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The 16K-W-BB-55 is a water cooled thermal power/energy laser measurement sensor for very high powers with a 55mm aperture. It can measure power from 100W to 16,000W. It has a deflecting cone and annular absorber that withstands high power densities to 10kW/cm². It covers the spectral range from 0.8 - 2µm and 10.6µm. 16K-W-BB-55 sensor has a module mounted on the sensor near the output cable with over temperature LED, loud audible signal and M8 3 connector interlock. The sensor comes with a standard 5 meter cable for connecting to a meter or PC interface.
- Beam deflector + broadband absorber
- Ø55mm
- 0.8-2µm, 10.6µm
- ~3.5% without Scatter Shield, ~1% with Scatter Shield
- Ø170 W x 82 D (mm)
- 10kW/cm²
- 3.5 s
- 16kW
- CE, UKCA, China RoHS
Catalog & Manuals
Must I use a particular sensor only with the meter it was ordered with?
Ophir meters and sensors are calibrated independently. Each meter has the same sensitivity as the other within about 2 tenths of a percent. Each sensor is calibrated independently of a particular meter with its calibration information contained in the DB15 plug. When the sensor is connected to the meter, the meter reads and interprets this information. Since the accuracy of our sensors is typically +/-3%, the extra 0.2% error that could come from plugging into a different meter is negligible and therefore it does not matter which calibrated meter we use with a particular calibrated sensor.Close
When an accuracy spec is given, what exactly is meant?
The Ophir specification on accuracy is in general 2 sigma standard deviation. This means, for instance, that if we list the accuracy as +/-3%, this means that 95% of the sensors will be within this accuracy and 99% will be within +/-4%. For further information on accuracy see https://www.ophiropt.com/laser-measurement-instruments/laser-power-energy-meters/tutorial/calibration-procedure and https://www.ophiropt.com/laser--measurement/knowledge-center?search=calibration&=SEARCHClose
How do you calculate the power and energy density of a laser beam?
If the power is P and the diameter of the beam is D then the power density is P /(.785 * D2) . If it is a pulsed laser and the energy is E, the repetition rate is R and the diameter is D then the power density is E*R/(.785 * D2), The energy density is E/(.785 * D2). The sensor finder will automatically calculate the power and energy density.Close
Is there a coolant pressure specification for Ophir water-cooled sensors?
Yes. Please reference the chart below:
Minimum Flow Rates for Water-Cooled Sensors
|Recommended flow rate at full power1
|Minimum flow rate at full power1
|Absolute minimum flow rate
|pressure drop across sensor (at maximum flow rate)
|pressure drop across 8 meter of tubing (at maximum flow rate)
You can find a lot more information about the correct use of water-cooled sensors in the article "How to use water cooled Ophir sensors", here.Close
Does the damage threshold depend on power level?
The damage threshold of thermal sensors does depend on the power level and not only the power density because the sensor disc itself gets hotter at high powers. For instance, the damage threshold of the Ophir broadband coating may be 50KW/cm2 at 10 Watts but only 10KW/cm2 at 300W. The Ophir specifications for damage threshold are always given for the highest power of use of a particular sensor, something which is not done by most other manufacturers. This should be taken into account when comparing specifications. The Sensor Finder takes the power level into consideration when calculating damage threshold.
Watch the 'FAQ: Does damage threshold depend on power level?' videoClose
How should I clean my sensor?
First, clean the absorber surface with a tissue, using Umicore #2 Substrate Cleaner, acetone or methanol. Then dry the surface with another tissue. Please note that a few absorbers (Pyro-BB, 10K-W, 15K-W, 16K-W and 30K-W) cannot be cleaned with this method. Instead, simply blow off the dust with clean air or nitrogen. Don't touch these absorbers. Also, HE sensors (such as the 30(150)A-HE-17) should not be cleaned with acetone.
Note: These suggestions are made without guarantee. The cleaning process may result in scratching or staining of the surface in some cases and may also change the calibration.
How can I clean the 10K-W, 15K-W, 16K-W or 30K-W sensor?
These sensors have a gold-coated reflecting cone, which can be easily scratched. If one of these sensors needs to be cleaned, we recommend blowing with clean air or nitrogen. If, however, the cone gets soiled (for example with something spilled on it), such that blowing is not enough to clean it, then there is a risk of the contaminant material getting "burned in" by laser radiation. In such a case, to avoid that risk, one should use a suitably soft tissue with solvent, and wipe as gently as possible.Close
Do I need to recalibrate my instrument? How often must it be recalibrated?
Can a laser measurement depend on the distance from the laser to the sensor?
In theory, if a beam is completely parallel and fits within the aperture of a sensor, then it should make no difference at all what the distance is; it will be the same number of photons (ignoring absorption by the air, which is negligible except in the UV below 250nm). If, nevertheless, you do see such a distance dependence, there could be one of the following effects happening:
- If you are using a thermal type power sensor, you might actually be measuring heat from the laser itself; when very close to the laser, the thermal sensor might be "feeling" the laser's own heat. That would not, however, continue to have an effect at more than a few cm distance unless the light source is weak and the heat source is strong.
- Beam geometry – The beam may not be parallel and may be diverging. Often, the lower intensity wings of the beam have greater divergence rate than the main portion of the beam. These may be missing the sensor's aperture as the distance increases. To check that you'd need to use a profiler, or perhaps a BeamTrack PPS (Power/Position/Size) sensor.
- If you are measuring pulse energies with a diffuser-based pyroelectric sensor: Some users find that when they start with the sensor right up close to the laser and move it away, the readings drop sharply (typically by some 6%) over the first few cm. This is likely caused by multiple reflections between the diffuser and the laser device, which at the closest distance might be causing an incorrectly high reading. You should back off from the source by at least some 5cm, more if the beam is not too divergent.
Needless to say, it's also important to be sure to have a steady setup; a sensor held by hand could easily be moved around involuntarily, which could cause partial or complete missing of the sensor's aperture at increasing distance, particularly for an invisible beam.Close
What is the best water to use in the Water Cooled Sensors?
Corrosion is caused by interactions between the metallic components of the sensor and the cooling water, which may contain a variety of dissolved ions. Many factors affect the risk of corrosion forming, but the most important are the pH and the mixture of ions in the water. For this reason, we recommend using neutral deionized water in a closed circulating system (pH between 6 and 8). Please note that deionized water is usually slightly acidic (pH 5.65) due to absorption of CO2 from the atmosphere. The cooling water can be neutralized by adding 5 ml of a 10 mM solution of NaOH for each liter of water in the cooling system. Commercial additives such as Optishield Plus are also recommended for systems such as ours that have copper and aluminum in them. Optishield has the additional benefit of having biocide to prevent buildup of organic contamination.
To prevent corrosion it is also crucial to not allow standing water to evaporate inside the sensor when it is not in use. When disconnecting a sensor from the cooling system, the water channel should be cleared by blowing compressed air through it.
For those customers still experiencing problems with corrosion, we recommend the new thermal sensor 1000WP-BB-34 which has a special design in which all materials that come into contact with the cooling water are either copper or nonmetallic.
You can find a lot more information about the correct use of water-cooled sensors in the article "How to use water cooled Ophir sensors", here.Close
Once and for all: Is DI (deionized) water good or bad for water-cooled sensors? Does it help prevent corrosion, or does it actually increase the risk?
Many factors affect the risk of corrosion forming, but the two most important are:
- the mixture of ions in the water
- the water's pH
Our current recommendation is to use DI water – but of a neutral pH. DI water is usually slightly acidic; it can be titrated to a neutral pH, using a bit of sodium hydroxide for example. There are also commercial additives that can help prevent corrosion, for instance Optishield Plus. For a more detailed discussion, see the FAQ at https://www.ophiropt.com/laser--measurement/knowledge-center/faq/7805
You can find a lot more information about the correct use of water-cooled sensors in the article "How to use water cooled Ophir sensors", here.Close
The sensor I need uses water cooling. Can you recommend a water cooling system?
We don't supply chillers, nor insist on specific models; the only important thing from our point of view is to simply keep to the requirements specified for the cooling water of the specific model of sensor, such as minimum flow rate at full power, water temperature range, and - more important than the actual water temperature - water temperature stability. The temperature of the water should not be changing by more than 1 deg/min (because changes in water temperature could cause heat flow in the sensor which would be detected as if it were laser power, and cause errors in the reading).
We also have a video on our site at https://www.ophiropt.com/laser-measurement-instruments/laser-power-energy-meters/knowledge-center/water-cooled-sensors-youtube, which discusses various issues and tips about water cooling. There is a short discussion of coolant pressure requirements in our FAQ section at https://www.ophiropt.com/laser--measurement/knowledge-center/faq/2404Close
When measuring very high power laser beams, even the few percent of the beam normally back-scattered from the sensor can be a problem. Ophir now offers Scatter Shields as accessories for our high power laser sensors; these can be mounted on the front flange of the sensors to reduce the backscatter by about 70%.
Laser beams with powers of many tens of kilowatts are becoming more and more common in today's applications. This video will discuss the technical challenges in measuring such lasers, and will show you a range of solutions now available
In this video, you will learn about some critical issues you need to consider when using water cooling, such as water temperature, water flow rate, and corrosion prevention.
For measuring high power laser beams all the way up to 16KW, Ophir offers the new sensor 16K-W-BB-55.
It boasts a large aperture, very high damage threshold, over temperature alarm to protect against cooling system failures…and lots more. Get introduced in this short video.
Laser Power Sensors introduction
As described in the general introduction, the thermopile sensor has a series of bimetallic junctions. A temperature difference between any two junctions causes a voltage to be formed between the two junctions. Since the junctions are in series and the «hot» junctions are always on the inner, hotter side, and the «cold» junctions are on the outer, cooler side, radial heat flow on the disc causes a voltage proportional to the power input. Laser power impinges on the center of the thermopile sensor disk (on the reverse side of the thermopile), flows radially and is cooled on the periphery. The array of thermocouples measures the temperature gradient, which is proportional to the incident or absorbed power. In principle, the reading is not dependent on the ambient temperature since only the temperature difference affects the voltage generated and the voltage difference depends only on the heat flow, not on the ambient temperature. 阅读更多...
Common Reasons for Thermal Sensor Damage or Out of Tolerance Conditions
This document was created to assist our valued customers in the proper care and maintenance of Ophir thermal laser power sensors. The following information is for reference only. If you have any reason to believe that the sensor is no longer performing within the original specifications,we always recommend that you send it in for repair and/or recalibration by our trained technicians to bring the unit back to the proper NIST traceable standards. We believe that Ophir thermal sensors can be used for many years without any repairs when used with the proper laser optical setup. We hope that this document will enable you to also enjoy the long life and reliable results for which Ophir-Spiricon is known. 阅读更多...
How to Properly Select a Laser Power or Energy Sensor
The selection of a sensor to accurately measure the power of a laser or energy of a pulsed laser can seem like a simple and easy procedure. However, many times the selection process is limited to choosing a sensor that only meets the range of power or energy to be measured, leaving out several other essential criteria of the laser specifications; that without their consideration, can allow the wrong sensor to be selected, the laser to be measured inaccurately and likely to cause the sensor to fail prematurely.
Watch Our Laser Measurement Video 阅读更多...
Calibration Accuracy of Ophir's High Power Sensors
An explanation of how we do this is provided below (A). In addition, a recent check of Ophir's 5000W head by PTB in Germany shows excellent agreement between our calibration and their standards. The details of the correspondence between our sensor and their standard at powers up to 1400W is included here (B).
A. High Power Measurement Calibration Method and Estimated Accuracy of Models 5000W and 10K-W
How Much of the Power Sensor Aperture Can My Laser Fill Up?
The entire aperture senses power, so you can use the whole head. That said, a beam in the inner 50% of the surface area (about 70% of the diameter) is specified by Ophir to be uniform within +/-2%. The sensitivity around the edges might be a little less, but generally the sensitivity doesn't vary by more than +/-2% over the entire aperture. 阅读更多...
Effect of Ambient Conditions on Laser Measurements
We are often asked about the specified ranges of various ambient conditions (temperature, humidity, etc.) for Ophir instruments. In this article we will clarify the effects of these conditions on laser measurements, so you'll be able to use your Ophir laser measurement instrument effectively. 阅读更多...
How to Use Water Cooled Ophir Sensors
Ophir Power/Energy Meter Calibration Procedure and Traceability/Error Analysis
This document discusses the interpretation and basis for stated measurement accuracy of Ophir Laser Power/Energy meters.
1. General Discussion
2. Combination of Errors and Total Error
3. Analysis of Power and Energy Calibration Errors
4. Detailed Analysis of Power and Energy Calibration Errors
Laser Measurements in Materials Processing: How and When They Absolutely, Positively Must Be Made
How do I know what range, or scale, to set my power/energy meter to? And what happens if I go over range?
Each given range represents one level of gain of an internal amplifier. The electronics, as always, have a limited Dynamic Range. If the measured signal is too low, in other words near the bottom of the range, then it may be lost in the noise and the reading will be inaccurate and noisy. If it's too high – there may be saturation issues. To give an instrument a usefully wide dynamic range, multiple scales or ranges are used. Switching from range to range can be automatic ("Autorange"), or manual. Autoranging simply starts automatically at the least sensitive range and works its way down the ranges, sampling the signal as it goes, till it finds a range at which the signal is properly detected. Note, by the way, that only in POWER mode is Autoranging available. If we are working in Single Shot Energy mode, there is no Autoranging – simply because when we are measuring a single pulse, the instrument has no opportunity to work its way down the ranges as in Power mode. 阅读更多...
Types of power / Energy Laser Sensors General Introduction
Power and Single Shot Energy Sensors
Ophir provides two types of power sensors: Photodiode sensors and Thermal sensors. Photodiode sensors are used for low powers from picowatts up to hundreds of milliwatts and as high as 3W. Thermal sensors are for use from fractions of a milliwatt up to thousands of watts.
Thermal sensors can also measure single shot energy at pulse rates not exceeding one pulse every ~5s.
Repetitive Pulse Energy Sensors
For higher pulse rates, Ophir has pyroelectric energy sensors able to measure pulse rates up to tens of KHz. These are described in the energy sensor section, section 1.3.
5 Situations Where Laser Performance Measurement is Necessary
- Beam deflector + broadband absorber
- Ø55mm
- 0.8-2µm, 10.6µm
- ~3.5% without Scatter Shield, ~1% with Scatter Shield
- Ø170 W x 82 D (mm)
- 10kW/cm²
- 3.5 s
- 16kW
- CE, UKCA, China RoHS
16K-W Scatter Shield Assy7Z08355
Scatter Shield for mounting on front flange of 16K-W sensors to reduce backscattered power.
Metric water fittings for 16K-W & 30K-W for quick connection to 12mm plastic tubing. Replaces standard fitting connecting to 1/2" tubing (set of 2 each)
16K-W Protective Cover1G02813
Protective Cover with Target Pattern for 16K-W sensors (1 unit supplied with 16K-W sensors)


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We love making funny videos but life would be boring if we weren't constantly trying to innovate and do new things. Back in August 2007 we launched Starring You!® which allows the viewer to put themselves INTO our videos. Since then our audience has created more than 12 million heads (which is more than the population of our home state of New Jersey!). CNET even went so far as to dub it "The Greatest Office Time Waster in History". Now that's props!!!
When we began production on the election video we thought it would be neat to include a Starring You!® component but we didn't want to shoehorn it in there. As the lyrics evolved and we realized the point of view for the finale was about 'we the people' we realized it was a perfect fit!
Click here to put your friends and family into the video and shoot 'em a link. We guarantee it'll get a reaction!

subset: commoncrawl


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ALL-WHEEL DRIVE 2023 Mazda CX-30 GX
Offer Ends: 2023/05/31
- All-in pricing starting from$29,175‡Excludes HST.
Enter in your information below to receive this offer
Disclaimer: ▲180-Day Lease Rate and Finance Rate Protection is available to qualifying retail customers on any new and previously unregistered 2023 Mazda model factory ordered from an authorized and participating Mazda retailer in Canada between May 2-31, 2023, on approved credit. Mazda Canada Inc. will honour the following aspects of then-current offer for 180 consecutive days from the date at which the order for the vehicle is placed: (i) standard lease and finance rates; (ii) APR Subvented Programs (including APR Rate and APR Stackable Cash); (iii) Lease Subvented Programs (Lease Rate, Residual Value and Lease Stackable Cash); (iv) Scotia Dealer Advantage (does not apply to Scotiabank Standard Rate); (v) Mazda Retail Cash; (vi) Event Funds; (vii) residuals (collectively, the "Protected Elements"). Retailers are free to request a deposit and procedures (including whether any deposit is refundable and/or is applied towards the price of the vehicle) may vary by retailer. Offers will vary by model. The Protected Elements available at the time of order and stated on the order form will be protected only if the vehicle is delivered within 180 days. However, Mazda cannot guarantee that vehicles will be delivered within this period. If a vehicle is not delivered within 180 days, protection will not apply. If a more advantageous Protected Element is available at the time of delivery, the customer will be entitled to that Protected Element. Offer only applies to the Protected Elements listed above and does not protect other aspects of the offers (price, etc.). Some conditions apply. See retailer for complete details. ▼Connected vehicle service is available for a 2-year trial period from your vehicle's in-service date; a paid subscription is required upon expiry of the trial period. Available on 2023 MX-30, Mazda3, Mazda3 Sport, CX-5, CX-9, CX-30 and CX-50. Requires MyMazda App (on a compatible smartphone), a working vehicle electrical system (including battery), wireless coverage and GPS satellite signal. Services, connectivity and capabilities vary by conditions as well as geographical and technical restrictions. See mazda.ca for details. *To learn more about the Mazda Unlimited Warranty, go to mazdaunlimited.ca. ♦♦Amounts shown are the maximum incentive or rebate amounts (the "Incentives") that may be available from the applicable provincial and/or federal government for eligible electric vehicles. The Incentives are administered independently by the applicable provincial or federal government and Mazda Canada does not administer the Incentives and is not responsible for any cancellations or changes to the Incentives. Incentive information is provided for informational purposes only and Mazda Canada makes no representations about the actual amount or eligibility for the Incentives. The amount of the Incentives, terms and conditions of the Incentives, availability and any eligibility or application requirements vary by jurisdiction, model, trim level, MSRP, payment method, term and other factors. The Incentives will be applied after applicable taxes are calculated. Conditions and limitations apply. Consult the applicable provincial or federal government or see your retailer for details. ♦Plan is available with the purchase or lease of a new 2023 MX-30 EV from an authorized EV Mazda retailer in Canada. Plan has an estimated value of $500 (based on the average estimated parts and labour pricing at Mazda authorized EV retailers as of September 2021) and covers two (2) factory-recommended scheduled maintenance at 1 year/16,000 km (whichever occurs first) and 2 years/32,000 km (whichever occurs first) intervals based on normal driving conditions as outlined in the Owner's manual. Coverage begins on the earliest of the date the vehicle is delivered to the first retail purchaser, is leased, or is placed into service by Mazda or an authorized Mazda Retailer in Canada for a business use. Plan does not include repair or maintenance of parts that experience wear and tear and other repairs that are not identified by the Owner's manual. All services must be claimed within the two (2)-year/32,000km period. After this time, the services will be forfeited and no claims can be submitted for any outstanding services. No cash value. Certain limitations apply. See your participating Mazda retailer for restrictions and complete details. ‡Purchase from price, based on Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price, for new 2023 CX-50 GS-L AWD (JXLN83AA00)/2023 CX-5 GX CD AWD (NXXN83AA00)/2023 CX-9 GS AWD (QXSM83AA00)/2023 Mazda3 GX (DVXK63AA00)/2023 Mazda3 Sport GX (SVXK63AA00)/2023 CX-30 GX AWD (ZXXK83AA00)/2023 MX-5 GS (L2SK63AA00)/2023 MX-5 RF GS-P (L3PK63AA00)/2023 MX-30 EV GS (KVSB83AA00) is $40,375/$33,375/$44,175/$23,825/$24,825/$29,175/$35,921/$42,921/$44,775. As shown, purchase-from price, based on Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price, for new 2023 CX-50 GT AWD (JXTN83AA00)/2023 CX-5 GT CD AWD (NXTN83AA00)/2023 CX-9 GT AWD (QXTM83AA00)/2023 Mazda3 GT (DVTL83AA00)/2023 Mazda3 Sport GT (SVTL63AA00)/2023 CX-30 GT AWD (ZXTL83AA00)/2023 MX-5 GT (L2TK63AA00)/2023 MX-5 RF GT (L3TK63AA00)/2023 MX-30 EV GT (KVTB83AA00) is $45,325/$41,975/$53,175/$33,925/$33,625/$38,675/$43,021/$46,021/$49,775. Offers include freight, P.D.E.of $1,995/$1,995/$1,995/$1,795/$1,795/$1,995/$1,895/$1,895/$1,995, $10 OMVIC fee (all models), $20.00 ($16.00 for MX-5 models) Tire Stewardship Fee (all models – covering the cost to Mazda Canada of collecting and recycling tires), $100 Air Conditioning Charge (where applicable) and fees. Offers exclude HST. Licence, insurance, taxes and down payment (where applicable) are extra and may be required at the time of purchase. Retailer order/trade may be necessary on certain vehicles. Offers valid May 2-31, 2023, while supplies last. Lease and finance on approved credit for qualified customers only. Offers subject to change without notice. Visit mazda.ca or see your retailer for complete details.


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This community also has an affordable rental program. There are additional, required documents that must accompany the Rental Application when it is submitted for review. Please contact our Leasing Center in order to obtain the necessary documents to fill out and accompany the affordable application before it can be accepted and reviewed by our Leasing Professionals.
Please contact us if you would like a Rental Application mailed to you or they may be picked up in person at 45 Grand St. Worcester, MA 01610.
Please fill out the rental applications completely, sign and date.
Paystubs and income documentation must accompany the Rental Application for all members of the household who are 18 years of age or older.
Once you have all of the required forms, they are filled out, signed and dated, you may FAX, mail or hand deliver along with your Rental Application to this Beacon Community for review.
Upon receipt of your Rental Application, we will contact you by telephone or letter to let you know the status of your Application.


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A collection of health and environmental posts from other governmental blogs.
"Clean vs. dirty" is a concept that seems easy enough to understand. You know your jeans are dirty when they get grass stains on them, because you can easily see the stains. Seeing bacteria on your food is a different story. All foodborne bacteria are microscopic and can't be seen with the naked eye, making it difficult to know if your foods have been cross-contaminated. Bacteria may come into contact with our foods from contaminated cooking equipment, utensils and even our hands. According to the 2016 FDA Food Safety Survey (PDF, 530 KB) Americans are doing well to prevent cross contamination from some common sources, but not all. — From the US Department of Agriculture blog
Five common myths about arthritis
More than 50 million Americans are affected by arthritis, a painful and often debilitating condition that limits quality of life. Arthritis is defined as inflammation involving a joint and is characterized by joint pain, stiffness, swelling and decreased range of motion. Some forms are also associated with damage to the heart, eyes, lungs, kidneys and skin. It is the leading cause of disability in the United States and accounts for 172 million missed days of work, translating to $165 billion in lost wages and medical bills. — From Flourish, Palmetto Health's blog
UTI symptoms all women should know
Urinary tract infections are one of the most frequent clinical bacterial infections in women, according to the National Institutes of Health.
"If you are a woman, chances are you will have at least one urinary tract infection (UTI) during your lifetime," said Katie Schill, nurse practitioner with Palmetto Health's Mobile Clinic. "UTIs do not just afflict women. Men can develop UTIs as well, just not as commonly. And contrary to some belief, a UTI is not a reflection on one's hygiene." — From Flourish, Palmetto Health's blog
Preparing for a Hurricane or a Tropical Storm
You can't stop a tropical storm or hurricane, but you can take steps now to protect you and your family.
If you live in areas at risk, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) encourages you to begin preparing for hurricane season. The Atlantic hurricane season is June 1 through November 30 each year. — From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Your Health — Your Environment blog
Women: Take Time for Self-Care. You're Worth It!
My late grandmother, Ms. Anne E. Larkins, was an accomplished elementary school principal and teacher when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in the spring of 1983. In her typical solutions-focused way, she sought to understand the disease and how best to manage it. She modeled steps a cancer survivor must take to live a longer, healthier life. — From the CDC's The Topic Is Cancer blog


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The deadline for installing secure operating systems on federal government computers will pass next month with the job incomplete, leaving hundreds of thousands of machines running outdated software and unusually vulnerable to hackers.
Federal officials have known for more than six years that Microsoft will withdraw its free support for Windows XP on April 8, 2014. Despite a recent rush to complete upgrades, an estimated 10 percent of government computers — out of several million — will still be running the operating system on that date, company officials said.
That includes thousands of computers on classified military and diplomatic networks, U.S. officials said. Such networks have stronger defenses generally but hold more sensitive material, raising the stakes for breaches if they occur.
Security experts warn that hackers have been preparing for what Microsoft calls the "end-of-life" for Windows XP by stockpiling "vulnerabilities" that amount to skeleton keys that can give intruders remote access.
Hackers who break into a single computer on a network can use the passwords they steal to work their way into other machines, even ones that have updated operating systems and other protections, experts say. Intrusions often are limited to espionage but can be the first step toward cyberattacks capable of disabling critical systems.
"Once XP goes out of support and is no longer patched, you've just raised the vulnerability significantly on the whole Windows platform in your organization if you haven't moved off XP," said Richard Spires, a former Department of Homeland Security chief information officer. He called the problem "urgent."
Some federal officials said that they asked Microsoft to extend its deadline for ending support for Windows XP. The company declined and instead offered — for new fees — "custom support agreements" that give protection that likely will fall short of what the company long has provided to most XP users for free, according to experts.
That included routine security patches whenever a cyberattack, virus or other intrusion revealed an exploitable weakness in the operating system anywhere in the world. That comprehensive protection, amounting to a global early-warning system based on data from hundreds of millions of computers, is slated to disappear after the April deadline. Some agencies have declined to contract for custom support agreements because they deemed them an unnecessary expense.
"For all the money we collectively give Microsoft, they were not too receptive to extending the deadline," said a senior State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to be candid about relations with a major vendor. "There was some grumbling that they were not willing to extend."
Microsoft said that, based on its surveys with federal agencies, it expects the transition to continue during the next several months and be virtually complete by year's end, although there are likely to be a small number of Windows XP machines operating into 2015.
"Because we are tightly working with our customers, and because of the types of systems that have yet to make the move off XP, we do not feel there is a substantially greater risk for the federal government on April 9 than there is on April 7," Mark Williams, Microsoft's chief security officer for federal systems, said in an e-mail. "That being said, at the end of the day, it's important to remember that the most safe system is a modern one."
Windows XP, released in 2001, is the last operating system that Microsoft built before the company made a range of significant security improvements, including systems that limit the ability of hackers who break into one program to move into others and gain control of the computer's most basic functions.
Federal officials have been working on the transition — which involves buying hundreds of thousands of new computers, updating operating systems on older machines and revamping custom software designed to run on Windows XP — for more than two years and express optimism that the bulk of the work will be completed in time.
They note that private companies and individual users are lagging even farther behind, with analysts reporting that nearly 20 percent of computers worldwide are still running the outdated operating system.
The government's move away from Windows XP has been hobbled by budget crises and a shortage of top-level coordination despite regular warnings from top U.S. officials that the threat of cyberattack is one of the leading national security concerns facing the nation, current and former federal officials said.
"There is something broken in the process if they are letting this many machines be un-updated at this point," said Steve Bellovin, former chief technologist for the Federal Trade Commission, now a computer science professor at Columbia University. "Some of it is budget cuts. Some of it is not very good management, I suspect."
Responsibility for overseeing cybersecurity policy at federal agencies is shared — somewhat uneasily — by the Department of Homeland Security and the White House's Office of Management and Budget. In April 2012, DHS sent OMB a draft plan for warning federal agencies that they needed to prioritize moving their computers off of Windows XP before Microsoft ended support, but OMB officials never acted on the plan, several current and former government cybersecurity officials said.
DHS officials said that they collect data on federal computers running Windows XP but declined to reveal it because, they said, doing so would compromise security by helping hackers target their attacks. Officials also declined to reveal the number of federal government computers overall, but several experts put the number at more than 4 million.
Several individual agencies,when queried by The Washington Post, shared estimates for how many of their computers would be updated by the deadline. DHS said that all of its systems would be off Windows XP by April 8.
Defense and State said that nearly all of their unclassified machines would be, even as some on classified networks lagged behind. The Justice Department said its goal was to have more than 75 percent of its nearly 230,000 computers upgraded, leaving tens of thousands running XP. The Department of Veterans Affairs will still have about 2 percent of its computers, up to 6,000 units, on the outdated operating system by the deadline.
Managing the costly, logistically intense transition away from Windows XP has fallen to the chief information officers of the government's cabinet-level departments, independent agencies and, in some cases, the individual bureaus within departments.
The Commerce Department, for example, said that "a majority" of its bureaus had moved off of Windows XP but that, overall, officials didn't know how many of the department's 85,000 machines were using the outdated operating system because updating is left to bureau-level officials.
"As a matter of law and policy, all agencies are responsible for the security of their networks and systems, and that includes addressing these known software vulnerabilities through ongoing patching," DHS spokesman S.Y. Lee said in an e-mailed statement.
The inability to complete the transition from Windows XP on time has drawn fire from critics who say it highlights broader flaws in how the federal government deploys information technology and manages critical assets at a time of rising cybersecurity threats.
"It is troubling that a list of current [computer systems] isn't more readily available," said a congressional aide familiar with cybersecurity policy, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to comment publicly.
The federal government for years has been a regular target of hackers — mainly foreign intelligence services — with significant breaches at many agencies. The Navy recently battled an intrusion in which Iranian cyberspies spent several months moving within the service's unclassified system before being detected and expelled.
The risks of running Windows XP were highlighted in 2009 when Chinese hackers managed to exploit a vulnerability in the browser on XP computers at Google, enabling the theft of valuable source code. Operation Aurora, as it was dubbed by security researchers, targeted more than 30 other U.S. companies.
The need to update computer operating systems has come at a time of major new investment in cybersecurity, including the creation of the new military U.S. Cyber Command, based at Fort Meade. But the unglamorous work of updating operating systems was a lower priority than buying expensive, high-tech systems to monitor and rebuff cyberattacks, critics said.
"Nobody is going to be promoted on the back of moving from XP to Windows 7," said Christopher Soghoian, a computer security expert and principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union. "It's so mundane but so important."
A computer's operating system is only one factor in how secure a system is. Monitoring systems, anti-virus software and strict rules about access also contribute to better security.
"Running Windows XP is like living in a bad neighborhood. There are other things you can do to protect yourself. I can get locks for my house and reduce my likelihood of getting robbed. I can go out only in the daytime," said Michael Silver, an analyst at Gartner Research, a consulting firm. "Hopefully the government has done something to try to make these machines less vulnerable."
DHS is moving to deploy a government-wide program that will let agencies automatically detect which hardware and software runs on their networks, as well as whether they are configured correctly and if programs need patching.
Although the Defense and State departments together will have thousands of computers linked to classified networks running Windows XP, officials say, such networks are less vulnerable because they are not connected to the Internet, which is the source of most hacker intrusions, and do not allow the use of flash drives, another major source of infections.
The transition away from Windows XP has been slowed by the large amount of custom government software built to run on the operating system. Just a year ago, a senior State Department official said, nearly all of its 85,000 computers on unclassified systems ran on XP, even though three generations of newer, safer Windows operating systems were available from Microsoft.
Richard Hale, the Pentagon's deputy chief information officer, said that the few Defense Department computers that will still be running Windows XP next month rely on software built for the operating system and are hard to replace amid heavy use, for example, on Navy ships. Their systems cannot be taken down without affecting operational effectiveness, he said. "So the migration requires re-engineering the entire platform,'' he said.


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The Arctic Ocean is a puddle of water covered by ice that melts, moves, and freezes. Grand and majestic rivers of Siberia and America discharge into the puddle and make it fresher than Atlantic Ocean waters. The fate of the Arctic freshwater helps decide if Europe and the US become warmer or colder, experience more or less storms, droughts, or floods, and if global sea level will rise or fall. In a nutshell: the fate of Arctic freshwater determines climate.
Nares Strait connects the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans to the west of Greenland. It is narrower than Fram Strait, but it transports as much fresh ocean water as does its wider sister facing Europe. Few people know this, including climate scientists who often model it with a bathymetry that is 10,000 years out of date from a time when Nares Strait did not yet exist. This is why the US National Science Foundation funded a group of oceanographers to use icebreakers, sensors, computers, and innovative engineering to collect and analyze data on the ice, the water, and the atmosphere.
Within days of the start of the grant I had to appear before the US Congress to answer questions on Petermann Glacier that discharges into Nares Strait. In 2010 a large 4-times Manhattan-sized ice islands broke off and people wanted to know if global warming was to blame. I was asked how ocean temperatures and currents relate to this and other events and what may happen next. My few data points were the only existing data for this remote region, but I had not yet had the time to analyze and publish much. Two years later another large 2-Manhattan sized ice island formed from the same glacier, but this time we were better prepared and people world-wide went directly to our data, thoughts, and stories when this blog was sourced in news papers in France, Germany, and China. Al Jezeraa, BBC, and PBS reported on it, too, giving me chance to connect via TV, radio, and pod-casting to a larger public.
While it was exciting and fun to share Nares Strait and Petermann Gletscher physics with a global audience, it is not what we had planned to do. Our goal was to put real numbers to how much water, ice, and freshwater was moving from the Arctic to the Atlantic via Nares Strait. So the next 3 years we labored through our extensive records to first describe and then to understand what was happening in Nares Strait. We found that ocean currents move water always to the south no matter if ice covers Nares Strait or not, no matter if the ice is moving or not, no matter which way the wind is blowing. The physical cause for this southward flow is that the sea level is always a few inches higher in the Arctic Ocean than it is in Baffin Bay and the Atlantic Ocean to the south.
We know, because we measured this with tide gauges that we placed in protected coastal bays. We recovered 3 sensors; most rewarding was the recovery of one sensor that we had failed to reach in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2009, but in 2012 we finally got the instrument and 9-years of very good data. Batteries and computers inside were still running and recording. I have never seen as clean and as long a time series.
From satellite data that we analyzed as part of this grant, we know when the ice moves and when it stops moving. The freeze-up of Nares Strait comes in one of three forms: 1. Ice stops moving in winter, because an ice barrier (ice arch or ice bridge) forms in the south that blocks all southward motion of ice; 2. only new and young ice moves southward, because an ice barrier forms in the north that blocks all entry of Arctic ice into Nares Strait; and 3. Arctic ice moves freely through Nares Strait, because no ice barriers are present. Our 2003-12 study period covers years for each of these different ice regimes. And each of these regimes leads to very different ocean (and ice) flux as a result of very different ocean physics.
Data alone cannot make definite statements on what will happen next with our climate, but we know much new physics. The physics suggest certain balances of forces and energy for which we have mathematical equations, but these equations must be solved on computers that can only approximate the true physics and mathematics. These computer models are our only way to make predictions ito the future. The data we here collected and our analyses provide useful checks on existing models and will guide improved models.
Johnson, H., Münchow, A., Falkner, K., & Melling, H. (2011). Ocean circulation and properties in Petermann Fjord, Greenland Journal of Geophysical Research, 116 (C1) DOI: 10.1029/2010JC006519
Münchow, A., Falkner, K., Melling, H., Rabe, B., & Johnson, H. (2011). Ocean Warming of Nares Strait Bottom Waters off Northwest Greenland, 2003–2009 Oceanography, 24 (3), 114-123 DOI: 10.5670/oceanog.2011.62
Münchow, A., Padman, L., & Fricker, H. (2014). Interannual changes of the floating ice shelf of Petermann Gletscher, North Greenland, from 2000 to 2012 Journal of Glaciology, 60 (221), 489-499 DOI: 10.3189/2014JoG13J135
Münchow, A., Falkner, K., & Melling, H. (2014). Baffin Island and West Greenland Current Systems in northern Baffin Bay Progress in Oceanography DOI: 10.1016/j.pocean.2014.04.001
Rabe, B., Johnson, H., Münchow, A., & Melling, H. (2012). Geostrophic ocean currents and freshwater fluxes across the Canadian polar shelf via Nares Strait Journal of Marine Research, 70 (4), 603-640 DOI: 10.1357/002224012805262725


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During the past week, I've had some seriously big, heh revealing, deja vu moments.
A number of book blurbs have rung the 'hey, I've read/watched that story line before' bell.
And I've been playing the prediction game with some reviewers, ie what they'll say and the descriptive phrases they'll use time and time again to say it.
I guess you can't really be surprised there's going to be a certain amount of repetition in the book blogging world. I mean we all know we're going to see the same book reviewed to the gazillionth degree when it's just been released.
But so many deja vus in such a short period of time??
It's just been weird. Even for me.
So have any of you experienced periods when it's just been deja vu after deja vu? Or is it just me?


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Every year is another chance to look back, figure out what went well and what didn't, and think of ways to make the next year even better. I call my list "dreams and goals," instead of "resolutions." What I've discovered, especially this past year, is that you don't know what unexpected opportunities may pop up or how you will change as a person. It's good to dream and plan, and it's also healthy to let yourself be flexible and spontaneous.
A few dreams / goals I met in 2016:
- Read 25 books. Some of them were short, and one or two of them were quite long (I'm looking at you, Mack). It felt great to make a dent in that TBR list!
- Take photos. I started learning about photography in earnest. Will continue this one in 2017.
- Love my neighbors. That is, I tried to love the people with whom I interacted in "real life" and online. As we all have experienced, it's been a contentious year. More than ever I realized the struggle – and necessity – of being understanding and respectful of others, even if I felt hurt by their words or attitudes. This is an ongoing goal.
"You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them."
Some of my dreams and goals for 2017:
- Read 15 books. I'll be setting my Goodreads challenge a bit lower this time, which hopefully will allow me to squeeze in some longer books.
- Learn to read in French. My dad has a textbook called French for Reading. Starting January 1, my goal is to complete a lesson a day and ultimately be able to read at least children's literature by the end of the year.
- Don't buy new things. Especially books, right? 😉
- Keep a consistent schedule. Lately I've recognized a need to significantly reduce the level of stress in my life. If I can identify a schedule that will balance my full-time work and my personal life (i.e. reading!), it will help remove some of that unnecessary stress.
I have so enjoyed getting back into blogging and reading all of you guys' blogs. Here's to many more bookish adventures in 2017!


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I have uploaded some pictures from last weeks FlashForward. They include a few new images of Macromedia Central, as well as a sneak of one of the apps included on DRK 3.
You can view the pictures here.
If you post any photos from the conference, make sure to add a link in the comments section.


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we would go back to iceland
It's early October and the long summer days are no more. The chance of spotting the northern lights increases while the temperature decreases. The days are getting shorter and the blue skies are fighting to be seen.
Iceland is like nowhere else we have been. It is "out of this world" without sounding too cliché.
Our romance with Iceland was ignited when we were welcomed with nature's light show on the evening of our arrival. We couldn't believe our luck when the day we flew into Reykjavik there was not a single cloud in the sky. It was only the night before we arrived, the auroras were so fierce and strong that the mayor switched off the lights in the city for the phenomenon to be experienced by all, not just the over-zealous aurora-hunters.
Our number one travel wish list item was finally ticked off.
We know we are very fortunate to have witnessed the aurora borealis in all of her dancing glory. The following 7 nights, Aurora became shy and only appeared briefly or poked out occasionally behind dense clouds.
How do we begin to describe the sheer beauty of this country?
Jam-packed in its modest 103,000 km2 are massive glaciers and mountains sprawled across the horizon; waterfalls gushing loudly and proudly; thermal activity performing on cue. Even the knowledge of the volcanoes impatiently rumbling nearby with the earthquakes increasing in frequency and strength didn't hamper our spirits. This country was truly something special and in a league of its own.
Every time we stopped to get that little bit closer to nature, we were greeted with harsh winds wanting to leave our cheeks numb and our teeth chattering. It didn't matter though, we were easily distracted by what we saw.
Maybe we'll just show you a little bit of what we saw.
Aside from the beauty of the country, the people are welcoming, friendly and frank. The food is also great but we might leave that for another post. And well, the language and pronunciations had us equally fascinated!
Our experience in Iceland was unforgettable, although we do wish the prices were forgettable. Ha! Thus is travel… One of these days we will be back for those long summer days, expensive or not!
Have you been to Iceland? What is your opinion?
Feel free to leave us any comments here.


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Short post here inspired by Amy. Thanks, Amy!! Question: Does anyone know a source of fotos taken from Erie Basin or the harbor dating from the 1970s and before and showing the sugar plant in operation?
I took the foto above in summer 2005 from Erie Basin, as I first saw it. Intrigued, I then did some research and learned about a fire and a Ferdinand Marcos connection and an impending sale of the space. We need more non-linear structures on the waterfront, arcs rather than all linear horizontals, diagonals, and verticals.
Gone! It's not that I "fetishize" the post-industrial, but public art with curves on the waterfront and intended to be enjoyed from both land and water . . . it's great. Long ago, I lived near Jeddah, and their Corniche (coastal avenue) had old fishing boats propped up on plinths as public art. My Jeddah fotos (prints) are deep in a trunk of random snapshots. See a link here here for Jeddah waterfront art. Scroll through: I especially like the Mustafa Senbel piece. Some of these pieces are enormous, consumable from a boat 1000 feet off, just as the sugar dome used to be.
All photos, WVD.


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Some arid lands in the American West degraded by military exercises that date back to General George Patton's Word War II maneuvers in the Mojave Desert should get a boost from an innovative research project led by the University of Colorado Boulder.
Headed up by CU-Boulder Assistant Professor Nichole Barger, the research team is focused on developing methods to restore biological soil crusts — microbial communities primarily concentrated on soil surfaces critical to decreasing erosion and increasing water retention and soil fertility. Such biological soil crusts, known as "biocrusts," can cover up to 70 percent of the ground in some arid ecosystems and are dominated by cyanobacteria, lichens, mosses, fungi and bacteria, she said.
The project is aimed at restoring fragile habitats in desert areas that have been affected by the movement of U.S. military vehicles, including tanks, as well as high foot traffic, said Barger, a faculty member in CU-Boulder's ecology and environmental biology department. The team has two U.S. Department of Defense study sites — Fort Bliss, which straddles southern Texas and New Mexico and is located in a hot desert environment, and the Dugway Proving Ground in northwest Utah, seated in a cool desert environment.
"Biocrusts often are associated with increased soil nutrients and water retention, but their most important task is to stabilize soil surfaces against wind and water erosion," Barger said. "While most biocrusts are relatively resilient to wind and water erosion, they are highly susceptible to compressional forces like those generated by foot and vehicle traffic associated with ground-based military activities."
At military installations like Fort Bliss, the Dugway Proving Ground and in the California/Arizona Maneuver Area in the Mojave Desert used by Patton's troops, scars of past military activity still are evident, said Barger. "You can go to these places and see that the biocrusts in the old tank tracks, for example, are completely different than nearby biocrusts undisturbed by military activity."
The project is being funded by a five-year, $2.3 million grant from the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program, the U.S. Department of Defense environmental science and technology program that partners with the U.S. Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency. The research team also includes Jayne Belnap, Michael Duniway and Sasha Reed from the U.S. Geological Survey's Biological Resources Division in Moab, Utah and Ferran Garcia-Pichel of Arizona State University in Tempe.
The first step of the program will be to grow biocrusts in laboratories at ASU, said Barger. "Our approach will be to expose laboratory biocrusts over time to a physiological 'boot camp' that includes increasing stressors like heat, light and dryness," she said. "By doing that, we believe the biocrusts we eventually transplant into the study areas will have a higher probability of survival."
The lab-grown biocrust products will be dried, bagged and transported to field test sites at each respective military installation and sprinkled on soil surfaces, said Barger.
Once in the field, the stress-adapted biocrusts developed in the lab nurseries for both hot desert and cool desert environments will be combined with other soil stabilization strategies, she said. The team, for example, will also experiment with adding polyacrylamide — a soil-stabilizing compound shown to increase soil porosity and reduce erosion, compaction, dustiness and water run-off — to the mix.
The researchers will evaluate the effectiveness of such soil "inoculations" and determine the optimum dosage for the test sites. Following the assisted recovery of the local biocrusts at Fort Bliss and the Dugway Proving Ground, the team will begin a series of seeding trials to develop strategies for native plant re-establishment, Barger said.
The last step of the project will involve a series of rainfall simulations and wind tunnel experiments combined with broad-scale soil erosion modeling to evaluate the influence of biocrust and native plant restoration in terms of precipitation and soil erosion.
While DOD military installations cover nearly 30 million acres — 70 percent of which are located in arid regions of the West — Barger said the research also could aid in the effective management of other federal lands. "We think our work on biocrusts also will be of interest to land managers at agencies like the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service," Barger said.
The adaptation of biocrusts to extreme environments likely will come into play even more as climate change continues to heat and dry the West, she said. "We expect the drought in the Southwest to intensify as a result of climate change, and this project should tell us more about how adaptive these biocrusts are under shifting environmental conditions."
The research project also has health implications, said Barger, since the disturbance of biocrusts can trigger the release of significant amounts of atmospheric dust, a dominant pollutant in some desert metropolitan areas. "There is a broad societal interest in stabilizing dryland soils in order to protect not only the functioning of local ecosystems but also human populations that reside in surrounding communities."
"In terms of tackling an important environmental issue, this is by far the most exciting research project that I have been involved in," said Barger, who has worked in Hawaii, Central America, South America, China and South Africa.
*Source: University of Colorado Boulder


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A Writer on Sports and More
To my new readers:
To people who know me from my day job, radio guest spots or previous blogs:
Welcome back.
What you've stumbled across is my latest, most polished foray into the blogosphere.
A decade's worth of my best work collected on a single site.
A place to highlight my newest, most noteworthy pieces as they hit the news.
And, of course, a place to riff on the latest developments in sports, social issues and the space where the two overlap.
To learn more about me and the new blog click here, but while you're here let me point out some important facts about this site and the writer behind it.
First, I love narrative journalism and a few years back my narrative non-fiction earnedme the National Newspaper Award for Sports Writing.
Second, I write about more than sports.
Third, don't misunderstand me — I still dig sports. And I love boxing more than any other because it brings the best out of me as a writer.
But instead of listening to me talk about what I do look around the site and find out for yourself, and if you like what you read visit often or subscribe because I plan to update frequently.
CommentsOne Response to "A Writer on Sports and More"
I want to invite you to be a guest on my show. Look forward ot hearing from you.
Host of The HOSS


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Re-Reading Modern Classics: Fiction Advocate's "Afterwords" Series
I didn't manage a traditional classic this month: I stalled on Cider with Rosie and gave up on Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust after just 16 pages. Instead, I'm highlighting three books from Fiction Advocate's new series about re-reading modern classics, "…Afterwords." Their tagline is "Essential Readings of the New Canon," and the concept is to have "acclaimed writers investigate the contemporary classics."
As Italo Calvino notes in his invaluable essay "Why Read the Classics?", "The classics are those books about which you usually hear people saying: 'I'm rereading…', never 'I'm reading…'." Harold Bloom agrees in The Western Canon: "One ancient test for the canonical remains fiercely valid: unless it demands rereading, the work does not qualify." But readers will also encounter books that strike such a chord with them that they become personal classics. Calvino exhorts readers that "during unenforced reading … you will come across the book which will become 'your' book…'Your' classic is a book to which you cannot remain indifferent, and which helps you define yourself in relation or even in opposition to it."
For the Afterwords series, the three writers below have each chosen a modern classic that they can't stop reading for all it has to say to their own situation and on humanity in general.
I Meant to Kill Ye: Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian by Stephanie Reents (2018)
Blood Meridian must be one of the two or three bleakest books I've ever read. I was led to it by Bloom, who speaks about it as a, if not the, Great American Novel. It's over 10 years since I've read it now, but I still remember some of the specific incidences of violence, like skewering babies and sodomizing corpses on a battlefield, as well as the overall feeling of nihilism: there's no reason for the evil promulgated by characters like the Judge; it is simply a reality – perhaps the human condition.
Reents, who teaches English at the College of the Holy Cross, returns to Blood Meridian, a novel she has re-read compulsively over the years, to ask why it continues to have such a hold over her. Its third-person perspective is so distant that we never understand characters' motivations or glimpse their inner lives, she notes; everyone seems like a pawn in a fated course. She usually shies away from violence and long descriptive passages; she has an uneasy relationship with the West, having moved away from Idaho to live on the East coast. So why should this detached, brutal Western based on the Glanton Gang's Mexico/Texas killing spree have so captivated her? "Often, we most admire the books that we could never produce, the writing styles or intellects so different from our own that we aren't even tempted to try imitating them," she offers as explanation. "It's a pure kind of admiration, unsullied by envy." (I feel that way about Faulkner and Steinbeck.)
As part of her quest, Reents recreated some of the Gang's desert route and traveled to the Texas State University library near Austin to look at McCarthy's early drafts, notes and correspondence. She was intrigued to learn that the Kid was a more conventional POV character to start with, and McCarthy initially included more foreshadowing. By cutting all of it, he made it so that the book's extreme violence comes out of nowhere. Reents also explores the historical basis for the story via General Samuel Chamberlain's dubious memoir. Pondering the volatility of the human heart as she drives along the Mexican border, she ends on the nicely timely note of a threatened Trump-built wall. I doubt I could stomach reading Blood Meridian again (though I've read another two McCarthy novels since), but I enjoyed revisiting it with Reents as she finds herself "re-bewildered by its beauty and horror."
A Little in Love with Everyone: Alison Bechdel's Fun Home by Genevieve Hudson (2018)
Alison Bechdel is one of Hudson's queer heroes (along with James Baldwin, Tracy Chapman, and seven others), portrayed opposite the first page of each chapter in black and white drawings by Pace Taylor – the sort of people who gave her the courage to accept her lesbian identity after a conventional Alabama upbringing.
As portrayed in her landmark graphic memoir Fun Home, Bechdel was in college and finally coming to terms with her sexuality at the same time that she learned that her father was gay and her parents were about to divorce. Her father died in an accident just a few months later and, though he had many affairs, had never managed to live out his homosexuality openly. As Bechdel's mother scoffed, "Your father tell the truth? Please!" By contrast, Hudson appreciates Bechdel so much because of her hard-won honesty: "In her work, Bechdel does the opposite of lying. She excavates the real. She dredges up the stuff of her life, embarrassing parts and all."
Hudson looks at how people craft their own coming-out narratives, the importance of which cannot be overemphasized, in her experience. "Coming out was a tangible thing with tangible effects. For every friend who left my life, a new person arrived—usually someone with broader horizons, exciting stories, and a deviance that seemed sweet and sexy and sincere. After I came out, roaming the streets of Charleston in fat sunglasses and thin dresses, a group of beautiful lesbians appeared out of nowhere. … Everyone was a little in love with everyone."
A Cool Customer: Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking by Jacob Bacharach (2018)
I made the mistake of not taking any notes on, or even marking out any favorite passages in, this, so all I can tell you is that for me it was the most powerful of the three I've tried from the series. The author re-examines Didion's work in the light of his own encounter with loss – his brother's death from a drug overdose – and ponders why it has become such a watershed in bereavement literature. Didion really is the patron saint of grief thanks to her two memoirs, Magical Thinking and Blue Nights – after she was widowed she also lost her only daughter – even though she writes with a sort of intellectual detachment; you have to intuit the emotion between the lines. Bacharach smartly weaves his family story with a literate discussion of Didion's narratives and cultural position to make a snappy and inviting book you could easily read in one sitting.
Indeed, all of the Afterwords books are 120–160-page, small-format paperbacks that would handily slip into a pocket or purse.
My thanks to the publisher for the free copies for review.
The other titles in the series are An Oasis of Horror in a Desert of Boredom by Jonathan Russell Clark (on 2666 by Roberto Bolaño), New Uses for Failure by Adam Colman (on 10:04 by Ben Lerner, and Bizarro Worlds by Stacie Williams (on The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem).
Next month's plan: The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa will be my classic to get me in the mood for traveling to Italy for the first week of July.


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Twentieth Century Fox Launches Parental Guidance Movie Promotion Using Photobucket "Stories" to Engage Movie Fans and Generate Excitement for December 25 Premiere
Season-long promotional campaign leverages the power of storytelling to reveal more about movie than typical online placements, trailers or teasers
Photobucket Corporation today announced that Twentieth Century Fox's family movie comedy for the holidays, PARENTAL GUIDANCE, is the first Photobucket marketing partner to launch a marketing campaign including the Photobucket "Stories" platform. Photobucket Stories is not only appealing to consumers (see related release), but it also enables brands to further engage fans in a more interactive way by creating virtual stories that can be embedded and shared across the web and social networks.
Twentieth Century Fox's PARENTAL GUIDANCE Stories includes an inside look at both families featured in the film: Marisa Tomei's "new school" family, along with the "old school" family, featuring her parents played by Billy Crystal and Bette Midler. Their respective Stories detail some of the humorous generational differences with regards to childrearing, particularly when grandparents take over and the usual schedules, dietary restrictions and other rules go out the window. To see more of how the family dynamic stacks up, check out the Fox movie trailer for PARENTAL GUIDANCE here; the film arrives in theaters everywhere December 25.
"Photobucket Stories provides us a truly unique canvas, combining photos, videos and text to entice and engage fans," said Zachary Eller, senior vice president of partnership marketing and promotions, Twentieth Century Fox. "We're excited about the way the stories have been implemented and the extended look this provides into the opposing (and hilariously clashing!) parenting styles."
Photobucket Stories for brands enables partners to:
- Apply photo, video and text-based promotional content to allow your brand's personality to shine through and distinguish itself
- Share "˜the story behind the story' or a different perspective with your fan base to further engage and entice them
- Provide visually-appealing and highly-shareable content that can be embedded on websites, blogs and shared across social networks
"Brands are striving to humanize the way they engage audiences, which means they are seeking new ways to tell a story, create original content and connect with people," said Brad Davis, Photobucket's executive vice president of sales. "Photobucket Stories provides a simple, flexible framework for creation and distribution of brand narratives. We are proud to work with Twentieth Century Fox on creating a compelling message for PARENTAL GUIDANCE, and we are excited to deliver this new medium to serve the evolving needs of brand marketers and advertisers."
About Photobucket
Photobucket transforms the act of photosharing into the art of storytelling. As the world's leading consumer service dedicated to preserving and sharing the entire photo and video lifecycle, Photobucket hosts more than 10 billion images from 100 million registered members, who upload more than four million images and videos per day from the Web and connected digital devices. Photobucket's headquarters are in Denver with regional offices in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco.
For the latest feature announcements and news, please visit the Photobucket press blog at http://blog.photobucket.com/photobucket_press.
To create a free Photobucket account, users can visit http://photobucket.com, or find the Photobucket Mobile Application and Snapbucket app available in the app store on all major smartphone platforms. Photobucket supports Mobile Web, iPhone, Android based devices, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7.


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28 February 1933
Diary entry by Erich Seligmann
Erich Seligmann began his diary in 1908, although in 1933 he wrote on only twenty-two occasions. In some of the longer entries, he refers to political events, but mostly reflects on his own situation. In late March, he was suspended from his position as director of the Scientific Institute of the Central Health Office. In August, he was accused of having an "unpatriotic attitude" and abusing his office. His complaints and efforts to disprove the charges proved unsuccessful. In a letter written at the end of the year, the acting mayor described Seligmann as an "exponent of the Social Democratic Jewish members of the Central Health Office … for whom there is no room in our National Socialist community."
Shortly after he was suspended, Erich Seligmann was appointed director of the newly established Board of Health of the Berlin Jewish Community. He also served as president of the Jewish Hospital. He did not decide to leave Germany until 1939 and immigrated to the United States via England, where he was able to continue his illustrious career.
Aubrey Pomerance
28 February. A few hours after I penned yesterday's entry, there was a fire at the Reichstag—set by the Communists, according to official reports. Strict measures against the Communists and Social Democrats, arrests, the mobilization of auxiliary police, a collective press ban. The next few hours and days will provide a glimpse of the future. Suspicions arise and are expressed only in whispers—they are so incredible that I am reluctant to put them to paper. Bleeding, burning Germany!


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If you're reading this, I'm still alive, and you've fallen into the Tasty Summer Reads Blog Hop!
This one started with Avon Romance, and the sport-loving (and wonderful) Iris Blobel invited me to be part of it.
A little bit about my WIP (Work In Progress)
My current WIP is very much a babe in the woods. It doesn't even have its name yet, because the original name I've now decided I don't like. It was called Fringe Benefits (it's been that for 2 years). Now I'm leaning to Taking Me Slow or Taking It Slow… It is a reunion romance (contemporary romance) set between the two places of Australia that have been 'home' for me: Margaret River, and the Adelaide Hills. Once again, it has a loose wine industry background tying my characters' lives together. My hero is Seth (he's based on Timothy Oliphant's character of Seth Bullock in Deadwood) and my heroine is Quin (don't ask me why/how she got her name, I just like it).
This book is being DANG difficult to write, and isn't playing ball. It started out in third person, and currently I'm rewriting a new draft in first person. It is just giving me all sorts of trouble and if it doesn't pull its act together, I will NEVER write it! (Please, may my threat work, you bloody book, you!). *mutters & glares darkly at keyboard*…
The blog hop questions:
1) When writing are you a snacker? If so, sweet or salty?
Salty. Kettle sea salt chips are my vice (along with champagne). But that said, I don't snack when I write. It's impossible to type and snack and I can't stand a greasy keyboard. (See this post here for more about greasy keyboards and food in my writing!)
2) Are you an outliner or someone who flies by the seat of their pants? Are they real pants or jammies?
Absolute seat of the pants, and they're not jammies. I'm a nightie kind of girl and my nighties have patterns of icecream cones; champagne glasses clinking; and multicoloured hearts.
3) When cooking or baking, do you follow the recipe exactly or wing it?
I cook like I write. One of the reasons I make muffins that my husband says "are like hockey pucks" is that I refuse to follow a recipe. I like cooking but I don't like getting so pedantic about following a recipe that if I don't have an ingredient I won't try the recipe. I think like 'good writing,' 'good cooking' comes with experience. Years ago I'd be more inclined to follow a recipe to the letter. Now I'm more confident in my kitchen and I can wing it. Luckily I have more success than failure (except with muffins).
4) What is next for you after this book?
Gad. This book is such a pup. Right now I don't know what's next. 'Next' is years away… but I think it may not be romance, and it may not be wine (like my two current releases His Brand Of Beautiful and The Goodbye Ride). And it may not have a HEA. We shall have to see!
5) Last Question…on a level of one being slightly naughty to ten being whoo whoo steamy, where does your book land?
It won't be erotica, but it will be steamy. It involves a lot of fantasy sex. So I'd say 8-9.
What is the recipe you'll be cooking this summer!?
Last year great friends of mine introduced me to a new potato salad, and I made this heaps in summer 2012-13. I love it because it uses heaps of parsley. So it's a potato salad with steamed potatoes, 2 or 3 hard-boiled eggs, sour-cream/mayo/natural yoghurt (I use whatever dressing base I have); olive oil, a wisp of balsamic vinegar, maybe some shallots if I have them, and lots (like a really big bunch) of parsley from the garden.
I'd serve this with steaks that hubby would do on the barbecue; or freshly caught fish.
I have invited Jennie Jones, Juanita Kees, Alissa Callen, Cate Ellink and Elizabeth Ellen Carter to join in the hop, and once they get their recipes up, you'll be able to click on their names to see what they've got cooking!
Thanks Iris Blobel for the invitation!


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It's no secret that this is one of the top five 2012 films both Ted and I have been anticipating. Nice to see that the world seems to have been 'gripped' by Bond fever, as Skyfall has grossed over $500 million worldwide since it opened in the UK on October 26, and nearly $90 mil in its opening weekend here in the US.
So, with all the buzz and our own feverish excitement over its release, does this movie live up to our expectations? Well, read both Ted and my review below:
Ted's Review
After a four year absence, Bond is back on the big screen and I think it's maybe the best Bond film ever. Daniel Craig is back as 007, Sam Mendes stepped in as the man in charge behind the scenes, he brought in his usual team to work on this latest Bond film, including the great cinematographer Roger Deakins and the always excellent Thomas Newman as the new composer.
The film starts out with a spectacular chase scene involving Bond and a new agent played by Naomi Harris, they're after a hard drive containing the names of MI6 undercover agents all over the world. They failed and Bond is presumed dead. A few months later, MI6 agents are being kill off one by one and M (Judi Dench) is being question by Security Chairman Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes), a great addition to franchise in my opinion. Mallory suggested that M should think of retiring because she might lose her step when it comes to the intelligence business. Of course M refused and she wowed to find who's responsible for these agents being kill off. We then see Bond living in some tropical beach, drinking and sleeping with a beautiful woman. He later learned that other agents are being murder and decided to come back to MI6 and wants to know who's behind these killings. Since he's been gone for so long, Bond is out of shape and not as sharp but M sent him out to the field anyway.
I don't like to go deep into the plot in my review so I'm going to highlight what worked and what didn't in the film.
Let's start with what I thought work great in the film:
Daniel Craig and Judi Dench: This is a more personal Bond film and both Craig and Dench did a marvelous job in their respective role. Craig now really owns the Bond character, in this film he's not the super hero agent we're used to seeing. He's a drunk, he gets hurt and he didn't always save the girl. In an interview, Craig said he really want to bring the character more to reality and so he went and read some of Fleming's earlier Bond novels. To me he really nailed what Fleming was going for in those novels. Dench played a prominent role in the movie and believe it or not, she was actually the Bond girl in this film. Her performance was the best in the series and I was glad she appeared in the film as much as she has.
Sam Mendes, Roger Deakins and Thomas Newman: When Mendes was hired to direct this film, I was a bit skeptical because he's never directed an action film before and when a more artsy director took over the franchise, it doesn't always turned out well. The World Is Not Enough was directed by an artsy director and it's one of the worst Bond films ever. But I was wrong, Mendes did a great job. Like what Brad Bird did with M:I-Ghost Protocol last year, Mendes decided to bring the franchise back to the old school style while infusing some 21st century action sequences. Speaking of action, Mendes was able to build up a great suspense before showing those awesome action sequences.
I particularly liked the sequence in Shanghai where Bond went after an assassin, the scene was set in a high rise building and the way Mendes staged it was so suspenseful and when Bond finally went mano-a-mano with the assassin, I got goose bumps. I loved that sequence. Since this film marks the 50th anniversary of the franchise, Mendes decided to throw in some homage from the previous Bond flicks. From Oddjob in Goldfinger, Bond jumped on top of an alligator, exploding pen and so on; Bond fanatics will get a kick out seeing those scenes, I know I did.
Of course Mendes can't do it alone, with his right hand man Roger Deakins doing the shooting, this may be the best looking Bond film ever. Seriously every scene in this film was so gorgeous to look it. The film took place mostly in London and the way Deakins captured the look and feel of that city, I felt like I was there. Also, I always felt London is one of the best cities to capture on films, (NYC is my favorite in case you're wondering). If you get a chance to see it on the real IMAX screen, I highly recommend you do that. Mendes and Deakins decided to open up the film's usual aspect ratio of 2.39:1 to 1.90:1 to take advantage of IMAX's tall screen. It was such a pleasure seeing this gorgeous film on the best format, can't recommend it enough.
Last but certainly not least is Thomas Newman's theme, the soundtrack's more epic and fit the film so well and yes the Bond theme is finally play during the movie not after like the previous two films. Mendes said in an interview that Nolan's The Dark Knight was a huge influence on this film so some might think the soundtrack kind of similar to that film. In fact if I didn't know Newman was the composer, I would've thought it was Hans Zimmer.
What didn't work:
Javier Bardem and the Bond girls. My complain with the franchise is that it never has a truly great villain and unfortunately that trend continues. Some critics said Bardem's Silva is the best Bond villain ever and I strongly disagree with that; sure he's menacing and probably the most grounded villain in a Bond film; he's not planning to take over the world or destroy it, he just wants vengeance. But I thought he's underused and the showdown between him and Bond was kind of anti-climatic. I was hoping for a fist cuff showdown like in From Russia With Love but it never happened.
The Bond girls in this one wasn't used like in other films. As I mentioned earlier M was basically the Bond girl, so the two lovely ladies weren't in the film that much. But you can bet Naomie Harris will appear in the Bond franchise in many years to come.
Those are my only two complaints, otherwise it was just a great action film and again I believe it's one of the best, if not the best Bond film ever. I'll for sure be seeing it again on the big screen a few more times.
Some people complained that the climatic showdown was too much like Home Alone meets Strawdogs, well it's a fair comparisons but I'd like to give my personal opinion of that sequence and its title. If you haven't seen the film, I recommend you don't read any further because it contains spoilers.
The film's title refers to Bond's birthplace and in a way it's his battleground. To me, it represents a place where M hires a infant James into the secret service and as irony has it , this is the place where it all comes down for a rebirth of 007 and demise of M. You see Casino Royale was a reboot of the franchise and Skyfall is the reboot of 007 himself, when the new M asked Bond near the end of the film if he's ready, Bond reply with a resounding yes and so we're now back into the normal Bond template. Is that a good or bad thing? We'll have to wait and find out what the filmmakers will give us in the upcoming Bond films. If the Bond producers hires another quality director to direct the next one, then I'm sure we'll get another great Bond film. I know that Chris Nolan and David Fincher are free and I'm sure they can make a great Bond flick. Hey a fan boy can dream right?
– review by Ted S.
|4.5 out of 5 reels
Ruth's Review
Some of the best Bond films start out with an exhilarating opening sequences, and Skyfall follows that tradition. Bond is on a mission in Turkey to recover a stolen hard drive containing a list of nearly all undercover NATO agents in terrorist organizations. Soon Bond and fellow field agent Eve get into a massive car/motorbike/foot chase, wreaking havoc all over the place as Bond often does, before he jumps on top of a moving train. It all seems like a typical 007 action stuff… that is, until the super spy himself actually gets shot and falls into the water. It's no spoiler as it's all over the trailers and TV spots, often preceded by Judi Dench's M shouting to Eve, 'Take the bloody shot!'
Presumed dead, Bond is free to retire on some island somewhere, but his holiday is short-lived when he learns that MI-6 headquarter has been attacked, both in the physical and cyber world, prompting his return to England. The message in M's hacked computer repeatedly says 'Think on your sins,' which seems to suggest that this attack is a personal one. Just how personal? Well, it's best for you to find out on your own. Let's just say that Bond's loyalty to his boss is tested beyond what he could ever imagine and the mission has become very personal for him, too.
There are tons to appreciate in this film, thanks to a first-rate team starting with the Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes and his team of writers: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and John Logan. The sharp script allows for a thrilling action, snappy dialog, and just the right amount of whimsy without resorting to copious one-liners.
I think it's great that since this year marks the franchise's 50th anniversary, Skyfall is one of the most personal Bond films ever as it touched upon who he was before he became the secret agent we've come to know and love. I always enjoy seeing the more 'human' side of our super spy, it certainly makes for a thrilling and also poignant story. Daniel Craig is even more confident in his third outing, but he also has the right amount of vulnerability to balance that grit, which adds more depth to Bond the way Timothy Dalton did with character two decades earlier. Clearly people are much more ready for such an interpretation now.
As we've been talking about Bond villains as part of the 007 Chatter series, suffice to say that Raoul Silva will NOT end up in the WORST list. Though the personal vendetta motive of the villain is hardly groundbreaking, it still feel fresh thanks to Javier Bardem's performance. Creating a genuine tension between Bond and his villain is no small feat as we've seen it so many times before. Yet the encounter between the ever-so-creepy Silva and Bond is quite fascinating, what with the homoerotic intimidation that treads between sinister and amusing.
My favorite part in the film is the relationship between Bond and his boss, M. They're not always in the best terms as you could tell in their blatantly snarky banters (remember M once called Bond 'a sexist, misogynist dinosaur!'), but it's obvious they respect and care for one another. I tell you, it's the Bond producers' best casting decision ever to have an acting juggernaut Dame Judi Dench play that role, and Mendes makes the most of her amazing talent. No doubt this is the meatiest role ever written for M in the entire Bond history, you could say she's the co-star of this film given the large amount of screen time. Ralph Fiennes, Ben Wishaw as Q and Albert Finney makes up the stellar supporting cast, making this the best cast in the James Bond series to date!
Whether this movie will be the best Bond film ever is arguable of course, but it could easily be the most picturesque Bond film ever, thanks to (yet another) Oscar-nominee Roger Deakins. He created one glorious, picture-frame-worthy shot after another, starting with the very first one of Bond's silhouetted figure entering a building in Turkey. The scenes in China, especially the fight scene in a Shanghai skyscraper with the electronic billboard as a backdrop is breathtakingly gorgeous. The lush scenery in the Scottish Highlands is one of the major highlight as Bond returns to a place from his past.
So, how do the two Bond girls fare? Well, Eve definitely belongs in the BEST Bond girl category. I really like Naomie Harris as the smart and strong field agent. She's bad ass but still has a feminine and flirty side. She's a knockout too, especially in that gold dress in the Macau casino. Unfortunately, I'm not too fond of Bérénice Marlohe's Sévérine. Yes she is beautiful to be sure and that dress she wears at the casino shows off her killer figure. But her overacting makes me squirm, I think the dialog between her and Bond is the weakest part of the film. Good thing she didn't have much screen time to drag the movie down further.
Final Thoughts: Well, looks like the ever-so-lucrative 50-year old franchise is going stronger than ever. Skyfall is not just a good Bond film, it's a good film, period. I think Sam Mendes and co. did a smashing job in creating a 21st century Bond movie that strikes a nice balance between high drama and high octane action. I certainly welcome a more emotional Bond film, and I'm glad Mendes is not afraid to give us that.
So to answer the question whether this film lives up to my already-lofty expectations. The short answer is YES, though I think I still rate Casino Royale as the best one amongst Craig's Bond films so far.
|4.5 out of 5 reels
So what are your thoughts of Skyfall? Did it meet YOUR expectations?


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Nanook is the male Polar Bear at the Columbus Zoo. I finally got a snow day at the zoo last week. 🙂
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Did you get sick of that barrage of attack ads during last year's elections? Brace yourself: It could get worse. One deep-pocketed Alabama donor named Shaun McCutcheon, joined by the Republican National Committee, will soon ask the Supreme Court to let him put even more money directly into political campaigns.
That's not what our country needs.
McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission will target aggregate contribution limits — caps on the total amount a person can give directly to candidates, PACs, and parties in each election cycle. For the upcoming election cycle, that limit is roughly $123,000. Given that this cap is more than double the median household income in our country, this restriction clearly affects few Americans.
Haven't we seen this movie before? In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United v. FEC that corporations can spend unlimited amounts of money influencing elections, as long as they spend it independently of candidates and parties.
That ruling, which flew in the face of legal precedent and exacerbated a political system already dominated by moneyed interests, was deeply unpopular with Americans of all political stripes. With McCutcheon, the attack on our democracy continues — this time through a potential gutting of one of the last remaining pillars of our campaign finance legal structure, aggregate campaign contribution limits.
One interesting thing about this case is that the high court has already written about these limits. In its 1976 decision in Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court ruled that the aggregate limits were "no more than a corollary of the basic individual contribution limitation" and found them to be constitutional. That was nearly four decades ago, but the principle remains the same.
For example, aggregate limits prevent wealthy special interests from funneling money to candidates to whom they have already maxed out in direct contributions. If a donor couldn't give more to Candidate A, for instance, he or she could just write checks to a joint fundraising committee, knowing that the individual party committees could then funnel the money back to one particular party committee that works entirely to support a single candidate — all without running afoul of the law.
The effect would be that the richest donors could pass tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to support a single lucky candidate. And when big donors can find ways to give eye-popping sums of money to candidates, the potential for corruption is clear. As the lower court whose decision is being reviewed by the Supreme Court noted: "The candidate who knows the coordinated expenditure funding derived from that single large check at the joint fundraising event will know precisely where to lay the wreath of gratitude."
You'd be hard-pressed to find many Americans pining to see even more big money flowing into our political system. What Americans do want are commonsense campaign finance rules. We want our voices and our votes to matter. This is why support for pro-voter reforms is growing across the country.
Sixteen states and more than 500 towns and cities, including Los Angeles and New York, have gone on record in support of a constitutional amendment to undo Citizens United and related decisions. And, in many states, Americans are resisting draconian voter suppression bills that disproportionately affect people of color, the poor, and students, such as the many hundreds of people raising their voices in North Carolina's Moral Monday protests. The message in all of these actions is clear: Everyone's voice should be sacred in our democracy, no matter their age, race, or the number of zeros on their paycheck.
So on October 8, when the McCutcheon case is argued at the Supreme Court, I'll be there — with hundreds of friends and allies. We'll stand on the steps of our country's highest court, asking the justices within to protect the integrity of our democracy. We'll ask them to protect the voices and votes of "We the People" in the face of the influx of big money in our democracy. And inside, one wealthy man will ask for permission to pour even more money directly into political campaigns.
Which side are you on?


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Remembering not to forget
"Collopy for Toys" didn't just sell toys. Not so long ago, in the jaws of Melbourne's historic Camberwell Junction, where 3 main roads intersect and distribute masses of people and cars in 6 different directions, there stood, nestled in amongst … Continue reading
Posted in children, Humor, Life, People, Places Tagged australian, Balwyn Road and Belmore Roads, Camberwell Junction, children, Collopy for Toys, Dean's Garage, Esso petrol station, good service, humor, John and Barbara Collopy, Life, North Balwyn, old fashioned service, people, Places, toy shop 2 Comments
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Some people are eternal dreamers, and spend most of their time visualising how they would ideally like their life to pan out. Some of these people put so much energy into their dreaming that they struggle to find the time … Continue reading
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This article is more than 1 year old
Why can't civil servants keep a grip on their BlackBerrys?
MPs told mandarins let RIM kit slip
Butter-fingered civil servants are continuing to hurl away their personal tech devices, figures released to the House of Commons yesterday show, with BlackBerrys particularly prone to going walkies.
Labour's Gareth Thomas MP asked tabled questions to a number of ministers about whether their departments had "lost any (a) computers, (b) mobile telephones, (c) BlackBerrys and (d) other IT equipment since May 2010".
The Department for Energy and Climate Change managed to mislay eight computers in that period, including laptops, as well as three mobile phones and 11 BlackBerrys.
But Climate Change Minister Gregory Barker reassured Thomas: "All computers and BlackBerrys lost were encrypted to protect government information." No word though on how secure the trio of missing mobes were.
But the Climate Department's trashing of its tech resources paled into insignificance next to that of the Justice Department .
Department of Justice minister Jonathan Djanogly reported the "lost or theft of" 127 computers or hard drives, no less than 71 BlackBerrys and "293 other items of IT equipment between 1 May 2010 and 30 September 2011".
The toll could be even higher, as Djanogly added: "Information on the number of (b) mobile telephones lost is not held centrally, and can be obtained only at disproportionate cost." Presumably because they'd have to hunt down the tea leaf who'd swiped the server with the data.
But Djanogly reassured Thomas: "All Ministry of Justice laptops and BlackBerrys are encrypted and protected with a complex password; and all BlackBerrys that are registered as lost or stolen are blocked remotely, making it impossible for them to be used." No further details on the security status of the other kit swiped then.
He added that, "The Ministry also implements security incident management procedures to ensure that the impacts of incidents are risk-managed and investigations are undertaken to seek, where possible, to retrieve lost/stolen assets.
"The Ministry adopts government security policy framework requirements to protect its assets securely."
Perhaps they could all learn a thing from the frugal occupants of the Northern Ireland office, where Minister Hugo Swire assured Thomas yesterday, "The Northern Ireland Office has not lost any computers, mobile telephones, BlackBerrys or other IT equipment since May 2010."
In July, the Scottish Office said it had lost just one item, worth £125, in the previous 12 months, while the Welsh Office also lost "nil" in the 12 months to July.
Which proves something about devolution, though we hesitate to guess what. ®


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Mars Inconjunct Venus
Mars Aspects
Mars shows what a woman is attracted to in a man. Being with a man who is strong in her Mars element, or who makes close sextiles with her Mars, makes the relationship much easier, and increases sexual desire and compatibility. For a man, his Mars is part of his masculine nature, so it is best when his partner also relates well with this element.