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Naked Outside
My name's Shannon. As a long-time reader of Lit, I have to say that the stories of exhibitionism make me really hot.
My partner, Ron, and I both read the stories here together. We're both into exhibitionism...but, usually I'm the one going naked while he watches and encourages me.
Sometimes, he joins me, but he prefers to watch me. I've been doing this since we've been together, about 5 years now. Actually, I was doing it before then, but he has really brought the exhibitionist out of me.
I love being naked outside or even in public where people can see me. To me there's nothing more thrilling than walking along naked and being seen.
I particularly love showing myself to couples.
I've been naked so many places that I can't really remember them all: gas stations, movie theaters, parking lots, parks, you name it.
But it never gets old.
I wanted to begin relating my experiences with the first time I went nude outside in my neighborhood with Ron.
We were sitting on the couch getting stoned in the living room late at night. I was already naked because I rarely wear clothes at home.
Suddenly, Ron smiled and said he had an idea.
I asked him what it was, and he just sorta laughed...but I kept pressing him. Finally, he took a hit and blew it out. Then he looked at me and said we should take a walk.
Well, I didn't think too much of taking a walk that late...but then he said I should be naked.
At first, I was kind of shocked. But the thought excited me. My nipples stiffened at the thought of being totally naked outside.
Like I said, I'd been naked outside before meeting Ron, but I'd not actually walked naked through my neighborhood.
As I thought it over, I imagined how would it feel to walk on the sidewalk in front of all the houses with my breasts and vagina completely exposed.
It made me wet.
But, I didn't want to get in trouble. I figured we'd at least bring along something for me to wear just in case...but Ron had other ideas.
Wouldn't it be so hot, he said, if I didn't have anything at all to cover up with...if anyone saw me, I'd have to be naked.
My clitoris pulled at that and I rubbed myself lightly in front of Ron.
I think it was the mixture of being stoned, and the picture of myself being naked out in the neighborhood...along with the pulling in my wet pussy that convinced me.
"Okay," I said, "I'll try it."
Ron knew that I'd shown off before, but he also knew that I'd never gone that far.
I asked him if I could at least wear shoes, but he said that would defeat the purpose.
I was still rubbing myself and growing more excited by the minute...but I also realized that if we were going to do it, we would have to go right then or I would chicken out.
Standing up, I headed for the door as Ron followed.
I opened the door and peeked outside. It was after midnight and the street was dark and deserted.
My nipples hardened severely at the thought of what I was about to do...and I almost changed my mind, but my pussy was so wet, and my clitoris throbbed.
I stepped onto the porch while Ron closed the door.
The cool night air felt good on my skin and it raised goose bumps all over me.
Ron offered his hand and I took it, walking with him across the front lawn to the sidewalk.
I was completely nude in front of the house. It was scary, but so exciting to be naked outside.
I felt the sidewalk with my bare feet as we walked, and every step reminded me that I was naked.
The houses on the street were dark. But I wondered if anyone was watching me through a window.
We started walking, getting farther and farther from the house. Nobody was on the street. We passed under several streetlights, and I looked down at myself.
I was naked and the streetlights made me glow. I thought that someone would be able to see me from far away, even though I wouldn't see them...that was very exciting.
We got about a block from the house and Ron asked if I wanted to go back. He said he didn't think I would really do it.
I was so excited by that time though, and I felt braver, so I said we should keep going.
We crossed the street at a corner and turned left towards the park.
All of the houses were still dark on the street, and I began to really relax and enjoy it. My nipples were throbbing, my pussy was throbbing...I could barely stand it.
Ron rubbed my ass as we walked. That's something that always turns me on, and being outside naked...I was already very aroused. That was just making it worse.
All of sudden, we heard a man coughing. I froze up, but Ron squeezed my hand and said we should keep going.
As we passed a house on our right, I saw the light of cigarette. There was a man sitting on his porch, smoking.
We walked right by and the man said good evening.
I had no way to hide, so I just said good evening back and kept walking.
I could almost feel his eyes on my naked body...it made me so hot that I could hardly breathe, to know that he was seeing all of me...right on the sidewalk.
Ron smiled at me and asked if that had turned me on.
I was so wet that my thighs were sliding together, and I touched myself lightly as we walked, pushing my fingers on my clitoris.
We got to the park without anyone else seeing me, and there was nobody else around.
There was a picnic table in the middle of the park, and we walked up to it...I sat on the table while Ron sat on the bench in front of me.
I was so hot.
We were at least 5 blocks from our house, in the middle of the park and I didn't have anything to wear if I got caught.
My pussy dripped and I started playing with myself right on the picnic table.
Ron grabbed me, and buried his face between my legs. He started tonguing my clit and sucking on it, while I played with my nipples, pinching and pulling on them.
The whole experience...being totally nude, and Ron eating my pussy right in the park made me hornier than I'd ever been.
Suddenly, a couple appeared out of nowhere.
I grabbed Ron's head and pulled him away, and tried to cover myself.
The couple was on the path about 10 feet away from the picnic table, and when they saw us they stopped.
The man asked if I was okay.
I didn't know what to say. I was scared to death but I was also incredibly excited.
Ron didn't say a word, but started tonguing me again right in front of the people.
I looked at them as Ron ate me on the picnic table. At first they seemed shocked, but then, they just stood there.
I didn't know what to do. All I knew was that I was so turned on that I couldn't think.
As Ron touched my clit with his tongue, I started moaning, looking right at the couple. I couldn't stop myself.
Finally, I just gave myself over to it.
Ron sucked and tongued my pussy, licking my clit and running his tongue over my lips. I was shaking and moaning. I didn't care that the couple were watching.
I started moaning louder, jamming Ron's head between my legs, humping my pussy at him.
The couple moved closer until they were right next to the picnic table.
I couldn't believe this was happening, but Ron's tongue on my pussy was going to make me cum.
The woman put her hand on the man's crotch, and started rubbing it as I neared orgasm.
Ron tongued my clit faster as I watched the couple.
Finally, the man unzipped his pants and pulled his cock out. He was hard, and the woman started stroking him quickly.
I was almost there, as Ron ate me...swirling his tongue around my clit.
"Oh god...Ron," I said, and grabbed his head and jammed his face into me.
I came, holding his face between my legs, while watching the woman stroke the man.
She pumped his cock fast and hard, while they watched me cum.
I came very hard, humping my pussy at Ron's mouth and pulling his head to my crotch, wrapping my legs around his head.
He flicked his tongue over my clit, then, he actually sucked it into his mouth...sending me totally over the edge.
I was moaning so loudly that I was almost screaming as I came...I'm sure that if there was anyone else in the park they would have heard me, but I didn't care.
All of a sudden the man groaned and came, as the woman pumped him. He shot his cum all over the ground, moaning and jerking his hips...fucking the woman's hand.
That made me cum again.
By this time, Ron had pulled his head away. I reached between my legs and rubbed my clit hard and fast, masturbating through another orgasm as everyone watched.
I came hard the second time sitting on the picnic table while the couple looked on. The man's dick was still hanging out of his pants.
Finally, after I came the second time, we all kind of stared at each other. Nobody really knew what to say.
Then the woman spoke up and asked if we did that a lot.
I told her it was the first time.
She said it was so hot, and the man agreed.
Then, the man asked if we wanted to meet in the park again sometime.
I looked at Ron to see what he was thinking, and he nodded, so I told them sure, why not?
After all, it had been the most exciting thing of my life.
Then the couple said they had to get going...and we did too.
We didn't exchange names, but we made plans to meet there again on the same night, same time, a week later.
After they left, Ron and I headed home again.
We walked back through the neighborhood holding hands.
Even though I came twice in the park, I was getting excited again.
When we passed the house where the man had been on the porch, we saw that he was still there.
As we went by, he said "nice night for a walk huh?"
I agreed and said it was...as he watched me go by.
My nipples stiffened again as he looked at me.
We walked back the way we had come. The street was still deserted, and I don't think anyone else saw me, but I don't know for sure.
By the time we reached house, I was hot again, and I rubbed Ron's cock through his pants as we walked.
Finally, when we got back inside, we fucked on the living room floor...pretending that we were still in the park and the couple was watching us.
While we did go back to the park at the time we had agreed on, and I walked naked the whole way...the couple never showed up.
We fucked on the picnic table, waiting for them, but finally, we had to go back home.
The man on the porch wasn't there either.
While that was very exciting for me...to walk naked through the neighborhood again, I was kind of disappointed.
But, anyway, our walk to the park, and being seen by the couple and that guy was the first time we did something like that.
Since then, I've gotten much bolder...we go out and I walk around naked in the daytime a lot now...I even masturbate in front of people. Sometimes Ron fucks me while people watch.
But, I'll relate those experiences another time if anyone wants to hear about them.
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- by DMBFFF06/12/18
a nice little CMNF story
By using the CMNF tag, I soon got to JoandJ's favourites, which lead me to this delightful story.
I love CMNF, especially when the female nudity also includes them being barefoot.
(I wonder if a womanmore...
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Anyway, yesterday I continued perfecting my perfect pale ale in the back yard, and today I head north for a weekend of fun. In lieu of real content, I leave you with a fine article in Slate, wherein Brian Palmer does a fantastic job of describing the differences between the cultures of beer and wine appreciation. This is a particularly sharp observation, but the whole article's worth a read:
Ordinary beer lovers actually believe that their opinions matter, and they're pretty much right. Professional brewers show up at home brew competitions to learn new ideas and techniques, and they read Internet reviews to learn what people are saying about their latest release. (I assure you the good folks at Château Latour do not care what some guy in Kansas thinks about the 2010 vintage.)Who sez the MSM can't get beer right? See you Monday--

subset: commoncrawl


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The sculpture of ancient Greece is renowned for its revolutionary depiction of the human body. However, this influential artistic tradition did not just appear fully formed. Ancient Greek sculpture is commonly divided in the multiple phases of development; the three main stages are the archaic, classical and Hellenistic periods, but there is also an earlier stage in which the qualities that would come to define ancient Greek sculpture were already beginning to emerge.
Geometric Period
Greek statuary from the ninth through seventh centuries B.C. features a preoccupation with geometric form. Both human and animal figures were represented as an aggregation of simplified shapes, such as a triangular face on top of a triangular body and ovoid legs. The geometric period exhibits several qualities that would come to characterize Greek sculpture, including fabrication with bronze as well as marble, depictions of myth, an emphasis on clarity and order, and a preoccupation with the human form.
Archaic Period
The sixth-century B.C. archaic period art marks the beginning of a shift toward a more naturalistic portrayal of the human body. One type of statuary that emerges in this era is the korai, statues of women clothed in the draped garments characteristic of ancient Greek dress. Equally important are the statues known as kouroi, which depict naked young men. In addition to having bodies with a more realistic style, the korai and kouroi also tend to be sculpted with positions that express motion and a facial expression that art historians call the archaic smile. Like later Greek art, these statues were painted in vibrant colors that have faded.
Classical Period
The classical period, which begins after the defeat of the Persians in the early fifth-century B.C., is the most well-known of phase of Greek sculpture. It is characterized by dynamic explorations of motion through space, a stylized blend of ideal form and naturalistic portrayal, and the distillation of principles of proportion in works such as Polykleitos' Doryphoros. Other famous works from the classical period include the Riace Bronzes, a lifelike pair of bearded, naked warriors; and the Parthenon frieze, an elaborate depiction of the Panathenian Festival procession.
Brought to you by Sciencing.com
Brought to you by Sciencing.com
Hellenistic Period
The Hellenistic period commences with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. Hellenistic sculpture considerably expanded the range of exploration of the human form, with realistic depictions of individuals across social classes, stylized eroticism, images of violence and raw emotion, depictions of the naked female form, and a proliferation of portrait sculptures commissioned by the upper classes. Arguably the most famous example of sculpture from the Hellenistic period is the Venus de Milo, a second-century B.C. statue of the goddess Aphrodite that expresses sexual allure to a degree not evident in classical works.
- A Companion to Greek Art; Tyler Jo Smith and Dimitris Plantzos, eds.
- Metropolitan Museum of Art: Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History - Geometric Art in Ancient Greece
- Gardner's Art Through the Ages: A Global History - Enhanced 13th Edition, Volume 1; Fred S. Kleiner
- Museo Archeologico Nazionale Reggio Calabria: Bronzi di Riace
- National Documentation Center - Greece Ministry of Culture: Parthenon Frieze
- Understanding Greek Sculpture: Ancient Meanings, Modern Readings; Nigel Spivey
- The Technique of Greek Sculpture in the Archaic and Classical Periods; Sheila Adam
- The Modernity of Ancient Sculpture: Greek Sculpture and Modern Art from Winckelmann to Picasso; Elizabeth Prettejohn
- Greek Sculpture and the Problem of Description; A. A. Donohue
- The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece; Don Nardo
- The Oxford History of Greece & the Hellenistic World; John Boardman et al., eds.
- Greek Sculpture; Nigel Spivey
Photo Credits
- Keystone Features/Hulton Archive/Getty Images


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Intex has launched a new smartphone in India, dubbed as Aqua Q3. It can be purchased online in India with a price Rs. 5,769.
According to the online retailer of shopping indiatimes, the Intex Aqua Q3 features a 4.5-inch capacitive touchscreen display with a screen resolution of FWVGA 480 x 854 pixels. It is powered by a 1.3 GHz quad core processor with 1GB of RAM and runs on Android 4.4 KitKat OS.
The Aqua Q3 comes equipped with an 8 megapixel rear snapper with LED flash and also a 1.3 megapixel front facing camera available for video calling and selfie. The 8GB of internal memory is further expandable via an external microSD card up to 32GB.
Intex Aqua Q3 include connectivity options dual SIM, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, microUSB, A-GPS and GPS. The handset packed with a 1800 mAh battery which is able to provide talk time up to 3-4 hours and standby time up to 280 hours. It measures 131.5 x 65 x 9.5 mm and no word about its weight.
Specifications of Intex Aqua Q3
- Dual SIM (WCDMA+GSM)
- 4.5 inch FWVGA display (480 x 854 pixels)
- 1.3 GHz quad core processor
- Android KitKat OS
- 8MP rear camera / 1.3MP front camera
- 8GB ROM / 32GB expandable microSD card slot
- 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, microUSB, A-GPS
- 1800 mAh battery
Intex Aqua Q3 comes in black and white variant colours, can be purchased in Rs. 5,769 in India.


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Happy New Year and Welcome Back Year 3!
Date: 8th Jan 2017 @ 5:08pm
Happy New Year to you all and I hope you have had a wonderful Christmas with your family. The Year 3 team would like to thank you very much for our thoughtful gifts and cards. My scarf kept me very warm whilst walking along Formby Beach and Staffordshire Moorlands. Mrs Walker said the elephant decoration was beautiful and reminded her of her travels in India.
This week we are spending time on Global goals and Children's rights. Together with Y4 we will be looking at Article 22. See if you can find out what that right is before we talk about it tomorrow. The week will be spent on Geography, P4C, Art, Drama and English linked to this right. Mrs Waddington and I met up last week to plan some exciting lessons on this theme. We are sure you will enjoy them. Each day during assembly each class will have a slot to tell the rest of the school what they have found out and to show them some of the work they have produced.
This terms Takeaway Homework is available to download from this blog and the class page. I will also be sending home a paper copy this week too.
This is only a short half term but we have a lot to fit in. I know you can do it! Make sure to get some rest tonight.
See you tomorrow
Miss Cork


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What a blast being invited to a vegan potluck with the theme of "Russian Food!"
After giving a brief presentation on the history of vegetarianism & veganism in Russia, I overstuffed myself with traditional Russian food, with substitutions for the animal products. You'd never know the difference. It was scrumptious!
Leo Tolstoy:
"Living a good moral life is inconsistent with a beefsteak."
Have you ever had vegan Russian pizza?


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Finnish developer Remedy Entertainment is known for making full-fledged console titles like Max Payne and Alan Wake, but it's stepping into the iOS arena with a touch-based remake of its old racing combat game Death Rally, originally released back in 1996. I got to see the game in action at GDC in San Francisco last week, and I liked it a lot. While it does make use of a virtual joystick (something that Graeme Devine had railed at in his panel earlier in the day), this one's done very well, providing both direction and acceleration to your little car as you race around the game's various tracks.
Remedy worked with developer Mountain Sheep (makers of Minigore) on this one, and the polish and experience on the platform shows. The textures are clear and bright, and the gameplay is very solid. There are five cars to start (with possibly more coming later), and each of them handles differently, from a huge van down to a muscle car. The weapons are also very different, and all of them are upgradeable. Spending money earned after every race can be used to improve your car's stats or push your weapons up to the next level. As you race, you also unlock various challenges, like racing against just one opponent or going around a reversed track, that mix up the gameplay.


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Hogs & Dogs: Week 6
We finally had a decent week of fantasy football. Or maybe that's just me. The NFL, on the other hand, did not. Their product is certainly down from prior years, and that can be seen in its ratings drops across the board. Fans are unhappy with the games, the talent level, the strict rules placed among teams and players, and the amount of fun that the NFL is attempting to sap from the game. We saw it Thursday night when Carlos Hyde scored a touchdown. He ran right up the middle for a 1-yard score and as soon as he crossed into the end zone, the end line referee ran right up to him to watch him and make sure he didn't do any type of "fun" touchdown dance, because you know, those are not allowed anymore. How can fans enjoy this game if even the players can't?
Maybe Odell Beckham was talking about how strict and stringent the game has become when he recently said, "I'm not having fun anymore." Doubtful, but not completely out of the realm of possibilities. The truth is casual fans are just getting sick and tired of the NFL's antics. Who knows though, maybe with the return of Brady this past weekend the league will turn things around. With all this being said, we non-casual fans will be sticking around for the long haul, no matter how much we might loathe Adolf Goodell. And because we're sticking around, we're still here to provide you with some more Hoggies and Doggies, your go-to for starts and sits every weekend.
This is our Wednesday special, our weekly start and sit article that we like to get out to you before Thursday night's games. While discussing starts and sits in Hogs and Dogs, we also sprinkle in some buy lows, sell highs, and contrarian views that might not exactly mesh with what the majority of experts are saying. We like to give you that different perspective on the NFL while also delivering some helpful advice that can translate to your league.
Ryan Mathews – We mentioned him on the podcast and how he is the only one you can trust in that Philadelphia backfield to deliver any sort of consistent results. The Redskins have been constantly pulverized by the run and things should continue that way in week six. They will continue to sprinkle in touches for Sproles, Smallwood, and Barner but as weird as this is to say, Mathews is the only reliable one there until he gets bundled yet again. Start Mathews with confidence and possibly exploring selling high after this week if you want to get out of this weird Philadelphia backfield situation. The only cause for concern here is the possibility of injury, which is par for the course with Mathews.
Jamaal Charles – Well, what a lovely time to return, old friend. Along with Jonathan Stewart and hopefully next week Doug Martin, Charles is expected to resume where he left off in his respective backfield, and that is leading it. Spencer Ware has been bleh over the past few weeks with three fumbles in each game after exploding on the scene again this year, but Charles is an elite back and we all know what he brings to the table. After getting a few touches in week four, Charles had week five to rest up and continue working his way back from his torn ACL. Kansas City is ready to set him free this week on Oakland, where he should run rampant against a defense that allows 27 points and 122 yards on the ground per game. Few are more excited about his return than the Gurus.
John Brown – We've already talked about Michael Floyd in other weeks, but Brown should absolutely feast this week against the Jets. He is one of, if not the best, Cardinals deep threats and going against a defense that struggles at stopping big plays. Brown should have no trouble racking up yards this week especially with Carson Palmer returning to the lineup. Arizona has also had ten days to prepare for this game and it's at home with New York flying east to west for the game. With Palmer back and Floyd still struggling, Brown is a must start this week.
Jeremy Kerley – Kerley and Carlos Hyde are the only two San Francisco players that can actually be taken seriously at this point. Kerley has carved out a nice role for himself and quickly become Gabbert's favorite target. He has now seen 22 targets over the past two weeks and figures to maintain a huge workload because there isn't much else there in San Fran. He's currently on pace for 83 catches for 973 yards and 6 touchdowns. If he can stay in line with his current performance and we take out those duds from the first weeks because he signed late, Kurley can have a very respectable WR3 type of year. Now that he's gotten a good grasp of Chip Kelly's offense and with the possible return of Colin Kaepernick, things are certainly looking up for the former Jet. Even if Kaep never returns to his former self, it's doubtful he can be any worse than Blaine Gabbert. Stash Kerley now if you can, he has some great value this season as a WR3, bye week filler, and possibly more.
Sammie Coates – Coates is a high upside WR3 against Miami but boy his hands are made of stone half the time. Is there a correlation between being a burner and not being able to catch? (See: Ted Ginn, Kenny Stills, Will Fuller, Darius Heyward-Bey, etc.) I will never understand the correlation, but either way, Coates has finally carved out a role for himself in that offense, the Martavis Bryant role. The Steelers' offense is firing on all cylinders so expect a lot of fantasy goodness to come out of Pittsburgh. Coates has put up at least five fantasy points each week this season, so he does have a somewhat safe floor. Miami also has a pitiful defense and they look to be on the downturn yet again this year. Coates almost had four touchdowns last week against what was once a good Jets' defense. Keep an eye on Eli Rogers' return this week as that could potentially have an impact on Mr. Winter-Coates but I still say fire him up this week and expect big things from that whole offense.
Philip Rivers – Not who you'd expect to see here, and just in time for the Thursday night game. Rivers had a great game against Oakland last week putting up 29.36 points with four touchdowns and 359 yards. But, he has to face the vaunted Denver defense this week which looks to rebound after a tough loss to Hot-lanta. Going on a short week, it will tough sledding for the Chargers against a Denver defense that allows an average of 17.4 points and 208.6 yards through the air per game. Denver's defense has also looked susceptible on the ground this year after losing a few key free agents in the front seven. That is most likely what San Diego will target with Melvin Gordon. Expect a ball control, low scoring, physical game that will most likely not play into much fantasy upside for Rivers. I think you play him only if you have to.
Eli Manning – Eli, Eli, Eli. The first round draft mate of the aforementioned Phil Rivers, Eli Manning has got us clutching our collective heads yet again. Young man Joshua Trotta touched upon him already during our weekly league roundup and observations on this week's Trophy Time podcast, and boy did he hit the proverbial nail on the head. Eli has singlehandedly played himself into fantasy free agency with some god awful performances this year. Who would've thought that having the best offensive coordinator you've played under in a decade become your head coach and the addition of a great young receiver in Sterling Shepard would result in back tracking. But yet, here we are, because we all forgot that this was Eli Manning. He should no longer be on any standard league teams as pretty much any other quarterback out there is playing better, this side of Blaine Gabbert. Man-dog is averaging 13.8 fantasy points per game to go along with his five touchdown passes and four picks in five games. Woof. Time to move on until he can show some improvements.
Bilal Powell – What happened to one of the hotter pickups of last week? As much as we might expect the Jets to want to give their younger back some work to spell Matt Forte, that just does not seem to be the case. Powell is better suited as a pass catching, third down type of back and does not offer much running wise, as he has only carried the ball at most four times in a game this year. He is taking some of the pass catching work from Forte as New York finally realized they need to give him more breathers at the ripe age of 30. I believe some people believe he could fill the role left by Forte if he were to get hurt, but I just don't think that's his type of game and therefore I'm not too sold on Powell. He has yet to surpass eight fantasy points in a game this year. At best he is an RB5 right now and droppable in most leagues.
Theo Riddick – Another passing down back that has somehow managed to stay healthy over the past few weeks. Detroit has tried to make him into an everyday running back, but at some point they'll figure out Riddick is not that guy. It was fine when he and Abdullah were splitting that role because it cut the potential of injury in half for both of them, while simultaneously splitting their production in half. Surprisingly, he has yet to get injured this year, but I do think it's on the horizon if the Lions don't cut back on his touches, especially his runs up the middle. His fantasy value will also take a hit now that Detroit has signed former Raven Justin Forsett. Forsett looks to fill the role left by Abdullah and should eventually cut into Riddick's touches and production. Detroit is also playing a very competent Rams' defense this week which can certainly bottle up running backs with their stout front seven. I would sell high on the two touchdown performance if I were a Riddick owner.
DeSean Jackson – Boom or bust is the name of the game with Jackson, and going against his former team is not shaping up to be one of the booms. After an unexpected loss to Detroit, expect Philly and their defense to bounce back in a big way this week. He is only getting targeted six times per game which is simply not enough to make anything out of. A weekly fringe WR3, only play Jackson if you need a miracle from your team, because most likely he'll put up a 2 catch, 46 yard day. Expect Jim Schwartz to make life hell for Cousins this weekend and put an end to the Redskins' three game win streak. Caveat emptor.
And that does it. Good luck this week folks. Remember to send us your lineup questions on Twitter @TFFGurus, @DaFantasyFather, and @TheFantasyBoys. Or shoot us an email at firstname.lastname@example.com or check our Facebook page called The Fantasy Football Gurus. We're here to help you, and if you need more Gurus, be sure to listen to our weekly podcasts by checking out Trophy Time on Google Play and iTunes.


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Due to major neighbouring building developments, we have decided to leave our current premises in Stratford. We feel that these works would impact the quality of the shoots we host, and we wouldn't want this for our clients.
We are currently on the lookout for suitable premises and we'll be taking a little break while we do so.
We are thankful for the experiences we have shared under this roof, and excited about what the future will bring.
Thanks to everyone who stepped through our door. We hope that we helped deliver the fantastic projects you dreamed up!
See you soon,
The Huddle Studios team
Fashion & Beauty Photographer
Although the studio is currently on hold, our in-house fashion and beauty photographer Rossella Vanon is still available for photography shoots and can be contacted directly at www.rvanonphotography.com
Previous Clients Include
ELLE – Marie Claire – Tatler – BBC – BBC Sport – BT Sport – MTV – Women's Health – Urban Outfitters – boohoo – Stella McCartney – Mamas & Papas – L'Officiel – Wonderland Magazine – Attitude Magazine – Sportswear International Magazine – Represent Clothing – Sony Music – Nettwerk Music Group – 99 Souls – Misty Miller – Boxed In – Louis Mattrs – Ravensbourne University – Dundee University – Schön! Magazine – Notion Magazine – Spindle Magazine – Fabulous Magazine – The Sun – Studio Lambert – Young Epilepsy – Mind – Penny Appeal – Newham Council – Rossella Vanon Photography Workshops
Behind The Scenes
East London Photography Studio – Daylight Photography Studio – Fashion Photography Studio – London Photography Workshops – Photography Classes – Photography Seminars – Photography Talks – Fashion Campaign – Fashion Lookbook – Fashion Editorial – Fashion Magazine – Model Testing – Acting Headshots – Corporate Headshots – Music Videos – Album Covers – Portfolio Photography – Product Photography – People Photography – Pet Photography – Filming Location – TV & Film Location – Set Design – Film Production


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Ironically, this turn down in the market and away from high flying growth stocks , may actually help value plays like PRTS
First time on the c call they actually mentioned their developing relationship with Amazon, and Walmart .
U.S. Auto Parts Reports Third Quarter 2018 Results
PR NewswireOctober 29, 2018 U.S. Auto Parts logo (PRNewsfoto/U.S. Auto Parts Network, Inc.)
Third Quarter 2018 Financial Summary vs. Year-Ago Quarter
- Net sales were $69.5 million compared to $73.8 million.
- Gross margin was 27.4% compared to 29.6%.
- Net income was $0.4 million, or $0.01 per share, compared to $0.9 million or $0.02 per diluted share.
- Adjusted EBITDA (a non-GAAP measure defined below) was $2.5 million compared to $3.6 million.
- Ended the quarter with no revolver debt.
Third Quarter 2018 Operational Highlights vs. Year-Ago Quarter
- Conversion rate increased 70 basis points to 2.7%.
- Average order value increased 4% to $85.
- Revenue capture increased 190 basis points to 87.5%.
- https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-aut...200100937.html


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text:
Chelsea Lothrop Photography is dedicated to providing people & their equine partners with timeless, quality portraits.
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Black Creek Community Health Centre, in partnership with local organizations, is leading the Healthy Kids Community Challenge for the Humber-Downsview Region.
The Healthy Kids Community Challenge is all about helping Ontario kids make healthy choices.
Our community is one of 45 across the province chosen to be a part of this special project. That means new ideas and programs are coming to our community – things that make it easier for kids to be active and eat healthier. These are the keys to good health as our children grow up and become adults.
Promoting healthy behaviour among children is important because:
- Children who are obese have a higher risk of chronic disease and premature death as adults.
- Children and youth who are overweight or obese are more likely to become obese adults.
- Obese adults are more likely to have coronary artery disease, a stroke, high blood pressure, breast and colon cancer, type 2 diabetes, gall bladder disease, and osteoarthritis.
- Unhealthy weights can influence self-esteem, social inclusion, and mental health in children and youth.
How does HKCC work?
About every 9 months, the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MOHLTC) introduces a new theme for the program. These themes relate to 2 key factors associated with healthy kids: physical activity and healthy eating.
Check out our NEW Videos: "10 5 2 1 0 - Countdown to a Healthy Lifestlye"
Spanish Subtitles:
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For more information, contact Healthy Kids Community Challenge Coordinator: Myriam Castilla at email@example.com


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Thursday, October 07, 2010
Cleaning House
Here is the Oxford English Dictionary's definition of the word "killer." Note how the first definition -- the primary meaning of the word -- is that of a violent person, a "butcher and a slayer." But a later definition, 7B, relates to skill, particularly musical skill. Note that this connotation of the word was first used in 1979.
Yesterday in class some people seemed to feel that the the phrases "neighborhood women" and housewives" were pejorative, demeaning to the people they defined. The first phrase is just plain hard to read as anything other than a group of women from a certain location. Instead, the authors instead seem to be highlighting the extra-ordinariness of these women who are earlier -- in the same sentence -- described as a part of a grassroots movement, a term used to describe "rank and file members of the electorate." In this case average citizens are taking on the mayor. The word "housewife," however, might possibly seen as a more connotatively charged word -- but certainly not at the time of the events being described in American Pharaoh.
To think of "housewife" (note how the OED definition now says "usually married"; the primary meaning of the word has changed with the time) as carrying negative connotations seems rash to me even today. Many people see the term as value-neutral. If I were writing on the contemporary use of the word without other contextual cues, the most I'd risk is to say that the term might be seen as dismissive to some people. But, in 1959, the year Florence Scala's movement emerged, the word did not carry general disapproval.
In fact, four years later, Betty Friedan, an important feminist and social commentator wrote a landmark book called The Feminine Mystique that helped usher in a new way of thinking about gender roles and social relationships. (Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Anna Quindlen said Friedan's book "changed the world so comprehensively that it's hard to remember how much change was called for").
Friedan says, speaking of "the educated housewife" that "many young women -- certainly not all... feel stifled in their homes...find[ing] their routine lives out of joint with their training" (22). She quotes a male journalist in a widely read magazine (Harper's Bazaar) in 1960 who "joked" that the problem could be solved by taking away women's right to vote! Further "a number of educators suggested seriously that women no longer be admitted to the four-year colleges and universities".
Friedan finds the problem exacerbated in the suburbs. How much so? Check out this quote: "The suburban house is not a German concentration camp, nor are American women on their way to the gas chamber, but they are in a trap "(309). She suggests that "if education has made more and more American women feel trapped, frustrated, guilty as houewives, surely this should be seen as a clear signal that women have outgrown the housewife role" (308). (Italics, hers).
But, this landmark analysis of the "ghetto-ization of women" did not exist at the time of Scala's struggle. As historians, Cohen and Taylor could not have used a phrase like "stay-at-home-mom" as was suggested yesterday because the term did not yet exist. It would have been anachronistic -- out of its time period.
Florence Scala, the Italian-American housewife, would have been applauded by Friedan. Rather that accept the backseat role her society offered her as a housewife, she used her education and her intelligence to take on the most powerful political machine in the country. She didn't win the immediate battle blocking UIC, but she helped inspire a new generation of women who could define themselves rather than accept the narrow definitions of their society.
9 comments:
- Glenna said...
- This comment has been removed by the author.
- October 8, 2010 at 10:41 AM
- Glenna said...
Florence Scala's former role as a housewife got me thinking about what titles actually are. Some titles seem important, like "Duke" or "Doctor" or "President." In some ways though, even the most prestigeous titles are limiting. What if a doctor wants to skateboard? I am a student but I would really like to teach, for example. I'm glad that Scala broke the expected barriers of her title; Chicago is historically richer due to her actions. It inspires me to break the constraints of the terms "student" and teenager." Whether or not someone else limits me to those words does not mean I must do the same to myself. Scala proves it can be done.
- October 8, 2010 at 10:41 AM
- Jenn M. said...
Thank you for bringing this up. I feel like this needed to be addressed. We are not in a time period where such comments are appropriate to be said just on the base that these are women.
- October 8, 2010 at 11:11 AM
- Alex M. said...
I believe women have legally become equal to men, but are socially unequal. That is why in class we hear many sexist comments how the term housewife is a negative description of Scala. I think, the debate over the word housewife has two sides. On one side, (Doc Oct's side) the dictionary shows that the term housewife is a neutral term with no negative connotation. On the other side, (the students) society shows a different light on women as housewives which has a more negative connotation. Both are valid points, but they are on two different levels: the definitional level and the social level.
- October 10, 2010 at 2:06 AM
- Emma said...
I think there may have been a bunch of misunderstandings in this argument. I don't think(?) that anyone was arguing that being a housewife is a bad thing and that housewives are inferior at politics. Florence Scala proved that housewives can be in fact very strong politicians. But DocOc brought up the fact that what made Florence's story all the more fantastic was that the women were housewives, and that made it more powerful when they stood up for their community. Doesn't the belief that Florence's groups' defense of their neighborhood was so unexpected prove that people had some small bias against housewives in the first place?
- October 10, 2010 at 4:08 PM
- Chlo Scho said...
I completely agree with what your saying. If the writers placed an emphasis at all on the fact that her rise to power was fantastic means that deep down they believed that she was an underdog (a redemptive arc if you will). Would her stand have been as amazing if she had been a middle-aged white man? Probably not, but the fact she was a woman and a housewife did make her story a little bit more appealing to the masses, a more of an "At-a-girl" sort of thing.
- October 11, 2010 at 4:21 PM
- Nikita S. said...
I really liked how you brought up an unintentional nuance of this situation, Emma. You posed the question "Doesn't the belief that Florence's groups' defense of their neighborhood was so unexpected prove that people had some small bias against housewives in the first place?" We would not have been addressing this issue in such detail if there weren't specific societal views on the connotations of housewives and women and general. In a way, applauding the fact that Scala's movement was composed of "neighboorhood women" gives us similar attributes as others who believe the term "neighborhood women" has a negative connotation
- October 11, 2010 at 10:53 PM
- Mike Leventhal said...
I don't think that this discussion really has much to do with "connotation". We've spent a lot of time discussing whether or not the word housewife implies anything negative, but that isn't nearly as important as what the word actually means. In 1960, a married woman was unlikely to be employed; and even less likely to be in a position of power with significant political clout. That evidence by itself is enough to make the argument that the passage in question shows that Scala's movement was "not expected to be significant" and "courageous". I'm not sure if the word's connotation, whatever that may be, is as important if we cannot even agree on what it is.
- October 11, 2010 at 11:47 PM
- Doc OC said...
Come on, people, we've been squabbling like a bunch of housewives. Seriously...
Thanks for all the thought you have given this topic. My final words: The question in class did not concern the second class status of women at the time -- which everyone would grant -- but whether the authors of the text cast Scala in a negative light. Did Mayor Daley see Scala as annoying and even as his inferior? Almost certainly. Did Scala's society see her as inferior? In large part, yes. Did the authors, Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor see Scala as an inferior person? Almost certainly not. I find their tone to be remarkably neutral.
As a fun writing challenge, see if you can re-write the passage in a more neutral tone.
- October 12, 2010 at 1:47 PM


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Oh my goodness - how long has it been? Well I kind of have a good excuse. Do you want to hear it? No, it's not the of the common dog ate my homework garden variety. Here it is anyways....
My internet connection went down, down, down a couple of weeks ago. I was pretty pissed I can inform you. Especially because on the morning it disappeared, at the top of my street, there was a Telstra van and a man up to his elbows fiddling about in a manhole. I had the kids in the car and I was running late for school, otherwise I would have stopped, rolled down my window and yelled, "Hey, what are you doing... am I going to have my internet when I get home?"
When I got home, of course, I had NO internet - arhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I had to go out again, but when I returned, my husband asked me if I saw the Telstra man at the front of our house fumbling about in the manhole? Geez louise... no, but if I had of I would have been out there and asking the f**ker where my internet was!
Thus after reporting my lack of internet to my IP and running through all the stupid checks they make you do of your own equipment, they agreed that it was probably the Telstra man who had caused the issue. BUT - just in case, they needed to send out one of their own technicians to review, otherwise I could be billed by Telstra if they came out and found the complication was my fault (for causing a nuisance I presume). The problem with this is they can not give you a specific appointment time or even narrow it down to morning or afternoon - the best you can get is that they will be there on a specific day between eight and four - however they can give you a "courtesy" call half and hour before they will be in attendance! This is all well and good if you are not in the middle of a swimming lesson or further than half an hour from home... therefore my time without internet dragged on another couple of days until I could be at my service providers beck and call!
Oh and would you believe it... they found the broadband service to my house fell short about 600 metres, which is about where I saw the naughty Telstra man with his grubby little hands in the manhole on the way to school. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr bloody grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
The next step was my IP logging a fault with Telstra and that is where a lot of time was eaten up, waiting for Telstra to get off their bums and fix the problem. Of course because I am not a Telstra customer they are in no hurry to do anything!
While I was waiting, not so patiently, I telephoned my IP to check on Telstra's progress. I had a nice chat and discovered that some rogue Telstra technicians, do not check to see if a line is unused before assigning it a new home. There is one MAJOR failing with this, besides being lazy and ignorant... broadband does not have a dial tone and sounds like an unused line and this explains why at least once or twice a year my internet connection goes missing in action!
I should bill Telstra for the nuisance they have caused me. What I do know is next time I see a Telstra technician working in my area I will be stopping, questioning him and getting his name! Far out.... and now that I have written this saga down I will definitely be phoning the Ombudsman for advice before approaching Telstra regarding this whole cock-up.


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Quantum Activist Network
Quantum Activist Network offers two interviews each month with some of the most brilliant social entrepreneurs and visionaries in the world, as well as online audio archives of the interviews, and special Teleseminar Q&A's with these entrepreneurial Luminaries.
Moon Belly Birth
Moon Belly Birth Care offers labor doula, sibling doula and abortion support services for women in the Denver area.
Musical Roots
From Musical Roots website:
The mission of Musical Roots is to preserve musical culture through media such as film, writing, and audio recording, to provide educational funding, materials, and empowerment in the third-world communities we interact with.
In cultures where limited resources often default to males, we have a special interest in facilitating opportunities for girls and women.
Our focus is on sacred, shamanic, folk, tribal, historical, and ecstatic music, and on local and sustainable cultural practices.
Annemie Curlin- Painter
Annemie Curlin is a Vermont based painter whose intimate and fantastical style is inspired by the early Renaissance and focuses mostly on nature, women, and the opposing poles of celebration and catastrophes.
Colorado Youth Advisory Council
Colorado is one of ten states that have created legislative youth advisory councils. The Colorado Youth Advisory Council is comprised of 40 young people between the ages of 14 and 19, and two nonvoting members from the legislature. Members represent the diversity of Colorado's youth, with one member selected from each of the 35 Senate district and five at large members selected to ensure adequate rural representation. The Council meets four times per year, with two meetings occurring during the legislative session. Members serve a two-year term, and may apply for a second term.
Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health was founded in 1977 as the Illinois Caucus on Teenage Pregnancy. As the organization grew, so did its mission, and by 2000, the organization had collected an extensive range of accomplishments in the fields of child welfare, adolescent workforce development and welfare reform, in addition to its work on adolescent health.
Source Tree Commons
SourceTree Commons is the next generation platform for supporting open source software development, more than a code repository. They are building a community to support open source collaboration and here's just a bit of what makes us different:
* SourceTree is open source. They want geeks to do what they do best - build cool stuff. And they think the platform to support development should be open for improvement as well.
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Grow Local is a new project developed by community leaders, gardeners, locavores, farmers and businesses to help more people grow more food locally. This website is a resource hub for information, expertise and partnership in establishing your own food garden in your home, business, or public space
Mile High Business Alliance
The Mission of the Mile High Business Alliance is to build better community through better business. We help people find and support local business, and are building an alliance of local businesses who are working together to build a stronger local economy - sharing best practices, doing business together, and helping each other compete against non-local business. We're not about 'business as usual,' but are local entrepreneurs and community members who are designing, influencing and building what's next.
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Denver is home to many unique neighborhoods, with locally owned shops and restaurants not found anywhere else. Local Flavor Guides™ are full color, easy-to-carry brochures that feature one-of-a-kind Denver businesses just waiting to be discovered. Great for locals and visitors alike! Local Flavor Guides™ are a project of the Mile High Business Alliance, a Denver-based organization committed to strengthening local business.


text:
The goal of ALMA is an array of 64 antennas of 12 meters diameter.
the increased
scientific opportunity that such an array presents over the existing MMA
and LSA
concepts, both
the U.S. MMA scientific advisory committee (the MAC) and the European
LSA scientific
advisory committee (the SAC) have consistently endorsed the merger of
the two
projects. While
each side will be entitled only to half the time on the ALMA, that half
provides a
net increase in
capability. ALMA is an example of a partnership of augmented benefit to
The MOU signed June 10 commits both sides to a common design and
phase for
ALMA. There is a stated intent of both sides to continue to the
construction phase
of ALMA,
but no such commitment to do so--at least not yet.
The MOU sets up an organization and oversight structure for ALMA.
The top level
of that
organization is the ALMA Coordination Committee (ACC), a board of twelve
half of
whom are European appointees and half are appointed by the NSF. Under
this Board is
ALMA Executive Committee (AEC)two managers from the LSA and two
from the
are charged with defining and managing the ALMA Design and Development
work program.
AEC has until October 10, 1999, to present that work plan to the ACC for
approved, the AEC will implement the plan. On or before May 2000 the
AEC is to
submit to the
ACC a draft of the construction and management plan for ALMA. In the
succeeding six
the NSF and the European institutions will negotiate their commitments
to that plan.
If all goes
well, construction will begin in 2001, just as has been planned for the
MMA with no
The U.S. side of ALMA will be the MMA Project renamed to ALMA/US but
unchanged. In particular, ALMA/US will remain an integral facility of
the NRAO
identical in all
institutional respects to the VLA, VLBA, and the GBT. The
Millimeter Array
Development Consortium (MDC) will remain in the management structure of
ALMA/US and
contribute, as previously planned, throughout the development,
construction, and
phase of ALMA.
R. L. Brown
The meeting will be held October 6-8 in Washington, D. C. The purpose
of the
conference will be
to highlight the science that this powerful world array will accomplish,
particular focus on:
It will begin with a reception and demonstration for members of
Congress in the
House Science
Committee Room of the Capitol at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, October 6, 1999.
Lectures and posters will be presented at the Carnegie Institution of
1600 P St. NW
on October 7 and 8. Accommodations have been arranged at the nearby Omni
for the period including the nights of October 5 through October 9.
Information on reserving a
room at the special Associated Universities rate is at the web site.
The room block
will be closed
on August 20, 1999.
A press conference will begin the proceedings, to explain the world
to the media.
This will be held in the Board Room of the Carnegie Institution of
Washington at 8
a.m. on
October 7.
The conference will be organized and hosted by Associated
Incorporated and the
National Radio Astronomy Observatory.
Invited speakers include; Sargent, Blain, Guilloteau, Scoville,
Genzel*, Dutrey, Boss,
Mundy, Jewitt, van Dishoeck, Menten, Evans, Fukui, Plambeck, Andre,
Olofsson, Tielens, Shu, and Millar. (*= tentative).
Science with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array will be limited to
participants. Information
on the conference will be posted on the Millimeter Array web
site with the
H. A. Wootten
The transferral of the load of the reflector backup structure (BUS)
from the
temporary supports
to its permanent supports have been a long process. The contractor,
prolonged the
operation when, in an effort to save time, removed the temporary
supports out of the
sequence. This caused an unanticipated redistribution of loads, causing
some back
chord members
to bend and causing one to buckle. The contractor has since restored the
BUS to its
configuration, performed an engineering analysis to determine why the
occurred, and
developed a procedure/method for transferring the loads, which was then
The shape of the structure was checked after the temporary supports
were removed,
and the
weight of the BUS was carried by the permanents. The position of the
actuators was
found to
vary by only a small amount from the dimensions measured when supported
by the
Installation of the Vertical Feed Arm & the Upper Feed
Arm -
The photograph in the
previous Newsletter showed the Vertical Arm complete through modules H.
Since then,
members of the VFA module M were bolted to the Upper Feed Arm, and the
Upper Feed
was trail assembled to the structure made up of modules K and L, on the
ground. This
trial went
well, and preparations for the lift of K and L were completed. Lifting
of modules
was delayed
while their alignment was checked and confirmed, but on June 2 the
modules were
raised into
place. Placement of the fill-in members which create the bridging module
J is
complete and their
welding is in process. The telescope is shown in the figures (as of June
10). It is
now planned to
raise the Feed/Receiver Room late in June. Beginning in mid-July, the
Upper Feed Arm
will be
raised and connected into place.
Servo - The structure was rotated in elevation for
the first
time on May 19, 1999, when it was
moved 12 degrees to position it for the installation of the middle
portion of the
Vertical Feed
Arm. This important test was carried out using the portable maintenance
unit (PMU)
to control
the elevation motion. Both motor current and voltage were monitored,
and all
movement of the
structure was smooth, silent, and without vibration. All eight
elevation motors
were used. Motor currents were predicted accurately by the analysis of
out-of-balance and motion was readily controlled to 1/50 of an inch.
Surface Panels - Measurement of GBT panels is
continuing at the
RSI facility in Sterling, VA.
NRAO inspections are of two types. In one, surface accuracy of the
unpainted panels
is analyzed
on the basis of measurements provided by the manufacturer, and a number
of panels
selected by
NRAO from the tier under review are measured again, with NRAO witnessing
If it is determined that the measurements agree with those provided by
manufacturer, and if
the table of measurements for the tier shows that the entire tier is
within the
accuracy specified in
the contract, then the panels of a tier are accepted. By May 25, 1188
panels (59
percent of the
total of 2,004) from 22 tiers passed this requirement. The second type
inspection involves
painted panels. As before, selected panels of a given tier are
inspected, and all
panels must pass
scrutiny for the tier to be accepted. For the sample selected, the paint
is measured at
many positions using a gauge provided by NRAO.
R. D. Hall and D. E Hogg
Nine of the twelve ground rangefinders were mutually scanning and
ranging to one
another. A
pair of rangefinders also ranged to a fixed target retro-reflector 1.3
km distant
from the GBT,
while a second rangefinder pair ranged to the single ball
retro-reflector mounted on
the GBT feed
arm. A complete set of range samples (AZ range pairs) was taken every
two minutes,
for a total
observation time of four hours. Temperature, barometric pressure, and
humidity data
inputs from multiple stations were logged for each set of range scans.
A laser target acquisition control algorithm developed by Ramon
Creager was
operational, to
electronically locate and lock the rangefinders onto their targets
before the
evening's scans started.
The range, data, and electronic rangefinder diagnostic's data, were
logged and
plotted during the
measurement run. The diagnostic's data consist of received beam signal
and return signal
phase, and atmospheric data. A large data set was obtained, which will
be analyzed
by Don Wells, and by the antenna metrology group, to obtain accurate
measurements of
rangefinder locations.
In the next two months, the last three rangefinders will become
pending running of
cables through the recently installed conduits. Additional target
will be placed on
the telescope. At that time a complete test of the ground rangefinder
system will be
M. A. Goldman & R. H. Hall
Howard E. Tatel worked for the Carnegie Institute Department of
Magnetism (DTM)
in the 1950s and collaborated with the Blaw-Knox Company of Pittsburgh
to design a
for DTM. Blaw-Knox had also received telescope orders from NRAO, the
University of
Michigan, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Tatel's concept used large
gears for the
two axes to provide high precision at relatively low cost. Bob Hall, who
is now the
GBT project
manager, was then manager of the antenna division at Blaw-Knox. He
expanded Tatel's
generated a practical working design, and supervised the construction of
telescopes. Tatel
died on a field trip in 1957 and never saw the completion of his
telescopes. 85-1
was dedicated in
October of 1958, and named in his memory.
The telescope began continuous operation in April of 1959. Fred Crews
recalls (in
Observer," March 31, 1964) that the first observations were done on
February 13, 1959.
"Initially there were only two operators (Fred Crews and Bill Meredith),
who worked
12 hour
shifts, keeping the telescope going 24 hours a day except for weekends
when the
scientists did
their own observing."
The year 1999 is a significant 40th anniversary not only because the
Telescope began
regular use, but also because the first scientific results were obtained
in 1959, as
a result of the
completion of the Tatel. According to the first NRAO annual report (July
1959), the
astronomers in 1959 were David Heeschen and Frank Drake. (It is thus
appropriate that
Frank Drake was chosen as the Jansky Lecturer for this year.) Visiting
in 1959
included George Field, Hein Hvatum, T. K. Menon, Donald Osterbrock,
Grote Reber,
Roberts, and Gart Westerhout.
The first receivers were for bands at 440 MHz, 1.1-1.5 GHz, and 8
GHz. The
first observing
programs included studies of the planets Jupiter and Venus (Drake), the
detailed maps of the
Galactic center (Drake), attempts to detect 21 cm line emission in
globular clusters
(Roberts), and
multi-wavelength studies of supernova remnants (Heeschen). Menon
studied the
Cygnus loop
and the Orion nebula, Field observed Cygnus A, Heeschen surveyed spiral
elliptical galaxies.
Drake's famous project OZMA was started in 1959.
Today the Tatel Telescope is still in continuous use as part of the
Green Bank
now funded partly by NASA for studies of x-ray and gamma-ray binary
Fred Crews concludes, in the 1964 Observer article,
"The 85 Foot Tatel
Telescope has now been
in operation for five years. Its life expectancy is 20 years." But
today, in 1999,
the telescope has
been productive for twice its expected lifetime, thanks to Howard
Tatel's initiative
and Bob Hall's
rugged design. How many of us can say the same?
F. D. Ghigo
The first attempts to use the 140 Foot for VLBI observations were in
1967. The first
fringes found with the 140 Foot were detected on March 5/6, 1967 with a
baseline of
650 meters
between the 140 Foot and the Tatel Telescope (85-1). These observations
used the
Mark I
recording system and 720 kbps recording onto 7-track tapes. In June
1967 the first
between the 140 Foot and an antenna at another observatory (Haystack)
obtained. The first
transcendental fringes were found in July 1967 using the 140 Foot and
the 26 meters
Hat Creek. The first intercontental fringes were found using the
140 Foot, Haystack, Hat Creek
and Onsala. The first fringes found with an antenna in Russia also used
the 140
The 140 Foot has made many notable VLBI observations. The first real
fringes in VLBI
observations were found using satellite communications to relay the IF
and LO
signals between
the 140 Foot and Algonquin Radio Observatory in the mid-1970s. The 140
Foot was one
of five
telescopes dedicated to the first VLBI network organized in 1976. The
140 Foot,
Haystack, and
Hat Creek were used to make the first VLBI images of an OH maser. The
measurements of
pulsar parallaxes were made using the 140 Foot, Arecibo, and
Owens Valley. The
140 Foot has
recorded with nearly all types of recording systems - Mark I, Mark II,
Mark III,
VLBA, and S2
The last VLBI observations with the 140 Foot were a part of a monitoring program for source 1928+738 as a part of a network including HALCA, the Japanese Space VLBI satellite. The investigators were D. W. Murphy (JPL), J. E. Conway (Onsala), A. Polatidis (Onsala), R. A. Preston (JPL), S. J. Tingay (JPL), D. L. Jones (JPL), D. L. Meier (JPL), H. Hirabayashi (ISAS), H. Kobayashi (ISAS), and Y. Murata (ISAS).
A. H. Minter
|b| < 5, l = -15 to 255. These images have 11.17\ arcm and
7.25\ arcm
FWHM resolution at
8.35 and 14.35 GHz respectively. These observations used the NRAO/NASA
Green Bank
Earth Station to survey the sky simultaneously at these frequencies.
The first survey, GPA, covers 0.82 sr (6.5 \ %) of the sky. The
survey is
sensitive to discrete
galactic and extragalactic sources. A source list is presented for all
599 sources
brighter than
0.9 ~ Jy at 8.35 GHz or brighter than ~ 2.5 Jy at 14.35 GHz.
The FITS format images, residual
images, source lists, and archive data are all
available at http://www.gb.nrao.edu/~gla
G. I. Langston & A. T. Minter
Observatory-wide, funds in the computer budgets are tight this year.
However, we
have sufficient
resources to upgrade the main Unix server (Arcturus). In addition, we
will be able
to replace five
of the older public Suns with PCs running Linux.
The projection system in the new Green Bank auditorium is a very
flexible one
based on NTSC.
For use with today's computer graphics, however, it does not have
resolution, as was
clear during two GBT meetings last year. We have purchased a dedicated
improved resolution and brightness to use for computer-based
G. C. Hunt
Once again, we worked with local seventh grade students on a six-week
entitled "Our Place in the Universe." This year, all Green Bank seventh
spent the night at
the Observatory conducting research projects on The 40 Foot
using our library and
interacting with staff astronomers. At the conclusion of their project,
presented their findings
during a colloquium held at the NRAO. This kind of "extended visit" by
students was
much more
popular this year. Since January 1999, nearly 700 students (from grade
5 through
astronomy students) have participated in research activities at the
In May, we began our workshop series starting with Glenville State
students. Preservice
teachers enrolled in the methods course at GSC spent the first week of
semester at the
NRAO . This field experience was essentially a compressed version of our
institutes. Teams of students conducted research using The 40 Foot
Telescope and
interacted with
scientist "mentors" who assisted them with their projects. As the course
back at the
college, students designed a classroom research project, and
field-tested it in a
K-12 classroom.
Also in May, NRAO-Green Bank hosted a three-day Chautauqua Short
Course entitled
"A Radio
View of the Universe." The Chautauqua Short Course Series is an NSF
designed to update undergraduate college faculty members' knowledge in
research and teaching. A record 35 professors attended the course this
year. In
University of Hawaii astronomer, Gareth Wynn-Williams, led a short
course at the
entitled "Teaching Introductory Astronomy." The two NRAO workshops are
so that participants can attend both, if desired.
The last two weeks of June brought 16 in service teachers to the
Observatory for
the "RARE
CATS" Research Institute. RARE CATS (a rather tortured acronym) stands
for Radio
Astronomy Research Enhancing Coordinated and Thematic Science, where
CATS is the
given to the new West Virginia Science Curriculum. For two weeks
participants gain
first hand
experience in conducting science research and improve their content
knowledge in
Project RARE CATS is a two-year summer/academic year program for
During a
second summer, participants return to Green Bank for the "Hands-On
Hands-On Universe (HOU) is an image processing software package that
teachers and
students to analyze FITS format astronomy images. The software and
curriculum were
at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the University of
California at
Berkeley. Two
HOU institutes are scheduled for this summer. The first of these took
following the June RARE CATS program. Participants in the HOU institute
obtain a
site license
for the software as well as a set of curriculum materials.
And finally, to bring you up to the present, the National Youth
Science Camp will
visit the
Observatory during the second week of July. First, a small group of
students will
camp overnight
at The 40 Foot Telescope and make observations all night long. The
entire NYSC
delegation will
visit for a tour of the GBT on July 8. This event coincides with a
visit to the
site from Senator
Robert C. Byrd (D-WV). Senator Byrd will address NRAO staff and the
Science Camp
delegation, and then join them for a tour of the GBT.
S. A. Heatherly
In June, new piggyback boards were installed on all VLA correlator
cards in order
to achieve an
expanded delay range of more than 800 microseconds for all antennas.
These boards
will enable
observing anywhere in the sky, allowing compensation for the sum of the
link delay
and the
geometric delay, which has a maximum value of approximately 670
microseconds. The
correlator has been operating with this new hardware since June 2; the
change is
transparent to observers. Test observations on the VLA Pie Town
link using
all four IFs are
planned for late July and throughout August, with a goal of obtaining
preliminary scientific
observations before the end of A configuration in late September.
J. S. Ulvestad
We have concluded the installation of the Pentium II 400 PCs running
the Linux
system. It appears that in the current year we will not be able to add
more than
one or two of
these systems. After almost one year of supporting this class of
machines we
conclude that
Pentium based PCs running Linux are a good and fast alternative to
Over the next three months we intend to start upgrading our Solaris
and Linux
operating systems.
Late this summer the AOC should begin upgrading all Linux systems to
RedHat 6.1 and
all Sparc
systems to Solaris 2.6 or 2.7. The upgrades are necessary for Y2K
compliance as
well as third
party software compatibility.
We are currently testing JOBSERVE internally at NRAO. JOBSERVE is a
written in Java
by Bill Cotton. It allows preparation of VLA OBSERVE files and will
OBSERVE. Advantages of JOBSERVE over old OBSERVE include its operating
system and
keyboard independence and its graphical user interface. We also intend
to add the
possibility to
create OBSERVE files for VLA observations which include the antenna at
Pie Town. We
to announce the first public release of JOBSERVE later in 1999.
As part of the VLA online system upgrade and rewrite we have begun to
connect the
monitor and control system to a VME/VxWorks computer system.
Requirements documents
the VLA Expansion have been started, and a first draft of the computing
plan for the
Expansion has been written.
G. A. van Moorsel
|Starting date
|Ending date
|Proposal Deadline
|18 Jun 1999
|27 Sep 1999
|1 Feb 1999
|08 Oct 1999
|25 Oct 1999
|1 Jun 1999
|29 Oct 1999
|14 Feb 2000
|1 Jun 1999
|25 Feb 2000
|14 Mar 2000
|1 Oct 1999
|18 Mar 2000
|30 May 2000
|1 Oct 1999
|09 Jun 2000
|26 Jun 2000
|1 Feb 2000
|30 Jun 2000
|18 Sep 2000
|1 Feb 2000
The maximum antenna separations for the four VLA configurations are:
A-36 km,
B-11 km, C-3
km, D-1 km. The BnA, CnB, and DnC configurations are the hybrid
configurations with
the long
north arm, which produce a round beam for southern sources (south of
about -15
declination) and extreme northern sources (north of about 80 degrees
Observers should note that some types of observations are
significantly more
difficult in daytime
than at nighttime. These include observations at 327 MHz (solar and
interference; disturbed
ionosphere, especially at dawn), line observations at 18 and 21 cm
polarization measurements at L band (uncertainty in ionospheric rotation
observations at 2 cm and shorter wavelengths in B and
A configurations
(tropospheric phase
variations, especially in summer). They should defer such observations
for a
configuration cycle to
avoid such problems. In 2000, the C configuration daytime will be
02h RA and the
D configuration daytime will be about 10h RA.
Time will be allocated for the VLBA on intervals approximately
corresponding to
the VLA
configurations, from those proposals in-hand at the corresponding VLA
deadline. The
VLBA spends about half of available observing time in coordinated
observations with
networks, with the scheduling dictated by those networks. In decreasing
order of
the time
devoted to the observations, these are HALCA space VLBI, Combined
Millimeter VLBI
Global astronomical VLBI with the EVN, and geodetic arrays coordinated
by GSFC.
Any proposal requesting NRAO antennas and antennas from two or more
with the European VLBI network is a Global proposal, and must be sent to
the EVN
scheduler as
well as to the NRAO. VLBA proposals requesting only one EVN antenna, or
unaffiliated antennas, are handled on a bilateral basis; the proposal
should be sent
both to NRAO
and to the operating institution of the other antenna requested.
Coordination of
observations with
non-NRAO antennas, other than members of the EVN and the DSN, is the
of the
B. G. Clark
J. E. Hibbard
Students or their faculty advisors interested in taking advantage of
visiting program should
contact firstname.lastname@example.com, firstname.lastname@example.com, or firstname.lastname@example.com.
J. M. Wrobel, J. S. Ulvestad
Beginning early in 2000, the pool of proposed observations
recommended by the
VSOP Science
Review Committee will be exhausted, although some could not be observed
until as
late as
mid-2000 due to orbit evolution. New proposals for VSOP observations
will thus be
required in
the next few months. NRAO has requested that these proposals be
submitted and
through the same mechanism used for VLBA and global ground-based VLBI
all proposals requesting VLBA resources thus being reviewed jointly.
This new
procedure and
details for implementing it, are under consideration by the VSOP mission
and the
International Steering Committee (VISC). It is hoped that a decision
can be reached
in time for
new proposals to be submitted by 1999 October 1, so that some of
these can
start being observed
by 2000 January 1. Further information will be available as soon as
through the VSOP
Newsletter, the "vlbi" e-mail list, or from the undersigned.
The VSOP mission has announced a symposium on "High "Energy
Revealed by Space-VLBI," to be held at ISAS January 19-21, 2000. The
program is
expected to
include the following topics: high brightness temperature sources;
variables; GeV and
TeV gamma-ray sources; GHz-peaked-spectrum sources; structural changes
revealed by
monitoring; survey programs; and future prospects for Space VLBI. The
includes an Expression of Interest form due by July 30, 1999 may be
accessed at URL
J. D. Romney
The primary new service that is being offered is a complete
scheduling and
service, where the calibration includes all aspects of amplitude and
fringe (delay,
delay-rate, and
phase) calibration. The user would receive a complete, calibrated data
set suitable
for imaging
and self-calibration. An additional service providing the actual
imaging is also
available on
request; since the method of imaging may depend quite strongly on the
goals of a
particular project, this service will be negotiated on a case-by-case
Initially, these new services are being offered on a trial basis for
one year,
and are restricted to
relatively straightforward projects until more experience is gained in
balancing the
needs of the
users with the load on NRAO staff. The eligible projects will be
including no more than ten source-frequency combinations in the
frequency range
between 1.4
and 15 GHz. The services may also be requested for observations at 22
GHz; these
requests will
be filled if the demand and the staff load permit.
Calibration and/or imaging services can be requested at the time of
preferably by checking the appropriate box on the new proposal cover
(available at
.edu/html/headquarters/vlba-gvlbi.html), by making a request
directly in the
body of the proposal, or by direct request to Jim Ulvestad at
J. S. Ulvestad
|Proposals Due
|09 Sep to 30 Sep 1999
|6 cm, 5 cm?, 18 cm, UHF
|01 Feb 1999
|12 Nov to 03 Dec 1999
|6 cm?, 5 cm?, 18 cm, 1.3 cm
|01 Jun 1999
|10 Feb to 02 Mar 2000
|6 cm, 18 cm, other?
|01 Oct 1999
|25 May to 15 Jun 2000
|6 cm, 18 cm, other?
|01 Feb 1999
The bands above marked with a question mark have been suggested, but
the final
choice has not
yet been made.
It is recommended that proposers use a standard cover sheet for their
Fill-in-the-blanks TeX files are available by anonymous ftp from
proposal or via the VLBA home page on the web. Printed forms, for
filling in by
typewriter, are
available on request from Lori Appel, AOC, Socorro.
Any proposal requesting NRAO antennas and antennas from two or more
in the
European VLBI network constitutes a Global proposal. Global proposals
MUST reach
Network Schedulers on or before the proposal deadline date; allow
sufficient time
for mailing. In
general, fax submissions of Global proposals will not be accepted. The
correlator will be
used for some EVN only observations unsuitable for the Bonn correlator
until such
time that they
can be processed with the JIVE correlator. Other proposals, not in EVN
requesting use
of the Socorro correlator must be sent to NRAO even if they do not
request the use
of NRAO
antennas; proposals for the use of the Bonn correlator must be sent to
the MPIfR if
they do not
request the use of any EVN antennas.
For Global proposals, or those to the EVN alone, send proposals to:
R. Schwartz Max Planck Institut fur Radioastronomie Auf dem Hugel 69 D 53121 Bonn, Germany
For proposals to the VLBA, or Global Network proposals, send proposals to:
Director, National Radio Astronomy Observatory 520 Edgemont Road Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475 USA.
Proposals may also be submitted electronically, in Adobe Postscript
format, to
email@example.com or firstname.lastname@example.com, respectively. Care
should be
taken to
ensure that the Postscript files request the proper paper size.
B. G. Clark
B. G. Clark
The NRAO hosted a topical session entitled "High Angular Resolution Science with the NRAO Very Long Baseline Array" at the Centennial Meeting (30 May - 3 June 1999) of the American Astronomical Society in Chicago. This event included an all-day series of oral papers, a poster session, a press reception, press conference, and a VLBA-specific promotional display.
Throughout the AAS meeting, a specially-prepared NRAO display on the exhibit floor showcased some highlights of research done with the VLBA in its first five years of full operation. The display also emphasized the capabilities of the VLBA, as a reminder to users and hopefully as an enticement to astronomers who have not yet used the VLBA. NRAO announced new services for novice U.S. users at this meeting, and a handout provided at the display outlined those services. (See article by J. Ulvestad).
On Monday evening (May 31), AUI hosted a very successful reception for the press, in which NRAO scientists and our invited speakers for the topical session met with science journalists covering the meeting. Tuesday, June 1, saw a poster session that presented many exciting research results from the VLBA. The discussions around the posters were animated and drew many visitors and interested, non-expert VLBI users.
With so many excellent research results presented at the two VLBA sessions, NRAO hosted a press conference to highlight some of those results as well as to review the VLBA's major research accomplishments over the past several years. The geometric measurement of the distance to NGC 4258 by J. Herrnstein et al., received the most press coverage, with stories appearing in the New York Times and numerous other newspapers through wire reports by the Associated Press and Reuters. The story also appeared on numerous web news sites, including CNN and ABC.
Nearly 100 science journalists from around the world attended the AAS meeting. The press conference, and the press releases about radio astronomy research distributed by NRAO and other institutions, showed these reporters the wide range of contributions made by the VLBA and other radio telescopes to the progress of astrophysics.
On Wednesday, June 2, the oral presentations highlighted the work of eight VLBA users, including that of two graduate students and two postdoctoral fellows. The presenters were J. R. Herrnstein (NRAO), A. P. Marscher (BU), K. Blundell (Oxford), C. G. Mundell (UMd), N. Bartel (York U.), M. D. Faison (U. Wisconsin), W. F. Brisken (Princeton), and P. J. Diamond (Univ. Manchester). The presentations covered a wide range of topics, from pulsar distances to radio-quiet quasars. Two additional presentations were made by J. Ulvestad and J. Wrobel on the capabilities and the use of the VLBA. During the day, more than 100 people were in attendance at the presentations.
In all, we felt the effort to showcase the science of the VLBA and present its capabilities and usage to our AAS colleagues was quite successful; ongoing activities of this kind for the VLBA and all instruments of the NRAO will continue this effort.
M. J. Claussen and D. G. Finley
The 12 Meter Telescope will be shutdown for approximately six weeks starting on June 28th. We will follow this with an approximately three-week period of system tests before resuming regular observing. During these periods we will do a number of repair, maintenance, and upgrade tasks, which include:
Note that we are shutting the telescope down one week earlier than usual this year to accommodate the dome cover replacement project.
J. G. Mangum & T. W. Folkers
A symposium on "Imaging at Radio through Submillimeter Wavelengths" was held at the Ventana Canyon Resort in Tucson on June 6-9, 1999. This symposium brought together scientists and engineers working in the rapidly developing field of astronomical imaging at radio through submillimeter wavelengths. Topics included:
Approximately 125 scientists re resenting research institutes from at least 14 different countries attended "Imaging99". A total of 49 invited and contributed oral presentations combined with 41 poster contributions offered a plethora of scientific and technological developments. The proceedings from this conference will be published in the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) Conference Series.
J. G. Mangum
We expect to release version 1.0 of AIPS++ on CDROM in September following a final round of in-house and beta testing. The CDROM will contain installations for Linux (Red Hat 5.1, 5.2 and 6.0, SuSE 6.0), and Solaris (2.5.2 and 2.6). AIPS++ can be run from the CD, but for better performance an installation to disk is recommended. Installation is very easy and requires no special system privileges.
If you would like to receive a copy of the CDROM, please email firstname.lastname@example.com with your name, email, and shipping address. There is no charge.
The capabilities of the package as released can be toured from the AIPS++ home page at http://aips2.nrao.edu. In brief, the package contains tools for:
Extensive and powerful scripting capabilities are available via the Glish command language. Commands may be entered both from the command line and from graphical user interfaces. Documentation and support are both available on-line.
A second release is planned for early 2000. This next version is expected to include support for VLBI processing, single dish On-The-Fly processing, more advanced interactive data editing and visualization.
T. J. Cornwell
Security - Computer and network security continues to be a major concern at the Observatory. The NRAO's computer security practices must balance the need for reasonable access by users to our computing services from outside the Observatory with the need to protect those services from willful damage by unauthorized users. In recent months, we have seen a considerable increase in the "probing" of computers and networks from outside the NRAO. These probes are often used to detect vulnerabilities in our systems' configuration. There have also been a few break-ins which briefly disrupted some of the services we provide to non-NRAO sites and had the potential for greater damage.
The Computing Council and a group of NRAO technical staff are studying ways to improve the security of the computers and networking without compromising any services that are fundamental to our role as a user facility. It is likely that some changes may be required in the ways that users at other locations connect to NRAO systems. Because many network services contain security holes which cannot always be easily fixed, any to which access from outside of the NRAO is not essential may in future be blocked, to reduce our vulnerability.
Every effort will be made to identify the impact of new security measures, and to notify users they may affect, before changes are implemented.
To reduce the risks associated with remote access, we strongly recommend, and may eventually require, the use of the secure shell ("ssh") package to replace the more common "telnet", "rlogin", and "rsh" connections between the NRAO and your home system. ssh encrypts the transmitted data, including your password, and thus hides account information from "sniffer" programs. ssh is supported at all NRAO sites. Software to make ssh connections is available for UNIX and Windows, in both free and commercial versions. We urge all NRAO users to install ssh on the computers that they will use to connect to our systems.
Computing Facilities - Budget limitations have reduced the number of workstation upgrades that we can do this year. This also applies to facilities for visiting observers. We expect to upgrade one high-end visitor workstation in Charlottesville and five older systems in the visitors' areas at Green Bank, but upgrades of the online system at the VLA and of data storage capabilities at the 12 Meter were given higher priority at the AOC and Tucson. Since most of our existing public workstations will be three years old at the end of 1999, we plan to do additional upgrades at all sites next year.
Networking - As described in the previous NRAO Newsletter, the NRAO recently received an NSF grant to upgrade our internal network. This grant will allow us to improve inter-site data exchange capabilities, and to support video- and data-conferencing connections within the NRAO and to external sites which have such equipment. It will also improve Green Bank's link to the Internet in anticipation of the increase in traffic associated with bringing the GBT on-line. Significant increases in bandwidth will be required. These enhancements are now being specified, and are expected to be in place by the Fall.
Y2K - NRAO's Year 2000 (Y2K) readiness in mission-critical areas, such as fiscal and telescope operations, and NRAO-written software such as AIPS, AIPS++, and UNIPOPS, was addressed earlier this year. The Y2K readiness of the VLA, VLBA and 12 Meter Telescopes has been verified by direct testing. We are continuing to examine potential Y2K-related problems in less critical areas, such as third-party software used regularly by NRAO employees but which would not seriously affect fundamental Observatory operations should it malfunction. A full inventory of all third-party software installed and supported by computer division staff, under both UNIX and Windows, has been carried out. A web-based search utility, including Y2K compliance information where available, has been made accessible to all NRAO sites, to allow NRAO staff to make sure that any software they depend on is included. "Time machines" whose system dates have been advanced beyond the century rollover are being used for stand-alone tests of any software packages for which significant concerns remain.
Like many organizations, the NRAO's Y2K readiness also depends on that of outside providers of supplies and services. Again like many organizations, we are finding that firm assurances from third parties about Y2K readiness are hard to come by, so some Y2K contingency plans are being made.
M. R. Milner
Linux News - One of the two remaining IBM RS/6000 AIX systems at NRAO has been recently decommissioned; it was replaced by a public Linux Intel system with dual processors, twice the memory, and more disk space (for a very small fraction of the cost of the RS/6000!). Judging by the popularity of the machine with local staff and visitors, the improvement has been much appreciated.
As the deployment of Linux/Intel systems throughout the observatory becomes more commonplace, it is important for NRAO to keep sensibly up to date with releases of the kernel and the operating system. To that end, staff in Charlottesville have tested the new 2.2 kernel, which allowed us to make early use of symmetric multi-processing and also the much desired NFS file locking. Initial results with this new kernel are very encouraging, and a standard NRAO Linux distribution based on it is currently being tested and deployed.
A new record AIPSMark was set for Intel systems with this distribution. A Pentium III 500 MHz system with 256 Megabytes of memory and a 7200 RPM EIDE disk (tuned) was used with the 15APR99 version of AIPS; the result was an impressive 17.9 AIPSMarks. This is still short of the absolute record (24.6, for a HP system); details as usual are in the benchmarking section of the AIPS web page at http://www.cv.nrao.edu/aips/.
The Year 2000 (Y2K) - In addition to the Y2K issues mentioned in the section on Observatory-wide Computing, progress has been made in Charlottesville on several fronts. At the time of writing, we have almost completed upgrading our Suns to a Y2K compliant operating system version. In addition, we have established a Y2K "war room" with several machines whose date has been advanced to beyond January 1, 2000. One of these machines (Linux) has been operating for several months already without a hitch (and has successfully run AIPS, including data transfer via FITS files to systems operating in "normal" time). A sparcstation and a Wintel PC are to be added to this list. These machines are intended for local staff to test out programs or packages of concern to them.
P. P. Murphy
The 1999 Jansky Lecture, "Progress in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence," will be given by Dr. Frank Drake, currently a Research Professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz and President of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California.
Frank Drake was one of the earliest U.S. trained radio astronomers and one of the first members of the NRAO scientific staff. While living in Green Bank 40 years ago, Drake used the 85 Foot Tatel Telescope and the 300 Foot Telescope to study the nature of planetary surfaces and atmospheres. Together with Hein Hvatum, he discovered the non thermal radiation from Jupiter's Van Allen Belts. Following a brief period at JPL, he became Director of the Arecibo Observatory where the initiated the early pulsar observations there. Before leaving Arecibo to become Dean of Science at the University of California in Santa Cruz, he was a strong proponent for the construction of a Gregorian subreflector to correct for the spherical aberration which ultimately lead to the recent major upgrade of that telescope.
Dr. Drake is well known for his work on the search for intelligent life in the universe. His Green Bank Project Ozma was the first serious attempt to detect extra terrestrial intelligence. His formulation of the number of intelligent civilizations in the galaxy, which has become known as the "Drake Equation," has been the guiding principle behind all searches for radio signals from extra terrestrial civilizations.
Dr. Drake will present the Jansky Lecture in Charlottesville on October 26, in Green Bank on October 27, in Tucson on October 29, and in Socorro on October 30. The Annual NRAO-UVA Internal Symposium will be held in Charlottesville on October 26, while the annual New Mexico Symposium will be held in Socorro on October 30.
K. I. Kellermann
A meeting on real-time computing systems at the NRAO was held at the AOC in Socorro and at the VLA Site from April 12-14, 1999. The meeting principally consisted of reports from NRAO software developers and hardware engineers, with additional contributions from non-NRAO scientists and engineers. This meeting, the first of its kind in more than ten years, was particularly timely as the observatory plans for its software contribution to the ALMA project, and prepares itself for the VLA expansion. The meeting was a success, and it is hoped that similar meetings can be held in the future. The agenda and some of the papers presented at the meeting are available at http://www.nrao.edu/Real_Time/
B.E. Glendenning


text:
Sorry, I bought expensive cosmetics! Sorry, I did the shopping! Sorry, I treat myself for 2000/-, Sorry I am late!!! Sorry-Sorry-Sorry everywhere!
Is it really necessary to shed tears for what you have done? Did You shop, spent 1000 bucks and got expensive handbag then why sorry for all this?
source: giphy
Women have the life too! When they can earn then they can spend it too.
Wake up and smell some fresh brew! Here are the Things Women Should Stop Being Sorry for!
11. No need to be girly always!
Why be sorry? You are stylish and you are trendy!
source: imgur
If you want to try the cowboy look, then go for it! Still you will look sexy yeah!!
10. Be proud to be career oriented!
You work late or even work for late hours, why to feel sorry? If you don't cook food it can be ordered from the restaurant too! Isn't?
source: weheartit
If you are focussed then never be sorry for being determined and career oriented.
9. Be confident that you are fat, skinny or fit!
Be confident that you are fat or skinny! What's the need to look like some people expect you to be?
source: giphy


text:
Back to the Burka
In an earlier post, I criticized the French government for its plan to ban the public wearing of the burka. It won't liberate women, it will drive the issue underground, it sacrifices religious freedom to nothing more than public sensibility, and so on.
But what about the government's recent decision to deny citizenship to a Muslim man whose wife is veiled? Is that equally indefensible? I don't think so. The guy's comments about his power over his wife amounted to an almost cartoonishly chauvinistic litany. According to the official with responsibility for the decision, the less-than-enlightened hubby said: "My wife will never be able to go out without the full veil; I don't believe in gender equality; women have inferior status; I will not respect the principles of the secular society."
If that's really what he said, the government made the right choice. This is quite a different situation from the one presented by banning the burka in public. Here, the government has to decide whether to accept, as a French citizen, someone who openly rejects gender equality, one of the principal pillars of modern, secular society (at least rhetorically, anyway). The burka that his wife wears is but one tangible expression of his repressive behavior, and the government should no more approve his application than one filed by a domestic abuser. To gain membership in a secular democracy, there are certain principles by which one agrees to abide.
So what's different about the "no burkas in public" rule? It's all a matter of degree, of course, but I think the cases are quite different. Although the burka is certainly a marker of women's inequality under religious law, it's more than that; for some women, at least, it might be a deeply felt expression of their own religious belief, uncoerced at least in any obvious way by their husbands. A society should be open enough to accommodate the kind of conversation that the burka invites, even if it makes many (including me) uncomfortable. But a potential citizen who openly sneers at the very foundations of gender equality, in 2010, should be rejected — both on the merits and as a symbol of France's willingness to take a stand in favor of women, and against those who would oppress them.