows you what's different, where to focus, and includes an entire day of hands-on cloud security labs.
You are under assault. Your data is being targeted by Cyber Criminals. Once extracted, it will be bought and sold as a commodity on the black market. This is not a matter of "if" your organization will suffer a data breach, it's a matter of "when". In this course, you will learn HOW to investigate data breaches, not click buttons. You will be taught by industry experts who have worked hundreds of cases, and have developed their methodology to be deadly accurate. The real-world experience of this four-day incident response training will benefit forensic practitioners of all levels.
Covering everything necessary to successfully manage an incident, students will work through various scenarios building response plans for each situation. From what should be in place prior to an incident, to knowing when to trust your network again, this practical course will teach you how to appropriately respond in real world incidents.
The US Special Operations Forces pioneered a methodology called F3EAD, which enabled amongst other things the ability to take out insurgent and terrorist networks. This class focuses on modifying the F3EAD methodology for utility in Cyber Defense Operations to allow cyber defenders to incorporate intelligence practices into their daily operations to focus not just on one off indicators but the overall threat actor. Intelligence enables cyber defense teams to look at the cyber battlefield from the 50,000-foot view and piece together all aspects of the cyber adversary's operations. From what altitude are you viewing the cyber battlefield?
Have you ever wondered whether your business-critical SAP implementation was secure? Do you know how to check it? Have you imagined which could be the impact of an attack to your core business platform? Do you know how to prevent it? This training is the answer to these questions.
This is a new and special training that covers both designing and attacking secure protocols. Attendees will learn the fundamentals of how to design a secure protocol, and be armed with the knowledge of how to evaluate the security of and discover weaknesses in existing protocols.
Digital forensics and incident response are two of the most critical fields in all of information security. The staggering number of reported breaches in the last year has shown that the ability to rapidly respond to attacks is a vital capability for all organizations.
Unlock the true potential and raw power of Maltego. Join us and we'll show you how to navigate and map the Internet's darkest rivers…
Learn how to expose the inner mechanisms of exploits and how they work. The class is highly hands-on and very lab intensive.
Black Belt is a new and advanced class continuing from where The Exploit Laboratory left off. This class is for those curious to dig deeper into the art and craft of software exploitation.
Hacking By Numbers "BlackOps Edition" is a student's final course in the Hacking By Numbers series before being deployed into "Combat." In BlackOps, students will sharpen their skills in real-world scenarios before being shipped off to battle. BlackOps covers tools and techniques to brush up your skills on data exfiltration, privilege escalation, pivoting, client-side attacks and harnessing OSINT. Students will also focus on practical elements of attacking commonly found systems and staying under the radar. After completing BlackOps students are considered weaponized and ready for the final and most intense course in the HBN series: Combat.
Reality, Theory and Practice! This course is the "How did they do that?" of modern hacking attacks. From start to finish, we will lead you through the full compromise of a company's IT systems, explaining the tools and technologies, but especially the thinking, strategies and the methodologies for every step along the way. "Hacking By Numbers – Bootcamp Edition" will give you a complete and practical window into the methods and thinking of hackers.
Hacking By Numbers Cadet Edition is offered as an introduction to the art and science of computer hacking. Even with no hacking experience whatsoever Cadet Edition will equip students with the basic thinking and technical skills necessary to start exploring this fascinating world. 'Cadet Edition' is an introductory course for technical people with no previous experience in the world of hacking. The course will present one with background information, technical skills and basic concepts required to get going. This includes some coding and scripting, networking and Internet technologies, basic methodologies, essential thinking skills, tools and current hacking techniques. Cadet Edition is the ideal training ground to prepare one for the HBN Bootcamp, further self-study or other hacking courses.
As mobile phone usage continues to grow at an outstanding rate, this course shows you how you would go about testing the mobile platforms and installed applications, to ensure they have been developed in a secure manner. Hacking By Numbers Mobile will give you a complete and practical window into the methods used when attacking mobile platforms. This course is ideal for penetration testers who are new to the mobile area and need to understand how to analyze and audit applications on various mobile platforms using a variety of tools.
SensePost's Hacking by Numbers Unplugged is an entry-level wireless security-training course. It is done in the same style as our other HBN courses; highly practical with a focus on learning how things work, not just the tricks. The course starts off with some practically focused fundamentals. This includes wireless fundamentals such as antenna selection and radio radiation patterns, network fundamentals such as TCP/IP and wireless protocols. This section is kept intentionally short, with the rest of the fundamentals explained as part of a scenario based course. Three scenarios are used; the first is how to approach hacking a residential wireless network. Here technologies such as WEP are discussed. The second scenario is how to attack corporate networks, where WPA/2 technologies and attacks are discussed. The final scenario is an open coffee shop network where monitoring and interception attacks are discussed. By the end of the course, a student should have a much better understanding of wireless networks, and their security failings, and how to exploit these.
Grand Idea Studio's Hardware Hacking and Reverse Engineering training course focuses on teaching board-level hardware hacking and reverse engineering techniques and skills. The course is a combination of lecture and hands-on exercises. It covers the hardware hacking processes, circuit board analysis and modification, embedded security, and common hardware attack vectors. The course concludes with a final hardware hacking challenge in which students must apply what they've learned in the course to defeat the security mechanism of a custom circuit board.
In this class, students will be introduced to the basics of ICS and the components that they are likely to encounter while performing penetration tests and red team assessments for the Fortune 1000. Software and hardware components, including Human Machine Interface (HMI), Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC), and other ICS supporting components will be covered in detail. A deep dive into common vulnerabilities and configurations that exist in ICS deployments will be covered in detail. The instructors will also cover techniques for discovering ICS on enterprise networks as well as the precautions that must be taken while performing an ICS focused assessment. Students should expect to spend a significant amount of the classroom time in a custom developed ICS lab environment, using the techniques they learned in class. Students will also have the opportunity to experience working with live PLCs and performing simulated penetration tests which ultimately lead to the compromise of a real PLC.
Essential background material for effective reverse engineering.
Designed for information security professionals responding to computer security incidents or managing information security programs.
Tired of the NSA reading your personal emails? Want to keep pictures of your ex on your computer? Need to exfiltrate data innocuously? Then this Steganography course is for you!
We will explore steganography well beyond the common Least Significant Bit techniques. Want to learn about jpeg hiding? We do it several ways. Advanced audio? We do the wave with you. Executables, video, and bitmaps too. We'll learn about and apply steganalysis to demonstrate detection as well. Most of the techniques have DEMOs and source code, so you can dig into the details yourself.
Any app, anytime, anywhere, In this training you will learn how to perform cutting edge iOS application security assessment, conduct advanced analysis and identify vulnerabilities. You will learn how harness the power of the iOS iNalyzer framework to automate any tedious iOS black-box security analysis into a gray-box one man show, Any app, anytime, anywhere.
Bring. It. on.
Most trainings about Java security focus on the Security API or crypto techniques, and rarely focus the attacker perspective. This training uses both perspectives, first in focusses on the security architect/analyst PoV, and shows approaches how to identify holes in the protection infrastructure and how to close them. Then for the second half, the tables are turned and the focus shifts to the attackers point of view. Examination of the attack surface and delving into the offensive mindset in addition to the various defensive techniques discussed, provides for a well rounded approach to Java security.
Looking to enter the exciting cat-and-mouse game of malware analysis? Take this fast-paced class to learn about the tools and techniques used by professionals. You will practice your new skills by dissecting real malware via hands-on labs.
Step up your game with the latest advanced techniques for penetrating networks with the Metasploit Framework. Taught by a pair of shell-addicted, password-crazed, ruby fiends, so leave you python at the door
With Innovation, we bring you change. HotWAN has opened it's mobile training offering to include a variety of industry experts across the mobile space ranging from iOS, Android and Software Defined Radio. This unique class seeks to provide you a better understanding of the emerging trends and threats in the mobile space.
This class encompasses:
Learn to recognize hackers' tracks and uncover network-based evidence. This fast-paced class includes packet analysis, flow record analysis, wireless forensics, intrusion detection and analysis, covert tunneling, malware network behavior — all packed into a dense 4 days with intensive hands-on technical labs.
Do you want to find intruders in your network, but don't know where to begin? If the answer is yes, NSM 101 is the course for you. Join Richard Bejtlich as he explains Network Security Monitoring from the ground-up in this brand-new, hands-on course.
Learn leading network security practices from the experts who develop these techniques and put them to practical use. Attendees will learn to correctly detect, classify, and prevent threats targeting a network by configuring and deploying advanced network threat defenses, countermeasures, and controls.
Learn to become more offensive in your defensive tactics.
The first comprehensive hands-on fuzzing course centered on the industry standard Peach Fuzzing Platform. Learn how to fuzz just about anything with Peach. No coding required, but recommended.
Embedded Edition is an advanced course offering from Deja vu Security. It teaches students the fundamentals of using Peach to fuzz embedded devices. This course covers the targeting, monitoring, and collection of crashes on custom hardware.
This is not your traditional SCADA security course! This course teaches hands-on penetration testing techniques used to test embedded electronic field devices, network protocols, RF communications, and controlling servers of ICS and Smart Grid systems like PLCs, RTUs, smart meters, Home Area Networks (HAN), smart appliances, SCADA, substation automation, and synchrophasors.
Premiering for the first time the entirely new "Pentesting with Kali Linux." This course has been entirely re-written from the ground up to reflect the most modern and effective techniques that all penetration testers need to know. This is an intensive, hands-on security class by Offensive Security, the creators of Kali.
Those who attend this session will leave with a full awareness of how to best protect buildings and grounds from unauthorized access, as well as how to compromise most existing physical security in order to gain access themselves. Distinguish good locks and access control from poor ones and become well-versed in picking and bypassing in order to assess your own company's security posture or augment your career as a penetration tester.
Intensive lab-based course aiming to expand your exploitation ability to include the ARM processor architecture. Students will learn under "real world" circumstances through multiple lab exercises and challenges covering code auditing, advanced heap exploitation and more.
An intensive 2 day course/exercise for the security professional that wants to up the ante on their current skill sets in offensive and defensive security. Learn new tactics and receive guidance from expert instructors while you test yourself in a team vs team environment. Hands on and technical.
In this training, you will learn how Red Team (or full scope) testing works, how to create a methodology for using a red team engagement as a repeatable test with metrics and actionable results. We will go through all elements of a red team test, from planning and scoping, intelligence gathering, target selection, vulnerability analysis, risk analysis, exploitation and execution, resource usage and ad-hoc agent deployment, post-exploitation, documentation and recording of evidence, damage analysis, and reporting.
0-day exploits aren't needed when you know how to be a highly effective hacker. Lets increase your exploitation success rate! Create custom payloads for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X, and integrate them into Metasploit and public exploits. You don't have to be elite since The Shellcode Lab holds your hand to take your security skills to the next level. If you want to compromise more systems than ever before, register for The Shellcode Lab now!
This offering is a highly-specialized course for security professionals interested in learning the skills, mindset and tools to become a professional social engineer. Students develop the ability to blend his/her mental skills of influence, persuasion and psychological tactics with technical skills to become a human hacker.
An introduction to digital signal processing, software radio, and the powerful tools that enable the growing array of SDR projects within the hacker community, this course takes a unique "software radio for hackers" approach, building on the participants' knowledge of computer programming and introducing them to the forefront of digital radio technology. Participants will learn how to transmit, receive, and analyze radio signals and will be prepared to use this knowledge in the research of wireless communication security.
Using a combination of new tools and lesser-known techniques, attendees will learn how hackers compromise systems without depending on standard exploits.
This new extended version of Tactical Exploitation teaches students a deeper level of new tools and lesser-known techniques. Along with the extended format students will become immersed in a unique offensive school of thought. This class is designed to help students achieve success in any environment. Students learn how to compromise systems without depending on standard exploits and how to keep from getting caught.
This course delivers hands on application of Foundstone's hacker methodology. This course has long been considered essential for penetration testers.
This course delivers hands on application of Foundstone's wireless hacking methodology. This course takes you from configuring interfaces to the latest attacks.
Learn to detect lies and find the TRUTH through the application of proven human-memory retrieval techniques while observing behavioral and emotional clues, and micro-expressions. Master the art of asking questions, how to phrase them, and when to ask them. Develop practical skills to establish rapport and gain trust which can be immediately applied in any situation, with anyone.
Even when crypto is correctly implemented, it is notoriously difficult to use correctly. In this course we study how crypto works, how to use it properly, and how to stay clear of crypto misuses that will leave you wide open to attack.
Learn everything about security visualization to make your log analysis and forensic investigations more efficient and effective. We explore situational awareness and learn how to uncover new insights and hidden attacks on your environment.
MDSec's course is delivered by the authors of the Web Application Hacker's Handbook, and the author of Burp Suite. It features hands-on hacking from the 2nd Edition of the Handbook, with 150+ examples including a CTF contest


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All this week I've been running a series of the sharpest questions from my Guardian self-editing masterclass. In previous posts I've discussed three/four-act structure, endings, characters who are either bland or too disturbing to write , making a character distinct through dialogue , a fundamental misconception about self-editing and letting the manuscript rest. I want to end on this note –
The revision journey
A clear message emerged as we discussed my usual stops in the self-editing process – checking the pace, structure, character arcs, tone, using beat sheets and the number of passes you might do to get a scene right. Revision is more than a process of tidying and troubleshooting. It is a voyage towards a state where we know our book extremely well.
It reminds me of when I was at school, revising for chemistry A-level. For a long time the equations and Periodic Table rules seemed an impossible amount of information. I kept rereading my notes, hoping more would sink in, when gradually I noticed it was making sense as a grand pattern. From that point, I felt I could use it.
When I first start to revise a novel, it is a mystery to me. I wouldn't scrape even a GCSE pass. Revision brings familiarity, clarity, the insight to understand what human forces are at work in the book, how the themes will bind it together, where the most fundamental resonance lies. And that's why I find revision is more than a process of correcting, polishing or changing. It is learning to use my material. And it is thoroughly creative.
The beat sheet is one of the tools in Nail Your Novel: Why Writers Abandon Books & How You Can Draft, Fix & Finish With Confidence. There's also more about it here.
Having inflicted a new post on you for the last 7 days, I'll be a bit less prolific next week. The next novel-nailing post will be on 17 August, although there will be an Undercover Soundtrack as usual. And of course I'll be answering comments. On that note –
Any thoughts on the creativity of the revision process? Let's comment! Except for Robert Scanlon, who raised this point already in his most recent note here. Robert, you can give yourself a gold star for being ahead of the class 🙂

subset: commoncrawl


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Kid Cudi Releases Introspective Track 'Just What Iam'
It looks liked Kid Cudi is back on his rap grind with his just-released track 'Just What Iam.' It's a personal track of sorts with longtime collaborator King Chip (aka Chip Tha Ripper) chipping in (excuse the pun) with a dope guest verse.
Produced by Cudi, himself, the song boasts a thumping beat and spacey keyboard synths. The G.O.O.D. Music rapper robotically sings on the chorus, "I need to smoke / I need to smoke / Who gonna hold me down now / I wanna get higher ya'll, whoaaa," he warbles through a vocoder.
King Chip comes through with some quotable weeded-out lyrics. "N—a don't be worry about us / neighbor knockin' on the door asking can we turn it down / I say, 'aint no music on' / She said, 'no that weed is loud,'" he spits.
Cudi, on the other hand, gets personal with his verse as he self-reflects on his past troubles and worries about raising his two-year-old daughter in a world that he believes is not safe. "In my spare time punchin' walls f—in' up my hand / I know that s— sounds super cray / But if you had my life you'd understand," he raps. "But I cant fold, some poor soul got it way worse / We're all troubled, in a world of trouble / It's scary to have a kid walk this earth."
'Just What Iam' is expected to appear on Cudi's new album 'Indicud,' which he says is inspired by Dr. Dre's classic LP 'The Chronic 2001.' The collection will feature guest appearances from Kanye West, Jaden Smith, Pusha T, Kendrick Lamar and others.
And if there's anybody who thinks that Kid Cudi is not serious about his music, you have been warned. Cudi tweeted, "'Just What I Am' was designed for replay button rape. Enjoy and live it!Good day to all.Maintain," followed by, "anybody and i mean anybody who's dropping any new music from here on out better step their shit up. I'm slitting throats." Tell us how you really feel!
Listen to Kid Cudi, 'Just What Iam'


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I've been struggling to write a story for Christmas this year, and it hasn't worked at all…
The story I've been working on just hasn't come together, and I'm getting the feeling, that just like some stories have to be published at a certain time (hard to explain, but it's true – some stories have this urgency as I'm writing them that just can't be ignored, and later, in either comments, feedback, or just people talking to me, I often find out how important it was to get a story out at a certain time.
The story I was working on, however, is giving me the other impression. It isn't ready, and needs to wait until it is ready, and I don't know when that will be. On the other hand, another story showed up just this last weekend, and I think that one might have peeked out of the shadows just in time. As I write this now, I don't know how it will end, so join me in that discovery.
I'm thinking, over the years, as I see what has happened around not just "the holidays" – but Christmas, that people (myself included) often have such high hopes and expectations of Christmas that it can't possibly live up to those expectations, and that we end up being sad, or depressed because of that…
I was thinking about it, and realized that we often try to replicate the good parts of the Christmases we had in our childhoods, and sometimes, in those memories, forget the bad stuff that happened that made the good stuff stand out. Often we find ourselves wanting "something" – but not being sure what exactly it is.
We often do what Madison Avenue wants us to do – which is to "Stimulate the Economy" – but that just causes problems in other ways.
Where am I going with this? – Well, stay with me for a bit, we'll find out together.
I found myself thinking of Christmas trees… I'll tell you about three of them that I remember having. Two as a kid, one as an adult.
When I was a kid, we were poor. There's no other way to say it. My dad was off at college trying to get a degree so he could help make life better for us. He could only come home on the weekends if he came home at all. There were several years when the money was so tight that we couldn't even afford a tree at Christmas, much less presents to put under it. In fact, one year, we got the tree the church had used and set it up on Christmas Eve. I don't know if many people have had a used Christmas tree, but we did.
Ironically, we didn't think it was weird at the time, we thought it was kind of neat that at the last second, everything fell into place, and we got a tree, for free.
It was during those years that I had a paper route, earning me about $40.00 a month.
One year, we were praying for both Christmas presents and a tree, and while mom made Christmas presents, God answered the prayer. One Saturday morning as I was on my bicycle finishing my paper route, I saw a Christmas tree laying in the ditch beside the road.
I couldn't believe my eyes, but there it was. I delivered the last few papers, and came pedaling back as fast as I could, where I picked the tree up and put it on my left shoulder with the butt facing forward so I could steer and shift the bike with my right hand. I could see through the branches, but if someone were driving by (and several people did) they'd see a rather large Christmas tree riding a bicycle, rather unsteadily, I might add, down the street.
No one crashed, including me, which was good – and we were again blessed with a Christmas tree that year.
One that we couldn't have afforded otherwise.
The thing I realize now is that we didn't even have a Christmas tree stand. Over the years, Dad, being home from University over Christmas, would make a tree stand with me out of 4 boards that we'd nail or screw together, then to the tree, with notches at the bottom so there'd be enough room for a pie tin of water underneath.
If we'd had a tree stand like everyone else, I wouldn't have this memory.
The next year, finances were still pretty rough, and we were still just scraping by. At the time, we had a large garden, and were very familiar with what passed for food banks back then. We didn't drink soda, couldn't afford it, but we did drink apple cider we made from all the apple trees we had on the property.
Hmmm… if we'd been able to drink soda like everyone else, I wouldn't have that memory.
I'll write about that someday, but that December, even with all the things we'd done to save money, a tree was still not in the budget.
I think that might have been my last year with the paper route, and I was looking for a tree beside the road like we'd had that one year, but there were none.
In fact, it's safe to say, that in that year, God did not have Christmas trees falling out of the sky for us.
Well, actually… I take that back.
He did.
A tree did fall out of the sky, but it was in kit form.
And actually, it wasn't a 'tree" per se…
It was a branch.
No, really.
It was a huge branch from a tree on Fort Lewis – on one of those side roads that's made by an 18 year old kid driving a 60 ton tank at 35 miles per hour and leaving a trail of wanton destruction in his wake. (Yes, there were kids that age out there doing that. They were, however, in the Army when they did it.)
I don't remember exactly how I got it home, but I did. The huge branch was far too long to get into a tree stand without gouging holes in the ceiling or chopping holes into the floor, so I got out one of my dad's old saws and whacked off a good chunk of it so that it would fit. (That cut-off part unwittingly became our Yule Log) I then started cutting branches off and drilling holes into the trunk where I wanted to put them. I whittled them so they'd fit into the holes I'd drilled and ended up moving almost every branch that way.
Then I made the stand for it like I did every year.
And we did have a Christmas tree that year. It was beautiful, really. Complete with decorations, and even some presents.
If I'd been able to buy a tree like everyone else, I wouldn't have this memory. I'd have forgotten about an anonymous little tree in one of many Christmases a long time ago.
That got me thinking.
Those weren't easy times that I'm writing about. Seriously. But it feels like it was those parts that made me grow in ways I couldn't have grown if life had been as easy as I wanted it to be.
Many years later, I'd grown up, become an adult, and was now in the position of trying to support my family, and for a number of years, life was pretty rough, and I got to thinking about where every penny was going, and spending any more money than I had to on a Christmas tree was just impossible to comprehend, and for years we bought our trees at a now defunct store called "Chubby and Tubby's".
If you've lived in Seattle for any length of time, you'll remember that Chubby and Tubby trees could be had for $4.61 ($5.00 with tax). Oh you could get nicer trees, for more money, but we bought the trees we could afford, (here's one of them, picked out by our then two year old Michael, his mittens dangling from his sleeves).
And for a number of years, I made a Christmas tree stand like I did when I was a kid, and I drilled holes in the trunk and moved branches around so they'd look nice, just like I did when I was a kid.
Only this time I was doing it with my son, not with my dad.
I did some more thinking – because we've been able to have some pretty neat Christmases over the years in spite of things. There was the year we were able to make it to church Christmas Eve. That might seem "normal", but I'd just gone through my 4th and last round of chemo, and we had to leave right afterwards – but we made it.
That was cool.
And over the years we've found that Christmas comes every year, whether you're ready for it or not.
And it's a mixed bag, isn't it?
Sometimes life happens to be good and you can have a "good" Christmas. That's a blessing to cherish.
But sometimes – and you can probably figure that I could tell you stories about this: Life is just life, and it isn't as kind and gentle as we'd hope, or as we might remember. Without going into great detail, a number of people I know are at this moment going through some of the worst challenges a human can go through, the loss of a parent, a sibling, a child, the loss of a marriage, or relationship, and they're still trying to celebrate Christmas, and trying to figure out how and why they even can, through all the struggles. They're looking in vain for that blessing.
And after awhile, being pulled in all sorts of directions, it's easy to lose sight of what Christmas is all about.
I don't have answers to why this kind of stuff seems to happen more at Christmas, but amidst the turmoil we're all experiencing, whether it's spiritual, or health, or relationships, or economy, I've come to the conclusion that we crave the opposite of that turmoil, especially at this time of year. It's one thing: Peace.
A friend who's experienced his share of turmoil (he's a medic) noted, "Perhaps that's why people wish others "Peace" during this season. That doesn't just mean "absence of war" but inner peace. I wish you both senses of the word."
His comment about both kinds of Peace got me to thinking of the original words about Peace in this Season, and while you can read the words here, we heard one of the great philosophers of our time do a pretty good job explaining it to his depressed friend, who was also pretty confused about what Christmas was really all about.
In a crystal clear voice he said to him, and to all who would listen,
"And there were in the same country shepherds, abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them! And they were sore afraid … And the angel said unto them, "Fear not! For, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all my people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ, the Lord."
"And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." And suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the Heavenly Host praising God, and saying, "Glory to God in the Highest, and on Earth peace, and good will toward men."
"That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown." – Linus Van Pelt
And so it is.
So whether you have a beautiful tree and all that goes with it, or whether you are struggling to make a tree out of a branch that fell out of the sky, above all else, I wish you God's blessings, and Peace this Christmas season.


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Thursday, June 17, 2010
Take a Number
9 comments:
I'll take the purple one please. If you can pry it from his cold dead fingers.ReplyDelete
Do you take internet orders? I'd like something in a jazzy red to match my new pumps.ReplyDelete
Hmmm, tough to choose between the two blue options. Do they both make cool light saber noises?ReplyDelete
Getting out my pretend charge card. You lay it down and slide a block over it, because that is how they used to do it. And then you get to sign off on the form. Just a second, I am going to make a form that looks just exactly like the real form. I will be right back.ReplyDelete
I think Owen might need one. Save one for me.ReplyDelete
- Ilene WaterstoneJune 17, 2010 at 9:08 AM
I'm waiting for the 4G version.ReplyDelete
At our house, we call that "a collection" and I am very very jealous, thankyouverymuch!ReplyDelete
i am SO JEALOUS of your white laptop sitting on your kitchen counter. i have this horribly consumeristic dream of having a small white tv in my kitchen.ReplyDelete
Of course, I love any little boy's store. I'll take one, please, Bob.ReplyDelete


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We are officially one week away from Dungeons and Dragons day in my Gaming in American Culture class.
Toward the beginning of the semester I listed D&D day as one of the enticing course elements, so being on the cusp makes me salivate with anticipation.
Considering I barely have any experience outside of one character building session in high school, I've gotten a little practice. We played D&D at the party I brought my Redondo Beach friends to in Fullerton over Spring Break.
I kicked ass as my pre-built elf sorcerer Elfson.
But in-class today we prepared for our upcoming escapades in a different way: Talking about the moral panics caused by D&D.
Because you know. If something is fun and leaning in a pagan direction, parents are going to freak out about it.
Looking at you, Pokémon. And also Pokémon.
… Okay, it's not entirely fair to simplify that into a joke. We actually discussed interesting aspects behind the 1980's D&D panic, including the perceived loss of self-identity to multiple, fractured fantasy identities steeped in olde mythological traditions of witchcraft and monsters.
It just so happens that you can only showcase the moral panic by laying out all of the over-the-top examples of role-playing game hysteria.
Most notably: Dark Dungeons.
This amazing comic created by Jack T. Chick in 1984 seems to be the perfect embodiment of Big Brother wiping out imagination and personal expression in exchange for the conformity of true-blue American Catholicism.
Or that's how my boy Mitchell perceived it, at least.
There are arguably kernels of truth in Chick's fear of fantasy overwhelming reality. It's hard to take the guy seriously when you write such lines as:
"Lord Jesus … you guide me through life. I want You to be in charge of everything…not that lousy D&D manual."
Following the deus ex machina of random friend appearing to save the damsel in distress — having apparently prayed and fasted for her off-screen.
Or at least… I find it hard to take this comic seriously.
Apparently others do not, as a short film adaptation came out in 2014.
Something I only know about because
my friend Jonathan reminded me that JonTron put out a video about the movie in 2016.
Isn't the internet just a god damn beautiful mess?
But wait, that's not all!
On top of Dark Dungeons, we spent part of our class period watching and discussing Mazes and Monsters.
The 1982 Tom Hanks flick where then-unknown sentient toy cowboy / crazy stranded FedEx employee / historic figure with a pension for chocolate almost kills himself after getting so invested in a parody of D&D that he can no longer distinguish fantasy from real life.
It's amazing that Hanks went on to have one of the most successful actor careers of all time with a start as wild as Mazes and Monsters.
With all of that said, it only makes sense that we get to risk our lives playing the tabletop role-playing game for our entire next class period.
By God am I looking forward to it.
P.S. — There was another cool part of my day that I wanted to talk about, but could not think of an organic way to include it. Outside of there being vaguely related fantasy elements.
So I'll just pin it down here.
During the break between my classes, Dr. Sandra Perez (the Director of the University Honors Program) brought over an underclassman while I was working in the Honors Center because she wants to write a fiction novel for her senior project.
Apparently I was the expert in that department, as Dr. Perez said she was very impressed with all of the pre-planning she'd seen me do for my novel.
It was nice to be considered an expert in something like that!
Or at least the most readily available spring of knowledge.
Featured Image courtesy of Philip Mitchell via Wikimedia Commons


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Tennis Hall of Fame Hosts ITA Collegiate Team Event on the Grass in Newport
The Hall of Fame ITA Grass Court Invitational will draw four men's teams and four women's teams for a first of its kind tournament, which is free and open to the public.
NEWPORT, R.I., September 13, 2016 – In a first of its kind event, the International Tennis Hall of Fame has partnered with the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) to host a three-day grass court tournament that will draw eight NCAA Division 1 tennis teams to compete on the grass courts of the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island this weekend. The Hall of Fame ITA Grass Court Invitational will be held September 16 – 18. The tournament will be free of charge and open to the public, providing a great opportunity for fans to see high-caliber competitive tennis. The tournament will be streamed live on FloTennis – the inaugural broadcast of the ITA's new partnership with FloSports.
"This is an exciting new event to add to the International Tennis Hall of Fame's calendar. The objectives of this tournament are multi-faceted. Every day at the Hall of Fame, we strive to inspire the next generation of great tennis champions and very likely, some of them are playing collegiate tennis at this moment. We are delighted to welcome some of the top collegiate players to the Hall of Fame, where they will be immersed in our sport's rich history and hopefully inspired by the Hall of Famers who are honored here," said International Tennis Hall of Fame CEO Todd Martin.
He continued, "Additionally, the Hall of Fame is a place where our sport is celebrated every day. Collegiate tennis is an integral part of our sport in so many ways and it is also really exciting to watch. These players are competitive and incredibly talented. They are committed to the sport and to pursuing a higher education. It will be a great event for families with aspiring young players to attend as well as for general tennis fans who are interested in watching some top-notch competitive tennis. For any tennis fans who have been meaning to plan a visit to the museum at the International Tennis Hall of Fame – this would be a great weekend to do it."
Matches will be played on the historic Bill Talbert Stadium Court and on the additional grass courts at the Hall of Fame, all of which have hosted many of the sport's greatest tennis legends over the years.
"This is a tremendous opportunity for ITA college athletes to compete in a venue that is really special to tennis worldwide, and to learn more about our sport. We are very pleased to be collaborating with the Hall of Fame to make this unique opportunity available to the student-athletes and look forward to growing this partnership in the future," said Tim Russell, CEO of the ITA.
Eight teams (4 women's and 4 men's) will compete in a flighted singles and doubles round robin format, playing for individual ITA Ranking Points. Following is a list of participating teams, listed with their national ITA ranking, based on the standings at the end of the 2015-2016 seasons.
The Hall of Fame ITA Grass Court Invitational will be held September 16 – 18 at the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island. The event is free of charge and open to the public, providing a great opportunity for fans to see high-caliber competitive tennis. During the event days, admission to the museum at the International Tennis Hall of Fame will be reduced to $8 from the standard $15, making it a great time for tennis fans to visit. Admission to the museum for kids ages 16 & under is always free.
–A. McLaughlin, Hall of Fame


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There's only one way to salute radio pioneer extraordinaire Casey Kasem …
… with a long distance dedication.
It goes out not just to Casey, but to his fans – millions of listeners covering at least two generations – people who experienced the enjoyment, the honor and the sheer thrill of hearing perhaps radio's greatest voice ever. With his friendly voice, his human interest stories, trivia and chart pieces, Casey educated us about pop music even though we hardly realized it. He was heard world-wide in over 75 foreign countries.
If Elvls Presley was the King of Rock and Roll and Michael Jackson the King of Pop, then surely Casey was the King of the Countdowns. To paraphrase Carly Simon, nobody did it better. For nearly 40 years from 1970 to 2009, when he played about 10,000 records and read some 4,000 dedication letters.
Kasem wasn't just a one-in-a-million air talent. He was a talent you'd be fortunate to hear in your lifetime. And his legacy lives to this day because 'American Top 40,' now hosted by Ryan Seacrest, is heard on over 400 radio stations worldwide.
Sadly, Casey was 82 when he died on June 15. He mustn't be remembered for his failing health or the bitter family dispute between his second wife, Jean Kasem, and the children from his first marriage. Instead, he must be remembered for the nearly 40 years he entertained us.
His voice will never be silenced. Two of his past shows are heard on weekends, one from the 70s and one from the 80's. If you missed them, you can hear them replayed on the iHeart radio web site. Many stations are rumored to be planning to play Casey marathons. Meanwhile, just do a search under 'Casey Kasem' in YouTube. There's 52,000-plus items to choose from to hear. If you do a Google search of 'Casey Kasem,' there's over 4.4 million items to see.
While Casey was featured in over 100 combined movies and TV shows, particularly as the voice of Shaggy in the animated 'Scooby Doo' cartoon series, 'American Top 40' and his spinoff AC (Adult Contemporary) and Hot AC countdown shows were by far his greatest achievements.
How did Casey do it? Simple. He was being his ever-friendly self and did something that takes literally years to perfect – talking to that listener. Whether it was his favorite chart piece (the Beatles with all five of the top five songs in April 1964), or whether it was a human interest story (e.g. Al Jarvis, the world's first disc jockey), you swore Casey was sitting next to you while telling it to you.
Many features taken for granted on today's countdown shows have Casey to thank. When you hear a Rick Dees or a Bob Kingsley opening his show with a 'hello' and a review the previous week's top hits, each has Casey to thank. That feature started by accident with the Feb. 24, 1979 AT40 show, when 'Da Ya Think I'm Sexy' by Rod Stewart was No. 1. 'American Top 40' had just switched from a three-hour to a four-hour show the first weekend of October 1978. Thus, there was time to play the previous week's top three. Eventually, there wasn't time to play any of the previous week's top three, but the seed had been planted.
Likewise, Casey revolutionized the idea of teasing a song coming up in his countdowns. His teases were short but highly effective. For example, after backselling, 'Don't Leave Me This Way' by Thelma Houston as the No. 3 song in the USA on the April 9, 1977 AT40 show, Casey came up with this tease: 'You know, there's a world famous foreign group in our countdown, who so far have refused to play concerts in the USA. It's because they've never a No. 1 record here. Well, in a few minutes, they can start packing.' Then, after the ad break, you heard 'Don't Give Up On Us' by David Soul at No. 2, and then Casey's payoff story and No. 1, 'Dancing Queen' by Abba.
Whenever you hear a countdown DJ mention his show's affiliates, he or she has Casey to thank. Station mentions began on AT40 with KMEN/San Bernardino. That station mention came eight weeks after 'American Top 40' made its debut on the Fourth Of July weekend of 1970.
It was the culmination of a 21-year odyssey that began one day in 1949. The young man born Kemal Amin Kasem on April 27, 1932 was 17 years old and working at Detroit's Louis Stolinsky's Beer Store. On the radio at the store was CKLW and a countdown called 'Eddie Chase And The Make-Believe Ballroom.' As Casey recalled, 'Eddie had a one-hour show, and I only heard it once. It always stuck in the back of my head. I said to myself, 'If I ever become a DJ, that's the kind of show I'd want to do – a national countdown'.'
When 'American Top 40' debuted, there were only seven affiliates. The station count increased to more than 100 a year later, and by 1981, there were over 500 USA affiliates. Along the way in the show's early years, there were specials like the Top 40 Christmas songs and Casey's favorite, The Top 40 Disappearing Acts.
Casey's greatest feature, though, was born on the show of August 26, 1978. 'Desiree' by Neil Diamond was the first Long Distance Dedication, going out from James to Desiree, who as a member of a military family had just moved from the USA to Germany. 'Maybe my Desiree in Germany will hear it,' James wrote. Nearly 30 years later, James and Desiree were tracked down by Casey's staff. The best of their interviews were aired on the AT10 and AT20 shows saluting the LDD on Valentine's Day weekend, 2007.
Over a 31-year-period, there were all kinds of Casey dedications. A teenage girl wrote to scold singer-actor Leif Garrett for reading 'Playboy' magazine, and Casey played 'Does Your Mother Know' by Abba. Another girl dedicated 'Babe' to the Raggedy Andy doll she'd had since age two and told Casey, 'I'll make sure he's sitting by the radio.' A couple in New Zealand were reunited thanks to the song 'You Needed Me' by Anne Murray, and would name their daughter after Casey. A mother wrote to dedicate 'Tragedy' because the Bee Gees' song helped her young daughter overcome a fear of thunderstorms.
About 10-and-a-half years after the first LDD was born came what Casey would label 'the most important letter I ever read.' It was Casey's first Request And Dedication that aired on his debut 'Casey's Top 40' show on the Westwood One network the weekend of January 21, 1989. Then 10-year-old Chelsea wrote, 'I'm worried that so many people in this country have no place to go and not enough to eat. At my 10th birthday party, I asked my guests to bring canned food instead of presents. Please dedicate 'One Moment In Time' by Whitney Houston to all the homeless.' Casey never forgot that letter. Not long after his daughter, Liberty, was born, his family asked friends and relatives to bring canned food and clothing to a birthday party instead of presents. The same thing happened with three Christmas parties.
That first 'Casey's Top 40' culminated a change in scenery for Casey that dated back some three years in late 1986. That's when he started trying to negotiate a new contract with ABC, but felt he was being put off. Casey then shopped around his talents and wound up with an offer he couldn't refuse from Norm Pattis, the CEO of Westwood One. After signing with the new network, Casey hosted what everybody figured was his last AT40 show ever on August 6, 1988. Shadoe Stevens replaced him as the show host starting the next weekend. Since his old contract with ABC, worth an estimated $1.2 million, didn't expire until January 17, 1989, Casey was essentially paid by ABC to not count them down for five months.
Still, when 'Casey's Top 40' debuted, both the new contract given Casey (five years, $15 million) and the number of stations CT40 debuted with (over 400) were unheard-of unprecedented feats. Westwood One ads featuring Casey were the same as what was shown on the cover of a typical show's vinyl record set – a photo of Casey with the headline 'The Original … and Still The Best.'
When the Current Hit Radio (CHR) format took a huge hit with roughly 600 such stations changing to other formats by 1991, Casey and Westwood One came up with the perfect counteraction. In March 1992, Casey began a second show, counting down the week's top Adult Contemporary hits with 'Casey's Countdown.' A third show of the week's top Hot AC hits, 'Casey's Hot 20,' would follow in November, 1994.
Meanwhile, Casey's former show, 'American Top 40,' struggled mightily. When ABC saw the show as a money loser, AT40 suddenly left the USA airwaves the weekend of July 16, 1994. It was replaced with another show ABC landed, 'The Rick Dees Weekly Top 40.' Radio Express, which distributed 'American Top 40' to foreign countries, continued to do so, but for only about another six months. On the weekend of January 28, 1995, the last AT40 show ever aired. Or so everyone thought.
When the ABC network did nothing with AT40 for two years, by contract the show's ownership reverted back to Casey and co-founder Don Bustany in early 1997. This would prove to be a pivotal move. About a year later in February, 1998, Casey suddenly left the Westwood One Network to sign with the AMFM Network. He took advantage of a contract stipulation that said if advertising profits fell below $6 million, either party had the right to opt out of the contract.
To give you an idea of just how powerful Casey's popularity was, consider this: After Casey's last shows with Westwood One on the weekend of February 21, 1998, the network tried for the next three weeks to have shows that couldn't mention the word 'Casey' anywhere. Not even in the title. 'Casey's Top 40' became 'The Top 40'; 'Casey's Countdown' became 'The Countdown'; and 'Casey's Hot 20' became 'The Hot 20.'
The weekend of March 28, 1998 marked an historic and welcomed reunion. 'American Top 40,' the show that was seemingly gone and left for dead for 38 months, was reborn and hosted by the man who started it 28 years earlier. 'Casey's Top 40' went back to being 'American Top 40,' 'Casey's Countdown' became 'American Top 20 (AC)' and 'Casey's Hot 20' became 'American Top 20 (Hot AC).'
Former AT40 host Shadoe Stevens led the way in applauding the reunion. 'I think it's terrific,' Shadoe said. 'It's Casey's franchise. It's a great show and he should be doing it. He created it. He went through the hardship of getting it on the air. Out of nothing, he created something that was bigger than life.' In August 2000, the AMFM Network was purchased by Premiere Radio Networks, which would handle Casey's shows the rest of his countdown career.
Starting with the second weekend of 2004, Casey handed the AT40 mike over to Ryan Seacrest and congratulated Ryan via a phone message. Two months later, 'American Top 20 (AC)' became 'American Top 10.'
The last Casey shows aired the weekend of July 4, 2009. His last Long Distance Dedication came to him from a listener named Adam who wrote, 'Casey, you've touched a great number of people through your shows and you should be very proud of the impact you've had on our society. The radio airwaves just won't be the same without you.'
That LDD's song was 'Thank You For Being A Friend' by Andrew Gold. The two shows' last No. 1s were 'Second Chance' (Shinedown) on 'American Top 20' and 'Love Story' (Taylor Swift) on 'American Top 10.' Before saying 'Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars' one last time, Casey noted, 'I'd like to share with you something I've learned over the years. Success doesn't happen in a vacuum. You're only as good as the people you work with out and the people you work for. I've been lucky. I worked for and with the very best.'
Rob Durkee is the author of the book, 'American Top 40: The Countdown Of The Century.' He worked as a writer for 'America's Top 40: from 1989 to 1995.


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Over the next 50 years, The Peel Group's Ocean Gateway will deliver an unprecedented scale of co-ordinated private sector investment across the North West of England. It is a truly pioneering approach to the renaissance of the strategic corridor encompassing the City Regions of Liverpool and Manchester, and adjacent areas within Cheshire and Warrington.
ExploreAll projects
Peel - Investing for tomorrow


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This question was asked in the Q&A period after my keynote at the LIANZA Conference. Actually, the full question, as I remember it, was something like:
"What is the Return on Investment of Embedded Librarianship? Have you measured it? It seems very costly, and some of us feel that our resources are better used on digitization and providing access to digital collections."
That's a very complex question, and there are at least a couple ways to respond to it. I wasn't able to give a very thorough answer on the spot, so I'm going to reprise it here, in parts. Part 1 will review some of the evidence that indicates embedded librarianship is effective.
First, what do we mean by Return on Investment? Strictly speaking, it's a financial ratio that expresses the relationship of money obtained to the cost of obtaining that money. Interestingly, in the SLA-funded "Models of Embedded Librarianship" study, successful embedded librarians reported using financial measures to assess their work – but in our site visits and in the literature I haven't seen specific ROI analyses in financial terms. Financial impacts from library and information work are hard to calculate, although measures like avoided costs and time saved have been used. Further, many librarians work in educational and nonprofit institutions where organizational results aren't measured primarily in financial terms. Yes, funding and wise use of resources are important, but the raison d'etre of the organization is to achieve certain outcomes, not to make a profit.
So, I'd like to rephrase the question as, "what assessments are there that embedded librarianship has a positive impact on organizational outcomes?" The answer I gave is that there are some, though we clearly need more work in this area. Here are a few examples:
- In the "Models of Embedded Librarianship" study, we interviewed a senior administrator and a tenured faculty member at an institution of higher learning. The administrator cited a formal study that associated improved student performance with the engagement of an embedded librarian, and the faculty member observed that students who had worked with an embedded librarian in their first year retained information literacy skills later in their academic career.
- The literature contains a number of anecdotes attributing improved student work and increased use of library resources to the impact of embedded librarians. (See for example Hall, R. A. (2008). The "embedded" librarian in a freshman speech class: Information literacy instruction in action. College & Research Libraries News, 69(1), 28-30. and Matos, M. A., Matsuoka-Motley, N., & Mayer, W. (2010). The embedded librarian online or face-to-face; American University`s experiences. Public Services Quarterly, 6, 130.)
- Several authors have done formal assessments of the impacts and response to embedded information literacy instruction initiatives, generally finding positive impacts on student attitudes toward the library, increased library use, and improvements in student performance. Examples include:
Bean, T. M., & Thomas, S. N. (2010). Being like both: Library instruction methods that outshine the one-shot. Public Services Quarterly, 6, 237.
Bennett, E., & Simning, J. (2010). Embedded librarians and reference traffic: A quantitative analysis. Jounal of Library Administration, 50, 443.
Bowler, M., & Street, K. (2008). Investigating the efficacy of embedment: Experiments in information literacy integration. Reference Services Review, 36(4), 438-449.
Edwards, M., Kumar, S., & Ochoa, M. (2010). Assessing the value of embedded librarians in an online graduate educational technology course. Public Services Quarterly, 6, 271.
- Berdish and Seaman provide perhaps the ideal quotation from their assessment of embedded librarianship at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business: "Your guidance and assistance throughout the process enabled us to achieve our goals and to grow and develop academically, professionally and individually. You were an invaluable asset to our team." (Berdish, L., & Seeman, C. (2008). Spanning the straits of business information: Kresge library's embedded librarian program for MAP (multidisciplinary action program). Paper presented at the Special Libraries Association Annual Conference,June 2008. http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/58361/2/SLA_2008_Berdish_Seeman.pdf )
- Medical librarians have led the way in evaluating embedded librarianship programs. In the most recent published evaluation I'm aware of, Grefsheim et al. cite a variety of measures that all show increased use of information resources as a result of the work of embedded librarians. (See Grefsheim, S. F., Whitmore, S. C., Rapp, B. A., Rankin, J. A., Robison, R. R., & Canto, C. C. (2010). The informationist: Building evidence for an emerging health profession. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 98(2), 147-156. doi:10.3163/1536-5050.98.2.007) They note that increased use of a variety of resources cannot be attributed to access and training services, since all the relevant resources had been available for some years before initiation of the embedded program. (p.. 153) They add that:
"the vast majority of investigators thought their informationist added needed expertise, found information that they otherwise would not have found, added thoroughness, saved them time, and reduced their workload burden. To the extent that these perceived benefits improved decision making, informationists had an effect." (p. 154)
This posting is long enough so I'll stop there. Suffice it to say that while we have more work to do in evaluating the impacts of embedded librarianship, there is evidence in the literature that it makes a positive difference in outcomes for information users.
In part 2 of my answer, I'll address the question from an organizational strategy point of view.


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Otis Taylor Sets May Album Release
Otis Taylor digs the past. Whether it's the songs he wrote a decade ago, or ancient civilizations that lived more than 10,000 years ago, he's drawn to stories from another time, and he's compelled to retell them in a way that's relevant in the modern day. On Clovis People, set for release May 11, 2010, on Telarc International, a division of Concord Music Group, Taylor writes his own history.
It's the ideal project for the architect of a sparse and hypnotic style that has come to be known as "trance blues." Taylor has spent his career crafting songs that are wide open to interpretation thematically as well as structurally. "I give people a starting point, and then they can take it where they want to take it," he explains. "That's true for the people playing my music as well as the people listening to it. That's how art should be. A person looking at a painting should be able to interpret it in whatever way he wants. The more words you put into a song, the less freedom the listener has to decide what it means."
The album title is inspired by a recent scientific discovery very close to Taylor's home in Boulder, Colorado. Barely 100 yards from the edge of his property, archeologists dug up a cache of tools and other implements belonging to a civilization known as the Clovis people, who walked the earth briefly about 13,000 years ago and then mysteriously disappeared.
"That's amazing to me," says Taylor. "There have only been four or five sites like this found all over the country. That means these people probably walked on my property. My music only goes back about ten years, but there's something about reaching back to an earlier time and revisiting the stories of the past from a new perspective that I find compelling."
Helping to shape that new perspective is a crew of players who lend a variety of shades and voices to the mix. Among them is guitarist Gary Moore, a guest musician on two of Taylor's previous recordings (Definition of a Circle in 2007 and Pentatonic Wars and Love Songs in 2009), who moves in and out of the tracks with a hard riff here, a subtle accent there, and just the right atmospherics wherever he appears. Also on hand for nine of the twelve tracks is pedal steel guitarist Chuck Campbell a member of the Campbell Brothers, the African-American gospel group that has developed a sound commonly known as "sacred steel." In addition, Clovis People features cornetist Ron Miles and bassist Cassie Taylor (Otis' 22-year-old daughter).
The set gets under way with the haunting "Rain So Hard," a bluesy number that employs an intriguing mix of pedal steel, cornet and theremin as the backdrop to Taylor's unsettling lyrics about a hard rain turning to snow and falling on a scene of betrayal and deceit.
"Little Willy" and "Lee and Arnez" are two previously unreleased songs. The former is a fictional tale of a school shooting a song Taylor wrote in 1990s, but then shelved in the aftermath of the Columbine shooting of 1999. "Lee and Arnez" tells the story of a couple that Taylor remembers from the neighborhood where he grew up. "They were my parents' best friends, and they had a boxer dog that I really loved," says Taylor. "This would have been the 1950s, which were still a difficult time for black people, but I have great memories of this couple and their beautiful dog."
"It's Done Happened Again" is built on an urgent rhythm that plays like a frantic heartbeat. "The song is about that moment when someone who got his heart broken hears about someone else who got his heart broken," says Taylor. "It's that moment when pain and empathy converge, and you say, 'Oh yeah, I know where he's coming from.'"
"Harry Turn the Music Up" recalls Taylor's memories of the Denver Folklore Center, a place he frequented when he was a boy in the early '60s. "The song follows a groove that's deep in the pocket, and it's really powerful," says Taylor. "The Denver Folklore Center was a place where nobody cared if you were black or white, skinny or fat. It was a place where everyone was accepted."
"Babies Don't Lie" rides on a single chord and speaks to the profound vulnerability of innocents. But somewhere underneath the simple and recurring lyrical line is the question of how and when dark forces take hold and turn some innocents into monsters.
"Think I Won't" is a showdown-flavored track that captures the moment when a mother confronts a drug dealer in a schoolyard. "There are some badass moms out there," says Taylor. "Sometimes people don't realize how tough black women can be. It's a matriarchal culture, and there are some moms who'll kick your ass in a half-second if you threaten their children."
Indeed, some instincts are eternal, whether the frame of reference is 2010, 1950 or some time before recorded history. Clovis People is in some respects a vehicle for Taylor an archeologist of a different kind to re-examine some of the truths he's uncovered in his own era and preserve them for listeners in some future time.
"I went back to my musical past with these songs all the way back to my first album," says Taylor. "I like finding different ways to retell the old stories. They continue to mean something to me, to the people who hear them, to the musicians who play with me many years after I first told them."


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Aurora survivor offers debate topic
A survivor of the July massacre in Aurora, Colo., is appearing in a television ad airing nationally this week to press the presidential candidates to discuss their plans to stop gun violence at the first debate.
The ad stars Stephen Barton, a Syracuse University graduate who was on a cross-country bike trip and had stopped in Aurora for the night. Barton told POLITICO he felt an "obligation" to speak up as a survivor of gun violence.
"This past summer in a movie theater in Colorado I was shot, shot in the face and neck," Barton says in the ad, which is paid for by a 501(c)(3) affiliated with Mayors Against Illegal Guns. "But I was lucky. In the next four years, 48,000 Americans won't be so lucky, because they'll be murdered with guns in the next president's term. Enough to fill over 200 theaters. So when you watch the presidential debates, ask yourself: Who has a plan to stop gun violence?"
Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a gun control group founded and funded by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, hopes the ad forces President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to debate the issue at Wednesday's debate in Denver, nine miles from where 12 people were fatally shot during a midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises."
Since the Aurora massacre, Bloomberg has been pushing the candidates to address gun violence, to little avail.
"We're demanding a plan from both [Romney and Obama] in advance of a presidential election, and presidential debate in Denver, and asking that they put forth something specific, aside from just platitudes and moments of silence, and actually get down to the business of preventing gun violence," Barton said on CNN's "Starting Point" Monday.
Barton got involved with Mayors Against Illegal Guns after meeting with his home-state senator, Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). Barton said he was postponing a planned Fulbright Scholarship to study in Russia, and Blumenthal's staff said they would help him look for a job. While he originally hoped to work at a think tank studying Russia, he decided that working against gun violence was more important.
"As a survivor of a gun tragedy, I realized I had a responsibility to get involved," Barton told POLITICO. "An obligation, really."
He's now working for the mayors group, both on outreach to other survivors of gun violence and on policy research.
Barton said he hopes moderator Jim Lehrer asks the candidates about gun control, and specifically presses them on universal background checks, mental health services and bans on extended magazines and assault weapons.
"The bottom line is neither of [the candidates], in the wake of Aurora and Oak Creek, has shown any leadership on this issue in any specific way," he said.
In July, Mayors Against Illegal Guns released an internal poll from GOP pollster Frank Luntz showing 82 percent of gun owners support universal background checks for gun buyers, while 65 percent believe the law should require owners to report stolen guns.
Barton said he realizes gun control won't decide the presidential election, but when he talks to voters about his experiences, most think the government could do more.
"They know that our laws aren't working," Barton said. "We can't just throw up our hands and give a gun to everyone and say 'defend yourselves.' There has to be a better way to go about this."
Mayors Against Illegal Guns doesn't disclose the size of their ad buys, but a spokeswoman said it was focused on the Denver and Washington, D.C., television markets.


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The first stage of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol officially comes to an end today. We should say DNR – Do Not Resuscitate
The underpinnings of the Kyoto Protocol used benefit-cost analysis to achieve a compromise solution. To achieve is goal it needed ALL of the following assumptions to be true.
- CO2 causing a massive increase in global warming.
- For that warming to have massive catastrophic consequences.
- For economic theory to provide a theoretical solution with benefits ≥ costs.
- The actual solution matches the theory.
- There are no unintended consequences of actual policy implementation need to be taken into account.
- That the Kyoto Protocol was originally estimated at being 97% useless in constraining temperature rises.
CO2 causing a massive increase in warming.
If you still believe the hype that CO2 is going to cause a massive increase in global warming, you are now at odds with the latest estimates from the IPCC. David M. Hoffer at Wattsupwiththat shows why.
Massive catastrophic consequences
Where is the evidence of accelerating sea level rise; increasing tropical storms; desertification; accelerating rate of polar ice melt; disappearing Himalayan glaciers causing water shortages; or massively reduced crop yields in Africa leading to famines? Where is all the talk of reaching climate "tipping points", which must be avoided at all costs? You will not find them in the latest AR5 SPM, because there is no half-decent scientific evidence to support these claims,
Support from economic theory?
William Nordhaus, the world's leading climate change economist, calculates that the benefit-cost ratio is 1/7. Nordhaus accepts the first two points, but still calculates that on economic terms you should not touch the scheme with a bargepole. More recently, Dieter Helm has described emissions trading schemes as the most expensive way of reducing emissions. Both advocate a carbon tax.
Actual scheme matches theory
Kyoto proposed that countries adopt an emissions trading scheme. In the EU it did not work because credits were issued at too low a cost.
Unintended Consequences
The emissions trading schemes have essentially collapsed, mostly because there has been no commitment to extend Kyoto. Given that there have been numerous fraud scandals from the large through to the small, this is no bad thing. The schemes are open to abuse, yet the investment banks that run them make billions of dollars annually.
Kyoto is Limited
The Kyoto Protocol, if it has been fully implemented would have only constrained a projected 2 celsius rise in CO2 by 2050 by just 0.06 degrees. At the outset policy-makers knew it would be 97% worthless, yet still went ahead anyway.
Continued support for Kyoto must disregard the latest opinions of climate science, economic theory, and the practical problems of public policy-making. Continued support must implicitly support the investment banks to make profits at the expense of ordinary folk, and numerous fraudsters. You must also support a policy that was pretty close to useless at the outset, and now is positively harmful.


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Pizza Buns
For the pizza bun dough:
2 1/2 – 3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 1/4 tsp. instant yeast
1 cup of quite warm water (120-130° F.)
1 Tbsp. vegetable, canola or any other neutral tasting oil
For the toppings:
350 ml. (12 oz. or 1 1/2 cups) of your favourite pizza sauce
3 cups shredded cheese
1.For the dough: In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the kneading hook, mix together 2 1/2 cups of the flour, the sugar, salt and instant yeast. In a measuring cup, combine the warm water with the oil. Add this to the dry ingredients and mix to combine. Knead by hand or with the mixer until the dough comes together in a ball and is smooth. It shouldn't stick to your hands or be dry and crumbly (**add more flour in 1/8 cup increments or more water in Tablespoons, as necessary to achieve this). Grease a bowl and place the dough ball into the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled, about 30 – 45 minutes, depending on how warm your kitchen is.
2.Get two baking sheets ready
3.Remove the dough to a floured cutting board. Cut the dough evenly in half. Cut each half in half again. Cut each piece in half again, to make multiple pieces.
4.Rolling: Dust a rolling pin and your rolling surface lightly with flour. Take a piece of dough and roll into a shape about 1/4-inch thick. Place the dough shape onto the prepared baking sheet. Repeat with each dough ball, placing each on the prepared sheets (you can place them fairly close together as they don't spread much).
5.Topping: With all your rolled dough on the baking sheets, using a teaspoon from your cutlery drawer (not the measuring kind) top each piece with a heaping teaspoon of pizza sauce (about as much as it will hold) and spread it over the top, going as far to the edges as you can without it going over the sides.
6.Top with a generous amount of cheese. Repeat with all the buns.
6.Baking: Preheat oven to 375° F. Place baking sheets in the centre of the oven. Bake for 18-20 minutes (for thin buns – longer if you made fewer, thicker buns). then remove buns to a cooling rack.


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A couple of years back, I dedicated one month of blog posts to the readers of Dusted Off. Since then, many more readers have begun following this blog. Some drop by, leave a comment, or like a post. Some lurk in the background. Some become staunch friends.
It's been a while, so I thought it was time to repeat what I'd said back then: Thank you. Thank you for reading my blog, for encouraging me, and keeping me going. It's because of you that I blog. It's for you that I blog.
To express some of my gratitude for my blog readers, February 2013 on Dusted Off is dedicated to you. All the posts this month will be related to blog readers: reviews of films recommended by readers, lists requested by readers, and so on. To begin with, a film that I've wanted to see ever since Shalini recommended it three years ago. I finally found Lala Rookh in Induna's catalogue a few months back, and pounced on it.


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Mercury from Messenger
Mercury from Messenger
The [http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/ Messenger mission to Mercury] has been in orbit around it since 2011. It completed its primary mission of mapping the entire surface of the planet and is on an extended mission continue imaging, probably for another year.
The [http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/ Messenger mission to Mercury] has been in orbit around it since 2011. It completed its primary mission of mapping the entire surface of the planet and is on an extended mission continue imaging, probably for another year.
Revision as of 02:20, 24 July 2014
An update on the space probes that are exploring our solar system.
Mercury from Messenger
The Messenger mission to Mercury has been in orbit around it since 2011. It completed its primary mission of mapping the entire surface of the planet and is on an extended mission continue imaging, probably for another year.
Venus from Magellan and Venus Express
The Magellan spacecraft to Venus was launched in 1989. It was primarily used to map the surface of Venus using radar to penetrate through the dense clouds. Magellan was intentionally sent in to burn up in Venus' atmosphere in 1994.
Venus Express, launched by the European Space Agency, has been in orbit around the planet since 2006, studying the dynamics of its atmosphere and climate, providing data that will help us understand climate change on Earth.
Earth from ISS
Earth is surrounded by numerous artificial satellites used for communications, and studies of its surface and atmosphere. There is a good website on Wikipedia with links to pages about them. The weather satellites are operated by many different countries and institutions, and the Space Science and Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin has a website that gives you immediate access to many of them.
You can see the International Space Station when it passes overhead. It is our only manned outpost in space, and is used for low gravity research and for manned observations of Earth. The ISS is funded by the US and other governments for operation until 2024. Crews are taken to it by the Russian Soyuz spacecraft for 6-month stays. Private cargo spacecraft have recently been allowed to dock with ISS, and may eventually also provide transportation for humans.
Moon from LRO
The Lunary Reconnaissance Orbiter is currently orbiting the Moon from pole to pole, mapping from a very low orbit only 50 km off the surface. It went into lunar orbit in 2009 and its mission should continue at least until 2015.
NASA also currently operates "LADEE", the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer mission to the Moon. It was planned as a short duration (100 days for science) mission designed to find out about the dust that is near the Moon's surface. When that phase is over, the mission controllers will send the spacecraft to impact on the Moon on or around April 21, 2014.
China landed the Jade Rabbit rover on the Moon's surface in December 2013. It briefly explored the area around its landing site, but it did not survive the cold lunar night that followed.
Mars at Gale Crater from Curiosity
Mars has been extensively explored with spacecraft, although many others did not survive the journey. A complete list of missions to Mars is available on Wikipedia.
NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity were launched in 2003 and landed in 2004. Spirit got stuck in the Martian soil in 2009 and it operated as a stationary lab until communication with it was lost in 2010. Opportunity continues to search for evidence of life.
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter went into orbit around Mars in 2006 and continues to return images as it looks evidence of water and studies the history of Mars surface. It uses cameras and radar to study the landforms, polar caps, and atmosphere of the planet.
Mars Science Laboratory made an accurate landing on Mars in August 2012, and its Curiosity rover has been exploring Gale crater since then.
The European Space Agency operates Mars Express also in orbit around Mars since 2003, mapping its surface and studying its atmosphere. Mars Express made a flyby of Phobos in December 2013.
NASA's MAVEN mission intended to study the planet's atmosphere is currently en route to arrive at Mars in September 2014.
Jupiter from Cassini
There are currently no spacecraft at Jupiter. The last one was NASA's Galileo which was launched in 1989 and operated until 2003 when it was intentionally sent into Jupiter's atmosphere. Cassini also took data and images on Jupiter when it was on its way to Saturn.
NASA's Juno is en route. It was launched in 2011 and will arrive in 2016 after a 5-year cruise. It will be in a polar orbit, giving a unique view of Jupiter's atmosphere, and providing data on its magnetic field and the radiation environment.
Saturn mosaic from Cassini
ESA and NASA jointly operate the Cassini mission to Saturn which included the Huygens probe that landed on its satellite Titan. The Cassini spacecraft, which left for Saturn in 1997 and went into orbit in 2004, is expected to continue to operate until 2017.
Pluto from HST
There are no spacecraft at Pluto now and none have visited it yet. However the NASA New Horizons spacecraft is en route and projected to arrive in 2015.
Asteroids and Comets
Vesta from Dawn
NASA's Dawn Mission is on a journey to look at the origin of the solar system by exploring its minor bodies. Dawn visited Vesta in 2011 and is now on a path to arrive at Ceres, the closest dwarf planet and the largest asteroid, in March 2015.
ESA has Rosetta, a spacecraft launched in 2004 that has made flybys of asteroids and is on its way to look at a comet. When it reaches Churyumov–Gerasimenko in August 2014 it will slow down and enter an orbit around the comet. In November a lander will be fired to attach onto the comet, and for the first time we will have instruments that can drill and sample cometary material while a nearby spacecraft monitors the cometary gases and dust. The most recent discovery is that the comet has a twin nucleus, which complicates plans on how to place the lander on its surface.


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'ISS Cribs': An Astronaut-Guided Tour of the Most Amazing House Ever Built
FunFact: The space station's pantry is stocked with marshmallow Fluff.
FunFact: The space station's pantry is stocked with marshmallow Fluff.
You no doubt have seen images taken from the International Space Station. You likely have seen images taken of the International Space Station, too. But do you know what the ISS looks like, wall to wall and "room" to "room"? Do you know what it would be like to call it, in the most meaningful way possible, home?
Now you can. Because astronaut Sunita Williams, on the last day of her recent stay on the orbital laboratory, made a video tour of the place. It is wonderfully detailed, and narrated with the kind of winking wonderment that so many astronauts, as storytellers, seem to have perfected.
Featured in the tour, among other things:
• Crew sleep stations, their entrance ports oriented spherically "so all of us sleep in a little bit of a circle"
• A home office, complete with computes and books
• Science labs filled with various experiments
• A home gym, with a stationary "bike" and "weight" machines for squats, bench presses, etc.
• A kitchen, filled with baggies of food anchored to a wall. "It's like opening the refrigerator," Williams says. "You've got all the different stuff that you want to have: drinks, meats, eggs, vegetables, cereals, bread, snacks (and that's a good place -- that's where you find all the candy)." There's also a special pantry filled with food items that the astronauts have specifically requested -- in Williams's case, a jar of marshmallow Fluff. ("I like Fluffernutter sandwiches," she explains.)
• An airlock -- populated by, among other things, two spacesuits, their helmets shielded with protective covers. Aside from that, though, the suits are pretty much "primed up to 'go outside,' as we call it," Williams says -- by which she means "ready to do a spacewalk." (The suits are huge, by the way, and on Earth would weigh about 300 pounds.) The helmets feature a glare shield -- "sunglasses," Williams says, "which make you look pretty cool." So ultimately, the suit is "a pretty awesome little spacecraft."
• A hatch -- the portal between the space station and space itself, used, when it's not being used as an actual hatch, as overflow storage for the station's remaining spacesuits
• A bathroom (or: an "orbital outhouse") featuring a privacy curtain and, delightfully, an outhouse-y crescent moon on its wall. As well as an impressive array of toilet paper, from soft tissue to coarser. The room also features diapers ("Huggies") and disinfectant wipes, "in case things get out of control."
• A cupola, which "sticks down below the Space Station" -- and which is "one of those places you find yourself hanging out in all the time because all you want to do is look back at our planet." While spending time in the cupola, Williams says, she'll play a game with herself: trying to figure out which part of Earth, based on things like soil appearance and cloud formations, the ISS is passing over at a given moment.
The video is long, but very much worth the time. Williams is an excellent tour guide, explaining the equipment, and the environment, with equal parts expertise and enthusiasm. As the astronaut puts it, as if she were a kid in the most amazing candy store ever constructed: "We're lucky we have a really cool, big space station that you can fly around in."