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How to Apply
Determining Financial Need
Important Updates
How to Apply - FAFSA Instructions
The University requires students to file a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Recommended that students and parents request a Federal Student Aid PINs before the student applies for aid. The PIN can be used to electronically sign the FAFSA, electronically sign certain loan contracts, and access online information about federal student aid the student has received. To request a PIN, go to Federal Student Aid PIN.
Verification Selection Process
Verification is a process to confirm the information you provided on FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). The U.S. Department of Education selects some students for the verification process. Also, the Financial Aid Office may select students if we feel there is a need to verify data or if there is conflicting information.
If you are selected for the verification process, you will be asked to complete specific verification forms. Please carefully review the Missing Information Letter/Email you receive from the Financial Aid Office and/or review your iSiS Self Service "To Do" list. Please send in ONLY documents that the Financial Aid Office has requested. Requested forms can be downloaded from our Financial Aid forms page.
If you are selected for Verification and your IRS income tax data is requested, you have two ways of obtaining that data
I. IRS Data Retrieval Option:
This is the fasted and easiest option to obtain your IRS income tax data. According to the IRS, electronically filed tax return information will be available for retrieval 2 weeks after the electronic return has been filed. Data from paper tax returns will be available for retrieval in 6-8 weeks after they receive the paper tax return. Instructions for IRS Data Retrieval on your FAFSA.
II. IRS Tax Return Transcript Option:
If you were not able to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool or you changed the data that was transferred, we will need an IRS tax return transcript. Per federal regulations we can no longer accept a personal copy of your tax return unless you filed a Puerto Rican or foreign tax return. It is important that you request a Tax RETURN Transcript and not a Tax Account Transcript. This link provides step by step instructions for requesting your Tax Return Transcript from the IRS.
UMass Lowell strongly encourages you to make copies of the IRS transcript before submitting it to us.
Always ensure documents you submit to the Financial Aid Office include your name, social security number, Student UMS ID, and all required signatures.
2013-2014 Estimated COA for Full Time Undergraduate (12 Credits)
2013-2014 Estimated COA for Graduate (9 Credits)
*The indirect costs shown are for students living on campus
2013-2014 Estimated COA for Full Time CSCDE (12 Credits)
Average Debt per Borrower, Full-time Undergraduate Students
2012 Graduates
Average cumulative principal (overall) $29,212
Average cumulative principal borrowed through federal loan programs $23,918
Financial Aid Office, University Crossing, 220 Pawtucket St. Suite 280, Lowell, MA 01854
Phone: 978-934-4220 Fax: 978-934-3009 Hours: Monday to Friday 8:30 a.m – 5:00 p.m.


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More than one life hangs in the balance as the consequences of the sacrifice ritual play out to a horrifying conclusion.
As the full moon arrives, Elena prepares for whatever Klaus has planned and Tyler faces his second transformation.
Damon is willing to go to great lengths to prevent Elena from being a victim of Klaus's plan to break the curse, putting him at odds with Stefan.
Klaus is revealed and Elena learns shocking news about his motives. Plus, flashbacks to 1491 reveal Katherine's introduction to Elijah and Klaus.
Elena receives disturbing messages from Klaus. Expecting him to show up at the 1960s Decade Dance, Damon and Alaric attend as chaperones.
Elena and Alaric lash out at John when Isobel's unexpected arrival leaves Jenna devastated. Stefan and Damon realize they have a new secret weapon.
Stefan and Bonnie try to convince Jonas and Luka that they should all be working together, but Jonas's lack of trust leads to a violent confrontation.
Stefan tells Elena about his darkest days. Trying to catch Elijah off guard, Damon arranges a dinner party for him with Jenna, Alaric and Andie.
Stefan and Elena attempt a romantic weekend getaway, not realizing that they've been followed. Damon attends a tea at the Historical Society.
Johnathan Gilbert's return to Mystic Falls is an unhappy surprise to Elena, Jenna and Damon. Stefan does his best to reach out to a confused Tyler.
While Damon tries to get the truth out of Jules, he asks Elena to keep an eye on Rose, a situation that turns unexpectedly dangerous.
As the full moon nears, Caroline helps Tyler prepare for transformation. Damon and Alaric are suspicious when a stranger shows up looking for Mason.
Elena puts herself in a dangerous position searching for the truth about Katherine's past.
Stefan and Damon decide on a new plan to deal with Katherine at the masquerade ball. Things take an ugly turn when Matt and Tyler start doing shots.
Katherine chooses a new victim. Bonnie discovers new information about Mason and shares it with Stefan.
Tyler learns more about the Lockwood family curse from Mason, and Sheriff Lockwood receives startling information.
Is this new series really just fpvQUOT90210fpvQUOT with fangs? And wouldnfpvAPOSt a vampirefpvAPOSs diary be filled with day-to-day drudgery just like any other journal? Vlogger Sean Crespo bites down hard.
Are 100-year-old vampires who hook up with teenagers really just pedophiles with fangs? Should young girls romanticize strange men loitering outside their windows? When did Abercrombie fpvAMP Fitch make a catalog for the undead? Vloggers Beth fpvAMP Val find out.
Is it possible to love this show and fpvQUOTTrue BloodfpvQUOT equally? Is Anna Paquin worse than anyone else on either?
Download the TV Guide app for iPhone, iPad and Android!

subset: commoncrawl


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Saddle up with these Army Surplus Riding Mittens for warm paws!
Condition: brand new, army surplus, never issued. Order ONLINE Now!
!!! Limited Quantities !!!
2 Prs. of New Swiss Military Surplus Riding Gloves, Salt & Pepper
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Hello all
I'm wondering what comes with the hammock if you just buy the hammock. Thanks
Hello all
I'm wondering what comes with the hammock if you just buy the hammock. Thanks
I think that is dependent on the hammock.
Depends on the hammock you buy.
ENO I got Hammock and tree straps which I replaced
Hennesey Hammock I got everthing including straps, built in bug net and a tarp.
Just a hammock, stuff sack and ridgeline, according to the website.
"Made with gathered ends and triple stitched channels, this hammock is made from 1.1 ounce ripstop nylon to be fast drying and breathable. Hammock, plus sack (no cord) weighs a mere .47 pounds or 7.52 ounces! Comes with AmSteel coninuous loops through the channels and its own bag which includes 10 inches of paracord and a cord lock! The separate bag makes a great ridgeline sack or pillow stuff sack (we love it with a T-shirt or two stuffed inside for neck support) for even more versalitity. Comes with a non-adjustable 9 foot Zing It ridgeline (can be shortened or removed)."
Like SS said (or copied) All of our hammocks come with amsteel loops, stuff sack, and 9' ridgeline.
It'll be alright Friday!
Check us out at www.buttinasling.com
HF members get a discount on most items. Use discount code "hfmember".
We're now carrying the Mini Tattoo Stove!
Comfort...adventure...fun...better hiking...sweet dreams.
Whoooo Buddy)))) I Love Onions, Grits, Greens, Livermush, NC Style BBQ, Potted Meat, Anchovies, 'Naner Puddin", Peanut Butter Pie, Red Velvet Cake and Cocoa and Straaaaaawwwwberrrry Milk and Coffee Crisps....
I Hope Heaven has a Bakery!!!!
Shug's YouTube Videos
Hammock How-To Videos ..... Essentials For Noobs
Shug and Friends Jammin'
Now carrying the Mini Tattoo Stove!
Light weight. Low prices. Great gear.
That's all I wanted and needed to know. Thanks
A need to find two trees!!!
Carpe noctem!!


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Identity Thief
|Release Date: February 08, 2013
|Running Time: 111 mins.
|MPAA Rating: R
|Box Office: $134,455,175.00
|Genre: Comedy
• Melissa McCarthy brushes off cruel weight comments from movie critic
• Dodger Day With 'Identity Thief' Actress Genesis Rodriguez – Part 2 - The Interview
• Dodger Day With 'Identity Thief' Actress Genesis Rodriguez – Part 1 - The Photo Tour
• Check Out 'Identity Thief' On DVD, Blu-ray & More June 4
• 'Identity Thief' Reclaims Top Spot At Box Office
More News >>
Jason Bateman
Melissa McCarthy
Jon Favreau
Amanda Peet
All Cast & Crew >>
Summary:Unlimited funds have allowed Diana to live it up on the outskirts of Orlando. There's only one glitch: she's financing her shopping sprees with an ID stolen from Sandy Patterson, an accounts rep who lives halfway across the U.S. With only one week to hunt down the con artist before his world implodes, the real Sandy Patterson is forced to extreme m... Full Summary >>
Photo Gallery:
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Event Photos:
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Related Movies:
Four Christmases
Horrible Bosses
The Break-Up More Related Movies >>
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Series 1 Episode 1
Will You Tolerate This?
Robin heads home to find his people living under the brutal new Sheriff.
Robin heads home to find his people living under the brutal new Sheriff.
The humiliated Sheriff storms into Locksley village, threatening revenge.
Robin forms an alliance with the Sheriff when a sniper murders innocent people.
An imprisoned Roy is given a terrible ultimatum.
Robin aims to win the archery competition at the Nottingham Fair.
Will a tax inspector help Robin liberate some of the Sheriff's precious silver.
A family reunion for Allan-a-Dale turns sour when Tom tags along.
Robin discovers a secret about Gisborne that sends him spiralling out of control
Lambert invents an explosive powder that could prove lethal in the wrong hands.
Prince Malik arrives in Nottingham to broker a peace deal with Prince John.
A shock awaits Little John and his family inside the Sheriff's dungeons.
As Robin seeks out Physician Pitts, news spreads of the King's return to England
Robin struggles to come to terms with losing Marian.


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James Dean is the legendary hero with a legendary story; live fast and die young. For over half a century, he has captured the world with his casual style, unflinching look and rebel attitude. James Dean has defined the essence of cool and without-a-cause for generations. His star continues to shine brighter and brighter.
Never has there ever been, never will there ever be. The one, the only, James Dean.
"James Dean" Fan Poem by Steve Lay
Racing into the night
It was your destiny
To go away before you could see
The legacy you left behind
Racing into immortality
It was your fatality that symbolised
It made people recognise
What you could have been
Had you lived long enough
What you would have seen
Had you not been taken away
Racing into your dreams
An idol for so many
That's what it seems
Such an impact
Only three films
But, years down the line
They speak to a generation,
Both yours and mine
They still recognise you as your legend continues to grow
Little did you ever know
You wanted to bridge the gap
Between life and death
Live on after you've gone
People can never close the door
They don't make stars
Like you anymore!
Had you have lived
What would you have been
You would still be a legend good old James Dean


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Skip to Main Content
Home > Our Services > Senior Living & Long Term Care > Nano Nagle Village
305 South State StreetAberdeen, SD 57401605-622-5000
Avera Mother Joseph Manor Retirement Community is located at 1002 N. Jay St., Aberdeen, SD 57401.
Call us at 605-622-5850 for more information, or email Carol Miller about admissions or Administrator Tom Snyder.
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Photograph of Reverend Bernt J. Muus c.1880. Muus was a leading nineteenth century Norwegian-American Lutheran clergyman whose legal and personal clashes with his wife, Oline Pind Muus, led the couple to court in the early 1880s.
The Reverend Bernt J. Muus and family outside of Holden Parsonage in Kenyon, c.1875.
Reverend Chauncey Hobart of Red Wing. Chaplain of the Third Regiment of Minnesota Volunteers. Chaplain of the House in the first Territorial Legislature and of the State Legislature in 1877.
Reverend John Harrison Macomber (standing at center) with Reverend James Franklin Chaffee, Chauncey and Harriet Hobart and Reverend John Hooper at Minnehaha Falls
Photograph of Reverend John Sornberger, a lumberjack sky pilot, preaching c.1930.
Photograph of a car straddling a railroad track. The car was used to transport Reverend John Sornberger to lumber camps c.1930.
Photograph of Richard DeWall. From the Pioneers of the Medical Device Industry in Minnesota Oral History Project.
Rochester cyclone. Photo by Charles A. Tenney, August 21, 1883.
Rocks dropped from loaded barges into the water, Duluth ship canal c.1900.
Rolette (standing) with business associates Henry Hastings Sibley (right), and possibly Franklin Steele (left), c.1857.
Made possible by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund through the vote of Minnesotans on November 4, 2008. Administered by the Minnesota Historical Society.
Minnesota Historical Society • 345 W. Kellogg Blvd., St. Paul, MN 55102-1906 (Map) • 651-259-3000 © .
Send questions or comments to mnopediamnhs [dot] org. View our Privacy Policy.


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The Rebirth of Habanos
Are Cuba's cigar mavens finally shifting from quantity to quality?
James Suckling
From the Print Edition:
Cuban Spy Scandal, May/Jun 02
I wasn't sure if I was being stonewalled, or simply being politely told to mind my own business. But the two officials from the Cuban cigar global distribution organization, Habanos S.A., clearly did not want to tell me their export figures for 2001, when I interviewed them in early February. "We are not concerned with figures anymore," said Ana Lopez, the head of marketing for the organization. "We are only interested in quality. Quality is the key for Cuban cigars at the moment."
"I couldn't agree more," I told her. "But I have seen figures in the press saying that shipments last year were down 30 percent and I would like to confirm that." I was following up on press reports that said Fidel Castro had given out that figure, but it had never been officially confirmed.
"You know that we can't win, when we give out our export figures," she added, only half-joking. "If our sales are up, then people say that we are exporting too much, but if our exports are down, then they say that we are not exporting enough. Let's forget about figures, and let's focus on quality."
I did just that for a couple of days in Cuba. I looked at quality, literally from the ground up. I took a couple of trips to factories, such as Romeo y Julieta and El Laguito (home of Cohiba), as well as visits to various areas and plantations in the Vuelta Abajo, the prime growing region for tobacco.
What I found is that Habanos is right; a new emphasis on quality can already be seen, from better cultivation techniques in the plantations to more rigorous quality control in factories. However, quality is not achieved overnight, especially with tobacco and cigars. It is going to take time to get it right. The cigar industry in Cuba is like a supertanker in the middle of the Atlantic, going full speed. It's not an easy task to slow down and change direction, even for the most talented helmsman. For years, the Cubans have been steaming ahead with an ambitious plan to produce more and more cigars, but after a quick lesson in free market economics, they've realized they must change strategy. The downturn in the global economy obviously has undermined the Cubans' rapid expansion plan, since luxury products, like cigars, were the first to be hit. As a result, the growers and cigarmakers have received their new orders of "quality first." Maybe this is a slightly cynical view of their change of mind, but regardless of the reasons, Cuba's renewed emphasis on quality is a major step forward.
For instance, I spent an hour with Emilia Tamayo, the gregarious manager of the El Laguito factory, the home of Cohiba cigars. What I saw there convinced me that it makes sense to buy cigars made in her factory. Look for the initials CLE stamped on the bottom of boxes, which stands for El Laguito. Some of her pronouncements during my visit to El Laguito were obvious bravado, but I have been to her factory numerous times over the last 10 years and I have never seen it in better condition.
It wasn't a question of the 100 or so rollers doing their craft quietly and intently. Working on the ground floor of the small villa-cum-factory, they have always done that since Tamayo took over the factory in the early 1990s. What was really impressive this time was the increase in the number of people on the first floor of the factory, where workers carefully check every cigar, from the quality of the color and texture of the wrappers to the ease of the draw.
El Laguito is one of the very few of the 50 or so cigar factories in Cuba that have a machine that can test the draw of bunches, which is basically a cigar without the wrapper. So every cigar made in El Laguito is mechanically checked for its draw before the wrapper is applied and the cigar is finally placed in its box.
Furthermore, Tamayo says that, within the next year, she hopes to have a large percentage of the production of Cohiba produced only in her factory. "The remainder will be made at my friend Hilda's factory, Partagas," she said. "It's only right that another woman makes my cigars, because Cohiba is like my own brand."
In the past, Cohiba was made in various factories, primarily in Havana. Under those circumstances, Tamayo admitted that it was difficult to maintain the quality of the blend as well as the quality of the cigars. It's a problem with all the brands that are not made in a single factory. For instance, Montecristo is made in dozens of factories around the country. How in the world can the brand's quality be consistent? At the moment, Tamayo says that all Cohiba Lanceros, Corona Especials, Exquisitos and Panetelas are made at El Laguito. Most of the Robustos and Esplendidos are also made there. In all, the factory is making about 5 million cigars annually (500,000 are Trinidads).
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With President Obama in Korea this week, we will hear a lot about the dangers of North Korea's nuclear aspirations.
We're unlikely to be hear about a young man named Shin Dong-hyuk, who was bred, like a farm animal, inside a North Korean prison camp after guards ordered his prisoner-parents to mate. But Shin arguably has as much to teach about Korea's past and future as about the cycle of negotiation, bluster and broken promises over the nuclear issue.


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- Why Colby?
- Request Information
- College Profile
- Scholars Programs
- Student Perspectives
- Alumni Success
- For Counselors
- Contact Admissions
Colby is committed to the belief that the best preparation for life, and especially for the professions that require specialized study, is a broad acquaintance with human knowledge. The Colby experience is designed to enable each student to find and fulfill his or her own unique potential. It is hoped that students will become critical and imaginative thinkers who are: welcoming of diversity and compassionate toward others; capable of distinguishing fact from opinion; intellectually curious and aesthetically aware; adept at synthesis as well as analysis; broadly educated with depth in some areas; proficient in writing and speaking; familiar with one or more scientific disciplines; knowledgeable about American and other cultures; able to create and enjoy opportunities for lifelong learning; willing to assume leadership roles as students and citizens; prepared to respond flexibly to the changing demands of the world of work; useful to society and happy with themselves.
Colby stands for diversity; for respect for various lifestyles and beliefs; and for the protection of every individual against discrimination. In the classroom and outside, there is freedom to study, to think, to speak, to work, to learn, and to thrive in an environment that insists upon both civility and the free and open exchange of ideas and views. The behavior of individuals may often affect the rights and well being of others, therefore all members of the campus community are responsible for fostering an environment in which teaching, learning, and research flourish.
The Colby Plan is a series of 10 educational precepts that reflect the principal elements of a liberal education and serve as a guide for making reflective course choices, for measuring educational growth, and for planning for education beyond college. Students are urged to pursue these objectives not only in their course work but also through educational and cultural events, campus organizations and activities, and service to others. These precepts, which the College believes are at the heart of a liberal arts education, are as follows:


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Natural Gear Cover-Up Parka
Product Family #: 2655551194
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Product Information
This uninsulated parka from Natural Gear is ideal to wear over your normal insulated hunting clothing when you are hunting in a snowy area. It is made of quiet 100% sueded cotton twill that has been treated with a water-repellent coating.
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Customer Reviews
The statements and opinions expressed within Customer Reviews reflect each author's personal perspective and do not imply endorsement by MidwayUSA, its Employees or any other organization. Customers should in no way infer that MidwayUSA has validated review information as safe, accurate or appropriate.
NOTE: Prices, specifications and availability are subject to change without notice.
We reserve the right to correct typographic, photographic and/or descriptive errors.
We reserve the right to correct typographic, photographic and/or descriptive errors.


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As abortion, reproductive freedom and the power to choose continue to be hot topics during the 2012 presidential election (even though it is soon coming to a close), it is also interesting to know what laws concerning abortion exists in different nations. The Center for Reproductive Rights have created an interactive world map that does just that, compares and explain abortion laws all over the world.
The map provides interesting information in different ways:
Country icon key: Different icons express the conditions under which abortion is allowed or prohibited. There are many icons (all explained on the website), but here are a few examples.
R – rape
F – fetal impairment
MH – mental health
I –incest
SA – spousal authorization needed
PA – parental authorization needed
For example, in the United Arab Emirates, both spousal authorization and parental authorization is needed for an abortion. In Iraq, the icon NE describes that the "law does not make an explicit exception to save a woman's life". In Argentina abortion is permitted in cases of rape, whereas France have a gestational limit of 14 weeks and New Zealand concludes that abortion is permitted in cases of incest, fetal impairment and to preserve a woman's mental health. [Read more...]


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Moderators: Cartographers, Global Moderators
Ruben Cassar wrote:Does the legend follow some kind of order? I don't think it starts from a region and moves clockwise does it? I am finding the order a bit confusing.
Kaplowitz wrote:I really like the trees, and the map in general...but i dont like the bridges.
TaCktiX wrote:I know you're excited to get updates out and all, but exercise a little version patience.
Incandenza wrote:I like the idea of Fort Sumter being able to bombard surrounding coastal areas, it'll give the map that little something extra...
Ruben Cassar wrote:Does the legend follow some kind of order?
ZeakCytho wrote:Could you make the water a bit darker? More...water colored? Keep it lighter closer to land and darker farther away, but darken the whole thing.
ZeakCytho wrote:Could you flip the colors of north and south St. James Island?
There's a typo in the East Ashley in the legend.
TaCktiX wrote:Separating John's Island Park (add those apostrophes and fix the spelling mistakes I noted last post, fool!) from its own continent is bad gameplay in the making. Perhaps change the trees to separate Miller Hill from John's Island Park?
Sorry man - I would have liked it also, but I just couldn't get it to work.edbeard wrote:I kinda miss that boat you had on the old version
Optimus Prime wrote:I think the trees are a pretty good start for the impassable borders. Although, perhaps mix them up just a little bit as far as color and style are concerned. Make it look more like a real forest, a few with pointy tops, a few with rounded tops, and a variation of different shades of green perhaps? Nothing too drastic, just break up the repetitive round shape of the tree-tops a little bit.
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About the Family Research Center
The UNCG Family Research Center was founded to contribute to the understanding of positive family relationships and the role of families in children's development. Initially supported by a grant from the William T. Grant Foundation in 1977, the Family Research Center is now an integral part of the Department of Human Development & Family Studies in the School of Health and Human Sciences at UNCG.
The goals of the Family Research Center are to foster collaborative research on families at UNCG and to create a supportive atmosphere for interdisciplinary programs of research on families. We also work to communicate the results of our research to the wider community to enhance families' lives and inform the decisions of policy makers.
In addition to faculty from HDFS, faculty from Psychology and the Center for Youth, Families, and Community Partnerships participate as affiliates of the Family Research Center.
The Family Research Center is housed in its own building. It provides space for observational research with families, meeting space, computer facilities, and administrative support for collaborative research proposals and projects.


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In celebration of Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month, Mrs. G. will be hosting Sensory Storytime, Saturday March 23 at 2 p.m. in the Library Meeting Room.
After an interactive story, song and time of movement, children will experience activity sensory stations that encourage learning.
This program is geared toward children with developmental concerns such as delays, attention problems, autism spectrum and other special needs. Parents, caregivers and therapists are encouraged to attend with their child.
Saturday, March 23, 2013 - 2:00pm


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The following property crimes were reported to the Anniston Police Department during the seven-day period ending at 7 a.m. Thursday.
• Residence, 400 block of South Colvin Street: tools, speakers.
• Residence, 500 block of North Ledbetter Street: water heater, copper coils.
• Residence, 200 block of Gate 8 Road: golf cart.
• Residence, 800 block of Edison Drive: medication, coins.
• Bank, 200 block of Greenbrier Dear Road: cash, clothing.
• Residence, 4000 block of Ridge Drive: motorcycle.
• Field, 100 block of Elston Avenue: firearm.
• Residence, first block of Blue Mountain Road: cash.
Calhoun County
The following property crimes were reported to the Calhoun County Sheriff's Office during the seven-day period ending at 7 a.m. Thursday.
• Residence, Trinity Way, Jacksonville: jewelry.
• Storage facility, Angel Avenue, Jacksonville: jewelry, television.
• Residence, Mill Branch Road, Jacksonville: lawn care items, fishing rod, tools, cooler.
• Residence, Webster Road, Wellington: mp3 player, DVD player, televisions.
• Residence, Mudd Street, Lincoln: motorcycle.
• Residence, Kings Gap Mountain Road, Piedmont: cell phone.
• Residence, Hutto Hill Road, Anniston: tools, electrical boxes and wiring.


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Library Chickens on the Run: Bookmobiling it to the Food Truck Stop in Milpitas
Posted on Monday, August 27, 2012 by LaurenJoan
Once upon a time four Chickens set out on a new adventure on the Book! Book! Mobile. Alice, Joanie B., Fluffy and Nugget took a ride on the Book! Book! Mobile to the Food Truck Stop in Milpitas at the Big Lots parking lot. A couple of dancing librarians, Amytha and Laurenjoan, came along too. Little did they know what was in store for them... . . . more »


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The drywall dust has been carefully washed from the Dale Chihuly blown glass sculpture hanging in the atrium and builders are putting the final touches on the first significant renovation of the Peter Kiewit Institute since its 1999 opening.
Executive Director Michael McGinnis said the $7.5 million renovation will enable the institute to move its research to new levels, particularly with national security-related projects and sustainable construction methods.
The Kiewit Insitute, on the University of Nebraska at Omaha's South Campus, serves as a joint base for engineering programs provided by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and for information science and technology programs provided by UNO.
Though the renovation did not increase the building's size, McGinnis said, reconfiguration of existing space resulted in 40 percent more laboratory space and at least 20 percent more spots for graduate students.
The renovation, designed by Alley Poyner Macchietto Architecture of Omaha, is intended to foster collaboration between researchers and between the two academic disciplines — engineering and computer science.
"That will move our research programs forward and make our academic programs even better," McGinnis said.
Graduate students from both disciplines will work together in cubicles in a common area.
Each of the 10 laboratories in a research cluster is linked to another lab via a "team room" with conservatory-style windows protruding into the hallway. The idea is to encourage interaction between scientists and students.
"We've broken down barriers between the two colleges," McGinnis said. "We're trying to create synergy and serendipity not by accident, but by design."
For the first time, the building will house a highly secure area where top-secret government research can be conducted. In the past, scientists on secret projects had to find other sites, such as the U.S. Strategic Command in Bellevue.
The need for such space became more critical after NU won a five-year research contract with the Department of Defense last year and established its National Strategic Research Institute.
Construction engineering lab�oratories that feature environmentally controlled chambers used for testing heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment are still being finished. They should be ready by July 1, McGinnis said.
Tim Wei, dean of the UNL College of Engineering, said renovating the Kiewit Institute is a first step toward expanding NU's engineering program in Omaha, both in terms of research and enrollment.
"We're really looking at major growth in engineering in Omaha," he said. "We're going to need places to grow."
The Kiewit Institute will play a big role in partnerships between NU engineers and scientists at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Wei said. It also will be central to focusing engineering on three major industries: food manufacturing; buildings, bridges and other civil infrastructure; and high-tech manufacturing using robotics.
"The whole concept is one college, with every element of the college nationally and internationally renowned and to have the facilities to enable that," he said.
After a year of classes amid the noise and chaos of construction — the renovation work began last July — students already have a taste of the final product.
The former first-floor computer laboratory was dismantled and replaced with a cafeteria, seven rooms for studying alone or in small groups, and a large lounge and multipurpose area that can also be used for group meetings.
Students moved into the lounge to study as soon as it opened. They also gave a big thumbs-up to the cafeteria, which replaced a food cart. But they lamented the reduction in computers available for student use. The big computer lab was replaced by several smaller computer areas throughout the building.
"I kind of miss the computer lab," said Michael Hatterott of Blair, 23, a computer and electronics engineering student.
"Students lived in the computer lab, from 8 in the morning to 8 at night," said Ernest Bless, a senior civil engineering student from Omaha.
McGinnis said the number of public computers was reduced from about 100 to about 50. Instead, the building's wireless Internet access was improved.
The expense of maintaining 100 public computers — at roughly $3,000 each — is prohibitive, McGinnis said, and most students are better-served with good wireless access because they carry laptops, tablets and smartphones.
Contact the writer: 402-473-9581, firstname.lastname@example.com


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Perform stunts to earn points, but beware of the hazard filled levels!
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Dani Binegar, PhD recently completed her training as a Neuropsychology Resident at the UC Davis-Martinez CADC. She came to the CADC from University of Texas, Southwestern with the goal of gaining in depth knowledge of Alzheimer's disease and other disorders that affect mental function in older adults.
Dr. Binegar says:
"The Neuropsychology fellowship at UC Davis is an excellent program. I assessed patients at the CADC, as well as at the Veterans Administration hospital and got exposure to diverse populations and diagnostic issues including dementias (e.g., Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia, Lewy body dementia), mild traumatic brain injury, stroke, epilepsy, PTSD, depression, pseudodementia, etc. I had the opportunity to work with an interdisciplinary team of diagnosticians including neurologists, neuropsychologists, registered clinical nurses, research coordinators, psychometrists and clinical pathologists. This wide range of professionals and learning opportunities greatly enriched my knowledge of the diagnosis and treatment of these disorders."
"Perhaps most importantly, the supervisors are passionate and knowledgeable and are committed to the fellow's professional development. They encourage autonomy within a well-structured program that ensures the fellow is ready for independent practice and functioning by the end of the term. Because of the excellent supervision and training opportunities I was afforded by UC Davis, I was fully prepared to apply and interview for jobs in my field."
Dr. Binegar is now a staff psychologist with the Northern California Veterans Affairs Health Care System.
[1] http://cadc.ucsf.edu/cadc/cadc/http:/%2Fcadc.ucsf.edu/cadc/stories/trainee3


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4/17/2014EU Commission Uses HR-XML Data Exchange Standards to Re-Balance European Labour Market
4/10/2014ADP to Focus on Its Core Human Capital Management Business
3/6/2014HR-XML is now HR Open Standards
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Tom Cruise
• Tom Cruise & Fellow Scientologist Laura Prepon Hook Up
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• Nicole Kidman's kids keep her 'pretty sane'
• Space Cases : Celebs That Have Totally Lost Touch With Reality
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Thomas Cruise Mapother IV was born on July 3, 1962, the only son of a hardscrabble family that would grow to include three sisters. Mapother III was an electrical engineer, abusive and prone to losing his jobs, which forced the family to move several times a year to look for work. Cruise was born in Syracuse but lived in Louisville, KY; Winnetka, I... Continue Bio >>
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Application Information
Scholarship Overview
This scholarship is for undergraduate students at any two- or four-year college or university and majoring in criminal justice, police science, or equivalent. Applicants must be full-time Chickasaw students and have 3.0 GPA or higher.
How easy is it to apply?
Not too bad
This scholarship's application process may have items such as essays that could take a couple hours.
How much competition is there?
Relatively little!
This scholarship has a relatively low number of applicants.
GPA: Is this you?
- 3.0
Class Year: Is this you?
- High school senior
- College freshman
- College sophomore
- College junior
- College senior
Home State: Is this you?
- Oklahoma
Location: Is this you?
- Bryan, Carter, Coal, Garvin, Grady, Jefferson, Johnston, Love, McClain, Marshall, Murray, Pontotoc, or Stephens County
College Major: Is this you?
- Corrections
- Corrections Administration
- Corrections and Criminal Justice, Other
- Criminal Justice/Law Enforcement Administration
- Criminal Justice/Police Science
- Criminal Justice/Safety Studies
- Criminalistics and Criminal Science
- Forensic Science and Technology
- Juvenile Corrections
- Securities Services Administration/Management
- Security and Loss Prevention Services
- Security and Protective Services, Other
- Law Enforcement Investigation and Interviewing
- Law Enforcement Record-Keeping and Evidence Management
- Cyber/Computer Forensics and Counterterrorism
- Financial Forensics and Fraud Investigation
- Law Enforcement Intelligence Analysis
- Critical Incident Response/Special Police Operations
- Protective Services Operations
- Suspension and Debarment Investigation
- Maritime Law Enforcement
- Homeland Security
- Critical Infrastructure Protection
- Terrorism and Counterterrorism Operations
- Homeland Security, Other
More Requirements:
Must be a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation.


text: Home About ACRS About ACRS ACRS Cabler Registration Service is an Australian owned, ACMA accredited cabler registration service. The Australian Cabler Registration Service (ACRS) provides the lowest cost registration service and is proud to keep their registered cablers up to date with the regular information about the latest cabling news, current industry issues and training information. ACRS was formed to provide a registration service for anyone undertaking communications cabling work. ACRS is formally accredited by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), and is affiliated with the National Electrical and Communications Association (NECA), wh… ... admin x/x Apply for your Cabling Registration Today! Apply for your Cabling Registration Today! Join ACRS today for only $25 for 1 year or $75 for three years. To find out why you should apply for your cabling registration with ACRS, go to Why register with ACRS? For more information about apply… ... admin x/x New Training Requirements for Registered Cabling Providers New Training Requirements for Registered Cabling Providers The Australian Communications and Media Authority has amended the regulatory requirements for cabling providers who install specialised cabling within customer premises. The ACMA's Cabling Provider Rules (CPRs) regulate the performance of cabling work in customer premises. Under the CPRs, cabling providers must be registered by registrars appointed by the ACMA. Cabling providers must meet certain competencies set by the ACMA in order to be registered. The ACMA's competencies form the basis for training programs developed by Industry Skills Councils (ISCs). The amendments to the ACMA cabling arrangements have been made to ensure cablin… ... admin x/x NBN NBN NECA and ACRS have been working closely with the Government, NBN Co, Comms Alliance and ACMA as the huge project that is the National Broadband Network continues to gather momentum. As soon as there is confirmed information which would be useful for cablers we will be sure to publish it on this website. For now, we recommend that cablers ensure their registration is up to date and read the officially published information only, including the NBN End Users Handbook, prepared with input from industry by the Comms Alliance. Click here for the most up to date version of the Guide.… ... admin x/x How much practical experience do cabling graduates really have? (Survey) How much practical experience do cabling graduates really have? (Survey) Reason for survey The move to competencies in lieu of "module based" training programs means many CPR qualifiers have limited practical experience, other than from the training course. Experience is a mandatory ACMA requirement and there are issues in certifying experience held for the purpose of registration. Currently a "declaration" of experience on the CPR application form is used but this has some shortfalls. Registrars currently are not provided with any other certification and rely on possible occasional, random audits to monitor compliance. Changing work practices and commercial realities mean that cabling graduates from many… ... admin x/x OverlaysShareTweetPreviousNextPreviousNextSlideDeck 2 ACRS prides itself on a fast, reliable & friendly service, at all times & in all locations. Register with ACRS today! $25.00 for one year or $75.00 for three years


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NPDES Permit Writers' Manual
The NPDES Permit Writers' Manual (EPA-833-K-10-001) provides a comprehensive overview of the framework of the NPDES program and serves as one of the principal training tools to help permit writers develop legally defensible and enforceable NPDES permits. Its primary purpose as a technical resource is to guide new state and EPA permit writers through the basic steps of permit development and issuance; however, the manual also is intended to serve as a resource for others (e.g., stakeholders, the regulated community) interested in the NPDES permitting process.
Over the past four years, the NPDES Permit Writers' Manual has been thoroughly updated and revised, addressing changes to the NPDES program since the 1996 release, correcting several errors that have been identified, addressing new program areas and reorganizing the material to better complement the NPDES Permit Writers' Course.
Specific updates and revisions to the 1996 U.S. EPA NPDES Permit Writers' Manual include:
NPDES Permit Writers' Manual (September 2010)


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Gail MarksJarvis
April 24, 2013
Corporate earnings reports have pacified investors this week after a bout of selling followed renewed concerns about a global slowdown last week.
It's not that companies have provided dazzling first-quarter results. Many are continuing to make their numbers through cost-cutting rather than bolstering profits by selling more to customers. And in the long run, sales, innovation and investment by companies, rather than cost-cutting, are what generate healthy growth for businesses as well as the economy.
But with the stock market near record highs, and Europe, China and the U.S. releasing weak economic data lately, investors are satisfied that companies seem able to maneuver smoothly through a fading global environment by doing more with less.
With about 20 percent of Standard & Poor's 500 companies having reported first-quarter results, about 7 out of 10 companies have produced profits in excess of expectations. That's above the norm of 63 percent, so it's encouraging, said Greg Harrison, earnings analyst for Thomson Reuters. But of the companies that exceeded earnings estimates, 58 percent lagged expectations on revenue, about double the norm. That adds to evidence that the weak global economy is challenging companies.
Still, while individual investors continue to sit on the sidelines, professional investors apparently have been impressed with the broad range of companies providing profits above analysts' expectations. For example, Coach, DuPont, the Travelers Companies and Lockheed Martin delivered stronger-than-expected earnings Tuesday, and stood in contrast with IBM, which rattled investors last week with a rare miss.
As the earnings results rolled in Tuesday, investors sent the Dow Jones industrial average up 152 points despite early-morning jitters over economic data in China, Europe and the U.S. that pointed to a slowdown greater than many analysts expected. Stocks also recovered quickly after the Dow's two-minute, 145-point plunge related to a hoax on Twitter suggesting the White House had been attacked.
The economic data earlier in the day pointed to surprising purchasing managers index, or flash PMI, reports, that showed orders declining and inventories of finished goods piling up. It "gave a negative signal about the near future," said JPMorgan Chase economist David Hensley.
In China, declines were much steeper than expected. In Europe, the flash PMI for both manufacturing and services has "given back the modest gains recorded at the turn of the year and is stuck at a level consistent with moderate declines in GDP," he said.
Even Germany's service sector is showing weakness. Germany has been the eurozone's stalwart, as much of the region has been in recession with unemployment around 12 percent. Many U.S. companies, such as Illinois Tool Works, have been noting struggles in numerous markets.
Ned Davis of Ned Davis Research told clients in a report Monday, "one can clearly see the disconnect between stocks and the economy by comparing all-time record highs on the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S & P 500 on April 11, with the barely growing revenues on the S & P 500 over the last year."
He noted that the Federal Reserve's goal of getting stocks, bonds, real estate and commodities to rise and "make people feel better (wealthier)" is working. But the idea is to get people to "spend and borrow more and help the economy. The problem is that the Fed has created one of the greatest stock and bond bull markets in history, and yet, we have one of the weakest economic expansions in history."
The popular belief among analysts is that profits will start soaring at double-digit rates later this year as uncertainty about U.S. budget cuts and payroll taxes ease along with improvement in the European economy.
Davis said the people expecting strong growth "could be right, but I can't see it yet."
Caterpillar bolstered the belief that the global economy could be on its way to improvement. Although the company disappointed investors with revenue and earnings significantly below expectations, Chief Executive Douglas Oberhelman said in a CNBC interview that he was seeing more signs of stabilization in the global economy than he'd seen in years.
That helped to dispel beliefs that the U.S. could be heading toward another spring slowdown in the economy and spring swoon in the stock market. As economic data started to weaken in March, analysts debated why there has been a three-year pattern of strengthening early in the year and then disappointing in springtime. Some analysts think that the recession caused quirks in the collection of data that distort early-year reports and that the economy is not as strong as January suggests. As the slowing occurred in 2012, stocks fell 17 percent but recovered in the fall.
"If the economy has entered another spring slowdown, we doubt it will be as severe as in recent years," said Capital Economics economist Paul Ashworth. "Admittedly, the latest news on employment and retail sales suggests that the economy lost some momentum at the end of the first quarter. But so far that easing in growth has been modest."
Twitter @gailmarksjarvis
Copyright © 2014 Chicago Tribune Company, LLC


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text: Yesterday, I replaced the fill valve in my toilet with a Fluidmaster 400LS, and everything in the installation was going fine until I came to the step that reads "Press down on top cap rotating top & arm clockwise to locked position." Until I did this, I could test water flow by turning on the water supply (covering the top of the valve with an upside-down cup so that water wouldn't spray everywhere.) Water is on and the fill valve is filling up the tank nicely. Then when I rotate the top and arm clockwise about 1/4 turn and it locks into position, no water will come out of the valve. When I turn the top and arm a 1/4 turn in the other direction to one of the other locking positions, I get the same result. I've turned the water on and off many times and fiddled with the cap and the locking position, but have had no luck in solving. I can't find any information about this problem online or in another forum post here. Has anyone experienced this before and have any tips on how to solve? Many thanks.


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Derrick Green made a late charge to finish as the No. 1 running back in our final Scout 300 rankings. Soon, he'll be taking his talents to Michigan. Our Brian Dohn gives you the scoop on Green's skills, recruitment and more.
Check out our entire series of top recruit profiles as we count down to Signing Day:
Jan. 24: No. 12 Thomas Tyner
Jan. 25: No. 11 Montravius Adams
Jan. 26: No. 10 Ricky Seals-Jones
Jan. 27: No. 9 Eddie Vanderdoes
Jan. 28: No. 8 Max Browne
Jan. 29: No. 7 Laremy Tunsil
Jan. 30: No. 6 Derrick Green
Jan. 31: No. 5 A'Shawn Robinson
Feb. 1: No. 4 Su'a Cravens
Feb. 2: No. 3 Jaylon Smith
Feb. 3: No. 2 Reuben Foster
Feb. 4: No. 1 Robert Nkemdiche
High school: Hermitage HS (Richmond, Va.)
Rating: (No. 1 overall RB)
Biggest strength: There are so many to chose from, but balance is the biggest because without it, the ability to do so many other things well would not exist.
Area for improvement: It's bit of a cop-out, but blocking. He's never had to do it.
NFL player he reminds us of: I'm not big on comparisons because it puts a lot of pressure on a kid, but Green is a durable, physical runner who doesn't have elite speed, but that really isn't needed to be success. Just think Emmitt Smith.
Q: His recent commitment to Michigan is a major get for the Wolverines. What went into his decision to ultimately pick Ann Arbor?
Dohn: It's all about comfort when kids chose a school, and Green is no different.
Q: He made a nice jump in the final Scout 300, going from No. 15 overall to No. 6 and the top-ranked running back. What did our recruiting team see in him recently that led to the bump?
Dohn: Green is the complete package when it comes to the running game. He is big, strong, accelerates well and has very good vision and balance. He is creative and he is difficult to bring down. He has quick feet, and his change of direction is very good. He can make subtle cuts and turn a 3-yard gain into an 8-yard gain in a flash.
Q:What are the biggest positives he brings to the field?
Dohn: He can control a game from start to end. He has the size and durability to be a workhorse, and he will enable an offense to control the ball and control the clock. And he is an every-down back, which means on fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line, he should get the ball.
Q: Does he have a shot to get on the field as a freshman?
Dohn: Green isn't going to Michigan to red-shirt. He is going to play, and physically, he is ready to play. How much will depend on his adjustments to college life and how quickly he can pick up a blitz and also block.
Q: Michigan fans are saying goodbye to Denard Robinson, an electric offensive playmaker. Can they expect Green to carry the torch and be the next dynamic star on the team?
Dohn: I don't think Green is an electric player like Robinson, who could throw the ball 60 yards and also score from anywhere on the field with dazzling moves. Green is more of a workhorse back who is appreciated over the length of a game, a season and a career. He can break the big play, but not in the electric style of Robinson. ... But Green does tie his shoelaces.
"Every time I've been to Michigan it felt like home, and that's just the place I want to be. That's where my heart is telling me to be, (where) God (is telling me to be). I sat down with my parents to talk about it and Michigan is just the place for me." -- Jan. 26
Video: FOX Sports Next - RB Derrick Green
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Saturday, February 23rd, 2013 Stories in The Daily Standard
Online Local News Stories
Sex-related charges continue to mount against a suspended Fort Recovery High School teacher. Christopher A. Summers, 33, 671 Woodland Ave., St. Henry, was served Friday afternoon with a 47-count indictment in Mercer County alle . . .
COLDWATER - If St. Henry was going to win a share of the Midwest Athletic Conference boys basketball championship on Friday night, the Redskins were not going be given the win on a silver platter by rival Coldwater. Both teams . . .
Print Edition Only News Stories
• Supreme Court decision will have big impact
• Going global ideas shared to help businesses tap worldwide market
• Strong start helps Blue Jays blow out Panthers
• Celina's fourth-quarter rally falls two points short
• St. Marys knocks off Shawnee
• New Knoxville shoots the lights out
• Indians rally for win in second half
• Local swimmers finish 15th at state
• Three local teams earn berths to state
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text:
Karen Freeman
We started planting our garden, as I'm sure many of you have. Of course, we have probably planted it too early. But, we have that problem every year. When it warms up just a little, we get anxious for "real" spring, so we plant. Sometimes multiple times.
So, then I start looking for recipes for some of the things that we grow. We give away a lot of the produce but we also keep a lot of it. That means that I look for a lot of veggies.
Our first recipe is one of my absolute favorites. I love asparagus. It doesn't matter how it's cooked, I love it. I also save the snapped ends and use them as filler in soups. This recipe uses a balsamic syrup. It's good but a little strong. You can leave it out if you wish.
Recipe number two is a little harder to find in Tarboro. It's baby bok choy. It's delicious but not always easy to find.
The third recipe is for Brussels Sprouts. We are growing them for the first time this year. That means that I had to find recipes. I think you will like the ones I found.
The last recipe is also Brussels Sprouts. These take a bit more work, but not much. You can just cut them in half or you can cut them up more than once to use.
Grilled Asparagus
1 lemon, zested and juiced
Kosher salt
2 pounds asparagus
2 tablespoons olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
In a small pan, over medium heat, add the vinegar, zest and juice of the lemon and a pinch of salt. Bring to a simmer and let the mixture reduce until it becomes syrupy, about 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, warm a grill pan over medium-high heat. Wash and trim the ends of the asparagus. Toss the asparagus lightly with olive oil, and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Grill asparagus 5 minutes, then flip and grill until slightly blackened on both sides, about 4 minutes more.
Transfer the asparagus to a serving platter, drizzle with balsamic syrup and serve.
Baby Bok Choy with Cashews
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 cup chopped green onions, including green ends
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 pound baby bok choy, rinsed, larger leaves separated from base, base trimmed but still present, holding the smaller leaves together
1/2 teaspoon dark sesame oil
1/2 cup chopped, roasted, salted cashews
Heat olive oil in a large sauté pan on medium high heat. Add onions, then garlic, then bok choy. Sprinkle with sesame oil and salt. Cover, and let the baby bok choy cook down for approximately 3 minutes. (Like spinach, when cooked, the bok choy will wilt a bit.)
Remove cover. Lower heat to low. Stir and let cook for a minute or two longer, until the bok choy is just cooked.
Gently mix in cashews. Serves 4.
Brussels Sprouts
1 lb fresh brussels sprouts
4-6 Tbsp butter
1/2 onion, chopped
Salt and Pepper
1 teaspoon lemon juice or 1 Tbsp Meyer lemon juice, fresh squeezed
1/4 cup toasted slivered almonds
Remove any ragged or old-looking outer leaves on the brussels sprouts and discard. Parboil the Brussels sprouts (or steam them) for 3 minutes or until just tender. They should be almost cooked all the way through (split one in half to test). Strain the hot water and place the sprouts in a bowl of ice water, this will keep their color bright green. Cut the sprouts into halves.
Heat 2-3 Tbsp of butter in a large sauté pan on medium heat. Add the onions and cook until translucent, about 4-5 minutes. Add 2-3 Tbsp more of butter and the brussels sprouts halves. Increase the heat to medium high and cook for several more minutes. Salt and pepper to taste, while the brussels sprouts are cooking. Do not overcook! Overcooked brussels sprouts are bitter and are the main reason why some people don't like them.
Remove the pan from the heat, stir in the lemon juice and half of the toasted almonds. Add salt and pepper to taste. Place in serving dish and garnish with the rest of the toasted almonds.
Serves 6-8.
Hashed Brussels Sprouts with Lemon
1 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice, plus
1 Tbsp grated lemon zest
1 lbs Brussels Sprouts
1 Tbsp olive oil
4 teaspoons butter
1 garlic clove, minced
1 Tbsp black mustard seeds or poppy seeds
2 Tbsp vermouth or dry white wine
Salt and pepper to taste.
Place lemon juice in a large bowl. Cut bottoms off sprouts, and discard. Halve sprouts lengthwise. If you are really ambitions, carefully cut out and discard the firm core of each sprout half. Thinly slice the sprouts. As you work, transfer slices into bowl with lemon juice. When all sprouts are sliced toss them in juice and separate leaves. (Recipe can be made to this point and refrigerated, covered, for up to 3 hours.)
When ready to serve, heat oil and butter over high heat in a skillet large enough to hold all sprouts. When very hot (almost to smoking point) add sprouts, garlic and seeds, and cook, stirring often, until sprouts are wilted and lightly cooked, but still green and crisp, 3 to 4 minutes. Some leaves might brown slightly.
Add vermouth, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring, 1 minute more. Turn off heat, add salt and pepper to taste and stir in the lemon zest, reserving a little for top of dish. Transfer to a serving bowl, sprinkle with remaining zest and serve.
Serves 4.
Did You Know?
Vitamin Chart
Vitamin A
Vitamin A prevents eye problems, promotes a healthy immune system, is essential for the growth and development of cells, and keeps skin healthy.
Good sources of vitamin A are milk, eggs, liver, fortified cereals, darkly colored orange or green vegetables (such as carrots, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, and kale), and orange fruits such as cantaloupe, apricots, peaches, papayas, and mangos.
Teen guys need 900 micrograms of vitamin A each day. Teen girls need 700 micrograms each day. It is possible to get too much vitamin A, so be careful with supplements. Don't take vitamin A supplements If you're taking isotretinoin (such as Accutane) for acne or other skin problems. Oral acne medicines are vitamin A supplements, and a continued excess of vitamin A can build up in the body, causing headaches, skin changes, or even liver damage.
Vitamin C (also called ascorbic acid)
Vitamin C is needed to form collagen, a tissue that helps to hold cells together. It's essential for healthy bones, teeth, gums, and blood vessels. It helps the body absorb iron and calcium, aids in wound healing, and contributes to brain function.
You'll find high levels of vitamin C in red berries, kiwi, red and green bell peppers, tomatoes, broccoli, spinach, and juices made from guava, grapefruit, and orange.
Teen guys need 75 mg (milligrams; 1 milligram equals 1,000 micrograms) and girls need 65 mg of vitamin C a day.
Vitamin D
Vitamin D strengthens bones because it helps the body absorb bone-building calcium.
This vitamin is unique — your body manufactures it when you get sunlight on your skin! You can also get vitamin D from egg yolks, fish oils, and fortified foods like milk.
Teens need 15 micrograms (600 IU) of vitamin D from food or supplements every day. Ask your doctor if supplements are right for you.
Vitamin E
Vitamin E is an antioxidant and helps protect cells from damage. It is also important for the health of red blood cells.
Vitamin E is found in many foods, such as vegetable oils, nuts, and green leafy vegetables. Avocados, wheat germ, and whole grains are also good sources.
Teen guys and girls need 15 mg of vitamin E every day.
Vitamin B12
Vitamin B12 helps to make red blood cells, and is important for nerve cell function.
Vitamin B12 is found naturally in fish, red meat, poultry, milk, cheese, and eggs. It's also added to some breakfast cereals.
Teens should get 2.4 micrograms of vitamin B12 daily.
Vitamin B6
Vitamin B6 is important for normal brain and nerve function. It also helps the body break down proteins and make red blood cells.
A wide variety of foods contain vitamin B6, including potatoes, bananas, beans, seeds, nuts, red meat, poultry, fish, eggs, spinach, and fortified cereals.
Teen guys need 1.3 mg of vitamin B6 daily and teen girls need 1.2 mg.
Thiamin (also called vitamin B1)
Thiamin helps the body convert carbohydrates into energy and is necessary for the heart, muscles, and nervous system to function properly.
People get thiamin from many different foods, including fortified breads, cereals, and pasta; meat and fish; dried beans, soy foods, and peas; and whole grains like wheat germ.
Teen guys need 1.2 mg of thiamin each day; teen girls need 1 mg.
Niacin (also called vitamin B3)
Niacin helps the body turn food into energy. It helps maintain healthy skin and is important for nerve function.
You'll find niacin in red meat, poultry, fish, fortified hot and cold cereals, and peanuts.
Teen guys need 16 mg of niacin daily. Teen girls need 14 mg a day.
Riboflavin (also called vitamin B2)
Riboflavin is essential for turning carbohydrates into energy and producing red blood cells. It is also important for vision.
Some of the best sources of riboflavin are meat, eggs, legumes (like peas and lentils), nuts, dairy products, green leafy vegetables, broccoli, asparagus, and fortified cereals.
Teen guys need 1.3 mg of riboflavin per day and teen girls need 1 mg.
Folate (also known as vitamin B9, folic acid, or folacin)
Folate helps the body make red blood cells. It is also needed to make DNA.
Liver, dried beans and other legumes, green leafy vegetables, asparagus, and orange juice are good sources of this vitamin. So are fortified bread, rice, and cereals.
Teen girls and guys need 400 micrograms of folate daily.


text:
The roads I take...
KaiRo's weBlog
Popular tags: Mozilla, SeaMonkey, L10n, Status, Firefox
April 1st, 2014
How Effective is the Mozilla Stability Program?
The Crash Rate
The crash rate is our primary stability measure used at Mozilla. We measure this rate in "crashes per 100 active daily installations (ADI)" or "crashes / 100 ADI". (ADI is the number of daily requests sent by Firefox Desktop and Firefox for Android to update their copy of our add-on blocklist. This value is considered a good enough estimation for usage for our purposes.)
Challenges for a Long-Term Rate
In our daily work, we tend to look at crash rates in terms of short-term changes within a single version, esp. development versions, so we can determine regressions and then dig deeper into what those are. For determining long-term program efficiency, it makes sense though to look at cross-version crash rates instead, so we know how our releases (or betas) improved. So it might make sense to look at all users on the release "channel", i.e. anyone using a stable release. On the other hand, we sometimes have leftover users of old and unsupported users producing a lot of crashes, but those are not really relevant to our current effectiveness of the stability program, so I wanted some way to age out old versions from this overall rate. To take all that into account, I needed some way to more or less "concatenate" the stability rate graphs of a series of versions. Also, people updating to or installing a release very soon after it's published tend to have somewhat different usage patterns than those installing it only after some time and therefore crash rates to those updating late in the cycle, so I needed to find some way to smoothen over that as well and ideally make this into an algorithm that can be automatically requested and put into an SQL query (as the data I base this on is in a PostgreSQL database).
Used Methodology
So, I began to think we could always sum up the crash and ADI numbers of the most recent two releases, or the ones that have the most users. But sometimes we release two adjacent versions 6 weeks apart and sometimes we do a fast update after a week and when the second of those is released, the one before might not have a lot of people updated to it yet so taking only those two might only cover a small portion of users and skew the numbers. So in the end, I decided to go with a moving window that always counts all versions where the builds have been created within the last 12 weeks for the Release channel, and the last 4 weeks for the Beta channel (I had 9 and 3 in the beginning but extended that to make numbers smooth over the impact of the 2-week hiatus we had over New Year's this year). The data we have in usable form goes back to the last few days of September 2011, so that's what I could use for the graphs (I'm trying to get some older data but that is harder to dig out).
Graphs & Discussion
So, here are some screen copies of the graphs I have created out of the data collected with that algorithm (includes data up to March 5, which was current when I originally wrote up this post):
The first graph, with data from the Firefox desktop release channel, shows three lines, as the legend says the include crashes of the browser process, those of a plugin process (the vast majority of the plugin processes are Adobe Flash), and so-called "hangs" where we kill the plugin process after it doesn't react to contact from the browser process for a long time (by default, 45 seconds).
For one thing, you'll see that weekends have higher crash rates than weekdays. This could for example be because the ADI data isn't as reliable/accurate as one would hope or because people using Firefox on weekends do things that are more crash-prone (including work/home usage pattern and possibly machine differences).
In this graph we can also clearly see the results of known stability events in this time frame: For example, it nicely shows the Google Doodle crash of August 2012, where almost every startup of the browser crashed when Google was set as the home page, and where we scrambled to get a fix out in very short time (and Google helped us by putting a workaround in their doodles as well). It's also easy to see a few other sharp spikes where we had ADI (upwards) or crash submission (downwards) issues, as well as the crash-and-hang-rich Flash 11.3 release in June of 2012 and subsequent fixes for Flash, including the concerted efforts between Adobe and us to get down to the old levels with fixes on both sides in May/June 2013. For the most time on the graph, you'll see that the browser crash rate didn't change very much (other than the sharp spikes mentioned). In January of 2013, though, it's possible to see the rise in crashes that caused us to ship Firefox 18.0.2 with a fix for that. Right following that, at the end of February, you'll see the sharp rise in crashes when we released Firefox 19.0, triggered by a bug in certain AMD CPUs, which we worked around by rebuilding and releasing a 19.0.1. Those examples, like anything showing up in that graph significantly and not being a data error has pretty intricate story, any of those could make up a separate blog post.
That said, the fact that we could keep the crash rate pretty much at 1.0 browser crashes / 100 ADI over that whole time (and even slightly improve to just below that with the Firefox 26 release in December 2013) is a statement on how effective the Mozilla Stability Program is on keeping Firefox crashes down even though a whole lot of code has been added to support a ton of new features that the web has gained over that time.
Now, let's see how Firefox Beta looks in comparison:
At the end of 2012, we apparently did manage to improve base level stability of the Beta channel, but you'll see that this channel is more noisy - which is expected as here we still see regressions and work on fixes before the issues hit release. For example, you can see that Firefox 27 Beta regressed stability in December 2013. We fixed that only very late in the cycle so that you don't see 27 being worse on the Release channel, but 28 had other regressions in the beginning and a rather large one in 28 Beta 4 (mid February 2014) - once we fixed that, you see that we come down to the 1.0 line in the last one or two weeks, so that looks pretty good for the 28 release, which was to be released ~2 weeks after the end of that data.
Also, you'll see that the plugin improvements of early 2013 are about 6 weeks earlier in Beta than in Release, which shows pretty well that there were actual patches in our code that helped with Flash hangs and crashes (as our code is on a 6-week cadence while Adobe's releases hit both channels pretty much at the same time).
Now, let's see how the picture looks when we look at a product that was newly created while we already had the mechanisms in place to record this data, like the current "native UI" Firefox for Android:
The early releases had higher crash rates, but we significantly improved over time due to our efforts in the Stability Program. You also can make out that the sharper changes happen pretty exactly at the edges of the 6-week release cycles. Also, you'll see that Firefox 23 for Android in September 2013 was pretty good but we became worse in the following months. Because of that, we started a renewed effort to improve stability of Firefox for Android this January. The current Firefox 27 for Android release is somewhat better than the one before, but it's not where we want to be yet, obviously. We didn't have too much time to pound on issues from the start of the year until 27 was release, but Beta can show us if our newer efforts are pointing in the right direction:
Now this graph looks pretty nice, doesn't it? When we started off putting this product on Beta the first time, we were seeing the usual churn of exposing a new product to a wider audience for the first time, but we burned down the issues pretty well. Then we had a big regression, fixed it, and burned down bugs slowly over multiple months again. The regressions of late 2013 look even more dramatic here as we had even worse issues there but could actually fix the worst parts of those so that the regressions on the Release channel weren't as bad as the first Betas we had there. Many of the 6-week cycles in this graph look like burn-down charts, high in the beginning, going down over the cycle as we push for bugs being fixed. It's also pretty awesome to see how the efforts since the start of this year have really paid off and current Beta is rivaling the best Beta numbers we had so far - you can imagine how I was looking forward to Firefox 28 for Android hitting Release based on that data!
All that said, we know there's more we can do on both products, and while holding crash rates pretty stable over a long time while adding a ton of features is awesome, we strive for improving overall stability. Those graphs are one part of measuring the effectiveness of the stability program. I hope we will be able to put them up in a more dynamic and daily updating form at some point (right now I manually construct them in LibreOffice).
And in case you're interested in digging deeper into the source of the graphs, the code to pull the data from the crash-stats DB is in my crash-report-tools repo and the JSON coming out of that and powering my charts is in my directory on crash-analysis (F*-bytype.json files). Also feel free to contact me for more details.
By KaiRo, at 19:58 | Tags: CrashKill, Mozilla, stability | 1 comment | TrackBack: 0
March 29th, 2014
Lantea Maps conversion to WebGL
Still, performance of the map canvas was not good - on phones (esp. the small 320x480 screens like the ZTE Open), where you only have a handful of 256x256 map tiles to draw, panning was slightly chunky, but on larger screens, like my Android tablet or even my pretty fast desktop, it ranged from bad to awful (like, noticeably waiting from any movement until you saw any drawing of a move map). Also, as it takes until images are loaded (cached from IndexedDB or out from the web) and that's all called asynchronously, the positions the images ended up being drawn often weren't completely correct any more at the time of drawing them. I tried some optimizations with actually grepping the pixels from the canvas, setting them in the new positions and only actually redrawing the images on the borders, but that only helped slightly on small screens while making large ones even worse in performance.
Given what I read and heard about how today's graphics chips and pipelines work, I figured that the problem was with the drawImage() calls to draw the tiles to the canvas as well as the getImageData()/putImageData() calls to move the pixels in the optimizations. All those copy image data between JS and graphics memory, which is slow, and doing it a lot doesn't really fit well with how graphics stacks work nowadays. The only way I heard that should improve that a lot would be to switch from 2D canvas to WebGL (or go to the image-based tile maps that many others are using, but that wouldn't be as much fun). I don't remember all sources for that, but just did get another pointer to a Mozilla Hacks post that explains some of it. And as Google also seems to being moving their Maps site to WebGL (from image-based tiles, mind you), it can't be a really wrong move.
So, I set out to try and learn the pieces of WebGL I needed for this app. You'd guess that Mozilla, who invented that API together with Khronos, would have ample docs on it, but the WebGL MDN page does only have one tutorial for an animated 3D cube and a list of external links. I meanwhile have filed a bug on a WebGL reference so may improve this further in the future, but I started off first trying with the tutorial that MDN has. I didn't get a lot to work there except some basics, and a lot of the commands in there were not very well explained, but the html5rocks tutorial helped me to get things into a better shape, and some amount of trying around and the MSDN WebGL reference helped to understand more and get things actually right.
One thing that was pretty useful there as well was separating the determination of what tiles should be visible and loading them into textures from the actual drawing of the textures to the canvas. By doing the drawing itself on requestAnimationFrame and this being the only thing done when we pan as long as I have all tiles loaded into textures, I save work and should improve performance.
2D Canvas (left) and WebGL (right) version of Lantea Maps on the ZTE Open
As you can see from the images, the 2D canvas and WebGL versions of Lantea Maps do not look different - but then, that was not intended, as the map is the map after all. Right now, you can actually test both versions, though: I have not moved the WebGL to production yet, so lantea.kairo.at still uses 2D canvas, while the staging version lantea-dev.kairo.at already is WebGL. You'll notice that panning the map is way more fluid in the new version and the tile distortions that could happen with delayed loading in the old one do not happen. I still wonder though why it sometimes happens that you have to wait very long for tiles to load, esp. after zooming. I still need to figure that out at some point, but things render after waiting, so I found it OK for now. Also, I found the WebGL app to work fine on Firefox desktop (Linux), Firefox for Android, as well as Firefox OS (1.1, 1.2, and 1.5/Nightly).
So, I'm happy I did manage the conversion and learn some WebGL, though there's still a lot to be done. And as always, the code to Lantea Maps is available in my public git as well as GitHub if you want to learn or help.
By KaiRo, at 01:02 | Tags: B2G, Firefox OS, Lantea, Mozilla, OSM, Web Apps, WebGL | 2 comments | TrackBack: 0
February 27th, 2014
Preserving Software: Emulators
One problem for preserving software is that the original hardware that the software did run on might not survive very long. Some people are still keeping some old machines like C64, Apple ][ and others running, but at some point there won't be many left as the original ones wear out or get damaged, and other hardware might not be usable at any more already at this point. And for sure, those machines are not available broadly to the public. Ideally, we'd have the hardware and recreate the full experience, e.g. how you connected the machine to your own TV in the living room and played or worked with it there - but that is pretty unlikely or at least hard to do, esp. with the hardware being less and less available, as I mentioned.
But there's one way to bring at least part of the experience to users: We can emulate the old machines and let the preserved software run within that emulator. That doesn't give us the living-room-TV experience, but there's a better chance in both preserving that way of running the old pieces of software for a long time and making the experience broadly available. Now, it's not always easy to get emulators running well, but there are a number of projects out there, and we heard about a few interesting solutions in the preserving software event at the LoC, but one was particularly appealing to us as Mozillians.
I blogged about The Internet Archive (archive.org) and Jason Scott already some time ago, and he was it that mentioned this very appealing kind of emulator called JSMESS. What hides behind that name is the multi-platform MESS emulator, cross-compiled into JavaScript via EmScripten, a project that should be well-known here at Mozilla.
Since the event in May, a lot of work has been flowing into JSMESS, and as Jason has blogged about, there are a thousand cartriges available now in the Historical Software Collection of The Internet Archive, and performance is pretty decent within the browser now.
With that, a whole lot of old software is available for everyone, at any time, to try and experience within their own browser!
That's a powerful way to preserve software for the current world and upcoming generations, isn't it?
By KaiRo, at 02:40 | Tags: history, Mozilla, preservation, software | no comments | TrackBack: 0
December 19th, 2013
LCARStrek and Australis
I blogged a month ago about how it may affect my customizations and I have dealt with those to a good degree by now, even though not yet even as drastically as I thought when writing that blog post. As always, more will follow. It took me some time until I switched over actually, as I wanted to keep using my theme, but it was naturally not compatible with such a huge redesign.
But after a lot of hours of my free time in the last few weeks, I have experimental support for Australis working in LCARStrek. The new changes living together with support for pre-Australis Firefox in the same theme require quite a few hacks to have a number of styles only apply on one side or the other. But then, I have been doing theme design for long enough (about 14 years now) that I know a few tricks and could use those - thankfully, there are a few changes in attributes set on the main toolbox, for example.
There's still a lot to be done in this area to fix some details (and I see a painting issue that is triggered in the submenus of the new main menu but is probably Linux-specific and connected to transparency used in the arrowpanel), but the main things seems to work decently now. See this screenshot:
Given that I'm using it every day, I hope starting now gives me enough experience with it that I can deliver a really decent theme when Australis finally will ship, probably with Firefox 29.
By KaiRo, at 23:43 | Tags: Firefox, LCARStrek, Mozilla, themes | 1 comment | TrackBack: 0
December 6th, 2013
Firefox OS DevTreff Vienna
While the local just asked me if I'd go there, the Mozilla contacts had been asked by the organizers for a speaker to open up the event. We were trying to get someone more used to talking about Firefox OS, but everyone's busy this time of year, so in the end we settled with me doing this keynote.
Now, I have been giving presentations on different occasions and events in the last years, but I never have actually keynoted anything, so that made me somewhat nervous. The other talks that were lined up for the evening were about app development, to some part about very concrete pieces of it, so I figured I should give that some frame and introduce people to Firefox OS, starting with why we are doing it, moving to what and where it is and giving a bit of glance onto where we want to take it. So I came up with "Firefox OS: Reasons, Status & Plans" as the title (my slides are behind the link).
The audience was supposed to be about 50 people, I guess 30-35 really showed up (the pictures, taken "in style" with Firefox OS on my Peak, only show one part of the room), but those were an awesome bunch. They were really into the topic, asked interesting questions, and the talks following me were showing that we really had capable developers in the room, from those that do JS in their free time to those who earn their bread and butter by doing apps.
We also had two Mozillians, both of which I had not met in person before, even though I spent a lot of time in this city in the last decade!
As the event was going on, I was often the voice in the room who would have answers from the Mozilla side or could explain our point of view and initiatives - and in quite a few cases, I could loop back to something I said in my keynote. It was really great to see how apparently I had touched exactly on the right things there and gave everything else a good base to build on. Interestingly, there was quite a bit of interest in the DeviceStorage API, probably because accessing local files is something people can refer better to than storing items in-app. I was thankful someone did a talk on our Marketplace and in-app payment API/Services as that's one area I'm actually weak in, but it also sparked quite a bit of interest. The permission model did also get a few questions.
We surely had people with Firefox OS app experience in there, but I think more of those people might pick up web app development, esp. if more similar events come around, which would be cool. And maybe someone should tell them how to do simple apps without larger libraries or frameworks, and explain app manifests in more detail. I hope they will organize more of those and the chance for that will come along!
By KaiRo, at 05:16 | Tags: apps, B2G, Firefox OS, mobile, Mozilla, presentation, Vienna | no comments | TrackBack: 0
November 18th, 2013
Bye, Bye, My Customizations - Hello New Ones?
The illustrations below are from my pre-Australis state (though with my custom LCARStrek theme removed to make it easier to see what the customizations are). I still need to figure out the post-Australis state fully.
For one thing, I like having everything bookmark-like bundled in the bookmarks toolbar. That starts with the home button (that goes to my custom start page), the bookmarks menubutton, and then quick-access bookmark items like a menu with Bugzilla query live feeds and frequently visited sites. All those items, including the home and bookmarks buttons, have the same layout of an icon with text next to it and the same small height. I'm using the home button quite frequently to get to that site, same for the bookmark items, and I'm using the bookmarks list in the menubutton for retrieving sites I rarely visit (so they're often falling off the awesomebar) but want to go to every now and then (say, those sites where I buy karaoke songs every few months - I might not remember the exact name but I know where to find them in my bookmarks hierarchy). Australis removes the text from the buttons and actually makes them larger in height (which would make the whole toolbar higher), so I cannot place them in that place any more without breaking design. I might remove the home button completely and replace it with just a bookmark item pointing to the page, which should do the same job nicely (though the home button might not actually increase height, I need to test that a bit more). For the bookmarks button, I'm not sure. I don't feel like I want it at the right of any bar where it's far away from the bookmarks, and I don't want to size of the bookmarks bar to grow. Maybe I'll also hide it away completely, possibly place it in the "Hamburger" menu, as I don't use the starring feature too much anyhow, and move my whole bookmarks hierarchy to a folder on the bookmarks bar. That might seem strange in the logic of bookmark hierarchies, but it should do the job.
The throbber button at the right of my tab bar and the "Nightly" button on its left need to go as well, so I'll get rid of the former (even though it's an old friend from days gone by - but it's not even available for customization any more), and the latter is being morphed into the "Hamburger" button the right of the navigation bar, it's default location. While we're at the right of the navigation bar, I might think about removing the search field, actually. I find it annoying that it reminds me for hours of the last search I did because its content never goes away, and I do my Google searches from the location bar anyhow - and other searches by first going to the respective site and search from there. Maybe the old "Search Tabs" idea comes along one time and gives me nicer ways to use alternate search engines.
And then, there's add-ons. I have/had the Sync, Lightbeam and Diaspora EasyShare buttons as well as the MemChaser display in my add-ons bar. The Sync button is only showing if Sync is in progress and able to trigger one intentionally, I probably will remove that as I can easily live without it. Diaspora Easyshare might move to the bookmarks or even navigation bar, I'm not using it a lot but it actually looks very handy and I do use Diaspora quite a bit as my only social network. MemChaser will need to go away, unfortunately. It's nice to look at those numbers every now and then, esp. when problems might occur, but there's just no place in Australis where I can place a large and constantly updating thing like that without constant distraction. The bottom border of the screen/window was perfect for that. But OK, I'll probably end up removing or at least disabling the add-on completely. Lightbeam will either go away or move to the "Hamburger" menu - given how rarely I use it, it has no place at the top of my window in primary UI. While I'm at it, it might make sense to go through my add-ons list and do some cleanup there in general.
And once I get a feeling if I can do my work with the new "Hamburger" menu or not, I will see if I'll need to turn on the menu bar again or leave it hidden, like I've had it for a while now - but first I want to see how well the new stuff works for me so I can really evaluate it.
Unfortunately we don't have the capability in desktop FHR to track add-on behavior changes or uninstalls that might come with Australis (mobile has a new format that can track that), otherwise it would be interesting to see if it's just me or if others are disabling or uninstalling add-ons as well with that change.
What changes does this mean for you? Are you able to cope (like me), excited about them, or distracted by them?
By KaiRo, at 20:19 | 9 comments | TrackBack: 0
November 7th, 2013
Internet Archive Fire: Donate to Rebuild
I have blogged about what the archive has and can do a few months ago and I probably will mention it again when I get to more posts on preserving software.
I think it's in the best interest of everyone, esp. us as Mozillians, to keep this organization going and make the history of the Internet and more openly available to current and future generations.
Please help them to rebuild and continue on their way and make a Donation. I will for sure.
By KaiRo, at 19:04 | Tags: history, Mozilla, preservation, software | no comments | TrackBack: 0
November 1st, 2013
Badges for Stability Contributions?
One idea would be to award badges automatically to people who leave their email in a crash report (i.e. a badge for taking part in our efforts by delivering data through crash reports) - but that would probably end up being a bad badge because you' award people for crashing Firefox (and not award people who don't see crashes). We really do not want people to search for how they can crash so that they can get a badge - after all our mission is to avoid crashes, not provoke them. So, no badges for submitting crashes (thanks to Benjamin for pointing me to that issue right away when I was rolling that idea).
So, how can we potentially award a badge for Stability/"CrashKill" work without rewarding bad behavior?
One thing I could think of was "filed x crash bugs that ended up fixed". That should be relatively easy to get out of Bugzilla data and I think there's no doubt that filing bugs that end up with a fixed resolution is a good thing.
This idea would also open up the avenue for different badges for different amounts of badges (similar to the webdev badges), or to create a badge for developers who fixed x crash bugs, and similar things.
What do you think? Which ideas do you have for awarding badges for contributions to the Mozilla Stability program?
By KaiRo, at 18:14 | Tags: CrashKill, Mozilla | 1 comment | TrackBack: 0
October 28th, 2013
Nichtkommerzieller "Location-Service" von Mozilla: Hilfe erwünscht!
Derzeit gibt es nur kommerzielle Anbieter für so etwas, allen voran Google Location Service, aber eine offene Variante öffnet die Tür für Implementierungen, die mehr Wert auf Datenschutz und Privatsphäre legen und trotzdem den gleichen Komfort bieten (z.B. könnte man einen Ausschnitt der Daten für eine Umgebung lokal herunterladen und dann ohne Übermittlung der genauen Daten eine Ortsbestimmung lokal durchführen).
Für so einen Service braucht man jedenfalls die an sich öffentlich einsehbaren Daten über die "sichtbaren" WLAN-Netze und Telefonmasten an verschiedenen Orten. Diese Infos wollen wir über Crowdsourcing gewinnen, und eine "Stumbler"-Anwendung für Android ist verfügbar, die diese Arbeit verrichtet (natürlich sind die Quellen für den Stumbler und den Server genauso offen wie eine API zum Service, wir sind schließlich Mozilla).
Hilfe ist natürlich erwünscht, vom Senden der Daten mittels Stumbler bis zur Verbesserung dessen und auch der Server-Seite!
By KaiRo, at 17:53 | Tags: geolocation, Mozilla | 2 comments | TrackBack: 0
September 8th, 2013
Wanted Apps: Simple IRC
The beauty of this chat service is that it's a really simple and lightweight protocol and there's a ton of different clients to access it, including for example ChatZilla, which is written completely in JavaScript, and multiple web-based clients. The latter would make nice Firefox OS apps, one might think, but their major downsides are that they are all running on the server-side and not really on the device you installed the app in - and their UI doesn't really fit the phone form factor.
Now, what I'd really like to see, though, is an app that runs locally on the Firefox OS device in its entirety, and which has a UI that is useful and nice on a phone. Especially the latter might mean not implementing all the fancy functionality that many IRC clients have, but only those parts required for some simple chatting.
We have the technology to run a full IRC client on a Firefox OS phone with the TCPSocket API, and the simplicity of the IRC protocol would make it a nice reason for someone who wants to play with this API.
The UI, OTOH, would make a very interesting challenge for someone who like UX design, as on a phone, you need to be way more minimalistic, and you probably need to consciously decide what functionality and which elements to leave out, or implement completely differently than what we might be used to.
I'd really love to be able to have an easy way to tell my manager via IRC that I'll be late for a 1:1 while I'm on my way, or be able to make a quick inquiry in a chat channel while I'm traveling.
Anyone up for the challenge?
By KaiRo, at 02:57 | Tags: apps, B2G, Firefox OS, Mozilla | 9 comments | TrackBack: 0


text:
A young college student sitting next to me asked me why I didn't have any turkey, stuffing or gravy. I told her, as anyone who reads this column regularly knows, I'm a vegetarian. Of course, the next question was, "why?"
Already feeling the effects of my pre-dinner glass of wine, I decided to tell her a made-up story of my beginning:
Well, I arrived here from my planet deep in the heart of the Cetus Nebula. It's named after a sea monster in Greek mythology. My space traveling decedents arrived here thousands of years ago. They were searching the universe for a sustainable food source. We found planet Earth and decided to cultivate it. We are vegetarians by nature. We don't believe in killing. Earth's climate was perfect for agriculture and our survival.
When we landed we found a species of man. They greeted us and welcomed us as gods. They called us humans. It's recorded in your bible in Genesis 6:1. "When man began to multiply on Earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of heaven saw how beautiful the daughters of man were, and so they took them as wives." It's this union between man from Earth and proclaimed gods from Cetus that formed what is now the human race.
Like most mixed marriages, there were conflicts. Man was a carnivore. His nature was tribal, territorial, killing and war. He established and lived in an every man for himself patriarchal society; whereas, we lived in a matriarchal and agrarian civilization. Our human nature was sharing, caring and a one for all and all for one society; similar to the differences between today's Republicans and Democrats.
After a few centuries, visiting and teaching civilizations around the world, we returned to our exploration of the universe. However, we did leave man with our knowledge of building, science and philosophy before we left, all of which was destroyed by territorial wars between tribes of man. At least they couldn't destroy Stonehenge or the pyramids.
We also left, written in metaphor form protecting it from those either opposed to our philosophy or afraid of it, as a guide to good health, long life and answers to the questions about the origin of humans.
Pecan pie was halfway consumed when the student said she didn't believe a word I said. But even if she did how could she know if she was "man" or human. I said, "If you can kill what you eat that's the nature of man. If you can't that's human nature directing you toward the menu of vegetarianism.
David Farside is a Sparks resident and political activist.