text:
The battle rages on in New York to legalize gay marriage -- but McDonald threw his hat in the ring earlier this week ... with the greatest statement of all time, claiming, "You get to the point where you evolve in your life where everything isn't black and white, good and bad, and you try to do the right thing."
"You might not like that. You might be very cynical about that. Well, f**k it, I don't care what you think. I'm trying to do the right thing."
"I'm tired of Republican-Democrat politics. They can take the job and shove it. I come from a blue-collar background. I'm trying to do the right thing, and that's where I'm going with this."
With McDonald's support, the gay marriage bill is only ONE vote shy of being made into law -- which would make New York the sixth state to legalize gay marriage.
Good for him!!! His constituents should be proud to have a man like him representing them. It's refreshing to see someone who votes their own convictions and not the party line.
Yes! "F*** it, do the right thing" Words to live by!
The more America continues to turn away from God and his teachings; we will continue in a downward spiral. We are slowly elimintating God from our country, and look at how we are declining as a nation.
Another coward buckling under and choosing GLAAD over GOD. Big eternal mistake.
I love the idea of our country growing up, finally we may get to a point where everyone is really equal.
well they should get the benefits but marriage? nahhhhhhh if everyone was gay we all would be dead....it takes a man and a woman to futher the population......
A Republican who has a mind of his own!!! Never thought I would see that. Good for him!
LOVE it! I wish more politicians would say f--- it and do the right thing!!
Horrible of him to give up on his morals. He lost himself to being pushed around and bullied into a decision he is clearly not satisfied in making.


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For those trying to get a handle on what will become of Apple in the post-Steve Jobs era, a great place to start is the company's likely product rollout schedule.
Below, we've compiled a list of Apple's product rollouts for the last few years and sketched out some estimates of what we think is coming over the next couple of years.
The biggest assumptions are:
- iPad 3 in March 2012
- iPhone 5 in June 2012
- Full-fledged Apple TV set, "iTV," in September 2012. (Based on recent comments from Steve Jobs in Isaacson's bio, a report from analyst Gene Munster that Apple is already building TV prototypes, and common sense, we think it is highly likely that Apple will eventually get into this business. Our only questions are how and when.)
- iPad 4, iPhone 5S, and iTV 2 in 2013
If you have your own thoughts, please weigh in below or via email. We'll keep updating this schedule as we get new information.
(Major products only, huge products in red)
- MARCH: Apple TV
- JUNE: iPhone
- AUGUST: iMac
- SEPTEMBER: New iPods
- JANUARY: MacBook Air
- FEBRUARY: New MacBooks and MacBook Pros
- FEBRUARY: iPod touch
- JULY: iPhone 3G, MobileMe
- SEPTEMBER: New iPods
- OCTOBER: New MacBooks
- MARCH: New Macs, new iPod
- JUNE: iPhone 3GS
- JUNE: New Macs
- SEPTEMBER: New iPods
- APRIL: iPad
- APRIL: New Macs
- JUNE: iPhone 4, cheap iPhone 3GS
- SEPTEMBER: New iPods, new Apple TV
- OCTOBER: MacBook Air
- MARCH: iPad 3, super-cheap iPad 2 ($299), new Macs
- JUNE: iPhone 5, super-cheap iPhone 4S
- SEPTEMBER: iTV, new Macs
- MARCH: iPad 4, super-cheap iPad 3 ($199), new Macs
- JUNE: iPhone 5S
- SEPTEMBER: iTV 2, new Macs
SEE ALSO: BOMBSHELL: Steve Jobs Said He "Finally Cracked" How To Make An Awesome Television


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Graffiti Fabric Markers
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All prices are subject to change throughout the course
Credit Card payments. All fees collected by Visa or Mastercard will attract upto 5% additional charge.
A turbine rating can be done once you hold a licence. Whether you wish to fly privately or go onto be a commercial pilot, a turbine rating is a great addition to your skill locker!... Find out more »
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Alabama farmers with a combined irrigation capacity of 100,000 gallons or more on any given day are reminded to register their water use. Some farmers may not be aware of the reporting requirement, says Brian Hardin, director of the Alabama Farmers Federation Greenhouse, Nursery and Sod Division.
"Sod growers, row-crop farmers and other producers who irrigate should contact the Alabama Office of Water Resources (OWR) if they are not sure whether they need to register, says Hardin. "By reporting their water use now, farmers may be able to protect their right to irrigate in the future."
The Water Resources Act of 1993 is a non-regulatory program that collects information on water needs and trends and maintains a data base of this usage throughout the state, says Trey Glenn, OWR director. All public users and large non-public and irrigation users who meet the 100,000-gallon threshold are required to register their water use with OWR using a Declaration of Beneficial Use (DBU) form.
A DBU contains general owner information and information on ground and surface water withdrawals and should be received within 90 days of putting a well or intake into service. Farmers must certify that their use is lawful and is reasonable in respect to the water source. DBU's can be downloaded from OWR's Website at www.adeca.alabama.gov or can be obtained by contacting OWR.
Once the DBU has been submitted, OWR verifies the information to be complete. Then, a Certificate of Use is issued. The only requirement for certificate holders is the annual reporting of average monthly use and peak withdrawals for each month.
Certificates are valid for five to 10 years and are renewable using the same DBU forms as the original submittal. If there are any changes to the withdrawal status, a DBU must be filed to reflect the change.
Water users now may access water usage electronically using eWater Reporting. Water users can access data specific to a designated certificate using a password-protected interface. Farmers may submit DBU's, annual reports, modification requests, renewals and contact OWR via the Internet. Water users will continue to have the option of submitting DBU's and other data using paper forms.
For more information, contact the OWR at (334) 242-5499 or by e-mail at email@example.com.
e-mail: email@example.com


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China appears to be hitting its stride as an economic power, while the United States and European Union seem to be losing the independent spirit that once made them great, according to speakers at the Agricultural Economic Symposium in Destin, Fla., recently.
Market analyst Richard Brock, president of Brock Associates, said that China is one of the few countries in the world showing significant economic growth. The willingness of the Chinese people to achieve financial success is showing up as an 8 percent annual growth rate in the country's gross domestic product.
Meanwhile many European countries seem on the verge of economic collapse, as governments ponder how they can continue to pay out entitlement programs for growing numbers of people. Brock says the United States is about 10 years away from experiencing the same problem.
In the United States, much of the looming problem has to do with the large number of Baby Boomers facing retirement, along with advances in medical technology that have resulted in people living longer, Brock says.
"In 20 years, the number of people aged 72 will double from what it is today. You can see why there is concern. People are living longer. The entitlement problems, like Medicare and Social Security are going to be a huge problem."
"We have a government spending crisis," said Randall Hertz with Hertz Farm Management. "Today, 60 percent of Americans are taking more from the government than they're putting back in."
Brock noted that from 1950 to 2008, what the government received through taxation exceeded government outlays (spending) by an average of 10.53 percent. Estimates of the last two years indicate that in 2009, outlays exceeded receipts by 67.1 percent, while in 2010 outlays exceeded receipts by 71.9 percent.
Despite this, some parts of the U.S. economy are still hanging in there, according to Brock. U.S. agriculture continues to enjoy historic commodity prices, which is a good thing as long as prices remain high.
Input costs rising
"The risk for producers is having their input costs continue to rise, then have prices collapse," Brock said. "You go to a negative return very quickly. This is a cyclical business. This is going to happen."
Farmland values, which can be a barometer of the economic health and wealth of the farming economy, are also strong, according to Hertz. "The Midwest saw a rise of 10 percent to 20 percent in value in 2010."
Much of the value is due to high commodity prices, but Hertz doesn't believe lower prices would necessarily cause a large decline in farmland values. "I certainly wouldn't expect it to do what it did in the 1980s, when we had a 70 percent decline in values."
As far as the overall economy is concerned, the U.S. housing market is showing some signs of recovery, with consumers starting to think about purchasing new homes. Brock says a rise in interest rates could jump start those sales. "This will be an incentive to get into the market, because consumers act when they think their costs are about to go up. When the market gets going again, interest rates will go up again. Then we could start to see some inflation."
Brock says today's prospective home buyers are different from those of six years ago. "The new generation doesn't have the same lifestyle we did. They don't like the big houses. They love to travel."
The stock market is also suffering from a lack of investment. Brock says that in the past, money flowed out of the market during events like Sept. 11, but after a period of time, the money generally always flowed back in. But the losses from the 2008 declines in value ran many people out of the market, and they haven't come back.
"People are afraid of the stock market right now," Brock said. "Many of the losses were from investment in banking stocks. I know a lot of people who were expecting to retire in a few years had to go back to work."
Meanwhile, China's societies trudge ahead with a spirit that would make any American pioneer proud.
Annual Chinese automobile sales are now estimated at 160 percent of current U.S. sales. And the Chinese aren't just buying low-cost, economy cars. There is a lively market for high-end, luxury automobiles, Brock noted.
China's growth is helping keep the U.S. economy on its feet. But it's a risky one, according to Brock. "I am concerned that so much of our economy relies on one customer. The biggest risk to the U.S. economy in 2011 is a sharp deceleration in China's economic growth."


text:
freenode/#lisp - IRC ChatlogSearch
9:45:23 cobax Demosthenex: I like how you say "end user apps". Do engineers speak of "end user skyscrapers" ? I imagine that is how Kay would answer
9:45:33 cobax "end user bridges"
9:45:41 cobax Shinmera: sorry, I will shut up
9:52:24 Demosthenex https://bpaste.net/show/9c4e3ef16975 very exciting that croatoan's starting to add form support!
9:55:27 _death I think the verisimilitudes guy made a good point.. and his acute-terminal-control library works OK, mostly.. I started using it for some project.. it would make sense to have a TUI library based on it
9:56:36 Demosthenex _death: i think my issue is that while many low level terminal control libs exist, there are no tui environments. there were a few tries to make turbovision work, but they're all dead
9:58:46 _death I know. thing is, it's not a big deal to come up with a basic TUI library.. in the DOS days, everyone wrote their own TUI/GUI libraries anyway
9:59:27 White_Flame but there you had direct screen access, instead of sending terminal commands, too
9:59:46 _death they even used linked lists for everything.. :)
10:00:59 _death White_Flame: it's not very important.. you can easily come up with a "frame buffer" abstraction
10:03:43 _death but it's not even clear that you'd want to do that.. back then you'd still have abstractions like gotoxy and friends
10:07:43 beach I WIN! Here is what I ended up with for MAKE-METHOD and CALL-METHOD: https://pastebin.com/TaXeRVWe
10:08:34 shka_ well, i enjoy your happiness
10:08:43 jackdaniel beach: congratulations
10:08:51 beach Thanks!
10:08:59 beach That was a pretty tough one.
10:09:06 beach It took me several days.
10:10:27 no-defun-allowed well done beach
10:10:36 makomo_ beach: well done :-)
10:10:36 beach Thanks!
10:11:49 beach I think there is still some minor problems. The call to MAKE-INSTANCE should probably be evaluated at macro-expansion time.
10:12:14 beach ... because the elements of the next-method list are not evaluated.
10:13:00 beach I'll have to think about that.
10:15:17 beach No, that's not a problem.
10:15:44 beach But I have a nesting level too many at (LIST (SECOND-AROUND.
10:20:11 no-defun-allowed is there a consise way to FORMAT eight items on a line, then another eight on the next line and so on?
10:21:31 _death (format t "~&~{~A~%~}" (group items 8)) ;; ?
10:21:43 shka_ ok, so i have a question
10:21:44 shka_ http://clhs.lisp.se/Body/f_no_app.htm
10:22:03 shka_ clhs says that it signals type error
10:22:32 shka_ so there is no no-applicable-method-error in the standard?
10:22:53 _death it signals an error of type ERROR
10:23:12 shka_ gosh, you are right
10:23:28 shka_ well, my question remains the same
10:23:40 makomo_ yeah, there's no dedicated condition for it it seems
10:23:41 beach shka_: Correct. There is no such condition.
10:24:27 shka_ ok, i think that there should be such error but i can manage
10:24:58 makomo_ shka_: you can add a method to that GF though
10:25:13 makomo_ ** NICK makomo
10:25:21 shka_ yes, i can, but in this case i simply added default implementation that returns nil
10:25:47 beach shka_: You have the right to define a subclass of error and signal that instead.
10:26:01 makomo is one allowed to redefine the default methods provided by the standard?
10:26:08 shka_ beach: that's what sbcl does
10:26:14 shka_ and rightfully so
10:26:25 beach No, it is still a condition of type ERROR, just a subclass.
10:26:40 beach makomo: ↑
10:27:02 beach makomo: Oh, I think I misunderstood.
10:27:10 makomo yeah, that didn't answer my question :-)
10:27:22 makomo i.e. can i replace the default method that signals an ERROR with my own?
10:27:41 beach makomo: The standard rule is that you must subclass one of the arguments.
10:28:38 beach So here, you must subclass GENERIC-FUNCTION and specialize your method to that new class.
10:29:55 jackdaniel from other "the more you know" things if you create a handler-case you may want to handle serious-condition (which error inherits from), not error
10:30:19 no-defun-allowed i had a need to make a readable signature generator kinda thing for hand checking diffie-hellman keys
10:30:22 jackdaniel some conditions are not errors still you want to "catch" them (i.e timeout is not an error, same goes for out of memory)
10:30:27 makomo beach: so it's forbidden by the standard to replace the default method, right?
10:30:38 no-defun-allowed [so here's one, just cause i think the output is funny](https://gist.github.com/TheEmacsShibe/511b4fd71b5d9712e09b0408033a8d5b)
10:30:50 beach makomo: I am pretty sure that's correct.
10:32:47 beach clhs 220.127.116.11.2
10:32:48 specbot Constraints on the COMMON-LISP Package for Conforming Programs: http://www.lispworks.com/reference/HyperSpec/Body/11_abab.htm
10:33:31 beach 19. Defining a method for a standardized generic function which is applicable when all of the arguments are direct instances of standardized classes.
10:40:41 Demosthenex _death: http://www.sigala.it/sergio/tvision/ is around
10:42:30 makomo beach: thanks
10:51:31 _death Demosthenex: I think I already mentioned that some years ago I started writing bindings for it.. but my conclusion was that tvision's API was too convoluted because it adopted old C++ "OO" dogmas of the day (lots of inheritance and needless interaction within hierarchy levels) and a Lispy interface is too much work for too little
10:53:06 _death Demosthenex: I think it's better to start afresh.. may have turbovision look and feel if you like
11:02:08 Demosthenex _death: i could see that, but it's a shame to discard the architecture. i'd work on one, but i have so little experience with user interfaces that it'd come off shoddy
11:05:20 _death well, I started a simple general purpose TUI thingy not long ago.. I touch it infrequently but at some point it will be good enough for Microsoft GitHub :)
11:05:54 shrdlu68 ™
11:06:40 loke ℠ ® ©
11:07:15 _death currently it's work on menus
11:10:19 _death it's also based on that acute control library, so there's no need for FFI
11:11:26 Demosthenex i don't care for github myself. i don't normally post code so i hadn't looked for an alternative, but i'm using hg and fossil
13:44:46 warweasle ** NICK warweasle_afk
14:00:40 xificurC I have malformed json, there's a \- sequence which falls through an ECASE in both cl-json and yason. The json output isn't mine and cannot change it. What would be the best aproach to combat this? There's no reasonable restarts provided since they are just an ECASE. Maybe I can wrap the stream in a stream that corrects this sequence?
14:06:23 veinosaurus ** NICK veinofhavit
14:14:31 Shinmera Fix them to provide the necessary restarts
14:16:22 dlowe xificurC: the usual thing is to use regexes to fix your crummy data to fit into the parser
14:16:41 dlowe usually the data is consistently bad in a way fixable by munging the text
14:23:23 Shinmera hacking in a restart to skip a char and continue seems easier and more robust to me
14:23:38 Demosthenex i like that idea
14:23:46 Demosthenex though i'm more likely to fix the data before it gets to the aprser
14:30:09 dlowe Shinmera: there are likely more errors than that.
14:57:16 xificurC skipping that I still get an error (using yason now) later on parsing an object. This seems to be getting a bit weird, e.g. jq parses all lines fine and yason chokes on the first ones. I'm reading a stream with (loop for line = (read-line stream nil nil) ...), that shouldn't alter anything right? Running cmd |& while IFS= read -r line; do jq . <<<"
14:57:16 xificurC $line"; done works on all inputs
14:57:43 warweasle_afk ** NICK warweasle
15:39:27 makomo pfdietz: right that is clear -- and now that the body has been fully expanded and the results have been computed, how does the outer macro fetch the results? does this transfer happen via global state or in some other way? you mentioned the inner macros "stashing" the results away, how?
15:40:05 makomo s/how/where/
15:42:22 pfdietz It has to walk over the expanded form and somehow retrieve it from there. The inner macro will have placed it there in some form the outer macro's function can recognize.
15:42:40 pfdietz "walk" there just means traverse, not code-walker walk.
15:42:46 makomo pfdietz: that's the "additional" walking i'm talking about.
15:43:16 makomo quotes on "walking", not "additional". what the heck is it with the typos today
15:43:46 makomo pfdietz: i see, but i can't think of any way how it might do that, without affecting the code in the body.
15:44:48 pfdietz Well, the outer macro function can always strip out that stuff once it finds it.
15:45:07 makomo oh, true
15:45:24 makomo so it could theoretically expand into something that's not even valid CL
15:45:30 makomo and then the body fixes it up
15:46:19 pfdietz Or into something that has useless but valid code. (progn (hey-look-at-this (quote ...)) <actual form>)
15:46:37 pfdietz where hey-look-at-this has no side effects
15:46:44 makomo mhm
15:47:14 makomo or perhaps a binding for a gensym that's never used
15:47:20 makomo hm ok.
15:48:41 makomo pfdietz: so when passing information top-down, it's possible to do it portably. when passing information bottom-up, i need MACROEXPAND-ALL to fully expand the body?
15:51:01 pfdietz Not sure macroexpand-all isn't also portable.
15:51:27 makomo portable in the sense that it's not within the CL spec
15:51:42 makomo but it is de facto portable, since most implementations have it from what i've seen
15:51:52 pfdietz Even so. SPECIAL-OPERATOR-P and so on.
15:52:47 pfdietz In practice, it's de facto portable. https://github.com/cbaggers/trivial-macroexpand-all
15:53:16 makomo yup, that's the library i'm looking at right now
15:53:42 makomo pfdietz: ok, i'll try to apply the technique to my case. thanks for taking the time to explain
15:53:53 pfdietz My pleasure
15:53:54 MichaelRaskin You cannot do it in a fully portable way without at least one caveat
15:54:58 Bike well this library is just a wrapper over implementations doing it
15:55:19 pfdietz Yes
15:55:24 MichaelRaskin That's why I said «fully portable»
15:55:31 makomo MichaelRaskin: hello. this one should be fine since it's not a "user-level" implementation
15:55:33 makomo ah, sure
15:56:26 makomo MichaelRaskin: does the caveat concern the representation of environments? you mentioned it a few days ago but i didn't completely understand
15:57:03 MichaelRaskin Not representation. but inspection
15:57:52 makomo MichaelRaskin: also, i wanted to give agnostic-lizard a go but i didn't find any comprehensive explanation of the whole thing. where should i start?
16:00:45 MichaelRaskin https://european-lisp-symposium.org/static/2017/raskin.pdf
16:00:58 MichaelRaskin Wait that's just slides
16:01:34 makomo MichaelRaskin: i looked at both the talk and the slides :-)
16:03:02 MichaelRaskin The same page (bottom) contains the proceedings link, there is a write-up there
16:03:52 MichaelRaskin I do follow the most popular way of writing a code walker, just with a few heuristics to approximate a solution to the impossible problem.
16:07:13 makomo MichaelRaskin: completely forgot to look at the proceedings from 2017, thanks
16:08:33 MichaelRaskin There is a brief explanation of the example of impossible problem
16:09:30 MichaelRaskin Hm, quite a lot of implementations where trivial-macroexpand-all just ignores the env parameter
16:09:45 pfdietz Which is bad
16:10:31 MichaelRaskin Allegro, LispWorks, CLISP…
16:10:54 MichaelRaskin SBCL/CCL/ECL/ABCL do take the env parameter
16:11:12 shka_ good evening
16:12:01 pfdietz Allegro had really broken environment handling, some years ago.
16:25:33 Xach x2/win 6
16:25:47 shka_ ?
16:29:45 makomo hi shka_
17:04:24 pfdietz Is there a way in ASDF to say "if systems FOO and BAR are both loaded, then also load system BAZ"?
17:04:54 whartung why does that make any sense? are you looking for optional configurations?
17:05:20 scymtym there is a system called asdf-system-connections but it caused many problems when i tried it
17:05:29 pfdietz The use case for this is when FOO has some special case handling in case BAR is loaded (for example, defines some methods on classes defined in BAR), but doesn't otherwise require BAR to work.
17:05:41 Bike there's weakly-depends-on, but the manual says not to use it
17:05:54 pfdietz The specific use case was trying to use COVER and finding it didn't work on macros from ITERATE.
17:05:55 Bike and it works a bit differently.
17:08:00 pfdietz I'd want it to work if I loaded FOO before BAR, and also if I loaded BAR before FOO. When the second of the two loaded, BAZ would also be loaded.
17:10:40 Bike "We do NOT recommend you use this feature. If you are tempted to write a system foo that weakly-depends-on a system bar, we recommend that you should instead write system foo in a parametric way, and offer some special variable and/or some hook to specialize its behaviour; then you should write a system foo+bar that does the hooking of things together."
17:10:42 Bike says the manual.
17:12:12 scymtym pfdietz: i was thinking of this: https://github.com/gwkkwg/asdf-system-connections
17:14:32 whartung but that sounds to me, pfdietz, that you're trying to make some kind of "smart", "universal" project. Why should the "project" figure out what your code needs. YOU know what it needs, and you know what you want it to do. So, do it. If you want BAZ loaded with FOO and BAR, then do that. Why have logic hanging around for BAZ if you're not using BAR in the first place?
17:18:56 pfdietz I want to be able to load COVER and have it work, without me (as the user) having to manually specify those dependencies.
17:19:06 pfdietz And I want it to work if I load COVER first.
17:19:32 pfdietz And I don't want loading COVER to then cause all those other packages it has interactions with to also get loaded.
17:55:11 stylewarning I wonder if the ASDF folks would be open to having a :LICENSE-FILE option for system definitions
17:55:45 stylewarning That would be monumentally more orderly and convenient---at least for commercial folks---than the paltry license description in the :LICENSE argument.
18:16:04 _death the asdf manual gives an example with :license but it's not actually specified in the grammar.. so I guess you could have :license (:file "LICENSE" :executive-summary :MIT)
18:20:43 _death or you could have (defclass license-file (static-file) ()) I guess
18:28:26 oni-on-ion i do a similar thing to use .cl extension, (defclass cl-file (cl-source-file) ((type :initform "cl")))
18:29:59 Xach oni-on-ion: that is built-in to asdf also.
18:30:16 oni-on-ion yep.
18:30:36 Xach asdf:cl-source-file.cl is the class
18:31:18 oni-on-ion idk. this works for me, i was not sure of the expanded and fully resolved name. although naming the subclass cl-file does not clarify matters
18:31:59 Xach there's also a .lsp version
18:32:18 Xach most of the source i see uses ".lisp" and that's what i prefer, too
18:33:27 oni-on-ion ohhh i see what you are saying. it is already built in to asdf for .cl , sorry i did not see what you mean.
18:33:30 oni-on-ion meant*
18:34:50 aeth .lsp is because of DOS's limitation
18:35:02 oni-on-ion i've developed a particular interest in ".?l" extensions as of late -- prolog .pl, elisp .el, julia .jl, ocaml .ml - and i did not want CL to be left out. also it is semantically more practical to me when extensions are acronyms rather than full words
18:35:28 oni-on-ion yes. i remember DOS Abuse game, my first exposure to lisp i think. unless i used emacs before this i cant recally
18:35:34 aeth Don't use .LSP on Unix or NT-based Windows because three character file names have a ton of collisions
18:35:49 aeth *file extensions
18:40:31 oni-on-ion yep. i dont think i would anyhow
18:41:24 oni-on-ion .pl is the same as perl, already github thinks some of my projects are not in prolog hehe.
18:44:24 aeth It doesn't just go by extension. I've seen some 'Newlisp' and even some *Python* in CL projects as a false identification
18:54:10 pfdietz aeth: and pre-DOS OSes that also had a limit on the extension length.
18:55:59 aeth Yes, like CP/M
18:59:06 pfdietz Lots of old DEC OSes. TOPS-10, for example.
19:01:51 oni-on-ion aeth: "it" ?
19:02:11 oni-on-ion aeth: ohh, github. yes i've seen that as well
19:02:20 aeth oni-on-ion: Github's language misidentification system
19:04:06 oni-on-ion ^_^
20:05:35 Shinmera pfdietz: I added my own system to handle that ASDF case. Essetially it defers evaluation and compilation of specific forms until a specified system is loaded.
20:05:47 Shinmera *my own mechanism
20:06:00 Xach Shinmera: what's your hook into loading?
20:06:13 Xach method? some other hijacking?
20:07:38 Shinmera In radiance all systems that can make use of this deferral must be a subclass of a special system, for which theres an asdf:perform :after method that triggers evaluation
20:09:03 Shinmera you could add a method on the standard asdf:system, but who knows how long that would work for (since upstream could add a method of its own)
20:11:41 Xach right. i've pondered doing some straight-up redefinition to add my own hook system.
20:11:54 Xach i don't care if it breaks, since it would be just for me.
20:12:01 Shinmera Typically in radiance you use this optional mechanism to provide extra functionality if an implementation of a certain interface is loaded. Since the interface's symbols are always available even without an implementation, symbol resolution in the optional code is also no problem
20:12:55 Shinmera example: https://github.com/Shirakumo/radiance-contribs/blob/master/r-simple-auth/auth.lisp#L225-L241
20:15:14 pfdietz Cool
20:15:47 Shinmera The lack of a proper optional dependency spec in ASDF has always bothered me though. Would make this problem much easier
20:17:55 oni-on-ion can be augmented ?
20:18:36 Xach Well, this does help me in the quicklisp world, because I can statically set the dependencies.
20:19:34 Shinmera Since then you could do something like: throw the optional code into an optional.lisp, then add (when (find "thing" (asdf:already-loaded-systems) :test #'string=) (load (merge-pathnames "optional.lisp" #.*compile-file-pathname*)))
20:19:59 Shinmera or maybe even better in the asdf component o
20:20:16 Shinmera spec something like :if-system :foo
20:22:21 Shinmera Xach: downloading the optional deps just in case would probably not be very bad
20:22:54 Xach Shinmera: the Old ways of doing it made it hard to discover optional dependencies. a new, explicit way would be ok though.
20:23:09 Shinmera Right.
20:23:15 Xach Like, you might not ever find out that system X required system Y because you never loaded X while Z was also loaded.
20:23:47 Shinmera Well, in any case, I have a looong list of things I want from my own, future build system :)
21:28:46 jasom fwiw quicklisp still has to dynamically resolve dependencies in many cases (one-package-per-file systems come to mind).
21:39:25 Xach It doesn't.
21:39:42 Xach That's left up to asdf.


text:
Friday, April 13, 2012
MLB Insider has Astros taking Buxton
They also project the 1-41 pick to be Oklahoma HS RHP Ty Hensley.
4 comments:
I would love us to not pick Buxton, since we just got Springer last year. I think we should do any of the top pitchers, then in the sup round pick up Nick Williams if he is still around. Then maybe a 3B in round 2.
- April 13, 2012 at 3:49 PM
Best player available! If that player happens to be at a position we're already loaded at, so be it. None of our prospects are "cant miss" prospects. In fact there is no such thing as a "cant miss" prospect. We're not guaranteed a future OF of Ovando, Springer, Santana.
- April 13, 2012 at 7:03 PM
- Bobby B said...
I think we should take the best available player also but I would prefer a pitcher. I dream of days when we can have a dominate rotation, but I'll settle for at least a "big 3".
- April 13, 2012 at 10:09 PM
The new DH spot that comes with the move to the AL will provide us with flexibility to take the best player available.
- April 13, 2012 at 10:40 PM


text: Hey everyone, I have recently configured ISPConfig to be able to manage two system with only one interface. My problem is this: Until the second server, I was able to do things I am now unable to do. In detail, here is a list of things I sort of dislike with the multiserver setup: If a customer on the secondary system (which is manage by the first system) tries to login (as he is used to) using http://hisdomain.com:8080, he is unable to login because (right!) this is the secondary system which is unable to process login requests. -> I don't want to say "Yes, that is indeed your website, but you have to use $differentURL to login to the administrative backend. If you have a customer who has websites on both servers, the customer himself is unable to manage the databases and is forced to put every database to the first server. For example, Customer has two sites plus databases on server 1. Now, he wants to have a third site. Due to load balancing issues I set the site up on server 2. However, the customer cannot create a DB for his site himself on server 2, as his primary server is server 1. I would like to change this, but have no idea how! If any of you has an idea how to work these issues out, I appreciate it. Maybe, there is a way I am not aware of. Also, on the second node, Roundcube is not working and crashes with Error 500 everytime. HTTP logs show no sign of a problem. Is it just me or is this normal? Again, I don't want to tell them "please use mydomain/webmail instead of yourdomain/webmail", so maybe you can help with this, too, while you are at it.... Thank you very much in advance. Kind Regards ZeroEnna


text:
N.C. Secretary of Transportation Tony Tata will be in New Bern later this month as part of an eastern swing to survey the area and to listen to regional concerns about proposed DOT policy changes.
N.C. Secretary of Transportation Tony Tata will be in New Bern later this month as part of an eastern swing to survey the area and to listen to regional concerns about proposed DOT policy changes.
Board of Transportation District 2 Member Hugh Overholt and U.S. 17 Association Director Marc Finlayson, who met with Tata in his Raleigh office last Wednesday, asked him to come and meet with key leaders and association members.
Finlayson said Tata agreed to come May 21, have lunch with the association board of directors, and make comments to the larger group at the New Bern Riverfront Convention Center at 1 p.m.
It will be part of Tata�s tour of Eastern North Carolina with Overholt and Division 2 Engineer Neil Lassiter.
Finlayson said the meeting�s timing is most important because Tata, a retired U.S. Army brigadier general and former Wake County Schools superintendent, is new on the job and �particularly in view of the new transportation funding plan rolled out in bill form� last week.
The bill, HB 817-Strategic Transportation Investments, would change the present equity formula used in North Carolina. The current funding formula loosely allocates each county and highway division a certain portion of state highway funding to be used on projects in a priority order in which they are ranked.
The proposed plan would rank projects by statewide significance, meaning smaller, rural counties would be competing with larger, more densely populated areas for state transportation money.
Craven, Pamlico and Jones counties would be in a somewhat modified regional district that would include Onslow, Lenoir, Carteret, New Hanover, Brunswick, Beaufort, Duplin, Greene, Pender, Pitt and Sampson for Strategic Mobility Projects.
Strategic Mobility Projects statewide would get 40 percent of highway money for which the ranking criteria for funding would include cost-benefit, congestion, economic competitiveness, safety, freight, multimodal, pavement condition, lane width and shoulder width.
Many believe several key Eastern North Carolina projects that are in line for funding in the near future would be adversely affected by the new formula for allocating highway money.
Finlayson said it almost assures �more going to urban projects at the expense of rural ones. But the devil is in the details. If we can understand how to get our projects best considered by the statewide standards they put in place, that will be helpful.�
The bill passed the House Finance Committee last week and is expected to be heard, possibly with some revisions, by the House Appropriations Committee this week.
�The invitation to hear the DOT secretary will be extended to our entire mailing list, local government key staff and elected officials and economic development folks,� said Finlayson.
DOT Division 2 staff, other board members in the U.S. 17 corridor and interested citizens are also invited.
�I expect there will be at least 100 attending,� he said. �It probably won�t include legislators because they will be in Raleigh.�
Sue Book can be reached at 252-635-5665 or email@example.com. Follow her on Twitter@SueJBook.


text:
Well, I think it's pretty inevitable that somewhere down the road we'll see more repacks from the ROTS line. Mostly I picked army builders in my list.
- Battle Droid - the only BD I want to see at this point is a Blue/Pilot one
The ones that are not that easy to find, such as Vader or Grievous, either have vastly superior versions out there in decent numbers (500th Vader or the Evolutions Vader)
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SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) Notre Dame's offensive linemen want to prove something against No. 17 Stanford after being pushed around by the Cardinal the past two seasons.
Stanford (4-1) held the Irish to a total of 101 yards rushing in those two meetings, winning both games by two touchdowns or more. The Fighting Irish (5-0) are ranked No. 7 now, off to their best start in a decade, and are eager to show times have changed.
Left tackle Zack Martin sees the game against the Cardinal as an opportunity.
``We've watched the tape against us the last two years and everyone they've played, and they've just beaten them up upfront,'' Martin said. ``It's an opportunity for us to go out and prove to everyone we're a tough, physical line that can be consistent and not get pushed around. That's what we're shooting for.''
The Irish have been inconsistent in the run game this season. They rushed for 293 yards against Navy in the season opener and for 376 yards against Miami on Saturday, their best total in 12 years. But the Midshipmen were undersized and the Hurricanes have one of the nation's worst rushing defenses.
The Irish managed just 52 yards rushing against Purdue, 122 against Michigan State and 94 against Michigan, numbers that aren't going to sway anyone into thinking the Irish are a dominant running team. But the Irish have come up with big runs when they've needed them.
Coach Brian Kelly said the Irish were making some fundamental mistakes along the line and tailback Cierre Wood wasn't being patient enough to let the play develop. He believes the Irish are correcting some of those problems and are ready to go against a Stanford squad that ranks sixth in the nation in rushing defense, giving up 77.2 yards a game and just 2.66 yards a carry.
``I think we're stronger physically across the board. We're a mature football team. We have veterans on defense. From an offensive line standpoint, we can handle ourselves better,'' Kelly said.
The Irish use three running backs: Wood, Theo Riddick and George Atkinson III. Riddick has the most carries, Wood is averaging the most yards a game (71), and Atkinson is averaging the most yards a carry (9.3). Three backs allow the Irish to keep a fresh player on the field, but it also makes it hard for a ball carrier to find a rhythm.
The Irish changed their blocking schemes this season, going from a line that blocked gaps to a team that blocks zones, meaning linemen are responsible for blocking an area, not a particular player.
``It's all about working together, working with the guy next to you,'' Martin said.
Stanford defensive end Ben Gardner said the change in philosophy is evident on film.
``They are much more physical and downhill than a year ago. They come off the ball and want to hit people,'' he said.
The Irish added another dimension last week when they allowed quarterback Everett Golson to run the ball more often, as he carried six times for 51 yards. Kelly said he was hesitant to let Golson take a bigger role in the run game because he was worried about turnovers.
Kelly is now counting on Golson to be able to recognize when he should run.
``He doesn't have to run every down, but when we're trying to block effectively and we've got to leave a guy unblocked, he's got to be able to make the right reads and take it or give it out given what he sees,'' he said.
The Irish linemen say playing against Stanford should give them a good indication of how far they have advanced.
``They're a really intense team, really physical,'' left guard Chris Watt said. ``So being able to match that intensity is going to be really important in terms of our success out there on Saturday.''


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PROVO — In BYU's season-opener Friday night, a pair of not-so-new players — Tyler Haws and Josh Sharp — helped lead the Cougars to an 81-66 victory over Tennessee State.
Haws, a sophomore guard who played in his first official game since returning home from an LDS mission last spring, didn't disappoint the crowd of 16,283 at the Marriott Center. Haws scored a game-high 22 points — three shy of his career-high.
"It felt great. It was a fun atmosphere. We had a great crowd," Haws said. "That was a good team over there, very talented, and they fought to the very end. I enjoyed being out there."
"Tyler played great," said BYU coach Dave Rose. "As the game went on in the first half, he got more and more confidence. I think he got a little tired in the second half. It was a really physical game, but he finished the game really well."
And Sharp made key contributions on both ends of the floor for BYU, with career-highs in blocks (2) and points (7).
"I just wanted to contribute in any way I can," Sharp said. "I worked really hard over the summer and last year trying to get mission legs back. It felt really good."
"He's a great piece for us as far as being able to execute our offensive and defensive system," Rose said of Sharp. "I think he's going to have a great year."
In the second half, Haws saw his school-record free-throw streak end. He entered the season having made 48 in a row at the end of his freshman year in 2009-10. Haws hit his first two Friday to extend the streak to 50. Then, late in the game, he missed his next attempt. But he made his final seven shots from the charity stripe.
"That's kind of disappointing," Haws said of the streak ending, adding that it was time to "start a new streak, I guess."
Leading by just six points early in the second half, the Cougars gradually pulled away and led by as many as 19 with two minutes remaining. BYU shot 61.5 percent in the second half.
In the first half, Tennessee State held senior forward Brandon Davies in check, forcing him away from the basket. Rose challenged Davies at halftime and he responded.
Defensively, BYU held Tennessee State star Robert Covington, an NBA prospect, to 2-of-9 shooting from the floor before fouling out.
"Brock (Zylstra) played amazing defense on him," Sharp said. "We were aggressive on offense, so we were able to get him in foul trouble. That helped a lot. That's what team defense is all about."
Rose was pleased with the play from his bench. In their first games in BYU uniforms, both Agustin Ambrosino and Cory Calvert knocked down their first 3-point attempts.
"The 3 that Cory hit and the one Augie hit were big for us," Rose said. "Those contributions off the bench are always a plus for your team."
Zylstra also nailed a big 3-pointer with 10 minutes remaining in the game that gave BYU a 14-point advantage.
There was a frightening moment with 3:46 left in the game when Tiger guard Jordan Cyphers, who played at Utah a few years ago, fell hard to the floor after a dunk. Cyphers remained on the floor for several minutes while medical personnel attended him. The crowd cheered for Cyphers as he was helped off the floor. He received 12 stitches to his head.
"He fell really hard. I hope he's OK," Haws said. "He's a good kid. He played at Utah. When they pulled up the scouting report, I was like, 'I know this guy. Where have I seen him before?'"
Sharp actually played with Cyphers when he was at Utah before transferring to BYU. Rose liked the way his team competed against Tennessee State.
"It was a really hard-fought game," he said. "This is a really good win for our team, and I think it will prove to be a great win before the season is over. I'm happy with our guys and I thought we did a lot of things really well. A lot of room for improvement."
Friday's game was part of the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic that will continue next week. The Cougars will host Georgia State on Tuesday, then travel to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., for a date with Florida State Friday. The winner of that game will meet the winner of Notre Dame-Saint Joseph's Saturday for the championship.
NOTES: Tennessee State grabbed 14 offensive rebounds, compared to BYU's three. Cougar guard Matt Carlino had nine points and 10 assists. Cougar guard Anson Winder, who has been hampered by an ankle injury, did not dress for the game. Duke defeated BYU's next opponent, Georgia State, 74-55, Friday.
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: AJeffreyCall


text:
WIRE (Buy CDs by this artist)
Pink Flag (Harvest) 1977 (Restless Retro) 1989
Chairs Missing (UK Harvest) 1978 (Restless Retro) 1989
154 (Automatic/Warner Bros.) 1979 (Restless Retro) 1989
Document and Eyewitness (UK Rough Trade) 1981 (Mute) 1991
And Here It Is ... Again ... Wire (UK Sneaky Pete) 1984
Wire Play Pop (UK Pink) 1986
Snakedrill EP (UK Mute) 1986 (Mute/Enigma) 1987
The Ideal Copy (Mute/Enigma) 1987
Ahead EP (Mute/Enigma) 1987
The Peel Sessions EP (UK Strange Fruit) 1987
A Bell Is a Cup Until It Is Struck (Mute/Enigma) 1988
Kidney Bingos EP (Mute/Restless) 1988
Silk Skin Paws EP (Mute) 1988 (Mute/Restless) 1989
On Returning (1977-1979) (Restless Retro) 1989
The Peel Sessions Album (Strange Fruit/Dutch East India Trading) 1989
It's Beginning to and Back Again (Mute/Enigma) 1989
The Peel Sessions Album (Strange Fruit/Dutch East India) 1989
Manscape (Mute/Enigma) 1990
Life in the Manscape EP (Mute/Enigma) 1990
The Drill (Mute) 1991
Wire 1985-1990: The A List (Mute/Elektra) 1993
Behind the Curtain: Early Versions 1977 & 78 (UK EMI) 1995
Turns and Strokes (WMO) 1996
Coatings (WMO) 1997
Third Day EP (UK pinkflag) 2000
It's All in the Brochure (UK pinkflag) 2000
Read & Burn 01 EP (UK pinkflag) 2002
Read & Burn 02 EP (UK pinkflag) 2002
Send (UK pinkflag) 2003
The Scottish Play: 2004 (UK pinkflag) 2005
The First Letter (Mute/Elektra) 1991
A-Z (UK Beggars Banquet) 1980 (Restless) 1991
provisionally entitled the singing fish (UK 4AD) 1981
not to (UK 4AD) 1982
Commercial Suicide (Crammed Discs/Enigma) 1986 (Bel. Crammed Discs) 2003
It Seems (Crammed Discs/Restless) 1988
provisionally entitled the singing fish/not to (UK 4AD) 1988 (Restless) 1991
Voice EP (UK Swim) 1995
Bastard (UK Swim) 1997
Alone on Penguin Island (UK Dome) 1981 (WMO) 1995
Rosh Ballata (UK Swim) 1993
Hide (UK Swim) 1996
My Pet Fish (UK Swim) 1998
Tree (UK Swim) 1994
Oscillating (UK Swim) 1994
Full Immersion: The Remixes Vol. 1 (UK Swim) 1995
Low Impact (UK Swim) 1999
8 Time (UK 4AD) 1988
Pacific/Specific (in a different place) (WMO) 1995
Dome (UK Dome/Rough Trade) 1980
Dome 2 (UK Dome/Rough Trade) 1981
Dome 3 (UK Dome/Rough Trade) 1981
MZUI/Waterloo Gallery (UK Cherry Red) 1982 (UK Boutique) 2003
Will You Speak This Word (Nor. Uniton) 1983
Dome 1.2 (UK Dome/Grey Area/Mute) 1992
Dome 3.4 (UK Dome/Grey Area/Mute) 1992
Yclept (WMO) 1999
Or So It Seems (UK Mute) 1983 (UK Dome/Grey Area/Mute) 1992
Whilst Climbing Thieves Vie for Attention (UK Court) 1983 (WMO) 1998
This Way (UK Mute) 1984
The Shivering Man (UK Mute) 1987
This Way to the Shivering Man (Mute/Restless) 1987
Insiding (Mute/Elektra) 1991
Music for Fruit EP (UK Mute) 1991
Ab Ovo (UK Mute) 1996
The Haring (WMO) 1997
In Esse (UK Mute) 1997
One of Our Girls (Has Gone Missing) (Mute/Restless) 1989
Orr (UK Parallel Series) 1996
Frequency Variation (Fin. Sahko) 1998
manchester&london (WMO) 2000
The Oval Recording (Aut. Mego) 2001
Hail (UK Mute) 1985 (Mute/Restless) 1989
Take Care (UK Mute) 1988 (Mute/Restless) 1990
Immanent (Swed. MNW Zone) 1995
pre>HE (WMO) 1996
Catch Supposes (Swed. Origin) 1997
Matching Crosses (Swed. Origin) 1997
In Between (Swed. Origin) 1999
Opening Sweep (UK Ash International) 2001
It-ness (Swed. Origin) 1999
Headgit EP (UK Swim) 2004
Profile (UK Swim) 2005
Whore: Various Artists Play Wire (WMO) 1996
Dugga Dugga Dugga: Various Artists Play Drill (WMO) 1998
In the late '70s, Brian Eno said that, although the Velvet Underground didn't sell a lot of records, it seemed as if everyone who bought one went out and started a band. In the '80s and '90s, it would not have been an exaggeration to say the same about Wire or specifically, about the work that the group produced in its first (and best) incarnation. Formed in 1976 in the wake of the Sex Pistols, the London quartet differed from many of its peers in England's initial punk uprising in that its members were older, smarter, more ambitious and more sophisticated. Singer/guitarist Colin Newman, bassist/lyricist Graham Lewis, guitarist Bruce Gilbert and drummer Robert Gotobed (yes, his real name) had no musical training, but like many of the psychedelic rockers of the '60s, had attended art school (except for Gotobed). A trippier vibe permeated some of their music, and the fact that they were signed to Harvest by the same guy who had signed the future Dark Side of the Moon fellas led some wags to call them Punk Floyd. In truth, Wire's initial skeletal, brusque rock designs owed more to Eno, the Velvets, Roxy Music, Can and Captain Beefheart, although they'd be loath to admit any influences at all.
After paring down from a quintet (guitarist George Gill was given the boot) and making their recorded debut with two tracks on the live club compilation The Roxy, London WC2, Wire set out to "cock a snoot at the history of rock'n'roll" on Pink Flag, a brilliant 21-song suite crafted with the help of producer and keyboardist Mike Thorne, a virtual fifth member of the band through 154. The group manipulated classic rock song structure by condensing them into brief, intense explosions of attitude and energy, coming up with a collection of unforgettable tunes ("12XU," "Lowdown," "Fragile," "Mannequin") that nevertheless function best as a whole. Having said what they wanted to say about punk, rock and punk rock, the band got downright weird on Chairs Missing this is where the psychedelic tag fits best adding synthesizers, slowing things down and concentrating on textured vignettes such as "Sand in My Joints" and the near-hit "Outdoor Miner" (an homage to a leaf-eating insect). Undercurrents of isolation and madness run through the album; the title is British slang for someone who's a bit disturbed, as in "that guy has a few chairs missing in his front room."
The soundscapes became lusher and grander ("Map Ref. 41øN 93øW"), the lyrics more impressionistic and Beat poetic ("On Returning") and the melodies even more memorable ("The 15th") on 154. The final studio album by Wire's Mark I was titled for the number of gigs the group had played. (The CD reissue includes an EP of experimental tracks originally released as a bonus with the vinyl LP.)
Taken together, these first three albums are evidence of an amazing amount of growth in less than three years. They account for Wire's vaunted reputation, and they have been cited as primary influences by such diverse bands as R.E.M., Minor Threat, Mission of Burma, Sonic Youth, the Minutemen, Hüsker Dü and Big Black '80s postpunk bands that were in turn substantial influences on '90s alternative rock. (There are added tracks on the reissues of the group's first triptych. Pink Flag adds "Options R," a non-LP B-side, while Chairs Missing has two non-LP Bs ("Go Ahead" and "Former Airline") plus the classic menacingly jaunty non-LP A- side, "Question of Degree." 154 has four otherwise unalbumized tracks: "Song 1," "Get Down 1 & 2," "Let's Panic Later" and "Small Electric Piece.")
Facing commercial indifference and growing tension between the "pop" camp (Newman and Gotobed) and the "noise" contingent (Gilbert and Lewis), Wire disbanded in early 1980 after recording a disjointed live album, Document and Eyewitness. Two live discs (one full-length, the other an eight-song quickie which plays at 45 rpm), this soundtrack to a mixed-media evening of "Dadaist cabaret" is from the you-really-had-to-be-there school. (The CD reissue notably includes the weird industrial dance single "Our Swimmer" b/w "Midnight Bahnhof Cafe," which predicts the direction the band would take when it reunited.) And Here It Is...Again...Wire, Wire Play Pop and the 31-track (on CD at least) On Returning (1977-1979) are all best-of collections drawing from the band's first period; the last is the most successful, though the songs on Pink Flag lose something out of context. The Peel Sessions Album and Behind the Curtain: Early Versions 1977 & 78 are both invaluable documents of Wire's rapid growth and fearless experimentation.
After a six-year break, the group reconvened; a three- day trial run yielded "Drill" and "A Serious of Snakes." Both appeared on the four-song Snakedrill EP, as well as a new, stripped-down sound based on rhythmic repetition and noise. The Ideal Copy expanded the sound with cold digital production that stresses the "dugga- dugga-dugga" dance rhythms. (The CD includes Snakedrill.) For the first time, Wire no longer sounded ahead of its time: New Order had already done this sort of thing better. While the album has moments of tunefulness (including "Ahead" and "Ambitious"), mechanical sameness is no substitute for the old diversity. Cynics said Wire blew its status as cult heroes by coming back, but at least the band showed more courage and commitment than other reunited first-generation art-punks, steadfastly championing the old spirit of punk invention by moving forward and refusing to play any of its old material.
Wire stayed the dance-pop course with diminishing results on A Bell Is a Cup and It's Beginning to and Back Again (aka IBTABA); their respective MTV-friendly singles, "Kidney Bingos" and "Eardrum Buzz," are among the few standout tracks. The band was starting to be more concerned with the artistic process than the finished results: IBTABA was an attempt to create "new" tracks by radically reworking digital live recordings from Chicago and Portugal. The studio trickery was more inspired than the music, and things soon got even worse. Convinced that the "beat combo" of two guitars, bass and drums had run its course, the band marginalized Gotobed, one of rock's great minimalist drummers, replacing him with a machine on the soulless Manscape (Wire's absolute nadir) and The Drill, an entire nine-track album of "Drill" variations, none of which betters the original. Where Wire once produced music that cut like sand in your joints, it now supplied electro-dance music that simply fizzled; lyrics that were once rewardingly abstract had grown simply incomprehensible. Gotobed understandably quit, effectively ending Wire Mark II. The fan-selected and heavily annotated Wire 1985-1990: The A List compiles the best of Wire's second go-round; it's nowhere near as essential as the original three studio albums, but it's better than any of the proper second-generation albums. The era also produced numerous EPs featuring a song or two from each album along with live tracks or remixes; none is worth owning.
In 1991 Newman, Gilbert and Lewis dropped the "e" from the band name and became Wir, a none-too-inspired loophole through which to escape an old promise to disband if the four original partners weren't involved. The First Letter is more spirited than anything since A Bell Is a Cup, but once again, the album's most intriguing aspect is the way it was made: all three played MIDI guitars into a computer, creating digital loops that were later sliced up into songs. It must have dawned on the trio that they no longer needed the others to record this way; Wir ended soon after the album's release. But that didn't prevent the possibility of Wire returning, which only required the foursome to forget why they were sick of each other. In the meantime, the devoted Wire Mail Order (WMO) organization kept fans sated with reissues and new solo and band releases (like the Turns and Strokes compendium of previously unissued live, studio and rehearsal efforts). For most of the '90s, Wire busied themselves with individual ventures, as they had done during their first hiatus.
In the mid-'90s, although inactive, Wire began to generate fresh interest. While Big Black, Henry Rollins, R.E.M. and others had cut Wire songs in the '80s, Whore: Various Artists Play Wire is an entire album of covers by Scanner, Lush, Band of Susans, My Bloody Valentine, Mike Watt, Chris Connelly, Godflesh and Lee Ranaldo. And, if there weren't already enough versions of "Drill" around, Dugga Dugga Dugga offers various artists' interpretations of Wire Mark II's infamous exercise in "monophonic, monorhythmic repetition." In more mainstream terms, Wire's influence announced itself on records by the Britpop generation Menswe@r and Blur, among others, took inspiration from the band's 1977'79 recordings. Elastica took more than that: their appropriation of Wire's "Three Girl Rhumba" on "Connection" led to an out-of-court settlement between the bands' publishing companies.
The manner of Wire's return proved that anyone foolish enough to bet on their next move would always lose. (The 1980 gig immortalized on Document and Eyewitness stands as a cautionary tale in that regard.) In an uncharacteristic turn, their February 2000 reappearance as a quartet (with Robert Gotobed now known as Robert Grey) was very much about nostalgia, albeit in characteristically skewed Wire fashion. Prompted by an invitation to curate an evening at London's Royal Festival Hall, Wire produced an event that turned out to be a museum piece of sorts, featuring a set from the band and various Wire-related attractions: video footage of a 1978 concert, sets by Immersion and Lewis' He Said, and dance from Michael Clark. The biggest surprise, however, was that Wire a band that rarely played material live once it had appeared on record drew its set almost completely from its first three albums. UK dates, including the Mogwai-curated All Tomorrow's Parties festival, and a US tour followed, with Wire still playing their "classics."
In the meantime, the band readopted punk's original DIY ethos, taking over the means of production and distribution. They recorded at Newman's Swim studios, set up their own label (pinkflag) and sold CDs directly through Posteverything.com, Newman's virtual storefront. Older material reworked during late-1999 rehearsals for the Royal Festival Hall event appeared on the Third Day EP, while It's All in the Brochure partially documented the event itself. Then Wire initiated its Mark III phase in earnest.
Fast, loud and hectoring, Read & Burn 01 presents completely new material. Wire of the '80s had suggested that rock was dead and that dance music was the future; this full-on assault is a definite return to rock, albeit played and recorded with the latest digital tools. But Wire wasn't seeking to recapture past glories. More than the sound itself, the attitude and sheer energy of Read & Burn 01 is what gestures back to 1977, as Wire channels the spirit of Pink Flag into a hardcore digital context. "Heavy metal dancefloor" was Newman's joking description of the band's 2002 incarnation, and tracks like "Comet," which sounds like Motörhead's "Overkill" performed by Kraftwerk's robots, attest to that. Read & Burn 02 cranks up the intensity a few more notches, adding heavier electronics to the speedcore rush of "Raft Ants" and the charging "Nice Streets Above." With Bruce Gilbert nearing 60 at the time of these releases, Wire were certainly old enough to know better. It's impressive that they rock harder and with more conviction than artists young enough to be their grandchildren.
The full-length Send combines seven tracks from those two EPs with four new numbers. On its own merits, this certainly ranks as one of the best things they've done since 1979, but an entirely new work in the Read & Burn vein would have mattered more. Newer items (the thumping "Half Eaten," the vaguely menacing "You Can't Leave Now") don't measure up to the Read & Burn material, raising suspicions that Wire might have lost its momentum. And while Wire Mark III seemed initially to have exorcised past dance-pop tendencies, "Being Watched" does sound like a throwback. (A witty mashup of it with Britney Spears' "I'm a Slave 4 U" didn't diminish that concern.)
Of the bandmembers' non-Wire work, Newman's output has proved the most rewarding. Several of the songs on the Thorne-produced A-Z (which was actually begun as Wire's fourth album) and not to were performed during the first-generation Wire's final tours, and a few have lyrics by Lewis. Both albums are inventive and full of hooks, and they continue the cinematic style of Chairs Missing and 154. ("Alone" from A-Z was used to great effect by director Jonathan Demme in The Silence of the Lambs). The productions are clearly inspired by Eno, with layered vocals, treated guitars, percussion (including drums by Gotobed) and odd tape effects. Between the two albums, Newman paused to record an album of Eno-style ambient instrumentals called provisionally entitled the singing fish; 4AD reissued it and not to on one CD in 1988.
Desmond Simmons was a contributor to Newman's early solo projects; his Wiresque solo effort, Alone on Penguin Island, was originally issued on Lewis and Gilbert's Dome Records label. Just before Wire's mid-'80s reunion, Newman released Commercial Suicide, which combines his ambient and pop interests by bringing a more spacious, minimalist approach to vocal-driven tunes. (The 2003 reissue includes the "Interview" 12-inch, originally released at the same time as the album.) It Seems refines this sound and has several songs ("Quite Unrehearsed," "Round & Round" and the title track) that are as striking as anything Wire recorded. Commercial Suicide and It Seems include contributions from Newman's Israeli-born wife, Malka Spigel, as well as members of her dance-pop band Minimal Compact (whose 1985 album Raging Souls Newman had produced).
Following Wir's demise, Newman embarked on a new phase. Catalyzed by the burgeoning techno and electronica scenes, he and Spigel formed the Swim label. In addition to issuing records by a diverse roster, the couple collaborated on Spigel's releases (Rosh Ballata, Hide and My Pet Fish) and pursued an array of projects under various names. Oracle was Newman, Spigel and Samy Birnbach of Minimal Compact fooling around in a world-beat/techno vein, while Immersion was Newman and Spigel's ambient house alter-ego. In 1997, Newman released Bastard, his first self-credited album since It Seems. Since the album was to bear his name only, he was keen to record something that distilled the essence of "Newmanness." That proved to be a focus on "beats and guitars" or "post-rock that rocks." In marked contrast with its title, Bastard is an attractive, subtle hybrid of melodic electronica and rock (as represented by hypnotic, atmospheric numbers like "Spaced In" and "May"). In 2004, Newman and Spigel joined forces with Robin Rimbaud (aka Scanner) under the Githead moniker. Blending dub-flavored atmospherics, minimalist funk and Neu!-like repetitive grooves, the Headgit EP shows some continuity with Immersion and, in places, evokes Wire's '80s forays into the nascent digital environment.
Gilbert and Lewis' activities are just as diverse and even harder to track. Working together in the early '80s as Dome, they released four albums of industrial experiments, noisy works-in-progress and occasional pop epiphanies ("Rolling Upon My Day"); Dome, Dome 2, Dome 3 and Will You Speak This Word were reissued on CD in pairs by Mute in the UK in 1992. The MZUI record consists of "aural wallpaper" improvised in and for an art gallery show by Gilbert, Lewis and graphic artist Russell Mills (who illustrated Eno's book, More Dark Than Shark). Pacific/Specific contains tracks from the duo's 1980 Peel session and a 1982 Australian radio broadcast with Mills. The anagrammatically named Duet Emmo is an industrial dance collaboration with Daniel Miller, the founder of Mute Records. Gilbert and Lewis further confused things by releasing records under the names Cupol (a 12" single which was compiled with their album 3R4 and other material on the CD 8 Time) and P'O the latter a one-off band with drummer Peter Price, clarinetist David Tidball and vocalist A.C. Marias, aka video director Angela Conway. (Conway, a guest vocalist on He Said's Hail, also worked with Gilbert on One of Our Girls (Has Gone Missing), her 1989 solo album.) Yclept (1999) compiles unreleased Dome works dating back to 1983 and more recent Gilbert/Lewis tracks. The record revisits some of Dome's more obtuse, minimalist tendencies (the unsettling "Carpo") but it also finds the duo in a surprisingly accessible mode on "Because We Must (Version 2)," a pumping Giorgio Moroder- style number written for dancer/choreographer Michael Clark.
On his own, Lewis has released melodramatic, over- produced dance music as He Said (Hail and Take Care) and, after relocating to Sweden, H.A.L.O., essentially emphasizing the worst tendencies of Wire Mark II. However, his post-H.A.L.O. forays have been more understated and therefore more successful, especially his work with members of Omala, as He Said Omala on Catch Supposes and as Hox on It-ness. Another collaboration, this time under the name Ocsid, with Jean- Louis Huhta and CM von Hausswolff, produced more experimental, ambient results (In Between and the live Opening Sweep).
By contrast to some of Lewis' He Said and H.A.L.O. excesses, Gilbert's often spartan, clangy soundscapes make the description "minimalist Muzak" sound like overstatement. Concerned less with music and more with sound itself, his projects have been consistently more challenging than those of his bandmates, continuing in the experimental vein of Dome and exploring intersections with different media and genres. Gilbert has recorded electronic backing tracks for dance productions (This Way, The Shivering Man, Insiding and Music for Fruit); an eccentric spoken-word-and-noise collage (The Haring); and has also made a (pseudo)name for himself (the Beekeeper) as a DJ in techno clubs. His most notorious residency was at Disobey, where it was not unknown for him to deliver his anarchic sets from inside a garden shed. Gilbert's methodology as the Beekeeper was to wreak havoc on others' material with the aid of a multi- speed CD player "getting inside sounds and chasing them to destruction" was how he described the particular spin he put on turntablism. Gilbert's solo recordings of the late '90s Ab Ovo and the more challenging In Esse are similarly radical.
Beyond his projects with Graham Lewis, Gilbert continued to work with other artists. He teamed up with Pan Sonic's Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen (as IBM) for an exercise in harsh electronic minimalism, The Oval Recording (so- named not because it has any connection with Markus Popp's glitch experiments but because it was recorded in an apartment building overlooking London's Oval cricket ground). Assembled from heavily processed and manipulated guitars, Orr is a collaboration with Main's Robert Hampson and producer Paul Kendall for Mute's Parallel Series; manchester&london, another guitar-noise venture, was recorded with Band of Susans alumni Robert Poss and Susan Stenger (as gilbertpossstenger). Although manchester&london enabled Gilbert to fulfill his unlikely ambition of playing slide guitar, his solo projects are all nearly devoid of guitar. The notion that Gilbert was Wire's guitar hero is a fallacy; he always played the role of the artistic wrench in the works, giving the project of the moment a perverse twist.
Robert Gotobed has been the least prolific of the four. During Wire's first layoff, he toured with Fad Gadget (appearing on the latter's Incontinent) and made a fleeting contribution to the first Dome album. After drumming on Colin Newman's A-Z and not to, he hung up his sticks in order to pursue an interest in organic farming, something that would occupy him for most of Wire's second hiatus in the '90s. Nevertheless, he did make a couple of live appearances. In 1996, in addition to joining Wire for a one-off version of "Drill" in honor of Bruce Gilbert's 50th birthday, he performed at London's South Bank Centre on Rhys Chatham's "Guitar Trio" with the Brood (Susan Stenger, Justine Frischmann, Sonic Boom and Robert Poss). In 1998, he joined Stenger and another incarnation of the Brood for a John Cage piece as part of the Barbican Centre's American Pioneers series.[Jim DeRogatis/Wilson Neate]
See also Githead
All contents copyright 2007 Trouser Press LLC


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|Jepson Flora Project: Jepson Interchange
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Jepson Interchange (more information)
©Copyright 1993 by the Regents of the University of California
Annual to tree
Leaves basal or cauline, alternate to whorled, simple to compound
Inflorescence: 1° inflorescence a head, each resembling a flower, 1many, generally arrayed in cymes, generally subtended by ± calyx-like involucre; flowers 1many per head
Flowers bisexual, unisexual, or sterile, ± small, of several types; calyx 0 or modified into pappus of bristles, scales, or awns, which is generally persistent in fruit; corolla radial or bilateral (rarely 0), lobes generally (0)45; stamens 45, anthers generally fused into cylinder around style, often appendaged at tips, bases, or both, filaments generally free, generally attached to corolla near throat; pistil 1, ovary inferior, 1-chambered, 1-seeded, style 1, branches 2, generally hair-tufted at tip, stigmas 2, generally on inside of style branches
Fruit: achene, cylindric to ovoid, generally deciduous with pappus attached
Genera in family: ± 1300 genera, 21,000 species (largest family of dicots): worldwide. Largest family in CA. Also see tribal key to CA genera: Strother 1997 Madroño 44(1):128. See glossary p. 25 for illustrations of general family characteristics.
Perennial, often matted, dioecious; staminate plants generally present
Leaves alternate, entire, generally ± tomentose
Inflorescence: heads discoid or disciform, 1 or in cyme-like clusters; phyllaries many in several series, papery or membranous (staminate wider, more conspicuous); receptacle naked
Staminate flowers 25 mm; corollas white, yellow, or red; pappus bristle tips generally enlarged
Pistillate flowers 210 mm; corollas barely lobed, white, yellow or red
Fruit 0.53.5 mm, ± elliptic; pappus bristles many, soft, weakly barbed
Species in genus: ± 40 species: Am, n Eurasia
Etymology: (Latin: antenna)
Reference: [Bayer 1990 Can J Bot 68:13891397 and Madroño 37:171183]
Many races reproduce by asexual seeds, their populations entirely pistillate plants.
Plants generally all pistillate
Stems 940 cm; stolons short, horizontal or ascending
Leaves: basal 840 mm, spoon- to wedge-shaped, 1-veined, ± gray-tomentose; cauline 636 mm
Inflorescence: heads 316; involucre 3.57.5 mm, base hairy; phyllaries wide, acute, tips white, rose, yellowish, or brownish
Pistillate flowers: corollas 2.55.5 mm
Fruit 0.71.8 mm, papillate or smooth; pappus 3.56.5 mm
Chromosomes: 2n=42,56,70
Ecology: Woods, meadow edges, rock barrens, dry ridges
Elevation: 12003700 m.
Bioregional distribution: Klamath Ranges, High Cascade Range, High Sierra Nevada, San Gabriel Mountains, San Bernardino Mountains, San Jacinto Mountains, Great Basin Floristic Province
Distribution outside California: to Alaska, e Canada, New Mexico
Synonyms: A. microphylla Rydb. misapplied, in part
Highly variable; subspp. intergrade extensively.


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Vancouver lawyer Andrew Wilkinson is the new B.C. Liberal candidate for the riding of Vancouver-Quilchena.
Wilkinson won the riding at a nomination meeting at Prince of Wales Secondary Sunday, beating former Vancouver councillor Suzanne Anton. More than 1,400 votes were cast.
"I'm looking forward to working with Premier Christy Clark to ensure we keep B.C. on the right track in May," said Wilkinson in a written statement.
In his speech to party voters earlier in the day, Wilkinson said one of his key goals as MLA will be to ensure young graduates have jobs and opportunities in the province.
He promised to continue the Liberal's "prudent fiscal approach," improve health care, education and infrastructure to attract investors and create jobs, and improve "customer service" from the provincial government.
Wilkinson, a partner at McCarthy Tétrault, is also a licensed doctor, a Rhodes scholar, past-president of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, and past-president of the B.C. Liberal party.
Before he joined the law firm in 2006, Wilkinson served as deputy minister for the B.C. Ministry of Economic Development and deputy minister for intergovernmental relations under former premier Gordon Campbell.
The Vancouver-Quilchena riding, currently represented by outgoing MLA Colin Hansen, is seen as a Liberal stronghold. Hansen garnered 70 per cent of votes cast in 2009.
Wilkinson was born in Australia and immigrated to Canada when he was four. He lives in Vancouver-Quilchena with his wife and three children.
Wilkinson is not the only recent addition to the B.C. Liberal's slate.
Meanwhile, the provincial Liberal party has dropped a reference to its leader Clark in its logo while the B.C. NDP have added leader Adrian Dix to its logo.
With a file from Mike Hager.


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Dear Savvy Senior,
Can you write a column on volunteer vacations? My husband and I are both in our '60s and are interested in taking a service-oriented "altruistic" vacation this summer but could use some help.
Retired Travelers
Dear Retired,
If you're looking to do more on your vacation than relax in the sun or go sightseeing, volunteer service vacations — also known as voluntourism — are a great alternative and a growing trend among retirees. Here's what you should know.
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By: Patrick Toomey
So, yet another crypto related post. Often times crypto related attacks fall on deaf ears, as for most people crypto is like magic (include me in that group every now and again), and it becomes difficult for the average developer to differentiate the risks associated with the attacks circulated within the security community. There is a vast chasm between the crypto community and just about everyone else. The cryptographers will talk about differential cryptanalysis, meet in the middle attacks, perfect forward secrecy, etc, etc. Often, the cryptographers' goals are different than your average developer. Cryptographers are trying to achieve perfection. For them, any flaw in a cryptographic protocol is something to be discussed, researched, and fixed. As is a famous saying in the crypto community, "Attacks only get better". So, even the smallest flaw is worth their time and effort, as it may lead to a practical crack that will warrant more immediate attention.
Unlike cryptographers, for the vast majority of developers, the goal is "good enough" security. Often times the result is not good enough, but the goal is admirable, as it doesn't make sense to over invest in security. As a result, there is a chasm between "good enough" for cryptographers and "good enough" for developers. In this chasm are the real world attacks that are too boring for your average cryptographer to discuss, yet too subtle as to be obvious to your average developer. Many of these attacks have nothing to do with the cryptography itself. Instead, many real world crypto attacks have more to do with how developers piece together proven crypto building blocks insecurely. It was on a recent assessment that I came upon the following story that perfectly illustrates how cryptography is difficult to get right, even when you think you have made an informed decision.
On a recent assessment a colleague of mine came across a typical SQL injection attack. In fact, it was just the kind of SQL injection you hope for as an attacker, as it returned data to the user in a nice tabular output format. After a bit of mucking around we managed to find where the system was storing credit card information for its users. A few minutes later we had output that looked like the following:
Hmmm, base64 encoded credit card numbers. I wonder what they look like when we base64 decode them. A simple base64 decode resulted in the following hex values:
If you start trying to translate the above hex values to their ASCII equivalent you will quickly find that the values do not represent plaintext ASCII credit card numbers. Our first guess was that they were likely encrypted. So, step two is trying to figure out how they were encrypted. We took a look at the base64 decoded values and observed a simple fact: the vast majority of them were either 15 or 16 bytes long. Well, a 16 byte long ciphertext could be any 128 bit symmetric algorithm in simple ECB mode. But, the 15 byte entries were evidence against that, as they would get padded out to 16 bytes due to the requirement that symmetric algorithms encrypt a full block (16 bytes in the case of AES). So, my first thought was the use of a stream cipher. In their most basic form, a stream cipher simply takes a secret value as input (the key), and begins to generate a pseudorandom output stream of bytes. Encryption simply involves XORing the stream of random bytes with your plaintext. Unlike a block cipher, there is no need to pad out your plaintext, as you only use as many pseudorandom bytes as is necessary to XOR with your plaintext. Decryption is also simple, as XORing is a trivially invertible operation. The user simply feeds the algorithm the same key, generates the same pseudorandom byte stream, and XORs that with the ciphertext.
To see why this works let's take a look at how this works for a single plaintext/ciphertext. Let us say we wish to encrypt the credit card number "4012888888881881". The ASCII values in hex result in a plaintext array of the following values:
Also, let us assume that we are using a stream cipher with a strong key whose first 16 output bytes are:
When we XOR the plaintext with the pseudorandom stream we obtain the ciphertext.
To decrypt we simply take the ciphertext and perform the same XOR operation. Let's quickly take our ciphertext and see how we decrypt it.
When we XOR the ciphertext with the stream we obtain the plaintext we started with. Through the whole encryption/decryption process we have effectively XORed the plaintext with the stream twice. XORing anything with the same value twice is effectively a NOP on the original value. Pictorially:
However, our examples so far have assumed knowledge of the pseudorandom stream. Without knowledge of the key it is difficult to reproduce the pseudorandom stream, and thus very difficult to perform the steps we just outlined to obtain the plaintext for a given ciphertext. Moreover, we don't even know what algorithm is in use here. Did the developers use RC4? Did they try to make their own pseudorandom generator by repetitively hashing a secret key? We didn't really know, but regardless of the algorithm, there is inherent risk with leveraging a stream cipher in its most basic form. If the stream cipher uses a shared key, the pseudorandom stream will be identical every time it is initialized. To test this conjecture we used several test user accounts to register several credit cards. Sure enough, identical credit card numbers resulted in identical ciphertext. So, what can we do with this? We have no idea what algorithm was used, and we have no idea of what the value of the secret key is. However, it turns out that we don't need any of that information. To see why let's first take a look at the hex of two encrypted credit cards we base64 decoded above.
The above shows the 16 ciphertext bytes for one of the credit card numbers in the database.
The above shows the 16 ciphertext bytes for a second credit card number in the database.
Let's assume that the ciphertext from the first encrypted credit card was ours, where we know the plaintext ASCII hex values for the card.
Let's also assume that the second credit card represents a credit card of unknown origin (i.e. all we can observe is the ciphertext. We have no ideas what the digits of the card are). Similarly, without knowledge of the key, we have no idea how to generate the pseudorandom byte stream used to encrypt the cards. But, what happens if we simply XOR these two ciphertexts together.
Well, that doesn't really look like it got us anywhere, as we still don't have anything that looks like an ASCII credit card number. However, let's take a look at what actually happened when we did the above operation. We are confident that both credit card numbers were encrypted with the same pseudorandom byte stream (remember that encryption of the same credit card under different users resulted in the same ciphertext). Furthermore, we know that the first credit card number is "4012888888881881", as that is our own credit card number. The key insight is that we have effectively XORed four different byte sequences together. We have XORed the plaintext bytes of our credit card, the plaintext bytes of an unknown credit card, and the same pseudorandom sequence twice.
In the above picture the unknown plaintext credit card number is represented with a series of "YY"s. Similarly, the unknown pseudorandom stream is represented with a series of "XX"s. However, despite the fact that we don't know the value of the pseudorandom stream, we do know they are the same. As a result, whenever you XOR anything with the same value twice you effectively create a NOP. So, the above three XOR operations can be simplified to the following:
So, what we actually did by XORing the two ciphertexts is create a new value that is the XOR of the two plaintexts. Wow, that is kind of cool. We just got rid of the pseudorandom byte stream that is supposed to provide all the security without ever knowing the key. But, what do we do now? We still don't have plaintext credit card numbers yet. Ah, but we do! You can think of what we now have as the unknown credit card number encrypted with our known credit card number as the pseudorandom stream. In other words, we can simply XOR our result with our known credit card value again and we will obtain the resulting plaintext for the unknown credit card number.
One you translate the resulting hex into the equivalent ASCII string you obtain "5362016689976147", a valid MasterCard number (obviously we have used test credit card numbers throughout this blog entry). We can simply apply the above steps to recover the full unencrypted credit card numbers for the entire database. We have effectively used our own encrypted credit card number as a key to decrypt all of the other unknown credit cards in the database. This is a pretty impressive feat for not knowing the algorithm and/or the secret key used to encrypt all of the credit card information.
As it turns out, we eventually received source code for the functionality under investigation and discovered that the developers were using RC4. RC4 has had its fair share of issues, and is generally not a recommended algorithm, but none of what we just discussed had to do with any weakness with RC4. The above attack would have worked on any stream cipher used in the same way. So, as is typical, the attack had more to do with how cryptography is used than the cryptographic algorithm itself. We can't say it enough….crypto is hard. It just is. There are just too many things that developers need to get right for crypto to be done correctly. Algorithm selection, IVs, padding, modes of encryption, secret key generation, key expiration, key revocation…the list goes on and on. We in the security community have been pounding the "don't invent your own cryptography" mantra for a long time. However, that has lead to a swarm of developers simply leveraging proven cryptography insecurely. So, we need to take this one step further. On average, it is best for developers to defer to proven solutions that abstract the notion of cryptography even further. For example, GPG, Keyczar, et al have abstractions that simply let you encrypt/decrypt/sign/verify things based off of a secret that you provide. They handle proper padding, encryption mode selection, integrity protection, etc. That is not to say that there aren't use cases for needing to delve into the weeds sometimes, but for the average use case a trusted library is your friend.


text: Women have long been told to expect hot flashes, osteoporosis, depression, an increase in body fat, difficulty concentrating, fatigue and reduced sex drive as they hit menopause, when their menstrual periods cease and their ovaries stop producing hormones.But many men are unaware they may be experiencing some of the same symptoms for a similar reason: a natural and continuous decline in levels of the male hormone testosterone starting as early as in their mid-30s. Low levels of testosterone, a condition known as male hypogonadism, is often overlooked because men ignore their symptoms or shrug them off as just part of the aging process. "It's a progressive condition; it's not going to rebound on its own. A lot of men chalk it up to just getting old, and some think they can't do something about it," said Dr. Michael Dimitrion of the Hawaii Male Medical Clinic, which specializes in men's sexual health services, offering nonsurgical treatment for hypogonadism and erectile dysfunction. Patient Mick Ferreira of Makakilo said he blamed his 60-pound weight gain, lack of energy and other ills on a sedentary lifestyle resulting from a back injury. After reconnecting with his former teenage sweetheart Mindy Olvera two years ago, the couple was considering marriage, but "problems in the bedroom" threatened their relationship, he said. "I saw how it was affecting her as much as me," said Ferreira, 47, a retired real estate broker. He sought help from Dimitrion's clinic at the Ala Moana Building, where tests revealed low levels of testosterone. Ferreira said his weekly hormone injections and sublingual tablets (placed under the tongue) boosted his confidence and energy levels, allowing him to become more active and more able to address some of his other health problems. In the process, he lost 35 pounds over the past five months. "I'm physically more active, I'm happy and the sunshine comes up," he said, nodding toward Olvera. Not all guys are as open about discussing that type of "problem," a reluctance Dimitrion witnessed during his 33 years as a primary-care physician. "Men don't want to open up. You ask them how they're feeling and they'll say (erectile dysfunction) happens every now and then, but they don't give you the whole story," he said. To ease the awkwardness, the clinic has an all-male staff, starting at the reception desk, and patients are whisked into private rooms when they arrive to avoid the embarrassment of sitting with other patients in the waiting area. "This is a one-of-a-kind clinic. Once patients come here they say they should have come earlier," Dimitrion said. Treatment for low testosterone includes prescription hormone cream, usually applied daily to the upper thighs; patches; injections; and tablets, all approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration. Dimitrion said the clinic also focuses on restoring normal sexual function for men who are taking multiple medications or suffer from chronic illnesses such as diabetes, men "who may not have had sex for months or years." His clinic partner is Dr. Charles Arakaki, who is experienced in hormone replacement therapy for women from four years in private practice as an obstetrician/gynecologist. Arakaki said it was an "easy transition" to work with men dealing with some of the same issues as his female patients in his former practice. Like hormone replacement therapy for women, the same treatment for men generally is not covered by health insurance, meaning patients must pay out of pocket for ongoing treatment. For one of the clinic's patients, who declined to be identified for this article, that amounts to about $175 a month for hormone cream. Although testosterone supplementation is an effective treatment for hypogonadism, it's not a panacea for all men's sexual problems, according to Dr. Tim Roytman, a urologist with offices at the Queen's and Kuakini medical centers. Urologists specialize in disorders of the urinary and male genital tracts. Other causes of low testosterone levels include injury to the testicles, cancer treatment, inflammatory diseases, chronic illnesses, kidney failure, cirrhosis of the liver, alcoholism and even stress and lack of exercise and sleep. Roytman said patients who are diagnosed with hypogonadism should be evaluated by a urologist or an endocrinologist for specific causes such as testicular failure or pituitary gland abnormalities. He also advises a prostate cancer risk assessment by a urologist before starting testosterone supplementation, "Men who have prostate cancer shouldnot be on testosterone supplementation. Men who are at high risk for prostate cancer or had prostate cancer and are now cancer free should be informedofpotential risks and benefits of testosterone supplementation," he said in an email. "Additionally, men should be followed closelyby aurologist for changes in the physical exam of their prostate and prostate-related blood work." The Hawaii Male Medical Clinic is at 1441 Kapiolani Blvd., Suite 1902; call 529-0000 or visit www.hawaiimmc.com. (c)2012 The Honolulu Star-Advertiser Visit The Honolulu Star-Advertiser at www.staradvertiser.com


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MLB draws a crowd of sporting stars in Sydney
SYDNEY (AP) The Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks are expected to sell out Sydney Cricket Stadium twice this weekend for their season-opening series.
They're also pulling quite a crowd of sports stars ahead of the games.
In between team workouts Wednesday, Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw and Diamondbacks first baseman Paul Goldschmidt kicked around rugby league, Australian Rules football and soccer balls with former Juventus legend Alessandro Del Piero (soccer's Sydney FC), Sonny Bill Williams (rugby league's Sydney Roosters) and Adam Goodes of the Australian Football League's Sydney Swans.
There were plenty of millionaire salaries in the photo op, led by first-game starter Kershaw, who signed a seven-year, $215 million contract with the Dodgers in January. Celebrating his 26th birthday Wednesday, he also was presented with a cake.