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Perhaps it is my economics background but I like to think about resources and how that has a range of flow-on effects. To that end, I was a little intrigued by the sci-fi book Dune but one of my friends persuaded me to try something lighter instead so I still haven't ventured into sci-fi yet. But it's on my list for Broadening Horizon Reads.
The Kogish Trees and Flamesilk
Native to the Joreta region, a Kogish tree is a special breed of trees that grows in clusters and erupts in flames whenever the sun reaches its daily zenith, all the way until sunset. Such flames do not char the Kogish trees themselves but rather consume all the plant lives that grow around the Kogish trees. It appears that this is the method that Kogish trees use to propagate themselves as new Kogish trees often take the places occupied previously by other plants within the perimeter of fires erupting off Kogish trees. The flames erupting from Kogish trees cannot be quenched by normal water. Only water from the local Jtatk River will do the trick.
In appearance, a Kogish tree resembles a mahogany tree. However, its bark is bright red, the colour of flames. From afar, a cluster of Kogish trees might look like a bushfire currently ravaging a forest even when the trees are not themselves burning.
A Kogish tree produces a sap that is amber red in colour. This sap oozes out from the sides of a tree trunk, along low-hanging brunches and often collects into a form much akin to a single silk strand that hangs off the end of such brunches. Locals collect such strands and weave them into a material known as Flamesilk around the world.~ Excerpt from the Encyclopedia of Plants, Animals and Social Customs
At first, humans who reside in this region, known as the Yklars, had no use for the Kogish trees. In fact, the original society of Yklars* is one formed from nomadic tribes, who roam the Joreta steppes in continuous flight from the encroachment of the Kogish trees. This changed when they come upon the Jtatk river and found that the the self-combusting flames from the Kogish trees can be put out by water from this river. As a result of this discovery, the tribes settled down along the banks of the Jtatk River and more or less co-existed with the Kogish tree clusters, though they still have to devote substantial resources to control the expansion of these trees.
*These Yklars had no knowledge of crafts and so could not cut down the Kogish trees. They also had little weaving skills and certainly had never come in contact with any kind of fabric material, much less silk.
Then a refugee family fleeing the Dragon Empire came to the Joreta steppes and lived quite close to one of the many Yklar tribes, the Uratus. At first this family lived much in separation with the Uratus even though they did not fear their neighbours too much. It was this family that first made use of the Kogish trees in the form of firewood^and the womenfolk in the family wove the sap strands into the original version of Flamesilk, from which the familys summer clothes are made out of.
^Kogish trees as firewood doesn't self combust and behaves much like normal firewood
One day, the youngest children, a pair of fraternal twins of different gender, from this family were playing in the kitchen and the boy was too close to the stove and his sleeve went in except it didn't catch on fire. That's how the fire resistant properties of the Flamesilk was first discovered. This led to a second use for Flamesilk- the creation of fire dampening cloths that the family kept around the kitchen.
As time goes by, this family started to interact more with their neighbours and got adopted into the Uratu tribe. In this way, knowledge of weaving and crafting tools spread to the Yklars as the Uratu men and women learnt from this family. This started the production of Flamesilk en masse as the nomads started to wear silken gowns in summer in replacement of animal skins, their traditional garment*. This is because the Joreta weather is generally quite warm in all seasons. In this way, the Kogish tress became as much a necessity in the Yklar society as they were once a menace.
*In winter, the Yklars now wear clothes woven from hemp, another innovation brought in by the refugee family from the Dragon Empire.
And yet, there is a further twist to the story. Later, a particular curious-minded Yklar child, by the name of Taruksha, found that if he gently rubbing Flamesilk against each other, he could produce a tiny flame. This flame is in fact quite a pretty sight as it seems to be floating on top of the fabric. Very rapidly, this became a favourite toy of Yklar children, while Yklar adults remained ignorant of this fact (as the children tended to play with flamesilk only when there were no adults around). It wasnt until that an entire hut got burned down as a result of a particular child playing with scraps of Flamesilk in his mothers sewning basket and rubbing them together too hard that this became generally known. Luckily, no casualties resulted from that accident. Nevertheless, the Yklar tribes came together to discuss the implications of this discovery. At the end of the meeting, two new ideas concerning the use of Flamesilk were brought up: one on the weaving of an improved version of the fabric by interspersing each strand of Flamesilk with a hemp strand for use in clothing and the other concerning its use as a torch to light the way at night.
Special Properties
Flamesilk smothers fire, came about due to constant washing in the Jtatk river, whose water is the only form of water able to rouse the fire of the Kogish trees. As a result, the fabric has taken on the property of these waters. For the original version of Flamesilk, however, a flame is also created if flamesilk come into contact with each other. The actual size and strength of the flame created this way depends on the force of contact i.e. a light brush versus intentional rubbing of Flamesilk with vigour. When this property is discovered, however, it led to the creation of a improved version that does not have this dangerous effect.
The Yklars built fences made up of a single bolt of this form of improved Flamesilk around their towns to protect them from the effects of bushfires caused by the presence of the Kogish trees. In addition, all the original Flamesilk cloths that every family kept around in case of fires were replaced with cloths made of the improved Flamesilk. The original version of Flamesilk, however, is still in use as adults utilise what become to be known as a Taruksha flame in the lighting of pathways when travelling at night.
Note: The post is inspired by a section in a Chinese novel written in the Qing era (the one associated with the reign of the Manchurians) titled Flowers in the Mirror, telling briefly of a type of tree that combusts on contact and which bark was weaved into bolts of cloths resembling cotton.


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Scottsdale Bathroom Remodeling
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Scottsdale is a city in the eastern part of Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, and is part of the Phoenix metropolitan area. Named Scottsdale in 1894 after its founder Winfield Scott, a retired U.S. Army chaplain, the city was incorporated in 1951 with a population of 2,000. As of the 2020 census, the population was 241,361, up from 217,385 in 2010. Its slogan is "The West's Most Western Town". It has been one of the fastest growing cities in the United States over the past decades.
Neighborhoods in Scottsdale, Arizona
Alterra, Arts Districts, Aviara, Boulder Heights, Briarwood, Central Scottsdale, Country Trace, Cuernavaca, Desert Springs, Desert Village, Desert Vista, Eagle Point, Enchantra At The Boulders, Foothills At Ironwood Village, Hidden Hills
Things to do in Scottsdale, Arizona
Our Newest Profiles

subset: commoncrawl


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massage therapist valentina boonstra
About Brevard Massage
I have been a personal trainer and massage therapist for many years now. My specialty is getting people moving again. I have learned through the years that preventing injuries is as important as relieving pain after an injury. To that end, I have also learned Yoga, Tai Chi, Qi Gong and Pilates.


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G8 and EU leaders line up for a photograph at Lough Erne. Left to right are European Commission president José Manuel Barroso, Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe, German chancellor Angela Merkel, Russia's president Vladimir Putin, British prime minister David Cameron, US president Barack Obama, France's president Francois Hollande, Canada's prime minister Stephen Harper, Italy's prime minister Enrico Letta and European Council president Herman Van Rompuy
G8 Live Stream
After the conclusion of the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland, the Obamas leave for Germany at 5:30 Irish time (12:30 EST)
The headline in The Sun – of course!
…. with PM Cameron and Taoiseach Kenny – @PeteSouza
…. with President Putin and PM Cameron
…. with PM David Cameron and President Francois Hollande
… with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Irish Times: US first lady Michelle Obama and her daughters had a private guided tour of the Wicklow Mountains National Park as their whistlestop tour of Ireland draws to a close.
The sun beamed down on the hills above the twin lakes at Glendalough as Ms Obama and Malia and Sasha walked through the famous monastic site. The girls were given a lesson on the ancient ruins by local tour guide George McClafferty. The valley, in the heart of the Wicklow mountains, offers some of the most popular rural landscapes in Ireland and is a well-worn tourist path for visitors to the east coast.
The president's youngest daughter, 12-year-old Sasha, batted swarming midges away from her face as the trio learned about the legendary Deer Stone …. Sasha was given the honour of closing the door to the ruins of St Kevin's Church, which dates back 1500 years. The teenager was handed a key and she locked the door, before turning to her older sister and giving her a high five.
Meanwhile, the usually-quiet village of Dalkey has seen an influx of visitors this morning following reports that Ms Obama and her daughters will have lunch in Finnegans' pub with Bono.
More here
George McClafferty, manager at Glendalough: "I just melted….":
Bono and his wife Ali Hewson arrive at Finnegan's pub in Dalkey this afternoon for lunch with Michelle Obama and her daughters Malia and Sasha. 'I thought this was supposed to be a secret,' Bono said to the crowd.
….. with (left to right) Moya Dohery of Riverdance, the Taoiseach's wife Fionnuala Kenny and Sabina Higgins, wife of President Michael D Higgins at a special Riverdance performance at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin
See all posts from the Ireland visit here
Mooooooooorning everyone, just a few photos and videos to start your day, will try to catch up later with all the newsie stuff and more from Ireland and Germany.


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Tagged: Roy Oswalt
They Might Be Phillies
This will not be as exhaustive a preview as was the one for Yankees-Rangers because I see this one more in terms of momentum, and expectations not met and others exceeded.
Roy Oswalt Channels His Inner Goofball
2010 Forecasts: NL Central
Having already tabbed the Rockies for a possible runaway in the West (pursued perhaps by the Giants), we move to the Central:
may represent a startling fact about this division – there not only isn't a
great team here, there isn't even a good one. The starting line-up is
five-eighths made up of guys who significantly regressed from 2008 to 2009,
plus Marlon Byrd. The new ownership seems to have already committed to the age-old easy way out of worrying more about the ballpark than the ballclub. Larry Rothschild has gratefully plugged Carlos Silva and Tom
Gorzelanny into his rotation. The bullpen is headed by a shaky Carlos Marmol
and not one experienced right-handed set-up man. The Cubs are a mess.
It still
didn't make any sense for CINCINNATI to invest in Scott Rolen, nor bring back
Ramon Hernandez, and with considerable irony, this might as well still be 2007
when the Reds were pinning their hopes on Homer Bailey and Jay Bruce. Their
epiphanies – Bailey's last September, and Bruce's during his injury – must be
lasting for the Reds to compete. But there is at minimum some sense of upswing
in Cincinnati. Dusty Baker gave Drew Stubbs the chance to play last year, and
might even find spots for Aroldis Chapman, Mike Leake, and Yonder Alonso this season. The
bullpen is strong, the rotation potentially deep.
For years,
Terry Francona's top lieutenant, Brad Mills, has deserved a major league team
to manage. He may yet get the chance – for now he's stuck with Houston. There
is an outfield and there are two starting
pitchers (providing Roy Oswalt isn't seriously hurt, and doesn't go home to his
ranch in sheer frustration). The rest of the line-up, and the pitching staff, are disaster areas, made no better by today's news than Lance Berkman's bionic knee is 'cranky.' Things could brighten somewhat if
Matt Lindstrom harnesses his talent, and if Jason Castro or J.R. Towles squat
up behind the plate, and if three fans turn out to be viable starting pitchers.
Otherwise, this is a franchise that has gone to seed.
What's the
psychological saw about repeating the same unsuccessful action with confidence
that this time it
will succeed? The Brewers are confident Dave Bush, Doug Davis, and Manny Parra and/or Jeff Suppan constitute three-fifths of a pitching staff. They're certain Rickie Weeks and
Corey Hart will harness their talent. Everybody knows this is the year Yovanni Gallardo
leaps to the forefront of NL starters. This is a recording. The Brewers will be
deceptively entertaining as long as Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder are around,
and they could get a wonderful spark if Carlos Gomez decides not to style his
way out of the game before his 25th birthday. But all the bullpen depth in the world
isn't going to help that rotation.
deserves better. Surely they are, on average, a better set of players than the
Astros. But nothing seems to progress in Pittsburgh; Andrew McCutchen and
Garrett Jones arise fully grown from the minors, but Freddy Sanchez and Jack
Wilson are dished off. They make a seeming salary dump to Atlanta and in fact
rip the Braves off, selling Nate McLouth at his high point, opening up a spot
for McCutchen, and getting the remarkable arm of Charlie Morton – and Morton is
the only guy in the state who doesn't believe he has a remarkable arm. And still, if
lightning strikes – if Pedro Alvarez, Chase D'Arnaud, and Tim Alderson were all
productive big leaguers by June 1, they'd suddenly have an actual real-life
.500 team. And a .500 team might run away with this division.
Pittsburgh can hope, because
ST. LOUIS is the most overrated team in the majors. Albert Pujols glitters so
brightly, he makes you forget that the rest of the infield is an assortment of
Brendan Ryans and Felipe Lopezes and David Freeses. Chris Carpenter and Adam
Wainwright were so dominant that they obscured the reality of what happened if
you actually beat them on consecutive days – the Cards' season would be snuffed
out in a sweep. This is a team that was ready to trot out a rotation in which
Kyle Lohse, Brad Penny, and Rich Hill would pitch more often than did Carpenter
and Wainwright (the first light bulb going off: giving the fifth spot in the rotation not to Hill but to Jaime Garcia). The bullpen is a jumble, the bench non-existent, and lord help
Tony LaRussa if Yadier Molina is really hurt or Pujols' back is cranky for more
than 45 minutes at a stretch.
You know what? I'll take the long-odds bet on the dice coming up for the Reds
and not the Cardinals. It'll be an exciting race, to see if you actually can
get into the playoffs with 79 victories. Chicago third, Milwaukee fourth just
ahead of Pittsburgh, and Houston sixth, unless they decide to conserve energy
and just forfeit all games in lieu of much needed fielding practice and weeding
through resumes of infielders and pitchers.


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AFP: The head of the UN atomic agency called Thursday for diplomatic "urgency" in the Iranian nuclear standoff, even as Tehran signalled its continued defiance of UN Security Council demands to suspend key activities. By by Simon STURDEE
VIENNA (AFP) — The head of the UN atomic agency called Thursday for diplomatic "urgency" in the Iranian nuclear standoff, even as Tehran signalled its continued defiance of UN Security Council demands to suspend key activities.
"All countries, and the IAEA, are willing to find a diplomatic solution. If there is political will we can reach agreement," said International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano.
"There is an opportunity to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue diplomatically. Now is the time for all of us to work with a sense of urgency and seize the opportunity for a diplomatic solution," he said.
His comments came as the IAEA's board of governors met in Vienna for a session dominated, as usual, by Iran's nuclear programme.
Robert Wood, US envoy to the IAEA, said Washington would take the rare step of pressing for the board to refer Iran to the UN Security Council if no progress was made before the next board meeting.
"If by March Iran has not begun substantive cooperation with the IAEA, the United States will work with other board members to pursue appropriate board action, and would urge the board to consider reporting this lack of progress to the UN Security Council," Woods said, according to prepared remarks.
With Iran feeling the pinch from sanctions and US President Barack Obama freed from the constraints of a lengthy re-election campaign, conditions appear favourable to make progress in the long-running crisis.
The P5+1 powers — the US, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany — said after a meeting in Brussels last week that they want talks with Iran "as soon as possible". This may happen as early as December.
But it is far from clear whether the P5+1 will want to sweeten an offer, made in talks in May and June, that for Tehran stopped short of offering sufficient sanctions relief.
Signals coming out of Iran meanwhile indicate that Tehran is not any readier to meet P5+1 and Security Council demands to suspend its most sensitive nuclear activities, most notably uranium enrichment.
Iran's nuclear chief Fereydoon Abbasi Davani, who said in September that the IAEA had been infiltrated by saboteurs and "terrorists", said Wednesday Iran would continue "with force" to expand its activities.
This is in spite of four rounds of sanctions imposed by the Security Council, which in combination with additional Western restrictions began to cause real problems for the Iranian economy this year.
Abbasi Davani also said Iran would "soon test" its new heavy-water nuclear reactor at Arak, which Western nations fear could produce weapons-grade plutonium.
Parallel diplomatic efforts between the IAEA and Iran, focused on what the agency calls "overall, credible" evidence of past weapons research work, are meanwhile set to resume on December 13 in Tehran.
Amano said Thursday that after several rounds of fruitless talks this year, including his visit to Tehran in May, he did not want another instance of "going around in circles".
The IAEA's latest report on November 16 said Iran would soon be able to triple its production of 20-percent enriched uranium to 45 kilos (100 pounds) per month after fully fitting out its Fordo facility, a key site dug into a mountain where, the agency said, final machinery has been installed but is not yet operational.
Israel's so-called "red line" for military action is thought to be when Iran has produced around 250 kilos. That would be enough for one nuclear weapon, if further enriched — although such a move would be quickly detected by the IAEA, which constantly monitors Fordo.
But the IAEA also found that of the around 230 kilos of enriched uranium produced so far, 95 kilos have been converted for use as fuel for a reactor producing nuclear medicines — supporting Iran's argument that its programme is for peaceful means.
The rate of conversion has however slowed dramatically, indicating possible technical problems, and once Fordo is fully up and running, Iran will be producing far more material than its civilian facilities need, experts say.
Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said Thursday that Tehran is "ready to find a face-saving solution (for the West)… provided that the other parties, the US and the EU, cope with the reality.
"The reality is very simple. Iran is master of enrichment technology and will never ever suspend its enrichment," he said. "All activities are under the IAEA (inspections). They have not found a smoking gun…. They have not found even a gram of uranium diverted to military purposes."


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Yet another iconic item worn by actress Elizabeth Taylor is on the auction block – a wig she wore in the 1963 film, "Cleopatra." Ms. Taylor wore many different hairdos in the movie and British wigmaster Stanley Hall made three wigs for each style. The wig for sale is made of real human hair, medium brown, and is adorned with hanging braids and gold beads.
In the movie, Ms. Taylor's character wears this particular wig when she tries to convince Julius Caesar, played by Rex Harrison, to accept supreme control of the empire. (1) The wig is being sold by Heritage Auctions of Dallas, Texas, and is set to fetch around $11,000.
It was during the 1962 filming of "Cleopatra" in Rome that 30-year-old Elizabeth Taylor fell madly in love with her other male costar and onscreen lover, Richard Burton, 36, cast as Mark Antony. The two were both married to others at the time.
At the time, Ms. Taylor was already a big film star being paid the unprecedented amount of a million dollars to play Cleopatra. Mr. Burton, however, who was Welsh, was a Shakespearean stage actor largely unknown outside of England.
When people began to whisper that perhaps Ms. Taylor and Mr. Burton were conducting an illicit affair, the couple denied the accusations. So uncontrollable was their love and lust, that their affair was
"bloody obvious," to use Burton's term – so flagrantly on display. (2)
When the director of "Cleopatra" shouted "Cut!" at the end of love scenes, Taylor and Burton would continue to kiss.
They carried on on the movie set, film lot, in their private villas, and took their love to town – to the Via Veneto. But they were not safely in America, where there was a time-honored tradition not to pry into the private lives of public people and where the studio would have squelched any unflattering press. They were in Rome – the land of the paparazzi.
The Italian "paparazzi" were a new style of journalist. These young, Vespa-riding photographers with cameras with zoom lenses slung around their neck were hungry for a money-making photo that would reveal the affair to the waiting world. With a pack mentality, they were ruthlessly intent upon snapping photos of the jetset enjoying La Dolce Vita, the sweet life, popularized in the film of that same name. And Liz and Dick were getting hot and heavy on the Via Veneto.
From February thru July, paparazzi stalked Taylor and Burton's every move, hoping for that money-making photo that would expose the lovers to the world. And they got them, too, forcing both Liz and Dick to deal with their respective spouses.
The Burton-Taylor Affair – "Le Scandale," as Burton termed it – created international interest and thus, international coverage.
The public, it seemed, had an unquenchable appetite to follow the drama. Gone were the days when American readers of Photoplay and Modern Screen were content to read fictional accounts of their favorite movie stars generated by the big movie studios.
It is hard to overstate the excitement caused at the time by Elizabeth and Richard's grand passion. Everyone was following the saga, even First Lady Jackie Kennedy, who asked the publicist Warren Cowan in early 1963,
"Warren, do you think Elizabeth Taylor will marry Richard Burton?"(3)
Initially, the pair were condemned by the press for their public adultery until publishers woke up and realized how much the "Liz and Dick" machine increased tabloid, newspaper, magazine, and book sales.
Note to readers: Today also begins the first auction at Christie's, New York, of The Collection of Elizabeth Taylor, which I was privileged to view on December 3, 2011. (2)
(1) Source: The Guardian
(2) "Remembering Liz (1932-2011)," Life Commemorative, 2011.
(3) Kashner, Sam and Schoenberger, Nancy. Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2010.
Readers: For more on Elizabeth Taylor on Lisa's History Room, click here.


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Blog Archives
Coding Best Practices – With a tinge of CSS!
For the curious: What made me write this post:
A very good friend of mine called me up today and asked me to go through a web portal that their company is developing to gather some feedback about it. When I opened the page I was quite impressed at first site and everything about the visual styling to the page layout frankly looked quite awesome.
Being a web developer myself, I somehow couldn't resist the urge of opening up the browser's developer tools to check out code behind it, and this is where the problems started showing up. As soon as the developer tools window pane opened up eating up half of my screen estate, I noticed the page layout completely fall apart. There was a mess of overlapping texts, visual elements, and what not all over the page rendering the site completely useless.
By instinct I ended up opening the style editor of developer tools to check the CSS to find out where things where breaking, however what I saw was nothing but plain horror for any front-end developer . It had to be one of the most messed up style-sheets I have ever seen! Basically it was nothing but a garbled up mess of style definitions for classes, ids, media queries, etc. What made it even more insane was that there was no homogeneity to the way the document was written, no indentations and to top it all the whole site had the most generically confusing class names that one could ever have nightmares of.
So, I called up my friend to congratulate him about having such a gem of a front end guy work on his team, when I came to know about the most sorry part of the whole story. The person who wrote this code was apparently a man who had quite a large number of years worth of "industry experience" and has been doing front end work since before even I knew what HTML/CSS was!
This is what convinced me to go ahead and post a few simple things about things that one should keep in mind while writing code with a bit of an inclination towards CSS.
For the Restless, Here's what I want to say:
Here are a few best practices that I personally follow that I'd like to share with everyone:-
- Always remember that any code that you write has a high probability of being extended or needing maintenance in the long term. 70% of most maintenance woes can be avoided by keeping this simple fact in mind while writing code.
- As a direct consequence of this, make sure that whatever code that you write is readable even to the most novice coders out there.
- Adopt good variable naming practices [eg. a variable name "count" is always more desirable than a variable name "i" for a counter variable since it's name gives a good idea about it's functionality.]
- Try and write self documenting code, with enough [read: not too less, yet not too much] comments describing what a certain block of code does, and how it does that. The best way to make sure that the comments are of the perfect length would be to make sure that the comments for a block of around 5-10 lines of code is never longer than 2 lines [of 80 characters each].
- One of the places which very often make the biggest mistakes in documenting stuff are the CSS files. A CSS file with a spaghetti mixture of ids, classes, etc. is never a good idea.
- Always try to have a proper document structure for the CSS with logical grouping of style definitions, preferably with an index comment at the very beginning. This helps make the code more readable and thus much more easy to maintain and extend in the long run.
- Indentation is your biggest friend – It helps make the code more easily readable as well as create a well-structured document format. Indentation makes it dead simple to understand the flow of logic within the program and separated different logical groups from each other by creating well nested content for the document.
- Lastly, and more importantly before signing off a piece of code as ready for production, be honest to yourself and ask yourself: "Is this the kind of code that I would like to read through and work upon in a few years time when I have forgotten the minutes of the implimentation?"
I sincerely this helps atleast a few people to understand what it is like to write beautiful code and give them a brief idea about how to do so themselves.


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BEIJING — Apple Inc.'s deal with China Mobile Ltd. to sell iPhones won't be limited to handsets, but will also entail broad cooperation between the two companies, the chairman of the world's largest carrier said Wednesday.
China Mobile
Speaking in a small media briefing to Chinese media and The Wall Street Journal, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said he is "incredibly optimistic" about the outcome of the cooperation with the Chinese carrier.
"We've gotten to know each other....today is a beginning, and I think there are lots more things our companies can do together in the future," Cook said.
The new cooperation with China Mobile is the last piece of the puzzle for Apple in the country, officially making the iPhones available through all three of China's state-run telecom carriers. Though neither Apple nor China Mobile would comment on the exact terms of the deal, Apple is likely to get a considerable bump from China Mobile, which analysts expect to spend generously on marketing and handset subsidies to sell the iPhones.
The cooperation also massively expands the reach of Apple's sales channels in China, making the iPhones available in China Mobile's thousands of stores that range across the country from large cities to tiny hamlets.


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I've posted a couple of variants on meringues, but these were our prettiest yet, deserving of their own post. Plus, these meringue cookies make for a quick and easy gluten-free, dairy-free Passover dessert, requiring no special equipment or ingredients — pretty much just eggs, sugar and a mixer.
When I first started this blog in 2010, I posted a recipe for chocolate-chip and double chocolate meringues, with a really ugly photo, before I learned that you never, ever want to use a flash for food photography. And I also previously posted a recipe for cute ghost meringues for Halloween.
Piping these meringues seemed like a pain, so my daughter and I originally started by scooping spoonfuls of meringue and flinging the sticky meringue onto a baking sheet. But we found out that piping actually was so much easier and prettier. All you need are disposable pastry bags and a large star tip — OK, and some practice piping, because it does take a while to perfect the skill. (I highly recommend taking a cake decorating class if you foresee making a lot of gluten-free birthday cakes or desserts in your future.)
Meringues are true sugar cookies because the main ingredient is, well, sugar. My youngest daughter is crazy for them.
My oldest daughter is trying a low-FODMAP diet to help with her non-celiac stomach issues, so these meringues are a good low-FODMAP dessert. (FODMAPs are types of carbohydrates that are sometimes poorly digested by the small intestine, causing irritable bowel symptoms like pain, bloating and gas when they pass into the large intestine. … Sorry if I just killed your meringue sugar buzz, but it's good to know about FODMAPs because they will be increasingly in the health news.)
Gluten-Free Passover Meringues
(gluten-free, dairy-free, pareve, Passover)
By Gluten-Free Nosh
Printable recipe
- 2 egg whites
- 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- Using a mixer, beat egg whites on high speed until foamy. Add cream of tartar and salt, and beat until stiff. Gradually add sugar and continue beating. Beat in vanilla extract.
- Put a large star tip on a disposable pastry bag. Fill the bag with the meringue mixture and twist the top to close. Pipe the meringues onto the lined baking sheet.
- Bake for one hour. Allow meringues to cool and store in an airtight container.
Yield: About 24 meringue cookies


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Americans Are Way Behind in Math, Vocabulary, and Technology
The United States ranks lower than other developed countries in many key skills, according to a new report.
A new global report (pdf) by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development finds that Americans rank well below the worldwide average in just about every measure of skill. In math, reading, and technology-driven problem-solving, the United States performed worse than nearly every other country in the group of developed nations.
…and numbers…
When it comes to math, American adults aren't any better. In fact, they're far worse.
Fewer than 34 percent of adults in the U.S. managed to score at a Level 3 (out of 5) or higher, while comparable numbers for countries like Japan, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands were all well above 50 percent (p. 80). The US also has the second largest proportion of adults—9.1 percent—who scored below a Level 1, the most basic level of literacy (p. 81).
…and even computers
Americans are pretty behind when it comes to computer literacy, too. US adults scored toward the bottom in problem solving in a technology-rich environment, which the report describes as the intersection of "computer literacy" and "cognitive skills required to solve problems" (p. 88).
The U.S. scored on par with Estonia, Ireland and Poland, and had more adults with proficiencies below Level 1—15.8 percent—than another other participating country (p. 89).
While older American adults (aged 55-65) scored better than any other country, young adults did just the opposite: They were the most computer-challenged of the 20 participating countries (p. 110).
This post originally appeared on Quartz, an Atlantic sister site.


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Archive for May 2012
Belarus-2010 vs Russia-2012
On December 20, 2010, a thousands-strong crowd was protesting against fraudulent Presidential elections in Belarus. After some 100 people tried to storm a government building, Lukashenko's riot police attacked the crowd, many were badly beated, hundreds arrested. Criminal investigation started that allowed to prosecute the rally leaders. USA and EU swiftly condemned Lukashenko and implemented sanctions against his regime.
On May 6, 2012, thousands were protesting in Moscow against fraudulent Presidential elections in Russia. After several hundred tried to break through a police line, Putin's riot police attacked the crowd, many were badly beaten, hundreds arrested. Criminal investigation started and two opposition leaders Alexey Navalny and Sergey Udaltsov questioned. In the following days, hundreds more were arrested. Meanwhile, American and European ambassadors took part in Putin's inauguration. President Obama called Putin, congratulated him on the Victory Day, discussed military and economic cooperation, but didn't mention human rights.


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Illinois Parks and Forest Preserves
All of the images in this gallery were taken at various Chicago area parks and forest preserves. Most of the images were taken in Lake County area parks such as Macarthur Woods, Wright Woods, Ryerson Conservation area and Independence Grove. All photography is available for purchase.Read More


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Echinoderms (Gr. 'Hedgehog Skin') comprise a large variety of sea creatures characterised (mostly) by radial symmetry. In a nutshell a creature with radial (as opposed to bilateral) symmetry can be divided into equal portions from the centre, like a cake. It has no left or right side and no definable front or back. It is multidirectional from the centre, where the mouth is located. It obviously has a distinct upper side and an underside, but that has no bearing on this form of symmetry.
Within the family of radially symmetrical animals, echinoderms (starfish, sand dollars and sea urchins) are unique in having five-point radial symmetry. These are the creatures you are most likely to come across in Abaco. There are two particular aspects of dollars and biscuits that merit a closer look (made more difficult by me stupidly taking photos of white things on a white background).
I'm sure all Bahamians know or are aware of at least one version of the famous 'Sand Dollar' poem, in which the various characteristics of the test (the skeleton of the creature) are given religious significance. One verse of the poem may be puzzling: "Now break the centre open And here you will release The five white doves awaiting To spread good will and peace".
The Sand Dollar Legend
A few years back, Senior Granddaughter was looking at some Abaco sand dollars I'd given her for her growing collection of shells. She picked one up, shook it and it rattled. She said a friend at school had told her that a rattling sand dollar has 'doves' inside it, and asked if we could break it open and see. I've learnt that it is useless to argue with her – she has the tenacity of a trial lawyer – so we did. This is what we found.
Sand Dollar with a spiky interior like a white cave with stalagmites and stalagtites
Five white doves (in fact, the separated parts of the creature's feeding apparatus)
Two broken pieces showing where the doves are centrally located
A regrettably poor photo of a single dove
The image below, from Pinterest, shows the 'mouth' with its dove-parts intact, in an arrangement called 'Aristotle's Lantern', a five-sided globular structure that supports the mouth and jaws of an echinoderm.
In common parlance 'petrified' is an extreme version of 'terrified'. Literally, it means 'turned to stone' (L. petrus, a rock). It is descriptive of a state of fossilisation, where an animal skeleton or dead wood or plant matter turns over aeons into stone. Senior GD (a most inquisitive girl) followed up on the doves research after discovering a box containing random stones and fossils. She found these two items:
Fossilised sea biscuits
A closer look at the pair of rocks
The undersides of the fossils above – looking like stones but with some tell-tale small holes
A close-up of the pale biscuit
Sea biscuits on the beach at Delphi – familiar white skeletons ('tests') but not yet fossils
A 'modern' non-Jurassic Abaco sea biscuit in close-up
Florida has an unofficial but proposed State Fossil, the 'Sea Biscuit (Eocene Age)'. I didn't know it before, but it turns out that more than 40 US States have State Fossils. Whatever next? State Bacteria? State Viruses?
The fossil biscuits I have looked at, from Florida to Madagascar (see small image above), are said to come from three specific historic epochs – from the oldest, Jurassic (145m – 201m years ago), to Eocene (34m – 56m) and Pleistocene (0.01m – 2.6m).
By all means. Here is an excellent Geochart that gives an idea of the time span. A Jurassic sea biscuit would be more than 145m years old. This chart also helpfully helps avoid confusion with the Eon Era Period Epoch ordering.
You will find more echinoderm entertainment using this link to my fellow-blogger 'Dear Kitty' https://dearkitty1.wordpress.com/2007/01/01/big-hedgehog-small-sand-dollars-diving-schools/
All photos 'in-house' except the Delphi biscuits, Clare Latimer; & the single biscuit Rhonda Pearce; Sand Dollar poem on Postcard, Dexter Press; the Geochart was in my 'useful chart photos' folder but I can't now find the source. I did try.


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Welcome to the Best of Kotaku, where I round up all of this week's best content.
I sure do feature a lot of Mario in these Best of round-ups. That just speaks to how iconic Mario remains, that so much art is based off of him and his games. Well, here's Mario mashed up with Limbo to a delightful and yet terrifying prospect. Yeah, I'd play it. Thanks to StudioTamago!
Moving on to our Best Of content this week, we kick things off as usual with a comment from the community.
The Best Comment From The Community
Our favorite comment of this week comes to you from Smashboozer:
It's strange because it tries to tiptoe the line of black/white morality in game mechanics while simultaneously trying to show various shades of grey through the storyline. I agree, the tone of how survival is imperative to Fallout, yet everything will fight to the death/aggro as soon as you get in range is a bit of bullshit. I'm not sure if it's just the limitations of our tech/the budget/design of Fallout in general, but I wish they could have fleshed it out a bit more.
Interestingly, I feel that Skyrim did a much better job when in comparison, when it really could justify being a black/white system compared to Fallout. The dark humor and environment of Fallout leads itself to a grey area of survival being morally ubiquitous, while Skyrim having deities of varying power and ability to influence your character WOULD seem more restrictive, yet it's a better designed system and feels more free form then NV. I haven't played anything else from the Fallout series, but judging by game mechanics and implementation I can see why it plays the way it does; It's not a sandbox and doesn't really ever represent itself as one, it's a very story driven game, which makes open world choices harder to implement, ect.
I'd love to see a sort of role reversal when it comes to the handling of Fallout and The Elder Scrolls, not that either game should be overly restrictive when it comes to choice, but that Fallout should be more lenient, more free form then The Elder Scrolls. TES can have it's deities that punish/reward/ignore the player based on moral choices and maybe the factions can be a little more cut and dry (I feel Nord vs Imperial was done respectfully well).
I mean, yeah I can learn to be a doctor/melee master in Fallout:New Vegas because I shot enough Rad Scorpions, whatever I'll accept that. I greatly prefer Skyrim's levels-as-you-use-it approach, but without the whole DERP cutting/combing a bunch of skills at the same time.)
Honestly they just need to combine Obsidian/whoever the hell is developing TES series and give me a great open world game with a well done storyline and good combat.
Also; Cliff Racers should be in EVERYTHING.
The Guy Who Made Planescape: Torment Tells Us What A Spiritual Successor Would Look Like
Jason Schreier talks to Chris Avellone about how he would design a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment. More »
In Remember Me, Social Networks Are Being Used Against Us. You Know, More Than They Already Are
James Pikover check's out Capcom's intriguing Remember Me. More »
Unintimidated By Apple, Nintendo's Boss Says The World Still Needs Dedicated Gaming Handhelds
Stephen Totilo interviews Iwata about the future and current status of handhelds. More »
Windows 8 Is Not Good For Gamers
Kate Cox exposes the downsides of Windows 8 for gamers. More »
20 Things You Should Know About The Next Big Console JRPG
Jason previews Ni no Kuni. More »
Lost Planet 3 Creator's Mystery Game, MMO on Consoles and Other Gaming Secrets
Superannuation reveals secret console MMOs and other new, unnanounced games. More »
It Sounds Like Nintendo Wants to Make A Gamer's Version of Facebook
Stephen interviews Iwata about the social aspects in Nintendo's games, consoles and handhelds. More »
How Easily Women Could Lose All Their Rights, As Told By A Game
Patricia Hernandez talks to the creator behind a game that shows what it could be like if women lost all their rights. More »
What Makes A Good Knife Kill In First-Person Shooters
Tina Amini (that's me!) tells you about the controvery of the knife kill in first-person shooters, and why Counter-Strike does it so well. More »
Why I'm Rallying For Shorter Games
Patricia likes short games. More »
The Subscription MMO Is Dead
Kate thinks subscription-based MMOs are dead. Free-to-play is the future. More »
Ode To The Final Fantasy Games That Weren't Really Final Fantasy Games
Jason talks about what made those Final Fantasy games that weren't really Final Fantasy games special. More »


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This article is more than 1 year old
ClearSpeed's silicon freshness results in 41 Teraflop rack
Cited for floating point abuse
Cheaper and faster - check. ClearSpeed has hit the two major keys to winning in the silicon game with the release of its latest floating point accelerators.
The fresh CSX700 family of products offer more than double the raw performance of the previous CSX600 gear. At 192 cores, you get twice as many engines for handling floating point operations along with a pair of integrated memory controllers. In addition, the cores now run at 250MHz instead of 210MHz. And the speedy new part eats up about 12 watts of power versus 10 watts for much less silicon.
It's been about three years since ClearSpeed performed a major tweak on its flagship product. That means ClearSpeed has been trapped on IBM's 130nm manufacturing process. With the CSX700 gear, ClearSpeed has moved to IBM's 90nm manufacturing process, affording it more space for floating point cores and some power savings.
In addition, the shift freed up enough for room for ClearSpeed to throw away the FPGA it used to deliver PCI Express connections. Now, PCI Express is built-in, which again saves on power as well as cost.
The new gear should start shipping in production during the third quarter, and it could not arrive soon enough for ClearSpeed. Earlier this year, the company shed a big chunk of staff as it dealt with declining spending from financial services customers.
These days, ClearSpeed finds itself in a battle with other accelerator types, pushing things like general purpose GPUs and FPGAs that provide similar performance boosts for high performance computing applications. It used to be able to knock a lack of double-precision support among the GPGPU set, although that jab has faded now that Nvidia has joined AMD/ATI with a 64-bit chip. And the maturing FGPA accelerators from the likes of XtremeData and DRC demonstrate comparable performance per watt characteristics to ClearSpeed's accelerators.
ClearSpeed and the rest of the FPGA crowd like to stress that their products prove much more resilient in HPC set-ups. The GPGPUs lack a number of error correcting mechanisms, meaning that incorrect results can be returned, which is a major issue for customers in, say, the financial sector. So, ClearSpeed asked us to remind you all that it as ECC (error correcting code) across its whole product.
The CSX700 will slot into a couple of different products. The e710 will plug right into PCI Express lots on server boards, consuming just 25 watts while offering 4 Gigaflops per watt of performance. Meanwhile, the e720 has been built to go inside HP's c-Class blade systems, and ClearSpeed is considering doing parts for other blade makers.
There's also the Terascale box, which is a 1U server that holds 12 of the e710 accelerators. All told, this puppy provides 1.152 Teraflops of double-precision floating point muscle in a pizza box, while eating up 400 watts. It also has 24GB of DDR2 memory and a pair of PCI Express x8 connectors for host servers. Fill a whole rack with these systems, and you get a whopping 41 Teraflops of double-precision goodness.
The ClearSpeed cards used to list for more than $5,000, but that price has dropped with the new release to $3,500. ®


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As the summer draws to a close, bear sightings will happen more frequently.
Bears have been used in storytelling and in marketing, and stuffed teddy bears have been used as sleep aids for many years.
How much do you know about bears?
By the way, don't feed the bears. They wouldn't feed you.
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text: Joshua Alan Doetsch is a sentient word virus spreading across the collective unconscious through the vector of human language. It has taken on many forms, from short stories, to screenplays, to tabletop roleplaying games. It spreads through print, digital, and audio mediums. It coalesced as the novel Strangeness in the Proportion and shaped itself into an anthropomorphic guise as Lead Writer of The Secret World, a massive multiplayer online computer game. It is made of cuttlefish ink and earworm rhymes, and its fingernails are gleaming fountain pen nibs. You can help spread the infection at joshuadoetsch.com. It's already too late.


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You know that piece that you got for what you thought was a steal at $8 but only wore once in a year, which means it actually wasn't a steal at all? Well, let me introduce you. Say hello to my 1 year old, only worn once, $8 olive top. Call it one of the many shopping mistakes I've made. Or not, since I finally wore it the other day! I can thank Go Chic or Go Home and its virtual closet and ensemble creator for that. I've got a couple more outfits with this top stored away on GCOGH too. So, bam. Shopping mistake averted. (I know, I talk about GCOGH all the time but I swear this post is not sponsored by them.)
On another note, have any of you guys been on a cruise? Last night B's boss raved to us about a cruise they went on through Europe, and now all I can do is daydream about me laying out by a pool on a cruise ship finally reading Bossypants because I'm that behind the times. I went on one to Mexico when I was 12 years old which I didn't find it that exciting, but one through Europe sounds like a dream. Getting to see magical places without having to think about anything like where you'll stay or how you'll get from one country to the next, no decisions to make, and getting to sit out by the water whenever you want. Someone tell me it's real!


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Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the most populated municipality of the Kansas City metropolitan area, which straddles the Kansas–Missouri state line and has a population of 2,392,035. Most of the city lies within Jackson County, with portions spilling into Clay, Cass, and Platte counties. Kansas City was founded in the 1830s as a port on the Missouri River at its confluence with the Kansas River coming in from the west.
Neighborhoods in Kansas City, Missouri
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One of the first things announced today during the Google I/O conference's keynote was a bump to Google Play Services, the SDK that lets developers take advantage of Google services in their apps.
The service gained a number of updated and new APIs. First up is version 2 of the Google Maps Android, which lets developers build Google Maps functionality directly into apps.
Next are three location-related APIs: Fused Location Provider, Geofencing, and Activity Recognition. Fused Location Provider takes advantage of an Android device's extra sensors to quickly figure out the phone's location. According to Google, it's faster to acquire location, it's more accurate, and it uses less power than previous location services (Google says the new mode uses less than 1 percent of battery per hour). Geofencing gives app developers a standardized method to define up to 100 "fences" around areas and trigger actions when the device enters or leaves the area. Finally, Activity Recognition uses the device's accelerometer data and a number of machine-learning classifiers to let developers understand whether a user is walking, driving, or cycling with the Android device. It does not use GPS.
Another previously announced API receiving updates is the Google Plus single sign-in functionality, which lets people use Google account credentials to sign into apps. The update here introduces cross-platform single-sign. This lets a user sign on to an app or web site on one device (like a desktop computer) and automatically be logged on when he uses that app or web site on his other Android devices, or vice-versa.
Last year, Google brought to market its Google Cloud Messaging API, used for app and service messaging. GCM is now being incorporated into Google Play Services, with three new features. It now supports persistent connections between servers and Google for sending large numbers of messages to many clients simultaneously. Next, upstream messaging, which lets app developers use GCM to send data from app back to server (previously, GCM was downstream-only.) Thirdly, notifications can be synced between devices, so when a user dismisses a notification on one device, it's dismissed on all of his other Android devices.
The final thing being added to Google Play Services is a set of gaming APIs. The first of these is Cloud Save, which lets users save game data like level progression and game state across devices. Next are APIs for Achievements (cheevos!) and Leaderboards. Leaderboards can be global or can be used among specific circles in Google Plus (like if you just want to rank yourself against friends). Lastly, a Multiplayer API aims to take the heavy lifting of network play out of developers' hands and put it on Google's shoulders; the API provides matchmaking, latency management, and other backend functions to game devs.
The new Google Play Services will be available today with an updated version of the SDK. The update will work on any Android device running Android 2.2 ("Froyo") or better, and the new features are self-contained—in other words, they're not tied to new Android versions. This is good news, since it means that developers can use the SDK without having to worry about whether or not their users' phones support the new features.


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Welcome to the forum for public discussions and announcements regarding the Project May. This initiative has the goal of showcasing the collective design and fabrication skills of our forum members in developing a custom, statement speaker using JBL components. This project had its beginnings as the "McRitchie Project Speaker" which is described in the thread of this same name below. It has subsequently expanded to become a Lansing Heritage website project.
A series of private forums have been set up for the day-to-day discussions involving the design and construction of this speaker system. Because of privacy issues, these forums are only visible and accessible to project members. To become a member of this project, you must participate. Participation does not require monetary or or product donations, although these are needed and are welcome. At a minimum, you must be willing and able to provide useful input into the execution of this project. Because of the privacy issues, we have to keep these forums closed to lurkers.
Everyone is more than welcome to keep tabs on our progress here and through a new section of the website that will open shortly. If you are interested in becoming a member, send me a PM with this request.


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Intel this week promised that a smartphone based on its Atom processor will hit the market in the first quarter of 2012, while Google announced plans to make future Android releases work on Intel's mobile chips.
Those developments were announced recently by Intel's CEO Paul Otellini and Google's Senior Vice President of Mobile Andy Rubin, who appeared onstage together at the Intel Developer Forum.
But to analysts, the latest Intel-Google partnership wasn't all that significant, since Atom-based smartphones have been promised and delayed many times in recent years.
"Most of us didn't see what the big announcement [with Google and Intel] was," said Ken Dulaney, an analyst at Gartner. He noted that Intel's Medfield chip, based on Atom, "was always going to support Android and also MeeGo and Windows, so what's the news?"
It would almost seem that Intel's difficulty in producing smartphone chips would be a deterrent to Google's working with Intel, since Google's Android operating system already runs on the largest share of smartphones globally, some analysts said.
Dulaney added that the "onstage presence of Rubin [at an Intel event] seemed weird because there wasn't any real meat to the announcement."
However, other analysts said that the Intel-Google partnership on smartphones has a subtle meaning built on earlier partnerships between the two regarding data centers and Google TV.
Jack Gold, an analyst at J. Gold Associates, said Google needs Intel more than Intel needs Google. "Google needs a more mature, down-to-earth partner to get Google to provide rock-solid, fully baked products," Gold said. "Google hasn't always been too good at that."
Intel and Google do seem to be an "odd couple," partly because Intel is so much older and more traditional than Google, Gold said, although such partnerships sometimes make sense.
Gold said Google will need Intel's assistance in building future versions of Android, which will progress well beyond today's smartphones and tablets.
Intel will be most valuable to Google as a software innovator, not a chip maker, Gold added. Intel has thousands of software engineers who have been making operating systems, not just Windows, run well for years.
"Intel won't necessarily help Android run better on ARM [chips], but it certainly can make Android run great on the Intel architecture," Gold added. Google also wants to run Android on x86 computers, such as desktops and laptops, which today outnumber tablets by a ration of four to one, Gold noted. Having such a capability will help Google compete against Microsoft and Apple, especially as cloud services evolve.
Power-saving ARM chips run on the overwhelming majority of smartphones today — something that Intel wants to change with its Atom-based approach. The work that Intel provides for Android on Atom will inevitably spill over to help improve Android on ARM, Gold said.
Few analysts are publicly venturing any guesses about how well Intel will do in smartphones with the power-hungry Atom processor, even though Intel is already very late to the smartphone game. Some believe Intel should invest in an ARM-based technology to try to catch up, but Dulaney disagreed.
"Intel does not need to buy ARM technology," Dulaney said in an email. "Intel will be fine if they can get the power consumption down in the 22nm and 14nm [Intel chip] worlds when they get here."
Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed. His e-mail address is firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Oscar analysis: No problem for 'No Country'
Oscar went over to the Dark Side last night, honoring films so depressing movie theaters should have handed out Prozac with tickets.
If the 80th annual Academy Awards were a horse race, it would be called the Bleakness Stakes.
"No Country for Old Men," the tale of a hit man behaving badly, captured the Academy Award for Best Picture, beating out such other downbeat dramas as "There Will Be Blood," the tale of an oilman behaving badly, "Atonement," the tale of a young girl behaving badly, and "Michael Clayton," the tale of a corporation behaving badly.
Only "Juno," a tale of a teenage girl behaving badly, could be considered a crowd-pleaser, and that film focuses on the charming topic of teen pregnancy. That it paints such a relatively blissful picture of teen pregnancy didn't seem to bother audiences, who spent more time kvetching about the troubling conclusions of "Country" and "Blood."
The Academy enjoyed "Juno" enough to give the Best Original Screenplay to former stripper Diablo Cody. Who says Hollywood doesn't value family values?
In continuing to reward bad behavior, the Academy gave the Best Director prize to Joel and Ethan Coen, who brought Cormac McCarthy's novel, "No Country for Old Men," to the screen. The film, which tied "Blood" for most Oscar nominations with eight, garnered two other awards, including Best Supporting Actor for Javier Bardem, who played the bad hit man with the bad haircut, and Best Adapted Screenplay for the Coen brothers. No other film garnered more Oscar gold.
With their victory, the Coen brothers become only the second duo to share the director prize. The first pair to turn this trick were Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for "West Side Story" in 1961. The last directing duo nominated for the same film were Warren Beatty and Buck Henry for "Heaven Can Wait" in 1978. They lost to Michael Cimino for "The Deer Hunter."
Joel Coen had been previously nominated for Best Director for "Fargo" in 1996, losing to Anthony Minghella for "The English Patient."
The Academy kept the gall rolling by giving the Best Actor Oscar to Daniel Day-Lewis, who played the aforementioned oilman in "Blood" with all the warmth and fuzziness of a crocodile with distemper. He received the award for the simple reason that he deserved it.
How good is Day-Lewis? He seems to get nominated for an Oscar for every film in which he stars. He was previously nominated for "Gangs of New York" (2002, losing to Adrien Brody for "The Pianist"), "In the Name of the Father" (1993, losing to Tom Hanks for "Philadelphia") and "My Left Foot" (1989, winning). He's now batting .500. Not bad.
For Best Actress, the Academy also did the right thing by honoring the best performance of last year in giving the Oscar to French actress Marion Cotillard for her incredible performance as Edith Piaf in "La Vie en Rose." The film follows in the successful footsteps of such recent biopics as "Ray" and "Walk the Line."
Julie Christie had been considered the favorite for her stunning portrayal of a woman with Alzheimer's disease in "Away from Her." Apparently it wasn't stunning enough. She's also a previous winner - for "Darling" in 1965 - which could have hurt her chances. It obviously didn't hurt Day-Lewis'.
Some pundits picked Ellen Page as their upset special for her highly popular performance as the pregnant teen in "Juno."
But talent won out. Cotillard doesn't just act like Piaf in "La Vie en Rose." She becomes her. It's a mesmerizing performance. Her victory is also noteworthy as she becomes only the second actress to win the Best Actress Oscar in a foreign-language film. Italian actress Sophia Loren accomplished the feat first in 1961 with "Two Women." It's Cotillard's first Oscar on her first nomination.
Returning to the theme of excessive grimness, it should be pointed out that Piaf's life was far from rosy.
For Best Supporting Actress, the Academy pulled a shocker by giving the award to British actress Tilda Swinton for playing an attorney who behaves, that's right, badly in "Michael Clayton." Most pundits had picked either Cate Blanchett for "I'm Not There" or Amy Ryan for "Gone Baby Gone." Others opined that the Academy would get sentimental and give the award to veteran actress Ruby Dee for "American Gangster" even though her screen time was limited.
So how did Swinton, known for portraying idiosyncratic characters in idiosyncratic films, pull off the upset? Perhaps the Oscar folks could relate to dealing with lowlife lawyers, appreciate how despicably Swinton portrayed one and revel in how "Michael Clayton" dealt with the evil barrister. Perhaps the award is a nod to the film's popular star, George Clooney. The more likely reason is that Swinton turned in a great performance, as did all the other nominees. Just no one expected her to win. Anyone who had Swinton on his or her Oscar scorecard should apply to Harvard right now because you're a genius. Or perhaps you're related to an Academy voter. The Oscar is Swinton's first on her first nomination.
So what gives with all this badness? Is the Academy simply reflecting the angst pervasive in a country involved in a drawn-out, unpopular war? Or is it just a fluke? Before the Philistines start criticizing today's Academy for being out of touch with mainstream America, just note that the Oscar folks have historically honored movies with a mean streak. The reason is simple: there's not a lot of drama in unconditional kindness. Even Oscar-winning musicals have displayed an edge, such as "Chicago," a film about women with a yen for homicide. My goodness, even "The Sound of the Music" had Nazis.
This year's nominees in nearly every category eschewed feel-goodness for something bordering on reality, and reality is seldom pleasing, which explains why audiences stayed away from most of the nominated films in droves. Nothing new here either. It would be safe to say the majority of moviegoers prefer to be entertained rather than watch characters display depravity, debauchery or good old-fashioned misanthropy.
The problem with that attitude is that this majority is denying themselves the pleasure gained from watching filmmakers and thespians at the top of their game.
Case in point, Bardem's hit man - an assassin who takes ruthlessness to new heights or depths, depending on your opinion of hit men. The award is Bardem's first Oscar. He had previously been nominated for Best Actor for "Before Night Falls" in 2000 but lost to Russell Crowe for "Gladiator." The award simply serves as proof of what a talented actor Bardem is. Expect the Spanish actor to be an Academy regular.
In addition to making room for gloom, the Academy demonstrated a preference for thespians from across the pond, giving the top acting awards to a Brit (Day-Lewis), a Frenchwoman (Cotillard), a Spaniard (Bardem) and a Brit (Swinton). This year the Academy gets the U.N. seal of approval.
The last time all four top acting awards went to foreigners was 1964 when the winners were British actor Rex Harrison (Best Actor for "My Fair Lady"), British actress Julie Andrews (Best Actress for "Mary Poppins"), British actor Peter Ustinov (Best Supporting Actor for "Topkapi") and Russian actress Lila Kedrova (Best Supporting Actress for "Zorba the Greek").
Condolences - again - go to Kevin O'Connell, who received his 20th Oscar nomination in 25 years for sound mixing, this year for "The Transformers." His film lost to "The Bourne Ultimatum."
Bob Tremblay can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com or 508-626-4409.


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Environmental News
(Kansas City, Kan., July 8, 2009) - The Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas will have improved access to vital water services through funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service's Indian Health Service (IHS) today announced $90 million nationwide in "shovel ready" infrastructure projects designed to better protect human and environmental health in Indian Country.
"The funds will help fix aging infrastructure, focus on green solutions and provide good-paying jobs," said William Rice, Acting Regional Administrator. "Clean water is essential for both healthy communities and healthy local economies."
The projects benefiting the Kickapoo Tribe will provide $111,360 for drinking and wastewater improvements. Continuing a tradition spanning 20 years, EPA and IHS's combined effort to improve water services in Indian Country contributed to their identification of 95 wastewater and 64 drinking water priority projects to be completed by IHS's Sanitation Facilities Construction Program through EPA Recovery Act funds. The projects exceed the Recovery Act requirement that 20 percent of the funds be used for green infrastructure, water and energy efficiency improvements and other environmentally innovative projects.
President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 on Feb. 17, 2009, and has directed that the Recovery Act be implemented with unprecedented transparency and accountability. To that end, the American people can see how every dollar is being invested at http://www.recovery.gov.
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More information about all the EPA Recovery Act water efforts
More information about all the EPA Recovery Act water efforts
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